Ep 120: Final Fantasy 7 (Part 2) - Intros and First Impressions

Before FF7, our first impressions of a game were generally in a home. Huddled around a CRT TV in a friends basement or stuffed on the family couch, experiencing games for the first time was an intimate experience. 

But with Final Fantasy 7, we had options. Store kiosks, demo discs, and even the occasional TV commercial. And as a result, our expectations were set accordingly. On this episode, we discuss the myriad of ways we first experienced the world of Cloud, Barret and Tifa and how those first impressions lived up to our lofty expectations.

STARRING (all handles from Twitter) 

Eddie Varnell (@thatretrocode) of the Boss Rush Network (@BossRushNetwork)
Kyle VonKubick (@obeykube) 
Josh of the Still Loading Podcast (@StillLoadingPod)
Matt (@dj_stormageddon) and Geoff (@geoffmakesnoise) of the "Fun" & Games Podcast (@funandgamespod)
Mekel Kasanova (@MekelKasanova)
Michael K Hughes (@KaidanXain) of the Capes and Junk Podcast (@GamesAndJunk)
Mike Albertin of Games My Mom Found Podcast (@mom_found)
Nate McLellan

SONG COVERS

Final Fantasy VII: Aeris's Theme (Violin & Piano Cover Duet) Taylor Davis & Lara de Wit by Taylor Davis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI7Wcl5y5Qs&t=29s

Hollow (Final Fantasy VII Remake) | Classical Guitar Cover by John Oeth Guitar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ny8vJcv3CQ

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Transcript

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Up to this point, first impressions of a Final Fantasy game were experienced at home. Whether it was grinding through Final Fantasy IV during a sleepover with friends or passing a controller back and forth in Six, those initial experiences were mostly had on a couch in a limited yet intimate environment. And not a bad thing per se, I truly think that's part of why early games are so beloved, but that's just the way it was. But when Final Fantasy VII hit North American shores, the exposure was everywhere. Like we said last week, from demo discs to in-store kiosks, fans were getting their first taste of Cloud, Bear, and Tifa in a variety of ways, and as a result, walked away with a variety of different reactions. So let's discuss! On this episode of A Gamer Looks at 40, we talk about those beautiful first impressions of Final Fantasy 7 and see if the game actually lived up to those lofty expectations. Time to run to our local game store, get in the queue for the free play kiosk and hope the store owner doesn't kick us out before we take on the Scorpion Sentinel as we ramp up episode 120, Final Fantasy 7, part two. intros and first impressions. It's a story of... story of war and friendship. A story of a love that can never be. Starting us out on our exploration into the intros is Matt and Jeff of the Fun and Games podcast. If you've never listened to these two, please start. I'd be okay if you just turn this off and do that. That's perfectly fine. They're an incredible podcast that covers a wide swath of gaming topics. So let's see what they have to say about their first brush with Final Fantasy 7. I had never played a Final Fantasy till 7. I had played other RPGs. Chrono Trigger to this day, my favorite game of all time, was one of the first I ever played. And then to my RPG shortly after, but... Even though it had the words RPG in it. I didn't really know what that meant I just knew it was a game that was kind of turn-based and you like pick power-ups and like Didn't know that was like a line of kinds of games I just knew these games did that and it wasn't until a friend of mine who got a PlayStation before me also got Final Fantasy 7 and he my friend Matt I have many friends named Matt. No, it's never confusing He was old-school Final Fantasy fan and like a big RPG fan and so he bought it and I I must have watched him play like half the game like we just sat at his mom's house and just I watched him play and then I would get a PlayStation much later on and when I did one of the first games I got was Final Fantasy 7 and I became consumed by it so I didn't get it at launch but I don't know I assume I didn't get it far after launch because I definitely got it before Brave Fencer, Mushashi and the demo for 8 came out. Okay, right. That's when that demo came out. Yeah. What about you, Jeff? So I definitely am a long-standing Final Fantasy fan in that I played the first one and then I didn't have a Super Nintendo. But I remember seeing Final Fantasy VII on the cover of a GamePro magazine at Blockbuster Video and needing to get it. It was Final Fantasy, my God. And the characters looked so cool. Does that guy have a gun on his arm? And how big is that sword? It was so cool. And a friend of mine whose house I usually hung out at when we would play games, he was a big fighting game fan. And so he got Tobel number one, which had the demo disc for Final Fantasy seven. And that was, and that friend still isn't a big RPG player, but we played that demo so many times. I borrowed the demo from him. He wouldn't lend me Tobel number one, but he lent me that demo cause he didn't care that much. So I played it over and over again. I got a PS one for Christmas of 1996 and Christmas of 1997, I got three games. Crash Bandicoot 2, which I played some, Star Wars, Masters of Tarrasquazi, which I played more than it deserved, and Final Fantasy VII. And those other two games I didn't get to until around March of 1998, because once I started Final Fantasy VII, it was over, it was incredible. was, so I played it, you I know it came out in September of 97, so it wasn't on launch, but I was... pretty on the cusp on that. I made friends because of Final Fantasy 7. It was a big one for me. That's cool. I love that. And I think that's really neat that you guys approach it from