Final Fantasy VII

Hello all! Today I want to talk about what I have been doing all week in terms of books, games and series.

Books

I will start of with my first love: books. If you have been following this blog, then you will now that I am rereading Terry Goodkind’s series of the Sword of Truth. This week I made a lot of progress on his third installment: Blood of the Fold. Like its predecessors, Blood of the Fold continues to tell the story of Richard and Kahlan as they have to face new threats that threaten to destroy everything they have worked for so far. I have been enjoying the series again more than I did when I first read them, because I am now engrossed in the whole story, not only in the continuation of Richard’s story. Again, I can not stress enough that if you like fantasy novels, the Sword of Truth series is a must read.

I am also reading Laurel K. Hamilton’s Incubus Dreams, the 12th book in the Anita Blake series. I have to admit that these books have an addictive quality about them that only manifests itself when the book is about halfway through. Before that, the books are good and interesting, the plot is developing as well as the story, but once I peek into the bottom of my iBook reader and I see that I am about to the begin the halfway point, I have to take a deep breath and decide whether I can pull an all nighter reading the rest of the book or to live to sleep another day. The endings are just relentless, manic and fantastic fun! She also has a knack of presenting us with the most unreal, out of the park, situations that are just right to the plot, and that you can actually believe for the character, an uncommon trait in books dealing with the supernatural. I love Anita, but I have to say that my already strained relationship with Richard is reaching its breaking point. Grrr…

I will be reading Mercedes Lackey’s second book of her Mage Wars Trilogy, The White Gryphon. The first book, titled The Black Gryphon was a pleasant surprise for me. I had wanted to take a plunge into Lackey’s wide and alluring fantasy world for a long time, and sometimes with great anticipation comes great disillusion, but not in this case. Now, it is worth to note that this is book a prequel to her universe and is co-written with Larry Dixon, but I was more interested in discovering whether I was going to like the world, the characters, rather than the story. So far so good!

Games

Now, I have also been playing a number on games, mostly on my PC although I did dust off my Mass Effect copy for the XBOX 360.

I have been a fan of the Final Fantasy series ever since my very good friend @dragonlord77 introduced to the series. I remember that we played FF II and FF III and I just loved it, not simply because it is a very good RPG, but because it had a beautiful story. After awhile, my early console ways were nothing to write home about, I found that PC gaming suited me a little bit better, and titles like Sim City, Civilization, King’s Quest IV, Alpha Centauri, Caesar III, Pharaoh, Empire Earth, etc…began to dominate my time. I only used consoles for sports games, mainly the Madden Series.
When Final Fantasy came out for the PlayStation, I decided to wait, I did not want to buy a PlayStation only to play that one game, so I waited for the PC version, but later on ended buying the console and the game as well. Without a doubt in my mind, Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all times. It has everything I want an RPG game to have, a complex and sound story, beautiful music, epic cut scenes, jaw dropping revelations and tear jerking moments. I usually don’t cry in movies (ok, Dobby’s death marked my life both in the book and in the film, I admit it), but I cry like a little girl every time I see Nanaki howling at the moon in memory of his valiant father, or when Aeris, yes the beautiful Aeris dies…(sorry about the spoilers, but the game has been out since 1998!) The PC game was full of glitches and errors, one in particular made my life a living hell: all the videos were played upside down because I was playing in a laptop. Oh, and we had the infamous Chocobo Races glitch where you could not compete in the races, or the Yuffie glitch where you were stuck in her house once she imprisoned you. None of that mattered as soon as the patches were made available and I was able to play the game. That first time, when you have absolutely no idea of where to go, or what to do, the feeling of having to talk to every NPC that stood or ran around town, and encountering frustrating monsters (Midgar Zolom ring a bell?) the story simply took my hand and led me into this impossibly large world, where characters are constantly undergoing changes in their behavior simply because the story leads you to those life breaking moments. The graphic details and the music simply rounded out a game that would become my number one franchise. I usually play it once a year, once every two years if I am hooked on WoW, and I am embarking on the adventure yet again.
To me, the game changed the way RPG’s were made from then on, and the culmination of the traditional RPG game, Dragon Age: Origins is a fairly good testament of what Square had in mind with FFVII. If you have not played it, please do so, give yourselves a chance to be surprised :D

I am also playing, when I have the time, Fallout 3. I have progressed quite a bit, focusing more in the side quests than in the main quest, but the map is so big and filled with dangers that the oppressive feeling of survival is there and is real. I am not saying that it is not fun, because it is, but it wears me out to travel to a new location and have to really look around in order not to get jumped by any of the mutant creatures that roam the wilds.

Yesterday, in the spirit of another good friend @fbarajasm, #RetroGaming is in full swing within my community of friends. I have chosen to play Chrono Trigger, another Square title, and for what I have been able to see, it obviously has a FF feel to it, although the reviews of the story and of the game itself are quite encouraging.

Series

Well, I have only seen episodes of my guilty pleasure series Deadliest Catch, I have only been watching Game of Thrones. After the series is over I will dedicate week, if not months (okay I am exaggerating a bit) to the series because it is simply AWESOME!!! I really can’t believe how well the series is going and how much I am liking it, even with some of the changes presented, it still feels like the books, which is odd and exhilarating at the same time.
So, @Reskiebak and @prikzilla catch up!

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