With one game, Squaresoft turned the tide of the system wars back in 1997 in favor of Sony. That one game was Final Fantasy VII. Final Fantasy VII revolutionized RPGs and it was an epic masterpiece in every sense.
The story of FF7 focuses on the story of a rebel group known as the Avalanuche led by a mercenary from SOLDIER named Cloud and their fight to save the planet from the evil Shinra Corporation draining Mako energy from the planet. Since I am not a believer of spoiling the story, I will not tell anymore. It is a story you must experience yourself. If there is one complaint that I have about the story is that a key element of Cloud's past is only revealed through a sidequest.
The graphics in FF7 were spectacular for its time as it was the first Final Fantasy in full 3D and that was one of the ways it revolutionized RPGs. Even playing FF7 right now, the graphics still hold up fine albeit they aren't as spectacular as they were in 1997 when it was released.
The gameplay in Final Fantasy is pretty much standard RPG gameplay. FF7 utilizes a Materia system that is effective and very easy to learn. Weapons and Accessories have slots where you can put Materia and there are several types of Materia such as Summon Materia, Magic Materia and so on. There are your random encounters and so forth. The battle/magic system is not complicated at all and is one of the best systems utilized in a RPG even to this day.
The music in FF7 is very good even though the quality isn't extremely high. The battle theme for the last boss is one of my favorite pieces in any game and the music is just very very good. The controls in FF7 are solid and are fine since back in 1997 there was no DualShock for the Playstation.
Final Fantasy VII is the first RPG of many gamers and is still one of the best and felt by many to be the best RPG still. It is still a very good game and well worth at least one play through if you haven' t already beaten it multiple times.

Gameplay: 9.5
Graphics: 9.0
Sound: 8.5
Controls: 9.3
Overall: 9.6

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