In an effort to focus on something non-Street Fighter related, I thought I'd continue my FFVII adventures. If you're reading this you may want to check out the first leg of the story here.

After having seen the game breakingly epic Knights of the Round cast, it could not be soon enough that I found a copy of that game. Something like the third Best Buy I went to finally had it in stock and the game did not leave my hand until it was safely home with disc 1 in my PS2. Since anyone reading this has more than likely beaten the game a decade ago, I won't bore you with in game details, but I loved it. Coming from 8's patience testing draw system, materia quickly found it's way to my heart. The dialog and early storyline I ate up. I even managed to appreciate the ridiculously blocky character models.

However.....I was not very good at rpgs. Leveling? Multiple gear options? Limit Breaks? Yeah I didn't really grasp any of it. So when I finally reached Nibelheim (taking far longer than any reasonable person should), I found myself woefully underpowered going through Mount Nibel. And just barely scraping through them, the dreaded Materia Keeper smoked me time and again.


This thing gave me nightmares

Now a habit I've developed through games I've played reared its ugly head. Hitting a wall, then convincing myself the only option is to restart. Typically I reach a level I'm not prepared for, and all the secrets or items I've missed along the way start dancing around in my head insisting that I delete the old game and start fresh with what I've learned to that point. Saying that everything will be better then. They lie.

The thing these voices fail to mention in their save file purification is how much it can wear on a person to go back and do it all again. Soooo, I stopped playing. Cloud and the gang always hung in the back of my mind, but with school and the real PS2 library in full swing, it was just there that they stayed.

Until about two years later. Having moved from the dorms to an apartment, I now had the freedom of my own room and tv with which to catch up on games that weren't NCAA Football, NHL, or Mario Party (that's all that seemed to make it on the apartment tv). So there I was, past the Materia Keeper, through Rocket Town and the Gold Saucer, ready to finally set aside disc 1 with pride. Well, a little project a friend and I had our eyes on for a little while was finally arriving at its release date.


If you can hear the background music right now, then you know where this is going.

I've heard it said several times and it couldn't be more true.....if you play WoW, you don't really play anything else. Every other game just feels like filler when you could be hanging with your guild, improving your gear, or leveling that fourth 60. Throw in scheduled weekly raids and real life itself starts to get warped. But of course, that's another story.

I think I'm gonna stretch this out into one more part (trilogies are in these days right?). So....
UNTIL NEXT TIME!