- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, it's no E. Skill. Honestly, with a couple of exceptions, I don't think Steal in VII is super useful. It's nice and all but like, unless you're ganking permanent stat boosts or something, who cares.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Yeah, it's no E. Skill. Honestly, with a couple of exceptions, I don't think Steal in VII is super useful. It's nice and all but like, unless you're ganking permanent stat boosts or something, who cares.
TBF, that's how Steal was ever since it was introduced. Like, it's nice to get and extra Ribbon or whatever, it's useful, but it's not going to make or break your game, and the mechanics are kinda annoying. Nobody likes sitting there taking damage while your thief spends turn after turn fishing for items. Especially since in VII you can make anyone fit any role. In FFV, if you were mastering thief on someone (for passive bonuses or Agility), well, may as well steal some shit. In FFVI, if you brought Locke, well, it's not like he has anything better to do anyway.. Here, everyone is a valid combatant, and also there is only three people in the party at a time, so stealing feels like a waste.
Yeah, the three party members + the fact that it's level based meaning you probably want to stick the steal Materia on your highest level character means it really kicks your action economy. Of course, eventually you'll get Mug as an option... but it's something like 40k AP with the Steal materia equipped before that happens.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hell, Mug is almost a downgrade because it does damage which means you can't just keep rolling
Geckonator
Occult Materialist
Like I said, Shinra seems to take their access denial and garden trimming very seriously.Like what is that. What even is that.
I have been trying the Steal command, but its success rate against the SOLDIER troops ended up too low for me to get anything useful. I did get the... Inexplicable Attack of the Arcade Cabinets, though.
Like what is that. What even is that.
So my theory is that they do that because like... the characters hate it? it almost makes hating it into a game? "Look the game knows it's dumb, so you can hate it." Part of I think the thing about a 'let's play' like this is that it encourages reactions. And 'omg THAT! aweful sequence' is a reaction. On the game is in on the joke on. So hating it is almost.... performative? Where performative is a preformance one does to themselves. Fondly remember how much they hated it in a way that's like... not the same as a 'this just sucks' version?
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Remember the weird 'try and access computer, get shot by machine gun' bit on Wall Market?
ShinRa access terminal for sure, the Don just stuck a bunch of glitter on it because Wall Market is Like That.
Pretty sure there are enemies later you can steal the various source items, which permanently raise stats.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't believe sources are stealable. You get 'em another way.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have a very important announcement to make.
Having only now progressed far enough to check Tim Rogers' Let's Mosey again without too much fear of spoiler, I can see that something has escaped me previously. We know that the Mayor of Midgar is "Mayor Domino." At the door, we also meet his assistant, Hart - Hart is seemingly helpful but actually extremely corrupt, and will offer to give us hints to find the password for increasingly obscene amounts of gil. I didn't talk about it much.
However, according to Tim Rogers, "Hart" is a mistranslation. The pronunciation of Hart's name in Japanese would be "Hatto" rather than "Harto." Hatto, in English, would be more properly translated as either "Hat" or "Hut" - a pun on an object either way.
That is to say, now that we've both met the Mayor and seen a scale model of Midgar:
Barret refers to the plate as a "pizza."
It is circular and divided in 8 slices.
The Mayor and his assistant are named Domino & Hut.
I will be discontinuing this Let's Play at this time and dedicating the rest of my life to hunting FF7's devs for their crimes.
Having only now progressed far enough to check Tim Rogers' Let's Mosey again without too much fear of spoiler, I can see that something has escaped me previously. We know that the Mayor of Midgar is "Mayor Domino." At the door, we also meet his assistant, Hart - Hart is seemingly helpful but actually extremely corrupt, and will offer to give us hints to find the password for increasingly obscene amounts of gil. I didn't talk about it much.
However, according to Tim Rogers, "Hart" is a mistranslation. The pronunciation of Hart's name in Japanese would be "Hatto" rather than "Harto." Hatto, in English, would be more properly translated as either "Hat" or "Hut" - a pun on an object either way.
That is to say, now that we've both met the Mayor and seen a scale model of Midgar:
Barret refers to the plate as a "pizza."
It is circular and divided in 8 slices.
The Mayor and his assistant are named Domino & Hut.
I will be discontinuing this Let's Play at this time and dedicating the rest of my life to hunting FF7's devs for their crimes.
Astray Spiral
Potential Evil Incarnate
- Location
- C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Well, Japan does love their pizza, so it makes sense to me.
- Location
- Florida USA
Robot Chicken did an entire skit about FFVII as the characters working a McDonalds.
Final Fantasy VII, Part 7: Escape From Midgar
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back to Final Fantasy VII, the game that after a decade has finally discovered the blood splatter. We're going places today, people.
Last time, Shinra arrested all of Avalanche and threw them in cell in the laboratory section. There, the game utilizes this opportunity to take a breather and have the characters just… Hang out.
Like, everyone's in jail and things are very dire, but with nowhere to go and nothing to do, all that's left is chatting. Cloud can check on each of the other members in turn.
Aerith: "Cloud, are you there?"
Cloud: "Aerith! You safe?"
Aerith: "Yeah, I'm all right. I knew that Cloud would come for me."
Cloud: "Hey, I'm your bodyguard, right?"
Aerith: "The deal was for one date, right?"
Tifa: *gets up on her bed*
Tifa: "..........oh, I get it."
Aerith: "..!? Tifa! Tifa, you're here too!"
Tifa: "EXCUSE me. You know, Aerith, I have a question."
Aerith: "What?"
Tifa: "Does the Promised Land really exist?"
Aerith: "...I don't know. All I know is… The Cetra were born from the Planet, speak with the Planet, and unlock the Planet. And… Then… The Cetra will return to the Promised Land. A land that promises supreme happiness."
Tifa: "What does that mean?"
Aerith: "More than words… I don't know."'
Cloud: "Speak with the Planet?"
Tifa: "Just what does the Planet say?"
Aerith: "It's full of people and noisy. That's why I can't make out what they are saying."
Cloud: "You hear it now?"
Aerith: "I, I only heard it at the Church in the Slums. Mother said Midgar was no longer safe. That is… My real mother. Someday I'll get out of Midgar… Speak with the Planet and find my Promised Land. That's what mom said. I thought I would stop hearing her voice as I grew up, but…"
…it's not super-clear from the phrasing, but what Aerith is saying here is that her mother spoke to her in the Church, and told her she needed to get out of Midgar. Which explains a lot about how she latched onto Cloud pretty hard from the start.
Also the game does lean into "Tifa is jealous of Aerith" at times; it's not been obnoxious about it, really, and it's a perfectly believable human reaction, I am just always wary of love triangles. This one strongly benefits from the fact that Tifa and Aerith are genuinely friends, and nearly immediately gets over the fact that Cloud and Aerith are having a discussion through the wall to instead ask Aerith about her mysterious heritage and the voices she's hearing.
It's a little early to tell, but given the emphasis on Aerith's unique power and her repeated talk of spirits returning to the Planet, it looks like this game might be the first one that takes Final Fantasy's long-standing use of the spirits of the dead and turns it into a major plot point that actually digs into the metaphysics of how that's supposed to work? Fingers crossed, anyway.
The other interactions are much shorter; talking to Tifa she asks us if she thinks we can get out and we can say "Leave it to me" or "Kinda hard," and in the former case she praises our bravery. Checking in on Red XIII has him refer to Barret as "Grandpa," which Barret for some reason finds the funniest thing in the world. Red XIII doesn't get it, and Barret just laughs. Checking in on Barret instead has him recap the latest plot development (Aerith's an Ancient, the Ancients were called Cetra, the Ancients know the way to the Promised Land, Shinra is searching for the Promised Land, Shinra believes it's full of Mako energy, if they get there they'll drain that energy and the planet will grow weaker). Then he boldly declares that Avalanche is recruiting new members, and asks Red XIII if he'd like to join.
Unfortunately the catdog isn't swayed by his recruitment speech and doesn't even bother responding, so Barret grumps that he's boring.
Once we've checked on everyone and made sure the whole group is there and alive, our next option is to just… Go to sleep. There's a saying in French, la nuit porte conseil, which translates to "night bears good counsel" and which fills the same semantic role as the English "sleeping on it." I'm guessing that's what Cloud is going for - there's no obvious way out of this for now, so he'll just rest and look at things with a clear head in the morning.
Fade to black… And Cloud wakes up, in the same room, next to a sleeping Tifa, at an unknown hour - and with no ambient music.
The door to his cell is open.
The game goes on in perfect silence until we stumble upon the body of a Shinra guard - by all appearance, dead. Then a new, slow, ominous tune starts to play.
Cloud's cell is the only one that was open, and there's no visible explanation for either it or the dead guard; thankfully the guard is still wearing the keys and Cloud goes to open the other doors and wake up everyone.
