Take my reply partially as an aggregate response to earlier comments.
I have a friend who dislikes FFVII, and he believes that most people really care for the game only because it represented a novel experience during their childhood. If they encountered FFVII as adults, they likely would not enjoy the game.
I think there's some merit to my friend's point, as I played FFVII when I was about 10 or 11. It was one of my first video games, and it appealed to a my imagination and sense of fantasy. Thus my experience with FFVII was pretty personal, and perhaps I enjoyed more so for those reasons as opposed to FFVII being an excellent game in its own right.
That being said, I feel that FFVII compares very favorably to most games in the market today. Square crafted an immense world populated by complex characters and driven by a fairly sophisticated plot that explored the consequences of man tampering with the environment, the dangers of corporate republics and genetic engineering, megalomania, love triangles, and numerous other themes I could go on listing. These days shevles are innundated with uncreative shooters that sometimes disturbingly erect universes populated by absolute good and evil. Yes, JRPGs dabble in those elements too; after all, the fantasy genre's main facet is the struggle between good and evil with the eventual triumph of good. However, JRPGs, paticularily FFVII, often present characters featuring a greater deal of nuance and complexity than other games.
To echo an earlier point, JRPGs are in a sense interactive fantasy novels. The games let players tool with fantastic magic and weapons. Square boasts very high production standards, investing a lot of resources in art design and research to create unique, authentic game universes. I can't think of many other companies who consistently produce highly acclaimed games.
I will agree that Squares games can present many frusterations. The player doesn't have a great deal of agency, and often the mini-games can come across as gimicky and pointless. Battles are by no means realistic, sometimes slow, and even ridiculously easy (Sephiroth should have been a much greater challenge, for example; I may note, however, that defeating the Emerald and Ruby WEAPONS requires huge investments of time and strategy). These JRPGs are certainly not for everyone, but I think people can benefit from experiencing them at least once. At the very least, JRPGs are cultural experiences that display sophisticated craftsmanship on the part of Japanese developers.
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