Memories I think are an important aspect of our lives, without them, we will only have a “day-to-day” life with no learning process or even progress. We need our memories to work like fuel for our mind and heart.

In my experience, memories work as a reminder of who am I, how I was, and most important, who I want to become. One aspect I love about remembering things is when some feeling is attached to certain memory like in an object, an activity, some type of artistic manifestation, or even playing a video game.

It happens to me way too often, sometimes I’m listening to some music, or I smell something cooking, and I remember a certain thing from my past that brings me, in most cases, a good memory. Within all the memories there’s one thing that’ll always bring me up and it´s re-playing video games from the Final Fantasy Saga.

Because of all the stories, the characters, and the conflicts, proudly I can say that they are part of my life, I’ve invested many, many hours and enjoyed all the things attached to them, from friendships, relationships, entertainment, motivation, and life projects to name a few. When something is attached to your life to that degree, in this case, Final Fantasy games, they become part of who you are, you project and identify yourself with  the characters, the story, the music, the fans, and tons and tons of stuff that a franchise like this can bring to someone’s life.

Recently I’ve been a little bit nostalgic replaying FF titles leading me to find communities online in these modern days. I remember back in the day I was involved in Forums and chat rooms of Final Fantasy Fans, theorizing, discussing, criticizing, and sharing, but as times passes and technology changes, I found Video blogs, and I started to hear and see people as crazy and excited as me: I started putting faces to other geeks around the world, especially because where I lived there weren´t that many gamers with the same love and fandomness, so finding people who share your level of excitement when you are wondering what could be amazing to include in a Remake, gave me a sense of belonging, and that´s something I found amazing, to feel that you are part of a community, especially in the geek world. (Proud Geek/Nerd)

Within all the videos, blogs, and forums,  and listening to a lot of people, I found one that not only they talk about the FF saga, but also about JPRG in general (that stands for Japanese Role Playing Game….my fav kind) in such a way that you can sense the proximity and familiarity with their opinions and it makes you come back week after week to hear these guys talking about their favorite games that most of the times are also mines. I’m referring to a YouTube channel called Phoenix Edge run by two guys that if you are a fan of JRPG’s as I am, you’ll definitely feel the familiarity of the gamer type.

They do an amazing job with their comments, reviews, and opinions because it´s like if you were hearing some friends talking and discussing stuff you like and you want to comment and share with this gamers. In one recent episode (this one) they ranked the Final Fantasy Titles from all the, let´s say, the main sequence from 1 to 15, listening to all their reasons and why they think one FF was number 1 or which one was number 7 really put me nostalgic and at the same time remind me why I love this saga and why I like or dislike some FF’s. That motivated me to write this small entry, and I have to thank them to get me back on track updating this Blog. Thanks, guys!!

The motivation to come up here and have some coffee and write some words it´s because I do want to share also my ranking and in some other post I’ll talk to you about how the Final Fantasy saga influenced my life and how it´s a really great and joyful part of my life that works as an inspiration.

So let´s get busy with this ranking and (drum roll)…

#1: Final Fantasy VII

#2: Final Fantasy IX

#3: Final Fantasy XII

#4: Final Fantasy VIII

#5: Final Fantasy X

#6: Final Fantasy VI

#7: Final Fantasy IV

#8: Final Fantasy XV

#9: Final Fantasy III

#10: Final Fantasy XIII

#11: Final Fantasy II

#12: Final Fantasy I

#13: Final Fantasy V

#14: Final Fantasy XIV

#15: Final Fantasy XI

So this is my ranking without explaining why or why not, because, c’mon, each one has de capability to be one single post, and I’ll definitely make a review, but for now I hope this will give you a sense on what line I roll with the type of FF’s I like, and as a side note, I left the Multiplayer’s last because I’m not very fond of online games, so I’ve never touched them.

This is my ranking and Final Fantasy will always be a part of my life and I'm happy to be part of this world community of gamers.

So far in my life I’ve passed for three big depression periods I remember very well, I don´t know if I got depressed at 3 or 4 years old, but so far I can relate only to those moments in my life where depression hit me so hard feeling like my lowest point, but then you realise there are even lowers states of existence.

Being depress sometimes can pass unnoticed because it´s not something that usually comes with a physical manifestation or something that people can see or notice, so basically you are wandering with your own sadness cloud feeling miserable and all the unique stuff every depressed person has to deal with, each one different and important. One of those moments was in my early twenties, not even a quarter of a century and darkness hit me.

