Friday, October 26, 2007

Left turn...

So, this is coming completely out of left field but I had to say something and what I want to say is very odd and requires some preface.

I am a video game nerd. I am not as big of one as I would like. I don't get the opportunity to do a lot of playing in my everyday life and I only make time to play for very important events (mostly a new Zelda game or Final Fantasy). But if I were to credit one, single video game for my love of the whole thing, it would have to be Final Fantasy 7 (just a second...I can feel my nerd status jumping up like 5 points, this might be a new level).

The whole game is amazing. The story that you are playing through is enveloping and intriguing. The characters are complex and real. Sometimes the game is a fantasy adventure that is more than anything that you imagined before and sometimes the game shows you scenes that are rooted in strong emotional circumstances that were some of the most powerful, amazing, depressing, uplifting, or shattering in your life. In short, the game is truly an amazing experience.

I am writing all of this because I have been listening to the soundtrack of the game recently (wait...there goes my nerd status jumping another 20 points). Not the orchestral version but the stuff taken directly from the game (this is a Playstation 1 game and a fairly early one at that). I must say that I am impressed. Music has a great ability to conjure emotions and memories in people in general but I didn't think that listening to the soundtrack from FF7 would be so...powerful. I hate to use that word because it might be viewed as silly but nothing else really fits. I had forgotten about all the crazy stuff that occurred in that game and how amazing it really was.

In the past 5 years I have played probably 30 video games or more. I have finished maybe 4. Strangely enough this soundtrack and the memories I have of playing this game make me want to play through it again. I have beaten this game 10 times at least. I have a game saved in a spot where I have conquered every enemy the game could throw at me. I am literally more powerful than any other creature on the face of the world map, and I want to play the game again from the beginning.

That is replay value my friends. That is a good game.

I would feel silly about saying all of this (and I kind of do) but I know for a fact that there are a few people that read this blog that know what I am talking about. I know that the scene where Aeris gets killed has made an impression on at least 2 people that I know so, I think that maybe I am not that weird (just pretty weird).

Back to your regularly scheduled lives...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am with you, Joe. As far as sound tracks go I can tell you that that the final boss battle composition flipped me out the first time I played it. There was chanting in a video game! I was so unnerved by the creepiness of it all I nearly forgot how to play and what I needed to do... The other part that still impresses me to this day is how much emotion the creators were able to make balloon characters express... They may have been made up of nothing but squares, triangles and circles, but the characters still had their own stances, walks and gestures that were recognizable and 'real.' I love FFVII.

Stephanie said...

Well, I watched a special on G4 over the summer that talked about this issue and how the FF games created a new genre of music, video game music. There are awards for this genre now.... I thought it was really cool. I yes.... I have the FF 7-9 soundtracks..... :-)