Semantic Nonsense: Four in Final Fantasy VII Dayruary

Final Fantasy VII Day

So this happened:

We’re delighted to announce “Final Fantasy VII Day” has been officially registered in Japan, to commemorate the anniversary of the launch of the original game.

To celebrate, here’s a special message from Yoshinori Kitase, producer of the Final Fantasy VII remake project. pic.twitter.com/GBphY8AYR4

— FINAL FANTASY VII (@finalfantasyvii) January 31, 2023

And all I can think of is… just in time for the 26th Anniversary. I will curse to the sky that this didn’t happen last year so we could mention it in the Naughty and Nice anniversaries.

Still, I fear Square Enix thinks the best way to celebrate the day each year is to sell an NFT and announce a delay for whatever Final Fantasy VII game is coming next. But this year, we’re in better luck; today’s celebration is all about announcing a Midgar-themed DLC forPower Wash Simulator.

Though it is important not to miss that this is also the day most of us learned the Japan Anniversary Authority existed. Though some of us might remember it from Goku Day’s inauguration in 2015. And for those of you who follow the other pillar of JRPG history, you can mark Dragon Quest Day on May 27th.

---

Not-so-Final February

With the entire Compilation of Final Fantasy VII to think about, you could easily devote an entire Four in February to just that, with Final Fantasy VII Day the official kickoff event the day before the challenge starts. Heck, the structure of this year’s incoming addition, Ever Crisis, may very well put all four of your picks in one convenient (if abridged and episodic) package.

But it doesn’t even get to beta (and a closed one at that) until summer, so let’s blow off that challenge until at least next year. Besides, I have other fish to fry if previous posts this month have been any indication. Said previous posts are also why my 4iF list isn’t good enough for a solo post; I’ve already talked about the games.

First and foremost, I screwed up. I finished Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball yesterday, which like today is decidedly not February, It could have been an easy dub, but that’s cricket for ya. Still, that brings the number of planned playthroughs down to 10

So that leaves The Longest 5 Minutes and this Saturday’s stream-featured game, Chasm, as the only quick options left on my to-do list. How Long To Beat‘s crowdsourcing pegs them both at under 9 hours.

I’ve been playing Persona 3:FES this past week and am quickly closing in on where I left off my original playthrough in 2008, but the notion of beating it even by itself in February is absolutely ludicrous. Besides, I have a friend visiting for a week, and they sure aren’t coming to watch me play hours upon hours of MegaTen.

As I only have a maximum of three streaming days in February, I’m not going to be able to #4iF a second game on stream. It would also be inefficient to play one of the planned streams games offline for 4iF only to end up playing it again later in the year. But that means adding two more games to that 10 game to-do list. And why not? I’m clearly a glutton for punishment.

So, in the spirit of unfinished business and backlog clearing (and of being short), I am using two Game Boy games to round things out. The first is Gargoyle’s Quest, which I loved but never beat due to screwing up my password after getting very late into the game. The second is a returning anti-champion, The Sword of Hope II, which was a last-minute replacement for another game in the 2020 4iF, but ended up no more defeated than the game it replaced. It will be getting a good finishing this time.