I, like all old school console players, put a disk in the drive of our drug of choice, close the lid, turn the power on, and gaze at the logo screens. And then bask in the mellifluous tones of the Final Fantasy Prelude. And in this moment I am at peace. The arpeggios of the simple MIDI+ pings were perfected in 1997, after being slowed down the game before, with the release of Final Fantasy VII.
Here is a game that I have played a dozen times, played most of the compilation, watched the movie, tried to write an ode to two characters, and consider one of said characters the most important character in all of video games. Thrilled to be able to do this, I open up the main menu, 'wonder' why I named Cloud “Fei” from a save from an unknown time ago, return to the main menu, and select New Game. The opening cutscene...crashes... Fortunately, it takes me directly to the opening mission. I wait for the sound to catch up and play on. This tutorial level is probably the best tutorial in version video game-dom. It starts the game off on a literal bang, sets up the plot for the next 40 hours, and introduces two of the four most important characters, personality and gameplay-wise. The music here tells the player we’re not in a high fantasy setting anymore with heavy metallic percussion hanging over the air as a slow, heavy melody plays above it. There’s an OCR version of this song that I would use as my entrance music if I were ever an evil professional wrestler.
Cloud and Barrett, the first black dude in the franchise, walk through a power plant with a singular goal in mind, blow it up. We are an eco-terrorist organization, hopefully, helping the planet named AVALANCHE. We won’t know if we’re correct until later in the game, but, spoiler alert, we are. Cloud is a mercenary who doesn’t care, Barrett is the noble knight. We get to the bottom and have the first boss fight of the game. This is an easy fight so long as you don’t rush reading the questionable translation. The Guard Scorpion dies and we’re on an easy timer to leave before the reactor blows (20 minutes). The only negative thing about this dungeon is that is doesn’t properly introduce the main game mechanic, Materia. It’s tutorialised shortly after this so and there are no replacement options, thus far, so it’s fine. After escaping, we wall through the nearby sector, city, and talk to a woman in pink selling flowers. I accidentally selected the wrong option and didn’t buy one. Ues, I am accidentally a monster and have ruined this whole run. We then get chased by Shinra Soldiers, the enemy of our eco-terrorist group and jump on a moving train which, conveniently, is filled with our team from the prior mission. We take the train down to the alums and meet playable characters number three, Tifa.
We learn the backstory of Tifa, she’s an old friend of Cloud who's working as a bartender at Seventh Heaven, and she eventually joins us in the next mission. Due to a botched security screening, we reach the second reactor in an obtuse fashion, but we’re able to do the job regardless. Mission well done...until we try to leave. We can bomb it anytime we like, but we can never leave. It’s here the meet the Big Bad Guy, President Shinra, who attacks us with a giant robot named Air Buster. It’s an odd fight since he’s trapped between us. Due to its poor placement, it dies easily to a few lightings and Limit Breaks which makes AB explode causing our hero to plummet to his death.
Or through a church roof and onto a bed of flowers. This is probably the most important scene in game history. Here we meet Aerith, the oft-misnamed flower seller from the slums. Her secondary theme, Flowers Blooming In the Church, plays which has Aerith’s theme underneath a slightly different bell assortment. She wakes up our roof-fallen hero and tells him about her flowers, the slums, and her "useless" Materia until a man in a suit shows up to do what men in suits do, ruin things. They attempt to kidnap Aerith, by shooting her with live ammo but is able to escape with Cloud dropping barrels on them. Or her own strength if the player doesn’t get it. After escaping through a Cloud shaped hole was n the roof, we get to meet Aerith’s mother which is where I called it a night.
As I said last night, I’m doing a job class challenge for this run. I’ll post what I’m going by, and why at the end, but I’ll just state now that I don’t think it’s going...at all yet. Right now, there’s not enough Materia to properly differentiate each character. I have three healers, no 'true' black mages, and my main character isn’t doing his job. This should be expected so I’m not disheartened yet. All job-based FF games start off with everyone feeling like this. There’s only so much we can do at this point, but I know we’re getting close. I’m still excited. I don’t know about secondary jobs just yet, but I’m keeping my options open for when we reach the Overworld.
Jobs:
Cloud: Spellblade. During development, Cloud was planned to be a Spellblade. One of his options in Final Fantasy Record Keeper is Spellblade. I like Spellblades and think their criminally underused. It just makes sense.
Barrett: Ranger. He loves the earth. He has a ranged weapon (gun arm). It, again, makes EVEN more sense. He’s probably the reason I’ll go with secondary jobs.
Tifa: Monk. She punches stuff. It’s the most obvious. Curious how open this feels, another secondary candidate.
Aerith: White Mage. She’s the main heroine. FFRK has her focusing on healing. Her limit breaks function in white mage coolness. Another obvious one. Some people have her as a Geomancer which is why I have her the Lightning Materia I accidentally bought, but once I seel that for a reasonable price, I don't know since Geomancery doesn't work in this game.
Red XIII: Red Mage. The color is his name, appearance, he has good magic and attack stats. I love me some Red Mage and Nanaki. I might make him Blue Mage secondary since he shows up with the E Skill Materia.
Yuffie: Thief/Ninja. It’s what she does, calls herself, and has a backstory around it. Even more obvious than Tifa.
Vincent: Black Mage. He has the best magic stat. He’s edgy. What else is he gonna be? Shapeshifter? Maybe I’ll come up with an interesting secondary.
Cid: Dragoon. His first name, last name, weapon, backstory, and limit breaks all work. He is going to be the most limited character so I’ve got my eyes open for his secondary.
Cait Sith: I'm not using him. Fight me.
I just persuaded myself into using secondary job classes so I’ll into that tomorrow.
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