Oh yes, the safe one is good but those strategy battles aren't even worth a mention 
. I avoided those like the plague 
Yeah, I avoided those, too, oh well.
Yuffie and Vincent are both sidequests in their own right. You could also do things like defeat Yuffie's dad and find the sunken ship for powerful weapons prior to endgame, too. Tons of stuff to do in the Golden Saucer, albeit a place I was mostly just annoyed with so didn't bother!
There was something with an old guy in a house out on a peninsula if you went and found him. Yeah, there were big ones near end game, but it still had plenty of others to do.
Just beat Crisis Core. It's obviously far from perfect, and the battle system wasn't really my thing (I prefer the oldschool ATB system, and I got by by doing nothing but Thundaga), but I still enjoyed it, which is surprising, considering the number of things that could have gone wrong with a FFVII prequel.
I got maybe half way though this game while I was on vacation in Wisconsin. Playing it little by little, I kind of like the battle system, but I agree the ATB is better. Fine with me, though, this is interesting in its own right and the ATB might make it feel too much not its own game compared to FFVII. Yuffie is awesome, that is all I can say about this game so far.
Actually, I don't get it, Yuffie would probably annoy me in most games, but for some reason she's probably the most awesome character in the whole FFVII world, to me.
I'm playing through Dissidia right now; it's just one big goodie bag of nostalgia, and that's certainly my kind of thing. Besides, you get to kick ass as Kefka and the FFII Emperor, though I hope there's a sequel with a better selection of characters.
I love this game, and the size is somewhat daunting. Played through the Shade Impulse story with Firion and put it away for a later time. There is just so much to the game, but very, very cool for anyone that's played a number of Final Fantasy games and loved them.
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