Where are you Final Fantasy VII: Remake? It’s been five years since SquareEnix played that heartwarming teaser announcement at E3. Back in 2014. I was a different person then. Barack Obama was still President and our biggest worry was getting quarters for the laundromat. Now we have a President Rufus and our own washing appliances. The appliances are nice, the President is not. (This is where I say Trump is like President Rufus #callingit)

I remember everything about the original game, when it came out in 1997. My boyfriend at the time started playing it on the living room TV, and when he wasn’t playing it, our roommate Michael was. There was no way I was able to squeeze in with a controller during that time, but I enjoyed watching and strategizing nonetheless. This wasn’t my first experience with a roleplaying game or Final Fantasy game, either. I remember knocking out all the previous Final Fantasy on Nintendo and Gameboy. This game was different though, because visually it was stunning (at the time). Those pixelated bodies were believable, and when a cut scene happened, it was pure art.

Remember Wall Market? Tifa is abducted and carried away in a chocobo-drawn carriage. Aeris and Cloud followed and you complete small tasks in order to obtain believable cross-dressing garb. One venture brings you to the Honey Bee Inn, a brothel full of ladies dressed in bee costumes. In one of the lavishly decorated rooms, if you aren’t careful, you’ll be joined by a dozen extremely horny gay guys in a hot tub. Cloud gets vivacious in a dress, wig, and some perfume, and you’re placed in front of Don Corneo, some rich slob who wants to pick out his wife based on her looks. If you did your questing a certain way, he’ll pick Cloud and it’s the best ever. I want to see how they twist this in the remake, because many of the themes here would not fly today.

Remember leaving Midgar for the first time? So much happens in the walled-city, but once you see open sky with no borders, the game becomes… expansive. There’s so many places to see! The Golden Saucer, where you can play all the mini-games! And they’re good mini-games! My favorite was the Moogle Romance and the motorcycle game. Don’t get me started on the claw, it was totally rigged. And Cosmo Canyon, home of Red XIII, which catered to my hippy, nature loving core.

Remember that grind to get the Golden Chocobo? All those times running across chocobo prints in the wild, and hoping they’ll eat your nuts. (I just had to.) Then you race them eleventy-gabillion times to raise their ranking, then breed them with another chocobo that you’ve done the same regimen on, hoping to get the next color chocobo. But the Golden Chocobo was worth it, because with it, you could travel over the oceans to Round Island, where you would find the coveted Knights of the Round materia. Yeah, the biggest, baddest materia that did the most damage to your enemies. Now, think about pairing that with a W-Summon (for those that don’t FF7, it allows you to summon twice in a row!). I think I just came a little thinking about it.

I could go on about this game. The soundtrack, the beach resort and the funny banter between the Turks, getting Vincent Valentine in your party, who is a (spoiler alert) VAMPIRE, or Yuffie who makes you trust her, then stabs you in the back and steals all your stuff. And this game totally breaks the wall surrounding mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder, letting people know that it can happen to anyone. Sephiroth is the coolest bad guy ever, and I have a replica Masamune in the gameroom.

Now what do we know about the Remake? Not much, other than IT’S BEEN 5 YEARS AND WE KNOW PRACTICALLY NOTHING. I’m glad a majority of the production staff are insiders, people known to have worked on the original. This is a big deal because this game HAS TO BE RIGHT. I can’t take another burn (I’m looking at you Bethesda). It’s also going to made on the Unreal Engine, which has brought us some decent games. I’m trusting the trailer that the graphics are going to be aesthetically pleasing and unique. The game may also be released in installments. Hopefully they are spaced accordingly and not 5 YEARS APART. What else? Nothing, people. Nothing.

But E3 is coming up soon, June 11-13. If you’re reading this SquareEnix, I’m counting on you to make this right, but I kinda need it now.

(images belong to Squaresoft, I just meme’d them up)

The End. -A