Eww no, he probably gets off on that shit.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Eww no, he probably gets off on that shit.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I didn't bring it up in the post but, yeah. I suspect "arm" might be meant euphemistically here. Kind of in the same way that in the Epic of Gilgamesh Enkidu throws a bull's "leg" at Inanna's face.
Several people have put this idea forward and, honestly, yeah. I don't know why it didn't occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense for SOLDIER to have started as "Shinra SEAL Team Six" and then brought in the enhancements, probably as drugs first, and eventually into a proper super-soldier program with Mako.
Also very much a possibility.
...could New Sephiroth and Jenova be one and the same? Like, Sephiroth 'possessing' the Jenova body in the containment tank and escaping, or Jenova creating a Sephiroth body for itself? Possible.
Oh, my god.
I went through all this trouble and then this little girl just remembered she has a dolphin friend who can take everyone into the Harbour by sea?
Fuck, I don't know if I should be laughing or incredibly mad. I had to go through SO MANY MINIGAMES because of that kid-
You know, this has me wondering.
In all previous games summons operated in pretty clear tiers. Shiva and Ifrit are fine when you get them, but you are never summoning them in the final dungeon, they're just completely outclassed. This wasn't necessarily a problem, because Summoners had their entire list of known summons available at any time, so you just gradually moved on to the next.
In FF7, Materia increases in power over time. A Fire Materia will, eventually, have Fire3/Firaga on it. It will be viable endgame. But... what about Summons? The Materia improving improves the number of time you can summon her in a fight, but... If her power doesn't go up that still makes her eventually useless and a wasted Materia slot. Does Shiva somehow scale in power over time or am I just going to eventually put that Materia in a drawer and never take it out again?
I did! I forgot to mention it in the Jenova fight part of this update but this is how I learned that known enemy skills are Materia-specific. I equipped Enemy Skill on Cloud during the Jenova fight and it was entirely useless because its spell list was empty. That was a frustrating discovery.
Now, I know you're making a joke, but as a point of fact the game deliberately goes out of its way to avoid this answer - Barret takes the PHS from Cloud's hands so it "doesn't get wet" when sending him to get to the tower, so you don't have access to the party menu during the New Junon sequence.
...yeah, I can believe that. It would be in line with what we know of his character.
With the knowledge that the bar owner is specifically complaining about the wages he's paying them in the original text and the translation mangled it, yeah, that makes sense.
Incidentally there's a pretty fun few YouTube video series about YouTubers Demondice and Sydsnaps going to this kind of themed bars in Japan that I enjoy-
This is fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing.There's a very good article about the history of Square translations I found in Wikipedia citations... and it's unfortunately on a dead site only preserved by the Internet Archive.
The Rise of Squaresoft Localization from 1UP.com
How Richard Honeywood helped the house of Final Fantasy go from incoherent to incomparable.web.archive.org
It means we now have a name for the lone translator over at the North American office working on a tight (according to the common story only like two weeks, although I can't find a citation for that) deadline with the only help being asking the Japanese offices stuff over '90s email: Michael Baskett. Combined with a lack of QA feedback and primitive tools (memory constraints were tight and apparently there was an "interesting" quirk where the engine could only take Japanese characters; all the text in the translated game is actually a kind of fixed-space Rōmaji that word processors don't recognize as English and thus don't run spelling and grammar checks on, and they had to write directly in that because they didn't have quick conversion tools for it), it became a very unpolished translation. Final Fantasy Tactics was apparently handled by Baskett in the same harried way, but then he left and Xenogears happened with only two new rookie translators to take it on. The resulting mess, and the feeling of wanting to recapture the international sales lightning of VII, meant that an overhaul was led by an Australian programmer working on the Japan team named Richard Honeywood. They apparently improved their code tools and communication significantly over the next few years and led into the "golden age" of Square translations with Final Fantasy IX.
As @ZerbanDaGreat said, now knowing this, it's genuinely kind of incredible that FF7 managed to break through into the mainstream and become the hit it is today.
I don't imagine anyone has that handy, but if there was anything on the history of the French localization of Final Fantasy I'd be really interested in knowing more about it, because when I switch FF7 to French it is using a script so similar to the English that I strongly suspect the French version translated the English localization, not the Japanese original, whereas in later games I know the French team made some (weird) choices and I'm wondering about the behind the scene stuff on that.
Geckonator
Occult Materialist
Can't find anything off the top of a search, aside from stories on forums about it being equally a rush job and translating secondhand from English as you suspect, but here is a detail from the article that implies how much of a nightmare that must have been:
Which means I highly suspect a large portion of the French (and for that matter other European languages') translation process got eaten up by just fighting the code for basic spelling. They'd probably be working with Japanese keyboards which can switch to Romaji as basically a case-switch but any time you want a non-standard character, any kind of accent marks, you'd have to type in a whole separate character that the game's been coded to display differently. Now imagine having to do that, constantly checking over your work because you have no QA time to catch mistakes like the wrong character being input and showing up in-game..."Doesn't look much different to you, but word processors treat this as Japanese text and won't carry out spell check on it. Worse, there are hidden tokens also used that mess up the text further. And if you use any European or special letters, you had to use Japanese Kanji characters. So to type
'Déjà vu at the café!'
The translators had to write something like:
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Well, to just answer the question directly? Yeah, early summon materia tend to end up outclassed, just like summons tend to be in previous games, because leveling it up only increases the number of casts you get per battle. It does have the usual summon advantage of "multi-target elemental attack that doesn't get reduced damage", but even then tier 3 ice magic is going to outclass Shiva in everything but MP cost.
Now, on the other hand, there's things to take into account like the fact that Shiva is still an ice element materia, so it can be linked into things like Elemental for damage type access or resistances (reminder that Choco/Mog is one of the only ways to get access to Wind element, too), and in a direct comparison to a normal ice magic materia doesn't have the -1 Strength debuff when equipped, so it still has that bit of worth. Plus, there's actually a particular use or two for max level/mastered materia that'll come up eventually, so it may or may not be worth raising some for that reason.
- Location
- Sweden
One particularly strange extra thing about that: You can learn a skill on multiple Enemy Skill materia at once by having one character equip multiple, but only if none of them already have the skill already.
Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
Uh, not relevant yet for VII or the previous games, but the closest I got is a youtube video that builds a theory for VIII's backstory partially from the foundation of the French translation apparently being pretty shitty. If that interests you by the time you get there.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Is this a question you actually want answered or do you want to find out naturally?
Or you can just give everyone in the party one. A lot of great skills like Beta will hit everyone anyway.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
@Geckonator:
...They gave. One, single translator. Only two weeks. To do the entire game.
With highly limited information actually on the game and a limited ability to ask for more.
And some major technical difficulties.
They did... that?
Good grief, how did the thing get made at all? Why on Earth did they think that was a good idea?!
Still... how did they let that happen? Just... for a game like this, the text is vital.
...Though. Apparently FFVII became wildly popular in the Anglosphere anyway, so... yeah, I don't know.
...They gave. One, single translator. Only two weeks. To do the entire game.
With highly limited information actually on the game and a limited ability to ask for more.
And some major technical difficulties.
They did... that?
Good grief, how did the thing get made at all? Why on Earth did they think that was a good idea?!
Yeah, no kidding.beowolf said:
Still... how did they let that happen? Just... for a game like this, the text is vital.
...Though. Apparently FFVII became wildly popular in the Anglosphere anyway, so... yeah, I don't know.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
I imagine it came down to JRPG not being valued too highly in the USA market at the time, so the American localisers didn't think it would sell well. Or didn't understand how translating between languages takes time and effort, and can have difficulties beyond just 'language a to b' transcription.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Yep. And that's just the start of the frustrating aspects of Enemy Skill - you'll find more as the game goes on, but I'm sure that'll come out organically in the course of play, so I'll hold back from commenting more for now.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
Hm. Interesting point. I mostly have experience with the post-FFVII environment, and also IIRC Super Mario RPG was one of the first video games I played. So my perspective on JRPGs is rather different than that of people who just went ahead and renumbered some of the earlier Final Fantasy games for the North American market, at the time FFVII was being localized. For all I remember JRPGs being some of my favorite games growing up, that was both me and later.Mizu said:
Maybe it should be more surprising the translations of the earlier games were as good as they were.
...This, though, seems odd. I don't know, maybe that's also a perspective thing? But I'm a monoglot, and I still know you can't just throw a dictionary at the problem and consider it done; it doesn't feel to me like it takes very much exposure at all to other languages to realize that.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You're also not a corporate manager trying to save time and money.
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Terra Allias
World's only Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka fan
- Location
- Cheverly
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh boy, the final fantasy equivalent of ultrakill's punching the bullets...
...and the ultrakill parry
I don't see how crushing someone is better, that leaves more of a mess and a closed casket
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sharp edges have a real aversion in western media, at least. See, for example, Sokka's hit rate with his boomerang vs. his sword.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
It's just a matter of visualization.
It's very easy to visualize impact strikes as non-lethal because we're used to seeing people survive small scale impacts in everyday life. Sure, in reality past a certain point impact strikes are far more lethal than slicing strikes, but that's easy to scale back in a visual medium, which is why a lot of cartoon/anime/movies can show people thrown through multiple walls and still make them survive without breaking suspension of disbelief too hard. On the other hand, surviving a stabbing is almost always a very hard sell, and slicing is only believably survivable in the form of paper-cut like strikes - if somebody survive a cutting implement slashing at them deeply in a visual medium, that's generally an indicator of superhuman durability in a way that surviving a wrecking ball isn't, despite the latter being more deadly in reality.
So, with that in mind, it makes sense for censors to substitute a blade with a spherical weight; the mind association there, especially for kids, is much more strongly "non-lethal" and "cartoonish". It's still silly that they censured it at all, mind, but if they needed to, then the call they made is actually the most logically sound one.
It's very easy to visualize impact strikes as non-lethal because we're used to seeing people survive small scale impacts in everyday life. Sure, in reality past a certain point impact strikes are far more lethal than slicing strikes, but that's easy to scale back in a visual medium, which is why a lot of cartoon/anime/movies can show people thrown through multiple walls and still make them survive without breaking suspension of disbelief too hard. On the other hand, surviving a stabbing is almost always a very hard sell, and slicing is only believably survivable in the form of paper-cut like strikes - if somebody survive a cutting implement slashing at them deeply in a visual medium, that's generally an indicator of superhuman durability in a way that surviving a wrecking ball isn't, despite the latter being more deadly in reality.
So, with that in mind, it makes sense for censors to substitute a blade with a spherical weight; the mind association there, especially for kids, is much more strongly "non-lethal" and "cartoonish". It's still silly that they censured it at all, mind, but if they needed to, then the call they made is actually the most logically sound one.