In order to better understand some of the stuff of this post I have to state one fact thas has been present in my whole life: I question everything that comes in front of me that don´t make sense to me, either it´s an idea, a fact or a person. I question whatever I want to learn more about it and understand it and this happened with religion. My spiritual and religious path it´s always in constant questioning for better understanding and comprehension of my surroundings and the Universe as a whole, within my human limitations of course.

Having clarified the previous, I was in a big depression moment of my life without a defined spiritual path of my own and searching something to complete me, something that could make sense to this world and what was happening at that moment. One of the paths I found at that time started to make sense, I questioned it and I still questioned today, is the Fae Path from the Nordic European folklore.

I’ve aways been very fond of the whole fantasy and mythology manifestations around the world, Americans, Europeans, Asians, African, Oceanian or from outside this world, fantasy has this kind of gravitational pull to my mind and soul, when I feel down day dreaming with other worlds it helps me to keep going one day at a time. As a daydreamer with a necessity to fly away from this world, I found a spiritual path with Faes at exactly the same time when I received on of those great mixtapes from my uncle, I got one with the name Adiemus written in it. My uncle didn't tell me anything about it, he just handed it to me and told me to listen to it.

Oh my Gods of Ancients Times! My world changed and some light appeared in front of my eyes. Beautiful choral melodies imbued with a perfect orchestral music in a deep and profound sound that inmediattly took me to the ancient land of the Druids, green pastures so far as the eyes could see, the smell of sweet magical potions, the comfort of a small fire burning while eating some magnificent nature delights, it was a magical and fantastical world popping up in my head with such strength and power that the darkness that surrounded me stepped away for a brief moment and I could see the blue sky with the rays of sun coming through the clouds lighting my world.

By that moment I've already had some experience with New Age Music, mostly the most representative and commercial like Enya, Era, and by my own personal foundings the beautiful Lorena Mckenitt, but this Adiemus was something from another world, it has this unique sound so strong that bounces in your soul like a beating heart. The gorgeous choral voices wich accompanied the music are just perfect, they deliver the right amount of livelihood anyone can need in a moment of darkness.

Adiemus also contains some more real and dark melodies representing the way I felt at that moment of depression, it was something like, if someone was there just by my side trying to comfort me, it was not sadness but comprehension and motivation, like telling me that I could do everything, encouraging me to get out of that hole I was and reminding me the only way to find my path was walking trough life. The Bagpipes, the flutes, the drums, the voices, all of them telling me that I could do it, there is something else out there and it´s up to me to find it.

Gradually Adiemus nested in my skin like a benign symbiote feeding my spiritual medulla, and like it usually happens when I found a musical project that blows my mind I started looking for some more. By that moment (early 2000's) the information started to be more accessible to people due to the increasing openness of the internet, you needed to do some hard research but still, you could find a lot knowing where to look.

I found more music about Adiemus from the genius composer behind it, Karl Jenkins, becoming  a compulsive consumer of his works waiting for each release of his new work, but what really change me was a mixture between Karl Jenkins and an online tool to find music called Audiogalaxy, the most important feature for me was that it was one of the first engines for someone to search a song or a band and the algorithm showed related music and it was awesome, I remember searching for Adiemus and in front of me tons of similar recommendations either by genre, style or country, I was like a musical sponge taking note of all the names, from one I jumped to another, and another. At that point,  I realized two things, first, the power of the internet and second, my love for collecting music.

I’ve always had the luck of knowing people for brief periods creating most of the times “Points of Reference” in my life, either with some life experiences or something triggering some other stuff, so one time I met this guy cousin of a friend, he was cool and all and actually a very funny human being, I remember people just laughing when he was around, he created a nice environment, the good sense of humour and the smell of pot I think has something to do with it.

This fellow stuck around with our group of friends for a while, he was staying at his cousin place and obviously he hadn´t much of belongings with him, a couple of pipes, some clothing, and some books. One day I was meddling with his stuff and I found a pack of 4 publications with an odd smell, that odour of old books with yellowish pages, instantly by the look of it they took my attention, I’ve found within his belongings a Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Hobbit bundle.

By that time I was about to turn 20, just entered college and discovering the tabletop RPG games at its fullest so the Lord of the Rings was a common topic of my nerdy group of friends but I haven´t read it yet, I wasn’t ashamed of it and I really wasn´t looking forward to reading it at that time, I kind of always postponed it some way or another, so when I found them in my friend belongings I took the chance and asked him if he could lend them to me, he answered with a positive response adding that he was also stalling the lecture but I could go ahead and read them first, so I did. I really didn’t know at that time in what mental mess I was getting into.

