Final Fantasy VII – PSX OG
September 7, 1997
This is a day I will always remember. It’s the day that Final Fantasy VII came out for the original Playstation in the US (though it came out 5 days earlier in Canada for some reason). It’s also the day that I did NOT get it, as my parents did not like to spend $50 on a video game. I had played Final Fantasy III on the SNES and thought it was amazing, though to be honest I never beat it back then. Just played at a friends house.
Fast forward to Christmas 1997 and one of my Christmas gifts from my parents was Final Fantasy VII!! Holy crap they did it! They got me the game I had been begging for! Best. Parents. Ever! Of course I put it in and played it until my eyes bled, I mean I had been asking for this game for months.
What’s that ghost of accurate history? That’s not what I did? Wait, what? I didn’t play the game at ALL, or even open it, until that summer? Until I was over at my sister house baby sitting her toddler? (how just so happens to be PNWJrock)
Oh man, that’s pretty lame.
Well whatever the truth is, 15 year old me was in love with this game (as soon as I started playing it). To be completely honest this was the first RPG game I had ever really played on my own and found interest in. Sure, I’d played Secret of Mana, Ogre Battle, FFIII, FFII, Zelda, and more before. But this. THIS was something different. All those other games I was a filthy casual, playing at a friends house, only putting in a few hours, not ever really completing anything.
FFVII was different. I couldn’t stop. I was learning so much about RPGs that I never payed attention to before. Getting deep involved into the story, falling in love with the characters. Which is why when naming the characters (a really cool feature for RPG’s) I gave them all clever (to a 15 year old) names.
How I named the roster
| Cloud Strife | Bitch |
| Tifa Lockhart | Barwench |
| Barret Wallace | Blackie |
| Aerith Gainsborough | Flower Girl |
| Yuffie Kisaragi | Knives Girl |
| Vincent Valentine | Vincent (it was perfect already) |
| Red XIII | Dog |
| Cait Sith | Clown Boy |
| Cid Highwind | Sid Vicious |
Needless to say this made the game a whole lot more fun. Especially in the beginning when Barrett says “The planets dyin, Bitch!”. There are other gems in the game with Barrett being Blackie and Tifa being Barwench, but that’s my favorite. I STILL quote that to this day.
I was so into this game that the first time I played it I didn’t want to waste any time and tried to beat it as fast as I could! It took me about 35 hours to play through my first time and beat Sephiroth. I was only level 44 or 45 when I took on the final battle. It was not easy and took me more tried that I would want to admit to beat him, but a did it.
You know what I did after I beat it? I started a new save file to play through it again and and 100% the game. Beat all the monsters, unlock all the secrets, mate all the chocobo’s. On this one I hit level 99 on all characters and maxed out the timer of 99 hours. Was I obsessed? Maybe.
When I was 17 did I travel to Pittsburgh to see my sister (the one and only Kim Gordon (not the one from Sonic Youth)) to hang out for three weeks and bring my copy with me so we could play through it together? You bet your ass I did. Funny story though, her ex-husband was a real tool and he didn’t like that she was staying up with me each night to play FFVII. So ever couple of nights when he got up for work he would delete our saved game. What a dick, right? Well jokes on him, on week three we went to EB Games (RIP) and bought a new memory card that I would take to bed with me so he couldn’t! Long story short, we beat it in a week before I flew home.