SeVIIen

The Final Fantasy game series is one of those series that's achieved such status with us that any particular installment can be referred to simply by number. After about eight years, I finally sat down and started playing VII a few weeks ago. I had been meaning to buy and furthermore play this game for the longest fucking time, but just never got around to it. The same goes for VIII, which I have owned for a couple of years but have not put significant effort into. Yeah, the game series has legendary status with me, even though I've only played one of them all the way through (that being X). I kinda feel like I've actually already played VII since I watched ETP play so much of it our freshman year in the dorms, though. The sad thing is, with as much as I watched him play that fucking game, there was still quite a bit of it that I didn't witness. That kid was a fucking machine playing that game. Case in point: Thursday.

I've made reference to Thursday before. Searching through my archives, though, I couldn't find an instance of where I actually talked about Thursday, though. So get ready for another boring story of ours from back in the day.

This dipshit friend of ours was actually the one who first bought VII. His reason for buying it? "It's three discs!" But anyway, after a couple of days, he realized that he wasn't going to get any work done if he had VII sitting there in his room to play (despite this realization, this kid never finished college). ETP, on the other hand, can balance a schedule that includes heavy video game time along with skipping classes that he already knows everything in anyway. The kid is that good. So he set off on a VII quest.

One morning, not surprisingly at this juncture a Thursday morning, I got up. I don't know if ETP was already playing when I got up, but before I left for my four-hour chem lab, he was at it. Upon returning to our room from lab, he was still playing. After awhile, I left for work, with him still going. I was at work for at least another few hours, and when I got home, he was still playing. I can't remember what time he stopped that night, but it turned out to be a 14-hour marathon. He took time out for dinner (I think) and to hit the can, but that was it. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but trust me -- Thursday was fucking epic. How could it not be if out of all the Thursdays throughout history, that is the only one known simply as "Thursday"?

I'm not in Thursday territory yet. Shit, Thursday alone is nearly half the time I've put into playing the game thus far. I'm at just over 30 hours by the game clock (so a bit more in real time), and have just broken into the second disc. Of course, I don't quite have the free time to be logging 14-hour FF days, despite my rigorous social schedule. Since I've been busting ass at work and have been ordered to take some time off along with the upcoming Thanksgiving break, there's a chance I might get in some good hours in the coming days. Even still, I don't know if I can ever match Thursday.

I've been playing it off and on, sometimes going a week without touching it, then picking it up and playing until well into the morning. That'll happen with those fucking games. I've been hitting it decently hard the past couple of days since I finally had some time, plus I've just been pushing it so I can get to the part where Aeris dies. For anyone who has played the game already, you know what I'm talking about. For anyone who hasn't played the game but was thinking about it, just consider ruining part of the plot my gift to you.

And no, I wasn't trying to get to this particular part because I'm an asshole and I like it when the good guys get killed off, it's because I've been dreading that part and I just wanted to get it over with. I cared for that character a great deal, mainly just because she liked me (er, well, my video-game alter ego) for no reason whatsoever other than the plot demanded it. That's appealing to a guy like me who isn't going to be able to get real interest from a woman even with significant effort which I'm not even willing to put in. Sad? Yes. But have you read anything else here, for fuck's sake? You should know by now if so.

Sure, Tifa is hot and all, and she kicks some ass. But Aeris was cute and friendly and on top of that zero-effort, and that's just grand. So yeah, I liked Aeris, and now she's fucking dead, leaving us to move on with the rest of the miserable affair. Of course, thanks to ETP, I pretty much know a lot of what goes down and how it ends. I mean, beyond the fact that you win, which is a given with any FF game if you just play it long enough. I know some of the salient plot points, like how you're not real but actually a dream or some stupid shit like that. And I know that Sephiroth has wings for legs, can't wear his... Ah-DI-das! To make sure we're clear, the fact that you now know this is ETP's fault, not mine. And yeah, I've killed all this time playing a game where I know what happens, and I will proceed to kill even more time over the coming weeks. But as they say, life is a journey, not a destination, or some other such shit. Actually, the game is just fucking fun, even if you know what happens.

One of the more entertaining things about the more recent FF games is getting to name some or all of the characters in your party. Many just get left alone out of respect for the character, like Tifa. But many just demand name changes. Like Barret; he has to be named something to do with Mr. T because if you put some gold chains on that guy, that's who he is. Other characters have gotten names in the past that are now legendary, like the main female character from VIII, who will forever be known as Caitlin. This came about because that one dumbass I mentioned who first bought VII was for awhile obsessed with this girl named Caitlin, and as such we gave the character that name out of mockery (and also because ETP wasn't going to leave her name as Rhino).

For my VII quest, I just named the main character after me because I'm gay (I thought about naming him Link, though). Tifa and Aeris got left alone, and Mr. T is Mr. T. Cid got named "El Cid" because, again, he has to be. For Red XIII I couldn't come up with anything clever, so I just called him "Dogg." It was a couple of weeks later that I realized that I should have named him Raw Dog, but oh well. Vincent is such a fucking bag that the only name I could give him was Dooshe. In his case, though, I decided it needs to be pronounced Doo-shay. I haven't gotten Muffie yet, but that's obviously what she'll be called if I come across her. And Cait Sith? What the fuck is that thing? Could be meat, could be cake. I think it's... Meatcake!

I don't have the knack for naming characters like ETP does, though. There was one in Xenogears (or at least, I'm pretty sure it was Xenogears) that he named Fuckwad because, well, it looked like a fuckwad. Then there was the Guardian Diabolus from VIII, who is known to us as Asshole after ETP got pissed over how hard he was to beat.

As I've mentioned, this will be only the second FF game I've made it through, assuming, of course, that my video game ADHD doesn't kick in like it has with everything else in the past couple of years. Yup, somehow, X is the only one I've gone all the way through, probably because I got it and started playing it as the same time as ETP, thus allowing the whole game to be new to me the first time playing it for myself. Yes, I know, X was a piece of shit, even though, I'm sorry, it wasn't that bad. No, it wasn't that good. No, it wasn't VII or VIII, but both of us still put in our hours. Both of us wasted a bunch of fucking time in the calm plains. Both of us put in the effort to get those stupid ultimate weapons or whatever the fuck they were called. Even if Titus and Yuna were super lame, Auron was a bad-ass. And you, I might add, are the one who bought X-2, not me. Yes, I was the one who suckered you into it and I'm a bad person for that, but you still didn't have to do it.

Okay, now I can get back to talking to the rest of you. Should I get through it, this will also be the first game I've played all the way through in many years. I think the last one I didn't get bored with was Chrono Cross, which if you haven't played it, is a solid fucking game.

Shit, I've been talking about VII all this time, and I haven't even gotten to discussing the soundtrack. Talk about fucking epic. VIII is right up there with it, maybe even surpassing it. I may not have made it through either game at this point, but I sure as hell have played the shit out of those soundtracks. And since the games have come up in this post, Xenogears and Cross also have great soundtracks. All worth the money even though they're somewhat pricey, and don't be an ass and get bootlegs. This coming from the kid who hasn't actually purchased VII, but would if it were fucking in stock when he's looking to buy.

Correction: I just put in an order, and it should be on its way soon.

Alright, so that's really about it. As you may have surmised, the only real purpose of this post was so that I could use that title, which, yes, I have just been itching to use. That and so that I could update ETP on where I'm at and also allow the two of us to reminisce about the usual stupid bullshit without even having to talk to one another. Not like ETP gives that much of a shit about my progress; he has his own life. And by his own life, I mean Law and Order: SVU.