Let's Play Final Fantasy VII (Part 7): A Completely Expected Meeting

With that said though, let's get on with it. Last time, Cloud fell from the dizzying height of 50 meters out of the No. 5 Reactor into what would presumably be the Sector 5 slums. As I mentioned last week, a fall like that has a high likelihood of lethality, but since Cloud is more than just a mere human, he's probably going to be OK.

This scene actually was interesting because I thought Cloud would dust himself off and keep moving. Getting a black screen where he can barely move is surprising. Admittedly his fall was a bit panicked and uncontrolled, but I was honestly expecting a guy who could shrug off bullets to laugh at mere 13 story fall.

This part really ripped the life out of me. There is an extensive scene here where Cloud has a dialogue in this black screen. He's talking with someone and trying to recover from his fall.

The problem with this scene is that it's a million screenshots of black screens and text, and what's worse is that all of it seems important.

We see three voices in this scene. They're all displayed differently so we can see clearly who is talking. The first voice is the darker-colored, unlabeled voice. The second is Cloud himself, which is the brighter white text and has Cloud's name listed.

The third is normal blue-windowed speech text that is used throughout the game (it uses whatever the window settings are, so if you set it differently, it'll appear different here). This window gives us enough context to identify what is going on in this conversation.

The darker-colored voice is something in Cloud's head. Remember that red-screened "this is not a reactor?" This is also a voice in Cloud's head, and it might be the same one. This voice talks about "back then," suggesting something in the past.

The Cloud part of this scene is also not heard by the third person, who is someone outside observing Cloud's fallen body. In fact, this blue text is there precisely to show that this conversation between Cloud and the voice in his head is in fact happening in his head. Unfortunately, this conversation is long and meaningful. I'll transcribe it. "Voice" refers to the second voice in his head, while "Outsider" refers to the person trying to rouse Cloud in the real world.

Voice: You all right? Can you hear me?
Cloud: ...Yeah...
Voice: Back then... I only got scraped knees.
Cloud: What do you mean by "back then?"
Voice: What about now? Can you get up?
Cloud: What do you mean by "back then?" What about now?
Voice: Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself now.
Cloud: I'll try.
Voice: How about that?
Outsider: Oh! It moved!
Voice: Take it slow now, little by little.
Outsider: Hello, hello?
Cloud: I know.
Cloud: Hey, who are you?

Then, Cloud wakes up. There's a lot of stuff to cover here. Cloud has an official voice in his head. This voice in his head is him. It has his memories. It can move his body if his conscious "Cloud" persona isn't in control. Cloud is also missing the memories that this other voice has. But if this other voice is Cloud's memories... who is Cloud?

This just got real.

Finally, no more black screen!

To no one's surprise, the person on the outside is the flower girl in the pink dress. The game put so much effort trying to show us she's important that we knew we'd be seeing her again. She's the first thing we see in the game after the starfield. Yeah, she's important.

We find out that we're in the Sector 5 Slums, which makes sense, since we were in the No. 5 Reactor, we fell down below the plate, the sectors are numbered, the part below the plate is called the slums... oh and we're in a church. That seems obvious too. Apparently, flowers and grass can grow here, because this is a sacred place, and she really likes it here. I'm really not at all surprised by this, considering way back in part 1, I talked about her apparent connection with nature based on the brief scene that we saw. She's some kind of cleric or druid type of character, and she's the first character that we've met to have any kind of "sacred" connection. Her design even radiates a sort of purity, like a Virgin Mary type of character. However, this game has a clear environmental message, so I think she'd be more of a druid.

She remembers seeing Cloud in Sector 8, and in a surprising moment where he doesn't have the memory of a goldfish, Cloud can remember her too. She thanks him for buying her flowers.

Then she does a completely random topic change for no reason to ask Cloud about materia. I don't understand this topic change at all. It's abrupt and silly. She asks if he has any, and he says he does. She says she has some, and that it's special because it doesn't do anything.

Cloud suggests that maybe she doesn't know how to use it, but she says that she does, but it's good for absolutely nothing, but it belonged to her mother and thus made her feel safe.

OK, so she has a useless materia. That random tangent won't be important later, so I'm totally not going to screenshot a line out of the conversation that is especially pertinent and might be referenced again later.

Seriously though, this part pisses me off. The tangent is so random that it catches you by surprise, and it makes no sense. It's like, why would you even say this now? You don't know anything about me and then you ask me about my materia? Are you going to rob me... oh, your mother's materia, it's special because it's useless. Really? Whoever was directing this part of the game should get punched in the face. Here's another transcription:

Director: We need to give some more valuable plot exposition about things that will happen later in the game.
Director: Put President Shinra here so that we make this boss here more meaningful. Make him talk about Sephiroth a bunch.
Director: Then have the flower girl bring up her mom's materia so that it doesn't come out of nowhere when she uses it later.
Writer: But sir, that doesn't make any sense, and it would hurt the narrative flow of...
Director: JUST DO IT PEON WE'RE NOT PAYING YOU TO ASK QUESTIONS

We name the flower girl. Her default name is Aeris Gainsborough. I realize she has a different canon name, but I'm choosing the default one because I like the sound of it better. We'll talk more about her name (and the canon spelling) later.

I have to apologize here because a lot of the screenshots I took here are not very good, due to where Cloud is standing while talking Aeris. I could go back and replay this whole scene again, but wouldn't you know it, the last save point was just before setting the bomb in the No. 5 Reactor. I don't want to scroll through all that President Shinra dialogue and Cloud internal monologue again. I wish I had save states.

