laceblade | Entries tagged with video games: final fantasy vii

I'm not blogging about my real life in public posts. I'm also not great at keeping on with Dreamwidth (or anything, really) as of late. I am behind on your life; I'm sorry.

What I came here to write about was the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which I completed on Sunday.

You guys, it was fucking perfect. Every second of it. The graphics, the English translation, the voice acting (I'd been SO worried about Aerith annoying me!!!), all of it. I love everyone more than I did before.
They all just kept saving each other and being there for one another, and the spoilery-things on top of everything else, seriously, I tried really hard to keep my hopes low for this, assuming it to be another Crisis Core or some other shallow entry, but this was an earnest love letter to all the fans.

I THIRST for fic and was/am spoiled in podsa and Glee fandoms by being directly linked to fic recommendations. For FF7, I'd only see fic recs on tumblr and am only there occasionally although trying to increase it for mood management. I am not adept at searching the AO3 for fic stone-cold like this!
WHICH IS ALL TO SAY: If you have ANY FF7 or FF7:R recs to drop, please do so in the comments.

I, meanwhile, need to go poke the

megaflare_ff fic I never finished & haven't touched for ~12 years because there were a lot of ghosts of moments there, between the draft and the playlist I'd made.

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

1) The OP for Samurai Champloo. This was the first anime for which I downloaded fansubs, because at college I finally had an internet connection fast enough to do so :*) The OP is stylistically perfect, imo. It perfectly sets the tone for an irreverent show about samurais set to hip-hop music, by the creator of Cowboy Bebop. I still know all the words ;) This show introduced me to MINMI, still one of my favorite artists to listen to. She did the ED, though, not this song!

"Samurai Champloo - Official Opening - "Battlecry"" (Watch on YouTube)

2) Glee performance of a mashup of Rihanna's Umbrella with Singin' in the Rain, performed on the high school stage full of water. The umbrellas make great props both as canes and for twirling while open, and splashing the water with hands and feet is pretty cool. Everyone looks smart in their suit outfits, it's the end of a guest appearance by Gwyneth Paltrow, where she was pretty great with the kids. It's a great deployment of Matthew Morrison, letting him sing a Broadway tune, and a good use of the kids to keep the beat seamless between the two songs. And any time you get to watch Harry Shum Jr. having the time of his life = good.
I still have a hard time watching a lot of Glee footage that includes Cory Monteith and Mark Salling.

"GLEE - Singing In The Rain/Umbrella (Full Performance) (Official Music Video)" (Watch on YouTube)

3) The Nibelheim flashback from Final Fantasy VII.

At this point in the game, all you knew about Sephiroth is that he just murdered everyone in the Shinra Building - including President Shinra, previously the biggest villain of the game. You followed a trail of blood throughout the building, having woken in the morning to find your characters' prison cells mysteriously unlocked, and everyone free to go, despite having spent hours breaking into their tough security.

The framing of Cloud's narration - telling the story to the rest of the party members - is the first time this band of randos has been able to talk after a fast-paced introductory section. Seeing Sephiroth's strength during the single battle you enter with him was chilling as a player.

It deepened the story, it introduced Nibelheim and its creepy music, and LATER ON the player's interpretation of reality as based on this flashback gets upended. This is why Tifa has a lot of, "..." going on even though she was present for this event that happened "5" years ago.

The mood, the creepy music, the haunted Shinra building, the human experimentation subplot, all of it was candy. Still my favorite part of the game, I think.

"Final Fantasy VII - The Kalm Flashback in Full" (Watch on YouTube)

Crossposts: https://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/764589.html

So approximately a decade after it came out, I finally played Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus.
For those unfamiliar, this is a shooting game that uses one of FF7's tertiary characters as the protagonist - Vincent's even optional, in FF7! In FF7, he has a rich but underutilized backstory that is told primarily through wordless flashbacks. Much is insinuated, but not articulated.