Having the books in my temporal possession  I started doing some previous research just to see if I started with the Hobbit or with the Fellowship of the Ring and the answer was crystal clear, the adventures of Bilbo Baggins were the first ones on my list.

I can brag a little bit about my reading speed, I think it´s a little bit faster than most of the people, but not like mutant fast like those who cross sight any page and they “read it” in about 10 seconds or less, I just read fast and when I was younger I devoured books, I liked and I still like to enjoy any story and not rushed it, taste the flavour of the book. At that time the college where I was studying went on a student’s strike and it was a mess, but while the rest of us who didn’t take the facilities struggling with the authorities, we were waiting for the classes to star over having a lot of free time, like 9 months, so I got a partial job as a barista and most of the time after work  I indulged my nerdy and geeky hobbies as well as practicing my drawing techniques, I had some time to spare and I took it really calmed and relaxed with the part time job reading daily with a cup of coffee and some smokes after work , but for the Hobbit I decided that I needed to read it under the shadow of  big tree in a park nearby my place.

Coffee, smokes and a book were ready, the weather was fine that spring afternoon when my adventure began because like I’ve told you, I wasn´t aware of the awesomeness I had in my hands which I’ve neglected and stalled it for so long, and so the reading started, and continued, and continued and kept going for hours. It was so amazing how just after the first pages I got immersed in this amazing world of fantasy that felt so real, the descriptions, the characters the environment, everything was just like being there, almost as if I was remembering an old story. What shocked me the most and no other book has ever given me are two things that I value from all the other things a masterpiece like The Hobbit can offer.

Thi first thing is the main character Bilbo Baggins, I think he´s the only character so far in my reader life that I’ve felt him as if he was or is my friend, it’s a strange feeling and I’ve heard similar experiences from some other characters but not with Bilbo, it was weird and strange you know, feeling that a fictional character is someone you know or knew and reading about him was like reading the life of a friend of mine, this closeness with a character  is one of the greatest things about this book that no other book character has ever had in me like ever.

The second greatest thing it´s strongly related to the first, after the first reading session wich I needed to end because it was getting pretty late and I had a Tabletop RPG sessions coming up later that night, I closed the book with an angst of not knowing what was going to happen, like being worried about Bilbo and his Dwarf companions. The next day the first thing I did after having some late breakfast/brunch/lunch was pouring some coffee in my thermal mug, I took my smokes and the book to the same spot at the park but this time was different, I had this feeling of knowing Bilbo and with that feeling it was a mixture of -what new adventures are WE going to have this day? and the anxious feeling to discover what's next, like really excited to live the adventures along with the characters, to be part of their lives, travel with them through Middle Earth fighting Trolls, solving Gollum’s puzzles, avoiding spiders and sneaking into the Misty Mountain. It was a hell of an adventure and the book didn't last enough for my taste, by the middle of the week I already had finished the book.

I closed the Hobbit and I had this feeling of emptiness, like –this is it? I needed more and I remember that I had three more books at home that continued the adventures in Middle Earth, but you know what? It wasn't the same. There is a huge difference between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, don't get me wrong, both works are amazing and each has a lot of strength and influence in literary history as well as in human society, even if you don´t acknowledge it, literally changed the way to look at Fantasy breaking the concept that it was only for little kids showing the world that people from all ages could enjoy a Fantasy story.

The Lord of the Rings didn't shock me as The Hobbit did, I felt the three books like pieces of well-written Fantasy story, en epic one but for me it lacks the adventurous feeling  Bilbo brings to the story, maybe it has something to do with identifying myself with the character in a way that he wasn´t looking for an adventure and suddenly a Wizard nocked at his door changing his world and  life forever, bringing to his doorstep the most wonderful and biggest adventure of his lifetime, at some degree I wanted that, after realizing it I can tell you that I’m still waiting for this wizard to knock on my door and takes me into an adventure in a magical land and that is the power that exploded inside my head when I read The Hobbit.

But that feeling of living adventures and traveling into farway lands became kind of a constant in my life from that point on, that was my ruler to measure new stories, I would eventually found some other books and just a few have the same feeling on me, taking me to magical lands where everything is possible.

Finding a story like that is hard, not impossible, just difficult and most of the times it involves weird situations or strange coincidences that eventually will lead you to read something that you’ve never expected and that’s how I think you can have your own Unexpected Adventure just as I did with the Hobbit.

