slateblog

September 7th, 1997. My senior year in college had just begun and I had classes and work in the computer lab after school. I snuck out to the local Electronics Boutique at the mall. I bought Final Fantasy VII. I hadn’t played RPGs much, barely any JRPGs and never touched a FF game. For anyone too young, it’s impossible to understand the potency of this game. I remember the ads. “If it were available on cartridge, it would retail for $1,200.” CD games were new. CG in games was new. Symphonic scores were new. And FFVII blew the doors open on all of it. Holy shit. This was unlike anything we’d ever seen.

So, now while FFVII has been on GameFAQs’ top-100 list for…wait for this…6,099 days, I marvel at the endurance. SIX THOUSAND DAYS. My entire life has changed, the entire gaming industry has changed. The madness and dedication to FFVII has not. And while there’s simply NO WAY the remake can ever live up to our memories of 6,000 days ago…I have no choice but to return to Midgard. Back before there were spoilers (well, there were but you probably weren’t online back then. I was already running sites for two years) all you had to say was Aerith (Aeris). That shit changed the way I looked at videogames.