I’ll Never Be Over Final Fantasy 7

I love obsessively. Once I decide that a thing or a person is MY thing or person, that’s it. I will love them until I die. Sometimes I feel alone in this passionate fury of single-minded adoration, but then there is the Final Fantasy 7 fandom.

I was nine years old when my brother Roy brought home Final Fantasy 7 for our desktop computer. We had already established a precedent of playing the King’s Quest games together, so when he said I could watch him play, I pulled up chair to the big wooden desk and felt my jaw drop as the chunky, geometrical Cloud leaped off a train in Midgar. By today’s standards, the graphics are laughably horrendous, but in 1997, our tiny pre-pubescent brains were blown away by the realism.

I fell hard for FF7. It was the first RPG that I played (watched), and I loved the scope of the story. I was mostly used to puzzle-heavy games, so I liked the little puzzles throughout FF7, but I LOVED the story that encompassed everything. From the very beginning we know there is more to Cloud than is shown (what is UP with his mental breakdown at the reactor?), and I was fanatical about discovering and understanding every new detail of Cloud’s relationship to Sephiroth, Shinra, SOLDIER….and Zack, Hojo, and Jenova! Honestly, it took me several times of playing through the game, and discovering even more hidden scenes, before I finally understood everything. But that didn’t even matter. The game was enthralling, the characters unique and interesting, the settings diverse and beautiful.

A week or so ago, I checked the Apple App Store to see if there were any new free games I should try, and THERE IT WAS. Beyond all hope, unlooked for and unanticipated….FINAL FANTASY 7 FOR THE IPHONE. I bought it in two seconds flat, sent my brother an exclamation-heavy text, and sighed in deep contentment when the theme song began playing. Unfortunately, life has been rather busy lately, what with all my fundraising. I’m trying to be an adult who prioritizes work over play….so naturally, I’ve only spent a huge amount of time reading a 126,000 word fanfiction about Cloud being sent back in time by the Lifestream to prevent Meteor from falling, and OH MY GOSH discovering that Square released a trailer for an upcoming remake of FF7 that looks phenomenal.

This is what makes Final Fantasy 7 so great. Everyone loves it! It’s been 18 years since the game first came out, and here we have iPhone versions and an entire remake in the works. No one can get over it, and I hope we never do.