There are in the world some individuals that influenced me in some major or minor way, some of them already started their journey into another dimension, some others still grasps to their earthly existence and some I’m yet to meet them. One of the people that made a huge influence over my persona was my Uncle, aka “Captain Pijama”, in later posts I will talk about him and his mark on me, you’ll see that most of the stuff  I love, in one way or another he was involved by influencing me in so many ways from personal, intellectual, spiritual and the most important for me, the sensorial and imaginative side of me.

Let´s travel back in time early into the 90’s when there were still this “thing” to record mix tapes to someone, either your love interest, maybe some friend or in my case my uncle to his nephew, he always recorded me music he thought I would enjoy, it was like his way of sharing on my Facebook a Youtube video or some Bandcamp project. I’m proud to say I received a lot of mix tapes wich at some point got replaced by CD’s and now most of them in digital form. My uncle made me some kind of music nerd in the sense of collecting music no matter the format, either physical or digital, I need to collect music.

At this point it’s worth mentioning we were both living in different countries, so he sent me the mix tapes by traditional mail, there were no fancy express delivery services accessible to regular people, so he sent me in a yellow envelope with bubbles maybe 2 or 3 mix tapes at a time. Coming home after school and expecting if my uncle had sent me something it was always exciting, and when it did happen, man oh man!!  Best day ever.

One of the cassettes he recorded me had written on side A the name: Deep Forest; by that time I already had some experience listening New Age and Electronic music, mostly Kraftwerk (go figured, I heard those guys maybe at 8 or 9), so I listened to this Deep Forest  mix tape with an open mind.

I turned my cassette player on, put the freshly recorded mix tape and something amazing happened. I start listening to this “music” that I was trying to understand, nothing I’ve listened before came to my mind to relate it. Weird words sounding like African natives, some childish noises with electronic melodies mixed with tribal arrangements, everything fused in such a way my mind started to travel into fantasy worlds. It was the first time I had listened music with lyrics so strange that I immediately wanted to know more about it. Every song I listened it was more amazing than the previous one, the lyrics of this mixed words both folk and mystical made me wonder what were they talking about.

I listened to Deep Forest over and over and over and over, at home, with my Walkman, in the car, everywhere, and each time I found more little noises in the background. I remember writing back to my uncle in one letter (yes, we used to write hand written letters to communicate us) asking him about Deep Forest, he answered me back very exciting telling me the history behind this group. Apparently, one of the two founders named Michael Sánchez returned from a trip from Africa with some recorded sounds and voices. Together with Eric Mouquet, mixed the sounds, created and atmosphere and gave birth to one of the most important and creative Electronic/New Age projects of the 20^th century....sounds easy right?

Deep Forest for me was one of the first projects that got me excited waiting for their next album, and then for the next one, and so forth until these days, especially because each album was planned with sounds from another place of Earth, it was exciting to see what was going to be the ending result, none of their albums has ever disappointed me.

By this time the two founders separated ways, Michel Sanchez with his own project and Eric Mouquet kept the Deep Forest brand, for me it’s not bad at all, this means I have more projects from both sides of the coin. The only thing I have to recognize is the fact when you heard them separately, you can notice the things each of them brings to  Deep Forest but even thou together or separated they are both musical geniuses.

All the sounds, the little noises, melodies mixing electronic and tribal sounds transports you to so many worlds of wonder that instinctively your creativity just flows. Up to this day whenever I want to break some type of Creativity Block one of my first choices is Deep Forest, it´s just one of those things that you just can´t get enough, you will always want more, seriously, I can put the whole Discography in one playlist, press shuffle and I can hear it the whole day. My mind and soul relaxes, besides the fact of the awesomeness of the music it has a lot of nostalgia for me, particularly because it was shown to me by my uncle in a very specific moment in my life that marked me so hard, Deep Forest has been part of my life in many special moments, every time I’m working on something, let´s say “creative” I play it at some point, either to start sketching some illustration, to reorganize some ideas or maybe get some inspiration for some far away planet in the galaxy, it just get me there you know.

I suppose by this moment you could assume that while I wrote this post the background music was no other than Deep Forest, I played the first one in a re-mastered version and it´s like the first time I heard it with all the clean sounds and textures, I will always keep listen it just to feel better about myself and to unplug my mind from this reality, this is the best and most valuable thing Deep Forest has, it takes me out of this world  to some other place where I can imagine freely with no restrictions or boundaries, with its music I'm Free.