Everyone's a little confused and worried, but not about to miss this chance at freedom. Red XIII goes scouting ahead while Barret stays to "clean up back there" (what does he mean, it's not like we care if Shinra pins yet another death on us), and Cloud, Tifa and Aerith head on ahead.
Well. Would you look at that.
The long red trail is probably the red-purple fluid that the tank was filled with? But it certainly looks like a trail of blood strewn across the ground - and that would be very consistent with all the dead bodies we're going to find on its path, starting with this employee.
It looks like Jenova breached containment and is on a rampage. Which is odd, considering it seemed to be missing its head and perhaps most of a body, but it's certainly appropriately ominous.
When I was a kid, I played Metal Gear Solid - probably a little too young. There's a scene in it where the protagonist, Snake, walks into a corridor only to find that an invisible, superpowered cyborg ninja "ghost" has gone through and killed all enemies - and you find that out in the form of a corridor full of dead bodies lying in pools of blood, cut marks and impact craters on the wall, and as a kid this was the scariest shit I had ever seen. I had not signed on to play a horror game, and it felt like horror to me - inexplicable death, far gorier than I'd seen before. This sequence reminds me of that.
This hallway was seared into my memory.
We follow the red trail upstairs, where it turns out that random encounters are back on… But not the ones we're used to.
Those blue things are called "Brain Pods" and they're floating tanks containing some kind of brain-like thing. "Brain in jars," spike-backed monsters, weird hovering aliens… These are Shinra experiments. Jenova somehow unleashed Hojo's entire menagerie of horrors into the building as part of its escape. If you'll look closely - the trail of blood/tank fluid has been added to the old combat backgrounds. How deliciously sinister.
And these are our only enemies - there are no security guards, no robots, only runaway experiments, everyone else in the building being already gone for the night, fled, or killed. And a real special touch? The music doesn't change for combat. The same slow, ominous tune continues to play throughout all the encounters. (I don't know what it's called; OST titles typically contain spoilers so I only looked briefly).
Square has done some horror-themed setpieces in previous Final Fantasy games, but this is a level beyond. This game was, what… One year before Parasite Eve? Maybe I should look into that one. You know, I've kind of always wanted to play it - and Super Eyepatch Wolf just made a video in which he mentions playing it recently and calls it "a banger…" Damn. Things to put on The List.
Finally, we reach Floor 69 (Nice) and the desk of the President…
…who just suffered a terminal case of katana to the back.
Well! That is certainly a dramatic way of disposing of who's so far been our main antagonist!
Man, the ghost of FFVI is all over this game, isn't it? Like, it's subtle, the parallel isn't direct (we haven't met a Kefka figure yet), but "the old man leader of the evil company/empire whose actions have precipited the protagonists to act as rebels dies surprisingly and shockingly partway through the game" definitely echoes the previous game.
Tifa approaches the dead body, examining the sword, and she and Cloud both come to the same thought at the same time - this is Sephiroth's sword.
Tifa: "...Sephiroth is alive?"
Cloud: "Looks like it. Only Sephiroth can use that sword."
Once again, we are reminded that Cloud and Tifa both have some kind of personal familiarity with Sephiroth that they won't elaborate upon (and it's not clear if they know that about each other - in fact, I strongly suspect they don't) - because, up until recently, they thought he was dead.
So our mysterious backstory antagonist has now had a dramatic personal impact on the plot, all without even appearing on-screen. We only see him through the wake of his actions, the dead, Jenova's broken tank…
…did he open the door to Cloud's cell? He would have had to, right? Someone needed to open that door.
Then, someone walks out of behind the cover of a pillar - Palmer, one of Shinra's top executives. He immediately attempts to run away from the scary terrorist, only to be bodily caught by Barret and Cloud.
Palmer confirms what we suspected: he personally saw and hear Sephiroth murder President Shinra, saying "something about not letting us have the Promised Land."
Cloud: "Then does that mean the Promised Land really does exist and that Sephiroth's here to save it from Shinra?"
Barret: "So he's a good guy then?"
Cloud: "Save the Promised Land? A good guy? No way! It's not that simple! I know him! Sephiroth's mission is different!"
Just, just as it looks like Cloud is finally about to actually speak up about what Sephiroth's deal is, a helicopter comes buzzing out on the balcony, and the surprise of it is enough for Palmer to slip away and run off.
Barret takes one look at the helicopter and somehow instantly deduces who it is - Vice President Rufus, the President's son.
Okay, so that corporation is literally working off hereditary rule. Of course it is.
Ominously, Aerith declares she's heard that "No one's ever seen him bleed or cry." Barret adds that he was "assigned somewhere else for a long time."
The group hurries to the balcony to confront Rufus, arriving just in time to see Palmer finish warning him that Sephiroth just murdered his dad, which Rufus takes with impressive cool. As the group lines up, he asks who the hell these jokers are, and each one introduces themselves with a simple line, which I like a lot - I love these individual group introduction scenes, though that one does Tifa a little dirty.
"Who are you?"
Cloud: "I'm Cloud, ex-SOLDIER, First Class!"
Barret: "I'm from Avalanche!"
Tifa: "Me too!"
Aerith: "A flower girl from the slums!"
Red XIII: "A Research Specimen."
I just find it extremely funny that Aerith, the last living Ancient, Shinra lab escapee, and fresh recruit into a terrorist group, still refers to herself as a flower girl from the slums. Like, it could easily be read as self-effacing, but considering her personality I think it's much more likely it's a gesture of small defiance or sarcasm - of refusing to let herself be defined by what others want from her.
"What a crew," Rufus says sarcastically, and then:
Right. He's heard of his father's passing, and without missing a beat, already declared himself the new head of the corporation. That's one cold-blooded guy.
Wait…
…oh fuck no, we just traded an old portly cigar-chomper for a bishie with a gun. We're fucked.
That's not just a joke about anime aesthetics either, Rufus pretty much says it himself.
Barret: "You're only President 'cause yer old man died!"
Rufus: "Correct. I'll let you hear my inauguration speech. Father tried to control the world with money, and that worked for him. The people believed that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If terrorists attack, the Shinra army will help you. It looked perfect on the outside. But, I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It's too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste good money on them."
Tifa: "He likes to make speeches just like his father."
Cloud: "Get Aerith outta the building!"
Barret: "What?"
Cloud: "I'll explain later! This is the real crisis for the Planet!"
Barret: "The hell's that supposed to mean?"
Cloud: "I'll explain later! Just take my word for now! I'll go after and take care of him!"
Barret: "Alright, Cloud!"
…yeah, Pretty Boy here may look like less of a caricature of a capitalist, but he is far worse. President Shinra believed in PR, in the power of propaganda, of controlling the messaging. Rufus intends to just lay bare the mechanisms of the world and use Shinra's power to offer everyone the naked choice of "pay up or die, also live your whole life in terror of the Shinra Death Corps." When he says it's "too much" to do it like his old man it might sound like too much effort, but from another translation it's clear he means money. Every gil that goes into sustaining Shinra's consent-manufacturing aparatus is a gil that's not going into the executives' pockets. Propaganda meant to build trust and confidence rather than fear, a security aparatus meant to create an impression of safety rather than paranoia, cradle-to-grave employment, social security... All these pillars of the system that keep people content and secure within a fundamentally exploitative system, they cost money to maintain. They can be taken down and converted into more cash.
As long as you're the one with the guns, the mutant super-soldiers, and the giant robots, what's anyone going to do about it? The monopoly on sufficient violence can certainly substitute for the monopoly on legitimate violence. It's only laying bare the system's core mechanisms, isn't it?
...Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997, about halfway into Japan's first Lost Decade. The desillusionment with the system is patent, and it hasn't exactly grown old here in 2023.
It's going to be… interesting living in Midgar in the coming months.
The group agrees to leave Cloud to face Rufus alone, and runs downstairs - where Aerith says she's worried about Cloud, and Tifa says she'll wait for him there and for the other to go on.
The exchange in the original reason is Aerith: "Cloud… I just thought of something." // Tifa: "...I'll wait for Cloud! Everyone, get to the elevator!" which just doesn't parse well.
It's a weird beat that seems to mostly just be there to justify reducing the party size; we're left with Barret, Aerith and Red XIII, who warn us to check our equipment and materia so the group is actually operational before heading on ahead.
…
I need to put a pin here to remind myself to talk about Barret when I get to the Remake comparison. For the time being: it feels like they kind of cut the grass out from under him, doesn't it?
Like, Barret has dedicated his life to fighting Shinra. He's led a terrorist cell whose members are now almost all dead, killed by Shinra. He is fighting to save the Planet from the very people in this building. And now, he's reached the heart of the enemy, he's come within inches of President Shinra and his executives…
…and the plot's been derailed by a mad science experiment's escape, President Shinra is already dead, and he's now running away from his successor, Rufus, who just promised the world an even worse regime. And on the one hand, that choice of running is growth - it's Barret choosing to trust Cloud, to take his word for it without an explanation, and to focus on protecting the people close to him.