different ways. The demo disc. I'm going to do an episode on demo discs at some point because they were so crucial. And I was not a PlayStation person. I was a Nintendo fanboy through and through Final Fantasy 7 going to some weird Sony play thing. What? That wasn't great. I was so upset that I never played it until like maybe 10 years ago, just on the PS3, just like, I gotta fill this hole in. But I love hearing people play it of its time, because there really was nothing like it out there. Like there was nothing even in a PC gaming space. Not really. What was your first impressions when you played it? So, I mean, it's funny you mentioned that you were a Nintendo fanboy, because Jeff and I are huge Nintendo fanboys. And I was through and through. My first console was an NES. Well, technically it was an Atari 2600, but like, Those games were fine. My first console, the one I wanted, was a Nintendo and then an SNES, and then would get a Genesis, and I would go back and forth for a lot, but I had an N64 first. It's also why I got a PlayStation late, because I wanted the Mario machine. But my first impression of Final Fantasy VII was just it felt unreal in this fact that I'm sitting here with my friend on his couch, and we're seeing these FMVs, these full motion videos. And it was like, this is a movie. I'm watching a movie in a video game. That's so weird. And I was kind of just blindsided by it. I was completely enamored with it. And like, you know, I Chrono Trigger, I cite a lot as my favorite game for a lot of reasons, but one of those was storytelling. Like Chrono Trigger taught me that you could tell in depth, very sad, very impactful stories. But there was nothing like Final Fantasy VII. Like I think I was just incredibly impressed by How different it was from anything I had played before and like that opening train scene like it's why when you get to do it and remake it like my jaw drops because that was like a pipe dream like we would never get that and then we did but like even even the original seven which I replayed on switch Several years ago. I think probably when remake was announced I bought it on switch and replayed it and Like that opening scene still gives me chills even on on the PlayStation version or this switch version which is based on the PlayStation version and so Like, I think there's just spectacle. The word I would use to describe my early impressions of Final Fantasy VII is spectacle. I definitely had early senses of total wonderment about playing it because for me, I didn't have any home 16-bit consoles. I played them at friends' but went from NES to PlayStation 1 in my house. yes, Matt and I are both big Nintendo fans, but I am, for the PS1, I am... utterly a devotee now and forever. It hit at just the right time. mean, Christmas of 1997, I was 11 years old. So that is exactly the perfect time for that. I'm gone, I'm gone. This is mine forever now. And everything else is a disappointment in chasing that high. As a games journalist, I have learned to temper that feeling, but that feeling is never left. And the idea of wandering around, not just after that initial bombing mission, which I've done many times, First watching it on Rebirth, I wept openly, genuinely. But after the fact, making your way back, all the little short FMVs that happened when you made it back to Sector 7 and wandering the Beginner's Hall and getting to learn all of the little nuances of the game, the way that it had all of the arrows to tell you what to interact with and where to go, that level of 3D interaction, because this was probably... this was unequivocally the best 3D PS1 game that I had up to that point. I mean, at that point I was playing like Strike Point, that helicopter game. I had Grid Runner, which was kind of a capture the flag game. know, Final Fantasy VII was just an utter sense of what was possible in terms of spectacle, in gameplay, in character design and all these other things. And at the time, I don't think it was best in class in any of those. but it was best in unifying all those elements and giving them to us. And so that's the part that definitely holds up when you go back to it. totally agree with that. And you mentioned, you both mentioned that first, that first opening series. I recently replayed it for this, for this series. And like you said, Matt, it holds up. it totally holds up. It is one of the best. And again, I have my favorite Final Fantasies and Seven is not among them, but it's one of the best openings in the entire series, like an entire franchise. is expertly paced and it's something of which I had never seen before. And I remember seen that demo disc, had a friend who had the demo disc, we played that opening level and I was very jealous of his PlayStation, that dumb Sony thing. And I remember watching it, I remember thinking, this is totally different than Final Fantasy 6 or 4, of course, 2 and 3 at the time. This is something different in kind. And when I think about now, I feel like the game grew up with gamers. I was 17 when that came out. So for me, I was right at that height where I was kind of aging out. wasn't into Pokemon. I was getting into college. You know, I was kind of aging out of a few things. And Final Fantasy 7 felt like a game that was designed for someone of my age and older in mind. What do you, what was your takes on that? Being again, Jeff, you were 11 and Matt, not sure how old you were when you played it. you're- I was born in, born in 83. So I was 14. Yeah, I mean being the edgy teenager than I was you know a goth wearing janko jeans and a lot of black t-shirts Heavy metal head I'm well way more well-rounded now when you become queer like they they you gain access to the other music auras It's just when you're when you're a closeted kid. You don't know any better. I don't know my experience. I