So, random thoughts: Here we have a naturally formed Materia, meaning that the concept did not originate from Shinra, but rather was refined by them. So how did Materia get used in the past? Can you imagine like a small squad of ancient wizards each touching a large materia and casting lightning bolt at enemies? Was it worked into a weapon or armor or something? These Lifestream Springs seem pretty rare and thus the materia would be as well, so any materia would be for the most trusted elites, right? Further, does materia break down over time like organic matter? If so how long does it take?
This arm is covered in bronze, not gold actually. It's meant to be reminiscent of ancient greek monsters like the Gorgon which had bronze claws. But yeah, this guy is badass, he got his own game. IMO it was fairly good, just out of curiosity do you have plans to play spin offs and the like such as crisis core?
If there any that are really good - I hear there's a Remaster of Crisis Core coming soon? - I might, and then if I do I'll do a one-time write-up of my thoughts in this thread, but everything I've heard about Before Crisis or Dirge of Cerberus is like, "don't bother" and Crisis Core itself is old and this Let's Play series already doesn't leave me that much time for other kinds of gaming - I got Armored Core VI and I still haven't finished it and I haven't had a chance to play Baldur's Gate 3 in weeks, so I'm not likely to sacrifice much more of my non-LP time to Final Fantasy spinoffs.
And that probably is good in the long run, although my initial attempt at putting the sniper rifle and Deathblow Materia on Vincent resulted in him missing three attacks in a row during the first boss fight I took him into, so I'm a little burned on that
On a sidenote, since Gungnir came in with Odin, I got the urge to look up Gungnir's etymology and found out it apparently means 'the rocking'. Which makes me wonder if there's at least one portrayal of Gungnir where it's a guitar (or bass guitar, since it's a polearm) instead. Sounds like something a power metal album or Devil May Cry would do
Fun fact: I'm using a mod which changes the names of the spells for the sake of consistency with the rest of the series we've done in this Let's Play so far. Fira, Blizzara, all that, sure. But also, it turns out that in the original, Odin's Zantetsuken is "Steel Bladed Sword," which is like, fine, but Gungnir? Gungnir is apparently Gunge Lance.
I'm not gonna say shit about most of your theorising, because part of the appeal is your relatively uncoloured perspective, but since I already said this on Discord I might as well repeat it here for anyone else it may concern; in the original script, these entities are called Sephiroth Copies, as in literally the katakana for 'sefirosu kopi'. I think it's undeniable that the connotations of 'Clone' and 'Copy' are different, if only slightly, enough to potentially change the trajectory of a player's theories. My strong suspicion is that Rebirth will use 'copy' instead of 'clone' as well, just based on how they've already been presented.
EDIT: Oh right I knew I was forgetting something, the Counter Attack materia. It requires a whopping 100k AP to master, but if you do the physical counter becomes a guaranteed proc, so maybe that'll be worth the investment for you if you're also planning to throw Cover on a stronger character like Cloud.
Yeah, so, a big reason why I missed Vincent the first time around is that I forgot that Hojo's letter specified in the basement, and I remembered it said he had forcibly mutated a Turk and sealed him away and given direction, so my assumption when I ran into Lost Number was just that... This was the unfortunate Turk Hojo had turned into a monster and trapped in a safe to get him out of the way. It just made sense! So I went on with my day until I saw that I had actually been extremely wrong.
So, failing that... Maybe it's those mysterious escaped experiments that scrawled words on the beakers in the basement?
I've actually been curious about this, because, like - I've played through most of FFIX, right? And, so far, every game from I to VI and a chunk of VII. So, at this point, it's clear VI, VII, and IX are all going really wild with character designs - you've got Terra the half-Esper with a monster form, Celes the Magitek Knight, Shadow the ninja who never shows his face, Mog the Moogle and Umaro the Yeti - you've got a lot of people with striking concepts, a couple of non-human characters... Then VII ups the ante by bringing in a talking catdog, a crowned cat riding a giant stuffed toy fortune-telling machine, and a fucking vampire, to say nothing of the visual uniqueness of even 'human' characters like Cloud, Barret, Tifa and Aerith. And IX is like - there's a ratgirl Dragoon? An original flavor Black Mage with the yellow eyes inside a black hole? The protagonist is a Saiyan? And there's whatever the hell is going on with the blue mage cook?
