I had been playing video games on and off for a number of years; I started playing things on the NES like Mario Bros. and Rescue Rangers, then moved on to the SNES when that came out and mainly played like three games; Mario World, Power Rangers and Donkey Kong Country. Sure there were some other games in the mix, but those were the ones I really remembered playing a lot. I was 12, going into the 6th grade when I got my first taste of an RPG.
My brother and one of his friends had rented two different games; Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. I hadn't paid too much attention to it and then randomly one day I became rather involved with watching my brother play one of these. I began to ask a lot of questions like; "why are you doing that thing that makes the screen all yellow?"(him casting a spell) "what's the deal with the big box at the bottom of the screen?"(the battle menu) and my favorite one; "what's the point of this game?" Finally, I grew tired of asking questions and had to try for myself and my first RPG was not only memorable for me, but it became a classic;
That's right, Chrono Trigger was my very first RPG. We had rented it from one of our video stores so the game had already been beaten and unlocked the New Game + on it. Honestly, I think that was a nice perk for someone who never really played on RPG before; you got all your best gear and levels, plus all your normal items from the previous play through so just learning and playing through to see what an RPG was all about, was nice to not have to worry about building and such.
My brother was to walk me through the game, but something came on the TV in my parents' room that he wanted to see, so he told me he'd be right back and had me enter the Millennial Fair and get Marle, but not go to the Middle Ages yet. I waited for over 30 minutes and he was still watching whatever was on so I went ahead. I managed to get all the way through the Middle Ages without him and when he came back Crono was on trial.
As I went farther through the game he felt there were certain spots I would have trouble with and decided to do them for me; The Sunken Desert and Death Peak to name a few. When it was time to do all the "side" stuff he told me to skip the Black Omen and either use thee bucket at The End of Time or ram Epoch into Lavos. Even though he "held my hand" I rather enjoyed the game and was determined to play all the through the whole thing on my own. Little did I know, that determination would become somewhat of an obsession.
The more I played the more I actually did on my own till I could do everything; it got to the point where I knew the entire game like the back of my hand and could play it with my eyes closed. Almost every week with my allowance I would rent it and to a point wrack up late fees. So my mom talked with the manager at our Blockbuster (she knew her from her job at the laundromat) and she was allowed to buy the game from them.
I started getting the alternate endings and at the time had found all but one of them. When 6th grade started we had this thing called Advisery, where our Home Room would split in half. One group stayed with our normal teacher and the other would go with another teacher. I thankfully had my normal HR teacher. He asked us, as a part of "get to know each other time" to bring in a hobby of ours or something we were interested in. I asked if I could bring in the SNES and play my favorite game for everyone and he said okay. Since there were 3 files on the game, all of which were at different points I gave my group the choice of what they wanted to see me do; continue where I was on my current file (Magus' Castle), Frog vs Magus ending, Frog returning to normal ending or the actual ending. The guy vote won out as they wanted to see Frog vs Magus. As I went through the fight of Lavos my classmates wanted to see all the different tech attacks and because of that time was running out and the teacher wanted to turn off the game so he could ask me questions (like my birthday, favorite color and stuff like that) the guys all went "nooo" I laughed and said I could talk and play at the same time, but I needed to use the more powerful tech to win in our time frame. The guys nodded and eagerly watched the ending as it played. Afterwards they asked me what the hell happened and who won lol.
As time went on I did play through without the New Game + when it was released for thee Playstation as a part of Final Fantasy Chronicles. I was so happy to be able to see the anime cutscenes they had added in addition to the newer/remixed versions of the characters' themes. And of course I was thrilled when it was released for the Nintendo DS with another ending added in. My only complaint with the DS version is that it updated the translation and where that really isn't a bad thing over all, I just liked the original we had. Especially for my favorite scene in where Frog opens the sealed cave to get to Magus' Castle;
Frog: "Handth over the Masamune."
Crono: *sticks the Masamune into the ground*
Frog: "Mine name is Glenn, Cyrus' hopes and dreams and now the Masamune. Forth with I shall slay Magus and restore honor" *grips the hilt of the sword with both hands*
A serge for energy emits from the sword and he cuts an opening to the cave.
Frog: *in a kick ass pose*
Him just proclaiming that he will slay Magus really touches me, the new translation didn't really have the same impact in my opinion. Overall the game is just fantastic; the graphics were top notch for its time making it a pleasure to play through every time I did. The music fit for every scene you were in and helped the epic story flow and the characters were all unique and even if Crono was the "silent protagonist" he still showed a lot of personality. I am really happy that this was my first RPG and I could easily recommend it to anyone looking to start out.