just got God that's true but like Yeah, I think for me it was funny cuz I was a teenager shopped at hot topic and like these characters are cursing like we obviously can't read the curses but like we're seeing symbols like they're cursing it's an adult like narrative there's death like I think that The game I mean there's a little bit of edginess to it right cloud is very much a predictable protagonist now Especially since so many others have come like cloud walked so Clive could run and I love when Clive runs anyway but like but like there was definitely this like teenage like oeuvre to it right from the music to the style the steampunk world the weapons like you said a Character had a goddamn gun arm. It's like it just was unheard of like you know the last character I knew that had a gun arm was Mega Man. He definitely as badass as he is, was not Barrett. so like, megaman doesn't curse. And so like, yeah, I think that it was just, I agree, was definitely the right time for me. was becoming a teenager. I don't know that I ever aged out of the other stuff, but I was definitely looking for more adult and kind of edgy and moody, depressing stories, right? And this game definitely had that, for sure. And as an 11-year-old, I was also looking for edgy, seemingly adult stories, just in a different way. Right. Like, you never leave that behind. And it is something so funny to look at Cloud and say, what a predictable protagonist, because Cloud set the mold for so many others. Up until that point, it is very reductive to say, RPGs didn't have twists. RPGs had twists all the time. The very first Final Fantasy had a twist to it. But most of the twists happened either in the story, or your relationships with other characters. Rarely before certain, and I'm only saying that to cover my butt, I don't think really this happened much before where the twist was your relationship to your point of view character. You could always trust who you were. In Final Fantasy IV, you start off as a Dark Knight, and this sucks, I'm gonna become a paladin. We go on that journey together. When you start as Cloud in Final Fantasy VII, you are already on a terrorist mission. You are saving the planet. You are a badass. No one else can lift that sword. You lift that sword. And then all of that gets yanked out from under you in the second disc. And so that was absolutely mind blowing to me. It was one of, and honestly, its own edgy take as well. You think you know who you are? No, you don't. Stop it. Go on. down into the magical green juice that's in the earth and put yourself back together so help me God. Next up on the show is content creator and expert inspirer. mean, seriously, check out his TikTok. He's extremely inspiring. My man's hitting the gym and doing all the things I don't do. So definitely give him a follow. The one and only Mikhail Casanova as he shares some stories of his first encounters with Final Fantasy 7. Yeah, I can't think of an RPG. or a game honestly, at that time that I played there was anything like that I mean Because at the time, like I was ping ponging between Samoa, Hawaii, and Memphis, Tennessee. We were just right all over the place. Yeah. But like, I know, like in Samoa at the time, people, you know, just gaming in general, just really looked down upon and a few people that did all they played was like, mk mk trilogy, mk three trilogy or killer instinct like mostly people fighting games and fighting games in platforms mostly because at the time in Samoa it was primarily an internal place out here You had more people that were into diverse Set of games just because you know Hawaii's a close to Japan Sure population everything so like you had a lot of people that you know some people that were pretty excited for it, but like And a lot of adults are excited for it. But you had a lot of people upset like like, you know, like, hey, you know, it's the wise and Final Fantasy and Nintendo. Just go ahead and then in Memphis, people didn't care about it as far as I just think, you know, when we go to like the fungal land and everything like that or Babbage's and I'm showing my age. Babbage's software, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, people really like other than people who worked at the game store, like a lot of people just didn't care about it. But I mean, the marketing, like I said, with the commercials, like they heavily pushed and marketed that for for me, like when I started playing it, like I couldn't really compare it to anything because I was like, wait, I'm looking at the graphics for like cloud, right in the the pamphlet or the booklet. Yeah, we don't get those anymore. But I was looking at that. I was like, OK, you know, looks really cool. But then when you you start playing it, I'm like, it's super blocky. At first, I was like a little thrown off by it, but I was like, OK, I'll go with it. And I just I want to say probably. Two or three hours into it. I just stopped. caring about the graphics because the characters were so well written. Yeah. That like, it just felt like they were real life, you know, like real life people. And it just hit me. It hit me really hard because the only other game I played, only on the PlayStation RPG I played was briefly because we ran into Suicoden. Right. No, Suicoden Wild Arms. And beyond the beyond. Right. OK. Yep. And they just don't really hold a candle to. no. I have said that Sui Koden function. Sui Koden is pretty. I mean, I mean, but but but even just from the cultural standpoint, just from an impact standpoint, it's not a fantasy. Right. It is. It's not. And there really wasn't anything like that out there at all. So. Yeah, it was just from OK, from many aspects, the gameplay, the the mute. my God. Lee Masseuse cooking that track. He I mean, he does everything. But yeah, right. But still, he was