12 Days of Albermas. Final Fantasy VII

[Deleted]

Final Fantasy VII! I'll be playing through this game in the lead up to Christmas because I have nothing better to do. Considering the game's massive populairty, I decided to give this game an in-depth opinion as I play through it for the first time. I'll be going into a lot of detail at first, but I'll ease up as time goes on. Feel free to leave feedback and such.

So it starts up and immediately it shows me a blurry logo while the credits go by. It doesn't change otherwise, so I only have the famous theme tune playing to keep me occupied. I don't want to skip for fear of skipping something important. Eventually, it ends and starts up again, so I opt to skip.

Title screen is barren, no music is playing, the background is black with only a sword sitting in the center. I have only two options, so I click New Game because I obviously can't continue. Mashing X doesn't work, so to my horror, I press O. I hate it when games do that, I never get used to it.

There are a bunch of white dots in front of me. I am confused, but then Aerith appears, and does nothing in particular. The proportions of the city look off, I know it's old graphics, but it looks like a lego set to me. The dramatic sweep is inter-cut to a zoom in of a train, as it gracefully zooms in to the same train arriving at a station. Kind of pointless to interrupt the dramatic sweep, like someone coughing in the middle of an orchestra and pausing the whole thing for a split second. The music playing is pretty cool.

I'm in control of Cloud now, will have to get used to using arrow keys because analogue controls don't appear to be compatible here. I understand. I don't understand why I have to hold X to run, however. I head to the config menu to try changing this, but no such option appears to be available. Thankfully, I am clumsily able to make X confirm and O back, much to my joy.

First chest in the game is a corpse. Yay.

Ok so the game uses the Active Time Battle system. There's no tutorial, so it just lets me run wild pressing attack. I haven't used the ATB system since FFIV on the DS, which I didn't like, and I haven't played that game in ages. Guards can attack me while I'm trying to make selections, so I'll have to rectify that issue. Hopefully 'wait' will solve the issue.

"Wow, you used to be in *IMPORTANT PRONOUN* all right!
... Not Everyday you find one in a group like *LEARN THESE NAMES PLAYER!*"

"Aren't IMPORTANT PRONOUN the enemy?"
"What's he doing with us in the 'GOOD GUY GROUP?"

"He >>>>WAS<<<< in 'BAD GUY GROUP"

The writing seems very stilted. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it laid off the caps lock.

So the game is letting me name everyone, not just Cloud. I have no idea why when they have perfectly good default names.

So switching to wait lets me leave Cloud alone in battle while selecting options, which is much more suited to me. Not that I need much thinking time, since attack is all I need. It's brainless, but at least I'll be able to get through fights quickly. Well, theoretically. I spend more time waiting for the ATB gauge to fill up then I do watching actual attack animations, weather they be mine or the enemy's.

So Cloud mentions Shinra who I know is the evil corporation in this game. It's not caps locked, so why do Solider and Avalanche have to be in all Caps? I know that they're probably acronyms, but it's so awkward to see them in dialogue like that.

So Shinra drills Mako, the planet's energy. I don't need Game Theory to tell me that this is an obvious environmental/oil drilling parallel. I wonder how maturely the game which actually discuss these issues, or will Shinra just be a bunch of mustache twirling Captain Planet villains?

I love how the game gives me short tutorials on how to run and climb ladders, but doesn't tell me anything about the battle system, or that Barret joined my party so unceremoniously.

So I fight a boss and it goes down easily to bolt and these limit break things. The game seems to be easing in the player at this point, providing danger when there's no actual danger. Take the time limit afterwards. They obviously designed it so that any player could make it out in around 5 minuets, giving them leeway to make mistakes and faff about. The timer continues during battle, including intros and victory poses. Did they do that on purpose to provide a false sense of urgency when the player isn't in direct control? It's all designed fine, it gets you to the exciting parts quickly both game play wise and in terms of story, invading an enemy strong hold and blowing it up. It's just a shame that I can see the strings so visibly, so to speak.

Also the fire sounds like an Atari sound effect. The atmosphere in the city is actually pretty good, the music is haunting and it seems pretty run down. The first encounter with Aerith is also really understated. Considering her fate, I was expecting something much more OBVIOUS and ROMANTIC. The electricity occasionally zapping at the front of the screen is also really good. This is drawing me in more than the action scene at the start did.

Guards attack me and I have the choice to run or fight them. I have no problems fighting them however, since I take like, no damage. Cloud eventually runs anyway even though he could have lived through about 50 more of those fights assuming I eventually use potions. I'm probably too used to SMT or Dark Souls where less than 3 direct hits from an enemy of roughly your strength will send you too an early grave.

So it's interesting that Jessie says 'thanks for helping me out back there!' Since she was stuck while the reactor was about to blow up. I thought nothing of it at the time, but I helped her. I wonder how many more of these understated choices will be seen throughout the game? It's pretty good stuff.

The exposition on the train is rather odd. Shouldn't Cloud know all this stuff, living in Midgar and all? There's some dialogue about Midgar and how some people feel trapped. They don't want to live in the slums, but they probably don't have enough money to move to a place where they can see the sky. So being able to appreciate nature is something only the rich can appreciate, we've got class struggles mixed in with the environmental message now, two of fictions most common themes regardless of medium. Well, I left the train and I've spotted a save point. The graphics are hurting my eyes now, and that's about an hour into the game. Might play some more a bit later, in such an event I'll update this post.

[Stove]

Reason one why Gamecube>PS, you will never see any button other than A being "confirm".