I tried playing FFIV years ago, but I got lost going to the magnet cave and gave up. This LP inspired me to give it another try, and I am happy to say today I beat the game. I got pretty frustrated at some points but it was an interesting experience, so thanks. I'd also like to thank the people who described the differences between the versions; that was pretty interesting. Obviously I am very far behind on the LP so I will be spending a while catching up, but it's a great read so far.
Final Fantasy VII, Part 13: Costa del Sol & Mt Corel
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back to Final Fantasy VII, the game whose climate politics I was absolutely not prepared for.
Our party just landed in Costa del Sol, a sunny, vacation-centered little sea town. The three characters who aren't in the party scatter off and we regain control of Cloud, and have the opportunity to talk to the people around the docks.
This sailor is totally fine with us being stowaways and tells us he used to do that as a hobby as well, which, you go, man, live your best life.
This guy and his girlfriend are enjoying how much they don't have to care about any of that Shinra stuff.
Once we leave the screen, a cutscene plays out in which Rufus and Heidegger come down from the ship while a helicopter sets down to take them away to whatever their next destination is. Rufus says he heard that Sephiroth was on board, as well as Cloud and the others, and berates Heidegger both for his lax security and for his lackluster charisma, the man only sheepishly giving one-word answers and cringing apologies.
It looks like Rufus has finally managed to wear down Heidegger's bombastic self-confidence… and he likes the results even less than the Heidegger from before. Incredible. Rufus takes the helicopter and leaves, and Heidegger once again vents his frustration by punching people, this time knocking sailors into the harbour and prompting Seaplane Guy to run away in fright.
Costa del Sol!
As you can see, this is very much a sunny, vacation-y kinda place. And, appropriately enough, it's where FF7 decides to (sort of) do a 'beach episode,' taking a break from the action to have the characters just hang out and chill.
What this means is that each of the three characters who aren't in the party will be found around Costa del Sol, doing their own thing. This is a durable effect; if we leave town and return, they'll still be there, at least for now, so by changing the party on the map, we can get each character's scene.
…this is, incidentally, the point where I discover that I can't just leave everyone but Cloud. The game mandates having three characters in the party, and will not allow me to leave the PHS screen with only one. Also? Cloud is mandatory. You cannot remove Cloud from the party no matter what. Which I guess is required by the story, so that the writers know that Cloud will be there to act as party face in any scene no matter what, but it has the… interesting result that Cloud, our protagonist, basically can't not be the strongest member in the party. Simply because we phase others in and out and benched characters only get half-XP, while Cloud is always there and always getting a full share, he necessarily rises above everyone else. I could see this having some weird effects on combat balance in the future.
As usual, we're free to just enter any random house and loot the place. This basement has a bunch of stuff in it; the guy sleeping at his desk wakes up when we try to take an item, but then tells us everything is free and we can just grab whatever we want, which is weird, but hey, gift horses and all that.
At the local pub, we run into the most unexpected character cameo.
Mukki, the weird bodybuilder from the Honeybee Inn, is there with his gym bro friends, musing that you could 'walk around naked, and no one would look twice.'
You keep on being your weird self, Mukki.
If Red isn't in the party, he can be found next to the bar, taking some respite from the heat in the shadow. He's waggling his tail and trying to convince Cloud that it's not on purpose and he just doesn't control his tail, which I think is meant to convey that he's happy/comfortable but embarrassed about showing it?
Yuffie can also be found there, holding… Is that a lemonade stand?
Okay, slightly more upscale, it's a Materia stand. She landed herself a part-time job with the guy in the coat next to the stand, who's the one actually owning the Materia.
Yuffie really has that grindset. Never not be hustling. She's the real Sigma Female-
Ahem.
There's another stand where a guy sells "Soft," a 'memento of this wonderful trip, made especially in Costa del Sol.' It's really unclear what he's talking about, and at first I assume that it's a 'soft drink,' but you don't buy soda as a souvenir, right? Turns out Soft is an alternate name for the Gold Needle. So we're buying commemorative fancy pins which also happen to cure Petrify. Neat.
Now, our next step should be to check out the Inn - predictably overpriced at 200 gil a night, but…
…Barret is admiring himself in his sailor outfit in the inn bathroom.
Oh my god.
The girls told him they thought he was cute in that uniform, he deflected it with saying he only feels comfortable in his normal clothes, and his next move was to privately admire himself in the glass once there was no one looking. And not just that - he's planning to keep it specifically to see Marlene again because he thinks she'll like it. That's kind of… Adorable. They really had a brain blast making one of the main characters an actual dad.
Meanwhile, we meet a familiar face in one of the houses: Johnny, that Sector 7 local who decided to strike out and find his own fortune outside Midgar, whom we've encountered a couple of times. It looks like he's finally settled down, though; he's living with someone else who is taking a bath and so can't be talked to at this time, so I guess he found himself a girlfriend after all. He recognizes Cloud when talked to, and then has one of those dialogue lines that is not just 'difficult to parse' but a straight fuck-up on the translator's part:
"And a [REDACTED] murderer!"
Johnny bringing up his heretofore-unknown past connection to Cloud as childhood friends and comrades in SOLDIER is, needless to say, a complete fabrication. Instead, he's meant to be saying "You're that ex-SOLDIER, childhood friend [of Tifa], by implication], and sexy playboy! And- and a murderer!"
Like, what he's saying is, "You are Tifa's childhood friend, the ex-SOLDIER," and he's referring to Cloud as a "playboy" because Johnny is insecure about the fact that Tifa is into Cloud, when he is into Tifa, but she wouldn't look at him. It's a messy bit of dialogue whichever way you slice it but the translation is just completely off the map.
Johnny: "That's okay. We'll just pretend like we don't know each other. I started a new life in this town. A lot of things happened to us. Heh, I better stop my complaining! I sure envy you all living out under the stars."
At this point, the other person in the house says, "I'm sorry about that. He's had some big shocks and has been depressed lately." Then Johnny tells Cloud to beat it and keep out of his life.
All in all, Johnny is really rude and patently insecure and threatened by Cloud's presence, not entirely unfairly; Cloud's actions were directly connected to the Sector 7 plate collapse which Johnny barely escaped through sheer luck. Beside that they also just… aren't friends, Johnny doesn't owe him anything.
But there's more to this place than this - we just can't unlock it yet; we have to go through a plot cutscene first. And for that, we have to head to the actual main course of any seaside town,: the beach! And look! Aerith is already there! (And Tifa, if she's not already in the party!)
These two guys on the left, btw, have massive creepazoid vibes in the way they are planning to hit on girls.
What's that, Aerith? You want to show us something?
…
I-
What?
How-
Okay, okay, so Hojo is on the beach, this is fine, I can deal with this. Let's kill him.
First we have to go through these three girls hanging around him like some kind of bikini-clad Praetorian Guard and being annoyed at us bothering them before reluctantly letting us talk to Hojo, and...
Cloud: "Is that Hojo?"
Girl #1: "(What's his problem?) Yes, that's right. It's the Professor! Professor… Someone's here to see you, sir."
Hojo: "I'm busy right now. …But, too bad. Heh heh heh… All right. You sure are loud. Long time no see, Cloud."
Cloud: "Hojo…"
Hojo: "Sometimes you just gotta do something like this.
Cloud: "What are you doing?
Hojo: "It should be obvious. I'm getting a tan."
Cloud: "Answer me!"
Hojo: "Hmm! I believe we're both after the same goal."
Cloud: "You mean Sephiroth?"
Hojo: "Did you see him? I see… Ha ha!"
Cloud: "What is it?"
Hojo: "Nothing. I just remembered a certain hypothesis… Haven't you ever had the feeling something is calling you? Or that you had to visit some place?"
Cloud: "I'll go anywhere Sephiroth is at! To beat him and put an end to all this!"
Hojo: "I see… This could be interesting. Were you in SOLDIER? Heh heh heh! Would you like to be my guinea pig?"
[Cloud flinches back and takes a fighting stance.]
Hojo: "Oh, now what? Are you going to draw your sword?"
Tifa: "Stop, Cloud! I know how you feel, but you mustn't!"
Hojo: "Ha! Ha! Ha!..." [Turning to Aerith] "Say, aren't you the 'Ancient'?"
Aerith: "I'm Aerith. The least you could do is remember my name."
Aerith: "I want you to tell me something. Professor Hojo… I know I'm an Ancient. My mother told me."
Hojo: "Your mother? Oh, you mean Ifalna. How is she?"
Aerith: "You didn't know!? She died."
Hojo: "...I see."
Aerith: "Professor Hojo? Is Jenova an Ancient? Is Sephiroth an Ancient? Do we all have the same blood?"
[Hojo turns around.]
Hojo: "...mumble… mumble… head west…"
Aerith: "He's mumbling slowly… That must mean he's hiding something!"
[Everyone yells at Hojo, who refuses to answer. The conversation ends.]
…
Okay, so first of all.
WHAT KIND OF FREAK SUNBATHES IN A LAB COAT?
It's so hot Red nearly died and our man here is wearing full-body coverage! He must be fully 70% sweat per volume, which frankly I can't imagine would make him smell worse than he already does by default.
Second of all, like. Girls. Seriously. Why. Why Hojo.
God the dialogue from the sunbathing girls around him is completely explicit about how they're somehow head over heels for him:
"He never takes off his coat even in the heat. I guess that's the mark of an intellectual."
"I'll be happy to be a guinea pig, if it's for professor Hojo!"
"I'll interpret Professor Hojo's whispers. Head west, past Mt Corel and keep going…"
First of all, girl. You do not want to be his guinea pig, I assure you. I guess that you're attracted to his massive, throbbing brain, but our boy here entered the plot carrying a battering ram called 'sexual assault.'
I just. I can't.
And also WHY CAN'T I KILL HIM. HE'S RIGHT HERE. HE'S DEFENSELESS. HE HAS NO SHINRA GUARDS. IN FACT, HE RESIGNED FROM SHINRA. WE CAN LITERALLY JUST STAB HIM.
It's so frustrating because these characters have been fully willing to commit assassinations before. Whether it's Cloud trying to solo Rufus, Barret looking for opportunities to kill President Shinra or Heidegger, we know those characters are willing to get their hands dirty. And here, they just… decide not to.
But… I guess I can see the logic of it, maybe. At this point, Hojo's direct interactions with the group mostly consists of his (absolutely evil) attempted actions against Aerith and Red, which he never ended up carrying through thanks to our own actions. If I squint I can see how someone who is only working from that knowledge alone might go 'he's evil, but he's not 'kill while defenseless' evil.'
