New Dad Goggles: How Fatherhood Changed the Way I Experienced ‘Final Fantasy VII’

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Welcome to “New Dad Goggles,” a semi-reoccurring column here.

People always ask the hypothetical, “If you could forget and re-experience any piece of media, what would you choose?” You obviously can’t do that, but the next best thing? Becoming a parent.

It’ll give you a whole new perspective on life — and the media you consume.

For my younger self, 1997 was an objectively incredible year to be a gamer.

Between seminal titles like “GoldenEye 007” for the Nintendo 64, the literally perfect “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night” for the PlayStation, some small franchise called “Grand Theft Auto” (hope those guys make it!) and the criminally underrated “Fallout,” 1997 was a landmark year for video games and video game players.

But it was a game from a relatively niche Japanese franchise that proved to be one of the most significant releases of that incredible year: “Final Fantasy VII.”

American audiences had only seen “Final Fantasy” and the incorrectly numbered “Final Fantasy II” and “Final Fantasy III” (in reality, those were the fourth and sixth games of the franchise, but the first two released stateside after the original, thus the bizarre naming convention) and there was no guarantee that FF7 would be the historic success it is today.

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