Years ago, a friend told me of her woes while playing Mario 64. She said that the game frustrated her so much, she constantly threw a barrage of racial slurs towards Mario's direction. For the past few gaming sessions, that has been me with Cloud. Not that I can use racial slurs against Cloud, because he's a fictional ethnicity, but I've still called him a bunch of insults. Most of them are from his role in Crisis Core. I believe that dumb blonde, useless, airsick bastard, f***ing pansy, and spikey-headed dumbass were some of the few terms slung around.

I got so mad at Cloud the other night, I thought about chucking my controller at the TV for the first time since Super Mario Bros. 3. I took a few days off to cool down, but I forced myself to try to make up with him last night, otherwise FF7 would suffer the same fate Kingdom Hearts did a few years ago (I got so mad at it that I didn't play it for three years).

I'm very glad that I did, because we were able to get through our differences and move the story along a little bit. I still yelled at him, but now I've come to just expect him to frustrate the hell out of me. It's not exactly his fault. I'm coming to the game 12 years too late, and I'm not used to the indistinct pixellation and it's been a long time since I used nothing but d-pad controls. But anyway, I am glad that we made up, because I was able to unlock Vincent Valentine and add him to my party. FINALLY, a character I like in this game. Maybe it's because he's the only one I don't know much about (I don't know much about Barrett either, but he's BORING.) and maybe it's his character design. I kind of like that he was a former Turk and has a huge beef with Hojo. It's that bastard's fault that Zack was killed! He's also quite useful in battle. I haven't tested his magic prowess yet, but if he's good there too, I'll be doing a happy dance.

I wish I could chuck Yuffie out of my party. If I play this game again, I won't seek her out. She's just as annoying here as she was in Crisis Core.