The Final Soul Blazing

The women in my family have had a tenuous relationship with video games in the past.  My oldest sister has basically never played them, my Mom played Mario once to the rest of our delight, and my other sister Stephanie only played a scant few games.  She would play Mario and other easy to pick up/easy to put down games.  There was one long RPG that she would play; Soul Blazer.

Look at this game.  This is a game where you have to free the gosh darn Freilians, and make that jerk Deathtoll pay.  What else do you need to know?  For those of you with no sense of heroism, Soul Blazer was a Legend of Zelda knockoff where you romped through dungeons killing monsters and freeing the humans trapped inside.  Once you did all that, you'd kill a boss, and move to the next area and do the same.  It was pretty fun, if not that innovative.

Stephanie played this game...a lot.  She must have played it at least six or seven times all the way through, which is not a feat to be underestimated.  Each playthrough was at least fifteen hours of gameplay, depending on if you wanted to make sure you did everything along the way.  Each time she played the game, she named the main character (a boy) after whatever boy she currently had a crush on.  There were so many that I couldn't even remember the names of all them.  Furthermore, for as long as we were kids, she could never defeat any of the bosses.  They were kinda tough, and she'd rather the monotony of doing the regular levels rather than toil away at the bosses, so she'd ask me to do them for her.  This continued through High School, and even College.  She borrowed my Super Nintendo, and played, and at some point I'd beat a boss for her, and she'd go back to the game.  One day, though, everything changed.  I got a call from her about four years ago.

Stephanie: "Andy, I gotta tell you something."

Me: "What is it, sis?"

Stephanie: "I beat Soul Blazer...by myself!"

There are a few constants of the world I must cling to in order for my life to make sense.  God exists, he sent his son to die, and he loves me.  The earth spins a little more than 365 times for each lap around the sun it takes.  2 + 2 does not equal 5.  Stephanie can not beat Soul Blazer.  All this is known.  When Stephanie told me she beat Soul Blazer, I plum didn't believe it.  I had to see for myself.  The next trip I made to her place, I demanded to see the game.  Sure enough, she had beat the game, by herself.  Her fiance assured me that he had no part in it, but little did he know how much of a part he had.  In fact, not only did he beat all the bosses, he beat everything else, without knowing it.

The character was named after him.

I think there's something symbolic there.  After years of trying to beat the game with characters named after a hodge podge of current crushes and daydream fantasies, she finally won.  She saved the world, and it's all thanks to a hero named Bob.  If I were allowed a speech at her wedding, this would have been the tale I was told.  It would have been grand and magnificent.

Maybe it's better that I was kept silent during the reception.