Addictive storyline, awsome spells, a sword as big as you are, and great gameplay. Whats not to like?
Graphics were good for its time. Not sure if there were better, I cant say for sure. But I know I thought they were good for their time. Also a lot of content, you could spend quite a long time getting from start to finish just the first time around.
The storyline was awesome. I loved the story development. Sure your control of the storyline was fairly limited, but it didn't bother me. I still think it had an awesome storyline. Very long to, realistic because a crisis like that is not going to just pass over quickly. Plot twists all over the place. I for one was not able to predict the game as I played it along. Sure some stuff was predictable but not too much. I particularly was caught by surprise by the plot twist about Zach and Cloud. Had me going one way and totally took off in another unexpected direction.
I found this game to be highly addictive. Very easy to sit down to play it for a little while and several hours later I'm wondering where the time went. Someone keeps throwing the clocks!
I found game play to be rather good. Even though you could not do anything with the attribute points as they were predetermined what they would be at a given level, what materia you equipped on what weapon effected almost all of your stats to some degree. There were limitless possibilities just because of materia alone. Then there were other factors such as equipment.
All in all, at its time, I would rate it very high. I love this game and I still play it today.