Meanwhile. As far as I can tell from my Disc 1 memory. FFVIII gives you like six characters to pick from, and they're all "Here's a bougie college student we inexplicably gave a deadly weapon to."
Real curious what the game was cooking there. We'll see in... hopefully a few months.
So, random thoughts: Here we have a naturally formed Materia, meaning that the concept did not originate from Shinra, but rather was refined by them. So how did Materia get used in the past? Can you imagine like a small squad of ancient wizards each touching a large materia and casting lightning bolt at enemies? Was it worked into a weapon or armor or something? These Lifestream Springs seem pretty rare and thus the materia would be as well, so any materia would be for the most trusted elites, right? Further, does materia break down over time like organic matter? If so how long does it take?
I think Materia probably breaks down from use if only because planned obsolescence seems like a thing Shinra would love. I also think Materia in older times... Maybe might work via cutting down and polishing individual pieces?
Before Shinra came up with the technology to forcibly condense Materia down to very dense, small size making them useable in personal gear, though, I think personal-scale Materia would have been weaker (like maybe it can only unlock Fire, not Fira and Firaga?), and large natural Materia would instead have been used in, say, artillery - you can fit something like the Mako Fountain Materia inside a cannon, with the 'firing mechanism' being firing Firaga at enemy troops, and that's a better use of it than cutting it down into a dozen much weaker Materia.
So... kinda mirroring the development of gunpowder, basically.
Side note: while exploring Nibelheim did you find the room with the two smaller hooded figures in it? If you talk to them you might find some of their dialogue... familiar in the way it's written.
Okay, so I didn't find a room with two smaller hooded figures, which caused me some confusion, and that might be... a bug? Here's what I did find:
You'll note that there is one smaller hooded figure here, alongside a full-sized one. And this did strike me as odd, but there wasn't anything else to go on other than this one figure. However, having checked a YouTube Let's Play, their version of that scene instead has both hooded figures be small. So that's... Intriguing... As for speech patterns, there's not much there, they just both say "Re...union."
However, what I did note about these two is that, unlike the other hooded figures, when Cloud interacts with them, he shakes his head both before and after they talk, in an expression that conveys a kind of... Helplessness?
It's weird.
Hrm.
Wait a minute.
Let me check the Nibelheim Flashback screenshots again.
There's nothing to see in the flashback version of that room, it's empty.
It is, however, the attic of one of the houses, and there are people on the first floor of said house, so maybe..?
And that probably is good in the long run, although my initial attempt at putting the sniper rifle and Deathblow Materia on Vincent resulted in him missing three attacks in a row during the first boss fight I took him into, so I'm a little burned on that
Ah yeah, Deathblow's hit rate is, for some reason, also increased by the character's Def% (aka Evade). So give Vincent an armor with high Def% if you can.
It's not just that - it's more that "Attack %" is only part of the "hit" formula; it also takes into account enemy evasion. Most enemies don't have any evasion worth mentioning, but I wouldn't be surprised if a boss happened to be particularly high in that specific stat for some reason.
Uh, the the remaster of Crisis Core came out last year. It's really good, they fixed a bunch of the issues with the original, bugs and both quality of life problems
I've actually been curious about this, because, like - I've played through most of FFIX, right? And, so far, every game from I to VI and a chunk of VII. So, at this point, it's clear VI, VII, and IX are all going really wild with character designs - you've got Terra the half-Esper with a monster form, Celes the Magitek Knight, Shadow the ninja who never shows his face, Mog the Moogle and Umaro the Yeti - you've got a lot of people with striking concepts, a couple of non-human characters... Then VII ups the ante by bringing in a talking catdog, a crowned cat riding a giant stuffed toy fortune-telling machine, and a fucking vampire, to say nothing of the visual uniqueness of even 'human' characters like Cloud, Barret, Tifa and Aerith. And IX is like - there's a ratgirl Dragoon? An original flavor Black Mage with the yellow eyes inside a black hole? The protagonist is a Saiyan? And there's whatever the hell is going on with the blue mage cook?