We also see some other guy here. Aeris asks Cloud if he's ever been a bodyguard. He tells her it will cost her, but she's got an idea for how to pay.

He seems OK with this. I'm not, though.

Private security services are a pretty expensive service. You need both skills and physical fitness to do the job. What's more, Cloud is an enhanced human, and can command a pretty high price. He charged Barret 3000 gil to go bomb a reactor (the cost of 5 magic materia, 30 potions, or a year's rent in the inn in Sector 7), but he's willing to provide security to this girl for a date without the promise of sex? Tifa's in trouble, I think. Jessie just better roll over and die.

The game starts to get a bit more blatant. Cloud claims at first to not know the man, but then inner Cloud says otherwise. And inner Cloud knows best!

Cloud calls him a Shinra spy, and his uniform (which is just a dress suit) tips him off. Wearing a blue suit is a uniform? His name is Reno, and he thinks Cloud is weird. He calls some Shinra soldiers in and Cloud and Aeris fall back to avoid fighting on the flowers.

White Knight Cloud confirmed.

Reno walks on the flowers, and then tells his men not to, showing he's fond of the fedora too. He also identifies that Cloud has Mako eyes and is thus a former SOLDIER.

There's some random encounters in the next area for no reason, and we get to see Aeris fight. Or at least we should but I end up actually killing all the enemies with All + Lightning before she gets to attack.

She has a pretty girlish attack animation where she leaps at the enemy and bops it with her staff. While she could have used it like a martial artist, she's definitely not Tifa, who does a few jabs and a shin kick with her basic attack.

This next scene is just annoying to me. There's this stupid part where Cloud has to drop barrels on bad guys and it only serves as a way to raise Aeris' affection for him if you get it right. The entire scene serves no real purpose other than to deliver us the screenshot on the left.

The good news is that these bad guys are here for her and not trying to capture Cloud for the bombing. The bad news is that the game just dropped yet another plot bomb on us. What the hell is an Ancient? I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that she's 65 million years old (she Ayla's cousin) and knows all about the secret plans of the space alien monster that will destroy the world, and they want to capture her because she has the secret weapon that can thwart it: her mom's materia!

Oh come on, what else could an Ancient be?

Finally we're out of that scene.

Aeris points out that this isn't the first time they've come after her. So men in suits chasing after you is a chronic problem, Aeris?

Cloud identifies Reno as a member of the Turks, a Shinra organization whose primary function is scouting for SOLDIER candidates.

Well, then what would they be doing here?

Cloud... I don't really understand you. These guys are obviously an analog for the KGB or CIA. He outright states that they are involved in spying and assassinations. They're spies that happen to also scout for SOLDIER candidates, rather than the other way around.

Of course, Aeris uses this to cheerfully suggest that they might be trying to scout her for SOLDIER. OK, Aeris, sure. I'm pretty sure I was there when I heard "The Ancient is getting away!" but you can use that excuse if you want.

As it turns out, Cloud doesn't exactly buy the scouting excuse, but he also doesn't repeat the Ancient line, which any reasonable person would. Of course, Cloud has the memory of a goldfish, so maybe he forgot.

Let's pause for a minute and explain exactly why he doesn't repeat the line. It's much more plausible that he didn't hear it, although the game does take place from Cloud's perspective and we tend to not see or hear things unless he does.

That line is a teaser. It's a hint. It means something, but it's not supposed to be overt about what it reveals. In the chaos of the barrel-pushing minigame, you're actually supposed to forget that he said it (and a lot of us probably did). Like a lot of things in FFVII, it's giving clues as to what's going on before they're actually relevant, so that when you play through a second or third time, you realize that there was a mention of some thing like the fact that Aeris is the Ancient (whatever that means), or that her mom's materia is special. Since we're playing in ultra-slow motion though, we don't miss it and get to make theories.

Aeris asks Cloud if he was in SOLDIER, and he says that he used to be. He asks how she knows about the Mako eyes, but she is evasive.

When we first met her, she seemed fairly normal, a character with potential. There was a bombing and she doesn't suspect Cloud, and maintains her cheerful demeanor. An optimist.

Now, it's clear she knows things. She knows a lot of things, and she's hiding a lot. She's proud of her mom's materia, but is she really ignorant of its use? Maybe she knows what it does, but is intentionally misleading? How does she know the tell-tale signs of a SOLDIER?

Also, is she really going to stick with "they're scouting me for SOLDIER" as an excuse? She needs to go on a diet and do a few more three-mile runs.

Now drop and give me twenty!

Let's Play Final Fantasy VII (Part 6): Post-Bombing Analysis

Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV, and Final Fantasy VI. It's also covers no new material and is purely analysis of what has already happened. If you don't want to be spoiled, go play these games because they're really good. Or at least IV and VI. They're really good.

I was planning to include small points as an aside like I normally do as an intro. However, it quickly escalated to the point where I wanted to talk about so many little points that they ended up getting their own part.

By the way, what ever happened to these soldiers? Did they run off when Airbuster came out? They weren't given any orders to fall back, and it seems like they would at least provide some fire support for Airbuster during the fight. Who knows. They aren't shown in the next scene with the reactor exploding... oh, I guess I should get into that.

In the previous update I did not show this, but as Cloud falls down to the slums below, the No. 5 Reactor blows up.

I know what you're saying. Of course it does, because we set the bomb! Yes, that would make sense, except there's no reason to believe that it would.

In the previous scene with Airbuster we see President Shinra exiting the reactor. He was inside the reactor and came out to greet us and dump a bunch of exposition. Yes, that scene is so stupid that it gets a follow-up explaining how much more stupid it is. Great job, President Shinra.

