When Final Fantasy VII was released in Japan in 1997, the result was little short of Hysteria. Thousands upon thousands of rabid gamers, many of whom had been camping out in the streets next to their favourite games stores for days, rushed to purchase their copy of the most eagerly anticipated Playstation release ever. Previous sales records were broken in a matter of hours, and within days FFVII had become one of the most successful titles in videogame history. Before long, the developer, Square, had sold almost as many copies of the game as there were Playstations in Japan - Virtually every Japanese Playstation owner now has a copy of Final Fantasy VII. There was even a run on Playstations themselves, as dedicated role-playing fans bought machines simply play the latest Final Fantasy game. No previous Playstation title had caused anything like as much fuss.
What made Final Fantasy VII stand out even more was that its massive success translated readily to the tastes of Western gamers. For years, the videogames industry had been labouring under the impression that English-speaking gamers just didn't 'get' Japanese role-playing games, with the result that precious few were ever translated. Quite how this peice of received wisdom was started is something of a mystery, especially considering the success of those few games that did make it across to the US or British shores. Still, Square's insistence on releasing Final Fantasy VII in both the US and UK was seen by many as a questionable decision indeed, rumours abound that Sony itself was none too keen on the idea to begin with. Luckily, with millions of copies already sold in Japan, Square had the commercial muscle to make an overseas release happen and Final Fantasy VII duly made its way to the US with amazing results. Within weeks of the US version being confirmed, the game racked up more pre-orders than any previous Playstation title, and within only three months of hitting the shelves, sales soared past the million copies mark.
When the UK version finally arrived, it was greeted in a similar way. Released just before Christmas, alongside several other top-notch competing titles, Final Fantasy VII yet again managed to surprise everyone, including its distributor, SCEE. The game was one of the biggest sellers over the traditionally tough holiday season, and succeeded in outstripping even the most generous expectations.
But there was one small exception, Final Fantasy VII was not finished, parts still linger throughout the game which most are completely unobtainable. Unlike some people, hundreds were not satisfied with the game and raised numerous petitions across the Internet...like me for one to either get a sequel made or get the whole game re-made with an Aeris resurrection. I was upset at Aeris's death, and at the end of the game I threw my controller on the floor and slowly made my way towards the Playstation and turned it off, I sat there, in my bedroom for 7 minutes in solitude, wondering, why the hell did Aeris have to die!? About a few weeks after I discovered this website called "The Final Fantasy VII Citadel" It had a section called "Secrets and Mysteries" and also a guestbook, I signed the guestbook every single day at school asking if the owner would e-mail Squaresoft.....but with no such luck. I checked the petition out that was mentioned in the "SAM" section and signed it. I thought that wasn't enough and started making my way around school to gain more names, unfortunatly I only got 47 and after about 5 weeks, I completly forgot about it. About 1 year later I played Final Fantasy VII again and remembered what I had tried to do previously. Its now 3 years on and Squaresoft still haven't jumped to the idea to re-make Final Fantasy VII and all I have is around 97 names out of 5000. Thats why I need people to sign my petition to get Squaresoft to re-make Final Fantasy VII, you may not care because its an old game, but I do, Me and hundreds of other people were ripped of in one of the best games ever released. If you do want to help me then please E-mail me at ticktock39@hotmail.com or please visit my website at http://www.expage.com/superffvii.

Yours Faithfully

Graham Sparrow

PS: Please, please don't hold out on me or the rest of the other gamers. Thank you. And it applies to more than one country. Ignore the United Kingdom rubbish. They had no international name.