I also have a lot to talk about with FF9. I played bits of FF3 and 4, and up to Wall Market in FF7, but the only FF games I've actually played to my jrpg completion % (aka, the moment where the final dungeon is accessible and it's final sidequest roundup, where I lose all interest for no reason) are FF8 and FF9, both of which I adore. Admittedly I largely enjoy FF8 in spite of itself, but still.
Well, you know Vincent's whole thing, yeah? His vibe! His energy! The shadow the hedgehog holding an ak-47 that is insufferably cool to a teenager.
What if it was possible to distill that into a video game?
Well, it turns out you can.
...
And it's kind of crap. Just grindy and boring. Turns out what makes a coolkid cool, is the presence of dweebs. When you have a coolkid in isolation, or only amongst other kids, they lose their appeal and come across as kind of pathetic, and not in an interesting revealing way. Just an exhausting way. It's not even bad in an interesting way. Like, the original original Drakengard is objectively a terrible badly designed game, but fuck, it's at least interesting, and has something to say with 'a dynasty warriors playable character is kind of a terrible mass-murderer when you think about it' thing it had going on.
It doesn't help that Dirge of Cerberus was a third person shooter designed by people whose experience is almost entirely with RPGs, so the gameplay isn't fun, and the plot isn't terribly interesting or fun either, so "stomach the gameplay to enjoy the plot" doesn't really work either.
I mean, actually well developed gameplay and a well-written and thought-provoking plot might have made Dirge of Cerberus a solid and unique adventure game; Soul Reaver has the same Gothic-tryhard aesthetic with cool vampires and managed to be a great game just fine. Similarly, Devil May Cry is in the same ballpark and, while I personally haven't tried it out, only watched it, I've heard mostly good things about it.
It's not like the material to do it wasn't there, either; FFVII itself has a well-written and thought-provoking plot, and plenty of adventure games exist that Dirge of Cerberus could have borrowed elements from to develop interesting gameplay. Even just a Tomb Raider clone reskinned with the FFVII look would have probably been passable.
But Dirge of Cerberus just didn't do any of that, because it's clearly a game developed without real care for quick cash, and thus it has a over-convoluted and unsatisfying plot married to repetitive and uninspired gameplay. It's a very disappointing game, or at least, that's my take on it.
I do like a number of the details in Dirge of Cerberus. The expansion on a number of the characters works for me, the extra details on Shinra make sense, and I liked the addition to the cosmology of the world of 7.
It's just it is packaged in poorly designed, frustrating gameplay, and tied together with a bunch of anime nonsense characters that the writing fails to actually make work.
(Technically spoilers if Omi really cares about seeing a heavily redesigned verison of Vincent's level 4 Limit Break form but come on man this is too good to leave on the floor)
It's just it is packaged in poorly designed, frustrating gameplay, and tied together with a bunch of anime nonsense characters that the writing fails to actually make work.
It doesn't help that Dirge of Cerberus was a third person shooter designed by people whose experience is almost entirely with RPGs, so the gameplay isn't fun, and the plot isn't terribly interesting or fun either, so "stomach the gameplay to enjoy the plot" doesn't really work either.
It's just it is packaged in poorly designed, frustrating gameplay, and tied together with a bunch of anime nonsense characters that the writing fails to actually make work.
One of those anime nonsense characters was apparently popular enough to be one of the representatives of FF7 in the reference overloaded spin off game World of Final Fantasy.
(Technically spoilers if Omi really cares about seeing a heavily redesigned verison of Vincent's level 4 Limit Break form but come on man this is too good to leave on the floor)
Let's just say that I disagree with this assessment, and leave it at that. Also, while it is part a FFVII spinoff, seeing as details about anything that happens in the game might well be spoilers, I think discussing it further might best be moved to the spoiler thread.
(Technically spoilers if Omi really cares about seeing a heavily redesigned verison of Vincent's level 4 Limit Break form but come on man this is too good to leave on the floor)
Welcome back to Final Fantasy VII, the game where we're about to finally complete the full party roster!
Last update, we left off in front of that strange town. It's surrounded by forest, and there is a kind of… Tipping structure in the middle? Hard to tell what that's about from this distance, so let's head there and see for ourselves.
