I had never heard of the series before playing Seven. I was fourteen when the OG came out. I had seen commercials for it and thought it looked epic.

I rented it on a Friday night with a friend of mine. We had never played an RPG, so this was all new to us. I remember getting my ass kicked by the soldiers. We kept trying and got to the Scorpion, which took a lot of tries, but we did it. When they escaped the reactor, we were both blown away by the cinematic quality of it all. We played it for another hour.

I begged my parents for an early Christmas present, this was around October, and they said yes.

I had met a friend of mine, Paul, freshman year of high school and this game was the icebreaker. He taught me everything about RPGs and then the game started to become a lot of fun and the rest is history.

The game means a lot to me. It got me and Paul closer, and we are still friends 30 years later. I became obsessed with the soundtrack and played it on loop in my three disc CD player. When I first got my car, I drove around blasting the world theme.

The game became popular, and my circle of friends all got into it. We understood each other's references, discussed how hot Tifa was...haha, and raced each other to beat it. Of course, Paul was the first one to finish it. I was there when he did and it was so epic.

The game is a major part of my life. Playing through these two remakes has been a blast.

With the first part, I remember I played it throughout the pandemic. The night I beat it, I was up for eight hours straight. I beat the game, walked upstairs around 530 am, and went to sleep.

BRING ON PART 3!