ReCollection #1: Final Fantasy VII

 Just as a wee note: I'll openly be talking about and showing spoilers from games that are older than five years old. My policy is if the game—or any media— is older than half a decade, it's fair game for open discussion with little or no warnings of spoiler content. 

Welcome back to ReCollection; A series of blog posts made specifically to recount my history with a particular video game, movie or tv show. Basically anything from my childhood(and later!) that left a profound impact on me will receive a storied collection of the most memorable memories. 

Alas, let's get down to the meat of the ReCollection series and reminisce about one of the most influential RPGs of its time. . .

"This guy are sick."

To begin to reminisce about the beginning would mean going back further than late 1997. My history with Final Fantasy not with VII as most people had, but with Final Fantasy VI. Then known as Final Fantasy III, it was featured in an issue of a gaming magazine I had owned at the time but am still trying to figure out which. In it were screenshots of Final Fantasy III/VI that showed off the overworld, some locales, and a battle against a Yeti! I became obsessed with RPGs thanks in part to Secret of Mana and Breath of Fire a few years prior, and so seeing screenshots of an RPG I had yet to play or even see on shelves was exciting; Nevermind the fact that you got to fight a yeti of all things in it! (I was and am a cryptozoology nerd). 

I never did get to play Final Fantasy III/VI as none of the local rental joints had it, so I didn't get to experience Final Fantasy during those super formative years of 1994-1996 which was unfortunate because I like to think about what kind of reaction I would have had to a Final Fantasy game prior to VII and what my reaction would have been to VII down the road had I any prior experience with the series outside of a few pages in a magazine. 

But I got to grow up with Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire, and Secret of the Stars as my initial turn-based RPG exposures, so it's not like I didn't get a good taste of the genre... please ignore my listing Secret of the Stars, okay? I legit love that game.

Okay, let's move it along. We're now going from the majestic and well-remembered year of 1996 to the far future: To 1997! Late 1997, November to be exact.

We are once again revisiting the grandparents on my father's side and my cousin that lived with them. They had for a few years moved back to Delaware, but for whatever reason moved BACK to my hometown for a few more years before going back north again for good. It was a cold and rainy night November night, leading right into the Thanksgiving season. 

We had just returned from grocery shopping and were on our way home when we stopped at their house, where my cousin was still living and where he had his flashy Playstation hooked up. I had played it a few times that year, even getting to borrow it for a single day to rent and play Mega Man 8. I had a Nintendo 64 at the time, but the Playstation (and to a lesser extent, the Sega Saturn) had this mystical aura surrounding it that I still can feel to this day whenever I would think about specific games.

In his room, down the hall and to the right of the living room, he sat in a floor-based rocking chair. On his TV was a game that I did not recognize. It was within the opening minutes of the game, he was just making his way through the first Mako. I watched in simultaneous amusement and some confusion as to what I saw, as my only true experience with the Playstation was Mega Man 8. I really didn't think much of it at the time, nor did I have time to really sit and ponder what I was watching as we didn't stay long during the visit and I only got a brief taste of what I would later find out was, in fact, Final Fantasy VII.

The holiday season would roll on. I would constantly be reminded that Santa was watching and that he was aware I wanted a Playstation of my very own that year. We took a trip out of town with my grandmother on my mother's side for some Christmas shopping for the family, but also where she (my grandmother) would buy us our gifts while we were there with her, and then take them back to her house for us to open on Christmas Eve. I vividly remember being super enthusiastic about Mega Man X4, so much so that I constantly read and re-read magazine articles and ads for the game. Mega Man X was and still remains my favorite video game character to this day, and so getting to play a flashy new game on my brand new console was X-citing! 

Christmas 1997 came and I, sure enough, got my Playstation, along with a memory card and Rampage World Tour, which I was also super excited for. I even have a home video of me from before Christmas that year, holding up the magazine ads to the camera and narrating them. 

Okay so you are probably wondering now: Where on earth does Final Fantasy VII come in at? Well, that is simple: I rented it shortly after Christmas.

And you know what? I fell in love immediately as any ten-year-old RPG fanatic of the time would. I got as far as the end of disc 1 during that five-day rental period, failing miserably at understanding the dig team "minigame" while searching for the Lunar Harp.