It's hard to beat FF7's protagonist in terms of angst, in that he looked up to his culture's war hero, left home to join the army & be like him, only to have that hero burn down his hometown, killing his mother and everyone else he ever cared about...AND THEN you find out halfway through the game that this character's memories have been fucked, and he's not even the person he thought he was.
No, Vincent beats that! By previously working for the Corporate Bad Guys and being an expert marksman, falling in love with a scientist working on biological experiments whom he's supposed to be protecting, discovering she got pregnant by an unscrupable man he loathes, and that she did it FOR SCIENCE, injects herself with JENOVA cells, gives birth to a future serial killer/wannabe-planet destroyer before tragically dying & causing Vincent to feel like he personally failed her, getting SHOT by an unscrupable man he loathes & basically brought back to life and tortured/experimented upon against his will, and literally sleeping in a coffin for the next 50 years to atone for his sins in the basement of a mansion in a town that was supposed to have burned down, until you/your party wake him up to join the fight. ALL! OF! THE! ANGST!

The fact that the guy voice-acting for Vincent Valentine is the dude who did Spike's voice in Cowboy Bebop doesn't hurt, either. For a video game, I though the voice-acting in this was pretty great.

This story focuses primarily on Vincent, but Reeve and Yuffie are pretty prominent as well. I've seen some reviews complain about this, but I'm actually really excited for a game focusing on these three. Of course, that didn't decrease my excitement when the rest of the party showed up. TIFA!! I loved seeing Cid's ship - of course he'd have a skylight that rotates images of natural life on the planet.

I'd put this off for a long time because when I initially tried playing it, I failed hardcore with the setup. It is absolutely necessary to play through the tutorial, but this was made interesting for me because you got to play Vincent-as-a-Turk, :D With the help of the tutorial, you get your bearings okay, although playing games like Star Wars Dark Forces I and II probably have helped me become accustomed to shooters. Sometimes I had to replay parts of missions what seemed like an endless number of times to finally beat them, but then I'd get rewarded with ANGST and more story, so it was okay. Also, some of the mechanics are aimed at people used to RPGs, in my opinion, in that they make it easier. At all times, you can literally use a Phoenix Down on yourself so that if you get shot/KO'ed, you're immediately resurrected. They make a few things difficult in that the number of items you can carry is severely limited, but overall the difficulty was not extreme.

I'd expected the plot to make way less sense than it did. This game was better than it had any right to be, and the twists in the story were totally unexpected [to me], and tied right into the larger Final Fantasy VII mythology. It was fun that Lucrecia still had some secrets.

I LOVE part of the scene that auto-plays when you start up the game and just let it cycle, where Vincent climbs to the top of the Sister Ray towards the end of disc 2, and finds Hojo collapsed over the computer screens/controls, and Vincent just levels his gun. GAH!!

Being able to play around in Midgar and Kalm, finding LOVELESS posters on walls when you're zooming around with your sniper scope, EXPLORING THE SEWERS BENEATH NIBELHEIM, I feel like this game was a love letter to fans, and almost like it was created specifically for me.
As I try to finally plow through some PS2 games to find which ones I actually enjoy/are worth keeping [or, to use the KonMari phrase, which "spark joy"], I'm delighted to have fallen in love with this one.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/760799.html

glass_icarus wrote, "Favorite female characters and why you love them? Any fandom :)"

SANTANA LOPEZ [Glee]
Not only is she half of my all-time favorite ship (Pezberry), but Santana is a sass-queen and a great singer to boot.
If you fell off the Glee wagon early (I certainly would not blame you), Santana was initially a sidekick character to Dianna Agron's white/blonde Quinn Fabray. Santana almost always appeared with Brittany, but it was usually Santana making the devastating one-liners as well as their characters' decisions. Because the show almost always presented Santana together with Brittany, they first presented a potential sexual relationship as a non-sequitur in a multi-party phone conversation - a joke that worked because of the other characters' surprised reactions.
But Naya Rivera wanted the camera on her at all times, and her background reactions in the choir room and in hallway scenes, usually hilarious as well as on-point, led her to bigger storylines, in part because she was one of the strongest actors on the show. [I'd say second only to Cory Monteith.] Her relationship with Brittany served as an opportunity to explore Santana's sexuality, and Rivera was there able to present a vulnerability that many fans latched on to.

