HFS

No, I don't mean the radio station. That stands for "Holy Fucking Shit!" I just watched a bootleg (or at least an import) copy of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Fucking WOW. (Brief side note: My brother got the copy of it and waited for me to come home from work to watch it with me. He could've watched it earlier tonight, but he waited for me. It reinforces the sometimes-fading thought that beneath his teenage "fuck all of you" attitude he truly does love and care for his family.) But yeah, fucking WOW.

Ask any gamer to name the top 10 video game series, and Final Fantasy is bound to be on that list (probably in the top five). The games are consistently high-quality, using the best that the systems of the time have to offer. The stories are great, with characters you really care about, and the game play makes them pretty easy to play. Final Fantasy VII stands out among the others though, truly the best of the best. You become so wrapped up in the story, so hell-bent on trying to figure out the mystery behind the main character you're controlling, that it's easy to play for hours on end. (Once you get out of the city, that is; the first 4-5 hours are okay, but not the best in terms of replay.) It was a very landmark game, and as far as I'm concerned, my character's job description by the end of the game was "Fuck shit up."

Now, FFVII was the first of the series for the playstation, and it was great. FFX was the first of the series for the PS2, and it was every-ounce as awesome. Same deal as with VII; great story, characters, game play, etc. The fact that the characters spoke verbally rather than in text was also a nice touch. And for a while I would've put X as the best. Clearly, I'm not alone either, because the ending to X disappointed so many people (it wasn't the traditional "happy" ending that most people expect) that Squaresoft made an unprecedented move and made an actual Final Fantasy sequel: FFX-2.

But I had heard whispers and rumors that a movie sequel (done in CGI, natch) was coming out to FFVII. Then I saw the preview. And I fell in love with that game and its characters all over again. So I decided to play the game through again before the movie came out, and I have to confess that my faith was a little shaken. For the first 4-5 hours (see above comment) I was bored, thinking "What the hell did I see in this game?" Once I was 15ish hours in though, (for those of you non-gamers, non-RPGers, most RPG video games boast between 40-50 hours of gameplay, if not more) I went "OOOOOOOOH Yeaaaaaaah... That's why this game kicked ass...." And now I've seen the sequel, and it was a monster movie. (Not actually a "monster" movie; just "great.") I'm not sure they could've done a better job in translating video-game techniques (such as special abilities) into a movie setting. And, for the first time in the two-ish months since I sold my video games and system and such in the move to a simpler life, I actually miss them. Because I would, without question, go spend the next few hours playing FFVII if I still had it. But I can't, so I won't. I will have to re-think my decision to go as Eric Draven from The Crow for Halloween though. I might instead have to go as Cloud Strife: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/fainflinn/cloud2.html