Back before 1997, I was a completely different gamer. My gamers’ diet typically consisted of a heavy dose of sports games such as Madden and NBA Live, Sonic and other platformers, action-adventure games like Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Street Fighter II, which I only occasionally pretended to care about . The only RPGs I’d ever really dabbled in were from the Dragon Quest series -- at that point still called Dragon Warrior.

Like it did for many other gamers, that changed with the arrival of the Squaresoft title Final Fantasy VII. FFVII’s impact as a genre- and industry-changer has been written countless times. The epic has been rightfully credited for opening the floodgates for Japanese RPGs, if not the RPG genre as a whole, in North America. It’s been given exaggerated credit for saving the original PlayStation. And of course, there’s the eternal debate of whether or not VII is the best Final Fantasy game ever.

Of course at that point, as a teenager, I had no comprehension of all the things to come. I just knew upon hearing those opening strings and bells and seeing the image of Aerith Gainsborough smiling before that sudden pullout to display the vastness of Midgar that I was embarking on something special.

FFVII was the cinematic RPG before Square decided to shove that marketing line down our throats with Parasite Eve. And the way the FMV sequences complimented the story made me care for video game plot like I never had before. Before VII, I just wanted to jump in and play. Sports games by their very nature create their own story. Saving Princess Peach or stopping Dr. Robotnik was enough of a set-up to just run through Mario and Sonic games. Kicking someone else’s butt was enough motivation to beat someone down with Streets of Rage, Mortal Kombat, and Final Fight.

Most video games before that time had serviceable stories at best, so I probably had low expectations for any game at the time. But there was something about figuring out the mystery of Cloud and the triangle between he, Aerith, and Tifa in the midst of the fight between the evil Shinra mega-corporation and noble-principled -- not so much in practice -- AVALANCHE organization. Even the goofy and quirky cross-dressing episode became a conversation piece with people I knew who didn’t care about games. There was a deep political and environmental conflict, and commentary I never expected from a game. I was hooked and blown away by every set piece and twist.

And this was before the massive visual reveal of the overworld, expansion of the story with Sephiroth, and the one shocking scene that might rank as the biggest “Oh my God!” moment of the game.