But also, man, they kind of shot his chance at fulfilling his driving goals in the kneecaps at the finish line, didn't they? Hopefully that's deliberate setup for later plot developments and a continued arc.
After fighting through a couple of encounters, we reach the elevator, and a boss fight is initiated.
…something I distinctly remember bugging me when I was much younger and playing Final Fantasy VIII and IX is... Well, I wouldn't have phrased it that way, but I was bothered by the lack of field models for bosses. It's striking how often characters on the field will openly warn each other of a monster attack, sometimes even talking about that monster as if it were standing right there, but the monster just… doesn't exist. They didn't bother spending the resources to make him exist on the screen for all of twenty seconds before combat, which I guess is fair enough, but it leads to these strangely surreal scenes where someone is like "oh no, a dragon" in a completely dragon-less scene and then we transition to the encounter and the dragon is suddenly there. It's not really a major issue but as a kid, it bugged me.
So, we're fighting a mechanized weapon platform, evocatively called the "Hundred Gunner." A touch I really like is that the very first thing it does upon combat being initiated is shatter the glass of the other elevator in a hail of bullets. It's just, great use of the medium there.
Although it's kind of amusing that we went from "the elevator is a single, tiny tube with enough shoulder room for about four people" to "two massive tubes large enough for people to stand in formation on" in the transition from field to battle background! Like, it's not a problem, it's just that this is something that is only possible within the specific setting of a game like FF7, where combat and navigation exist in two separate realities that don't need to match 1-to-1. In the Remake, if the devs want an elevator to be large enough to accommodate a battle against a giant robot, they need that elevator to be that size every time it's on screen - and so in that scene, the robot merely causes the elevator to drop, then the fight happens in the lobby.
As a gun platform, the Hundred Gunner mostly uses various gun-themed attacks like Aux Artillery, Hidden Artillery, and Main Artillery. Upon reaching a third of its HP, it announces "Sensor Cannon charging!" and prepares to unleash its most powerful attack.
Additionally, there's an extra complication - the game actually does take into account that we're meant to be on two separate platforms with nothing between but the void; as a result, neither Aerith nor Red XIII can reach the robot using their normal attacks - only Magic and Limit Breaks. Barret is the only character who can reach the enemy, because he has a gun. That's clever!
However, thanks to the Materia system, everyone has magic, so it's no problem. In fact, the Hundred Gunner is (say it with me now) weak to lightning, and we have at least two characters who can cast Lightning, so we're able to deal enough damage to destroy it before it can unleash its Wave Artillery.
It's neat how Shinra has, like, a defining vulnerability? They fight with machines and soldiers in high-tech armor, so lightning is super effective against most of their repertoire - with notable exceptions like those "wall" enemies that are immune to it instead (probably because they're grounded).
Once the artillery robot is done, though, we're not out of the water - another robot immediately drops down to continue the fight.
The Heli Gunner.
I like Shinra's robot aesthetic. It's like… Conspicuously not "sleek robots", they don't look like Terminators or walking iPods. They're colorful, they're round, with big exaggerated shapes, chopper blades or exhaust ports or really big guns or big glowing buttons. It's almost cartoonish in a way that wouldn't work if the game had more high-fidelity graphics but is the right fit for this… early, mid-PSX era? It gives them charm.
If anything, they remind me of Eggman's Badnicks in Sonic the Hedgehog.
The Heli Gunner isn't too much of a threat - I still have Thunder, it has 1,000 HP and the same "only Barret can reach it" mechanic, we spam Lightning for the win. Good times.
Back over to Cloud, we… Hmm.
Okay, so I appreciate that the game is giving me the option, every time the party splits or swaps, to reconfigure my Materia, but also that's going to be incredibly obnoxious incredibly quickly just out of sheer frequency.
The way Materia works is that it gains AP by being equipped in combat, but is character agnostic. My Sense Materia A with 500 AP has 500 AP whether it's equipped on Cloud, or Tifa, or Barret, and I can swap it freely, transferring the same competency from character to character. This makes the game very flexible and also means there is no incentive to not have the playable group be equipped with the best Materia we have (other than grinding low-level Materia, of course), and given that save points can be half an hour apart with huge cutscenes in the middle, there is very little incentive to not constantly optimize Materia whenever we swap characters. Except I probably shouldn't do that because it's busywork that is going to make me end up hating the game.
I wonder if there's a mod for that. "Materia auto-sorter." A man can dream.
And it's good that the game doesn't put us in a situation where after properly equipping Aerith/Tifa/Barret, we aren't thrown into a solo fight with a Cloud equipped with 0 Materia. But also at this point I have spent so much time in menus swapping Materia over from character to character in the last two hours alone that I am getting sick of it.
I need to find a workaround. I don't know if it's going to be "just commit to giving each character their own Materia set and never changing it ever no matter party comp" or what, but I can't live like this.
Anyway.
Love the annoyed arm-shrug.
Cloud says "you want the Promised Land and Sephiroth." The first part we already know - the second is news to us and is something Cloud did not bring up before sending everyone away. What does Shinra want with Sephiroth, if anything?
I've actually been wondering if Rufus didn't somehow unleash or point Sephiroth at Shinra HQ in hopes that he would dispatch his father, either on purpose or as collateral in enabling Jenova's escape. I suppose we'll have to find out. Rufus bluntly acknowledges that Cloud is right, he wants both these things, then adds a wrinkle - he asks if Cloud knew that Sephiroth is also an Ancient?
That would be more meaningful as a reveal if we knew more about Sephiroth, but it's interesting that Shinra's people have consistently talked about Aerith as the last living Ancient - was that because they thought Sephiroth was already dead, or because him being an Ancient is new information?
Either way, Cloud dismisses that information, saying "Whatever. I can't let you or Sephiroth have the Promised Land!" (In the Retranslated mod, he says "Figures" rather than" Whatever"; that is to say, the information is news to him and matters to some extent, but it doesn't surprise him - it fits in perfectly with the picture he already had). Rufus, who seems to have entertained the thought of recruiting Cloud as an ally (perhaps by convincing him that he hates Sephiroth more than Shinra and it's worth allying with one against the other?), is disappointed, and we engage battle.
So! Rufus Shinra.
And his pet… coeurl? It's using the same model as the Guard Hounds which accompany Shinra Soldiers in various early encounters, so one can assume he's the same species; I guess dogs in the FF7 setting just happen to have a back tentacle and look like panthers rather than dogs. Just, generally, this game seems confused as to the difference between a canine, a feline, and possibly a hyena. That thing is called "Dark Nation" in the original and I gotta say, I prefer the Remake's name, Darkstar, because that is something a twenty-something corporate edgelord would name his pet coeurl, whereas "Dark Nation" is just weird.
Dark Nation opens the fight by casting Barrier on Rufus, granting him extra protection, then buffs himself, and then shifts to basic physical attacks and Lightning. Meanwhile, Rufus shoots at us with a shotgun. He's… implicitly pretty good? Like, it's a 2 v 1 and he has a gun, but he's unafraid to go toe to toe with a SOLDIER in personal combat, so I think Rufus has the personal combat power to back up his villainous monologue. The shotgun attacks deal around 50 damage, where Dark Nation's Lightning deals around 90, and Sense reveals DN to have only 140 HP, so our obvious move is to take out the doggy first with Cloud's Cross Slash, taking it out in one hit. Cloud takes some real damage in all this, but it's only a matter of casting Cure to get him back up to full, and then we relentlessly attack Rufus with magic.
On any of his turns, Rufus has a random chance to do a bishie pose with his head tilted back and his hand on his forehead, laughing sarcastically as if we were small fry to him, which is either supposed to show that he's barely trying or that he's a fucking psychopath, and I'm leaning towards the second.
Once our dude eats a Limit Break of his own, he decides it's time to dip.
Rufus grabs onto the helicopter as it flies overhead, and escapes hanging onto the undercarriage, which… I have to grudgingly admit looks pretty cool.
Our rewards for this fight are better armor and a Guard Source, an item which permanently increases the Vitality stat of a character. I was wondering about those! We've seen "permanently boost a character's stats" in… I think it was FFIV, right? But not since, and I was wondering if the idea had been fully scrapped. Looks like it's back!
Cloud head downstairs, where Tifa asks where's Rufus and Cloud says he couldn't finish him off and things are about to get "complicated."
Yeah, Cloud. You kinda fucked up on that whole "take out Shinra's new president before he can institute a new reign of terror," huh? Well, I can't blame Cloud for not being able to chase after a helicopter.
