Playing a dying game is kind of like living your life. You don't really know why you're still playing it, but you are, and you'll stick around until the very end, against your better judgement.
You're not really sure why you're still logging in, still collecting crystals, still trading them in for outfits that you don't have yet. There's no point, and you know it, but somehow you just can't walk away—from Sephiroth, from his story.
Oh, the developers are so generous, now that there's no FOMO effect left, no money for them to collect. The crystals are practically raining down upon you, and it feels hollow, considering how hard you had to work in order to earn them before. Whether you spent money on crystals or spent hundreds of hours earning them...how does it feel, now that they're all basically free?
...if you're wondering, I have 1,480 hours on record, according to Steam, which doesn't count my time spent on the phone version. 1,480 hours dedicated to Sephiroth, waiting to find out more and more of his story.
It's still kind of crazy to me how they tied Ever Crisis into the whole trilogy, using Glenn and his team's story as part of Rebirth—something that I wouldn't have even understood without playing EC. And yet...once this game shuts down, the tragic story of Sephiroth's past will be gone, only to be found in old youtube videos. Ten years from now, who will remember "Miniroth"?
Sephiroth...deserves better than that.
Of course, he also deserves better than having his backstory put into a shitty mobile game. Or having his English voice actor replaced for the last part of the trilogy as if he's some small, insignificant part of the game, but I suppose that's a different matter. Or is it?
Oh, Square, how do you disappoint me? Let me count the ways.
Disappointment isn't very hard to find these days, no matter where you look. I guess...nothing lasts forever. No matter how significant, eventually, all things crumble to dust and blow away in the wind. That's the nature of everything, the nature of life. I guess I'm just rambling, because within a day or so, no one will remember that I wrote this, either.
If I was a writer for FF games, this is the part where I would add something like, "But as long as my words touched even one person, they mattered, and will live on." Except that's not how real life works. Buildings and artwork and music and books that took years of labor and love to create can be destroyed in an instant. Everyday, people die without anyone's notice, leaving behind nothing, as if they never even existed. What deserves to be protected? What deserves to live on?
But one thing in life is always true: nothing lasts forever. Whether it's around for thirty years or less than three, it will vanish, one day. And as I often say, the truth may be cruel, but it never fails to put us in our place.
I understand and completely share the feeling! It's hard watching something we not only loved but worked hard for die. All these crystals and gifts now just feel empty, a sad apology that can't fix the sadness of having to say goodbye to a (few) character(s) we got to be closer to and learn more about. This actually cemented my love for Seph and Angeal beyond what any other game had done before. I've adopted them, they're my sweet sons now and I'll forever be overprotective of them! My biggest hope is that FS will be somehow integrated into Revelation, it'll be a huge punch in the gut if it isn't. To me it'll feel like the ultimate betrayal of Sephiroth, considering how so many still think he was always a sociopath who finally showed his true colors after Nibelheim.