[Deleted]

Dec 14, 2014 0:38:31 GMT Stove said:

Reason one why Gamecube>PS, you will never see any button other than A being "confirm".

True, but I can't think of any other playstation game on any playstation console that I've played using O for confirm other than this and MGS, off the top of my head. I guess I can see the logic, as the 'O' shape seems to make more sense as a symbol of validation compared to X. But it just doesn't feel right at all. Which is incredibly strange now that I think about it, since on, say, the 3DS which I've been using a lot lately, A is where O would be on a game cube controller, yet it doesn't feel strange in the slightest to always be using a for confirm. I really am missing that big old green button that leaves no ambiguity.

[Deleted]

Day 2

So Cloud is in town now, and he makes it clear that he doesn't care about Avalanche, Soldier, or Shinra. What does he care about, then? Money, evidently, as that's all he ever wants to do is nag Barret for his paycheck. I'm not sure how far he expects a one time payment to get him.

In any case, the towns people and some news tell me that the Avalanche bombing actually caused some innocent casualties. Damn, so the morality is grayer than it might first appear. Too bad no one in Avalanche itself seems to give a damn. Of course, he's convinced to go along on a second mission, otherwise there'd be no game to play. The pay Barret gave him was too low, so he wants even more money for next time.

I like how dynamic the world feels for an old game like this. I mentioned helping out Jessie, but after you escape and meet Aerith, you can buy a flower from her. When you meet Tifa, you're given the option of giving the flower to Tifa or this Marleene child. Giving it to Marleene resulted in a scene where Barret had her thank Cloud for the flower. It doesn't sound like much, but it's quite impressive how such small actions can lead to small scenes. It feels like I have an impact on the world despite the fact that it's still a linear story and nothing dramatic is being changed. On top of that, a lot of various background characters are moving around and doing stuff all the time. It doesn't feel static.

It's interesting how Cloud dishes out the optional tutorials. They're really trying to drive home the idea that he's a combat veteran. Also, in a flashback, it's shown that Sephiroth was his childhood icon, or at least his inspiration for joining soldier. That's going to hit him pretty hard later down the road, huh?

I like the materia system. You equip magic just like you would a sword or a regular piece of equipment. Simple and open for customisation.

So second dungeon is just a slightly bigger version of the first one. I get that it's just another reactor, but could you switch it up a little? No, giving it a recolour and adding some sewers doesn't count.

President Shinra ambushes me and he's not much better than a Captain Planet villain, as feared. He isn't a named character though, so despite being the leader of the evil organisation, I guess Sephiroth and Jennova will still have centre stage.

Boss was pathetic. It appears the game is trying to teach me about back attacks, as the three characters have the enemy surrounded. It was weak to bolt which dealt over 90 damage, so it turned around to hurt Cloud. When Barret got his limit break, he hit it while it was turned around for roughly 650 damage, instantly killing it. So far the battle system has just been completely brainless. For regular battles I just mash attack, and the two bosses so far haven't been much better. At least it's fast.

Cloud falls from the railings after the battle, and survives. Between this and XIII, what is it with FF characters surviving falls from such great heights? And they're always used as scene/location transitions. But I'm in a church now. Hey, I recognise this place from the movie! Since this is where Cloud and Aerith introduce themselves, it's no wonder this place is special to Cloud.

"The roof and the flower bed must have broken your fall" I don't think it works like that Aerith. But I do agree that Cloud is incredibly freakin' lucky. I love how he gets up too, like a gymnast he just leaps to his feet like he's never felt better in his entire life. Makes sense, it's at least consistent with his ability to shrug off direct bullet fire like it was a slight gust of wind.

So apparently plant life doesn't grow in Midgar. What do they do for Oxygen? I mean, flowers grow elsewhere on the planet, sure, but still. Since Shinra has a monopoly on Mako energy, which is the source of all life and thus plants as well, does that mean they control oxygen intake too? That's some Spaceballs territory right there. VII is working surprisingly well as an effective piece of dystopian fiction, at least in terms of atmosphere and setting, and especially in regards to video games. I mean the only other game set in a dystopia I can think of is Bioshock, but that's not even capitalist dystopia to my knowledge.

Wait, so Aerith's name is Aeris? Huh? If people grew up with Aeris, then why is she so commonly referred to as Aerith across the internet if she was only called that in the Japanese version? I'll rename her Aerith to stop my head hurting.

Some guys chase afterwards and I have to protect Aerith with barrels. I fail miserably, so she has to fight a bunch of enemies as well. Except, despite being a healer, she takes basically no damage. So what's the threat here? Did I pick an easy difficulty by mistake? There wasn't a difficulty selection, so I guess this is how it was meant to be played... what a horribly designed damage system, especially since she can one-shot enemies using ice magic.

So apparently a simple flower girl is cut out to be in soldier. She mentions that Cloud was infused with Mako energy and guesses that he was in soldier. So was she also infused with Mako energy?

Well, that should do for now. I should be done in about a month at this pace... I'll have to pick it up quite a bit.

[Stove]

Dec 14, 2014 22:28:37 GMT @alberenza said:

Day 2

So Cloud is in town now, and he makes it clear that he doesn't care about Avalanche, Soldier, or Shinra. What does he care about, then? Money, evidently, as that's all he ever wants to do is nag Barret for his paycheck. I'm not sure how far he expects a one time payment to get him.

In any case, the towns people and some news tell me that the Avalanche bombing actually caused some innocent casualties. Damn, so the morality is grayer than it might first appear. Too bad no one in Avalanche itself seems to give a damn. Of course, he's convinced to go along on a second mission, otherwise there'd be no game to play. The pay Barret gave him was too low, so he wants even more money for next time.