We fade back to the Aerith party, who are riding the elevator down and heading for the exit - only to find that they are blocked by Shinra troops!
Barret: "If I was alone it wouldn't be a thing, but I gotta a reputation to protect."
Aerith: "You all get out while you can. It's not you they're after… It's me."
Barret: "Yeah, well that ain't happenin'. You got caught up in this over Marlene. Now, it's my turn to help you!"
Barret: "OK, playtime's over jackasses…"
Aerith: "...Thank you, Mr Barret!"
Barret: "Who're you callin' Mr Barret? That don't sound right!"
Red XIII: "Well then… If you are through talking, may I suggest that we think of a way to get out of here."
Barret: "Huh? Oh, yeah… You're cold, man. Just like someone else 'round here I know."
Red XIII: "Did you say something?"
Barret: "Notta thing. So what're we gonna do?"
Heh. I think Red XIII might be actually as cold as his persona looks, unlike Cloud. It's sweet how willing Barret is to just go ride or die for Aerith, whom he's known for five minutes. When he says he has "a reputation" to protect he's implicitly saying, like, he can't abandon them, what will people think of him afterwards? Which is kind of a 'tough guy' fronting that I like - in the Retranslation he straight up says "On my own, it'd be nothing, but what about you guys?" which is also tough guy fronting but has less of the bravado of "Oh I'm only worried about what people will say," if that makes sense?
Then Tifa interrupts, running down the stairs and telling everyone to get out of the way, Cloud's coming.
Why is Cloud not with her, and why is she telling everyone to take cover? Well, it's FMV time.
Oh hell yeah.
Cloud comes riding a motorcycle down the stairs. Not a tiny one either, an enormous machine. Now I get why Advent Children features Cloud on a motorcycle in such a prominent fashion; there's no way that scene wasn't instantly iconic. Like, in the very last update I mentioned that while cars exist in this world, they are by limitations of the engine restricted mostly to static background objects or FMV features? And here is the game playing me for a fool by having an incredibly dynamic cutscene for the time featuring Cloud performing bike tricks. And he's not alone - the rest of the group immediately head for one of the show floor pickups and pile into it. Barret seats on the bed (as the man with machine gun - dammit I keep wanting to make that into a joke but that's a tune from VIII, not VII), and Tifa takes the wheel, immediately smashing through one of the exhibit panels and riding up the stairs to an upper level. I love her.
That thing is just plain cute.
From there, the group drive through a window into a crazy jump onto the freeway belt that surrounds the plate, and it's time for…
…another minigame.
This one is… interesting. We are in a full departure from normal gameplay; a full sequence of high-stakes gameplay that completely changes the way the game is approached. At the same time it's the first one that's actually fun? Like, I don't mind having had to play through it - but at the same time, the fact that it changes a turn-based, strategic game into something movement and reflex-based is, like, rude. I don't like when a game suddenly throws something at you that totally changes the kind of skill you need to use for one you might absolutely suck at.
At the same time…
…we're riding across Midgar on a motorbike cutting apart Shinra troopers who are themselves chasing after us on motorbike while Barret shoots everyone.
The gameplay is extremely simple: move Cloud's bike to the side of an enemy vehicle, then whack it with the sword until it goes careening off. Execution is another matter entirely; the controls are imperfect, you're less "driving" than you are "ice skating," aligning Cloud properly is imprecise.
Also it's a good opportunity to look at how graphics change for the needs of gameplay. Without pre-rendered background and going at high speed, you can see the incredibly basic, flat structures we're going through, as well as the rendering distance sharply visible as the dark shadow ahead. Plus, the game needs new character models, but given that this is just one minigame (although we'll probably do it again) they can't be too resource-intensive, and that gives us Barret's, like… musket-shaped arm-gun? Hilarious.
Anyway, it's not particularly difficult, and it's fun? I knew that minigame was coming at some point, and I was fully expecting to hate it, but… no. I enjoyed it. At some point a giant road-riding robot comes in and the group runs out of road, so it's time for a boss fight.
This is a giant six-wheeler car robot which can use its own engine as flamethrowers. It's a sick concept, and a cool battle, although thankfully not too difficult (the last saving point was after the Rufus fight, which isn't too bad, but at that point I haven't fully acclimated to PSX saving rhythms so my last save was prior to finding the dead President. That would be… bad.)
Thankfully we've got Limit Breaks and Lightning magic, so all in all, it's not much of a problem.
And… that's it. That's the final boss of the Shinra Building sequence. Having spent the entire night crawling through ruin and battling foes, dawn breaks just as our characters finally catch a break - and get a look for the first time at the horizon beyond Midgar.
Barret: "Well, what do we do now?"
Cloud: "Sephiroth is alive. I have to settle the score."
Barret: "Will that save the Planet?"
Cloud: "...It seems so."
Barret: "Then, I'm going!"
Aerith: "Me too. There are many things I need to know.."
Cloud: "About the Ancients?"
Aerith: "...Many things."
Tifa: "I guess this is goodbye, Midgar."
The group grabs onto that nearby crane, and rides the hook down to the grand, landing us on a familiar screen…
We are once again next to the door we found in Sector 5 (despite it confusingly being labeled 07) - but this time, we're on the other side.
We are, for the first time, outside Midgar.
We're given an opportunity to talk to everyone. We can ask Tifa if she hates traveling, and she answers philosophically, saying she doesn't have anywhere else to go, so it doesn't really matter whether she likes traveling - but she'll be fine, as long as Cloud keeps his promise. If we ask Aerith if she's worried, she says she is - but that's what she has a bodyguard for, right? As for Barret, he's worried about his daughter, but making a good show of it - saying that they told Aerith's mom to find somewhere safe, so Marlene should be safe with her as well. He also says she "didn't want to stay in Midgar anymore," so it's likely we'll meet her in the course of our journey.
Before we leave, Barret declares that they need a leader, which should, of course, be him.
Everyone immediately agrees that the leader should be Cloud instead.
It's a good comedy beat although, at this point, poor Barret needs a W. He's being even more mistreated than Cloud! At least he's the man with the directions - he suggest we head Northeast to a town called Kalm. Also, because there are five of us and we can only be three in a party, he suggests we split into two groups to attract less attention.
This is going to be a whole thing, isn't it. It's not like we're anywhere close to having an airship, either, so I wonder how the game is going to manage to justify the party splits.
Sorry, Barret, I'm hanging out with the girls for now.
And then…
It's time.
The world map opens at last.
This is it. Six hours into FFVII, we've finally left Midgar and entered the world map, and gotten an idea of what this setting looks like. Three or four main continents, mountain ranges sharply diving them with jagged angles, a kind of triskelion shame centered around one visible axis… I strongly suspect a plot-relevant event is going to happen in that central spot of sea where the tip of the continents almost meet.
Fascinating.
But this is enough for today. We have reached a major milestone, and we can now freely save on the world map.
…
Goddamn though.
What an incredible setpiece.
There have been… Some? Pre-VII Final Fantasy sequence that could compare to the Shinra Building? I don't mean "this is a stronger moment than Galuf's sacrifice" or "the presentation is better than Celes's opera" (for one thing the music doesn't have vocals smh my head), I mean has an integrated dungeon-and-story piece. The FFVI intro, the opera, the Solitary Island, all bangers, but here I'm thinking more about something like "the arrival to Victor through the Magitek Research Facility" - an extended sequence meant to build up the world of the game and its characters as well as advance the plot along with providing gameplay challenges and a whole gauntlet of cool bosses including a sick shotgun vs sword duel. It's genuinely hard to find many that compare the sheer scale and presentation and intricacy. It combines gameplay with storytelling with worldbuilding beautifully. It shuffles the game pieces and raises the stakes. There's comedy, there's horror, there's major story twists. We go from the heroic raid into Shinra HQ into the horror-flavored Jenova escape, where we never actually see the monster whose wake we're following. We see the wake of Sephiroth's carnage, but never Sephiroth himself. Did he unlock Cloud's door? Why? They obviously have personal baggage, but it's not like Sephiroth murdered Cloud in his sleep either. And then the game goes "btw we can have Cloud escape on a bike through a window now." Instant game changer.
Anyway. We now have two new major antagonists - Rufus Shinra and Sephiroth, now clearly established as our core antagonists.
I suspect we may be looking at a 'division of labour' where Sephiroth is the big-stakes antagonist who is individually carrying out the main plot, and Rufus is the one who in his attempts to chase after Sephiroth and find the Promised Land keeps sending hordes of soldiers, robots and mad experiments to make up the bulk of our low-level mob antagonists and throwaway bosses.
But also I want to crack open Cloud's skull to rain his brains. Like, he has flashback migraines and locked memories, for sure, but there's also stuff that he knows that he knows, stuff about his past with Sephiroth that he is fully aware of but won't talk about, and that includes stuff about Sephiroth I would really like to know right now.
