Final Fantasy VII, you know it? Yeah, that’s the one. The 13 year old Japanese RPG that only the nerdiest of nerds play? Well I recently dived into that dark abyss of nerdom, and guess what, I enjoyed it.
Don’t get me wrong, I already was quite a geek. I played games such as The Legend of Zelda, but for some reason FF7 seemed too far out there and I never got to play it…well that and the fact that I never owned a PS1. So during the summer a friend of mine decided to lend it to me (Nice one!) and since they seem to recommend good stuff a lot of the time I thought I’d at least give it a shot.
So I put the disc in the PS3 and sat there, apprehensively, as the game loaded. The opening theme was soft and melodic…I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I chose a new game and had to enter my character’s name. I could’ve just named him “Cloud” as was intended, but where’s the creativity in that? I decided instead on seven characters of pure wit, “AssFace”. Oh what a comedic genius I am…
I was then greeted with the sharpest graphics I had seen since the 90’s. Had I not been wearing glasses, I swear my eyes would’ve torn to shreads. But they grew on me; they held an old school charm. The game was surprisingly easy to get into, a basic RPG where you chose the moves of your characters. I sat there playing for a while and started my first real mission. I was still undecided on how I felt. It wasn’t helped by the fact that during my first playthrough Tits, ehh, I mean Tifa, dies on me with no way of recovering her. I was very disheartened.
The more I played, the more it dragged me in. To put it simply, it was fun. Some of the characters really grow on you. In my case it was Cid, a sarcastic, tea-loving, egomaniac…he must have reminded me of someone.
The music too deserves a mention, kudos to Nobuo Uematsu. One track in particular stands out. It’s an epic composition with operatic singing of the final boss’s name, “Se-Phi-Roth!” I would love to have such a song sang for me when I’m doing the most mundane of things, e.g. sitting an exam, eating lunch, taking a dump.
So after nearly 50 hours, some moments of sheer frustration and an unthinkable amount of tea, I had finally completed it. My opinion? A definite classic…
…not as good as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time though.
So that’s it for my first ever blog. I might even be compelled to write another, ya never know…
