After picking up the game, taking home and finally installing it, the troubles started out right away. Installing the latest video drivers was needed, and it became slightly difficult due to the old ones being around. I had to use the 3Dfx reference drivers since the Diamond drivers were too old and couldn't cut it, and it actually took me a few days to get this done right. Without the new drivers, the game locks up during the first battle, so it's very unplayable.

Things went well for a while until I was closing FF7 one day. My computer exploded. Upon reboot, I was told there was registry damage, and after a call to my cheap but not so wonderful computer shop, I was told to wipe the drive and start over. That was definitely bad news. While I can't say for sure it was FF7's fault that all my crap just exploded all over the wall, I tend to have that opinion. No huge worries though. I could handle it. So, after wiping the drive, and reinstalling Win95 and all my assorted drivers (including new sound drivers for my AWE64), I popped ff7 back in, and prepared to play some more.

Upon starting it up after the big bang, I noticed something weird about the game. It just wasn't the same, something was missing. What was it? The goddamned sound effects! Midi music worked just fine, and everything was good and plenty in the configuration screen, but in the game the sound had crept up into my ass and disappeared. Really goddamned annoying since I couldn't play with out sound effects. Call me a bitch if you want, but I spent 5 years on a 286 with no sound card. Boops and beeps don't cut it anymore. I didn't pay $80 for a piece of crap without sound. So I contacted Eidos about the problem and for two months they told me they were working on it. Two months of e-mails with nothing but a "we're working on it" reply. But finally, last week, they got back to me.

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