What is established in this scene is that Shinra knew there would be another attack by AVALANCHE today. It's pretty obvious that there would be one, and the mishap on the train gives them an opportunity to attack. They even have a good idea for where the attack might be if they look at a network of the train tunnels and cross-reference that with where the tunnels exit. One side of the tunnel is guarded and the other is blocked by lasers, and that could probably narrow down the targets quite a bit. Either way, they predicted correctly enough to not only deploy Airbuster but also the President to the reactor. We had to have run past wherever the President was located inside the reactor, and he came out to greet us.

So far, that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is why a bomb disposal team isn't already in place inside the reactor near wherever the President was, ready to react. Ice materia exists, so they could just freeze the bomb and dispose of it. We know there are personnel inside the reactor, and since there is internet it's really not a stretch to say that there are probably radios who could notify the appropriate people to disable the bomb or at least do a controlled shutdown of the reactor to limit the damage.

Why does Shinra allow the bomb to go off? If their plan is to label AVALANCHE as irredeemable villains, they already have the No. 1 Reactor incident. Furthermore, I think they would invest more effort into, I dunno, ordering the soldiers blocking our escape to actually shoot us during our battle with Airbuster. This scene is so freaking stupid that I could probably write for months about it.

Let's get away from that though. Let's discuss the main characters and what has been revealed thus far.

Barret is the first character I'll talk about. He's a simple, emotional guy and the leader of this cell of AVALANCHE. In fact, about 80% of Barret as a character is tied up in the identity of AVALANCHE itself. AVALANCHE is a group of environmental terrorists that are trying to stop a government from destroying the world by sucking out its life energy. Despite being the good guys, AVALANCHE is willing to put innocent people at risk for the greater good. Barret seems to immediately demonize anyone who takes advantage of Midgar's prosperity, including the Shinra salaryman we see on the train. He identifies the upper city as being entirely responsible for the suffering of the people below, despite the fact that he has the money to hire an expensive mercenary to fight his battles. I don't want to demonize Barret here, though. He's an idealist, and he believes strongly enough in his ideals (which, as we'll discuss, are probably right) that he is blinded to the atrocities he's committed. I would be very surprised if the game didn't give him some kind of atonement later on.

We know a few other things about Barret. He has a gun for an arm, and given the number of other people we've seen who have visible cybernetic upgrades (none, including supersoldier Cloud), that his arm is probably special. It's likely that there's a story about that arm and we're likely to hear it. It's fairly certain that he hasn't ever worked with Shinra (or else we would have probably heard about it), so we have no good idea as to the arm's origins.

Barret also has a daughter, and his daughter is white. Marlene's skin color isn't an accident, narratively speaking. If she was his actual daughter, she would be black, even if her mom was white. I don't think the game's developers were that ignorant of genetics, and since FFVII's engine can handle way more than 256 colors, they definitely had the technology to make her look like a mulatto girl. No, Barret's daughter is definitely not his daughter. She might be a war orphan or a cousin or niece. We don't know yet, but we'll find out before the game is over.

Barret's probably the least storied main character we've met. Cloud, on the other hand, is complicated. He's a bioengineered supersoldier. He wasn't created in a lab, though. Instead, there's an entire division of the Shinra armed forces devoted to infusing volunteers who meet screening requirements with Mako energy -- the same energy that is the planet's life force.

As a result, Cloud is superhuman and it shows in his overconfidence. He regularly puts himself above others, stating that an ordinary member of SOLDIER could have single-handedly stopped AVALANCHE during their first attack. Other than that, though, there isn't a whole lot we know about Cloud. We know that there was an incident that led to his desertion, and while we have suspicions, we don't know if the incident in Tifa's past where Sephiroth killed her father is the same incident that caused Cloud to desert.

We do know that Cloud is a fairly cynical person, and that he does not openly care about anyone or anything other than money. We're not even sure that he cares that much about money. It seems as though he's a bit more warm-hearted than he lets on and his tough guy veneer is just a shield for what appears to be a nice guy on the inside.

Tifa is Cloud's childhood friend, and she and Cloud seem to have some romantic history. She clearly has strong feelings for him, and while his flame has seemed to burn out, it hasn't been extinguished completely.

Tifa hates Shinra, and most of her hatred seems to stem back to an incident in her past where Sephiroth, a member of SOLDIER, seemingly went rogue and killed her father. It's seems that other elements within Shinra were involved, likely as a catalyst. While it's possible that this is not the time when Sephiroth went rogue and that he was acting under orders, it is much more likely that these events are all connected.

Tifa, like Barret, seems OK with the terrorist acts committed by AVALANCHE, but considering that she is primarily motivated by vengeance, this seems understandable.

So let's get on the real topic I wanted to discuss, and that's the game's ending. "Wait, but we're less than two hours in and you want to talk about the ending?" Even though we've only been at the game for a little bit, we actually know a lot about how the game will end. This is a Final Fantasy game after all, and that gives us a huge amount of knowledge about how the game will play out.

First, we know that Shinra aren't the main villains of the game, but they are connected. In Final Fantasy VI, the Empire serves as a sort of catalyst that allows Kefka to rise to power. In Final Fantasy IV, the country of Baron commits atrocities under the control of Golbez, who in turn is a pawn of Zemus, who is in turn is possessed by Zeromus. In Final Fantasy, Garland is killed, sent back in time a thousand years, and puts into motion a plot to suck the power out of the pillars of the world.

In every Final Fantasy up to this point, the early parts of the game are always relevant in the ending, and because this game is not Final Fantasy XII (oops! let's not talk about the future anymore), I don't see any reason why that would be different here.