Well. This is something alright.
This is 'Rocket Town', so named for what it was built around (which, incidentally, indicates that the town came after the rocket, rather than the other way around), only the rocket is rusted and covered in moss, and the metal scaffolding around it is damaged and broken. It looks like we might be about to learn more about Shinra's space program!
And oh boy are we. Boy, are we.
Incredible line to be giving to someone who carries around a sword half his size.
People around town talk a lot about a local figure, "the Captain," who seems to be some kind of central character to the town, and who "was a pilot when Shinra was still interested in their Space Program," and was going to be "the world's first astronaut" until an accident put an end to the space program. Most of the town's inhabitants, in fact, used to be mechanics on that rocket, and when the Space Program died they just… Stuck around.
…okay, so we are looking at a setting which, despite its modern aesthetic, has never put a man in space, and in fact the cancellation of the space program is a plot point. That's… Interesting. It's also weird, because we know that Shinra has a whole Space Division. It gets fully one quarter of their library and its executive, Palmer, sits at the big bosses' table. So, what gives? Are space operations today just, like, putting satellites in space? It doesn't seem so, people are emphasizing that the Space Program is fully dead and buried.
Also, there's a seemingly-empty house where, if we explore the backyard, we find this thing:
Is that a… plane? I think it is, the angle is just weird.
Yuffie, being herself, immediately suggest we steal the thing, but as she does, a woman wearing a lab coat interrupts us to ask what the heck we're doing in her backyard.
This being an RPG, of course, she's shockingly chill about it, and tells us that if we'd like to borrow the plane, we should ask the Captain; she is also disappointed that we're just wandering hobos, as she's expecting a visit from Rufus Shinra himself, who might be reopening the Space Program. So, we might have another shot at the President today! That is, unless our characters elect to just stand around with their dicks in their hands as they let another opportunity to assassinate him fly by, but that would never happen.
First, though, let's head to that rocket to find out who that Captain fellow is.
I love the design of the rocket, that rusted, beat-up giant, although as a fun side-note: In the close-up shots, the rocket… Isn't tilted. It's standing straight up, and the floors are level with the ground. It's not a big deal, but it's kinda funny.
Anyway, this is the Captain, and his name is…
…you know, I was thinking it had been a while and we hadn't seen a Cid yet, and there he is! And it looks like he's a playable character, too! His visual design is definitely more normalpilled than Banana Mengele Cid or Chaos Dwarf Cid from IV, he just looks like a slightly aged cool dude with aviator goggles and a cigarette pack holster attached to said goggles.
We can ask Cid about the rocket, or Rufus's visit, or the Tiny Bronco; the latter topics have perfunctory answers ("Yes" and "No" in slightly more words), but the first one has some interesting Shinra lore.
Cid: "You know Shinra developed a lot of technological gadgets during the meaningless war, right? Now it's a Mako company, but in the old days it was a weapons manufacturer. Well, they came up with a Rocket Engine. There was so much excitement about the thought of going into outer space. Our dreams got bigger and bigger." Cid: "They put a major budget into it and made prototype after prototype! Finally, they completed Shinra N°26. They chose the best pilot in Shinra… No, in the world - me. I mean, come on." Cid: "And finally we get to the day of the launch. Everything was goin' well…" Cid: "But, because of that dumbass Shera, the launch got messed up. That's why they became so anal!" Cid: "And so, Shinra nixed their space exploration plans. After they told me how the future was Space Exploration and got my damn hopes up… DAMN THEM!" Cid: "Then, it was all over once they found out Mako energy was profitable. They didn't even so much as look at space exploration. Money, moola, dinero! My dream was just a financial number for them!" Cid: "Look at this rusted Rocket. I was supposed to be the first man in space with this. Every day, it tilts a bit more. At this rate, I don't know which'll be first, this thing falling over or me gettin' outta here. My last hope is to talk to the President."
Oookay. You know, I wasn't expecting the word 'anal' to come up in this script even in this context! But it's interesting to learn that Mako exploitation is new for Shinra - that they initially made their money in weapon manufacturing, and that discovering Mako was a recent development that completely reshaped their focus. Real 'The East India Company stumbles upon tea' hours. And if this was during 'the meaningless war,' then assuming that is referring to the war with Wutai, that would be… Ten years ago at most? That's way more recent than I'd thought.