Man.
What a banger opening.
Okay, maybe 6 hours is a little past "opening," but the entire Midgar sequence has such a clear narrative throughline it feels like a clear, self-contained Episode 1 of a broader story… Which is probably why the Remake devs thought it made sense to adapt it into the full story of the Remake?
So.
We need to talk about the Remake, and we need to talk about it at length. Not "full update" length, but it's going to take me a little more time. And because we have readers who have never played the original or the Remake, I'd like to give us a little room to breathe before we touch on all that stuff.
In any case, FF7 Original Flavor Midgar Sequence Conclusion: 9.5/10 total banger let down only by clumsy minigames, the fact that this game's interface and systems are 25 years old and have never received a proper remaster to bring to them modern convenience, and the way the writing kind of cheated Barret of a chance at a big character moment for him, even if he's still cool.
Next Time: The Remake.
Last time, Shinra arrested all of Avalanche and threw them in cell in the laboratory section. There, the game utilizes this opportunity to take a breather and have the characters just… Hang out.
Aerith: "Cloud, are you there?"
Cloud: "Aerith! You safe?"
Aerith: "Yeah, I'm all right. I knew that Cloud would come for me."
Cloud: "Hey, I'm your bodyguard, right?"
Aerith: "The deal was for one date, right?"
Tifa: *gets up on her bed*
Tifa: "..........oh, I get it."
Aerith: "..!? Tifa! Tifa, you're here too!"
Tifa: "EXCUSE me. You know, Aerith, I have a question."
Aerith: "What?"
Tifa: "Does the Promised Land really exist?"
Aerith: "...I don't know. All I know is… The Cetra were born from the Planet, speak with the Planet, and unlock the Planet. And… Then… The Cetra will return to the Promised Land. A land that promises supreme happiness."
Tifa: "What does that mean?"
Aerith: "More than words… I don't know."'
Cloud: "Speak with the Planet?"
Tifa: "Just what does the Planet say?"
Aerith: "It's full of people and noisy. That's why I can't make out what they are saying."
Cloud: "You hear it now?"
Aerith: "I, I only heard it at the Church in the Slums. Mother said Midgar was no longer safe. That is… My real mother. Someday I'll get out of Midgar… Speak with the Planet and find my Promised Land. That's what mom said. I thought I would stop hearing her voice as I grew up, but…"
…it's not super-clear from the phrasing, but what Aerith is saying here is that her mother spoke to her in the Church, and told her she needed to get out of Midgar. Which explains a lot about how she latched onto Cloud pretty hard from the start.
Also the game does lean into "Tifa is jealous of Aerith" at times; it's not been obnoxious about it, really, and it's a perfectly believable human reaction, I am just always wary of love triangles. This one strongly benefits from the fact that Tifa and Aerith are genuinely friends, and nearly immediately gets over the fact that Cloud and Aerith are having a discussion through the wall to instead ask Aerith about her mysterious heritage and the voices she's hearing.
It's a little early to tell, but given the emphasis on Aerith's unique power and her repeated talk of spirits returning to the Planet, it looks like this game might be the first one that takes Final Fantasy's long-standing use of the spirits of the dead and turns it into a major plot point that actually digs into the metaphysics of how that's supposed to work? Fingers crossed, anyway.
The other interactions are much shorter; talking to Tifa she asks us if she thinks we can get out and we can say "Leave it to me" or "Kinda hard," and in the former case she praises our bravery. Checking in on Red XIII has him refer to Barret as "Grandpa," which Barret for some reason finds the funniest thing in the world. Red XIII doesn't get it, and Barret just laughs. Checking in on Barret instead has him recap the latest plot development (Aerith's an Ancient, the Ancients were called Cetra, the Ancients know the way to the Promised Land, Shinra is searching for the Promised Land, Shinra believes it's full of Mako energy, if they get there they'll drain that energy and the planet will grow weaker). Then he boldly declares that Avalanche is recruiting new members, and asks Red XIII if he'd like to join.
Unfortunately the catdog isn't swayed by his recruitment speech and doesn't even bother responding, so Barret grumps that he's boring.
Once we've checked on everyone and made sure the whole group is there and alive, our next option is to just… Go to sleep. There's a saying in French, la nuit porte conseil, which translates to "night bears good counsel" and which fills the same semantic role as the English "sleeping on it." I'm guessing that's what Cloud is going for - there's no obvious way out of this for now, so he'll just rest and look at things with a clear head in the morning.
Fade to black… And Cloud wakes up, in the same room, next to a sleeping Tifa, at an unknown hour - and with no ambient music.
The door to his cell is open.
The game goes on in perfect silence until we stumble upon the body of a Shinra guard - by all appearance, dead. Then a new, slow, ominous tune starts to play.
Cloud's cell is the only one that was open, and there's no visible explanation for either it or the dead guard; thankfully the guard is still wearing the keys and Cloud goes to open the other doors and wake up everyone.
Everyone's a little confused and worried, but not about to miss this chance at freedom. Red XIII goes scouting ahead while Barret stays to "clean up back there" (what does he mean, it's not like we care if Shinra pins yet another death on us), and Cloud, Tifa and Aerith head on ahead.
Well. Would you look at that.
The long red trail is probably the red-purple fluid that the tank was filled with? But it certainly looks like a trail of blood strewn across the ground - and that would be very consistent with all the dead bodies we're going to find on its path, starting with this employee.
It looks like Jenova breached containment and is on a rampage. Which is odd, considering it seemed to be missing its head and perhaps most of a body, but it's certainly appropriately ominous.
When I was a kid, I played Metal Gear Solid - probably a little too young. There's a scene in it where the protagonist, Snake, walks into a corridor only to find that an invisible, superpowered cyborg ninja "ghost" has gone through and killed all enemies - and you find that out in the form of a corridor full of dead bodies lying in pools of blood, cut marks and impact craters on the wall, and as a kid this was the scariest shit I had ever seen. I had not signed on to play a horror game, and it felt like horror to me - inexplicable death, far gorier than I'd seen before. This sequence reminds me of that.
This hallway was seared into my memory.
We follow the red trail upstairs, where it turns out that random encounters are back on… But not the ones we're used to.
Those blue things are called "Brain Pods" and they're floating tanks containing some kind of brain-like thing. "Brain in jars," spike-backed monsters, weird hovering aliens… These are Shinra experiments. Jenova somehow unleashed Hojo's entire menagerie of horrors into the building as part of its escape. If you'll look closely - the trail of blood/tank fluid has been added to the old combat backgrounds. How deliciously sinister.
And these are our only enemies - there are no security guards, no robots, only runaway experiments, everyone else in the building being already gone for the night, fled, or killed. And a real special touch? The music doesn't change for combat. The same slow, ominous tune continues to play throughout all the encounters. (I don't know what it's called; OST titles typically contain spoilers so I only looked briefly).
Square has done some horror-themed setpieces in previous Final Fantasy games, but this is a level beyond. This game was, what… One year before Parasite Eve? Maybe I should look into that one. You know, I've kind of always wanted to play it - and Super Eyepatch Wolf just made a video in which he mentions playing it recently and calls it "a banger…" Damn. Things to put on The List.
Finally, we reach Floor 69 (Nice) and the desk of the President…
…who just suffered a terminal case of katana to the back.
Well! That is certainly a dramatic way of disposing of who's so far been our main antagonist!
Man, the ghost of FFVI is all over this game, isn't it? Like, it's subtle, the parallel isn't direct (we haven't met a Kefka figure yet), but "the old man leader of the evil company/empire whose actions have precipited the protagonists to act as rebels dies surprisingly and shockingly partway through the game" definitely echoes the previous game.
Tifa approaches the dead body, examining the sword, and she and Cloud both come to the same thought at the same time - this is Sephiroth's sword.
Tifa: "...Sephiroth is alive?"
Cloud: "Looks like it. Only Sephiroth can use that sword."
Once again, we are reminded that Cloud and Tifa both have some kind of personal familiarity with Sephiroth that they won't elaborate upon (and it's not clear if they know that about each other - in fact, I strongly suspect they don't) - because, up until recently, they thought he was dead.
So our mysterious backstory antagonist has now had a dramatic personal impact on the plot, all without even appearing on-screen. We only see him through the wake of his actions, the dead, Jenova's broken tank…
…did he open the door to Cloud's cell? He would have had to, right? Someone needed to open that door.
Then, someone walks out of behind the cover of a pillar - Palmer, one of Shinra's top executives. He immediately attempts to run away from the scary terrorist, only to be bodily caught by Barret and Cloud.
Palmer confirms what we suspected: he personally saw and hear Sephiroth murder President Shinra, saying "something about not letting us have the Promised Land."
Cloud: "Then does that mean the Promised Land really does exist and that Sephiroth's here to save it from Shinra?"