One key element in the relevance of Shinra in the finale will be the use of Mako Reactors. Mako is the planet's life energy, and it's being sucked out by these reactors. The protagonists are engaged in actively stopping these reactors by destroying them. What this tells us is that the evil mastermind's plot involves draining the power of the planet away, weakening it to achieve some other goal.

There are two ideas that pop into mind right away. The first is that there's some kind of evil entity trapped by the planet, and its plan is to manipulate humans in some way (either through agents or mind control) to weaken the planet so it can be freed.

If the plot proceeds in this way, there will likely be a major cataclysmic event that causes this entity to be freed, leading to a situation where the heroes must scramble to gather enough strength to fight the final battle. This ending prediction (including specific events) is mostly taken because a narrative needs to reach a dramatic climax and thus the bad guys need to be on the verge of winning.

The other thought that comes to mind is a malevolent planet-destroying creature who simply wants to end the world. In that case, Shinra are pawns, weakening the planet again so that the creature will have an easier time of things.

If this storyline turns out to be true, there will probably be some kind of WMD (likely using Shinra to develop it, due to the story's anti-technology message) that allows our planet-destroyer to speed things up, it will get activated, and our heroes will stop it at the last second. Alternatively, the WMD will work but not completely destroy the world, and our heroes will fight for their near-dead planet, much like in FFVI. Again, the bad guys need to nearly succeed, and the bad guys also need a more insidious method than "slowly working." There needs to be a climax.

I think this is actually more likely... due to the starfield panorama we saw in the intro. I know that I keep coming back to that, but significant imagery is put into a game for reasons, and one possible explanation is that Lavos or Giygas or some other space alien monster thing came from other worlds and wants to eat this one.

So a third possibility is Sephiroth. Let's talk about that elephant in the room. He's a great war hero who apparently went rogue, killed someone close to Tifa, and President Shinra considers him "brilliant." It's possible, though unlikely, that the entire point of the early game was to tell us about Mako and how it was used to make SOLDIER, and thus make the game's supervillain.

The game will then follow his ascension to power (much of which likely happened in flashbacks that we will piece together), and how he somehow finds the key to becoming godlike and eventually does become godlike. He then gets killed by the protagonists, because well, normal people can kill gods because it's a Final Fantasy game. The problem with that theory is that story already happened last game (hi Kefka), and it completely discounts the game's environmental message. Not super likely.

Sephiroth is important though. I'm inclined to believe that he is an agent of the super godlike planet devouring/destroying entity of either option 1 or 2 (most likely 2), and he went rogue because the entity saw a big opportunity and could not pass up on it. I'm even willing to state that he's probably the chief agent of the real mastermind, and is likely to be a major antagonist later in the game.

There's another thing that I could mention that has been pretty heavily foreshadowed. Unfortunately, it has only one reasonable interpretation, and it basically confirms the actual plot of the game, so I'm not going to include it. I will, however, re-show you the screenshot that allows me to make these conclusions so you can come to them yourself.

Enjoy.

Let's Play Final Fantasy VII (Part 5): An Unexpected Meeting

I'm actually not sure why Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie don't go into the reactor with us here. I was thinking that it was a "because plot" sort of thing where they aren't present because some plot contrivance can't happen if they're present, or at least their presence makes a plot point inconvenient. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. Either way, at least they're safely out and we only have to worry about ourselves.

The inside of the reactor area is completely identical to the No. 1 Reactor. The enemies are even tougher here than in the tunnel, and some of them are starting to deal moderate damage.

Even more troubling, the enemies are also starting to survive All + Lightning. That's not so good.

I actually used All + Restore here to heal my party, and it heals so much HP, it's ridiculous. Wow healing magic is overpowered in this game. A single cast of Cure heals my party for over two potions worth of HP. Again, it's optimal to use All + Restore here, but the enemies are still easy and All + Lightning makes fights go a lot faster.

As we go to set the bomb, Cloud has another breakdown. This surprises no one, but instead of getting a creepy voice in his head, Cloud witnesses what is either a flashback or an alternate universe.

In the scene, we see Tifa wearing a cowgirl outfit kneeling next to a dead man. The man appears to be Tifa's father. She's upset, and more importantly, Sephiroth (the Great?) appears to be responsible. There's a sword nearby and Tifa takes it and heads into the next room.

Although Cloud is in this scene, it's not clear whether he's actually in the scene or he's an outside observer, astrally projecting into some alternative reality. However, because this scene gives us a large insight into Tifa's motivations for joining AVALANCHE, I'm guessing this scene happened in the past. This scene is probably in Cloud and Tifa's hometown, and she is inside some kind of Shinra factory. The architecture has a very "Mako Reactor" vibe and Tifa mentions that she hates Mako Reactors in the scene (along with everything else about Shinra), but the layout is different from the Midgar Mako Reactors we've been visiting.  Because the No. 1 and No. 5 Reactors have nearly identical layouts, the imagery here is misleading. Again, Tifa's dialogue does suggest she's in a reactor.

Cloud's presence here is odd, since this is his hometown. We know that Sephiroth is also here, so it's possible that Cloud and Sephiroth were deployed here on some Shinra mission, and that either Sephiroth was under orders by Shinra to kill Tifa's father or he flew off the handle. Cloud is on his knees as well in this scene, so it's possible that he has also recently fought with Sephiroth and is wounded. It's also possible that Cloud isn't in the scene at all, and he is somehow telepathically linked to Tifa.

Telepathic connections to people would also explain the previous reactor flip-out, since he heard someone else's voice telling him that the No. 1 Reactor was not just a reactor. It's possible that when near a lot of Mako power, Cloud gains telepathic links with people. It's really hard to tell at this point.