Shortly after that, when the new Hollywood Video opened up in town, I also rented the freshly released Resident Evil 2, which is a ReCollection for another time.

When tax season came around, my parents always allowed us to pick out a pricy item, usually a larger toy or a video game. I had no concept of what a tax refund was, so when that one time of year rolled around, it always took me by surprise, when I'd just be asked out of the blue while browsing the shelves at Walmart or K-Mart if there was a game that I wanted. So on that late January day in 1998, I became the proud owner of my very own copy of Final Fantasy VII, thus setting fire to what would become yet another lifelong infatuation.

I set aside a few VHS tapes with the intention on recording my playthrough of the game as I did a lot back in those days. Heck, I was even doing Let's Plays with my camcorder before the concept was even a thing, and I have several remaining tapes to prove it! But that, again, is a tale for another time.

Anyone may claim that he will act in the direst times, yet only a brave man acts in times great and small.

To say that Final Fantasy VII had an impact on me would be an understatement. It was the first time I had actually paid any mind to the story of the game, paying close attention to the characters, what they said, and what they did. It inspired me to draw my own strategy guide, much like Harvest Moon on the SNES would later that year. I imagined friends and family in the roles of characters in the game and myself as Cloud or my own variation of the in-game's events played out in real life.

* * *

Now here comes the part where I am going to retell memories pertaining to specific parts of the game that, for whatever reason, were flagged in my memory as being important. In the future, I may update these sections as I recall more. A little segment called: I Remember.

I Remember: First making it back to Cosmo Canyon upon my playthrough owning the game. It was a Saturday and my father would only be working half a day. He came home and prepared steak sandwiches for lunch as I was soldiering through the caves beneath Red XIII's home, fighting the giant spiders and eventually coming face to face with Gi Natak.

I Remember: Becoming so obsessed with Chocobos and the raising aspect of the game that I would pretend to run a Chocobo farm sometimes when playing outside. One particular day, shortly after gaining access to the Highwind and opening up the Chocobo breeding side quest that it started snowing, and my sister said that we should go hunting for the White Chocobo that only came out in the snow, but that we also had to watch out for the Yeti which would also be out there. I imagined us encountering the Yeti while tracking the Chocobo, resulting in a boss battle in the big field behind our house.

I Remember: Buying the blasted BradyGames strategy guide just to figure out how to find that blasted Lunar Harp. I was stuck there for so long it wasn't funny. My sister on the night I got the guide, went further through the book than I had at that point and— funny enough — landed on the page detailing the fight with Jenova-LIFE and the events that preceded it; complete with screenshots of the death that shocked everyone that played the game, and likely would have shocked me had I not had my sister holding the guide up and saying loudly "Aeris gets killed!".

I Remember: March 14th, 1998, the day before my sister's birthday, was the day I beat Final Fantasy VII for the first time and was blown away by the unexpected final boss theme that, like Final Fantasy VII itself did for the game that immediately followed it, would set an unfairly high bar for final boss themes for years to come. When I say I expected vocals in every final boss theme after playing FF7, I mean it. I HATED (at the time, now I love it) the 'The Extreme' from Final Fantasy VIII because it lacked the unexpected craziness that the choir brought to the fight against Safer-Sephiroth. 

* * *

Eventually, my older brother would show up with a t-shirt with Cloud on the back and the Final Fantasy VII logo on the front. It was much too large for me and would have been something I would grow into, had I not thrown it away a few years later because of stains and- oddly enough - burn marks.

I even came into possession of the set of figures they produced way back then. It had Cloud, Tifa, Aeris, Barret, a Chocobo, and a frog, strangely enough.

For me, Final Fantasy VII  represented the Final Fantasy series as a whole despite clearly being the seventh game in the series, and thus that state of mind would lead to some weird feelings about Final Fantasy VIII in the beginning; Something that thankfully would dissipate over time.

For the longest time, Final Fantasy VII remained my favorite game in the series. And while it doesn't remain in that spot, or even in the top five nowadays, it's still a game I will always cherish and look back on with joy.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my current playthrough of the Steam version of Final Fantasy VII.