I like how dynamic the world feels for an old game like this. - At least there's something positive, and you pointed something out I meant to last post; you can't exactly bash on this game's graphics as they were good for their time and it hasn't gotten a remake.
I mentioned helping out Jessie, but after you escape and meet Aerith, you can buy a flower from her. When you meet Tifa, you're given the option of giving the flower to Tifa or this Marleene child. Giving it to Marleene resulted in a scene where Barret had her thank Cloud for the flower. It doesn't sound like much, but it's quite impressive how such small actions can lead to small scenes. It feels like I have an impact on the world despite the fact that it's still a linear story and nothing dramatic is being changed. On top of that, a lot of various background characters are moving around and doing stuff all the time. It doesn't feel static. - *claps*

It's interesting how Cloud dishes out the optional tutorials. They're really trying to drive home the idea that he's a combat veteran. Also, in a flashback, it's shown that Sephiroth was his childhood icon, or at least his inspiration for joining soldier. That's going to hit him pretty hard later down the road, huh? - spoileralertforagamethat's15ishyearsold!

I like the materia system. You equip magic just like you would a sword or a regular piece of equipment. Simple and open for customisation.

So second dungeon is just a slightly bigger version of the first one. I get that it's just another reactor, but could you switch it up a little? No, giving it a recolour and adding some sewers doesn't count.

President Shinra ambushes me and he's not much better than a Captain Planet villain, as feared. He isn't a named character though, so despite being the leader of the evil organisation, I guess Sephiroth and Jennova will still have centre stage.

Boss was pathetic. It appears the game is trying to teach me about back attacks, as the three characters have the enemy surrounded. It was weak to bolt which dealt over 90 damage, so it turned around to hurt Cloud. When Barret got his limit break, he hit it while it was turned around for roughly 650 damage, instantly killing it. So far the battle system has just been completely brainless. For regular battles I just mash attack, and the two bosses so far haven't been much better. At least it's fast.

Cloud falls from the railings after the battle, and survives. Between this and XIII, what is it with FF characters surviving falls from such great heights? And they're always used as scene/location transitions. But I'm in a church now. Hey, I recognise this place from the movie! Since this is where Cloud and Aerith introduce themselves, it's no wonder this place is special to Cloud. - To be fair, any action anime ever has characters surviving things they definitely shouldn't be surviving.

"The roof and the flower bed must have broken your fall" I don't think it works like that Aerith. But I do agree that Cloud is incredibly freakin' lucky. I love how he gets up too, like a gymnast he just leaps to his feet like he's never felt better in his entire life. Makes sense, it's at least consistent with his ability to shrug off direct bullet fire like it was a slight gust of wind. - Exactly.

So apparently plant life doesn't grow in Midgar. What do they do for Oxygen? I mean, flowers grow elsewhere on the planet, sure, but still. Since Shinra has a monopoly on Mako energy, which is the source of all life and thus plants as well, does that mean they control oxygen intake too? That's some Spaceballs territory right there. VII is working surprisingly well as an effective piece of dystopian fiction, at least in terms of atmosphere and setting, and especially in regards to video games. I mean the only other game set in a dystopia I can think of is Bioshock, but that's not even capitalist dystopia to my knowledge.

Wait, so Aerith's name is Aeris? Huh? If people grew up with Aeris, then why is she so commonly referred to as Aerith across the internet if she was only called that in the Japanese version? I'll rename her Aerith to stop my head hurting. - She's referred to as Aerith because that's her name. You answered your own question.

Some guys chase afterwards and I have to protect Aerith with barrels. I fail miserably, so she has to fight a bunch of enemies as well. Except, despite being a healer, she takes basically no damage. So what's the threat here? Did I pick an easy difficulty by mistake? There wasn't a difficulty selection, so I guess this is how it was meant to be played... what a horribly designed damage system, especially since she can one-shot enemies using ice magic.

So apparently a simple flower girl is cut out to be in soldier. She mentions that Cloud was infused with Mako energy and guesses that he was in soldier. So was she also infused with Mako energy? - Anime. Also spoilers which you haven't found out yet might help this case.

Well, that should do for now. I should be done in about a month at this pace... I'll have to pick it up quite a bit. - It's a JRPG. Did you expect to be done in 20 hours?

Interesting read. Do like.

[Deleted]

Thanks! I also don't mind spoilers, I've seen Advent Children and I know about the majority of this game's twists thanks to the internet. I'm still not sure why Western audiences call her Aerith when the default name is Aeris in English versions, unless they found that out later and adopted the original name. Did I just answer my own question again?

As for length, I was under the impression that this game was only 50+ hours, reaching the 100+ mark if you do side things on the third disc.

[Indigo]

This guy are sick.

It's supposed to be Aeris (in the West), but you know how people are when a Japanese name isn't exactly the same in a localization.

The game's apparently about 40 hours, and 20 extra if you do most of the things it has to offer.

[Deleted]

Day 3

So I go to Aerith's house, but because her mother told me so, I have to leave for Tifa's bar without her. I know she's just going to eventually catch up anyway, so I'd rather not feel like an ass having to sneak out of the house. And yeah, she pretty much teleports in front of me anyway, so it was just faffing about.

That said, the pacing of this game is actually really fast. Dialogue and scenes go by very quickly, dungeons are short, and in general the game jumps from scene to scene pretty quickly. I'm rather fond of this, though sometimes I do find myself confused as to what's going on.

