Blueballed.

I've had an itch to play Final Fantasy VII again for a while, especially after reading the Final Fantasy letters series of articles.

A lot of gamers of A Certain Age will get excited and misty-eyed any time FFVII pops up in conversation, just don't get too close in case they're a fanboy - that wont be materia in their pocket. It's part of the 90's zeitgeist of the post-16-bit era and regardless whether you'd been exposed to JRPGs on the SNES, this was something completely different. It's an insane game, with a story covering series tropes of fatherhood and friendship, with some oh-so-Japanese romance consisting of intense sincerity and possibly some handholding. The main theme of environmental decay and ecological terrorism is still relevant today, probably more so and it's all tied into a game that lets you play cross-dressing games, participate in breeding programs involving giant, multi-hued ostriches and gamble in a casino. It's mental.

I've still got my original CDs (ooh, CDs! How quaint) and the game is sitting there, all installed and shit, waiting for me to play it, but it can't find a "Windows 95 compliant MIDI device".

I have no idea how to fix this, and neither does the internet: the only solution seems to be to buy a soundcard. Buy a soundcard? I thought those days were long gone...