See when I was paralyzed I was mostly stuck in a bed or a wheelchair and I only had limited movement of my arms and head for a couple months so mostly all I did was watch movies and such until my mom had the great idea of putting a SNES controller in my hand and letting me learn how to use my fingers again while playing games. All I can say is thank Celestia that Final Fantasy VI's Active Time Battle system was optional because my reaction time was terrible due to the fact that I could barely press the buttons. Yes, video games taught me how to use my fingers again. Anyway I got better and had to visit with the doctors fairly regularly for checkups and my main doctor since I was a baby was Dr. Corn. Well I had an appointment with him one day and while we were in the waiting room there were video game magazines stashed next to my chair. I was amazed that they even existed! I had no idea, I grew up in a little country town and wasn't aware of any type of media acknowledging video games aside from commercials.
Then I saw this page.
A new Final Fantasy game was on the way.
I was floored. It was nearly impossible to get me to read anything when I was younger outside of text boxes in video games but I studied every centimeter of this page, and quickly told my mom the good news. My mom and I have always loved Final Fantasy II and III (or IV and VI) and were always wondering when the new one would come out, not to mention why the numbers were out of sequence. I specifically remember pointing out the caption where Barrett swears saying "Rufus! SHIT! I forgot about him!" and my mom told me to not let her boyfriend see me playing the game because he was Catholic and would freak. We left the doc's office, I left the magazine there... regretfully, and I had my grandpa buy me every video game magazine on the magazine rack every month.
I had a pretty successful birthday in November that year with Super Mario RPG, a couple turbo Controllers, and so on.. but not even a week later I saw Final Fantasy VII sitting on a shelf and I begged my mom to get it.. and keep in mind, we were pretty poor and pretty much lived off of what little my mom made and child support checks. She said no. D=
Well, a couple weeks before Christmas I walked into the kitchen for some cheese and I saw a funny looking box wrapped in several Wal-Mart bags and I inspected it. IT WAS EVERYTHING! Final Fantasy VII, a Playstation, and a FFVII Strategy Guide!! Guess what I did? I opened it without permission, blamed the Rat (my cat, I miss her :'( )for opening the bag, and had a blast playing Final Fantasy VII.
Say what you want about the game being blown out of porportion and being overrated, which in some ways it was later on in time.. just like Ocarina of Time and Mario 64. At the end fo the day it lived up to the Final Fantasy name in terms of story, characters, length, music, dialogue, beautiful backgrounds, gameplay.. and it successfully brought it to 3D. It's not my favorite Final Fantasy game, but of its time it was definitely one of the biggest games of the year right from the start. Best game ever? No. Great fucking game? Yes. Look, I hate the annoying FFVII fanboys and girls as much as the next person, but don't let their annoyance take away from what is a solid game. In a lot of ways that's how I feel about Pokemon fans sometimes, but I know that's not the game's fault.
Oh, anyway my whole reason I wrote this blog was because remember that magazine I read in Dr. Corn's office? I actually got it a couple weeks ago by total chance when Meese's Pieces (an awesome thrift shop that is getting shut down) gave me a whole stack of old magazines for free when I pointed out to him that they were not strategy guides. I'm so nostalgic right now reading all these articles 15 years later.
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