Barret: "So he's a good guy then?"
Cloud: "Save the Promised Land? A good guy? No way! It's not that simple! I know him! Sephiroth's mission is different!"
Just, just as it looks like Cloud is finally about to actually speak up about what Sephiroth's deal is, a helicopter comes buzzing out on the balcony, and the surprise of it is enough for Palmer to slip away and run off.
Barret takes one look at the helicopter and somehow instantly deduces who it is - Vice President Rufus, the President's son.
Okay, so that corporation is literally working off hereditary rule. Of course it is.
Ominously, Aerith declares she's heard that "No one's ever seen him bleed or cry." Barret adds that he was "assigned somewhere else for a long time."
The group hurries to the balcony to confront Rufus, arriving just in time to see Palmer finish warning him that Sephiroth just murdered his dad, which Rufus takes with impressive cool. As the group lines up, he asks who the hell these jokers are, and each one introduces themselves with a simple line, which I like a lot - I love these individual group introduction scenes, though that one does Tifa a little dirty.
"Who are you?"
Cloud: "I'm Cloud, ex-SOLDIER, First Class!"
Barret: "I'm from Avalanche!"
Tifa: "Me too!"
Aerith: "A flower girl from the slums!"
Red XIII: "A Research Specimen."
I just find it extremely funny that Aerith, the last living Ancient, Shinra lab escapee, and fresh recruit into a terrorist group, still refers to herself as a flower girl from the slums. Like, it could easily be read as self-effacing, but considering her personality I think it's much more likely it's a gesture of small defiance or sarcasm - of refusing to let herself be defined by what others want from her.
"What a crew," Rufus says sarcastically, and then:
Right. He's heard of his father's passing, and without missing a beat, already declared himself the new head of the corporation. That's one cold-blooded guy.
Wait…
…oh fuck no, we just traded an old portly cigar-chomper for a bishie with a gun. We're fucked.
That's not just a joke about anime aesthetics either, Rufus pretty much says it himself.
Barret: "You're only President 'cause yer old man died!"
Rufus: "Correct. I'll let you hear my inauguration speech. Father tried to control the world with money, and that worked for him. The people believed that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If terrorists attack, the Shinra army will help you. It looked perfect on the outside. But, I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It's too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste good money on them."
Tifa: "He likes to make speeches just like his father."
Cloud: "Get Aerith outta the building!"
Barret: "What?"
Cloud: "I'll explain later! This is the real crisis for the Planet!"
Barret: "The hell's that supposed to mean?"
Cloud: "I'll explain later! Just take my word for now! I'll go after and take care of him!"
Barret: "Alright, Cloud!"
…yeah, Pretty Boy here may look like less of a caricature of a capitalist, but he is far worse. President Shinra believed in PR, in the power of propaganda, of controlling the messaging. Rufus intends to just lay bare the mechanisms of the world and use Shinra's power to offer everyone the naked choice of "pay up or die, also live your whole life in terror of the Shinra Death Corps." When he says it's "too much" to do it like his old man it might sound like too much effort, but from another translation it's clear he means money. Every gil that goes into sustaining Shinra's consent-manufacturing aparatus is a gil that's not going into the executives' pockets. Propaganda meant to build trust and confidence rather than fear, a security aparatus meant to create an impression of safety rather than paranoia, cradle-to-grave employment, social security... All these pillars of the system that keep people content and secure within a fundamentally exploitative system, they cost money to maintain. They can be taken down and converted into more cash.
As long as you're the one with the guns, the mutant super-soldiers, and the giant robots, what's anyone going to do about it? The monopoly on sufficient violence can certainly substitute for the monopoly on legitimate violence. It's only laying bare the system's core mechanisms, isn't it?
...Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997, about halfway into Japan's first Lost Decade. The desillusionment with the system is patent, and it hasn't exactly grown old here in 2023.
It's going to be… interesting living in Midgar in the coming months.
The group agrees to leave Cloud to face Rufus alone, and runs downstairs - where Aerith says she's worried about Cloud, and Tifa says she'll wait for him there and for the other to go on.
The exchange in the original reason is Aerith: "Cloud… I just thought of something." // Tifa: "...I'll wait for Cloud! Everyone, get to the elevator!" which just doesn't parse well.
It's a weird beat that seems to mostly just be there to justify reducing the party size; we're left with Barret, Aerith and Red XIII, who warn us to check our equipment and materia so the group is actually operational before heading on ahead.
…
I need to put a pin here to remind myself to talk about Barret when I get to the Remake comparison. For the time being: it feels like they kind of cut the grass out from under him, doesn't it?
Like, Barret has dedicated his life to fighting Shinra. He's led a terrorist cell whose members are now almost all dead, killed by Shinra. He is fighting to save the Planet from the very people in this building. And now, he's reached the heart of the enemy, he's come within inches of President Shinra and his executives…
…and the plot's been derailed by a mad science experiment's escape, President Shinra is already dead, and he's now running away from his successor, Rufus, who just promised the world an even worse regime. And on the one hand, that choice of running is growth - it's Barret choosing to trust Cloud, to take his word for it without an explanation, and to focus on protecting the people close to him.
But also, man, they kind of shot his chance at fulfilling his driving goals in the kneecaps at the finish line, didn't they? Hopefully that's deliberate setup for later plot developments and a continued arc.
After fighting through a couple of encounters, we reach the elevator, and a boss fight is initiated.
…something I distinctly remember bugging me when I was much younger and playing Final Fantasy VIII and IX is... Well, I wouldn't have phrased it that way, but I was bothered by the lack of field models for bosses. It's striking how often characters on the field will openly warn each other of a monster attack, sometimes even talking about that monster as if it were standing right there, but the monster just… doesn't exist. They didn't bother spending the resources to make him exist on the screen for all of twenty seconds before combat, which I guess is fair enough, but it leads to these strangely surreal scenes where someone is like "oh no, a dragon" in a completely dragon-less scene and then we transition to the encounter and the dragon is suddenly there. It's not really a major issue but as a kid, it bugged me.
So, we're fighting a mechanized weapon platform, evocatively called the "Hundred Gunner." A touch I really like is that the very first thing it does upon combat being initiated is shatter the glass of the other elevator in a hail of bullets. It's just, great use of the medium there.
Although it's kind of amusing that we went from "the elevator is a single, tiny tube with enough shoulder room for about four people" to "two massive tubes large enough for people to stand in formation on" in the transition from field to battle background! Like, it's not a problem, it's just that this is something that is only possible within the specific setting of a game like FF7, where combat and navigation exist in two separate realities that don't need to match 1-to-1. In the Remake, if the devs want an elevator to be large enough to accommodate a battle against a giant robot, they need that elevator to be that size every time it's on screen - and so in that scene, the robot merely causes the elevator to drop, then the fight happens in the lobby.
As a gun platform, the Hundred Gunner mostly uses various gun-themed attacks like Aux Artillery, Hidden Artillery, and Main Artillery. Upon reaching a third of its HP, it announces "Sensor Cannon charging!" and prepares to unleash its most powerful attack.
Additionally, there's an extra complication - the game actually does take into account that we're meant to be on two separate platforms with nothing between but the void; as a result, neither Aerith nor Red XIII can reach the robot using their normal attacks - only Magic and Limit Breaks. Barret is the only character who can reach the enemy, because he has a gun. That's clever!
However, thanks to the Materia system, everyone has magic, so it's no problem. In fact, the Hundred Gunner is (say it with me now) weak to lightning, and we have at least two characters who can cast Lightning, so we're able to deal enough damage to destroy it before it can unleash its Wave Artillery.
It's neat how Shinra has, like, a defining vulnerability? They fight with machines and soldiers in high-tech armor, so lightning is super effective against most of their repertoire - with notable exceptions like those "wall" enemies that are immune to it instead (probably because they're grounded).
Once the artillery robot is done, though, we're not out of the water - another robot immediately drops down to continue the fight.
The Heli Gunner.
I like Shinra's robot aesthetic. It's like… Conspicuously not "sleek robots", they don't look like Terminators or walking iPods. They're colorful, they're round, with big exaggerated shapes, chopper blades or exhaust ports or really big guns or big glowing buttons. It's almost cartoonish in a way that wouldn't work if the game had more high-fidelity graphics but is the right fit for this… early, mid-PSX era? It gives them charm.
If anything, they remind me of Eggman's Badnicks in Sonic the Hedgehog.
The Heli Gunner isn't too much of a threat - I still have Thunder, it has 1,000 HP and the same "only Barret can reach it" mechanic, we spam Lightning for the win. Good times.
Back over to Cloud, we… Hmm.
Okay, so I appreciate that the game is giving me the option, every time the party splits or swaps, to reconfigure my Materia, but also that's going to be incredibly obnoxious incredibly quickly just out of sheer frequency.