In a show of self-centered teenagers, Santana is the one character who is always willing to GO THERE, to say what no one else will say. This was convenient for writers looking to push a plot forward, as well as viewers seeking vindication. She pointed out plot holes, hypocrisy, and uncomfortable truths. Even when the writing plummeted as the show continuously tried to take itself seriously for representing marginalized teenagers while also excorciating viewers for expecting anything but cutting comedy, Santana Lopez was reliably hilarious.

After having her vulnerability open her up, her character is also one of the few who has a clear progression on the show into self-acceptance and ability to love and care about other people. She learns how to have real, actual friends.

Many fic authors have given her the characterization and storylines that the show-runners never thought she deserved. She is my favorite character to write in A Song is a Weapon, and she's also my favorite character to read in this fandom.

Utena Tenjou [Revolutionary Girl Utena/Shoujo Kakumei Utena]
I'm not sure how accurate the translation was for the first sub I saw of this show, but when relaying the [first version of the] backstory, it said something like, "So impressed was she by him, that she decided to become a prince herself." This BLEW MY MIND. WHOA! A tiny girl gets saved by a prince AND THEREFORE DECIDES TO BECOME A PRINCE HERSELF. WHAT KIND OF AWESOME FUCKERY IS THIS.

Utena. Utena is that awesome. Her pink hair, her refusal to take sass, her tenacity in telling Anthy Himemiya that she's in a fucked up situation and no matter how many other people think it's just fine, it's really not okay.

I want to be Utena. I aspire to her chivalry.

Tifa Lockhart [Final Fantasy VII]
You spend the first half of the game knowing that Tifa's Cloud's childhood friend, but in the second half it's revealed that since before the start of the game she's been holding back the truth and waiting to see what happens because she knows Cloud ought to be dead, and she's not sure if the protag you're playing as is really him, or a clone - if her memories are real, or fake. This reveal is one of the biggest WTF moments in video game history, but it also gives Tifa some real depth that often gets glossed over in FF7 fandom.

In addition to that, she runs her own bar in the Sector 7 slums, and allows it to be the secret headquarters for a terrorist organization dedicated to taking down an environment-destroying corporation that's responsible for the death of her father as well as burning her hometown to the ground.

At the age of 15, she picked up Sephiroth's own sword and tried to get her revenge even though she had to have known there was no way she could succeed. And after that, after recovering from her wounds and re-learning her martial arts skills, she joins AVALANCHE to work on getting revenge in the long-term. She's supportive, she's brave, and at a point of high drama in the game, she chooses to stay by Cloud when he's incapacitated and take a break from saving the world. It's a selfish choice, and I kind of love her for it. She refuses to give up on Cloud's hopeless ass throughout the game. I was first drawn to Tifa because I over-identified with her for falling in love with her childhood friend, but I've stayed a devoted fan because of her complexity and strength.

If you want me to post about something some time this month, leave a comment on this post.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/758347.html

This is a prompt from

falter
Again, I'm still taking suggestions.

I remember picking up the first volume of Sailor Moon in a Sam Goody in Iron Mountain some summer when I was Up North with my parents. I only read a few pages at that point, and eventually I started buying them, but that came after THIS NEXT THING:
In 7th grade, a friend of mine have me over to her house and showed me Final Fantasy 7. She showed me a ton of stuff, including the very beginning of the game, but also a lot of stuff from disc 2, like Tifa's fight with Scarlet on the Junon cannon.
This was my first exposure to Japanese animation, if the FMVs of FF7 can even be called that.
That weekend, I was flipping through channels and saw some anime on Cartoon Network.
Not knowing what it was, I called Farah to shout to her that FF7 was on TV!! She was skeptical, meanwhile I was hunting the Internet every time I visited my sister's house (on my brother-in-law's computer), since we didn't have the Internet, for everything I could find about FF7.

