The New Year is upon us and sales of Tip-Ex has risen exponentially as those of us with poor memories struggle to remember that it is now 2015. Likewise, Gyms and sports stores are expected to report record profits as people make their annual New Years Resolution to “get fit this time”.

My girlfriend decided that her resolution would be to “get her life back on track, and also to take more pictures”. Both commendable and achievable, I think. Being full of foresight, I decided to do something completely different this year; no more “give up smoking” for me.

My resolution for this year is to complete Final Fantasy VII.

In 1997, my group of friends and I discovered this game and fell in love with it. It was something unlike anything else we’d seen before in the gaming world and the scope of the game was absolutely mindblowing. It was only topped by the following year by the release of Metal Gear Solid – a game that, at the time, could have easily carried the title of “James Bond”.

My first experiences with FFVII were watching my cousin, and my friends play it while I was mesmerised by both the graphics and the music. Eventually I managed to get my hands on a demo released with PC Gamer that put me in the Mt. Corel area.

Then I got the PSX version and the world opened up for me. I stayed up until 2am one night just getting through Train Graveyard, soaking up the expansive environment. After many hours plied into the game, I was on the third disk, fighting Hojo atop a tower.

Unfortunately, then came time that every pre-adolescant (and adolescant, and post adolescant…) male dreads. Room cleaning. I dutifully did it in order to get back into the game, but then — horror of horrors — my memory card was missing. Weeks passed and I finally found it, buried in a box I kept in my airing cupboard. But now the third disk was missing.

This find one, lose the other, trick continued for years. Finally I came into posession of a PC version… but the MIDI killed it. Without access to Sony’s SPU, the music fell flat and this was before the days of the many mods the game has seen. A few years ago I plugged in my CD-ROM and downloaded some of those mods. Shortly after getting through Junon… my hard drive died.

And that brings us to present day. I own the game twice on PSX, twice on PC, and the other day I bought another copy from the Playstation Network. Some would say that at this stage, it’s an omen. I simply must not complete this game.

Disks and memory cards are no longer an issue and I made a resolution that I fully intend to keep.

I will complete that game. Come hell or high water.

Now taking bets for my PS3 to catch fire shortly after changing to disk 3.