It's not like they stopped manufacturing weapons, though. In fact it's a pretty significant preoccupation of theirs at this moment! And they clearly still have some kind of space program, so what gives? I guess it makes sense that Cid and the people of Rocket Town wouldn't have the full picture and be mostly concerned with the business that built up their boom town not being so booming anymore.
Anyway, Cid just slumps in a corner and can't be talked to more, so we head back to the house, where the woman in the lab coat, 'that dumbass Shera,' lives, and Cid follows not long after.
The scene that follows is…
It's a lot, guys.
So, Cid walks into the room and immediately yells at Shera to go make tea, throwing in some swears for good measure, and Shera reflexively apologizes in a sheepish tone for not having already done so before being asked. So right off the gate, this is not a great look. Cloud attempts to placate Cid by saying there's no need, don't mind us, and Cid tells him to sit down and drink his goddamned TEA, before storming out into the backyard to work on the Tiny Bronco as a way to distract himself.
At this point what I want to ask Shera is 'has he ever hit you', and it seems I'm not the only one; Cloud apologizes for seemingly causing Cid's anger, and Shera reassures ("reassures") him that it's got nothing to do with that, Cid is always like this. Vincent says, bluntly, "It's amazing that you can live with it," and Shera clarifies that she has to, after all, this is all her fault. She "destroyed his dream."
Oh boy. Trapped by guilt in an abusive relationship, we're really hitting it out of the park here.
So, what could possibly have led to this? What could Shera have done that would explain her guilt and Cid's resentment? How could one woman have single-handedly destroyed his dream of being an astronaut, when we know it supposedly all due to Shinra's financial decisions?
Well, strap in, reader, because it is legitimately insane. If you're expecting something as straightforward as 'she made an accidental mistake that cost Cid his dream and now blames herself for it,' you're underestimating the degree of unhinged character motivations Square was cooking with here.
We open on a flashback to years ago, when the Space Program was still thriving and the Rocket was nearing completion.
The basic premise makes sense enough; Shera has a character flaw, which is that she's too worried about safety, compulsively double and triple and quadruple checking even the sturdiest elements of the rocket, wasting time and delaying everything. And I know there's someone reading this who's already typing up a post about how there is no such thing as too much safety with space engineering but like, there is; at some point, you gotta ship. The rocket's gotta fly eventually. There is a limit to the number of time checking and rechecking equipment that can practically be done if you want to actually deliver one day, and Shera is past it. This is what Cid tries to impart on Shera in that scene, scolding her for wasting time, in a way that I think is meant to suggest that he was, at this point, foul-mouthed but well-meaning, heaping curse words and insults on her just because that's how he talks to everybody, but genuinely thinking well of her trying to teach her better habits, saying "You're not stupid, so be more efficient!"
This is a perfectly reasonable character flaw for a person to have. So far, so good.
Flash forward to the day of the launch.
The fact that the walls are already rusty or damaged would suggest the rocket was crap to begin with, but that's obviously just not wanting to make a special edited version of this background for this one shot.
Everyone working on the project is proud of it and of the dream it represents and salutes Cid as he goes into the cockpit and readies to fly the Shinra N°26 into space. At last, his dream is about to be fulfilled.
All systems are good, the rocket is ready to fly, it's three minutes to launch and the countdown begins.
Then a warning sounds, and someone tells Cid over the comms that there is an emergency:
A mechanic is still in the engine section of the rocket. Cid opens the comms to yell at them, and of course, it's Shera.
Cid asks what the hell she's doing still here, and Shera explains that she was still concerned, the results of the oxygen tank 'weren't satisfactory,' and so she came back to double-check everything.
She snuck. Onto a rocket. On the day of the launch. To do unauthorized equipment checking.
Cid yells at her that she has to get out or she'll be fried to a crisp when the engine turns on, and she tells him that she doesn't mind, and goes back to work on the engine. Cid yells at her, tries to get her to leave, and she just calmly carries on with her work, even as the countdown to her being fucking incinerated begins. The scene tries to play this for genuine drama, with a 30 second countdown appearing on the screen and Shera giving Cid updates on her progress as Cid begs her to hurry up and leave, but like.