on point. Yeah, that's just like every track hit an emotional note and it just set the tone for the scenes like after your first. Reactor, we blow up the first reacting you walked around, you know, the city and you get on the train like just hearing that. And then you're like this. I was just like, yeah. It felt like it felt cinematic in a way like looking back on it now, I'm like, you know, was was that was like nothing we had had before because most most RPGs, I mean. you know, limitations of cartridge spaces for the super Nintendo's agencies and such. Like you wouldn't have as many tracks, but Final Fantasy seven just literally had a different track for different towns, different, different locations, different situations. Although I will say I would be terrified whenever cloud would have his moments where, know, like he starts shaking and then you They had like that ghost like after effect that would happen. And the music would play. It used to freak me out heavy. I used to get scared because I was easily scared as a kid. My brother, Devin, and my other brothers, Nick and Tony, they used to love like, like, hey, come over here. Let's go watch this movie. And there's pumpkin head or, know, like, you know, something like, yeah, just terrifying me. And then like When Sephiroth would show up, I know a lot of people swear by One-Winged Angel and I'm like, okay, that's a great track, but One-Winged Angel, for those of y'all who don't know, that song only played once in OG Final Fantasy 7. And that was- He fought him in his godlike form. Right. that safer Sephiroth, but I forgot the form name. Yeah, yeah, I know what talking about. I don't remember exactly, but I know what you're talking about. Like that is God form. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was the only time you heard that song. But every other time he showed up, that other one had a horror feed to it. And it, it would like, it terrified. And it didn't help that every time you heard that music or you saw Sephiroth show up, something was going down. Yeah. He did not show up lightly. He came, he came with the fun thunder at all times. All the time. Yeah, all the time. It was just terrifying because I'm like, yeah, I hear that. It's like, I was like, crap. It's going hard. It goes hard. Are you kidding? I think it's interesting. I always like Final Fantasy seven. And again, I didn't play until much, much later, so I don't have the nostalgia for it. But I just remember it was that that's the game. when everything changed. Like when Final Fantasy officially, in my mind at least, grew up with its audience, for better or for worse. Again, I'm 17 at the time, so I'm, you know, I'm kind of getting out of the kiddy phase, you know, maybe a little more edgy, you know, 97, that sort of thing. And Final Fantasy VII always felt like to me at least, this was the more grown up version of what I've been playing since I was nine. And this is just for me playing it on demo discs or at a friend's house or going to the, you go into the neighborhood and fungal land and seeing the playing it on a stand or something or a kiosk. I always looked at it and saying like, wow, this is more grown up. Did you have that feeling as well when you played it? Did it hit you like that? Yeah, it did. Cause it did feel like it grew up with me and only in the sense of the presentation. Now, a lot of people swear by seven being the greatest. I like I said, it's not for me. It's six. I feel like six is a darker story. It has more character depth. And I just feel like clearly because of like shifting to new hardware, there were limitations in how we can tell the story because we can only do so much with polygonal, you know, characters and such. Right. But it did the presentation. I felt. was it grew up with us in a way I could definitely say that that time, I was not used to like memory cards. Like because like, oh yeah, because I got my PlayStation in 96. We got it in 96. And like a lot of the games that we got were just the platformers stuff like the Crash Manacuse and like you jumping flash and, you know, Battle Arena Toshinden. So like I think we had Ridge Racer. No, not did we have a Ridge Racer? No, no, we had a Wipeout. So I was just, you know, games I'm used to just picking up playing and going from there. So when I finally got around to playing Final Fantasy seven, this is kind of crazy because I out place for so long. And my mom was the I don't know if I said this in the last podcast, but like she's a super overly religious type. So you had the amount of time for you to, know, to be able to play. You had to pray and read the Bible. so, wow. Yeah, yeah, she's that she's that straight. She's into that. OK, she's very. Yeah. Gotcha. I don't do that to my kids. But anyways, that's all good. But like so like I would play for so long and then she'd be like, all right, time to time to wrap it up. I only play for like an hour. And so then I would see the things that say, say you need a memory card. And I'm like, crap, I don't have that. So for like the first first two months. I literally kept playing that one part over and over, but that got really good at it because I was like, Hey, it's fancy. I need to, I need to learn this stuff. And so, um, am I going, am I going too far ahead? can say, go for it. Just, just roll. Okay. So, so I, uh, I, I eventually like, I begged my older brother, said, Hey, can you go buy me a memory card? He's like, what's that? It's like, why do we need that? Like we're everything else. We just play and be done with them. I want a memory card because I want to play this game. And so he ended up going to give me a memory card. And then I think I got to the. The end of the of the of MIGR. I got to the end of MIGR right when you were on the bikes, the bike, you know, the bike part. Yeah, right. The