The way Materia works is that it gains AP by being equipped in combat, but is character agnostic. My Sense Materia A with 500 AP has 500 AP whether it's equipped on Cloud, or Tifa, or Barret, and I can swap it freely, transferring the same competency from character to character. This makes the game very flexible and also means there is no incentive to not have the playable group be equipped with the best Materia we have (other than grinding low-level Materia, of course), and given that save points can be half an hour apart with huge cutscenes in the middle, there is very little incentive to not constantly optimize Materia whenever we swap characters. Except I probably shouldn't do that because it's busywork that is going to make me end up hating the game.
I wonder if there's a mod for that. "Materia auto-sorter." A man can dream.
And it's good that the game doesn't put us in a situation where after properly equipping Aerith/Tifa/Barret, we aren't thrown into a solo fight with a Cloud equipped with 0 Materia. But also at this point I have spent so much time in menus swapping Materia over from character to character in the last two hours alone that I am getting sick of it.
I need to find a workaround. I don't know if it's going to be "just commit to giving each character their own Materia set and never changing it ever no matter party comp" or what, but I can't live like this.
Anyway.
Love the annoyed arm-shrug.
Cloud says "you want the Promised Land and Sephiroth." The first part we already know - the second is news to us and is something Cloud did not bring up before sending everyone away. What does Shinra want with Sephiroth, if anything?
I've actually been wondering if Rufus didn't somehow unleash or point Sephiroth at Shinra HQ in hopes that he would dispatch his father, either on purpose or as collateral in enabling Jenova's escape. I suppose we'll have to find out. Rufus bluntly acknowledges that Cloud is right, he wants both these things, then adds a wrinkle - he asks if Cloud knew that Sephiroth is also an Ancient?
That would be more meaningful as a reveal if we knew more about Sephiroth, but it's interesting that Shinra's people have consistently talked about Aerith as the last living Ancient - was that because they thought Sephiroth was already dead, or because him being an Ancient is new information?
Either way, Cloud dismisses that information, saying "Whatever. I can't let you or Sephiroth have the Promised Land!" (In the Retranslated mod, he says "Figures" rather than" Whatever"; that is to say, the information is news to him and matters to some extent, but it doesn't surprise him - it fits in perfectly with the picture he already had). Rufus, who seems to have entertained the thought of recruiting Cloud as an ally (perhaps by convincing him that he hates Sephiroth more than Shinra and it's worth allying with one against the other?), is disappointed, and we engage battle.
So! Rufus Shinra.
And his pet… coeurl? It's using the same model as the Guard Hounds which accompany Shinra Soldiers in various early encounters, so one can assume he's the same species; I guess dogs in the FF7 setting just happen to have a back tentacle and look like panthers rather than dogs. Just, generally, this game seems confused as to the difference between a canine, a feline, and possibly a hyena. That thing is called "Dark Nation" in the original and I gotta say, I prefer the Remake's name, Darkstar, because that is something a twenty-something corporate edgelord would name his pet coeurl, whereas "Dark Nation" is just weird.
Dark Nation opens the fight by casting Barrier on Rufus, granting him extra protection, then buffs himself, and then shifts to basic physical attacks and Lightning. Meanwhile, Rufus shoots at us with a shotgun. He's… implicitly pretty good? Like, it's a 2 v 1 and he has a gun, but he's unafraid to go toe to toe with a SOLDIER in personal combat, so I think Rufus has the personal combat power to back up his villainous monologue. The shotgun attacks deal around 50 damage, where Dark Nation's Lightning deals around 90, and Sense reveals DN to have only 140 HP, so our obvious move is to take out the doggy first with Cloud's Cross Slash, taking it out in one hit. Cloud takes some real damage in all this, but it's only a matter of casting Cure to get him back up to full, and then we relentlessly attack Rufus with magic.
On any of his turns, Rufus has a random chance to do a bishie pose with his head tilted back and his hand on his forehead, laughing sarcastically as if we were small fry to him, which is either supposed to show that he's barely trying or that he's a fucking psychopath, and I'm leaning towards the second.
Once our dude eats a Limit Break of his own, he decides it's time to dip.
Our rewards for this fight are better armor and a Guard Source, an item which permanently increases the Vitality stat of a character. I was wondering about those! We've seen "permanently boost a character's stats" in… I think it was FFIV, right? But not since, and I was wondering if the idea had been fully scrapped. Looks like it's back!
Cloud head downstairs, where Tifa asks where's Rufus and Cloud says he couldn't finish him off and things are about to get "complicated."
Yeah, Cloud. You kinda fucked up on that whole "take out Shinra's new president before he can institute a new reign of terror," huh? Well, I can't blame Cloud for not being able to chase after a helicopter.
We fade back to the Aerith party, who are riding the elevator down and heading for the exit - only to find that they are blocked by Shinra troops!
Barret: "If I was alone it wouldn't be a thing, but I gotta a reputation to protect."
Aerith: "You all get out while you can. It's not you they're after… It's me."
Barret: "Yeah, well that ain't happenin'. You got caught up in this over Marlene. Now, it's my turn to help you!"
Barret: "OK, playtime's over jackasses…"
Aerith: "...Thank you, Mr Barret!"
Barret: "Who're you callin' Mr Barret? That don't sound right!"
Red XIII: "Well then… If you are through talking, may I suggest that we think of a way to get out of here."
Barret: "Huh? Oh, yeah… You're cold, man. Just like someone else 'round here I know."
Red XIII: "Did you say something?"
Barret: "Notta thing. So what're we gonna do?"
Heh. I think Red XIII might be actually as cold as his persona looks, unlike Cloud. It's sweet how willing Barret is to just go ride or die for Aerith, whom he's known for five minutes. When he says he has "a reputation" to protect he's implicitly saying, like, he can't abandon them, what will people think of him afterwards? Which is kind of a 'tough guy' fronting that I like - in the Retranslation he straight up says "On my own, it'd be nothing, but what about you guys?" which is also tough guy fronting but has less of the bravado of "Oh I'm only worried about what people will say," if that makes sense?
Then Tifa interrupts, running down the stairs and telling everyone to get out of the way, Cloud's coming.
Why is Cloud not with her, and why is she telling everyone to take cover? Well, it's FMV time.
Oh hell yeah.
Cloud comes riding a motorcycle down the stairs. Not a tiny one either, an enormous machine. Now I get why Advent Children features Cloud on a motorcycle in such a prominent fashion; there's no way that scene wasn't instantly iconic. Like, in the very last update I mentioned that while cars exist in this world, they are by limitations of the engine restricted mostly to static background objects or FMV features? And here is the game playing me for a fool by having an incredibly dynamic cutscene for the time featuring Cloud performing bike tricks. And he's not alone - the rest of the group immediately head for one of the show floor pickups and pile into it. Barret seats on the bed (as the man with machine gun - dammit I keep wanting to make that into a joke but that's a tune from VIII, not VII), and Tifa takes the wheel, immediately smashing through one of the exhibit panels and riding up the stairs to an upper level. I love her.
That thing is just plain cute.
From there, the group drive through a window into a crazy jump onto the freeway belt that surrounds the plate, and it's time for…
…another minigame.
This one is… interesting. We are in a full departure from normal gameplay; a full sequence of high-stakes gameplay that completely changes the way the game is approached. At the same time it's the first one that's actually fun? Like, I don't mind having had to play through it - but at the same time, the fact that it changes a turn-based, strategic game into something movement and reflex-based is, like, rude. I don't like when a game suddenly throws something at you that totally changes the kind of skill you need to use for one you might absolutely suck at.
At the same time…
…we're riding across Midgar on a motorbike cutting apart Shinra troopers who are themselves chasing after us on motorbike while Barret shoots everyone.
The gameplay is extremely simple: move Cloud's bike to the side of an enemy vehicle, then whack it with the sword until it goes careening off. Execution is another matter entirely; the controls are imperfect, you're less "driving" than you are "ice skating," aligning Cloud properly is imprecise.
Also it's a good opportunity to look at how graphics change for the needs of gameplay. Without pre-rendered background and going at high speed, you can see the incredibly basic, flat structures we're going through, as well as the rendering distance sharply visible as the dark shadow ahead. Plus, the game needs new character models, but given that this is just one minigame (although we'll probably do it again) they can't be too resource-intensive, and that gives us Barret's, like… musket-shaped arm-gun? Hilarious.
Anyway, it's not particularly difficult, and it's fun? I knew that minigame was coming at some point, and I was fully expecting to hate it, but… no. I enjoyed it. At some point a giant road-riding robot comes in and the group runs out of road, so it's time for a boss fight.
This is a giant six-wheeler car robot which can use its own engine as flamethrowers. It's a sick concept, and a cool battle, although thankfully not too difficult (the last saving point was after the Rufus fight, which isn't too bad, but at that point I haven't fully acclimated to PSX saving rhythms so my last save was prior to finding the dead President. That would be… bad.)
