When Final Fantasy VII Remake arrived after twenty-three years, it was not just a game release. It was a return. A reminder. A quiet reckoning with time.
Back in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was something you played.
In 2020, it was something you revisited.
I have built a library of Final Fantasy over the years.
Retro and modern alike.
Every main title. Every spinoff.
Along with the films, on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray.
No soundtracks, no novels, and figs though.
Just the stories.
To some people, it is just a game series.
To me, it was an early education.
Final Fantasy taught me that stories can be expansive and intimate at the same time.
Before I had the language for certain feelings, I recognized them here.
Sacrifice made sense.
Friendship mattered because no one won alone.
Power without purpose always collapsed under its own weight.
Those ideas stayed.
Loving Final Fantasy is not about graphics, or nostalgia, or completion percentages.
It is about collecting something slowly, deliberately, over time.
Not to own everything, but to hold onto the parts that mattered.
Each copy on my shelf marks a season of life.
A version of myself that once needed that story.
Some were played in quieter years.
Some during transitions.
Some when I did not yet know what I was looking for, only that I would find it there.
Collecting, I have learned, is not about accumulation.
It is about continuity.
About returning to something familiar and realizing you are no longer the same person.
That is the quiet joy of it.
So I am curious.
What do you collect?
Not what looks impressive.
Not what is valuable.
But what you return to, again and again, because it still means something.