bike part. And you're about to get into the to the game proper. Right. Right. So I was like, OK, cool. And then. God, this is bringing up trauma because I hate my brother for this. So I remember. my goodness. I remember. Coming back, like I went, I came home from school and I went back to play it again. And then like, I was like, where's my save file? no. Yes. No. Yes. Delete it. No. Why? Cause he didn't, he was like, he's like, how do I go through all this stuff? And like, he was just fiddling around with, know, the memory card. Don't fiddle with the memory card. can't do it. So it wasn't like a malicious thing. He just, he just, he wasn't like him being a, he's older or young. I think older brother, right? Older, older. Yeah. Yeah. Older. Right. So, so he wasn't just being like a jerky older brother. Let me mess with, me mess with my younger brother. He was just feeling like, memory cards. I'd never had to dealt with that. And blew your save out. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I had to go get a sharpie and write on it. Devin do not touch my memory card. Flip it over on the bottom. I'm warning you on the side. I still see you. How about it? Be somewhere that still exists somewhere with that evil warning with that warning. Don't you dare. Don't touch. Don't touch. That's funny. And you're far in that game. You're a solid 10 hours. Easy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot more Bible verses, man. You guys are is. I'm gonna have to text him and like, I still hate you for that. He's like, I know how he's gonna react. He's gonna be like, bro. I'm 48. Like, no, I'm 35. I'm about to be 36. He's seven years older than me. So he'd be 42, 45. Yeah. 45. Yeah. I'm at the Texas. out there when we're done. I still hate you for that. That's funny, dude. That's so funny. I love that. Coming up next we have two recollections, one from Michael K Hughes of the Capes and Junk podcast and comedian Nate McClellan. What was your first impressions of it when you played it? Did you play it of its time? Was it later on? I played it for the first time, like give it like a real honest try. Probably three years ago. wow. OK. Super recent. OK. Yeah, it was it was fine. Like, obviously the graphics are dated now. But what really roped me in what kept me going is the whole thing I messaged you about it. Man, I need to get on here and gosh about the material system because that whole mechanic was what kept me focused on beating the game. Yeah, I agree with that. I think the material systems really good. It's one of my favorite systems, I think, in Final Fantasy. It's but it's but I can see how people wouldn't like it as much because it really became like they really distilled down. the jobs of the previous games to really where every character would play the same. you could put to customization was was nearly endless. And I really appreciated it. Because six kind of got that way, too, with the espers, you can put any esper on anyone and get the level of bonuses from that. So everyone could be doing everything by the end of the game. But this one, it felt way more customizable because you can drag and drop abilities and stuff like that. Yeah, and again, this sounds like it makes me a basic RPG player, but for me, who's more casual in this, really dug, it was all color coded and it was just easy to figure out and I felt like I had a lot of control, even if I didn't really care too much about crazy customization and optimization. It worked well enough to get me through the story and get me through the battles and that was good enough. So I really appreciated the materia system. I still think it's one of the more successful ones. Yeah, it makes you feel like a genius too when you do figure out the like the synergies like if I play counter attack on Tifa and then her melee attacks have a chance to poison. So when someone attacks her, she counter attacks and poisons them is like, man, I can see how this is to be addicting. I am a genius. I am the smartest person alive. Yeah, you're right. And that's a great feeling when games can help you feel. like you are just the smartest person on the planet. Like you've cracked the code somehow. It's a really, it's a really good feeling. Finding ways to break the game in a way that the developers may not have intended is always a blast. Always, always, always a worthwhile endeavor. Another thing about Final Fantasy 7, though, of course, it was the first time that graphics really became the forefront. I feel like they square got their hands on the PlayStation and the CD technology. Realize we can sell this with three CDs, four CDs. What do we care? And just went all out on the visual spectacle. I think the game from an art design perspective still looks great. Yeah, it's dated, but it's an old PlayStation game. It's just what it is. But what's your take on on the the visuals of Final Fantasy seven? Yeah, like I'm such a sucker for pixel art, so six is always going to be in the tops of my eyes. Yep. But you can't help but notice the jump between six to seven, even from seven to eight, which I'm probably talking about later. Yeah. Yeah, like it was huge and there was nothing like it at the time. So it's kind of like Mario 64. There was nothing like running around in that courtyard with the joystick for the first times. Yeah, it's dated now. But at the time there it was it was the pinnacle of innovation. No, 100 percent. It was. I had never seen anything like it and as a hardcore Nintendo fan who was a fan of Final Fantasy since the very first one on the NES, having my beloved Final Fantasy now on some rando Sony play what PlayStation PlayStation of play what I have no interest in this. So I never played it until like maybe 15 years ago when I was in my late 20s just to like fill in the hole. So I don't have the nostalgia for