I remember that game. It was very similar to FFVII. I remember getting stuck at this one part where you have to kill this red dragon in a volcano, and I was only level 20 and too weak to fight it, but I didn't feel like tediously leveling up my characters because it took so freakin' long.

I had a PS2 probelm recently: it wouldn't play ANY games, so I had to buy a new one, even after I tried the following "remedies:"

-blowing on the CD

-blowing inside the PS2 (to clear away any dust)

-poking a chopstick into the PS2 to re-adjust the lens. My old PS2 wasn't reading the game discs.

But I think there's a PS2 self-cleaning device that could possible clean out your system...