…except no. We had the Nibelheim Flashback. We know Hojo is complicit in the creation of monsters from people.
Yeah, no, they should be icing this dude right here and now.
But no. They won't. We just have to… Leave him there. Hanging out. On the beach. With his INEXPLICABLE GROUPIES.
Curse you, Hojooooo!
Okay, okay, there are two notable things in Hojo's little speech: First off, he seems to know about - or rather, accurately guess as to the existence of - the Backseater and Cloud's general memory-related issues and weird compulsions. Which would make this a really good opportunity to start beating his guess as to what is causing this out of him, but unfortunately as always when confronted with his brain damage, Cloud enters an avoidance fugue and deflects the actual core of the issue while going "rah rah Sephiroth rah." It's a pretty consistent character trait, and because nobody in the group really knows the scope of Cloud's issues, no one can call him out on it or even realize that there's a problem.
That's what you gain from having a designated protagonist in your party: compartmentalisation of information. The player is exposed to a much deeper knowledge of the extent of Cloud's issues than other characters have, while being basically blind to what's going on in Tifa or Aerith's heads even as they are major characters.
Second, Aerith's question regarding whether Jenova, Sephiroth and her are truly the same species/category of beings reflects her own character depth - in the same way that Tifa's "kind, sweet childhood friend" personality is contrasted by her simmering hatred for Shinra, soldiers, and war in general, Aerith's energetic, sassy affect (which we've seen a little less of since we left Midgar, to be fair) is contrasted by what seems like buried anxiety regarding 'Am I truly the same species as these monsters?' I feel it also vindicates some of the stuff I said earlier where it's weird that Jenova and Aerith are allegedly both Ancients when they seem so deeply unlike in many other ways, Aerith and her mom being just Human+ by all accounts and Jenova being John Carpenter's The Thing: Featuring Tyrant From The Resident Evil Series. Not any answers yet though, just confirmation that the question is still hanging in the air above us.
And it seems like Hojo kind of ruined the idea of sunbathing for the girls, not that I can blame them, I wouldn't stick around on a beach with that creep around. Instead, the girls return to the central town, and can be found in new spots. For instance, Tifa can be found, of all places… at Johnny's house.
Johnny and Tifa, who were friends in Sector 7, are catching up and reminiscing about old times. Not only that, but when we approach them, Tifa asks Cloud to please leave them alone for the day; "we haven't seen each other in ages and sometimes it's fun to talk about old times for a change," and she promises to not be back too late.
It's a neat character touch that shows how different characters relate differently to one another - that the same guy who is obnoxiously rude and insecure to Cloud can be a pleasant friend to another party member, and it shows how the other characters have their own lives going on.
…you know, seeing this scene, I'm thinking, hm. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the target audience of FF7 is adjacent to the same demographic who, today, yell fury in Mangadex comments if a non-protagonist male character exists within five miles of a female love interest; here, FF7 is having Tifa ask Cloud to please leave her alone so she can spend time with a guy we know is romantically interested in her. I could easily see an insecure teenage male audience getting mad about that, but I wonder if I'm just projecting much more modern trends into the past; either way it's nice of the game to commit to having Tifa have her own friends that are none of our business.
The final bit of character action took me… A while to trigger. I tried multiple party compositions but, in the end, the only way I was able to trigger it was to reload from before the Hojo scene, make a party with Barret and without Aerith, going through the Hojo sequence again, and then head directly for the Inn (where we would normally see Barret, who seems to 'override' Aerith), and there, we find Aerith lying in bed thinkin' thoughts.
Aerith: "There's so many things I don't understand… I feel a little uneasy."
Aerith: "Cloud…? What do you think of me?"
At this point, the Translator strikes again; our two options are "I dunno" and "Nothing much," both of which seem incredibly rude in only slightly different ways. Still, you can see what they're going for ahead of clicking if you squint; "Nothing much" is the option to tell Aerith we don't think about her at all, which makes her really upset, whereas "I dunno" is more of Cloud saying a lot's going on and he doesn't really understand much of it, to which Aerith replies:
Aerith: "...You're right. Even I don't understand myself."
Aerith: "I wonder what part of me is like an Ancient? What is an Ancient supposed to be like? It's strange, isn't it?"
Aerith: "I don't understand it…"
Aerith: "Ah… I'm going around in circles. I wonder if there's any answer to this? Everything's so complicated."
Aerith: "I'm going to sleep."
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the reason why Aerith has been more quiet and reserved for a while has a lot to do with feelings of low-key depression and existential angst regarding her connection to the only two other living beings categorized as 'Ancients,' one of which murdered her two new best friends' families and hometown, the other of which is, as far as we can tell, a horrible mutant corpse in a jar.
Once we rest at the Costa del Sol inn once, the 'world state' of the town advances. The party moves on, so we can no longer get their hanging-out vignettes, and Hojo has moved on from the town, leaving the groupies behind with some new dialogue.
NPC #1: "He used to be the President's little boy. We nicknamed him the little Prez! He didn't look much different from the surfers on the beach."
NPC #2: "That's right!! It totally skipped my mind! There was something I was supposed to tell you. That's right! It's about that! It was yesterday. A man wearing a black cape came up from the ocean. I think he had tickets for the Gold Saucer… No, that wasn't it… I wonder if it was all just an illusion.
NPC #3: "Yes, Professor Hojo. Where? It looks like the Professor discovered or found a solution to something. You know, I wonder… if they headed west to Mt Corel?"
That whole spiel about Sephiroth maybe passing through or maybe being an illusion is weird, but the real key piece of info here is that Rufus Shinra used to be a Surfer Bro that everyone gave a slightly mocking nickname to. I can absolutely believe that of the slicked-back-haired bishie we've met already.
Generally I get the vibe that the people of Costa del Sol are a lot more dismissive/casual/mocking of Shinra's leadership than people in other places we've encountered. And that makes… sense? Costa del Sol is clearly an important, money-making town, but its resource isn't something that can be extracted. It's something other people have to come to it to get. It's a tourist trap, a tropical paradise where everyone is more chill and laid back in the knowledge that people will come in the world over to spend money to stay there, or are themselves wealthy vacationers, and generally are kinda detached from world affairs. Shinra owns the town, but not in a way that allows them to expect everyone to be sycophantic and obsequious to them.
Probably explains why Rufus landed and immediately flew off in a helicopter rather than spend five minutes in a town where people remember him as a tryhard nepo baby surfer.
Aaaand that's Costa del Sol! Mechanically it's just a pit stop, narratively it just contains one piece of information leading to our next objective, but in terms of flavor and character it's packed full for its small size. Absolutely a great ride aside from HOJO'S CONTINUED EXISTENCE. Resupply, heal up, and we're headed out.
Annoying transparency of the map aside, we are currently on that red dot on the westward continent that is nearest to Cloud. The Midgar Region was right across the sea to the East.
The game is really utilizing its 3D map to great effect… Sometimes.
You see, a trick which the game is using which I'm pretty sure has to do with (again) rendering distances but also creates a really neat but weird effect that you can hopefully see on this picture, is that we can see the curvature of the Earth. The map is not flat! It's round! Granted it's always been, we have always been able to circle the planet in past games, but there it was presented as a flat plane, whereas here the 3D actually does show the planet curving. And this results in major landmarks rising above the horizon as we approach them!
It's a really cool effect. It only has a few downsides, like… The fact that the textures load weirdly, so mountain ranges or objects in the distance appear and disappear randomly as we approach them. Or the fact that this curve is so pronounced the planet feels kind of really small.
Here, a strange, tree-like structure rises on the horizon, but we can't cross the river that separates us from it. Could this be the Gold Saucer? It's definitely a great way to drive up interest in upcoming locations!
Also!
We finally have an opportunity to field-test our new weapon.
…the last part of Ifrit's animation didn't play well with the camera so the screenshots are bad, but yeah; the earth trembles, volcanic explosion, Ifrit emerges in a pillar of fire, then he charges the enemies like a meteor while wreathed in flame. Kick-ass.
So far I do note that the summons haven't been people that we could talk to, and I'm wondering if it'll stay that way or if late-game summons will return to the old style of 'beat up Bahamut for its summon.' Although VI had already moved away from it in its own way what with the Esper Genocide.
There's a cool bit where we have to find a mountain pass and cross a bridge that doesn't send us to a new field, it's just a bridge on the map, I like it.
These inexplicable things are living matryoshka dolls that open up to spit out another of themselves. They die to a single Ifrit summon, it's fine.
This beautiful mountain pass is our way into Mt Corel, the next step of our journey. Just in case we missed the Hojo dialogue, there's an old hiker here who tells us he saw a man in a black cape heading through; he tried to warn him that it was dangerous ahead, but the guy didn't listen. Sounds like Sephiroth alright!
Well.
That's a big boy.
I love the positioning of the sun, and the use of its light to create striking beauty out of barren mountain cliffs, and then the reveal of the enormous Mako Reactor as the cause for that barrenness.
There's not really anything to get there, just sightseeing and fighting monster in a unique background field.
I'm starting to get a little inattentive in fights due to how easy they've been, and that results in some of my first actual KOs when I don't keep proper track of character HP. Mostly Cloud. Still no big deal, just have to spend some of those Phoenix Downs I've been hoarding since the start of the game.
I can't believe Yuffie is fucking dead.
Our next destination is… A rollercoaster???
I guess it's more like… Mining carts? Yeah, it's an elevated railway to carry mining stuff. But it looks like a rollercoaster. Also it's clearly fallen in severe disuse; there are holes in the rails, and as we walk, the rails break underneath us, threatening to send us toppling down into the depths!
…which, weirdly enough, is something we want. We get a prompt to press OK to jump before the rails break, but actually if we let ourselves fall we play another dumb minigame where Cloud is falling and we need to swim across the air in order to direct ourselves to the left or right and land on a bunch of treasure, like so:
The way the minigame is explained is incredibly annoying because you're falling as it happens so you have to read the minigame at the same time as you execute its command, there is a limited number of holes and so a limited number of times you can actually try it, it's annoying and bad and I have to reload the game to actually succeed. We also find the Transform Materia on top of the rollercoaster; it allows us to cast Mini at first and eventually Toad, which… I'm not going to spend an entire Materia slot on Toad, thanks.
Oh, also, random encounter highlight of the day:
The Bomb is an iconic enemy dating back to FF2; here, as you can sorta kinda see from this screenshot, 3D allows it to do a neat thing where it increases in size as it takes damage, 'building up' to a massive explosion. It's a tricky enemy to fight, because failing to kill it quickly enough causes it to self-destruct, which results in not just heavy damage but no XP or items, making the fight a waste of time and resources. We take a couple more KOs there.