it either. But as a a hardcore Nintendo fan, It really made me jealous of my friends who had a PlayStation. was like, man, the N64 can't do this. It can't. As a kid, we didn't know that those cartridges couldn't fit the same stuff that a CD could fit. Like, I don't know whether 64 cartridges might be able to get some of the cutscenes from seven on it. And that's about it. Maybe. Yeah, maybe a fraction of the cutscenes. Yeah, there's no way the N64 would have been able to hang with that. It's just it was just just the limitations. Yeah, because we see some of that with like, Spider-Man 64 and even the Resident Evil 2 port. The concessions they had to make to make it fit on those cartridges. It's crazy. Thanks so much for taking the time today to talk to me a bit about Final Fantasy, a series that you love. You have this near and dear to your heart as I understand. So, well, first give me a little information about yourself, kind of where you're from, maybe what your first connection with Final Fantasy was, and then we'll just kind of start rolling from there. All right. Well, I am... From everywhere. I was in the air. Well, my dad was in the Air Force. So I moved around everywhere And when we were living in Florida one of my friends on base lent me Final Fantasy 7 and I had never played a JRPG or an RPG before then Changed changed I guess the games I play cuz up until then, you know, I was like I played like games like action games, you know, so like, I'm like, I don't want to wait for a turn, you know, like, like the enemy can hit me. That's dumb. You know, I want to play now. Yeah. I don't watch this stupid bar fill up, you know. So until then, that was my gaming history was that and then like racing games too. So gotcha. So before Final Fantasy VII, you were on base, you had a friend who lent it to you. Was it one of those where you just, that was a game you were interested in or was it like, hey, I have game. Cause I had like friends like that too, hey, we have limited amount of these things, these game things. Here's a game, just borrow this. I don't know if it's any good or not here. Was, were you interested in it or was it one of those like random, hey, you have a game available, let's play it. I had never heard of it before. I was just like, like, so him and his parents played games together all the time. And they played like, like that was where I'd first seen like Silent Hill 4. And I was like, well, that looks cool. So then like, we were just hanging out, I think at his house and I, it got brought up somehow was like, have you played Final Fantasy? And I was like, no. And then he said, you, you need to. And I think we booted it up there and then I was like, can I borrow this? know? And then he let me borrow it. Yeah. That's cool. So when you when you play Final Fantasy 7, what about it? And I think you mentioned a little bit about this as we were talking. What about Final Fantasy 7 got its hooks in you immediately? What what what got you as far as that game and why you got so into it? So there was like it was just the look, the kind of like I mean, now I know it's steampunk, but back then I'd never seen anything like the opening with the train, you know, and like cloud jumps off and the music kicks in. Never, never seen anything like it. I was like, man, I need to, I want to know what this world is. And then you meet Barrett, who's a man with a gun on his arm. it's like, I want to know like about you. Like, how did you get that gun on your arm? That's cool as hell. And then, yeah, so like the characters drew me in. then, I mean, now as an adult, I can look back and be like, they're, you know, avalanches like ecoterrorism. But back then I was like, no, they're, you know, like, I mean, they're the good guys. But, you know, it's very like a different point of view, I guess. Like I was like, they're, you know, they say they're doing it for the planet. My dumb nine year old brain didn't understand that. I was like, they got to stop the bad guys. Right. Right. Right. But I think that's it. Yeah, that's what drew me in. No, you're fine. Was just like the story, the character designs and the world. Like it was just immediate. And like. I've I heard video game music before then, but like I think that was like that and Ocarina of Time were like the first kind of games that I played as a kid where I was like, the music in this is like good, you know? Yeah. It is once again time to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you to our wonderful patrons starting with Philip Becker, Joe Coro, Terry Canare, Greg Stewart of the Player One podcast and Generation 16 series of videos, games with coffee, the Let's Play Princess, BT Gobbles, Lindsey Harney, Tim Knowles, formerly of the leadest, Julian of the Stage Select podcast, the one and only Seth Sergel of the All N Media Network. And finally, the fabulous and never-can-tankerous Pete Harney. If you would like to join these captains and captainets of industry, then please, please, please go to patreon.com forward slash agamerlooks at 44.0, check out the tiers and sign up today. And if you would like to support the show without spending a nickel, ratings and reviews on your pod player of choice are always greatly appreciated. I would just stop there. Do you think I would stop with five people you if you've listened to this show for any length of time, you know, I talked to a lot of people. I have a lot of intros to talk about. So let's keep going. Let's keep those memories rolling by joining Eddie of the Boss Rush Network, podcaster extraordinaire Kyle Von Kubik and finally Josh of the Still Loading podcast. Final Fantasy 7, what was that first impression when you popped it in? At first, you had just seen it in screenshots. I'd love to go back to that moment when you popped it in, you get those opening