Final Fantasy VII, the latest instalment in the highly acclaimed Final Fantasy series, has been released by Square for the Sony Playstation.
There is no question that this game has the best graphics and visual effects ever, among RPGs, and probably otherwise, too. The efforts and resources invested in the visuals provide players with the best cinematic expereince ever in a video game. It is very hard for a player to find any game with better visuals.
On the other hand, it is questionable whether this is the best game. The focus of FFVII is the story, the graphics, and the visual effects; the combat system is the old ATB from FFIV (with far better visual effects, of course) with little or no improvements (and the fewest characters, namely 3, in the battle, ever in FF games). Well, since there are only 3 characters in the battle, if any one is threatened, the party is seriously threatened, and that is 'not desirable'. As a result, the battles have to be very easy: boss or otherwise, they're no threat, all pushovers.
The materia system looks quite good, but there are more characters than allowed in a battle, and switching materia between characters is very cumbersome, if one takes that seriously. In any case, the battles are too easy, that no concrete evaluation can be given to the materia system.
There are many interesting secrets and such in the game, but the process of acquisition may not be always interesting. Some players may not be interested in fighting hours of extra, pushover battles just to see the movie for a spell or limit attack - having better things to do, namely games that are more fun to play, than that, for example. "Just to see the movie", because the battles are so easy that hardly any such power-ups are remotely needed.
In short, FFVII is probably a matter of tastes. If one plays RPGs for the story and visual effects, and has been wishing that there are no battles "in one's way" in RPGs, FFVII will be the best gaming experience (though one may still be wishing that there are no battles in FFVII, except of course for the beautiful battle animations). On the other hand, if one plays games in general - not just RPGs (and ADVs) - for mind challenge, and in an RPG would care about challenging, tense battles (preferably with some depth in strategy), and an intelligent (rather than tedious) party development system, it would not be hard, at all, to find a game that was more enjoyable than FFVII, though FFVII is, anyway, an enjoyable game. If one cared about, even missed, those elements in an RPG, that is.