One of my friends stated that FF7 was their favourite game and my brain started to work. Yes, indeed I heard the rusty little gears start to move around and the little hampster in the wheel start to run after the feed pellet. A little light slowly flickered on and this meant that my brain was fully operational, and...I guess this is the result.

I look all around me on the internet and see people who are absolute rabid worshippers of the game FF7. Sometimes, it leads me to wonder if they had ever played any of the older FF games, or if they simply purchased FF7 because it was PSX game; a game with good reviews and multiple disks--all around, impressive looking. Granted, I played the older FF games quite some time ago...indeed such a time ago that I have troubles remembering exactly what happened. I'm overdue for a replaying of those games...(But of course, the fact that I even remembered playing them at ALL--my memory is rotten--astounds me beyond belief.)

Alright, I've gotten off track. I'd sit and wonder if they had even ever heard of Squaresoft before FF7, or if they were only revelling in FF7. This is where I get a bit confused with myself.

I liked FF7. It was a nice game, and a fun one. It had beautiful music--(I don't care what ANYONE says about that one)--and even though the graphics were a bit odd at times, they did a nice job with rendered backgrounds and whatnot. They had a good idea with the storyline...although it was a bit choppy at times, riddled with a few holes, and for the most part...actually kinda linear. I mean, I'm not saying that it was entirely predictable; but you basically knew what was going to happen. I basically mastered the game the first shot around, and it seems funny to me that I still know friends who haven't beaten it yet.

This was a sign to me that many people weren't really familiar with Square; they were having troubles beating FF7. Square didn't do the best job they could have done with FF7, by far, when I look at the efforts poured into recent games like Xenogears, FF7's efforts are paled considerably. While of course, Xenogears' real time playing graphics sometimes leave a lot to be desired ("Look! We're being bludgeoned by pixels! --Me), the storyline is simply magnificent. I've even heard that the backstory that Square wrote in order to HELP them write Xenogears took them a few years in itself. (But damnit, I wish that they had let us see that backstory. Or perhaps included a third disc to help you understand some things...)

FF7 was an excellent game; and in some ways it was my favourite game. There are some characters I would have liked to see developed more; but isn't that always the way? You fall in love with an underdeveloped character such as Vincent... It always seems to happen to me. I usually never like the leading character in an RPG (GRRR! Chrono!), but instead angle for the smaller/supporting characters. The one exception here is Squall Leonhart from FF8, who from what I've seen, read, and translated is a pretty cool, level-headed sort of guy.

Getting back to FF7 (again), there are some things that I will just never forget. Aeris' death (please don't hate me for being part of the 'crowd' with this one) was simply horrible, because damnit, I LIKED AERIS! People say, "She was too sugary", or "She was so annoying!" That's called naive. Or innocent. Or pure. The cool thing about it that...at least the way I think about it...is that Square created this wretched, filthy, corrupt city of Midgar...and then put someone like Aeris in it. Aeris, who was cheerful and optomistic in the face of EVERYTHING--even her own death, at which she was smiling. Plus...I think she knew she was going to die. I think that's what the beginning scene was telling us. She was communicating with the Planet; and she knew she was going to have to be sacrificed for Holy to come. She just didn't know the full extent of what was going to happen; only knew that Holy was going to have to come for some reason. Knew that her death was the catalyst that was going to bring it all about.

And if it were possible to fall in love with a location, I think I'm going to marry Nibelheim or The Forgotten City. Both were beautifully constructed, and both reeked of--SOMETHING. Nibelheim is just powerful; from the moment your little party walks into it you KNOW something's there. The atmosphere seems charged, and it all peaks when you finally do enter the Mansion. The Mansion is by far my favourite location in all of gaming--well, actually, tied with Castlevania. (The castle itself, not the game.) The Mansion simply exudes emotion and memory and pain and sorrow and love and hate and joy and--I'm running on. It's intense. And no; I'm not just saying that because I love Vincent. No, even if Vincent were not there, the Mansion would still fascinate me as just as much.

I guess I'm trying to say that I both loved and hated FF7; if that's at all possible. It's a bittersweet mix of emotions, the end left me slightly bitter yet gleeful that I was granted the ability to dream my own ending. There were some things about the game that were rotten, you wondered why Square put them them or why didn't they fix that. There were also parts of it that were godly, you wanted to have a...replay button or something so you could go back and watch it for hours on end. (Or maybe not that long. ^_^)

But...

"...Quite possibly the greatest game of all time." --Gamefan Magazine

...NO. Sorry Gamefan, but you're damn wrong. Please examine some other games and redraw your conclusion.