Weird, I liked pretty much all the characters more than Aeris/Aerith. Cloud is an awesome leading man, Barret is hilarious Stereotypical Angry Black Man, and Tifa was hot, and her history with Cloud was neat. Cid is cool, Vincent is ridiculously bad ass (especially once he got a voice in Advent Children). I never cared for Yuffie though. She was just annoying. Stealin' all mah materias. 
And Sephiroth is probably the most iconic RPG villain in existence. That theme music in the final battle? Brilliant. The scene with him surrounded by flames? One of the most instantly recognizable and iconic scenes in gaming.
Aerith I never cared about even in my first playthrough. Which surprises me when i hear how some other fans were shocked and saddened by her death. I honestly never cared. Not that she's not a good character... just I was more interested in the other leads I suppose.
**Warning: Long and over opinionated quote to follow.**My feelings are actually quite the opposite of yours. Of course before I delve into my opinions on the characters I should set up the setting first.
I played this game when it first came out back in 1997. Being an absolute huge fan of Square at the time and coming off of 3 back to back stellar RPG's (Secret of Mana in 93, Final Fantasy 6 in 94, & Chrono Trigger in 95), I was completely and utterly stoked for Final Fantasy 7. FF7 had some huge shoes to fill when it compared to FF6 and CT, but all the screen shots (no video in the 56k days) seemed to indicate that it was going to continue the fine Square tradition of making high quality games. Boy was I surprised.
Actually shocked is probably the better word.
It all started with Barret. Barret was the beginning of the FF7 downward trend for me. He hit the scene with a bunch of yelling and *gasp* cursing. Cursing?! That had never been done in any prior FF game. It wasn't done for effect either, he was throwing out the profanity left and right. Worse was that he was stomping his feet and having a tantrum like a child. This was the most horrifyingly stereotyping and I'd ever scene and it was coming from a video game of all things.
Living in the south has taught me all I ever needed to know about stereotypes and racism. I can't stand biggets and racists, but I've learned to accept that not everyone can treat everyone equally, no matter what color the pigment is in their skin. But seeing this in a video game was complete blasphemy to me. Video games had always been free of this sort of thing and FF7 put it right in my face not 5 minutes in to the game. Where had Locke, Frog, and Edger gone off to?
Then we meet Cloud. The one thing that always stands out about Cloud is his indifference. The famous shoulder shrug.
Barret: The #*&^ world is in danger! Don't you give a &##@^&#?!
Cloud: *shrugs shoulders*
Ok, what? It was like he was the living imbodiment of "Meh". God, I hate Meh. Ok, so the guy wants to be indifferent, fine, but this is the main character. Would Terra, Chrono, or Cecil ever have acted like that? (Yes I know that Cecil was a dark knight, but he never wanted to do what he was doing and quickly made an about face.) Cloud's personality rubbed me the wrong way right out of the gate and I couldn't except his "maturation" later on in the game. It just felt too forced.
Aeris was a throwback RPG character. She was kind, thoughtful, and caring even if to a fault. What was more amazing was that she did so in the dark, looming city of Midgar. When Sephiroth killed her, it was like he was killing all that was great from the older SNES era RPG's. It was like a passing of the torch from the old generation to the new. He may as well flipped off the camera in the process. I could almost hear Square saying, "get used to it, this is how the world is now and what you need to expect from the future."
To me, Tifa was the T&A needed to make the series darker and edgier. Stand her next to Aeris in pictures to see what I mean. Mid drift shirt, huge rack, mini skirt, and the ability to use martial arts to increase the chances of "accidental" panty shots. Ugh. Had this game come out a few years later, I guarantee she would have had either a eyebrow, belly button, or nose piercing. Not that she needed them, but to make her character design that much edgier. She looks rather common place by today's standards, but for 1997, she really stood out. Maybe that was the point. Meh, *Cloud shrug*
Cid was a complete and total bastard. I hated him more than any other character in the game. What a complete dick. The cursing, the chain smoking, and much worse than that the verbal abuse he gave to Shera. You may as well have thrown a wife beater on this guy, because he was grade a trailer park trash. Most of the time, I never put him in my party. When I did, I always equipped him with the "Guard" materia in order to make him sacrifice himself to protect the others. This was completely against his persona and brought me great joy.