Enemies are finally starting to deal actual damage to me in combat. Ahh! I actually have to watch my health and heal! I DON'T WANT TO THINK! Incidently, Cloud learned a new limit break, cross slash. It's pointless however, as at just does exactly the same thing Braver did- deal a large amount of damage. Are his limit breaks just going to be linear increases in power?

Aerith tells Cloud that she had a boyfriend in Soldier's first class. I'm guessing that this would be that Zack guy who I know nothing about, because my impression of Sepiroth is that he's been left developmentally arrested by his alien-mother when it comes to girls and social interaction in general. More importantly, I'm impressed with their decision to 'de-virginise' Aerith. Not literally, I have no idea in regards to that, but my point is, female leads in anime and JRPGS tend to have no idea what love is like, they haven't had boyfriends and they haven't had sex. A lot of the time, they literally don't have a history whatsoever, since a bunch of them have amnesia. It's up to the hero to show them the way! And of course that makes them ideal 'Wiafu' material, they're untouched and pure, which makes them more desirable. Since the base desire has been fulfilled in purifying them, weather they're tsundere, Rei-like, or just flat out dere-dere doesn't matter. They're already 'pure' enough, and obviously they're guaranteed to be 10/10 drop-dead gorgeous. Aerith is still a nice person, very bubbly and otherwise attractive, dere, helpful, and cute, but she's been with other men- this doesn't make her whore or anything, it makes her, you know, an actual person with an actual history behind her. In terms of most Japanese fiction (hell, even a lot of western fiction) this doesn't necessarily make her a romantic ideal thanks to her history with Zack. She's still a popular character though. Is this because fans actually liked her personality, or because of her tear-jerking death and subsequent romanticisation due to said death in the movie/the rest of the game? (probably) Her death is undoubtedly VII's most famous moment.

Of course, immediately after that I found out that Tifa's being sold as a bride to some rich fellow. Great, after all the praise I just had for Aerith's characterisation, now we have to save Tifa's purity SAO style? I'm really bitter about this.

Cloud's a vampire, he has no reflection in the mirror.

Cloud has to cross dress so that he an Aerith can get into a sex mansion? Uhh...

So I get Cloud ready, and I like how they give him visibly different clothes and a different walkcycle/idle pose that you can freely control. Adds some personality. But it's interesting how a simple dress, a different hairstyle, and a demure demeanor can completely mask your gender as female "Wow, your friend's hot too!"

Ok, so at least Tifa chose to be here, in order to... I dunno, bring the don to justice? Kill him? Something. In any case, she knew he was shady and is in the mansion on purpose, much like Cloud and Aerith. This isn't a Princess Peach scenario.

The Don doesn't choose Cloud, like I expected, but rather Aerith. This pissed me off initially, but instead he's taken to a room where the player has control, and slowly has a bunch of zombie-like sex hungry men closing in on him, whilst the player is backed into a corner. Cloud isn't using his masculine abilities to hit things very hard in order to feel good about himself saving his female friend- now, he has greater empathy for them, being in their position. It's still really awkward and kind of sick to sit through, but in some respects, I'm actually ok with how they chose to handle this, although I'm not too sure if this was meant to be played for comedy or genuine understated horror.

Ok, so Cloud eventually has to drop pretense and beat them up, but it's not like Tifa or Aerith were being slouches either. Tifa apparently beat them up just like Cloud did, and Aerith was buying time in order to get information out of the Don. No one is useless here, but it does make me wonder why we didn't just barge our way in guns blazing to begin with. The security around the outside of the building wasn't particularly tight to begin with, so what's the big deal? They must have realised that they'd have to resort to fisticuffs anyway, if they wanted to avoid getting raped.

So to wipe out Avalanche President Shinra is going to break the supports over sector 7, where Avalanche is, and blame it on them. Pretty cleaver plan, but how are you going to explain Avalanche supposedly killing themselves once the terrorist attacks stop? Just say 'on a completely unrelated note, Avalanche were captured/killed' with no evidence? Eh, I'm sure he can get away with it regardless.

Don uses the classic trap door trap to drop them into the sewers, where a big old boss waits. Apparently, however, it's too stupid to not hurt itself with it's own AoE attack, and on top of that, fire does enough damage to swiftly kill it without hassle. Instead of keeping a monster down there, why not leave an incinerator or a pit of spikes down there?

So that's all for today. Not sure why this particular play session had so much gender politics, but there you go. I wouldn't say VII is hugely progressive, but it could have been a whole lot worse in my eyes. I probably have no idea what I'm talking about, either. But honestly the confrontation with the Don, which had the characters individually threatening to neuter the Don in different ways throughout the scene was fairly funny.

[Deleted]

Day 4

Shinra succeeds in destroying Sector 7, leaving a lot of devastation as the side characters in Avalanche are now killed, Marleene's fate is up in the air, and Aerith has been captured because she's the same damn key to the same magical rubbish in every JRPG or something like that. I'm willing to consider this Shinra's loss though, as they left Cloud, Tifa, and Barret, two of the movement's core members and a powerful X employee, alone with the bomb, without even checking to see if they actually died. As such, they caused massive amounts of collateral damage and property damage, all which they will have to pay for, and Avalanche isn't even dead yet. And it's not like they can cover this up, because what are they going to say to the public when we start blowing up reactors again or causing who knows what shenanigans? Very unorganised for an evil empire. As such, the destruction of sector 7 just comes off as being for pure shock value to me.