Thankfully we've got Limit Breaks and Lightning magic, so all in all, it's not much of a problem.
And… that's it. That's the final boss of the Shinra Building sequence. Having spent the entire night crawling through ruin and battling foes, dawn breaks just as our characters finally catch a break - and get a look for the first time at the horizon beyond Midgar.
Barret: "Well, what do we do now?"
Cloud: "Sephiroth is alive. I have to settle the score."
Barret: "Will that save the Planet?"
Cloud: "...It seems so."
Barret: "Then, I'm going!"
Aerith: "Me too. There are many things I need to know.."
Cloud: "About the Ancients?"
Aerith: "...Many things."
Tifa: "I guess this is goodbye, Midgar."
The group grabs onto that nearby crane, and rides the hook down to the grand, landing us on a familiar screen…
We are once again next to the door we found in Sector 5 (despite it confusingly being labeled 07) - but this time, we're on the other side.
We are, for the first time, outside Midgar.
We're given an opportunity to talk to everyone. We can ask Tifa if she hates traveling, and she answers philosophically, saying she doesn't have anywhere else to go, so it doesn't really matter whether she likes traveling - but she'll be fine, as long as Cloud keeps his promise. If we ask Aerith if she's worried, she says she is - but that's what she has a bodyguard for, right? As for Barret, he's worried about his daughter, but making a good show of it - saying that they told Aerith's mom to find somewhere safe, so Marlene should be safe with her as well. He also says she "didn't want to stay in Midgar anymore," so it's likely we'll meet her in the course of our journey.
Before we leave, Barret declares that they need a leader, which should, of course, be him.
Everyone immediately agrees that the leader should be Cloud instead.
It's a good comedy beat although, at this point, poor Barret needs a W. He's being even more mistreated than Cloud! At least he's the man with the directions - he suggest we head Northeast to a town called Kalm. Also, because there are five of us and we can only be three in a party, he suggests we split into two groups to attract less attention.
This is going to be a whole thing, isn't it. It's not like we're anywhere close to having an airship, either, so I wonder how the game is going to manage to justify the party splits.
Sorry, Barret, I'm hanging out with the girls for now.
And then…
It's time.
The world map opens at last.
This is it. Six hours into FFVII, we've finally left Midgar and entered the world map, and gotten an idea of what this setting looks like. Three or four main continents, mountain ranges sharply diving them with jagged angles, a kind of triskelion shame centered around one visible axis… I strongly suspect a plot-relevant event is going to happen in that central spot of sea where the tip of the continents almost meet.
Fascinating.
But this is enough for today. We have reached a major milestone, and we can now freely save on the world map.
…
Goddamn though.
What an incredible setpiece.
There have been… Some? Pre-VII Final Fantasy sequence that could compare to the Shinra Building? I don't mean "this is a stronger moment than Galuf's sacrifice" or "the presentation is better than Celes's opera" (for one thing the music doesn't have vocals smh my head), I mean has an integrated dungeon-and-story piece. The FFVI intro, the opera, the Solitary Island, all bangers, but here I'm thinking more about something like "the arrival to Victor through the Magitek Research Facility" - an extended sequence meant to build up the world of the game and its characters as well as advance the plot along with providing gameplay challenges and a whole gauntlet of cool bosses including a sick shotgun vs sword duel. It's genuinely hard to find many that compare the sheer scale and presentation and intricacy. It combines gameplay with storytelling with worldbuilding beautifully. It shuffles the game pieces and raises the stakes. There's comedy, there's horror, there's major story twists. We go from the heroic raid into Shinra HQ into the horror-flavored Jenova escape, where we never actually see the monster whose wake we're following. We see the wake of Sephiroth's carnage, but never Sephiroth himself. Did he unlock Cloud's door? Why? They obviously have personal baggage, but it's not like Sephiroth murdered Cloud in his sleep either. And then the game goes "btw we can have Cloud escape on a bike through a window now." Instant game changer.
Anyway. We now have two new major antagonists - Rufus Shinra and Sephiroth, now clearly established as our core antagonists.
I suspect we may be looking at a 'division of labour' where Sephiroth is the big-stakes antagonist who is individually carrying out the main plot, and Rufus is the one who in his attempts to chase after Sephiroth and find the Promised Land keeps sending hordes of soldiers, robots and mad experiments to make up the bulk of our low-level mob antagonists and throwaway bosses.
But also I want to crack open Cloud's skull to rain his brains. Like, he has flashback migraines and locked memories, for sure, but there's also stuff that he knows that he knows, stuff about his past with Sephiroth that he is fully aware of but won't talk about, and that includes stuff about Sephiroth I would really like to know right now.
Man.
What a banger opening.
Okay, maybe 6 hours is a little past "opening," but the entire Midgar sequence has such a clear narrative throughline it feels like a clear, self-contained Episode 1 of a broader story… Which is probably why the Remake devs thought it made sense to adapt it into the full story of the Remake?
So.
We need to talk about the Remake, and we need to talk about it at length. Not "full update" length, but it's going to take me a little more time. And because we have readers who have never played the original or the Remake, I'd like to give us a little room to breathe before we touch on all that stuff.
In any case, FF7 Original Flavor Midgar Sequence Conclusion: 9.5/10 total banger let down only by clumsy minigames, the fact that this game's interface and systems are 25 years old and have never received a proper remaster to bring to them modern convenience, and the way the writing kind of cheated Barret of a chance at a big character moment for him, even if he's still cool.
Next Time: The Remake.
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
Oh, damn, you're playing two games at once?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I've played the Remake when it came out, and I've been glancing at YouTube playthroughs to refresh my memory on the details.
somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
In my current replay of Final Fantasy VII, I just brought a Lightning materia for everyone while in the slums since I knew the upcoming Shinra Tower sequence involved a ton of lightning-weak enemies. This resulted in boss battles with robots degenerating into every single character spamming Bolt every single turn they weren't casting Cure or using their limit break.
I'm fond of "Today's mysteries are tomorrow's masteries". I forget where I first heard it, though.
Khona Moshr
Pink Flamingo Cabal Healer(they/them)
- Location
- Alabama
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I will say I was worried about how they would make the midgar sequence into a full game since the thought was "but that's only the opening to FF7, how much will the pacing suffer from that kind of expanison?" but I was happily shown those worries were wrong,
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
Just the best opening sequence. The bit covered by this update in particular is my absolute favorite.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
It's kind of funny that Barret and Red's cell has no bed. There's clearly enough cells with beds to go around, they just made him sleep on the floor.
It kills me thatOmicron said:
Roche isn't a part of this motorcycle ride in Remake. It would be so damn appropriate if he showd up, killed Motor Ball, and made you fight him a third and final time.
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
I was legit expecting him to be piloting the Motor Ball.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Motorball, /does a sick backflip when it shows up
Cloud: "Get out of that thing, asshole!"
Motorball, /flips him the bird, somehow
- Location
- Phoenix
Yeah, the whole Shinra building section was something that the original FF7 did WAY better than the remake.
The funny thing is that when FF first came out, I heard people say Shinra was '80's action movie evil', nowadays, I'd describe it as terrifyingly accurate.
Yeah, Barret did get shafted in that spot, but that's because of the elevator boss fight. If you don't have materia set up for the fight, it can be possible for the only one to be able to attack is Barret. Without him it would be entirely possible, especially for a first time playthrough, for that fight to be made unbeatable.
On the note of your dislike of playing Materia shuffle, going forwards that'll happen less often than it did in Midgard.
This is another thing that gives FF7 a good narrative, there's a clear divide between what we the players know, and what the characters know. It's a good storytelling mechanism that allows you to have solid pacing without a massive info dump right at the start, though it can be annoying when the characters talk about something that we the players know nothing about, leaving us confused.
That whole sequence is a big part of why Sephiroth is the most popular FF villain of all, no other antagonist has anywhere near as much of a story introduction as Sephiroth got.
The funny thing is that when FF first came out, I heard people say Shinra was '80's action movie evil', nowadays, I'd describe it as terrifyingly accurate.
Yeah, Barret did get shafted in that spot, but that's because of the elevator boss fight. If you don't have materia set up for the fight, it can be possible for the only one to be able to attack is Barret. Without him it would be entirely possible, especially for a first time playthrough, for that fight to be made unbeatable.
On the note of your dislike of playing Materia shuffle, going forwards that'll happen less often than it did in Midgard.
This is another thing that gives FF7 a good narrative, there's a clear divide between what we the players know, and what the characters know. It's a good storytelling mechanism that allows you to have solid pacing without a massive info dump right at the start, though it can be annoying when the characters talk about something that we the players know nothing about, leaving us confused.