Denitely one of the best games ever made
FFVII is an RPG, it is turnbased, but very immersive. You are allowed to have 3 characters on the battlefield at a time, but you must choose wisely because once in battle those are the ones you must use for the entire battle.
FFVII centers its combat around 2 points. First is weaponry, each character can equip certain types of weaponry, such as Cloud, who equipps some ver big swords, or Barrett, who has a gun grafted on his arm. Some characters are better suited for melee combat than others, while some are better used for the second form of fighting, which is the use of magic.
FFVII's magic is used by equipping small stones called Materia. Materia allows the one equipped to use whatever spell is inside, and each weapon and armor has slots to insert materia, but only a limited amount so you must choose the ones you need the most and the ones that will do you the most good. Their are a few types of magic, there are elemental spells such as attacking with fire or lightning, healing magic such as cure and revive, summon magic, which summons creatures that do a lot of damage, command magic, which gives you additional commands in battle such as 4X cut which lets you attack 4 times each turn, or else status magic, which can increase your hp or mp or other things.
Materia only allows limited use of magic though, as materia levels up, you can use it more (this only applies to summons I do believe), and if you level a materia up to master level, another materia of the same materia you just leveled up will be born. Leveling up the other materia's gives access to more of their abilities.
Traveling is done by traveling on a 3-D plane, while you may go inside of towns and other places you encounter on the world map.
If you have not played this game, then I suggest you go get a copy and start playing because this game is so sweet, you will love it.