@mamba219:I guess we'll have to disagree on this one then haha. Yes it does rely on the slow build up -> big set piece pattern but the downtime between the two is very minimal and the reasons for moving forward are clear at all times. Of course it never lives up to the pacing and tone set during Midgar on disk 1, but not much really can. Also plenty of shit happens between Kalm and Rocket Town. You visit Nibelheim with all the story hints there, there's the Mt Nibel sequence, you learn more about the Life Stream, the whole Cargo Ship sequence, all the crap that happens at the Gold Saucer, The Turks are further fleshed out, you encounter Yuffie, there's Red 13's story arc, Junon Harbour... There's always something varied happening that's pushing you forward and it's fairly constant too.
There's an argument to be made for the second half of disk 2 but even then it's only a slight slowing down before a huge ramp up near the end that disk.
You're not wrong, but I guess it depends on what you enjoy. To me, all of what you just described would be better served as optional sidequests - or something more commonly found in a very old-school type of RPG, where as you wander about the map you are faced with different varied challenges in each town you encounter that have little to nothing to do with the main plot. Final Fantasy VII is a weird game in that it straddles the line between these styles of game, unsuccessfully in my opinion. For a game with so much unavoidable dialogue and text, most of it is shockingly inane and serves little purpose. At least with old-school wanderlust RPGs, you weren't interrupted every five minutes with a one or two minute scene.
All I can tell you is, before I finally beat this game around 4 years ago, I'd tried and failed to get through the first disc like ten times. I rate it as one of the overall worst games I've finished for various reasons, and the second worst FF, after 8. It occupies a strange place in video gaming.
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