cinematics, you get that opening mission. What was running through your head if you can kind of think back to that era? It was learning how to watch an FMV cut scene or in Russia, because to think about it was that I didn't own a Sega CD and I didn't own a Saturn and stuff like that. So I didn't know how cut scenes will play out with full motion video or CGI video. So watching and just hearing that do, do, do, do, do, just hearing that music and watching the camera move and everything was completely a new experience for me. It was just like, okay, I'm not controlling anything, but I'm being led into a new way of. telling a story, start making it, giving that cinematic feel and everything. If you think about it, the way that Final Fantasy VII opens in pretty much a lot of Final Fantasy games is that you get that code open, kind of before the game starts rolling. And then when it lands to where the train is out and you hop on off, as cloud and then they give you the option to change your name because like RPGs didn't do that you cannot you could get to change your name i mean besides chrono trigger and everything right right but i i literally was just fascinated like i kept everybody's name original because i wanted to see how this game was going to play out with these original characters So it, you know, I played the Mystic Quest, me a while, like I said, played some other RPGs, and then I had a buddy, you know, we'd grade school five, sixth, seventh grade, whatever, have sleepovers, and I remember he had a PlayStation, I had a 64, so I just wasn't into, you know, the older kind of series of games, 64 was a little more kid based at the time, and he brought over Final Fantasy VII. So we were... playing that and he was at Fort Condor and for me, like looking at it now, it's like, okay, that's just a small mini game in a big game, but that was just mind blowing. We played it for probably like four or five straight hours, probably till three in the morning, know, stupidly doing absolutely nothing. But it's like, how does this, where did you get this? What is this? I need more of this. Give it to me. And he's like, dude, there's a whole extra game outside of this mini game too. Like shut up. Okay. So basically, know, after begging my parents as much as I could for the following, you couple months till Christmas, they got me a PlayStation, got Final Fantasy 7. And since then, I've probably purchased every mainline game, almost on release date, maybe not the online ones in 12, but I've played, I think, almost all of them at this point in my life. That's when we that's when we find the things we fall in love with. And I think a lot of that is, yes, you're more emotionally aware, but also you're developing your own preferences. I feel like like I have a seven year old son. He likes what I like because he's seven and he just and he has like some other things, too, that he's discovering. But for the most part, I'm feeding him. Right. But once he turns to has friends in school and gets exposed to other things, when he's a teenager, he's going to start building his own preferences apart from me. And And as a dad, that's really exciting. I'm like looking forward to like, what is my kid gonna be into? That's actually really cool for me. So for you, what about that, you said that it captured your imagination because it was such a deep and intriguing story and had all these different layers. Was there something in Final Fantasy VIII that connected with you emotionally? That you kind of emotionally grabbed onto and said, ooh, this is hitting me in a way that a piece of medium or seven or any Final Fantasy really. moment in those games that connect with you on an emotional level deeper than, this is kind of a cool story or this is fun to play. With 8, I can at give you an anecdote for 7. 8, I'm going to have to think on a bit more. For 7, it was the moment you left Midgar. Because at that point, I did not know about a world map. The concept of a world map in a game was foreign to me. I had never heard of that before, because I'd never played a JRPG or any RPG, really, prior to Final Fantasy VII. So when you leave Midgar... and you are towards the end of disc one, you're really close to the end of disc one at that point, and you have to go to that town of Calm, and all of a sudden, this whole world opens up to you. I went, whoa, you're not just keeping me in this tiny little area? Midgar felt big enough. I didn't think Midgar was small. And then all of a sudden, there's this whole world you can explore, and there's different towns, and there's different... characters and like places you can go. And finally rounding out this episode is my good friend from the games my mom found podcast the one and only Mike Albert So when you played it as a kid you're going through the guide What was the next time you played it when when everything started kind of making sense? Well, what was the moment of Final Fantasy 7 where you were like, okay, this is Either I don't get I didn't even catch your opinion on it as a game yet, but like I I liked it as a kid Okay, I don't really remember all that stuff from the initial reaction. OK. So when did you play it again? Do you remember like when you picked it up again? Yes, that I do, because my first girl, first real girlfriend, she loved Final Fantasy seven and she she lived in Minnesota. That's the reason why I in Minnesota now, even though she's long gone. That's why I ended up coming here. But so she loved it. So at one point I was like, OK, I'm going to replay this. So I ended up going back to it and playing through it. For the I did this twice for the second time I played through it and ash because I had never beaten it and I had a list going on with me and a friend of mine who I'm still friends with and we were trying to see who could beat a hundred