Cloud's behavior afterwards though suggests that this is not his memory. This is really odd.

Either way, we get moving and set up the bomb. No further red-screened voice comes in to tell us not to set up the bomb. Barret also makes it clear if Cloud talks to him during this scene that he still doesn't trust Cloud. Also, there's no timed section as we leave, so we're free to kill enemies to farm if we want. Obviously, I'm just moving ahead. We do get some nice item drops like antidotes and deadly wastes, though.

Tifa gets her first limit break as we start to head back out of the reactor. She has a rotating slot machine that she has to land on Yeah! or Hit<3 in order to use it.

I land it on Hits and it does really poor damage, roughly as much as her normal attack. I also don't get to pick the target for her attack. Maybe if I land Yeahs she'll hit all enemies or something.

So far, Tifa's been pretty underwhelming. She has a weapon with no linked slots (thus can't use All), and only has two slots total. Her limit break is garbage and weak, and she isn't even long-ranged like Barret is. Still, she's a character and again, there's not much difference between characters in this game. If I had a choice though, I'd much rather have another character than her.

Barret runs a bit low on MP, so I swap All + Lightning over to Cloud. However, more enemies are fighting in smaller groups of two or three, so I'm using more regular attacks.

As we get close to the escape point, we run into a surprise. Okay, it's not a surprise at all. It's a surprise to Barret. Cloud doesn't act shocked in this scene, at least.

Barret, after an operation is compromised, one does not simply continue with the operation. Yes, it sucks that you have to avoid killing hundreds of innocent people to save the planet, but maybe if you actually conducted your missions in a way that wasn't completely seat-of-the-pants, this would not have happened.

Also, I'm not sure what the difference between the red-uniformed soldiers and the blue-uniformed soldiers are. The red ones are not SOLDIER, since we see one in Sector 7 say that he failed the entrance exam. It's possible that the blue-uniformed soldiers are police and the red ones are military, but that also seems unlikely due to the red-uniformed pair and the red-uniformed train conductors. It could be the other way around. More likely, the developers haven't got a clue and picked whichever sprite didn't feel overused.

Then, behind us, a completely unexpected person comes out from inside the reactor.

Tifa's response is roughly the same as mine. However, I have a pretty good reason: because the game wants to use a previously-established character to deliver some exposition, even though it makes no sense to have that character be there.

Thus far, I've been pretty critical of AVALANCHE. I tend to assume that they're bungling idiot terrorists who will get what is coming to them. However, President Shinra's appearance here puts him on the all-time biggest retard of the game. I don't actually care about anything that comes after this. There cannot possibly be something that is dumber than putting your most important VIP in danger like this. In this scene, Cloud has a completely unobstructed path to kill him, and the only thing standing in Cloud's way are a bunch of soldiers off to the side taking shots at him with weapons he has shown on multiple occasions will not even slow him down.

There is nothing stopping Barret from shooting the President here, and even if we somehow assume that AVALANCHE doesn't use guns (and there are undoubtedly a number of fired bullet cases at the No. 1 Reactor scene from Barret's arm), they have materia! They could just blast him with spells! There's no Secret Service agents near him to take the shots for him or get him to safety either.

President Shinra must be the biggest grade-A moron in the history of this game world. Seriously.

This scene gives us the expected exposition. Cloud and President Shinra have met before, but the President doesn't remember Cloud. He did know that there was a former member of SOLDIER working with AVALANCHE. Again, this shows just how stupid President Shinra is. If there were reports of a former Spetznaz joining Al-Qaeda, there'd be a full inquiry. Service records would be pulled and they would do everything they could to ID this traitor. He would be labeled immediately as an enemy of the state and hunted down. Considering that Cloud was spotted escaping from Sector 8, there's no reason why he wasn't IDed there.

In fact, the only reason why the President can identify Cloud at all is that Cloud has strange eyes. Apparently all members of SOLDIER are exposed to Mako, and it has an outward physical effect on the eyes. Also, this means that SOLDIER is a program to produce Magitek Knights. The correlation with Celes gets deeper!

Also we learn that Sephiroth "was brilliant, perhaps too brilliant." It seems likely that whatever happened in the Tifa flashback likely also resulted in him deserting Shinra as well.

The President finally gets on a helicopter and leaves us to deal with "Airbuster," a new robot weapon conjured by Shinra Weapons Development.

It's at this point that I want to talk about FFVII's translation. President Shinra labels Airbuster as a techno-soldier, and Tifa asks if Airbuster is a part of SOLDIER. Of course, she can't see the capital letters, but what allows her to hear "soldiers" and not hear SOLDIERs?

Because Final Fantasy VII was originally written in Japanese, they use the Japanese word for "soldier" (probably the word "bunjin" or "heishi" -- I don't have a Japanese copy of the game, so I don't know) to refer to normal soldiers. When referring to SOLDIER, they use the katakana "sorujaa" or literally, "soldier." When President Shinra refers to Airbuster as a techno-soldier, he probably literally says "tekuno sorujaa," which obviously causes Tifa to get confused over the term.

Personally, I would have called the SOLDIER unit RANGER or RAIDER for the English translation, which would have caused a lot less problems. If they wanted a more Final Fantasy feel, they could have just called it FIGHTER. Sticking with the word SOLDIER makes it very hard to discuss other members of the Shinra military outside of text.

Airbuster is very strong, and his attacks deal lots of damage. What's worse is that his frontal armor makes him resistant to non-magic attacks. He seems pretty worthy of the name SOLDIER. Cloud probably could not beat this guy on his own (unlike that pansy scorpion boss).

