I began my FFVII replay and holy crap I forgot how much of a leap in presentation that game was. Actually, calling it a leap is minimizing the insane rocket launch of presentation that the game is. From the cutscenes to the setting to the characters, everything looks so much... more. The backgrounds in particular get my attention a lot, even though they're just low res textures there's obviously so much detail put into those that it makes me wonder how they could ever pre-render so much stuff.

Holding the player from going into the world map for a few hours is definitely a choice. They really wanted you to get a feel for the kind of place Midgar is and the presentation really sells it.

There's also a lot more dialogue and the characters' personalities come out a lot more. I think FFVI has a great plot but in comparision to the average experience of reading the game's text, VII blows it out of the water.

What a cool game, seriously. And to think it probably already looked outdated by the time VIII released.