So Aerith is an 'ancient' whatever that means, and she was basically adopted by her current Mother after escaping some kind of research laboratory. She's probably key to unlocking some sort of power in the life stream, basically the magical rubbish and the same basic plot-line in virtually every JRPG that I was just talking about. The music is trying it's best to make me care, as the Mother's husband never came back from war, and that even as a child Aerith didn't feel lonely because her mother was one with the life-stream... yeah, it just isn't doing it for me. Apparently the director of this game wanted to make a game about 'how just because someone is dead, it doesn't mean that they're gone'. I actually like how Aerith and her mother also had to deal with the same emotions that Cloud will have to when Aerith dies. This is basically thematic foreshadowing, a circle of life if you will. I just don't care. But I do appreciate it, much better than X and XIII's 'Lets do everything the villains tell us to do until the last few hours of the game!' or in the case of XIII, after the final boss has been defeated and the world is falling around them. It's also better than IV's 'OMG, killing innocent people in scary black armor is evil! Lets STOP doing that, don white armor instead, and kill my long lost brother or something because his mind wont be changed like mine was! Yeah! Now lets go kill the personification of all evil in the world!'

I just noticed something. Marleene is white. I don't see a mother black or white anywhere, so why can't she be black like her father...? Would that not make her cute enough? Would that not make Barret token enough? Eh, whatever.

The climb up the wires leading to Shinra HQ was pretty cool, well, except for the part where I have to time Cloud's jump onto a swinging wire. I managed it by pure luck after about 20 attempts.

I'm at Shinra now. It seems like a pretty big milestone, so I'll end the current session here.

[Death Eye]

Dec 13, 2014 19:28:30 GMT @alberenza said:

I spend more time waiting for the ATB gauge to fill up then I do watching actual attack animations, weather they be mine or the enemy's.

There's a setting for that. It's one of the three sliding meter-type things on the options menu, along with one for how long text shows up on screen in battles and a third one I forget the purpose of. It speeds up the ATB gauges, makes things very interesting in active mode.

Incidently, Cloud learned a new limit break, cross slash. It's pointless however, as at just does exactly the same thing Braver did- deal a large amount of damage.

Not true, actually, if I remember correctly Cross Slash has a chance of inflicting Stop on the target. Go take a look in the Limit menu, you can check the effects of any limits you have.

Think I might have to make it a point to follow this thread somewhat closely, it's always fun watching somebody's first experience going through a game I know fairly well.

[Deleted]

Dec 16, 2014 15:41:19 GMT Death Eye said:

Dec 13, 2014 19:28:30 GMT @alberenza said:

I spend more time waiting for the ATB gauge to fill up then I do watching actual attack animations, weather they be mine or the enemy's.

There's a setting for that. It's one of the three sliding meter-type things on the options menu, along with one for how long text shows up on screen in battles and a third one I forget the purpose of. It speeds up the ATB gauges, makes things very interesting in active mode.

Incidentally, Cloud learned a new limit break, cross slash. It's pointless however, as at just does exactly the same thing Braver did- deal a large amount of damage.

Not true, actually, if I remember correctly Cross Slash has a chance of inflicting Stop on the target. Go take a look in the Limit menu, you can check the effects of any limits you have.

Think I might have to make it a point to follow this thread somewhat closely, it's always fun watching somebody's first experience going through a game I know fairly well.

Ah, thanks! Always nice to see your input.

The battle speed is actually fine for me now that I have three party members. I'm pretty much always doing or watching something now. But I use cross slash whenever I can and I've never seen stop inflicted, although most of the time enemies seem to die anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

[Deleted]

Day 5

I was busy, sorry.

Day 6

I was lazy, sorry.

Day 7

In Shinra HQ, had to battle my way through an elevator gauntlet. When I reach floor 60 I have to sneak past some guards despite the fact that I could easily beat up everyone in the room. If I fail, a fight ensues then the minigame gets reset, not that it's particularly hard. It's just a waiting game, and not only do you have to sneak through manually as Cloud, you need to press circle to get Barret to automatically hide behind each of the crystals. Then repeat the exact same process with Tifa.

I reach the 61st floor and there's nothing to do other than look at other floors that I can't technically explore yet. I need keycards, but only the 61st is available to me. I've talked to everyone on the 61st floor and nothing has opened up, other than someone telling me about the keycards. The 60th floor, where I did the sneaking game, prevents me from exploring lower floors, as the guards have huddled in the left room and wont let me enter, and I can't interact with the lower guards either. I'm stuck, so I decided to look up where I can find more keycards online. I don't have the patience for this, sue me.

Turns out I didn't give the right answer to one of the people on the floor. I had to respond with silence. This is adventure game 101 brand annoyance: try everything with everything, click on everything until something useful happens, regardless of logic. Not really a fan of this type of game design, but at least I can progress.

On the 62nd floor there are some bookshelves in the foreshadowing section, most notably the Jenova project. I wonder how many hours of game time I could shave off if the game let me read that file right now. Speaking of the files, the mayor will give me a keycard if I guess his password to, uh, something. I pay his deputy for all the clues and he tells me to find the misplaced file in each library, so I get a materia for guessing correctly first time. Unlike the last floor, this was good game design. You can get the key card by process of elimination if you don't want to do the puzzle, but if you do, you get a bonus. Very accommodating to different playstyles.

Am I weird for using the bruiser as my healer? Whatever. In any case the following floor has an optional puzzle that I can figure out for some items, so I spend some time figuring it out. First door I try asks me if I want to open it. I select no, and the game asks me again and again until I say yes. Hate. This only happens with one door, too.

Following floor doesn't have much of worth besides a place for sleep and a save point.