The characters who aren't in the party are hanging out on this screen, on one side of the same river blocking our way from reaching the weird tree-looking place. The lazy slackers tell us that the commands to the movable bridge is probably in that hut on the other side, and that they'll be taking a break while we go get it. Typical.
Tifa does cheer Cloud on while he's crossing the bridge, so that's nice.
Anyway, this is just busywork. We circle around on the high bridge to get to the shack, lower the movable bridge, then walk back around to the original point while the layabouts run off ahead of us.
Mostly, what Mt Cornel serves as, whether it's this area, the one before or the rollercoaster, is environmental storytelling and foreshadowing. Look at it:
What we have here is extensive infrastructure in the form of this old rail system, though not the kind of rail that carries trains - mining carts, most likely. But it's all rusty, damaged, and inactive. Meanwhile, the Mako Reactor we saw earlier was active, with all its lights shining - it's separate from and does not depend on the rail network. In fact, it most likely made it obsolete. We're looking at an old, no-longer-in-use system, and the modernity that replaced it.
Let's put a pin in that, because it's time for our next settlement.
Or 'settlement,' as the case may be.
Welcome to North Corel.
The place is a shithole, but I can hardly blame the inhabitants. It's less of a 'town' than it is a refugee camp built in the ruins of a ravaged town - notice the tents, which are the actual 'buildings' we can enter, while the broken shells of houses are just as much rock. What could have prompted this destruction, you wonder?
Oh, boy.
So, the first thing that happens when we enter is that the townsfolk recognize Barret on sight and gather around.
What briefly looks like it might be a touching reunion between Barret and the people of his hometown, however, quickly takes a turn for the worse, as one of the townsfolk steps forward… And punches Barret in the face, with Barret not even trying to avoid the blow or strike back.
Townsfolk: "Well, lookey here! Never thought I'd ever see your face again. Those people over there, they with you? Well, I feel sorry for 'em! Hangin' around a walkin' death sentence like Barret."
Townsfolk: "You got a lot of nerve comin' back here! Look at this place! It's all your fault North Corel turned into a garbage heap!"
Townsfolk: "Why doncha say something? Or did you forget what you done here already?"
Barret: "...I'm sorry…"
Townsfolk: "[REDACTED]! You ain't even worth the effort."
Townsfolk: "Don't waste your time on that Techno-Freak!"
Barret turns to his friends, head hanging low, and blames himself for the destruction of the town.
It's… kind of shocking how, like, vulnerable Barret is in this scene. Like… If he didn't want these guys to yell at him and knock him around, he could make it stop. He is stronger than any of them and armed to the teeth. But he's allowing this to happen, allowing people to insult him and trample over him and punch him in the face, because he thinks they're right. He agrees that he is to blame for North Corel's destruction. All he can do in the face of their anger is meekly offer futile apology.
It's a… massive departure from what we've seen of Barret so far, a really effective shift - and one that makes sense for what we know of him. Barret is a man with powerful emotions, and a deep sense of duty and responsibility - to the Planet, to his daughter, to his friends. His grief is rooted in his sense of responsibility. If he blames himself for what happened in North Corel, whatever that is, it's natural that it would leave him completely disarmed when confronted with people's (in his eyes) justified anger.
I, not being Barret, don't necessarily have to accept that framing. I don't have to accept the premise that the Corelians are right to be such assholes to Barret. We'll wait and see. One thing though - Barret is the last person I would expect to be called a 'techno-freak.' Is that because of his arm gun? I guess it technically makes him a cyborg? Hmmm.
A quick look at the interiors tell us this is some straight 'living inside ruins next to rubble' Fallout stuff. The locals are broadly desperate, in despair, and bitter. The shop owners plead for us to buy something, anything. A scavenger claims 'collecting junk' is the only way to make ends meet around here. A woman is bitter because her husband got into an accident and can no longer work, an old man laments how he's supposed to live in a town that's "lost everything"... Then blames the Mako Reactor for it all.
Interesting.
There's a young miner who asks if it's true that tattoos are the big fad in the city, and if we tell him yes, he says he'll get a '0' tattoo, which is the perfect way to reflect where he's at in life. That bit of gallows humour is the closest we get to positive vibes in this entire sequence (aside from a little girl who just wants to play).
Yeah, this place is miserable. But how could Barret be responsible for it all?
Well.
There are two paths to leave the city; one leads us to the map, and the other to a 'Ropeway Station' which would take us to the 'Gold Saucer,' a place which has been hinted at in previous conversation as a kind of casino (it features chocobo racing, among other things) that Sephiroth might or might not have been aiming for.
The map lets us save the game, and then we head for the Ropeway Station… Where we are about to get some answers.
It's time. The game has been keeping Barret's backstory in store for a dozen hours now, and I'm really excited to finally get a glimpse at the big guy's past.
Barret: "Sorry."
Cloud: "What happened?"
Barret: "My hometown used to be around here."
Red XIII: "What do you mean 'used to'?"
Barret: "It ain't here no more. Heard it got buried… in just 4 years."
Aerith: "But how could those people say those terrible things?"
Barret: "An' it's my fault. ALL my fault."
Barret's village was an old coal-mining village, its operation going way back. It was small, dusty and poor, but calm, a peaceful place, where no one had even heard of a Mako Reactor, until…
That woman in red would be Scarlet, which I believe is head of Research.
As you can see, the center of the piece is this distraught man at the center, named Dyne; he is surrounded by Barret on one side, and the village elder on the other, while everyone is talking to Scarlet of Shinra, and the village's miners watch. They have a big problem; Shinra wants to create a new Mako Reactor near their town, and everyone is on board with that except Dyne - it's not clear what position he holds, but whether he's a local representative or just a notable whose opinion carries weight, his opposition is threatening to stop the whole project.
Eventually, his opposition was either overruled, or he was worn down by everyone's words, and the Mako Reactor was built. Not long after, disaster struck.
Absolute devastation. And not as a direct result of the Reactor, not an accident, not a chemical spill, something much more brutal - there was an explosion at the Mako Reactor, but that's not what did it. Instead, it was Shinra's reaction; they decided the explosion couldn't have been an accident, had to be the work of rebels or terrorists, blamed the locals, and destroyed the town, along with much of its population. Barret's wife, Myrna, died in the disaster.
Ironically, creating one of their worst and most enduring enemies in the process - Barret, leader of Avalanche.
…
There's a lot I need to get into here. I'm going to need to unpack it in steps. And first, I need to actually transcribe the dialogue of that scene with Dyne, because there is something I have been playing coy about here.
Village Headman: "What are we going to do? The only one opposed to this is Dyne…"
Dyne: "I am definitely against it, no matter what. There's nothing to talk about if you're thinking of throwing away our coal!"
Dyne: "The coal's been ours for generations. Our fathers, their fathers before them, risked their lives for it. We have no right to throw it all away so easily!"
Barret: "But listen, Dyne. No one uses coal nowadays. It's the sign of the times."
Scarlet: "Right, everything is Mako, now. It'll be all right, Dyne. Shinra, Inc. will guarantee your livelihood once the Mako Reactor is completed."
Barret: "Listen, Dyne. I don't want my wife, Myrna, to suffer anymore."
Dyne: "I know how you feel! I feel the same way too, damn it! But even so, I won't give away our coal mines!"
Village Headman: "Dyne… You've got to understand."
Barret, Voiceover: That's how the Corel Reactor was built… And completed. We all thought it would bring us an easy life.
Barret, Voiceover: It happened when Dyne and I were out of town for a few days. Corel was burned down by Shinra troops. All the townspeople… All my relatives… Everyone… everything…
[End Flashback.]
Okay.
So.
There are four points I want to tackle here.
First: Environmental storytelling off the chart here. Basically the entire story of Corel is out in the open before you even get there. The Mako Reactor all shiny and bright, the disused mining cart system that hasn't been operated in years, the destroyed town… It's just a fantastic way of using environmental cues that might just look like 'huh, neat!' until you put it all together. The way Shinra prospers out of the misery and abandon of the land around it, the way even the people who still live around that Reactor don't benefit from it because it was never meant for them…
Second: Barret's guilt. Such complicated feelings about that one. I absolutely do believe, as a character beat, that he would blame himself for what happened; it makes perfect sense. He was a major voice in advocating for the construction of the Mako Reactor, and the resulting death and destruction that came to his people, including his own wife. Of course he blames himself. However, I can't help but feel that because he feels that guilt so strongly, the survivors are scapegoating him.
Like. Sure, he was clearly a leadership figure in the village. But a large number of people agreed with him. The decision to build the reactor was near-unanimous. Their elder, the Village Headman, advocated for it. But of course - the Headman probably died in the burning of the village. And Dyne, wherever he is now, was opposed to the Mako Reactor's construction. Which leaves Barret the only one left alive to be blamed for it all - aside, of course, from everyone else who agreed with him. Well, it's not their fault, right? Barret is the one who convinced them to go along with it, surely. They're not responsible. And Barret isn't in the village anymore. A scapegoat; blamed for everything then exiled from what remained of the village as punishment for his sins, freeing everyone else to have merely been blameless victims. That would explain the sheer vitriol they pour on him. I can't blame Barret for blaming himself. It's not like he didn't have a part in the events that led to the destruction of his hometown. But he was seduced by straight-up lies from power-hungry corporate assholes preying on poverty.
Third: The Corel Massacre. I… don't know how I feel about it. 'Sometimes Shinra gets paranoid and straight-up wipes out a town' seems like an exaggeration - like, what Sephiroth did when he went fully off the deep end, as his act of ultimate madness, Shinra did in Corel just out of doubt and fear. But of course, they destroyed Sector 7, didn't they? It's not like it's out-of-character for them. And Corel is far from Midgar, so I guess they have tighter information control on what news get to the population. Probably nobody outside of Mt Corel even knows about the fate of these minors. So… Yeah, no, I don't know what I was thinking; it's perfectly in-character.
And.
Fourth.
HOLY SHIT DID JOE FUCKING MANCHIN WRITE THIS SCENE, LMFAO?
The surprise contributor none of you were expecting in this thread.
Holy fuck I am on the floor, blasted straight out of my socks.
The game really turned to the camera and said "Fanciful new kinds of energy are leading us astray from reliable, wholesome, traditional coal mining."
This is literally what happened! Everyone inWest Virginia Corel was living a simple, poor, hardworking, but peaceful life, according to the way of their fathers and their fathers before them, mining coal, and then Scarlet Shinra showed up and lured them away from their traditional way of life with the promise of awesome new modern energy tech, and the naive people of this poor coal mining town, misled by the promises of BIG CITY SLICKERS, allowed them to build a reactor in their backyard which INSTANTLY CAUSED EVERYONE TO LOSE THEIR JOBS AND ALSO KILLED THEM.