A couple years later, I was at my friend Heather's house, and we sat on her bed to watch the Sailor Moon R movie on her computer. I don't know why she bought the DVD or how she came across it, but I was like 0_____0 & fell in love with it. The R movie had scenes showing how Usagi (Serena in the dub) met each of the inner senshi, & I appreciated the aspects of their "normal" lives as much as the magical transformations.
Heather told me that her favorite was Jupiter, & her sister's was Mercury. I imprinted on Mars, although at this point I have a soft spot for all of them.

Sailor Moon was still on the Cartoon Network, & on the days I didn't have some extra-curricular after school, I could come right home & watch it. I think I used to tape these, actually, & watch them in the evenings on days I couldn't make it home.

We had AOL/dial-up Internet then, so my future anime-watching was slow-going, even though I was excited to watch more. It took me 3 months to download an episode of Serial Experiments Lain. Heather would download random things for me - Lain, Utena, Evangelion, Escaflowne. It wasn't 'til college & high-speed Internet (& anime club) that my consumption exploded.

BUT YEAH, in both mediums, Sailor Moon was my first exposure, although it's been closely tied to FF7 all along.
I should mention that as a kid, I loathed all live-action shows intended for kids. The closest to live-action that I liked was Mr. Rogers, but I liked the castle with the puppets the best.
I loved Muppet Babies, Maya the Bee (which is actually an anime!!), Eureka's Castle, Gummy Bears, Rescue Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, & all kinds of other animated shit. I've always preferred animation - I love watching it.

As for manga, I really appreciate the art a lot more than most US comics.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/683686.html

Hey, so over in

ff7_fanfiction we're talking about what are considered the "major works" of FF7 fandom, mostly because I wanted to know if there were any similar "everyone's read this" fic to, say, the ones in Stargate: Atlantis fandom.

FF7 is a much more disparate fandom than SGA, but we're still having fun talking about old/new fic, and I am devouring ALL THE FIC whole.

The post is here.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/533253.html

tim has written a 3-post series about Alice (pseudonym), a trans person repeatedly victimized by sexual advances and bullying while in grad school at Portland State University. Alice took a leave absence; Thomas (the aggressor) has faced no significant consequences;

tim has left the program and explains why.

The thing is, though, that both of us had to choose: choose between staying and dealing with conditions that have a disparate impact on minority group members like us -- conditions that mean we have to work that much harder to get the same (or lesser) reward -- or leaving and losing out on one more opportunity. Privileged people don't have to make choices like these. Choice isn't always good: not when either choice you make will be criticized. Stay, and you're criticized for participating in an oppressive system. Leave, and you're criticized for letting the bullies win. You can't win. I hope that no one reading this will conclude that I gave in by leaving or that Alice gave in by staying. That wouldn't be fair, because we're both in a no-win situation.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

There is a fest going on for women characters, or "We Love the Women Fandom Hates," which means people are posting about characters I like.

Why I Love Ashe (from Final Fantasy XII)

Victoria: A Tribute to Tifa Lockhart

Tifa, lying, and the art of self-delusion

A fanmix for 32 women in the Game of Thrones books

A fanmix for 6 women in the Game of Thrones books (Arya, Sansa, Catelyn, Lysa, Daenerys, Cersei)

Sansa Stark fanmix

I'm kind of into fanmixes, lately.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/531388.html

--Friends With Boys, a comic by Faith Erin Hicks. Semi-autobiographical, the plot focuses on Maggie, a girl who was homeschooled with her three brothers and is now starting high school.
Eventually it'll be released as a graphic novel, but for now it's being published online. There are 35 pages up right now, with a new page M-F. I love Faith's stories. Read it! Read all of her stuff!
I think her publisher is pretty awesome for trying to do it online first to build an audience.

--ANNCast (Anime News Network) is the only anime podcast I listen to on a regular basis. I mostly listen to podcasts in the car (I can't concentrate if I try at work). I just listened to one from January titled, "Moe Money, Moe Problems," a group discussion about the trope of "moe" and how different people define it, and how watching it makes you feel, and what it means for the anime industry. Whether you've ever heard the term "moe" or not, I found it a really interesting discussion, and something people like

littlebutfierce and I have tried to define in comment discussions. You can listen to ANNcasts here.

