I'm a fan of FFVII ... apart from FFIV, FFV and FFVI (who doesn't like FFVI?), this stood out as a great story.
I'm pretty sure of one thing, years ago ... there are elements that I believed that couldn't be outdone ... FFVII seemed nearly perfect.
Opps ... FFVII CC seemed to change all that already.
I'm already at the final stage after hours of playing with it, despite not much understanding of Japanese ... I had more or less some prior knowledge of the game's cutscenes via the trailers available on youtube ... and it does help one string the story up quite abit ...
Playing as Zack is quite an experience actually. Think about what Cloud could do in FFVII ... and Zack will one up him with more zest in his moveset ... Zack's character is something that i could easily click with, he's human ... confident, expressive, determined ... I guess that sells more than having a character that's all cool with few words, it sure helps with the story telling at the end of the day.
I would say that the cinematics for the game is top notch ... on the tiny PSP screen, I actually witness the best swordfight I ever witnessed in any video games I've seen to date. I even created an alternate save file so that I can show it to others ... Of course, the magic lies with Sephiroth once again and the other too-cool-to-die rival, Genesis ... It's a cutscene video that has to be seen to believe their rivalry!
Overall, the game can be played several ways ... you can either hack and slash, you can use magic to get about or you could use all sorts of skills to get by. Many times later in the game, you'll be forced to mix it up ... but the game does open itself to accept that you could just blindly slash your way through, but you'll be warned here, it's not an easy to just get by like that!
There's a lot of old school characters that will make an appearance here ... some you will meet up front (e.g. Tseng, Rick, Rude, Sephiroth), some as a mention (e.g. Cid gets mentioned for his airship at the Shinra HQ), some will play an important role in the story (who else but Areith and Cloud!!) ... and there are the new faces to the game as well; there's a lot of focus on the relatioship of Angeal-Genesis-Sephiroth which will spell out things that you never got to know in FFVII ...
For me, the story is quite a huge draw. The visuals are great ... but how's the gameplay elements? I'm sure you will know about the DMW a.k.a jackpot system ... now that just makes your fights more random than usual ... you might get to end a fight early because of a powerful summon or a powerful limit break attack connecting ... but the random can be a 2 edge sword in many ways ... and I've had to reset my boss fights because I didn't get a good boost that could turn the tide ... challenging but nightmarish at times as well ...
Lovebirds playing the game for Aerith and Zack's love story ... endure past half the game ... it's worth the wait to see them alive.
All in all, a portable masterpiece ... can't wait for the english release!