65th floor isn't even a puzzle. There's a ton of locked chest on the floor and a Midgar model in the center. I have to find the one unlocked chest containing a piece of the Midgar model, add it to the model, then look around the entire floor again looking for the next chest that was unlocked. What a waste of time. It just seems to be here to force me into random encounters.

We overhear a pretty silly business meeting. Not only is Shinra going to ignore sector 7 after blowing it up, it's going to raise the mako rates in other sectors all for this plan involving the promised land and the ancients. The president is pretty confident about all this mythical, theoretical stuff isn't he? Not to mention he seems to be under the delusion that the people will love Shinra more for their actions, because they're under the delusion that the people will think Shinra saved them from Avalanche. I'm so glad Shinra decided to destroy an entire 8th of the city we call home to stamp out some small time terrorists! We had family and friends in sector 7, hell, thousands of us likely died in the attack, but at least you were able to kill, like, ten people who may or may not have deserved it! Hail Shinra! Is Shinra honestly this stupid?

Yup, they're pretty shortsighted. Apparently in order for Aerith to be able to accomplish whatever goals they have in mind, she'll have to be studied and tested for another 120 years, which is, well, impossible. If Shinra was so cocky I'd expect him to have Aerith ready right now rather than in 120 years. And yeah, apparently they plan to breed her, but Shinra still has to wait 120 years, likely even longer than that. So you're just going to leave sector 7 like that for well over a century? This is astronomically stupid.

President Shinra: "What about the promised land? Won't it hinder our plans?" My god, you're right! If only you'd thought this through more! It's not like you couldn't have prepared for this outcome, if you had subjected Aerith's mother to the same experiments, then you must have been aware of how long this might take.

Cloud runs into Jennova. He seems a bit weak and vague in his words for a brief moment, but ultimately the scene is of little consequence. I suppose a lot of good villains show up early in the story with practically no fanfare, though, like the final boss of Tales of Vesperia can be seen standing around in the second town of the game doing nothing in particular.

We find Aerith and the scientist Hojo continues doing is thing, making no attempt to stop the intruders. He simply tells them that only he can operate the machinery, so they shouldn't kill him. Well... Barret just shoots at the glass (bullet proof glass?) that Aerith is in, which causes the door to open with no harm done. Eh. What really freaks me out was that Hojo had raised in a dog-beast-thing into the cage, claiming that both it and Aerith were an 'endangered species' and that he was going to 'help them out'. Given the fact that he was talking about breeding Aerith to create more Ancients for research... Ewwww! what the h*** made him come to the conclusion that he'd get anything of worth from having two completely different species procreate? And he was going to watch? WTF. WTF. What's this game rated? I'm more pissed at the writers here for putting this idea/image in my head, especially given how pointless and stupid the whole '120 years research' plot point only served to make Shinra look like a bunch of wild chimps in suits.

The beast is a party member now, and his name is Red XII. G Red it is.

I'm told to meet the others at the 66th floor elevator, but they're not outside or inside either of them. Umm... ok, guess it's time for the guide. Oh, I guess I had to use the elevator first so that the Turks could find me. My bad I suppose? In any case, it's only now that Shinra actually tries to stop these obvious intruders running around and screwing things up?

Yep, so the promised land is just a legend with no basis in fact, that is "Just too appealing to not to pursue" so not only is pres Shinra stupid and comically written, the writers aren't even making an attempt to parallel him with a stereotypical business man. Businesses want maximum profit for minimal risk, the president is obsessed with funding extremely long term goals with maximum risk, for uncertain profit. I actually feel sorry for this guy, he must be mentally handicapped. I say that of course, but there wouldn't be a plot if his random gambles and superstitions weren't actually true, so obviously there's a promised land, Aerith is the key, and the 'lost' ancient legend has somehow remained 'un-lost' and perfectly intact with no changes to the lore or the instructions whatsoever. Ever heard of Chinese whispers? Yeah, that doesn't exist in FFVII's world.

So Shinra wants to build Neo G Midgar on the promised land because it's very fertile and there's a lot of Mako there. Except Midgar isn't facing an energy crisis, so what's his rush? Also, unless the promised land is on a completely different planet, it'll be drawing energy from the same life-stream. Unlike in the real world, surely any location for drilling Mako could be theoretically used until the life-stream itself runs out? And since the life-stream appears to run like a circle of life, surely the life-stream can produce infinite Mako so long as life on the planet continues to exist? I really hope I'm just ignorant to the game's lore, because I'm really not fond of pointing out plot holes.

I'm in jail now. Just have to do random stuff until something random happens, I guess.

Eventually you have to go to sleep, and the following sequence is actually really gripping. The door is suddenly open, the guards are dead, the random encounters are freakish mutants who kamikaze you, and there's a hole in Jennova's holding place. It escaped The music is ominous and it's a legitimately great sequence. FFVII's greatest strength is easily it's atmosphere and how animated the environment is.

Wait, Sephiroth killed the president? That's a hell of a way to establish your villain. Have him kill the old one. I'm really liking this a lot, and the Shinra building up to this point hadn't been impressing me in the slightest.

So the old president wanted to rule through manipulation, his named son, Rufus, declared that he wants to control through fear. So he wants to be a tyrant. His son popped out of nowhere, but for about a minute I was under the misguided impression that Rufus would be an ally, proving that he didn't want to follow his father's footsteps and actually make efforts to improve the lives of the people, so that the villain focus could be on Sephiroth and Jenova. But nope, rich idiot. Oh well.

