On saturday, I managed to catch final fantasy: advent children. It was the cinematic remake of the game that revolutionized the final fantasy series, FF7. Many of you do not know what exactly i'm talking about. But I guess it is different between you and i. Advent children may not have been the best movie of the year, but to me, it was the best one i watched so far. Do not get me wrong when i say i loved the movie and confuse me with someone who watched it and had no idea what the hell was happening. Those kinda guys are just in it for the sake of it. I grew up with final fantasy. It was almost like my childhood bedtime story each night i turned off the playstation. It began when I was 6 or 7. The year i got my ps1. Final fantasy was one of the first games that i was engrossed in. There was much beauty in the storyline as well as dark aspects. And when I watched the movie on saturday evening, every memory came back. The music, the thrills, the characters, the passion i had with the story. It was so good to see the characters and the places come to life after so many years. It was probably one of the most inspiring times of my childhood days and now, those flames of imagination have been rekindled. I remember vincent and his mystique, barret and his boisterous personality, yuffie and her sassy attitude and cloud who always seemed to be without much emotion. My days as a kid were spent with those characters from a fictional game. And seeing them once again was great. I guess my interest in magic and fantasy began there. All built upon a simple game. Dragons, wyverns and chocobos. Swords, guns and shurikens. If there was ever an award going for most influential story, i'd pick it any day. Perhaps you may not understand the way I feel. Perhaps you grew up with other things like southeast asian folklore or mother goose stories. My conscious life began with final fantasy 7 and watching the last scene of that movie, where Cloud smiled for the first time in a long time, i knew that i would always treasure that story till the day i pass on. Such a tale cannot be forgotten so easily. Thank you for the inspirational music Nobuo Uematsu, thank you for the game Squaresoft. Thank you for giving me a little piece of fantasy to build on my own.


A huge part of my life was spent in the slums of Midgar, the mountains of Nibelheim and the city of Kalm. Everyday, an adventure beside Cloud, Aeris, Tifa, Barret, Cid, Yuffie, Vincent, Red 13, Cait Sith and Sephiroth. I will never forget those blissfull days in 1997. I will never stop dreaming the way i did then. One more ride on the highwind would be great...





The end