Holy shit. I was not prepared.
@Geckonator has argued in this thread that Mako energy should be read more as a metaphor for nuclear power specifically than oil, or fossil fuels in general. And I see where their argument is coming from; and I still think oil/fossil fuels/climate change are a metaphor which the text lends itself to well. That said…
Holy shit the game really went "The German federal government turning its coal power plants back on as nuclear plants shut down is based and correct and the way forward."
There's… A lot we could unpack there. Starting with how Japan's unique history with nuclear power makes me less inclined to criticize anti-nuclear stances than I might otherwise be, even if wholesome traditional coal power is a wild swerve. What I'm a little more interested in, I think, is how…
I remember how when I was a kid in the 90s and early 00s, 'climate change' wasn't something I heard about that much. Pollution was. There was definitely a still great concern around the environment, but it had to do with - the Ozone Layer. Trash in the oceans. Textile chemicals in the rivers. Giant tyre fires. Eternally growing scrapyards. And, yes, nuclear wastes. A whole constellation of individual, local ways the world was getting hurt and sullied by humans.
None of it, except to some extent the ozone layer issue, had that kind of amorphous, eschatological totality that climate change has taken on today (for, I think, perfectly good reasons); the threat of a total global deregulation that cooks the planet in its globality from a totally unseen force in the air, which is how we think about 'the environmental struggle' today.
Final Fantasy VII, in 1997, is much more situated in that earlier era of thinking about pollution first and foremost, and about global warming less, if at all. Mako exploitation drains the life from the land, but there's also a lot of emphasis on Mako pollution, enormous scrapyards, train graveyards, slums built out of the detritus of the city, fishing towns that can no longer find any fish… All of which builds to a great aesthetic but is rooted in this slightly different paradigm, and from that perspective, having coal be the better alternative to the inherently evil exploitation of Mako makes sense, especially as it is tied to the livelihood of miners, but… Looking back from 2023 where we have politicians kneecapping governments because a coal mining town in rural Appalachia could potentially be run out business by the dread spectre of 'green energy' that must be stopped at all cost? This is borderline physical-flinch inducing to read.
And it all framed with this whole 'seduction of the innocent' angle with Scarlet coming in to lure the naive coal miners away from their way of life with the siren song of Mako Energy and then everyone instantly fucking dying.
This is so much, man.
I think we can call it here for tonight. I'm just going to sit with this for a bit.
Thanks for reading.
Next Time: The Gold Saucer?
Our party just landed in Costa del Sol, a sunny, vacation-centered little sea town. The three characters who aren't in the party scatter off and we regain control of Cloud, and have the opportunity to talk to the people around the docks.
This sailor is totally fine with us being stowaways and tells us he used to do that as a hobby as well, which, you go, man, live your best life.
This guy and his girlfriend are enjoying how much they don't have to care about any of that Shinra stuff.
Once we leave the screen, a cutscene plays out in which Rufus and Heidegger come down from the ship while a helicopter sets down to take them away to whatever their next destination is. Rufus says he heard that Sephiroth was on board, as well as Cloud and the others, and berates Heidegger both for his lax security and for his lackluster charisma, the man only sheepishly giving one-word answers and cringing apologies.
It looks like Rufus has finally managed to wear down Heidegger's bombastic self-confidence… and he likes the results even less than the Heidegger from before. Incredible. Rufus takes the helicopter and leaves, and Heidegger once again vents his frustration by punching people, this time knocking sailors into the harbour and prompting Seaplane Guy to run away in fright.
Costa del Sol!
As you can see, this is very much a sunny, vacation-y kinda place. And, appropriately enough, it's where FF7 decides to (sort of) do a 'beach episode,' taking a break from the action to have the characters just hang out and chill.
What this means is that each of the three characters who aren't in the party will be found around Costa del Sol, doing their own thing. This is a durable effect; if we leave town and return, they'll still be there, at least for now, so by changing the party on the map, we can get each character's scene.
…this is, incidentally, the point where I discover that I can't just leave everyone but Cloud. The game mandates having three characters in the party, and will not allow me to leave the PHS screen with only one. Also? Cloud is mandatory. You cannot remove Cloud from the party no matter what. Which I guess is required by the story, so that the writers know that Cloud will be there to act as party face in any scene no matter what, but it has the… interesting result that Cloud, our protagonist, basically can't not be the strongest member in the party. Simply because we phase others in and out and benched characters only get half-XP, while Cloud is always there and always getting a full share, he necessarily rises above everyone else. I could see this having some weird effects on combat balance in the future.
As usual, we're free to just enter any random house and loot the place. This basement has a bunch of stuff in it; the guy sleeping at his desk wakes up when we try to take an item, but then tells us everything is free and we can just grab whatever we want, which is weird, but hey, gift horses and all that.
At the local pub, we run into the most unexpected character cameo.
Mukki, the weird bodybuilder from the Honeybee Inn, is there with his gym bro friends, musing that you could 'walk around naked, and no one would look twice.'
You keep on being your weird self, Mukki.
If Red isn't in the party, he can be found next to the bar, taking some respite from the heat in the shadow. He's waggling his tail and trying to convince Cloud that it's not on purpose and he just doesn't control his tail, which I think is meant to convey that he's happy/comfortable but embarrassed about showing it?
Yuffie can also be found there, holding… Is that a lemonade stand?
Okay, slightly more upscale, it's a Materia stand. She landed herself a part-time job with the guy in the coat next to the stand, who's the one actually owning the Materia.
Yuffie really has that grindset. Never not be hustling. She's the real Sigma Female-
Ahem.
There's another stand where a guy sells "Soft," a 'memento of this wonderful trip, made especially in Costa del Sol.' It's really unclear what he's talking about, and at first I assume that it's a 'soft drink,' but you don't buy soda as a souvenir, right? Turns out Soft is an alternate name for the Gold Needle. So we're buying commemorative fancy pins which also happen to cure Petrify. Neat.
Now, our next step should be to check out the Inn - predictably overpriced at 200 gil a night, but…
…Barret is admiring himself in his sailor outfit in the inn bathroom.
Oh my god.
The girls told him they thought he was cute in that uniform, he deflected it with saying he only feels comfortable in his normal clothes, and his next move was to privately admire himself in the glass once there was no one looking. And not just that - he's planning to keep it specifically to see Marlene again because he thinks she'll like it. That's kind of… Adorable. They really had a brain blast making one of the main characters an actual dad.
Meanwhile, we meet a familiar face in one of the houses: Johnny, that Sector 7 local who decided to strike out and find his own fortune outside Midgar, whom we've encountered a couple of times. It looks like he's finally settled down, though; he's living with someone else who is taking a bath and so can't be talked to at this time, so I guess he found himself a girlfriend after all. He recognizes Cloud when talked to, and then has one of those dialogue lines that is not just 'difficult to parse' but a straight fuck-up on the translator's part:
"And a [REDACTED] murderer!"
Johnny bringing up his heretofore-unknown past connection to Cloud as childhood friends and comrades in SOLDIER is, needless to say, a complete fabrication. Instead, he's meant to be saying "You're that ex-SOLDIER, childhood friend [of Tifa], by implication], and sexy playboy! And- and a murderer!"
Like, what he's saying is, "You are Tifa's childhood friend, the ex-SOLDIER," and he's referring to Cloud as a "playboy" because Johnny is insecure about the fact that Tifa is into Cloud, when he is into Tifa, but she wouldn't look at him. It's a messy bit of dialogue whichever way you slice it but the translation is just completely off the map.
Johnny: "That's okay. We'll just pretend like we don't know each other. I started a new life in this town. A lot of things happened to us. Heh, I better stop my complaining! I sure envy you all living out under the stars."
At this point, the other person in the house says, "I'm sorry about that. He's had some big shocks and has been depressed lately." Then Johnny tells Cloud to beat it and keep out of his life.
All in all, Johnny is really rude and patently insecure and threatened by Cloud's presence, not entirely unfairly; Cloud's actions were directly connected to the Sector 7 plate collapse which Johnny barely escaped through sheer luck. Beside that they also just… aren't friends, Johnny doesn't owe him anything.
But there's more to this place than this - we just can't unlock it yet; we have to go through a plot cutscene first. And for that, we have to head to the actual main course of any seaside town,: the beach! And look! Aerith is already there! (And Tifa, if she's not already in the party!)
These two guys on the left, btw, have massive creepazoid vibes in the way they are planning to hit on girls.
What's that, Aerith? You want to show us something?
…
I-
What?
How-
Okay, okay, so Hojo is on the beach, this is fine, I can deal with this. Let's kill him.
First we have to go through these three girls hanging around him like some kind of bikini-clad Praetorian Guard and being annoyed at us bothering them before reluctantly letting us talk to Hojo, and...
Cloud: "Is that Hojo?"
Girl #1: "(What's his problem?) Yes, that's right. It's the Professor! Professor… Someone's here to see you, sir."
Hojo: "I'm busy right now. …But, too bad. Heh heh heh… All right. You sure are loud. Long time no see, Cloud."
Cloud: "Hojo…"
Hojo: "Sometimes you just gotta do something like this.
Cloud: "What are you doing?
Hojo: "It should be obvious. I'm getting a tan."
Cloud: "Answer me!"
Hojo: "Hmm! I believe we're both after the same goal."
Cloud: "You mean Sephiroth?"
Hojo: "Did you see him? I see… Ha ha!"
Cloud: "What is it?"
Hojo: "Nothing. I just remembered a certain hypothesis… Haven't you ever had the feeling something is calling you? Or that you had to visit some place?"
Cloud: "I'll go anywhere Sephiroth is at! To beat him and put an end to all this!"
Hojo: "I see… This could be interesting. Were you in SOLDIER? Heh heh heh! Would you like to be my guinea pig?"
[Cloud flinches back and takes a fighting stance.]
Hojo: "Oh, now what? Are you going to draw your sword?"
Tifa: "Stop, Cloud! I know how you feel, but you mustn't!"
Hojo: "Ha! Ha! Ha!..." [Turning to Aerith] "Say, aren't you the 'Ancient'?"
Aerith: "I'm Aerith. The least you could do is remember my name."
Aerith: "I want you to tell me something. Professor Hojo… I know I'm an Ancient. My mother told me."
Hojo: "Your mother? Oh, you mean Ifalna. How is she?"
Aerith: "You didn't know!? She died."
Hojo: "...I see."