--Lullabye for a New World Order: parts 0 and i by

synedochic These are the first 100,000 words in what will be an obviously long series. It takes place 3 years before the start of Final Fantasy VII, with Tseng having met Tifa in Seventh Heaven and wanting her to meet Rufus so they can tell each other what really happened in Nibelheim. I'd never read anything by

synecdochic before. Her writing tells rather than shows in a way that might usually annoy me, but I love her interpretations of the characters so much that it's kind of like I slip in headfirst. I wasn't able to stop reading this fic; it's been a long time since I've read such a long fic, probably years.
It's giving me some anxiety about my own fic, but the main point is: read it! Do it! I can't wait for more to get posted.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/528761.html

YOU GUYS.

I FOUND A FF7 RAP ON THE INTERNET. I found it here. I think I like it most starting about 1/4 of the way through.

I LOVE THE INTERNET. THE INTERNET GIVES ME HEINOUS THINGS I WOULDN'T EVEN THINK TO ASK FOR. OMG.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/511572.html

both for Three Weeks for Dreamwidth.

There is a drabble-fest for anime/manga/manhwa/manhua over at

littlebutfierce's journal. Tons of prompts! Add your own! Play in comments!

traxits is writing Turks-themed FF7 fanfiction every day during 3W4D! Her first post is a series of short impressions from the Turks plus Rufus, taking place early-game. You can also leave prompts in the comments!

I haven't worked on my own fanfic in a week. Still being defeated by The Epic Illness.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/506958.html

FILTER: In the past, I have only ever constructed filters according to my comfort levels. For fic, though, I want EVERYONE to read it and leave comments! But I understand that many might not be interested. So I'm making a filter.

Purpose of filter: To discuss this specific fanfic that I'm writing, FF7/Inception crossover (actual fic described below). Sometimes I will ask how things sound from a plot standpoint; sometimes I will just rant about the general writing of fic/etc.

If you don't respond, you won't hear much about the fic until I finish it and post it at AO3.

Poll #6580 FF7/Inception Fic Filter

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 12

Would you like to read posts under this filter?

Yes!
12 (100.0%)

Yesterday I officially started writing my FF7/Inception crossover fic. I wrote some more today (using 750words.com!), so since I wrote twice, it must be real.

A while ago, I wrote this post that got metafandom'ed, asking people how they go about writing epic fanfic. I don't have an outline yet, but I feel that I will need one, given the complexity of the plot/timelines of the original game, and the fact that I'll now be screwing with them.

The idea of FF7/Inception crossover fic came from this anonymous comment in a fic prompt meme. Nobody filled the prompt, but a lot of people, self included, went whoa! that would be cool.

The premise of the fic I'd like to write is: FF7 world, with the technology of the Inception movie (no Inception characters). In the Inception movie, dream-diving technology was used to train soldiers, so it follows that it could have been developed in FF7 pre-game, during the Shin-Ra/Wutai war.

It makes sense to me that the person who's attainable (i.e., not Sephiroth) who people would want to dream-dive in FF7 would be Cloud. I need to work on what Shin-Ra's reasons are - at the moment, I'm going to say they think Cloud might know where the Promised Land is, or give clues as to why Sephiroth went bat-shit. OR, b/c they know Cloud lived in a Mako tube for years with Zak, and want to know what Hojo did to him in case he flips his shit like Sephiroth did. Either way. A REASON.

And on the AVALANCHE team, the person who wants to dream-dive into Cloud is Tifa, who spends the entire game wondering why he's so fucked up, why he knows things he shouldn't, wtf happened to his brain and what happened when their hometown was destroyed 5 years ago.

There will be no references to people/events in Before Crisis, Crisis Core, Advent Children, etc. Old school FTW.

