In 1997, my brother rented the PlayStation game with the largest hype that I had, in my 13 years on the planet, ever heard of. As this was pre-internet (which was there, but so nascent at the time that hardly anyone used it), I didn't have any connection to why people were excited or what made them salivate so much when someone mentioned Final Fantasy VII. My older brother, suckered in by the hype, threw down $4 (I would guess) and picked up a copy from the nearby Hollywood Video (probably; Blockbuster was the other option).
I remember him running through the intro, changing the main character's name from "Cloud" to "CloudY" because he was simply fiddling his way through, fought a couple of enemies, and said, "Looks pretty cool."
You don't have to watch the entire video, but it goes through those opening scenes which, with the exception of Resident Evil 2 (which came out one year later), is the game that I've played the most--though the Metal Gear games are close.
However, I wasn't able to actually play FFVII for a couple of years. Sure, we had the rental, which I put a little bit of time into when my brother wasn't using the PlayStation, but I spent much of my time in Midgar and on the Planet when I visited a friend's house, who was playing through as well. Despite not being able to play consistently through, I still became an unabashed fanboy. Middle-school artwork was covered with horrible renditions of Cloud (and only Cloud...I didn't bother practicing with any of the other characters).
Due to the fact that I couldn't really spend consistent time with the game, I had a hard time figuring out the story. I couldn't quite piece together who was doing what and why, though I knew that I needed to stop Sephiroth in order to keep...something from happening. Occasionally, when playing, I would get lost in the world map, unable to know where to go, running around through wastelands, forests, and mountain peaks, hoping to catch enough experience to level up because what else was I going to do?
About a year after it came out on the PlayStation, I bought the PC version* of the game. My brother was pretty proprietary with his video game system, so buying the game for the console wasn't my best option. Additionally, he worked at CompUSA, so he was able to score the copy of the game with his employee discount. I can actually remember sitting in the back of the white Chrysler LeBaron, holding the rhombus-shaped package, trembling with excitement. I had been waiting for this for a long time.
We installed it on the hand-me-down computer. The graphics were sharper than the console, but there were problems with the sound. Still, I was happy: I finally had my own copy of Final Fantasy VII to play.
I can't remember the time of year I originally bought it, but I remember that Christmas very clearly. I spent the entire break alternating between FFVII and Abe's Exodus, listening to my new Dave Matthews Band and Reel Big Fish CDs. (That is, perhaps, the most 1990s sentence I have ever written.) I hunkered in the laundry room, where the computer was, and played through the game, using all the tricks that I had learned from stolen glances of strategy guides, conversations with classmates, and cobbled together memories from all the times I'd sat, enraptured, while my friends played their versions.
The story became clearer, but I was still vague on the details and how it all connected. Certainly, as a long form storytelling (upwards of thirty or forty hours), it can be difficult to put the entire story together. Spread over the course of weeks or even months, I struggled to see how it all fit. Nevertheless, I started getting a stronger sense of what was going on with Cloud. The game predates Fight Club but includes a similar concept/gimmick, and that mind-bending reveal also made it hard for me to understand the entire message of the game. Still, I was hooked.
Anyone who has played the game knows that there are additional challenges for enemies beyond what's necessary to defeat the final bosses. They're called the Weapons--Ruby and Emerald--and I wanted to defeat them. That required dozens of hours raising chocobos, racing them, breeding them, and eventually getting the Golden Chocobo, which took me to a hidden island where the legendary materia, Knights of the Round, was kept.
With that materia, and more time spent "grinding" (leveling up the characters so that they would become stronger and stronger), I finally defeated Emerald Weapon. My team (Cid, Tifa, and Cloud) was all at level 97, and that made me proud: I'd defeated one of the Weapons and I hadn't even maxed out the characters. When I challenged Ruby Weapon, I did the smart thing and killed off Cid and Tifa, then beat Ruby Weapon single-handedly.
Some of my proudest gaming achievements.
I don't know if it was the next Christmas or what, but I asked for FFVII action figures, the CDs of the original soundtrack in all its MIDI glory**, and picked up tee-shirts and other memorabilia. Final Fantasy VII became the touchstone of my middle school life, one of my most formative experiences in pop culture and in mid-childhood.
Now the fifteenth*** installment in the series has come out. I'm only a couple hours into it, and it's not triggering the same enthusiasm as what I've had in the past--but that's to be expected. I'm older now. Despite the announcement that the remake of Final Fantasy VII will be released soon--and I have plans of buying it when it comes out--I don't expect a return to my childhood. Though I've played a lot of the other core titles in the series, I'm not confident that Square Enix will deliver that same magic. The power of FFVII was, in part, that it didn't have to be made against the backdrop of a gaming world that had FFVII to worry about. I can point out the disparate pieces that somehow worked together to make a whole, cohesive fantasy world, but short of giving it all an HD skin and new animations, I don't know how to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle experience that was playing FFVII for the first time.
In that sense, I guess I've already had my final fantasy.
----
* In a quick search, I found this beauty. That is an original, mint copy of the PC version of that game, going on eBay for $150. I did not spend that much on it.
