>>717324675
The pretty FMV's were state of the art for the time, which pleased the graphics whores and consolewar folk. It was the first release of it's series to break into 3D, and back then everyone was clamoring for how franchises would make the jump. Anime was beginning to take off in a huge way in the latter half of the 90's, and the anime look of the characters pulled in the young teens getting into anime. It had an villain that edgy teenagers could pretend to roleplay in IRC. And if happened to have some decent music and the materia system wasn't bad once you had a lot to mix and match with.
tl;dr it release timing was optimal as fuck, and it's not an awful game.