RPGs first and so I I forced myself through this but I always remember the day I beat it I we I was talking with my friend who was also playing it at his house and trying to beat it and then I went to Red Lobster that night after I beat Sephiroth all excited. It wasn't because I beat it. We were going there anyway. The family was that year. Was that just celebratory dinner a little Some biscuits at Red Lobster. was for me, but that wasn't the plan. just remember my mom going, you almost done? We got a cold. I'm like, yeah, Saffron just wouldn't die. Oh, no, you're being hassled to leave. Oh, you're in that situation. Oh, no. I think anybody listening can identify with the being hassled to leave. you're like, no, I can't leave yet. No, they were they were good about it. They knew that game meant a lot to me. But I want to say I was either in middle school at the time. Probably would have been in middle school. A little bit older. It was a few years. And then when I was in high school, I replayed this again in six for sure, because my girlfriend lived with me. But then she moved back to Minnesota before I could come. I ended up playing through this game again because she was playing through it also. And then we talked about it. And that was the last time I beat it. So one of the things I'm picking up on here as we're talking about, we'll out to fall fancy seven a little bit, because I a lot of our recollections of games have to do with time and place. And it sounds like you were playing Final Fantasy 7 and their Endurage of Cerberus as well during a time period where things were, let's just say, unsettled. Might be good way of putting it. Well, I feel like wasn't chaotic as much. mean, because my life didn't get capped to like 06. So when I was replaying this when I graduated, I graduated in 06. But still, were replaying it because you had the partner that was really into it or still isn't too very, very into Final Fantasy 7. Oh it's their favorite game of all time. still uh so i'm curious if final fantasy seven is linked to that period of time for you and the answer is no yeah really okay i'm just 100 it's it's probably a big reason why i have never touched again since oh six it's probably why ff8 was on the podcast before seven is and i would think about putting nine on or five or four anything but seven like even though seven probably do better for me like It's the same reason why avon shoulder and hasn't happened on the podcast even though i've talked about doing it Same same same reason I so deep down inside. I think it all kind of comes down to the same thing That is just hard for me to even though like I don't care anymore But it's just i'm positive that if I start digging into that it's going to take mike back to six Yeah, and that's it doesn't sound like that's a great place to be taking back to no, I'm gonna you on it Yeah, that's fine. I think I just because and again, I'm not going to push on it. But I do think it interesting that how we how we kind of connect those time periods. I wonder if I think about games and time periods for myself. I'm trying to find I'm trying to think of games that I used to play when I was in challenging situations. I was actually, don't really have a lot of those because when I was in challenging relational situations, I was not allowed to play games. It was because I was not allowed. So I don't think I have a lot of those personally. But, yeah, I would love to hear your opinion on it now if you were to to take that step, because I would really be it'd be interesting to see how if how it how it reflects for you now that you are, you know, 2006, 2024. But we're talking like 18 years removed. It'll probably happen because I. I know I need to cover it on Game of My Mouth, it needs to exist in that catalog. And it's one of those games that I need to read and I want to replay. It's long and I just don't It is long. It is long. I did not replay it for this show. I replayed a little bit of it. And then the Steam version I have, I got bugged out of progression and... a little character wouldn't show up at the bar for me to talk to to get me into this. And I just, just screw something screwed up. And I said, forget it. It's not worth it. So I've been researching it, like the story and such. the story is actually pretty awesome. A final fantasy seven. It's a great story. It's just told so weird and jumbled. It's very confusing when you play any, but if you watch like a chronological, like here's the story of final fantasy seven. It's actually fascinating and actually really cool. Interesting. It's actually very neat. Yeah. But anyway, I just find it interesting that you had that you had that weird, that weird time period. Second episode down a few more to go as we continue journeying through the memories and recollections of Final Fantasy 7. Next week we're gonna do more of the same more intros and first impressions. We had so many I almost put it in one episode but I said let's just break it up so everybody gets a fair shot at getting their stories heard. So that's what we're gonna do. Next week we're gonna hear more first impressions and introductions. Thank you so much to Kev and Pete Harney for helping me cut up these interviews so they can be played on these episodes. Their help is so important in making the show happen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks again to my patrons for their patronage and thank you for listening to this edition of A Gamer Looks at 40. If you want to connect with the show, I am on all the social medias, most prominently, Blue Sky, TikTok. occasionally twittered these days because it's a bit of a dumpster fire and Anything else is located at a gamer looks at forty four zero dot com Thanks again for checking out the show on until next time just be kind to yourselves and each other