Artwork credit: CHRISTOPH HITZ FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

As a consolation prize for my canceled vacation in 2020, I bought a used PlayStation 4 on eBay. If I couldn’t get on a plane, I could at least go to Midgar: the glowing, grimy setting of the classic video game “Final Fantasy VII,” which had just received a cutting-edge remake. Despite listening to its soundtrack for half my life, I’d never experienced the game firsthand.

I eagerly took control of the spiky-haired hero Cloud Strife and piloted him through a tutorial mission, pausing to take in the explosive orchestral arrangements of the soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu, the Japanese composer who created most of the franchise’s music. An hour in, as Cloud escaped a collapsing power plant and wandered the streets of Midgar, a familiar but unexpected melody warped me into the past: It was a chilling instrumental arrangement of “The Promised Land,” the choral opening theme from the game’s 2005 animated film tie-in “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children” — and my most-played track on iTunes for a significant period of time when I was a teenager.

Read the full article by A.Z. Madonna via The Boston Globe “I fell in love with classical music thanks to video games”