FFVII: Revisted
An RPG (or role-playing game, for you normals) is perhaps my favorite type of video game. I’ve certainly spent the most hours playing them over any other type of game.
Why?
The story. The characters. I get sucked in and I don’t want to leave. This is why I won’t go near World of Warcraft—it would be the end of me. Someone would find me at my desk six months later, dead from starvation and dehydration, a mouse still in the grip of my cold, bony hand and my ivory fingers resting on the keyboard’s W-A-S-D keys.
No one needs to see that.
Even though I’ve shied away from World of Warcraft, one series of console RPGs has claimed more hours of life than any other: Final Fantasy.
I love the Final Fantasy series, especially Final Fantasy VI (released as III for the Super Nintendo outside of Japan) and VII for the original Sony Playstation.
I’ve completed the first Final Fantasy, VI, VII, VIII, IX and X. Not to mention Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advanced. And I’m currently playing through the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV right now (released as II for Super Nintendo in the USA). You could say I’ve earned my Final Fantasy stripes.
Thirteen years after Final Fantasy VII‘s release, I decided to play through it again, and blog along the way.
I remember when this game came out. It was a big deal. I had had just leveled up from the Super Nintendo to a Sony Playstation. Games were changing. Two-dimensional games with cute, colorful sprites were on their way out. Three-dimensional characters and realistic backgrounds were starting to take over.
My first experience with Final Fantasy VII was via a PlayStation demo disc that came with a gaming magazine. I only got to play the first ten minutes or so of the game, but I played the hell out of it, over and over.
It was like nothing I had ever played before. The graphics. The characters. The setting. Even the music was amazing.
I eventually bought my own copy (all three CD-ROMs worth), and the rest is history.
The story was like nothing I had seen in a game before. The plot was complex, with dramatic twists and turns comparable to anything on the big screen at the local movie theater.
The same went for the cinematic cut scenes—remember the motorcycle chase scene? It was right out of a big budget action film.
And it was the first video game I ever played where characters swore at each other. Back in 1997, a game where characters threw words around like “shit,” “ass,” and “damn” was groundbreaking (at least to my sixteen-year-old self).
Pick up that buster sword, equip some materia and join me on a trip back to the gaming days of the late 1990s. Will the game hold up? Will I like it as much at 29 as I did at sixteen? We shall see.
But one thing is certain: no naming the female characters after high school crushes this time around.
Oy. High school. I don’t miss being sixteen. Not. One. Bit.
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[…] Thirteen years after Final Fantasy VII‘s release, I decided to play through the game again, and blog along the way (which will also be cross-posted over at The Idler). […]
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[…] I’m blogging my way through Final Fantasy VII. You can also read it over on The Idler. […]
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[…] up (or want to compare and contrast), The Gamer’s Club FFVII playthrough got started here, here, and here, and a full archive is available […]
Granted, since I don’t play MMORPGs (online Role-Playing Games), there have only, by my count, been two Final Fantasy games since X, but XII and XIII seem conspicuously absent from your list, and I’d be curious as to why.
(Don’t read too much into that curiosity, though. I’ve played both of them, XIII more than XII, but haven’t finished either of them, and while I own all the numbered Final Fantasy games except for XI and XIV, I’ve only completed I, IV, X, and X-2 so your bona fides are well beyond mine. I’d have III on that list too, but I’m stuck on the last boss. It’s more than a little annoying.)
I’ve tried several times to buy XII but I never really get around to it–and I don’t own a PS3, so XIII is out of the question buy default :)
I’ll get XII eventually. Perhaps after I’m done with VII again!
I don’t have strong endorsements for XII or XIII, although XII caught me at a bad time, and might have won me over if I’d given it more time. XIII is gorgeous, but I’m really debating whether it’s worth investing more time. I really feel that I’m along for the ride at best. I’m not really doing anything.
The next Final Fantasy title I *will* buy is the latest Tactics incarnation for DSi. Good-bye productivity!
As a Tactics fan, you might appreciate this: http://www.dorkly.com/picture/7017/the-new-kid (I may have to post on Andrew’s post, too. . .)
HAHAHA. Oh man, that just made my day.