Final Fantasy VII : on the way to a smile

For those who wonder what happened to the group after the open ended ending of the original videogame - this book is for you. Yeah sure there’s the movie Advent Children - but apart from Cloud and Tifa we learn close to nothing about the others. This book tries to fill the gap between the ending of the game and Advent Children. In that it succeeds. But is it necessary to know about, is it worth it? I’d say partially. One could say that without these stories, without Advent Children, the fates of the characters would be up to the players/readers imagination. On the other hand there will always be a craving for more, for an official account - in the end we still have the choice to either accept these stories or our own fantasy. Truth be told there isn’t much meat to these stories. Barrets story doesn’t amount to much, Tifas struggles do have a genuine ring to them, Yuffies antics are just that (and a bit more), Cid and Vince make guest appearances, Cait Sith is nowhere to be seen and Clouds regression feels unearned. Nanaki, in who I wasn’t strongly interested before, was great though, as well as the story about the remnants of Shinra. The overarching theme of geostigma, Jenova i.e. Sephiroths lingering influence given form, seems logical and suffices as a plot device - but is rather a means for prolongation. For those who cannot have enough of the franchise it is a worthy read but definitely not a “must-own”.