The bad news for him is that the party surrounds him during the fight, forcing Airbuster to either face Cloud or Barret and Tifa. Facing Cloud leaves him open to attacks from Cloud's allies, and facing Barret and Tifa exposes him to the enormous threat that is Cloud. The trick to this battle is to rotate your attacks, allowing Airbuster to get hit in the back. If you're stuck with him facing you on your turn, it's probably best to wait or use healing to get back on your feet.

Barret proves to be the MVP of this battle. Airbuster shows its back to Barret after a strike from Cloud, and he unleashes a devastating Big Shot, dealing over 600 HP in one shot and ending the fight.

Airbuster explodes, and destroys part of the catwalk Cloud is standing on. He hangs on for dear life. Barret expresses worry, but Tifa really pours her heart out here for Cloud.

It's possible she wants to discuss the time in her flashback, but there's no way to tell.

Cloud begins to lose his grip and tells Barret to take care of Tifa. He also says that there's no way he will die, and that they need to stop talking like he will. Then he falls.

50 meters is a fairly long fall. In order to put that in perspective, it's probably about 12 or 13 stories.

In other words, this fall would kill most people unless they had a pretty lucky landing. However, this is Cloud we're talking about. We've just recently learned that members of SOLDIER are not just well-trained, they are also bioengineered superhumans.

I'm sure he'll be fine.

Let's Play Final Fantasy VII (Part 4): Things go wrong

One thing I failed to mention in the last update (mostly due to its length) is that the game blatantly tells me that I'll be leaving Midgar in the tutorials.

Also, I really like how the game has integrated my party members thus far. It spends a great deal of time characterizing Cloud, Barret, and Tifa.

Cloud is a cold and professional mercenary, but he's not completely heartless and has complex motivations. Barret is a simple guy with a direct approach to problems and believes that Shinra is destroying the planet. Tifa we don't know a lot about yet, but we do know that she has good domestic skills, that she grew up with Cloud, and she also believes that the planet is dying. All of these characters are given time to develop, giving us feelings for each of them.

A few citizens in Sector 7 claim that they saw Cloud and Tifa talking together in the bar, and that they appear to be more than "childhood friends." I don't know about that, considering Cloud and Tifa never touch in the scene. It's possible that they meant that they slept together (though clearly without having sex) since Cloud can mention that sleeping next to Tifa caused him to sleep soundly.

Shinra soldiers near the pillar comment that Midgar is under martial law due to the bombing. We also overhear that AVALANCHE has threatened to carry out more bombings. It's understandable that the other members of AVALANCHE aren't shown, because they want to build empathy for Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. However, none one mentions additional AVALANCHE membership. It's possible that Jessie made the threats on the internet, but that doesn't explain the posters/graffiti/whatever. It's a bit of a plot hole. Still, it seems unlikely that the five AVALANCHE members we have met plus Cloud are acting alone.

Also, Biggs has had a bit of a beef with Barret in earlier scenes, which sort of suggests that Barret isn't so much the leader as he is just the strongest personality among this group.

Either way, these soldiers also state that it's been a while since SOLDIER was mobilized. At this point they really feel like Marines or Rangers; elite infantry units. It's not too unheard of for elite infantry units to be deployed in cases of domestic terrorism, especially when the attack is as significant as the No. 1 Reactor bombing was.

We board the train and Barret tells the team to split up. He picks a bit of a fight with a Shinra salaryman on board the train. There is a bit more worldbuilding here. This guy is some sort of government employee, and he's actually named "Shinra Manager." He doesn't seem like a typical government employee in that he behaves and acts like a normal businessperson (who is really upset by Barret's loud and brash nature).

The picture is starting to come together a bit. Perhaps we're looking at more of a communist government, perhaps Stalin-like, where the government controls business and industry?

It would make a lot of sense to think of President Shinra as Kruschchev and SOLDIER more like a cross between Spetznaz and the US Army Rangers. It's also fairly appropriate, since the Cold War ended only a few years before FFVII was released (and probably around the same time that the game began development).

The plan is that the team's fake IDs are no longer good, so they must jump off the train before the train reaches an ID check point. Once in the train tunnels, the team will travel on foot the rest of the way through Sector 5 and attack the reactor.

That doesn't work out though, because for some reason Shinra has set up an ID check point further up. The team goes into an emergency panic mode, and races up the train as the train systems scan each individual car. Of course, this makes no sense, but it's an excuse for some gameplay.

While we're racing up the train, one of the people we met in Sector 7, Johnny (who told us about the pillar), pickpockets us for some gil. We make it to the front of the train, and since it's still moving we get close enough to our target destination to jump out.

Barret drops another metaphorical line on us as we get ready to leave. He instructs us to jump first, and that "A leader always stays until the end." Again, I'm sure that will be a thing later on.

Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie will remain on the car, disguised as either legitimate passengers or train operational personnel. I'm not sure how their IDs work but ours do not, but whatever.

Now I'd have to say that any reasonable espionage agency would abort the mission. There's really no reason to continue. The authorities knows that there were suspicious people on the train car, and they will have a good idea of where those people might be. At this point, I would probably abort and relocate everyone, as there are eyewitnesses that saw us board the train in the Sector 7 slums. Continuing the mission is probably going to be suicide and there will probably be Shinra officers combing Sector 7 for us when we get back.

The best option is at this point to rendezvous somewhere on the Plate in a safe house and skip town at the earliest opportunity. Because the Plate is only 50 meters up, it's reasonable to say that we could find a way to rappel down and get the hell out of town.

