FF7 is pretty entertaining. I played it for the first time in 2010-2011 on the PS3, and I preferred it to many contemporary RPGs. I will say that the narrative jumped all over the place. I remember not really being all too impressed by the "twist" that Cloud's persona was fake. I also don't get how Sephiroth became so iconic. He has such a bland personality and you barely interact with him personally. Kingdom Hearts did more to establish Sephiroth and Cloud's relationship than FF7. Anyways, the combination of the gameplay, lore, and character design made the game just hit all the right spots in 1997 and it became cherished. For comparison, I played Tales of Symphonia around the same time, and that became my favorite RPG. I still own a GC copy to this day, even if I don't own a console to play it.
I haven't really touched FF recently, but FFXVI seemed to really flow under the radar. It doesn't seem to have had any cultural impact like FFXV did, even that game was cheesy af. By the way, I heard the new FF7 games are an alternate timeline. Maybe they can right some of the narrative wrongs from earlier.