September 2006

Pictured at right is Final Fantasy XII Collector's Edition for the PlayStation2 console, to be released October 31. Let me explain.

When I was younger, my older brother had a copy of Final Fantasy III for Super Nintendo.¹ I watched him play it for a while and decided to start my own game and was hooked instantly. I logged nearly 50 hours in the game, making sure I uncovered every secret, found every weapon, and defeated every boss. I think I actually played the game twice through. What I didn't know was I had taken the initial step in becoming a Final Fantasy junkie.

In 1997 the next installment in the series, Final Fantasy VII², was released for the original PlayStation console. I pre-ordered the game from a game store in the local mall and received a FFVII t-shirt featuring the main character, Cloud Strife (and his huge sword), on the front for doing so. I don't know when I lost that shirt, but it was a sad day. I have such fond memories of this game; I easily logged more than 100 hours. Myself and many others contend to this day that Final Fantasy VII is the greatest game ever made. I mean, I actually cried when Aeris died.

Fast forward. I played Final Fantasy VIII and IX³ for the original PlayStation and Final Fantasy X for PlayStation2. I could say much about every one of these wonderful games, but I won't. Final Fantasy XI was an online-only game, and because I didn't want to pay the monthly fee, I never bought it.

And here we are. The soon-to-be-released Final Fantasy XII is the first "regular" game in the series to be released since 2001. I sold my PS2 a while ago, but I have already told my brother that I'll be taking his for a month or three to log some serious hours in this secret obsession of mine.

1. Although it was actually the sixth game in the Final Fantasy series, it was only the third to be released in the US. [↩]
2. See above. [↩]
3. The main character of this game, Zidane Tribal, is one of my favorite characters in the series. At one point, my AOL screen name was something like zidane_tribal36. [↩]

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