** The MIDI stuff is ear-gouging, but Final Fantasy VII has one of the highest regarded soundtracks in video game history. There is some incredible music there. In fact, the soundtrack acts as one of the characters of the story; each song is so unique and identifiable, most players could probably instantly tell you which part of the world the song comes from, even if it's been years since they played.
*** In terms of numerals. The quantity of Final Fantasy entries is almost one hundred at this point, if you count the movies and animes that comprise this list.
I remember him running through the intro, changing the main character's name from "Cloud" to "CloudY" because he was simply fiddling his way through, fought a couple of enemies, and said, "Looks pretty cool."
You don't have to watch the entire video, but it goes through those opening scenes which, with the exception of Resident Evil 2 (which came out one year later), is the game that I've played the most--though the Metal Gear games are close.
However, I wasn't able to actually play FFVII for a couple of years. Sure, we had the rental, which I put a little bit of time into when my brother wasn't using the PlayStation, but I spent much of my time in Midgar and on the Planet when I visited a friend's house, who was playing through as well. Despite not being able to play consistently through, I still became an unabashed fanboy. Middle-school artwork was covered with horrible renditions of Cloud (and only Cloud...I didn't bother practicing with any of the other characters).
Due to the fact that I couldn't really spend consistent time with the game, I had a hard time figuring out the story. I couldn't quite piece together who was doing what and why, though I knew that I needed to stop Sephiroth in order to keep...something from happening. Occasionally, when playing, I would get lost in the world map, unable to know where to go, running around through wastelands, forests, and mountain peaks, hoping to catch enough experience to level up because what else was I going to do?
About a year after it came out on the PlayStation, I bought the PC version* of the game. My brother was pretty proprietary with his video game system, so buying the game for the console wasn't my best option. Additionally, he worked at CompUSA, so he was able to score the copy of the game with his employee discount. I can actually remember sitting in the back of the white Chrysler LeBaron, holding the rhombus-shaped package, trembling with excitement. I had been waiting for this for a long time.
We installed it on the hand-me-down computer. The graphics were sharper than the console, but there were problems with the sound. Still, I was happy: I finally had my own copy of Final Fantasy VII to play.
I can't remember the time of year I originally bought it, but I remember that Christmas very clearly. I spent the entire break alternating between FFVII and Abe's Exodus, listening to my new Dave Matthews Band and Reel Big Fish CDs. (That is, perhaps, the most 1990s sentence I have ever written.) I hunkered in the laundry room, where the computer was, and played through the game, using all the tricks that I had learned from stolen glances of strategy guides, conversations with classmates, and cobbled together memories from all the times I'd sat, enraptured, while my friends played their versions.
The story became clearer, but I was still vague on the details and how it all connected. Certainly, as a long form storytelling (upwards of thirty or forty hours), it can be difficult to put the entire story together. Spread over the course of weeks or even months, I struggled to see how it all fit. Nevertheless, I started getting a stronger sense of what was going on with Cloud. The game predates Fight Club but includes a similar concept/gimmick, and that mind-bending reveal also made it hard for me to understand the entire message of the game. Still, I was hooked.
Anyone who has played the game knows that there are additional challenges for enemies beyond what's necessary to defeat the final bosses. They're called the Weapons--Ruby and Emerald--and I wanted to defeat them. That required dozens of hours raising chocobos, racing them, breeding them, and eventually getting the Golden Chocobo, which took me to a hidden island where the legendary materia, Knights of the Round, was kept.
 |
| This fella took hours to get to the point I could breed his polygonal butt. Source. |
Some of my proudest gaming achievements.
I don't know if it was the next Christmas or what, but I asked for FFVII action figures, the CDs of the original soundtrack in all its MIDI glory**, and picked up tee-shirts and other memorabilia. Final Fantasy VII became the touchstone of my middle school life, one of my most formative experiences in pop culture and in mid-childhood.
Now the fifteenth*** installment in the series has come out. I'm only a couple hours into it, and it's not triggering the same enthusiasm as what I've had in the past--but that's to be expected. I'm older now. Despite the announcement that the remake of Final Fantasy VII will be released soon--and I have plans of buying it when it comes out--I don't expect a return to my childhood. Though I've played a lot of the other core titles in the series, I'm not confident that Square Enix will deliver that same magic. The power of FFVII was, in part, that it didn't have to be made against the backdrop of a gaming world that had FFVII to worry about. I can point out the disparate pieces that somehow worked together to make a whole, cohesive fantasy world, but short of giving it all an HD skin and new animations, I don't know how to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle experience that was playing FFVII for the first time.
In that sense, I guess I've already had my final fantasy.
----
* In a quick search, I found this beauty. That is an original, mint copy of the PC version of that game, going on eBay for $150. I did not spend that much on it.
** The MIDI stuff is ear-gouging, but Final Fantasy VII has one of the highest regarded soundtracks in video game history. There is some incredible music there. In fact, the soundtrack acts as one of the characters of the story; each song is so unique and identifiable, most players could probably instantly tell you which part of the world the song comes from, even if it's been years since they played.
*** In terms of numerals. The quantity of Final Fantasy entries is almost one hundred at this point, if you count the movies and animes that comprise this list.