Yuffie was a throw away character for me. She reminded me a lot of Robot, Yang, or Setzer. I could have done with or without them. Meh. *Cloud shrug*
Vincent was a total emo/dark badass that just needed a hug. Again, being a secondary back up character with no worth while attributes or personalities, I could have taken or left him. I heard he was fleshed out a little more in other game iterations, but I don't know. Meh? *Cloud shrug*
Red XIII and Cait Sith were the equivalent of Mog and Umaro to me. Characters that weren't human and didn't play a big role in the grand scheme of things. I hardly ever used Cait Sith, although Red XIII did get some play time from me. In the end, you guessed it, Meh. *Cloud shrug*
Then their was the gameplay itself. Materia's were basically like espers, so that was cool. But what was with the summons? I get it that we had never seen dramatic camera shifting in RPG's to this point and they were very cool, but unskippable?! Even the most dedicated and hardcore FF7 fan would have to admit that they would skip the KOTR animation after seeing it two or three times. You could get up and get a drink from the kitchen before that thing finished. It took forever.
Speaking of forever, can you say load times? I know, I know it was 1997 and CD readers weren't that fast. The average load time for each battle was around 10-12 seconds compared to 3-4 seconds for FF6 and CT. Cartridge vs CD right? So, why not compensate by removing random encounters with real time avoidable ones, ala Chrono Trigger? Give the players the choice of whether they want to fight or not. To grind or not to grind, that is the question. I think it was poor planning on the game designers part. If you know that you're going to have slow load times, compensate in some other way. You can't control the hardware, but you can change the game. Random battles only came about due to hardware constraints of the past, which are no longer a problem today. The encounters should have been similar to the way Tales of Symphonia handled them. Big monsters on the map, that if touched, started combat. Heck, they did that in Zelda II on the NES.
Finally, the ending. More specifically the final battle. I recall having to put in disc three just before the final fight with Sephiroth. It wasn't until about halfway through the fight that I realized that this was the end. Not the end, but the end end. You know how the bosses in all RPG's have like three forms. I was fairly certain that I'd fight Seph, beat him and then he'd run away. Ten more hours of gameplay would follow. I mean, why not? I just started disc three. It was around the time he blew up Saturn for the third time that I thought this fight was a bit over the top to be just another fight. Of course, seeing as how I hadn't acquired KOTR, the fight was taking the better part of an hour to complete. Hmmm....maybe the epic music in the background should have been another dead giveaway.
Anyways, he dies, I watch the ending, don't understand a single thing that just happened and the game ends. I vaguely remember Red XIII in the ending CG or something, but I was so fed up with the game at that point, I just didn't care anymore.
Final Fantasy 7 had just become the single greatest disappointment in my view of Square. It introduced the western world to RPG's yes, but it also brought with it a heap of baggage which is still used today.
The next 5-7 years would make sure that no game play was ever shown in a commercial, it was all cut scenes and CGI. Our heroes would "evolve" into darker, less caring characters. Cursing and over the top violence would become common place. New gamers would now use FF7 as the starting point of their RPG experiences and shun and laugh at the RPG's of the past. Never giving them a second look because they were to "childish" or had awful graphics and sound.
A lot of my opinions stem from my personality and the way I grew up. I always like the leader type as opposed to the anti hero personality. Give me Luke over Han. Leonardo over Raphael. Cyclops over Wolverine. Goku over Vegeta. Edger over Sabin.
There was no one over Cloud. Aeris came the closet to that, but she got offed at the end of disc one. If it wasn't for my roommate lying to me about getting her back, I would have returned that game the next day. He literally talked me out of it and I refuse to let him live that down to this day.
The world changes and evolves, I get that. I certainly don't want every game I play to be cut from the same mold. Now I think that the gaming industry is almost to the point that games are turning into a different direction. There will always be blood and guts, over the top cut scenes, sex, and anti heroes, but maybe they won't be the focal point anymore.
Anyways, that is why (in an overblown lecture) I hate and continue to dislike FF7. If you actually read the whole thing, I commend you. You deserve an 8-bit reward:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZXzcqvwMY(100 levels for that?!?!
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I suppose we will have vocal support in next years edition.
