From There to Here

At the risk of sounding like a huge videogame dork (who am I kidding about *risk*, it’s happening), something amazing happened today.

Sony just rereleased Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation Network for $10. The game that had been going for $80-$90 on eBay because people wanted to play the game that they grew up playing on the original PlayStation, the first big RPG on the new Sony system and the biggest RPG in the states since Final Fantasy III was on the SNES in October 1994.

I can remember sleeping over my friend Tony’s house in ‘94 just playing Final Fantasy III for hours. I think we literally fell asleep playing the game. It was probably the best RPG out at the time, and it was just incredible. Three years later, I was in high school with a different group of friends, but my take on Final Fantasy III hadn’t changed. My cartridge for the SNES was disgusting, but I still played that game all the time. It was just a great game.

Then just the TRAILER for Final Fantasy VII came out and blew everything else on every other system out of the water. It was incredible. The graphics. The cut scenes. The 60-hour-or-so storyline. Then when they released the playable demo in which you go through the first 20 minutes of the game, and I was hooked. I think I bought the game on the release date and my classes definitely suffered that semester as I’d stay up late to do homework — aka play this game.

And with it back out now, I’m definitely planning to log a few hours on it this weekend. It’s heralded as one of the greatest games of all time, and now it’s back. I only hope there’s some young person out there discovering it now for the first time too, because it’s one of the best RPG stories of all time and definitely one that’s timeless.