Battle on the elevator! It took forever because there were two consecutive battles, and I was ill equipped. I couldn't even abuse their weakness with lightning magic, I had to rely on Aerith's fire and Barret's gun. Red couldn't do anything but use items and wait for his limit break the whole fight. Rufus was easy though. His robotic dog went down to two bolt strikes, and Rufus himself just used weak shotgun attacks. He runs anyway, so it was all kind of pointless.

There's a neat little minigame where you have to fight Shinra soldiers in real time on a bike which is pretty cool as a spectacle in its own right. It's followed by a bossfight. You know, I'm starting to get pretty tired of 90% of the bosses being large, busily designed mechs that are weak to lightning attacks. I'm also getting tired of Tifa having nothing to steal, or not being able to steal things, and of having to organise the party's materia every time there's a scene transition, causing the party to change.

So we're leaving Midgar? Wait, there's a world outside of Midgar? Barret made a nodding remark when I decided to take the two females with me? There's an actual narrative reason why I only have 3 people in the party at once? I'm excited. Shinra HQ was really dumb and boring, but things seem to be looking up ever since Sephiroth started slaughtering everyone. I get the feeling I'm not actually supposed to be excited at the prospect of Sephiroth slaughtering everyone and someone even more ruthless than the old president taking over Shinra, but screw it.

My God! A world map! Large an expansive! I can save wherever the hell I want on it! I haven't seen you since Ni No Kuni! Ahh, welcome back my friend, please, come in, have a seat, let me make you some hot chocolate whilst the fire roars in the open hearth! That world map music is pretty stellar, too, and it's rare that you see a world map that looks and feels desolate, the skies are a tad darker and the usual grass is darker and sickly in colour, like moss. The music is calm and somber before changing to a more heroic tune.

Time to end the session. Shinra HQ was a bleak experience, but this was a good way to end a play session.

[Death Eye]

Dec 20, 2014 3:08:47 GMT @alberenza said:

In Shinra HQ, had to battle my way through an elevator gauntlet.

Had to? I don't know if saving and quitting right when you got to Shinra HQ may have affected anything, but there's supposed to be a scene there where Barret and Tifa look around or something and then you're given a choice to either go in the front and do the elevators or go in through a side entrance and climb 60 flights of stairs. And then you probably go both ways anyway because there are items in both directions.

You know, I'm starting to get pretty tired of 90% of the bosses being large, busily designed mechs that are weak to lightning attacks.

You were in a big industrial city, barring some giant monster coming and attacking the city busily designed mechs are somewhat to be expected. It eases up on that now, if I'm not mistaken.

I'm also getting tired of Tifa having nothing to steal, or not being able to steal things, and of having to organise the party's materia every time there's a scene transition, causing the party to change.

They also stop changing the party every ten minutes.
As for the whole stealing thing, did you try stealing from everything at least once? I remember there was something in there you could steal some pretty good equipment from. Maybe two things. I think one enemy gives you a sword?


I don't remember the early-game particularly well, so I don't have much to say regarding it, really. You're coming up on a fun sequence break, though, and not an especially difficult one if you can figure out how to do it. You can also potentially get yourself a good old-fashioned disc one nuke if you're lucky.

[Deleted]

Well, you have to if you step inside the elevator before that scene you mentioned happens, and can't leave until you reach the top and don't want to go back down again for fear of even more battles.

Ever since I got the materia, I've been trying to steal with Tifa virtually every other fight and every boss fight and I haven't gotten a single item out of it yet. In most games I've played, bosses usually have the best items for stealing. Is there a better character for stealing? Because I'm getting nowhere right now. The enemy skill materia is also on Cloud, and it hasn't recorded anything yet. I remember there was a game I played that had a similar concept to the enemy skill materia but I can't remember which one it was... looking at my shelf isn't helping me to remember, either.

[Death Eye]

Dec 20, 2014 13:36:05 GMT @alberenza said:

Well, you have to if you step inside the elevator before that scene you mentioned happens, and can't leave until you reach the top and don't want to go back down again for fear of even more battles.

It should've happened outside of the building. I do remember saving and quitting messing things up somehow, though, so I suppose that's what happened. If not, well, it's not exactly all that important at this point.

Ever since I got the materia, I've been trying to steal with Tifa virtually every other fight and every boss fight and I haven't gotten a single item out of it yet. In most games I've played, bosses usually have the best items for stealing. Is there a better character for stealing? Because I'm getting nowhere right now.

Conveniently enough, I'm pretty sure at your point in the game Tifa is in fact the best character for stealing. You've noticed it says "couldn't steal anything" sometimes? There's an important distinction here, specifically that that means there's a thing to be stolen and you just didn't get it on that attempt. It can take a while sometimes, being a luck-based thing.
Also yeah, this game's a little weird in that most of the bosses don't have anything to steal. Always worth it to check, though, I know for a fact off the top of my head that at least three of them do.

The enemy skill materia is also on Cloud, and it hasn't recorded anything yet. I remember there was a game I played that had a similar concept to the enemy skill materia but I can't remember which one it was... looking at my shelf isn't helping me to remember, either.

It's a fairly common concept in the Final Fantasy series, though the other games generally call it blue magic. Beyond that I'm not sure.
And yes, it not recording anything yet is to be expected. You can start getting some now that you're out of Midgar though. I remember offhand two of them you can get fairly easily in the near future.

[Stove]

Dec 20, 2014 13:36:05 GMT @alberenza said:

Well, you have to if you step inside the elevator before that scene you mentioned happens, and can't leave until you reach the top and don't want to go back down again for fear of even more battles.