UHH. So I guess the main thing that I need to figure out is the whole AU aspect of the fic.
I want the fic to take place during the game - after the team has acquired Vincent (b/c his prior-Turk-ness is something I want to keep things interesting - he'll know the technology, have training, etc.) but before Tifa canonically dives into Cloud's subconscious in Mideel (which would obviously negate her need to dream-dive into Cloud). I'm starting the fic right before the team treks through Mt. Nibel.

So, there are lots of questions there: If Cloud/Tifa/the team figure out Cloud's Secrets way earlier in the game, how does that effect everything else? Will Aeris still die? Wouldn't Cloud be able to resist giving Sephiroth the Black Materia, or would he just have his mental breakdown way earlier? idk.

In this post most people made it sound like they flesh out their fic ideas in chat. I think I've only ever done that once, with a 500-word fic? I don't have a ready-made posse, I guess. If not a lot of people are interested in discussing the AU-ness of the fic possibilities, I might hit up

ff7_fanfiction for new friends?!

Current Music: YUKI
Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/503261.html

I never have time to post Follow Fridays when it's actually Friday.

Here are some communities/Internet things I've been enjoying this week.

bitesizedcleaning - One of my New Year's Resolutions is actually to clean bit-by-bit instead of letting everything go and then having a 2-hour freak out session. I need to cut stress out of my life, and I'm usually actually happier when things are tidy. SO. Win.

inkitout - I am also hoping to write a lot this year, and to actually do it instead of just making another resolution. Sign-ups are still going on right now; the minimum requirement is to try and write 75,000 words this year, although the comm will strive to be non-judgmental.

Unsounded - a webcomic written and drawn by Ashley Cope. I think I've plugged this before, but it's really great. It's a good time to dive in, too; the comic is on a brief hiatus (only a couple of weeks left, I think!) so that she can build up more back log. But right now, the first two chapters are complete. I think that her writing style is very high caliber for an online comic. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great online comics, but a lot of people really suck at their pacing. Like, I like The Meek, but all of the different characters have yet to be shown to be related to one another. Thus, every time a new chapter begins, I get kind of frustrated with making myself care about the characters. I have made a feed on Dreamwidth (

unsounded_feed) if you want to get your updates that way.

FF7 Coordinated Playthrough - This is happening over at the FF7 comm at LiveJournal. This week, people went from the opening to Tifa's bar. I love how many comments there are, and how smart everyone is! A number of us seem super interested in noticing Tifa, and how Aeris is portrayed (as opposed to her other Compilation counterparts). I'm excited about this because I love FF7, but also because I'm hoping to write more fanfiction, so...RESEARCH!

If anyone has any heinous Tumblr recs, I AM GAME. (I mostly look at FF fanarts and listen to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's covers.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/484864.html

SO TONIGHT I SAW INCEPTION AGAIN WITH RYAN.

I am now thinking non-stop about this possible Inception/Final Fantasy VII crossover fanfiction.

I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN A FANFICTION LONGER THAN 1800 WORDS, SO THIS MIGHT BE A PROBLEM.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/469159.html

Amazon is having a huge sale on sci-fi movies/series right now, and when I noticed that Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete was the only thing that I wanted to buy, I realized that I had never blogged about my viewing of Advent Children: Complete. I actually want to buy a Collectors' Edition of something I already own! Impressive.

The 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII is my favorite video game of all time. It was my first Internet fandom. Nostalgia! Also, it's a great story. I was trying to tell

were_duck about all of the rampant opportunities for slash and femslash. IT IS FOR REAL.

Movie itself:
People actually bleed, all over the place. I mean, I didn't find it particularly gratuitous, but watching the original version of the movie was just bizarre, because I was all, "WTF is Cloud's problem? He's fine!" but now it's like, "Okay, there's clearly a chest wound going on, because I can tell."

I think that the city of Midgar/etc. was more dirty, more decayed, etc. I liked this! It's part of why I liked Final Fantasy VII.

Additionally, the presence of the new character Denzel is explained inside the movie, and the creators aren't relying on viewers to read a tiny vignette unavailable in the US *cough*. It made me like Denzel!

