Normally I save Friday for Epic Win/Epic Fail, but as it's going to be basically the same thing as I usually whine about during school (school, homework, school, homework, bus system) I decided to start something new. Whenever I play a video game I always have a lot of thoughts about the gameplay and a lot about the plot and characters--especially within gameplay whenever they do something especially cool/stupid. And for the past few months I have been playing Final Fantasy VII.

Yes. That Final Fantasy VII.

Follow up:

Truthfully this is the first time I'm playing it through. When it first came out I wasn't into video games, and when I originally found a copy in Goodwill I gave it to a friend because he said he liked the franchise. I didn't really care to play it until a few things happened. One was I found a game guide in Goodwill and another was when I got Kingdom Hearts. I got Kingdom Hearts because of the Disney Characters, not because of the FF ones. I thought the FF chars in the game were awesome and didn't get a chance to give the guide to the same friend I gave the game. I also saw a bunch of cool art on Deviant Art and finally saw Advent Children. This is when I fell in love (sorta, but not entirely literally) with Vincent Valentine, and regretted giving the game to my friend (the regret is he never actually played it. D'oh!). Then during the winter I was talking with another friend and he agreed to sell me his game for 20 bucks (when you see the prices for second-hand copies of VII that's practically giving it to me for free). School started soon after, and so I had to wait until summer to actually start playing. And to catch you up without having a 40 page blog, I'm already on the second disk, close to playing the 3rd and have just secured the 3rd piece of Huge Materia from Cid's Rocket.

First off Cid is a senile old coot and I can't stand him. A lot of people like him since he swears and stuff, but if I wanted to deal with a swearing redneck I'd actually deal with my relatives. During the lock code part he kept giving all this different advice including making sure I pressed the triangle button, I tried a whole bunch of combos based off of what he said and *none* of them worked. I played through that part (mow through the soldiers, fight Rude, fight more soldiers, watch rocket launch *whee*) FOUR TIMES. Finally I got fed up and looked online for the right combo: the Triangle button wasn't even pressed once! Stupid Cid... (and for those who are saying, 'hey, didn't she say she had a game guide?', well I do, but it's for the PC version, the buttons don't transition over, unless your keyboard has a triangle button I don't know about...)

Before moving on I've taken on Chocobo breeding in order to eventually get Knights of the Round, since pretty much every person says that Materia is *vital* to creaming Sephiroth. That part is actually a lot of fun, it reminds me of Pokemon, but I now have a personal vendetta against Joe and his chocobo Teioh. But I'll beat him soon, my pretty new Mountain Chocobo has a top speed of 114km, compared to Teioh's 116, and my Stamina is higher. What I don't get is how Joe can race in A *and* S rank, seems unfair. However, breeding Chocobo's drains your moneys fast. Before I started the first time I had over 100k gil, at one point I literally had only 7. Whee.

As for the characters: Cloud I sorta like, Tifa I like, Barret I like (people give him too hard a time, he's a good fighter and not a bad character), Vincent I freakin' love, Red is awesome, Yuffie is a pain in the ass, Cid is senile, Cait Sith I've learned to forgive and Aerith I didn't get a chance to know long enough to like or dislike.

And so I keep playing.