Ever since I got the materia, I've been trying to steal with Tifa virtually every other fight and every boss fight and I haven't gotten a single item out of it yet. In most games I've played, bosses usually have the best items for stealing. Is there a better character for stealing? Because I'm getting nowhere right now. The enemy skill materia is also on Cloud, and it hasn't recorded anything yet. I remember there was a game I played that had a similar concept to the enemy skill materia but I can't remember which one it was... looking at my shelf isn't helping me to remember, either.

FF games are really bad about their stealing mechanics. Often most of what you steal are simple recovery items, except for a few bosses which give crazy stuff.
FF3 was particularly bad about this; the only reason to use a Thief was if you wanted a Dragoon, because you'd have to get a thief to at least job level 70 then fight Odin, who you can steal Gungnir from, which is the 2nd strongest spear in the game (second to Dragoon's job mastery weapon)

[Deleted]

I was thinking of Bravely Default! Vampire class lets you take enemy skills. So yeah, it's a Final Fantasy thing.

In other news, it is evident that I'm not going to get anywhere close to finishing VII before christmas. This was obvious from the beginning, really. After Christmas, this thread is officially being renamed/becoming Alberenza's note taking thread- one game at a time, I will take notes for them as I play through them, once I'm done with 7 hopefully sometime in January. I don't know what I'll be taking notes for and playing after VII, though. I'm open to suggestions, so long as its something I haven't played before and has plenty of plot. Although, just because it's plot based doesn't mean to say that I'll want to take notes for it. For example I plan to pick up the Pheonix Wright Trilogy, which is pretty much entirely plot based, but I don't want my notes to simply be "I wonder if this person did it?" or "I figured out X thanks to Y deductive reasoning!" I'd honestly find something mostly gameplay based like Dark Souls to be more worth my time in terms of taking notes. I mostly look forward to writing about Persona 5 a long time from now.

Day 8Session 6

I find a town and everything is starting to look more early Final Fantasy/standard fantasy setting, which is, uh, a thing I guess. Cloud tells the others about why he joined Soldier, because he wanted to be like Sephiroth, which we (and Tifa) already knew about thanks to the flashback.

We do, however, learn that they were good buddies. The flashback becomes an extended scene, where we see Sephiroth in person for the first time...! Epic first line of dialogue for this timeless villain in video game history:

"Hey."

Flawless. Cloud doing squats while talking to him is just the cherry on the cake. They're on a mission and a monster attacks. Sephiroth joined the party! Through actual gameplay we see just how much stronger he is than Cloud, although in the flashback, Cloud appears to be level 1. Sephiroth can kill the monster in two hits, and is AI controlled, but some time is wasted since the monster can one shot Cloud, so Sephiroth had to take the time to revive Cloud instead of attacking. A little tedious, but it demonstrates Sephiroth's power and how inadequate Cloud is by comparison without simply needing to tell us. Though Cloud tells us anyway.

I had a fun time on the piano. Was able to play the first part of twinkle twinkle little star.

You can visit Cloud's mother to see an extended version of an earlier flashback. This is actually a really good playable flashback, considering what it adds to the story, how the other characters react and narrate events, and how there's a surprising amount of optional parts to it.

We reach the reactor and Sephiroth freaks out when he sees a ton of monsters in tanks, sitting in front of what looks to be a holding place for Jenova. I've never heard this part of his character mentioned before, I knew he was vaguely alien because Jenova is his mother, but Sephiroth is terrified at the thought of having been born as a freakish monster, grown inside a tube rather than a womb. His humanity is brought into question. Why has his character been so flanderdised and dumbed down since his debut in this game? Everything surrounding FFVII in general paints a picture of a pretty different game compared to what I have in front of me, everything from Kindgdom Hearts, Advent Children, and the fanbase/anti-fanbase. It's not like this was a groundbreaking scene, or that Sephiroth is suddenly the most complex villain ever- but Cloud has much more to him other than being an 'emo', and Sephiroth is more than an intimidating ultimate badass/mother's boy.

Popularity ruins everything.

After the scene the game lets me save before continuing the flashback, so this seems like a good time to stop the play session also.

[Death Eye]

And then Sephiroth destroyed the world while Cloud just stood there telling everybody a story. The end.

[Deleted]

Cloud got struck by new-games-for-Christmas flu and fell into a coma, his ultimate weakness. They couldn't exactly fight Sephiroth on their own until Cloud was well enough to finish his story, could they?

I've got too many games to play right now, and honestly, FFVII was starting to feel like a slog. Right now my bottom line was that it was good for its time, and its atmosphere and organic feeling world are still really impressive, but the actual narrative (especially the writing) and gameplay haven't aged quite so well, especially considering how the fans have since blown the quality of this game way out of proportion.

[Metal]

Jan 31, 2015 20:36:53 GMT @alberenza said:

Cloud got struck by new-games-for-Christmas flu and fell into a coma, his ultimate weakness. They couldn't exactly fight Sephiroth on their own until Cloud was well enough to finish his story, could they?

I've got too many games to play right now, and honestly, FFVII was starting to feel like a slog. Right now my bottom line was that it was good for its time, and its atmosphere and organic feeling world are still really impressive, but the actual narrative (especially the writing) and gameplay haven't aged quite so well, especially considering how the fans have since blown the quality of this game way out of proportion.

This is why ff4 is the best one XD which reminds me... I need to finish the after years. XD

ALSO i suggest ff9 in terms of story. Except for necron, who isnt really explained at all (even in japan) the story is rather decent if i remember right. Add to that one of the hardest extra bosses in ff history, and youve got a winner.