Aerith: "Professor Hojo? Is Jenova an Ancient? Is Sephiroth an Ancient? Do we all have the same blood?"
[Hojo turns around.]
Hojo: "...mumble… mumble… head west…"
Aerith: "He's mumbling slowly… That must mean he's hiding something!"
[Everyone yells at Hojo, who refuses to answer. The conversation ends.]
…
Okay, so first of all.
WHAT KIND OF FREAK SUNBATHES IN A LAB COAT?
It's so hot Red nearly died and our man here is wearing full-body coverage! He must be fully 70% sweat per volume, which frankly I can't imagine would make him smell worse than he already does by default.
Second of all, like. Girls. Seriously. Why. Why Hojo.
God the dialogue from the sunbathing girls around him is completely explicit about how they're somehow head over heels for him:
"He never takes off his coat even in the heat. I guess that's the mark of an intellectual."
"I'll be happy to be a guinea pig, if it's for professor Hojo!"
"I'll interpret Professor Hojo's whispers. Head west, past Mt Corel and keep going…"
First of all, girl. You do not want to be his guinea pig, I assure you. I guess that you're attracted to his massive, throbbing brain, but our boy here entered the plot carrying a battering ram called 'sexual assault.'
I just. I can't.
And also WHY CAN'T I KILL HIM. HE'S RIGHT HERE. HE'S DEFENSELESS. HE HAS NO SHINRA GUARDS. IN FACT, HE RESIGNED FROM SHINRA. WE CAN LITERALLY JUST STAB HIM.
It's so frustrating because these characters have been fully willing to commit assassinations before. Whether it's Cloud trying to solo Rufus, Barret looking for opportunities to kill President Shinra or Heidegger, we know those characters are willing to get their hands dirty. And here, they just… decide not to.
But… I guess I can see the logic of it, maybe. At this point, Hojo's direct interactions with the group mostly consists of his (absolutely evil) attempted actions against Aerith and Red, which he never ended up carrying through thanks to our own actions. If I squint I can see how someone who is only working from that knowledge alone might go 'he's evil, but he's not 'kill while defenseless' evil.'
…except no. We had the Nibelheim Flashback. We know Hojo is complicit in the creation of monsters from people.
Yeah, no, they should be icing this dude right here and now.
But no. They won't. We just have to… Leave him there. Hanging out. On the beach. With his INEXPLICABLE GROUPIES.
Curse you, Hojooooo!
Okay, okay, there are two notable things in Hojo's little speech: First off, he seems to know about - or rather, accurately guess as to the existence of - the Backseater and Cloud's general memory-related issues and weird compulsions. Which would make this a really good opportunity to start beating his guess as to what is causing this out of him, but unfortunately as always when confronted with his brain damage, Cloud enters an avoidance fugue and deflects the actual core of the issue while going "rah rah Sephiroth rah." It's a pretty consistent character trait, and because nobody in the group really knows the scope of Cloud's issues, no one can call him out on it or even realize that there's a problem.
That's what you gain from having a designated protagonist in your party: compartmentalisation of information. The player is exposed to a much deeper knowledge of the extent of Cloud's issues than other characters have, while being basically blind to what's going on in Tifa or Aerith's heads even as they are major characters.
Second, Aerith's question regarding whether Jenova, Sephiroth and her are truly the same species/category of beings reflects her own character depth - in the same way that Tifa's "kind, sweet childhood friend" personality is contrasted by her simmering hatred for Shinra, soldiers, and war in general, Aerith's energetic, sassy affect (which we've seen a little less of since we left Midgar, to be fair) is contrasted by what seems like buried anxiety regarding 'Am I truly the same species as these monsters?' I feel it also vindicates some of the stuff I said earlier where it's weird that Jenova and Aerith are allegedly both Ancients when they seem so deeply unlike in many other ways, Aerith and her mom being just Human+ by all accounts and Jenova being John Carpenter's The Thing: Featuring Tyrant From The Resident Evil Series. Not any answers yet though, just confirmation that the question is still hanging in the air above us.
And it seems like Hojo kind of ruined the idea of sunbathing for the girls, not that I can blame them, I wouldn't stick around on a beach with that creep around. Instead, the girls return to the central town, and can be found in new spots. For instance, Tifa can be found, of all places… at Johnny's house.
Johnny and Tifa, who were friends in Sector 7, are catching up and reminiscing about old times. Not only that, but when we approach them, Tifa asks Cloud to please leave them alone for the day; "we haven't seen each other in ages and sometimes it's fun to talk about old times for a change," and she promises to not be back too late.
It's a neat character touch that shows how different characters relate differently to one another - that the same guy who is obnoxiously rude and insecure to Cloud can be a pleasant friend to another party member, and it shows how the other characters have their own lives going on.
…you know, seeing this scene, I'm thinking, hm. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the target audience of FF7 is adjacent to the same demographic who, today, yell fury in Mangadex comments if a non-protagonist male character exists within five miles of a female love interest; here, FF7 is having Tifa ask Cloud to please leave her alone so she can spend time with a guy we know is romantically interested in her. I could easily see an insecure teenage male audience getting mad about that, but I wonder if I'm just projecting much more modern trends into the past; either way it's nice of the game to commit to having Tifa have her own friends that are none of our business.
The final bit of character action took me… A while to trigger. I tried multiple party compositions but, in the end, the only way I was able to trigger it was to reload from before the Hojo scene, make a party with Barret and without Aerith, going through the Hojo sequence again, and then head directly for the Inn (where we would normally see Barret, who seems to 'override' Aerith), and there, we find Aerith lying in bed thinkin' thoughts.
Aerith: "There's so many things I don't understand… I feel a little uneasy."
Aerith: "Cloud…? What do you think of me?"
At this point, the Translator strikes again; our two options are "I dunno" and "Nothing much," both of which seem incredibly rude in only slightly different ways. Still, you can see what they're going for ahead of clicking if you squint; "Nothing much" is the option to tell Aerith we don't think about her at all, which makes her really upset, whereas "I dunno" is more of Cloud saying a lot's going on and he doesn't really understand much of it, to which Aerith replies:
Aerith: "...You're right. Even I don't understand myself."
Aerith: "I wonder what part of me is like an Ancient? What is an Ancient supposed to be like? It's strange, isn't it?"
Aerith: "I don't understand it…"
Aerith: "Ah… I'm going around in circles. I wonder if there's any answer to this? Everything's so complicated."
Aerith: "I'm going to sleep."
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the reason why Aerith has been more quiet and reserved for a while has a lot to do with feelings of low-key depression and existential angst regarding her connection to the only two other living beings categorized as 'Ancients,' one of which murdered her two new best friends' families and hometown, the other of which is, as far as we can tell, a horrible mutant corpse in a jar.
Once we rest at the Costa del Sol inn once, the 'world state' of the town advances. The party moves on, so we can no longer get their hanging-out vignettes, and Hojo has moved on from the town, leaving the groupies behind with some new dialogue.
NPC #1: "He used to be the President's little boy. We nicknamed him the little Prez! He didn't look much different from the surfers on the beach."
NPC #2: "That's right!! It totally skipped my mind! There was something I was supposed to tell you. That's right! It's about that! It was yesterday. A man wearing a black cape came up from the ocean. I think he had tickets for the Gold Saucer… No, that wasn't it… I wonder if it was all just an illusion.
NPC #3: "Yes, Professor Hojo. Where? It looks like the Professor discovered or found a solution to something. You know, I wonder… if they headed west to Mt Corel?"
That whole spiel about Sephiroth maybe passing through or maybe being an illusion is weird, but the real key piece of info here is that Rufus Shinra used to be a Surfer Bro that everyone gave a slightly mocking nickname to. I can absolutely believe that of the slicked-back-haired bishie we've met already.
Generally I get the vibe that the people of Costa del Sol are a lot more dismissive/casual/mocking of Shinra's leadership than people in other places we've encountered. And that makes… sense? Costa del Sol is clearly an important, money-making town, but its resource isn't something that can be extracted. It's something other people have to come to it to get. It's a tourist trap, a tropical paradise where everyone is more chill and laid back in the knowledge that people will come in the world over to spend money to stay there, or are themselves wealthy vacationers, and generally are kinda detached from world affairs. Shinra owns the town, but not in a way that allows them to expect everyone to be sycophantic and obsequious to them.
Probably explains why Rufus landed and immediately flew off in a helicopter rather than spend five minutes in a town where people remember him as a tryhard nepo baby surfer.
Aaaand that's Costa del Sol! Mechanically it's just a pit stop, narratively it just contains one piece of information leading to our next objective, but in terms of flavor and character it's packed full for its small size. Absolutely a great ride aside from HOJO'S CONTINUED EXISTENCE. Resupply, heal up, and we're headed out.
Annoying transparency of the map aside, we are currently on that red dot on the westward continent that is nearest to Cloud. The Midgar Region was right across the sea to the East.
The game is really utilizing its 3D map to great effect… Sometimes.
You see, a trick which the game is using which I'm pretty sure has to do with (again) rendering distances but also creates a really neat but weird effect that you can hopefully see on this picture, is that we can see the curvature of the Earth. The map is not flat! It's round! Granted it's always been, we have always been able to circle the planet in past games, but there it was presented as a flat plane, whereas here the 3D actually does show the planet curving. And this results in major landmarks rising above the horizon as we approach them!
It's a really cool effect. It only has a few downsides, like… The fact that the textures load weirdly, so mountain ranges or objects in the distance appear and disappear randomly as we approach them. Or the fact that this curve is so pronounced the planet feels kind of really small.
Here, a strange, tree-like structure rises on the horizon, but we can't cross the river that separates us from it. Could this be the Gold Saucer? It's definitely a great way to drive up interest in upcoming locations!
Also!
We finally have an opportunity to field-test our new weapon.
…the last part of Ifrit's animation didn't play well with the camera so the screenshots are bad, but yeah; the earth trembles, volcanic explosion, Ifrit emerges in a pillar of fire, then he charges the enemies like a meteor while wreathed in flame. Kick-ass.
So far I do note that the summons haven't been people that we could talk to, and I'm wondering if it'll stay that way or if late-game summons will return to the old style of 'beat up Bahamut for its summon.' Although VI had already moved away from it in its own way what with the Esper Genocide.
There's a cool bit where we have to find a mountain pass and cross a bridge that doesn't send us to a new field, it's just a bridge on the map, I like it.
These inexplicable things are living matryoshka dolls that open up to spit out another of themselves. They die to a single Ifrit summon, it's fine.
This beautiful mountain pass is our way into Mt Corel, the next step of our journey. Just in case we missed the Hojo dialogue, there's an old hiker here who tells us he saw a man in a black cape heading through; he tried to warn him that it was dangerous ahead, but the guy didn't listen. Sounds like Sephiroth alright!
