FFVII was great but it is an interesting contrast to games like FFVI / Chrono Trigger. The SNES games came out at the end of their console's lives and made the absolute most of what the hardware had to offer. FFVII was early-ish in the PSX life cycle and pushed JRPGs forward. There were some earlier 3d-ish JRPGs, sure, (wild arms was 1996) but FFVII would go on to define how those games would work for years. It became the prototype, but it also feels like a prototype in a lot of ways. It has a lot of jank. Some of those mini games just aren't fun anymore. The good news is all the stuff they learned about narrative in the previous generations was intact and carried the game where it might have other wise faltered.
Anyways, I still loooove FFVII a ton too. But it's good for different reasons than the later SNES games. Also FFVIII was a lot of fun too, and a much more solid 'game' than FFVII even if some systems were pretty breakable / exploitable.