I have a copy of FF7 sitting in my drawer next to my PC.
It requires a little bit of work to get it to run, usually involving video codecs (I found removing them helped a lot! Any that I tried to use usually made it stop working.)
My main problem with it was the MIDI music which seemed to want to set its own volume levels. Very annoying, but I managed to get it working okay.
I paid far more for it than I would have liked, but I suppose it's only worth what you're willing to pay. (£42 in case you were wondering, via eBay.)

you should give ff6 a run.
Final Fantasy moved in cycles,
for example, ff1 which was great, but maybe not as good as 3.
but when you compare ff2 to ff1 they're completely different, the storyline has much more depth in ff2 - the combat not so much.
I see ff3 as the marriage between storyline and combat for that era of FF games.
then on the snes, you have ff4 (cecil/rosa/etc) ff5 (buts, lenna, etc), and ff6.
Again, FF4 is the storyline pusher (notice it's an even number like 2) and then FF5 has the combat ( the job system is brilliant!), and then FF6 has the perfect combination between combat and storyline, it is a culmination of all of their efforts so far, and it is brilliant.
Now with FF7 - they just tried recreating FF6 in 3D. Even their Tech demo used FF6 characters.
Why did they want to recreate FF6? because FF6 was fucking perfect, but not in 3D.
SE is the only company that I really hate for going to the 3D switch, because their products have gone downhill so fast, it's insane.
Sure, 7 is ok, it's got some interesting battle systems, and then 8 is really kind of crappy in terms of story, and 9 is just constantly referencing their hey-days.
Then they decided to get all fucked up and got rid of the ATB after X-2.
I hate them for that, ATB was my favorite, and I'd like to see more games like that, they need to either keep using it or allow other people to use it.

I got the big boxed FF7 PC edition and I've played it like eight or nine times, the game is just awesome. It works perfect on Windows XP if you use the chocobo patch and there are a few mods which add mp3 music, better graphics, etc.
FF7 > FF6 > FF9 > FF8 > the others (a lot of people like FF4, but the story is really lame)

Yes, I know, but the NDS remake was released last year and is just as lame as the original. And well, FF6 is also pretty old and still stands up... probably even better than FF7 because of the cute pixel graphics.

Well, it depends.
The 3D models are in higher resolution indeed, but as for PC versions of Resident Evil, the background pictures have been very poorly upscalled from the PSX resolution.
Nice characters evolving in so blurry environments... well I'm not sure it's better looking... in fact I'm sure it's not.

I have a copy of this. :)
The box is beautiful.
But yeah, pain in the ass to get it to run kinda..when I did eventually with a fan-made patch it gave me various graphical issues..sure looked gorgeous on a high resolution though.

For me that list would probably go FFVII > (insert all other FF titles ever made) > FFXI > FFVIII.
I despised 8 (too many things to list), and 11 is just.. well, not Final Fantasy.

Well, yeah, FF8 has a lot of issues (too many things to list indeed), but the card minigame, the soundtrack, the gorgeous videos and Laguna save the game.

I've recently started playing FFXII and I rather like it. If it weren't for the Moogles and Chocobos, I don't think it could really be called a FF game, but as game it isn't that bad. My only real complaint about it is at times it reminds me of playing a MMO, with the excessive grinding you sometimes get into between story missions.

Okay, can you (or anyone else here) explain WHY it was so compelling? I've rarely heard anything but the most ebullient praise for this but but when I played it (and I tried on & off for a solid month) I saw a story-free grind fest with occasional bouts of flashy magic that did smeg all and admittedly pretty environments.
I'm really curious to know how I managed to miss everything that people gushed about

I enjoyed the game, I don't give it the praise that others have for it. It was good for a Jrpg though. I don't see how you can call it story free, you spend the first 3 hours in the city getting talked to with very little real action.

It was the first JRPG that went 3D. Just like most firsts, it pales in comparison to what followed it, but the fact that it was the first accords it some level of respect.

It was largely responsible for bringing console RPGs to much broader mainstream attention, at least outside of Japan. As for why it was able to do that... good question. I guess being released pretty much out of the gate on the brand-new 3D-capable Playstation console was a contributing factor. Nowadays a lot of people get nostalgic over it as being one of their first console RPGs.
In terms of production and presentation it was pretty sophisticated, even epic, for its time, but I honestly never connected much with the story or the characters (no, not even THAT one, whom I was frankly glad to be rid of).
It's a decent, solid example of a JRPG, but it's also one of the most overrated games ever made.

It was the first JRPG which really got mass market appeal to the English-speaking market, so the cutesy characters and combat mechanics were new and exciting to a lot of people.
The story is pretty good for a computer game - it's fairly epic in scope and the characters are well developed, even held up to modern RPGs. The story is really, really slow to unfold, but it has a couple of neat plot twists and an enjoyable ending*.
The combat is fairly easy to understand, but there was some level of strategy and a lot of configuration options which made the grinding endurable. But the combat grinding was 75% or more of the game... if you don't enjoy the combat, the game wouldn't be very much fun at all.
There were like a million billion secrets, including ultimate weapons for each character, secret characters, and harder-than-the-final-boss optional bad guys, which gave bragging rights and therefore caused kids and teenagers to play the game to death.
(*) Which did NOT need to be explained by a sequel movie or 500 spinoff games. Blargh.