People suffering from Geostigma actually suffered, and that whole deal was explained better!

Overall, yes, the movie is still essentially a movie full of fanservice, but it made a lot more sense. I'm actually kind of blown away by how much more sense the plot made.

Extras:
There was a 30-minute trailer that basically takes Before Crisis (cell phone game) and Crisis Core (video game prequel for the PSP) AND clips from the original game and threads them all together to portray the Zack/Turks/Cloud/Sephiroth/Tifa flashback, AKA THE BEST PART OF THE GAME.

I still didn't get to see all of the extras on these DVDs. This summer I was bummed because it looked like Advent Children Complete was only available on Blu-Ray, but no longer!

Also, I still want to play Crisis Core. It actually looks....good.

But it'll be a while before I purchase a PSP, and I still have lots of unplayed PS2 video games to keep me busy.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Music: Dance, Dance - Fall Out Boy

I might write some FF7 fanfiction at some point, so I will start with meta. [Of course, I have written FF7 fanfiction before.....IN THIS JOURNAL! Don't look for it, it will make you cry.]

Final Fantasy VII was released for the PlayStation console in 1997. I really hope that it's okay for me to be spoilery about this game. It's been out for 12 years, and if you play video games at all, you've already played it. If you haven't played it, you probably never will.

( But since it's best to be unspoiled if you ever DO play the game, I'm using an LJ-cut anyway. If you're never going to play it, though, read my post! My posts are terribly interesting! You always feeling better for having read them! )

ETA: FABULOUS CLOUD META BY SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ME!

Current Mood: working

( Spoilers for these volumes, as well as the video game Final Fantasy VII, lie behind the cut. )

I don't know how to describe my feelings right now other than HOLY SHIT. Advent Children is everything I want it to be. I'm sure I'll watch it many times. But, seriously. I forgive Square Enix for all this pushing-it-back shit and all the stupid things they've ever done. I even forgive them for waiting so long to make this movie, because I don't think it ever would have looked so badass. I love absolutely everything about it. The movie doesn't go too deep and it doesn't try to dick around with people's relationships/characters. Everyone is is canon, there is humor, and Tifa is awesome. You hear me?! I knew I picked the right character as my favorite!! Although, I do love Cloud, too. He is so angsty, and unlike shitty heroes, Cloud has reasons for being angsty. Good reasons.
I really was not expecting the fighting to be so damn awesome. I mean, the in the games it's turn-based stuff. But this stuff....it's like what Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon would be if it was animated and involved swords bigger than people and Limit Breaks thrown in for good measure. I think I almost peed myself watching those fight scenes. This movie had better be really freaking popular. If only for the fight scenes. Holy shit. And picking out the Limit Breaks was so much fun!
Holy shit. And the ending.....I thought I was good and then it was like, "Oh! AWWWWWWWWW!!!!"

I really don't know if the movie would make sense to someone who hasn't played the game. The fighting would still be awesome. But....none of the characters are introduced at all. They give you enough storyline to understand what's going on, but I think you would definitely not appreciate it half as much because there's no understanding of who everyone is and how awesome they are.

Everyone in the movie was beautiful, which was awesome. Tifa is so pretty! And Cloud is hot. And Vincent. And Rufus. And Rude. And Reno.

My entire body is in OMGWTF-mode. Who the hell can do homework after watching that shit?? I feel like I need to find someone who's seen it just so we can say, "OMG, did you see----??" "OMG, I know! It was SO AWESOME!"

Don't worry. My fangirlishness is even scaring me. I'm going to rewatch my favorite parts (LIKE TIFA'S FIGHT SCENE) repeatedly for like, a week.

I know, with my blog posts lately, it's really really weird for me to be in this good of a mood. I don't know how I could ever be in a bad mood. HOW CAN YOU BE UPSET WHEN THERE ARE SUCH BEAUTIMOUS THINGS IN THE WORLD?!

*strews flowers about the campus*

Current Mood: OMG
Current Music: OMGWTF