CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!<br /><br />Owning every other U.S. released Final Fantasy game during July 2001, I decided that I might as well pick up a copy of part VII as well. Early, the plot is somewhat linear and easy to follow. The music is excellent... actually, the music's always good in this. And the story still has some good spots during most of the first disc.<br /><br />Then on disc 2, Square did one of the stupidest things. They added this whole horrible subplot about Cloud being a clone. Any sort of love I had for this game was forever destroyed with that one little scene. (Hey, it almost killed Spider-man, so why'd they add it here?!) The plot continued to get worse as time passed, and soon the entire game was a horrible scar on my memory. About the end of disc 2, any sense you can make of it is dead. Also, the ending is the worst of any video game in existence.<br /><br />Now to tackle the graphics. They are the worst of any video game in existence as well, making even the old NES graphics seem beautiful by standards. Scenes that were supposed to be serious like Aeris's death and when Tifa and a now vegetable Cloud tried to escape a destruction of this one village looked so ridiculous I couldn't help but laugh.<br /><br />The materia system? Trash. This destroys any sort of difference between the characters, and without them you can't do jack squat. Of course, it is slightly better since you can still use items, unlike part VIII(But at least 8 was still good)<br /><br />Don't get me started on the characters. I hated Cloud's guts the entire game. He's supposed to be this tough soldier, but he's nothing but a whiny schzio. Cait Sith has got to be the most useless character ever. And Aeris? I CHEERED when she died! Whenever I used her, her magic spells would almost always miss! And with her low HP, she just pretty much held my group back. Everyone else was incredibly shallow, except for maybe Yuffie, Vincent, and Sephiroth(the only characters I liked)<br /><br />One good point: The music's pretty good. A few of my favorites include One Winged Angel, the boss theme, and the Gold Saucer theme(it reminds me of Disneyland!)<br /><br />BOTTOM LINE: I like the music, but hate the game. Well, the soundtrack's a better buy anyway.