Final Fantasy VII - My Story

Purchase date: Summer 2005
Price: $20

To begin I have decided to tell the stories behind the games that I already own, and what better place to start than with Final Fantasy VII.

Rest assured, I don't plan on just telling you yet another masturbatory recap of the game and its awesomeness (there's already enough of that out there) but I probably do love it that much as well.

This was, of course, my first foray into the next generation of gaming (as was the case with pretty much everyone back then) and I was blown away.  Even more so than I was blown away by the game itself, I was blown away with how universal its appeal seemed.  This was an RPG that everyone owned... seriously... everyone.  I was amazed to find upon visiting the house of a friend of a friend, someone whom I though I had absolutely nothing in common with, that he had a copy of the game currently in his Playstation, the case sitting along side his sizable collection of madden titles and racing games.  Seriously, this was a kid who's hobbies included pizza and backyard wrestling, and there he was with what had been up until then, such a niche piece of entertainment, casually sitting in his collection.  I would never expect to see such a thing today.

My first introduction to the series came in the form of watching a friend play his copy during a sleepover.  (a friend that in retrospect I was a total ass to having that night alone gotten him in trouble with his parents by flirting with his sister... and then later dating her... I was not a good person back then, but then again very few high schoolers are.)  I vividly remember sitting there in his room and watching as the first battle transition came up.  He was in the northern part of the world and had to battle what looked to me to be cute bunnies.  I of course cried out "Aaaw, lookit the cute bunnies!" right before Vincent pulled out his rifle and shot one in the head causing it to erupt in an explosion of fading red polygons.  Holy shit!  I was hooked.

The funny thing is, as big of a fan as I am of this game, I never owned a copy of it until well after my fifth play through (did I mention I REALLY love this game?).  The reasoning behind that is simple... I was poor, and everyone on the goddam planet owned a copy.  The beauty behind it was that the game was 3 disks, so I strategically borrowed whatever disk my friends weren't using.  Then I would forget that I borrowed the disk and borrow it again from someone else.  By the time I got to college I think I had 3 Disk 1's, 4 Disk 2's, and 1 Disk 3 floating around my house.

After graduating college I had the typical post grad lull and decided that the best use of my time was to play through Final Fantasy VII in its entirety as quickly as possible.  All of my ill gotten disks at this point having been either tossed, lost or damaged beyond repair, it was high time I bought a copy of my own.  Impressively enough (or perhaps not impressive at all considering its following) this was 2005 and I was still able to walk into Media Play (now bankrupt and closed... R.I.P.) and buy a brand new copy, still in shrink wrap.  This copy is the one that sits on my shelf today and still remains as my go to game whenever I'm feeling kinda down.