Obviously Cid aborts the launch.
The game actually does a fake out where the rocket starts to power up and lifts off, then the engines turn off and it lands back on the launch pad, which I'm pretty sure would fuck up a real rocket something fierce, but that's not really important. Then there is this really, really cool shot of the rocket slowly tipping over and growing covered in moss over time as Rocket Town is built around it, which is just flawless.
Shera concludes her story, saying that Cid pushed the emergency shutdown button to save her life, and that after that, the Space Program was cut back and the launch was cancelled. That's why she's responsible for the destruction of Cid's dream, and why she'll dedicate her life to him no matter how much abuse he heaps on her.
Which is.
Insane.
We walk into this dude's house and he's like "Hello I'm Mr Sexism Man, Shera go make me a sandwich" and then Shera goes "No I'm okay with this because I fucked up the world's only ever space launch with my OCD and they cancelled the Appolo Program right after that so there never was a man in space" and I just. What.
Like, Shera is right, it's totally her fault, she did fuck up the launch, which to be clear doesn't excuse Cid's behavior towards her, but the absolute insanity of her sneaking onto the rocket and then going "Don't worry about me Cid, just incinerate me, burn me alive, straight up kill me it's fine, I don't mind," like - what the fuck, girl? And also this got the entire space program canceled??? They missed literally one launch and then just pulled the plug forever???
I get what they're going for with Cid's archetype, he's a stand-in for a real world type, the kind of guy who is mad that we don't go to the moon anymore and dreams of Mars and beyond, with a special touch of personal bitterness because he was supposed to be the one to do it (this is incidentally part of the initial characterization of the protagonist of For All Mankind, a pretty good show I recommend watching), and I get it, I can even find that relatable, but this whole scenario is such a baffling way to approach that.
Anyway, Cid comes back, yells at us for not having taken a seat and asks if we have a problem with his hospitality while putting his feet up on the table (and I'm pretty sure Shera is the one cleaning the place), but then… Shinra is here.
Oh no, it's the Fat Joke Man!
We are so getting canceled on Twitter for this update.
Cid asks Palmer if they're going to restart the Space Program, Palmer tells him he has no idea and to ask Rufus who is waiting outside, and Cid barrels past him while calling him a "fat [REDACTED]." Palmer complains about being called fat then, seeing Shera is making tea for us, asks if he can have some as well, with "sugar," "honey, and… "Don't forget the lard."
You see. It's funny. Because he is so fat. Because he eats too much. To the point of putting lard in his tea.
…
In the interest of making this an interesting post introducing my readers to new things they might not have heard of, there is such a thing as butter tea: a Central Asian drink which is traditionally made from tea, yak butter, water and salt. This is traditionally done using pu-erh tea (which is a kind of fermented tea with a specific taste) and churning as one would better, though in the modern day a blender is typically used (you need the high churn to emulsify everything otherwise you'll just end up with tea that has fat floating in it). Notably, butter tea is not sweetened, and is instead drunk with salt; you're not going to get the flavor and texture it's going for by dunking a chunk of butter in your mug of English Breakfast tea with cream and two sugar cubes. And it absolutely does not use lard.
No, Palmer's thing here as no relation to butter tea and is just a joke about him being fat.
Oh, yeah, he also completely fails to recognize Cloud and the gang, because he's not just fat but also stupid, I guess.
I was confused as to why the Space Program was both "shut down years ago" and "active with its own division and executive looking for a budget increase," and I guess the way the game is reconciling those two things is "Palmer, and by extension is entire division, are a joke."
…yes, I think that is actually what's happening, though. At some point, President Shinra decided to focus away from the Space Program onto Mako, but simply shutting down the whole division out of nowhere would have been wildly unpopular, put a ton of people out of work at a time when he didn't yet have the political power to get away with it, and made the lower level execs rebel. So instead, what he did was put an incompetent suit in charge - a man under whose oversight the Space Program would just dwindle away on its own from bad management and probably financial crimes, which would justify Shinra reducing their budget, which would start a doom spiral allowing Shinra to progressively redirect the Space Program resources towards stuff they actually did care about. In this context, Palmer being an absolute buffoon isn't a problem, it's a feature.
