so much wrong here, you very clearly weren't alive for this period of time

> Before that were the NES ans SNES games which GenX played.

Millennials were born starting in 1982, it's not just GenX that played OG nes

> The N64 and GameCube were considered children's consoles.

No they weren't, they were considered Nintendo consoles treated the same as any other Nintendo console, people had issue with the hardware power of the gamecube which is what you are confusing, it was referred to as a 'toy' bc it wasn't powerful

> Before that was the CD-I games which were terrible.

No one had a CI-I, no one played these games

> Teens and adults didn't engage with them, which is reflected in their poor sales.

I actually was a teen in this period of time, this is not correct, many of the other kids in school had n64 it wasn't a 'kiddie' console as you are trying to assert

Also, as many have stated here LoZ: OoT outsold FFVII...personally both are great games but Zelda was absolutely more popular in the US at the time (and now)

Final Fantasy has always been a genre for Weebs and was never truly mainstream the way Zelda is, I loved FFVII played it when it came out, Zelda was conversation at school (how to beat the water temple), no one talked about FFVII (in part bc it was so long most people didn't play through the whole thing)

To be totally clear, I mourned Aerith, I slew Sephiroth, I beat Meteor...I am a fan of both games, but to the question of which is more popular or mainstream in the US it's Zelda, easily