Well.
That's a big boy.
I love the positioning of the sun, and the use of its light to create striking beauty out of barren mountain cliffs, and then the reveal of the enormous Mako Reactor as the cause for that barrenness.
There's not really anything to get there, just sightseeing and fighting monster in a unique background field.
I'm starting to get a little inattentive in fights due to how easy they've been, and that results in some of my first actual KOs when I don't keep proper track of character HP. Mostly Cloud. Still no big deal, just have to spend some of those Phoenix Downs I've been hoarding since the start of the game.
I can't believe Yuffie is fucking dead.
Our next destination is… A rollercoaster???
I guess it's more like… Mining carts? Yeah, it's an elevated railway to carry mining stuff. But it looks like a rollercoaster. Also it's clearly fallen in severe disuse; there are holes in the rails, and as we walk, the rails break underneath us, threatening to send us toppling down into the depths!
…which, weirdly enough, is something we want. We get a prompt to press OK to jump before the rails break, but actually if we let ourselves fall we play another dumb minigame where Cloud is falling and we need to swim across the air in order to direct ourselves to the left or right and land on a bunch of treasure, like so:
The way the minigame is explained is incredibly annoying because you're falling as it happens so you have to read the minigame at the same time as you execute its command, there is a limited number of holes and so a limited number of times you can actually try it, it's annoying and bad and I have to reload the game to actually succeed. We also find the Transform Materia on top of the rollercoaster; it allows us to cast Mini at first and eventually Toad, which… I'm not going to spend an entire Materia slot on Toad, thanks.
Oh, also, random encounter highlight of the day:
The Bomb is an iconic enemy dating back to FF2; here, as you can sorta kinda see from this screenshot, 3D allows it to do a neat thing where it increases in size as it takes damage, 'building up' to a massive explosion. It's a tricky enemy to fight, because failing to kill it quickly enough causes it to self-destruct, which results in not just heavy damage but no XP or items, making the fight a waste of time and resources. We take a couple more KOs there.
The characters who aren't in the party are hanging out on this screen, on one side of the same river blocking our way from reaching the weird tree-looking place. The lazy slackers tell us that the commands to the movable bridge is probably in that hut on the other side, and that they'll be taking a break while we go get it. Typical.
Tifa does cheer Cloud on while he's crossing the bridge, so that's nice.
Anyway, this is just busywork. We circle around on the high bridge to get to the shack, lower the movable bridge, then walk back around to the original point while the layabouts run off ahead of us.
Mostly, what Mt Cornel serves as, whether it's this area, the one before or the rollercoaster, is environmental storytelling and foreshadowing. Look at it:
What we have here is extensive infrastructure in the form of this old rail system, though not the kind of rail that carries trains - mining carts, most likely. But it's all rusty, damaged, and inactive. Meanwhile, the Mako Reactor we saw earlier was active, with all its lights shining - it's separate from and does not depend on the rail network. In fact, it most likely made it obsolete. We're looking at an old, no-longer-in-use system, and the modernity that replaced it.
Let's put a pin in that, because it's time for our next settlement.
Or 'settlement,' as the case may be.
Welcome to North Corel.
The place is a shithole, but I can hardly blame the inhabitants. It's less of a 'town' than it is a refugee camp built in the ruins of a ravaged town - notice the tents, which are the actual 'buildings' we can enter, while the broken shells of houses are just as much rock. What could have prompted this destruction, you wonder?
Oh, boy.
So, the first thing that happens when we enter is that the townsfolk recognize Barret on sight and gather around.
What briefly looks like it might be a touching reunion between Barret and the people of his hometown, however, quickly takes a turn for the worse, as one of the townsfolk steps forward… And punches Barret in the face, with Barret not even trying to avoid the blow or strike back.
Townsfolk: "Well, lookey here! Never thought I'd ever see your face again. Those people over there, they with you? Well, I feel sorry for 'em! Hangin' around a walkin' death sentence like Barret."
Townsfolk: "You got a lot of nerve comin' back here! Look at this place! It's all your fault North Corel turned into a garbage heap!"
Townsfolk: "Why doncha say something? Or did you forget what you done here already?"
Barret: "...I'm sorry…"
Townsfolk: "[REDACTED]! You ain't even worth the effort."
Townsfolk: "Don't waste your time on that Techno-Freak!"
It's… kind of shocking how, like, vulnerable Barret is in this scene. Like… If he didn't want these guys to yell at him and knock him around, he could make it stop. He is stronger than any of them and armed to the teeth. But he's allowing this to happen, allowing people to insult him and trample over him and punch him in the face, because he thinks they're right. He agrees that he is to blame for North Corel's destruction. All he can do in the face of their anger is meekly offer futile apology.
It's a… massive departure from what we've seen of Barret so far, a really effective shift - and one that makes sense for what we know of him. Barret is a man with powerful emotions, and a deep sense of duty and responsibility - to the Planet, to his daughter, to his friends. His grief is rooted in his sense of responsibility. If he blames himself for what happened in North Corel, whatever that is, it's natural that it would leave him completely disarmed when confronted with people's (in his eyes) justified anger.
I, not being Barret, don't necessarily have to accept that framing. I don't have to accept the premise that the Corelians are right to be such assholes to Barret. We'll wait and see. One thing though - Barret is the last person I would expect to be called a 'techno-freak.' Is that because of his arm gun? I guess it technically makes him a cyborg? Hmmm.
A quick look at the interiors tell us this is some straight 'living inside ruins next to rubble' Fallout stuff. The locals are broadly desperate, in despair, and bitter. The shop owners plead for us to buy something, anything. A scavenger claims 'collecting junk' is the only way to make ends meet around here. A woman is bitter because her husband got into an accident and can no longer work, an old man laments how he's supposed to live in a town that's "lost everything"... Then blames the Mako Reactor for it all.
Interesting.
There's a young miner who asks if it's true that tattoos are the big fad in the city, and if we tell him yes, he says he'll get a '0' tattoo, which is the perfect way to reflect where he's at in life. That bit of gallows humour is the closest we get to positive vibes in this entire sequence (aside from a little girl who just wants to play).
Yeah, this place is miserable. But how could Barret be responsible for it all?
Well.
There are two paths to leave the city; one leads us to the map, and the other to a 'Ropeway Station' which would take us to the 'Gold Saucer,' a place which has been hinted at in previous conversation as a kind of casino (it features chocobo racing, among other things) that Sephiroth might or might not have been aiming for.
The map lets us save the game, and then we head for the Ropeway Station… Where we are about to get some answers.
Barret: "Sorry."
Cloud: "What happened?"
Barret: "My hometown used to be around here."
Red XIII: "What do you mean 'used to'?"
Barret: "It ain't here no more. Heard it got buried… in just 4 years."
Aerith: "But how could those people say those terrible things?"
Barret: "An' it's my fault. ALL my fault."
Barret's village was an old coal-mining village, its operation going way back. It was small, dusty and poor, but calm, a peaceful place, where no one had even heard of a Mako Reactor, until…
That woman in red would be Scarlet, which I believe is head of Research.
As you can see, the center of the piece is this distraught man at the center, named Dyne; he is surrounded by Barret on one side, and the village elder on the other, while everyone is talking to Scarlet of Shinra, and the village's miners watch. They have a big problem; Shinra wants to create a new Mako Reactor near their town, and everyone is on board with that except Dyne - it's not clear what position he holds, but whether he's a local representative or just a notable whose opinion carries weight, his opposition is threatening to stop the whole project.
Eventually, his opposition was either overruled, or he was worn down by everyone's words, and the Mako Reactor was built. Not long after, disaster struck.
Absolute devastation. And not as a direct result of the Reactor, not an accident, not a chemical spill, something much more brutal - there was an explosion at the Mako Reactor, but that's not what did it. Instead, it was Shinra's reaction; they decided the explosion couldn't have been an accident, had to be the work of rebels or terrorists, blamed the locals, and destroyed the town, along with much of its population. Barret's wife, Myrna, died in the disaster.
Ironically, creating one of their worst and most enduring enemies in the process - Barret, leader of Avalanche.
…
There's a lot I need to get into here. I'm going to need to unpack it in steps. And first, I need to actually transcribe the dialogue of that scene with Dyne, because there is something I have been playing coy about here.
Village Headman: "What are we going to do? The only one opposed to this is Dyne…"
Dyne: "I am definitely against it, no matter what. There's nothing to talk about if you're thinking of throwing away our coal!"
Dyne: "The coal's been ours for generations. Our fathers, their fathers before them, risked their lives for it. We have no right to throw it all away so easily!"
Barret: "But listen, Dyne. No one uses coal nowadays. It's the sign of the times."
Scarlet: "Right, everything is Mako, now. It'll be all right, Dyne. Shinra, Inc. will guarantee your livelihood once the Mako Reactor is completed."
Barret: "Listen, Dyne. I don't want my wife, Myrna, to suffer anymore."
Dyne: "I know how you feel! I feel the same way too, damn it! But even so, I won't give away our coal mines!"
Village Headman: "Dyne… You've got to understand."
Barret, Voiceover: That's how the Corel Reactor was built… And completed. We all thought it would bring us an easy life.
Barret, Voiceover: It happened when Dyne and I were out of town for a few days. Corel was burned down by Shinra troops. All the townspeople… All my relatives… Everyone… everything…
[End Flashback.]
Okay.
So.
There are four points I want to tackle here.
First: Environmental storytelling off the chart here. Basically the entire story of Corel is out in the open before you even get there. The Mako Reactor all shiny and bright, the disused mining cart system that hasn't been operated in years, the destroyed town… It's just a fantastic way of using environmental cues that might just look like 'huh, neat!' until you put it all together. The way Shinra prospers out of the misery and abandon of the land around it, the way even the people who still live around that Reactor don't benefit from it because it was never meant for them…
Second: Barret's guilt. Such complicated feelings about that one. I absolutely do believe, as a character beat, that he would blame himself for what happened; it makes perfect sense. He was a major voice in advocating for the construction of the Mako Reactor, and the resulting death and destruction that came to his people, including his own wife. Of course he blames himself. However, I can't help but feel that because he feels that guilt so strongly, the survivors are scapegoating him.