There is one moment in everyone’s life when everything changes, it´s like if your whole world suddenly goes inside out using your senses for the first time. Some people have this moment early in their lives, and this was the case for me. I was maybe eight or nine years old, my memory sometimes tricks me and I tend to merge some decades into years. It is like when someone reminds me something from the 90’s and I think it was like 10 years ago but no, not even close.

I’m proud to say that I’ve had more of those moments; one of them was when I met for the first time the work of the amazing writer Michael Ende with some of his material, I watched in a Betamax (not even VHS) the movie called “The Never Ending Story” and after the very first 15 minutes my world and my mind just flew light years away from Earth, it was an overwhelming amount of imagination fuel that got into my mind at that moment in my life.  

Until this day I can still remember the feeling when I saw this kid like me, maybe a couple of years older, but still an outcast, the bullied weirdo from school that found an enigmatic book in a hidden library, a fantastic world appeared before his eyes becoming suddenly part of the story, suffering when Artax dwelled into the swamps of Sadness, laughing when the rock giant camped with his buddies and Atreyu fought Gmork.

It was so amazing how this little boy became a real time observer of Atreyu’s adventures trough Fantasia, searching for a cure to the princess and fighting against The Nothing. What really got me, and I think it was the main reason why this movie started a metamorphosis on my soul, was the fact that the character of  Bastian at some point, also as a reader, became part of the story, the magic in Fantasia was so powerful that broke the walls of reality and he was also in the quest to save the princess, that thing just finished to blew my mind.

I remember profusely the first time I saw this movie with my uncle, he rented it from a small video club store near his apartment, I enjoyed one of my firsts cups of black coffee in my life (with the sole reason to stay awake during movie nights, you can imagine the result with a 9-year-old kid), that time I didn´t quite understood the movie as a whole, it was mostly the fantasy, special effects and the initial experience of this fantastic adventure.  After that home screening, every time I could watch the movie on TV it was like a special event for  me just as exciting as some others enjoy the Super Bowl, every time I watched it I understood more and more until I found something, there was a book about it and the movie was based on it.

What a great discovery in a time when there were no internet and no other means of searching for information about a nerdy movie or a book. You needed to rely on the small bits of information that you might found on some magazines or some newspapers and maybe TV shows, but information on the Nerdy and Geeky stuff was very limited in the 80’s.

As to expected I got my hands into a 70’s version of the book, a friend of mine had it in his place because his mother had bought it for some reason I don´t quite remember, but the interesting thing is that one day I was at his house and I saw the book just lying there in a book shelve, just like Bastian found his.

I just couldn´t believe it, it was like too much for me, the excitement of seeing an edition of the book with the Auryn on the cover, it was a softcover thou but I was standing in front of it, I think my friend saw my face of utter happiness and he asked me if I knew the book, I told him that I knew about the book and I had only watched the movie not having the chance to read it, and then something happened, he told me: -well, you can have it if you want to, we don´t read it and I don´t like it, so if you want it, it´s yours.

I really don´t remember exactly what happened later but the next thing I recall was me sitting in my room with a sandwich, an apple, and reading the book. It was so amazing to finally live the experience that amazed me when I was younger.

I devoured the book.

Page after page after page the story unfolded before my eyes, it was like floating on words. The movie was only a tiny percent of the awesomeness from the book. The characters that I loved finally where part of me just as Bastian was part of Fantasia, and the music sounding in my mind while reading it was one of the best experiences ever.

The impact in my life from this book and movie after reading it and watching it was that I needed more stuff to learn, more fantasy books to discover and read, more authors, more movies, more stories, and certainly more of Michael Ende’s work, that´s how Momo became part of my favourite books ever.

The story of Atreyu, Bastian, Artax, Falcor and so many more made an impression in my life so strong that configured my way of thinking crafting my personality, molding most of what I am now. It opened me to a world of magic and fantasy like nothing else I can relate, it showed me that I could dream and, if I dream enough and believe in the power of imagination and creativity, anything was possible and nothing could stop me. For that and only reason, every single day I work on fulfilling my dreams so one day the power of my Imagination takes me to the place where I belong.

Fantasia and all his inhabitants will always be a part of my life and every time I re-watch the movie or dwell into the pages protected by the Auryn, they'll always remind me that I’ll never stop imagining and dreaming, that fantasia need from us and we need to keep dreaming so they can live on.

By the way, when I was writing this post obviously I was hearing the soundtrack from the movie and the main theme by Limahl it's just epic, that Fade-In entrance it's just fantastic, I highly recommend for you to look the Heavy Metal Covers, there a few that are pretty good.