This is a cheat, but it’s my blog, and I make the rules.

I played Final Fantasy VII for the first time in 2020 on the PS5. I made it as far as Junon, and then I got stuck and bounced.

In early 2024, I fired up Final Fantasy VII Remake and fell in love–it’s an all-timer for me. I then moved to Rebirth, and I had a more complicated relationship with it. However, upon finishing it, I realized I was, finally, a Final Fantasy VII sicko.

So, having played through Junon in Rebirth, I wondered if I could return to the original Final Fantasy VII and get unstuck.

Turns out I could.

The place I was in in Junon was just the map of the area–the different parts of the military base (is it a base?). I had not realized that the map kept continuing to the left, effectively. Basically, I wasn’t aware you could leave the map, go to a new screen, so I was going back into all of the same rooms on one map looking for anything that would progress the story. When nothing could, I put the game down (I didn’t use guides back then for some reason).

Now, though, I knew the base extended much further to the left/west. So I just walked to the edge of the screen and, boom: new map. And then another new map.

I got to the scene with Rufus where I am trying to participate in the military exercise. The controls to turn the character in time with the routine wasn’t intuitive to me, so I kept fucking it up. But that mistake underscored exactly who I am as a gamer, so I share it here:

I pushed on past Junon, past Mt. Corel, and into the Gold Saucer and the Desert Jail. I was fully unstuck and progressing.

I am well on my way to getting to the end of what was disc one, and I may even finish the game before part 3 of the remake trilogy comes out. It’ll be pretty neat to have a memory of what came before by the time I experience how the team re-envisioned it for the ending of the remake trilogy–just like all of my friends who have been Final Fantasy VII fans since 1997.

Verdict: Glad I came back to this game; I will complete it–and soon.