A Confession

I am, by all accounts, a gamer. Since I can remember, I was playing games in some form or fashion. In fact, I cannot think of one major "greatest game of all-time" I have not played. I beat Ocarina of Time. I played Counter-Strike until I got carpel tunnel (true story). I owned Halo, etc. And yet, I still feel a twinge of regret in my gaming career: I have never beaten, played, or even touched Final Fantasy VII. I understand if you quit reading right now and brand me a horrible heathen who does not deserve your time and effort.

Going Back in Time?

For those of you who have not left me, thank you. Now, I hold many opinions very strongly. One of them I know with metaphysical, 100% certainty. Time travel will never, ever occur. I understand that in theory it can, what with the theory of relativity, Back to the Future, the fact that Lost's "The Constant" is the single greatest episode in TV history, and so forth. There are just too many questions that are unanswerable:

1. "If you ever travel back in time, don't step on anything, because even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can't imagine."  Even if you somehow conceivably built a time machine, and went back, you would almost certainly change the future of humanity, by sneezing or meeting some sexy missing link that you get wasted with and then, well, you have encountered the ultimate "Grandfather Paradox."

2. More importantly to this problem: "Bootstrapping." To illustrate this, I will use the same example provided by Chuck Klosterman: Who owns the rights to "Johnny B. Goode" in "Back to the Future"? Does Marty McFly? He goes back and plays a song from the future and Chuck Berry's cousin Marvin hears it, and plays it for him over the phone. Or does Chuck Berry? As Marty would not have known it without hearing it from him first. This example was used to confound the most ardent of time travel believers, one Travis Q. McReynolds. 

The Point

The point is that you cannot go back in time. I cannot go back and play Final Fantasy VII from the perspective of myself in 1997. So I will be playing through it now, and blogging about it under this title, taking you through the experience with me. My good friend Travis and his lovely wife gave me PSN points to purchase the game with for Xmas, which I did. 

I have always wondered what it would be like to have a person watch the prequel Star Wars movies who has never seen the originals (but is still a huge Sci-Fi movie fan) and get their opinion on the movies, since they would be able to give an unbiased opinion on why those movies are so awfully shitty. In this blog, I aim to give you the opinions of a person who has never played any Final Fantasy game, but has played basically every other great game ever.

I aim to recount my opinions of the game from each Highlander sword to every awkward man-date with Barret. I will try not to bastardize the process and crack jokes about how bad the graphics look (but probably will). I aim to be as serious as possible in my critique as one can be looking back to a game that has been hyped beyond belief. 

Hopefully in doing this, I will fulfill my role as a gamer and not inadvertently create my own gaming paradox wherein I somehow re-enter 1997, tell my 14-year old self never to go to law school and somehow invest in something called "Google" while my 14-year old me looks at me quizzically and wonders exactly what the Internet outside of America Online looks like?

So please follow me won't you? Do Travis a favor, and make his purchase for me worthwhile.