Of course, we're not going to do that because terrorists do not have reasonable operational protocols or fallback plans.

There's actual enemies here in the tunnel, and we explore a bit since there's no chance of getting hit by trains. The enemies are pretty easy, though they can take a lot more damage than the enemies guarding the No. 1 Reactor.

We find that Tifa is more of a frontline fighter, as she attacks with punches and kicks. Still, her lower level and weaker weapon means that she is nowhere near as effective as Cloud or Barret.

Speaking of Barret, the Lightning + All materia combo works really well here. It's not necessary at all, and mainly serves as a way to save time. We could easily just use attack commands, which would probably be better since we'd get more limit breaks (from taking damage) and save a lot on MP.

Still, the All + Lightning combo makes these enemies easy and we still have plenty of MP. Even if Barret ran low, I could just swap over to Cloud or Tifa.

Each party member is kind of interchangable at this point, though Cloud is a bit stronger overall, and Barret has a gun so he can attack at full power from the back row. It's sort of a drawback with the Materia system; characters are more differentiated by their weapons and limit breaks, rather than Job abilities. Even FFVI had unique abilities for each character (even though they could all use the same magic and relics), which gave characters a bit of uniqueness. In FFVII there doesn't seem to be any difference between Cloud and Tifa except that Cloud is better.

We meet the rest of our team in the ducts near the reactor, and Jessie admits to making a mistake with the IDs that allowed Shinra to find us early. They head out though, leaving us to take out the reactor.

What a sec, what? Why did we send all six people if they weren't even going to do anything on the operation? All they did was get on the train, tell us where to go, then leave?

What happened to decoding the doors at the reactor?

Guys?

Let's Play Final Fantasy VII (Part 3): Seventh Heaven

I have to apologize for the last update. It has a massive 21 images in it, and it takes forever to load. I probably should have split it up into two parts, ending the first at the explosion. If you're reading this on a mobile device, I apologize.

In my defense though, these posts encompass only a few minutes of gameplay. I get to a minor stopping point, start writing, and end up with a post that is enormous. It's honestly going to be a while before that changes, too.

The team gets off the train, and Barret gives us a little pep talk.

Yay yay, let's bomb them civillian targets!

There's a couple in the left part of this screen that are making out. It's really cute. They talk about how the only place nearby where they can be alone is the "spooky" train graveyard, which sucks for them. It's pretty clear that there's going to be some sex in their near future. The minor NPCs in this game are so much better than in previous games, and they make you feel like there's a living world out there. There's so much more detail in the little things that you miss if you're not going at a snail's pace (like this LP, lol).

We find a guy just by the save point who is looking at the support structure for the plate.

This statement is frightening. To me, this guy is telling us that if we continue our bombings, we could not only cause collateral damage up by the reactors, but we could destroy the support structures and drop the entire plate, killing everyone both on top and on bottom. Does anyone here still think these bombings are a good idea?

We also see a size comparison for the pillar. 50 meters is a lot, but it still seems a lot higher. Just based on eyeballing, it looks like more than 50 meters. Also, it really gives the feel that Midgar is small. It's nowhere near the size of real-life NYC or Los Angeles, and every perspective shot we see seems to confirm that.

As we move into Sector 7, Barret and the rest of AVALANCHE race ahead of us. Barret runs into a nearby building and then we hear gunfire. What the hell, Barret? However, it looks like he was just kicking people out. Still, he's being a little excessive, don't you think?

Some of the nearby bystanders comment on the recent explosion. A kid thinks that AVALANCHE is cool, while his mom seems to disagree. Many innocents were killed, and the bombing seems to have inflicted over a billion gil in property damage. We're also told that taking out the power would shut the city's power down, shutting down communications and electricity for the entire city. I'm so not sold on anything we've done thus far. All this reactor bombing has done is hurt a lot of people.

One thing that is really noticable about the reworked visuals is that the characters are re-rendered, but the backgrounds aren't (because they're static images). The net result is characters that look really crisp (even if they're low poly) on a grainy background.

We meet a new character. What's more, she seems to know Cloud. I can guess that she's the reason Cloud is working with AVALANCHE. They seem to be childhood friends. I'm not sure what to make of this. We get to name her. She's Tifa Lockheart.

We also get to see Barret's little daughter, Marlene. She's a bit shy and seems to not like Cloud very much. I can't really blame her. He's been sort of a jerk to everyone thus far.

Cloud gives Tifa the flower he bought from the flower girl, and she gets all girly on him. Like Cloud, she also mentions that flowers in Midgar are rare.

The other members of AVALANCHE talk about how Tifa is a good cook and is good at mixing drinks. Wedge claims that his girth is largely due to the quality of Tifa's cooking.

Barret calls AVALANCHE to a meeting, and the crew activates the secret elevator built into the pinball machine. However, Cloud stops to chat with Tifa a bit before he heads down.

She's happy he made it back, although Cloud says that it was no big deal. Being a jerk, Cloud says that he's taking off as soon as he gets paid. Honestly, I would too if I was being paid to conduct terrorist bombings, but that isn't why Cloud seems to want to leave.

Then Tifa asks him out of the blue if he's feeling OK. It's a bit of an odd question because there hasn't been any indication that he wouldn't be. Cloud responds as such, wondering why Tifa would ask. She says that he just seemed tired or something.

It's pretty obvious at this point that Tifa just wants him to stay, and probably also that she has a crush on him. Unfortunately, since Tifa is a party member (since we named her and all), I think that means Jessie's chances with Cloud are about zero. It's obvious that she's upset with him wanting to leave, but she doesn't know how to say it.