After Chrono Trigger it was hard to really find another game I would love as much to play it through that many times. I had played through Breath of Fire II, Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinitrals, and Final Fantasy VI; and where as they were all good games, I didn't have that same love as I did for Chrono Trigger. That was, until the Playstion;
The commercials really did a great job grabbing my attention for this game. At the time, it really looked like you were watching a movie trailer as it said; "A war that seemed endless" and then flipped to Cloud putting Aerith in the water; "And a love that could never be..." Way to spoil the game advertising people, right? But actually it was the "love that could never be" that perked my interest in the game.
We didn't have a Playstation when it was originally released, but a friend of mine and my brother's would bring his over and play through the game at our house so we could see it. He hit the point where we all know Aerith was gonna die and he refused to play farther for awhile cause he didn't want to see her killed. I can't quite remember how far we actually saw him play before we got our own copy.
Final Fantasy VII was like a whole new creature to me as the system for the materia was rather complex compared to what I had been used to. And I love it honestly, being able to customize your characters to whatever job/role you wanted or needed was a great idea. The 3D characters were great to look at, though I will admit when Cloud answers the PHS and holds it up to his hair with his block-like hand I laugh. Every time, I laugh.
The music is the one thing in every Final Fantasy game that I can say I really enjoy. And this was no exception; the transition of Aeith's death with her theme playing was heartbreaking and to go from that emotional scene to a boss battle with J-E-N-O-V-A and have that song continuing to play was extremely memorable. There wasn't a single person in my group of friends who didn't like the songs in this game.
The characters were interesting and had some depth to them, though now as I look back on this, I wish they had more. Especially Aerith since she died so early on. This is where it's interesting to look back; FF7 was the fan favorite for many years and I was one big fangirl of it. I loved everything about it and had little complaints about the game. I could rattle off my favorite character at the snap of a finger, my favorite scene and even my favorite limit break. Now though, I can see the game has its flaws. I bring it down to mostly a translation problem as the Reunion and the Sephiroth clones were explained rather poorly. And the commercial portraying Aerith and Cloud as a couple was sort of misleading since they never actually were a couple; they just had the one date and that was if you didn't treat her badly. Character development did get slightly more involved as they released Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core. But for the time and what was there; I loved it.
But it wouldn't be till the following year that I was exposed to what has become my favorite game ever;
My brother was once again the first to pick up this title. At first it was the demo that was with Brave Fencer Musashi and I admit, it was entertaining but not enough for me to really want to try it. That didn't stop my brother though, he rented it fairly quickly after it was released and I watched him play as I often do.
The story was very captivating as it pulled me in almost right away; there were so many twists and turns right at the beginning that you never could tell where the story was going to lead you. He made it to the part where you get Billy and stopped; not sure why he stopped but he did. Now, yes girl moment, I became more interested in the story when Billy was introduced because I thought he was cute and because my brother wouldn't continue I felt I should, so I copied his file to my memory card and played on. Honestly it was Billy's story that truly made me love this game; his character was so complex I was amazed. All of the characters were, actually. I felt that you could really feel some sort of connection with them as you played.
Of course much like all RPGs, Xenogears excelled at the music as well as each song was very fitting. And for a game where most of it is story with an intermission of game play it really needed it. The combat system was extremely unique as I had never seen one like it and it was honestly one of the better ones who tried something different.
The downside to Xenogears? Well, it was rushed for starters. Xenogears is episode 5 in what was supposed to be a 6 part series. I am fairly certain that episode 4 at least would have explained some more of Fei and Elly's past lives or some back story on Citan, Sigurd, and Jesse as some of the events for those characters are briefly mentioned, but never explained. Disc 1 was so full of story and Disc 2 felt very lackluster and because of it there are still things left unanswered and it kind of ticks me off. However, I was lucky enough to find this; a website that translated the time line that was in the Xenogears Perfect Works artbook. It explains the a formed mentioned Citan and Jesse as well as somethings on Miang, Billy's mother and more. Any fan of Xenogears should give it a glance.
Between all these games I really wanted to tell a story just as epically good and complex. It was the start of me really wanting to write. And as such I will show my appreciation to these classic games by listing my favorite character, scene and song for each game;
Chrono Trigger:
Favorite Character: Frog/Glenn
Favorite Scene: Frog opening the sealed cave
Favorite Song: Frog's Theme
Final Fantasy VII:
Favorite Character: Reno
Favorite Scene: Aerith and Cloud's date at the Gold Saucer
Favorite Song: Cid's Theme
Xenogears:
Favorite Character: Billy Lee Black
Favorite Scene: The fight with Stein
Favorite Song: Small Two of Pieces
Still wondering why I did these in parts? Well you'll just have to wait and find out won't you, see you all next time! ^^/
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