My First 100 Hours with FFVII Remake

The dynamic FFVII:R theme song crescendos for what may have been the thousandth time, but it took the 1,001st time for it to wake me up out of my unscheduled nap. That is if falling asleep at 11 at night can even be referred to as a nap considering it was now 3:43 a.m.

Thankfully, before I passed out on the sofa facing my modest 40-inch, outdated LCD, I had the state of mind to plug in the charger to my controller, which I picked up off the floor satisfied to see it was indeed fully charged.

Now awake, I promptly hit the PS button and like always, it brought me back to the game I was in the middle of before I randomly passed out; the same game it's been bringing me back to since April 10th –– Final Fantasy VII: Remake –– the same game I've been waiting for since it was first teased at E3 some fifteen years ago. Which was somewhat strange, considering when compared to the more ardent RPGers out there, I wasn't nearly as much of a fan. After all, the only Final Fantasy I had played was X-2 (yes, the sequel to a game I didn't even know existed), and the only Final Fantasy I purchased and completed was XV.

Unable to withstand another cycle of that dynamic theme music, I was relieved when I was brought back to the soft tones of whatever chapter I was on when I last left the game. The game was paused when I returned and before un-pausing, I looked at the play time in the lower left corner. It read 101:15:06, and the counter wasn't moving –– it had frozen. Ha, cool feature.

100 hours. Wow. Let's see what stage of play I was involved in to commemorate this experience. I hit the Start button. Cloud. Tifa. Barrett. Aerith. And Red XIII. The camera faced all of us –– simultaneously. The only thing in front of the frame was a small totem. A column. Better yet, a node. An access point. I remember now. The room we occupied was empty. Emptier than any other room in the entire game. Oh, no. Not this room. Not again. I remembered more. The Bahamut. It slowly came back to me. This beast of a challenge I learned time after time again I was woefully underprepared for.

How could I complete it? It was impossible! The item I sought to claim was needed to defeat this challenge. And he wasn't even the final round!

Sigh. There was no way to win. I had acquired everyone's weapon except Barrett's last one. I acquired everyone's second Limit Breaker but didn't know how to equip it. I only possessed one Magnify materia and one Elemental. I sought no guide –– I was much too prideful to even consider such. Defeating Sephiroth on Hard took everything I had in me and I never envisioned anything being more difficult than that. Despair took over and I languished over the thought of going through this trial once more.

Dejected, I exited the room to purchase some Revival earrings for the 13th or so time. I was reluctant to go on but I couldn't give up. How could I? I wasn't a die-hard trophy hunter but I promised myself the Platinum –– like I always do with the few games I love most.

Cloud, Tifa, Barrett.
Cloud, Aerith, Barrett.
Cloud, Tifa, Aerith.

I exhausted every angle, set-up and option. Bahamut was just too difficult.

But something was different this time when I went to equip the earrings. What's going on? What is this new item? I could hardly pronounce it. Gotten-what?

Wait a minute. I remember now. Pride and Joy. I had done it. I defeated it. And I almost forgot I did. That's right. I even saved the video!

How did I get past Bahamut and his cheating ass Ifrit? A summon summoning a summon? It's enough to put a controller through your T.V. But I had emerged victorious! Somehow, someway, using no guide and limited Limit Breakers, I overcame. I prevailed.

My first 100 hours of FFVII:R ended in a fantasy. Glad to say it wasn't my final one.