At the meeting, a news briefing informs us that Shinra is a person, since it's the name of the president. Is the government named after him? The Republic of Shinra? More likely, it seems like Shinra regime might have usurped a previous government. I'm not sure.

Either way, AVALANCHE has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Jessie is a bit upset that the explosion turned out the way it did. Perhaps the bomb was not supposed to blow out the top of the reactor? She apparently learned how to build the bomb online, which is probably a bad thing, because it means that the NSA could potentially ID her by her IP address (okay, I don't think that is very likely).

President Shinra also claims that he's going to mobilize SOLDIER to combat AVALANCHE. Uh-oh. Good thing that AVALANCHE has their own... oh, I guess he's leaving, huh.

Barret asks Cloud if anyone from SOLDIER was at the reactor bombing. Of course, Cloud is pretty nonchalant about his response.

Barret gets pissed of course, before admitting that Cloud is a powerhouse. However, he tells Cloud that he's working for AVALANCHE now, and not to get any funny ideas about going back to Shinra.

Cloud gets pissed off, and an argument breaks out. He tells Barret that there's no way he would go back to working for Shinra. Guess the severance package wasn't that good, then.

Cloud doesn't explain why he's mad at Shinra, but he also explains that he doesn't care about the Planet either. He even bothers to capitalize it, meaning that "the Planet" is their proper noun for the world they live on.

Tifa shows up but it doesn't help, and Cloud says he's going upstairs and he wants to talk about his money.

Everyone seems pretty miffed about the outburst. Wedge seems to be able to get a bit of a rise out of Cloud, claiming that Cloud talked to him, so he must really have some kind of emotions. Cloud tells him to blow off, which he uses to confirm his suspicions.

Upstairs, Tifa asks Cloud to stay with AVALANCHE, but he refuses. She begins spouting her pro-environmental message, but when that doesn't work she starts guilting him for walking out on a childhood friend.

I have to hand it to Tifa. She uses her feminine wiles well. She claims that he forgot a promise that the two of them made long ago.

A flashback begins where we see Cloud and Tifa in their hometown. Flashback Cloud asked Tifa to come see him at the well in their town, and tells her of his aspirations to join SOLDIER.

He wants to become strong, like another SOLDIER member named Sephiroth. This reveals a bit about SOLDIER. In the real world, special operations guys don't generally get individual recognition, but this Sephiroth is such a big deal that Tifa even calls him "The Great Sephiroth." Perhaps SOLDIERs are less like SEALs and more like Marines? Perhaps this Sephiroth is the FFVII universe equivalent of Chesty Puller?

Flashback Tifa asks Cloud to make her a promise that if he's ever famous, he'll come and help her if she's ever in a bind.

It's clear that even in the flashback Tifa had feelings for Cloud, and he seemed to have feelings for her too.

Jessie has no chance against this tactic, I think.

Back in the present, Cloud tells her that he's not a hero and he's not famous, so he can't keep his promise. Tifa tells him that even if he's not famous, he achieved his dream of joining SOLDIER, so he has to keep his promise to her.

Before Cloud can respond, Barret rides the lift up and tells Cloud, "A promise is a promise!" before giving Cloud his pay: a hefty 1500 gil. Not bad!

He didn't overhear the conversation, so his statement of "a promise is a promise" was coincidental. However, this seems to move Cloud. He says that that isn't enough, and if Barret has the next job lined up, he'll do it for 3000.

Barret is a bit miffed by this, but Tifa whispers to him that they're hurting for help and could really use Cloud's strength. Barret says that the money is for Marlene's education, but agrees they could use the help. After all, Shinra is mobilizing SOLDIER against them, and most likely they'll need Cloud to stand a fighting chance. He counter-offers 2000 gil, and takes the lift back down to the hideout. Tifa thanks Cloud for agreeing to stay on the team.

Hey wait a minute, I didn't agree to anything! I said 3000 gil!

The next morning, Barret tells us that the mission will be at the Sector 5 Mako Reactor (although Wedge actually told us at the meeting -- how about you display some OPSEC, Wedge). Also, Tifa will be coming along, which isn't really a surprise.

The game also gives us the tutorial on how to use Materia. As it turns out, Cloud's magic spells are because he is wielding two Materia; an Ice and a Lightning Materia. The tutorial is fairly simple; we just need to equip Materia into slots on our equipment to access its powers. The Assault Gun that was dropped from the scorpion boss has two linked materia slots, and so does Cloud's Buster Sword. Tifa's Leather Glove only has a single slot.

We shuffle materia around; Cloud gets the Restore materia, since he has the most MP. I give Barret the Lightning materia, since he has the second-most, and Tifa can carry the Ice materia. She's only level 6, while Cloud and Barret are level 8, so perhaps we'll switch things around if she happens to be more of a caster type.

We head to the weapon shop first and equip our team with new Iron Bangles that each have an additional materia slot. We also grab a Fire materia from the item vendor and an All materia upstairs. There's a bunch of tutorials up there for how to play in the ATB system, how elementals work, and all that stuff. It's really not hard. When your turn comes up, hit confirm a bunch of times.

The All materia is the most tricky new part of the materia system. While other materia can just be equipped and used, support materia like All have to be linked to another materia. For example, linking All and a magic materia will let me use my spells on all of the enemies (or allies, in the case of the Restore materia) a number of times each battle.

I'll put the All materia on Barret's gun, linking it with Lightning for use on all enemies. I could use it for Restore, but battles haven't really been that hard yet so I don't really need group healing. I should be fine healing out of combat.

Either way, we're off to go bomb another power plant. I cannot contain my excitement.