Like. Sure, he was clearly a leadership figure in the village. But a large number of people agreed with him. The decision to build the reactor was near-unanimous. Their elder, the Village Headman, advocated for it. But of course - the Headman probably died in the burning of the village. And Dyne, wherever he is now, was opposed to the Mako Reactor's construction. Which leaves Barret the only one left alive to be blamed for it all - aside, of course, from everyone else who agreed with him. Well, it's not their fault, right? Barret is the one who convinced them to go along with it, surely. They're not responsible. And Barret isn't in the village anymore. A scapegoat; blamed for everything then exiled from what remained of the village as punishment for his sins, freeing everyone else to have merely been blameless victims. That would explain the sheer vitriol they pour on him. I can't blame Barret for blaming himself. It's not like he didn't have a part in the events that led to the destruction of his hometown. But he was seduced by straight-up lies from power-hungry corporate assholes preying on poverty.
Third: The Corel Massacre. I… don't know how I feel about it. 'Sometimes Shinra gets paranoid and straight-up wipes out a town' seems like an exaggeration - like, what Sephiroth did when he went fully off the deep end, as his act of ultimate madness, Shinra did in Corel just out of doubt and fear. But of course, they destroyed Sector 7, didn't they? It's not like it's out-of-character for them. And Corel is far from Midgar, so I guess they have tighter information control on what news get to the population. Probably nobody outside of Mt Corel even knows about the fate of these minors. So… Yeah, no, I don't know what I was thinking; it's perfectly in-character.
And.
Fourth.
HOLY SHIT DID JOE FUCKING MANCHIN WRITE THIS SCENE, LMFAO?
The surprise contributor none of you were expecting in this thread.
Holy fuck I am on the floor, blasted straight out of my socks.
The game really turned to the camera and said "Fanciful new kinds of energy are leading us astray from reliable, wholesome, traditional coal mining."
This is literally what happened! Everyone in
Holy shit. I was not prepared.
@Geckonator has argued in this thread that Mako energy should be read more as a metaphor for nuclear power specifically than oil, or fossil fuels in general. And I see where their argument is coming from; and I still think oil/fossil fuels/climate change are a metaphor which the text lends itself to well. That said…
Holy shit the game really went "The German federal government turning its coal power plants back on as nuclear plants shut down is based and correct and the way forward."
There's… A lot we could unpack there. Starting with how Japan's unique history with nuclear power makes me less inclined to criticize anti-nuclear stances than I might otherwise be, even if wholesome traditional coal power is a wild swerve. What I'm a little more interested in, I think, is how…
I remember how when I was a kid in the 90s and early 00s, 'climate change' wasn't something I heard about that much. Pollution was. There was definitely a still great concern around the environment, but it had to do with - the Ozone Layer. Trash in the oceans. Textile chemicals in the rivers. Giant tyre fires. Eternally growing scrapyards. And, yes, nuclear wastes. A whole constellation of individual, local ways the world was getting hurt and sullied by humans.
None of it, except to some extent the ozone layer issue, had that kind of amorphous, eschatological totality that climate change has taken on today (for, I think, perfectly good reasons); the threat of a total global deregulation that cooks the planet in its globality from a totally unseen force in the air, which is how we think about 'the environmental struggle' today.
Final Fantasy VII, in 1997, is much more situated in that earlier era of thinking about pollution first and foremost, and about global warming less, if at all. Mako exploitation drains the life from the land, but there's also a lot of emphasis on Mako pollution, enormous scrapyards, train graveyards, slums built out of the detritus of the city, fishing towns that can no longer find any fish… All of which builds to a great aesthetic but is rooted in this slightly different paradigm, and from that perspective, having coal be the better alternative to the inherently evil exploitation of Mako makes sense, especially as it is tied to the livelihood of miners, but… Looking back from 2023 where we have politicians kneecapping governments because a coal mining town in rural Appalachia could potentially be run out business by the dread spectre of 'green energy' that must be stopped at all cost? This is borderline physical-flinch inducing to read.
And it all framed with this whole 'seduction of the innocent' angle with Scarlet coming in to lure the naive coal miners away from their way of life with the siren song of Mako Energy and then everyone instantly fucking dying.
This is so much, man.
I think we can call it here for tonight. I'm just going to sit with this for a bit.
Thanks for reading.
Next Time: The Gold Saucer?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Having seen what happens when Hojo is doing 'nothing', how do you feel about this statement now?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There is no circumstance under which Hojo may ever be safe. The man needs to be carefully removed from this plane of existence and consigned to the Void. Even mere death is not safe enough.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
So sayeth literally everyone who has ever played this game.
Nemesis status ended with Sephiroth, 'Beach Hojo' is our BBEG now
One thing I am still undecided on about FF7 is just how much to trust the various flashbacks, after all we already know that something is funky about Clouds. Barret is telling his story as he remembers it, and the human memory is very fallible.
Was Dyne the lone opposition or was he the voice of a small group? Was Barret 100% in or was he being pragmatic about the future? It obviously is grounded in facts, otherwise the townsfolk wouldn't react like that, but just how much has Barrett's obvious regret coloured his view of the past?
Was Dyne the lone opposition or was he the voice of a small group? Was Barret 100% in or was he being pragmatic about the future? It obviously is grounded in facts, otherwise the townsfolk wouldn't react like that, but just how much has Barrett's obvious regret coloured his view of the past?
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Wait, how old is Hojo? Its implied he was involved with Ghast and whatever was up with Sephi's birth or creation or whatnot, and Sephi is in his mid 20s at least, and Hojo was doing Hojo Science then, so he was probably at least in his early 20s so... is Hojo in his fifties at the earliest? And what, early to mid sixties, maybe at the high end?
And those girls are still trying for him.
Hojo the fuck is your deal man. The hell is it.
And those girls are still trying for him.
Hojo the fuck is your deal man. The hell is it.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
If Red isn't in the party, he can be found next to the bar, taking some respite from the heat in the shadow. He's waggling his tail and trying to convince Cloud that it's not on purpose and he just doesn't control his tail, which I think is meant to convey that he's happy/comfortable but embarrassed about showing it?
I know it has to be a microaggression and a half, but man does Red XIII deserve headpats.
Now, our next step should be to check out the Inn - predictably overpriced at 200 gil a night, but…
…Barret is admiring himself in his sailor outfit in the inn bathroom.
Oh my god.
The girls told him they thought he was cute in that uniform, he deflected it with saying he only feels comfortable in his normal clothes, and his next move was to privately admire himself in the glass once there was no one looking. And not just that - he's planning to keep it specifically to see Marlene again because he thinks she'll like it. That's kind of… Adorable. They really had a brain blast making one of the main characters an actual dad.
I cannot wait for this scene in Rebirth. Sailor Suit Barret alone will guarantee one morbillion copies sold.
What's that, Aerith? You want to show us something?
…
Hojo rn:
View: https://youtu.be/rltvYrGOzIQ
Weird that Hojo doesn't appear to know that Ifalna's dead here. As you undoubtedly know he made it rather explicit that he knew she was dead in Remake ("I EXPERIMENTED ON HER WITH SOME FAVA BEANS AND A NICE CIANTI" *fully presses his body against the tube like a spider and makes insect chittering noises*), but even setting that aside the way he's like 'aren't you that one girl' to Aerith makes me think he's just feigning ignorance to fuck with everyone. He fully said 'fuck work' and dipped to go be fawned over by hot ladies on Verona Beach, he is not engaged with the present situation.
I think he's just in the Anime Filler Episode Gag Dimension where the fact it's funny a man with a sixhead is pulling mad bitches acts as an impenetable barrier.
I am also excited for this to show up in Rebirth.
What briefly looks like it might be a touching reunion between Barret and the people of his hometown, however, quickly takes a turn for the worse, as one of the townsfolk steps forward… And punches Barret in the face, with Barret not even trying to avoid the blow or strike back.
Townsfolk: "Well, lookey here! Never thought I'd ever see your face again. Those people over there, they with you? Well, I feel sorry for 'em! Hangin' around a walkin' death sentence like Barret."
Townsfolk: "You got a lot of nerve comin' back here! Look at this place! It's all your fault North Corel turned into a garbage heap!"
Townsfolk: "Why doncha say something? Or did you forget what you done here already?"
Barret: "...I'm sorry…"
Townsfolk: "[REDACTED]! You ain't even worth the effort."
Townsfolk: "Don't waste your time on that Techno-Freak!"
Boy this scene's gonna look funny in Rebirth when the random Corelian will have to jump to punch Barret because the dude is 6'4 in all directions.
It might not be paranoia. Now, this is based on sort of half remembering the game (because I did get this far and past it) and it being a fan theory I've seen floating around, but it would all add up. The remnants of Corel are all here basically adjacent to the Gold Saucer, right? Practically sandwiched between it and the mako reactor?
Shinra burned down the town to make way for the casino.
I mean think about it. The only person who opposed the reactor's construction, Dyne, was out of town with Barret to vouch for him when the explosion happened. The only reasonable assumption is that nobody damaged the reactor except Shinra, whether accidentally through some completely normal safety fuckup... or on purpose. Shinra responded by wildly overreacting, doing a full exterminatus of the town, and then almost directly on top of where it was there suddenly springs a colossal multi-level Cyberpunk Vegas Strip. I mean look at that fucking thing in the Next Time On bumper, they built a city out of gold and covered it in mako-powered lights. You've already seen two examples of local commerce with Shinra's fingers stuck securely in the pie (Wall Market via Don Corneo and now Costa del Sol), what's one more?
- Location
- PA
Hum…
I think 'Soft' might be an old translation-good name for the Gold Needle as a general rule? Like this is not the first time I've seen that name used for an item that cures petrify.
Which makes me wonder at the logic of a Gold Needle being the item that cures getting turned to stone.
'Soft' to me makes sense-admittedly even with the bias of having encountered it before I might think to criticize it…
Stone is hard, flesh is soft. 'Soft' then softens the body and makes it flexible so the person can move again versus being a motionless statue, too stiff and brittle to change position without cracking or being damaged in some way.
The Golde Needle as a cure for the condition…Makes me think it's some kind of mythological reference, one I guess I'm unfamiliar with unless it's to the later Midas myths where he turns his daughter to gold but…There he undoes the transformation via basically blessed water or something like that?
I think 'Soft' might be an old translation-good name for the Gold Needle as a general rule? Like this is not the first time I've seen that name used for an item that cures petrify.
Which makes me wonder at the logic of a Gold Needle being the item that cures getting turned to stone.
'Soft' to me makes sense-admittedly even with the bias of having encountered it before I might think to criticize it…
Stone is hard, flesh is soft. 'Soft' then softens the body and makes it flexible so the person can move again versus being a motionless statue, too stiff and brittle to change position without cracking or being damaged in some way.
The Golde Needle as a cure for the condition…Makes me think it's some kind of mythological reference, one I guess I'm unfamiliar with unless it's to the later Midas myths where he turns his daughter to gold but…There he undoes the transformation via basically blessed water or something like that?