Yeah, I can work with that.
Alright, let's go kill Rufus.
Cid: "What the!? You got me all excited for nothing!? Then, what'd you come here for?" Rufus: "I want to borrow the Tiny Bronco. We're going after Sephiroth. But seems like we've been going in the wrong direction." Rufus: "But now, we know where he's headed. But, we have to cross the ocean. That's why we want your plane…" Cid: "&^#^%! First the Airship, then the Rocket, and now, the Tiny Bronco. Shinra took outer space away from me and now you want to take the sky away from me too!?" Rufus: "Oh my… You seem to forget it was because of Shinra, Inc. that you were able to fly in the first place." Cid: "What!?" Shera: [To Cloud] "Uh, excuse me… This way…" [She leads us back into the house.]
…
I'm sorry, what? Is the Tiny Bronco the only plane in the world? What? We saw a civilian-owned seaplane in Costa del Sol on our way here! There's an entire fleet of airships back in Junon! Why did they need to trek halfway across the continent to this dying boom town so they could comandeer this one guy's shitty backyard plane? Like, the Tiny Bronco is just… A hobby plane? It's a Cessna?? It can seat maybe two people???
Never mind. I'm not supposed to be thinking about this. Cloud, intimidated by the presence of the one (1) Shinra soldier keeping an eye on the scene, decides to just not even confront him and goes back inside. In the house, Shera tells us "you wanted to use the Tiny Bronco, right?" I'm not sure at what point this was a decision our characters made rather than just another criminal idea by Yuffie, but apparently we did, so she tells us Palmer is going to take the plane and we should talk to him.
Confronted with Cloud and two other people he's never seen before, Palmer finally recognizes us as the guys who were in the building when the old President was killed and calls security, but no one is coming, and so… He decides to fight us himself.
Much clearer view of the plane from this angle.
Oh, my god. He's actually doing this.
Palmer is a gag battle, more than anything. His only weapon is the Mako Gun, a silly little musket-looking thing that fires for single-target elemental damage.
He has 6k HP, which is a lot less impressive than it was a Materia Keeper and a Lost Number ago, especially considering…
Odin hits him for a full sixth of his HP.
Also, Palmer does a silly little dance the entire time he's fighting, and sometimes instead of a combat action he just… moons us?
Incredible.
Really the only difficulty in this fight ends up that Vincent does nothing the entire time. Since his Sniper CR weapon has 255 Accuracy, I put a Deathblow Materia on him, and tried to Deathblow Palmer three times. Vincent missed all three times. Then he hit Limit Break, turned into his badass monster form, and… Proceeded to miss with all his attacks.
I don't know what was going on with Vincent that day, but either way it's irrelevant. Even with a party member essentially sitting out the fight (again, he missed every single one of his attacks), we defeat Palmer easily, whereupon he does a little… Drunk laugh? He says "heh heh hic!", and a hiccup is a stereotypical indication of a drunk character, and he does seem like he's off his rocker, but also it wasn't previously indicated?
Anyway, at this point it turns out that Palmer had turned on the Tiny Bronco and had left the engine running while fighting us, and now the plane is going out of control, turning around and nearly beheading Palmer with its wings, which he manages to dodge with surprising nimbleness.
He immediately rises to taunt us in a childish way, then turns around and runs.
And instantly gets isekai'd.
Okay, I will admit: When this happened I burst out laughing. Not even 'snorted a little loud in an appreciative way' or 'chuckled silently,' I actually just laughed out loud. The whole fight is ridiculous, but this is the part that elevates it to perfect comedy. And it's a Shinra truck! He got punted into oblivion by his own employees.
Look both ways before crossing the street, kids.
Anyway, we get onto the Tiny Bronco, one of the characters says they can't figure out how to stop the engine, and Cloud says to forget it and just grab onto the damned thing.
The Tiny Bronco goes flying over the rooftops of Rocket Town and Cid panics, rushing after the plane, and barely manages to latch onto the wing just as a Shinra soldier fires at the plane and manages to hit the tail, causing it to start losing altitude.
The whole escape sequence is fantastic, no notes. The music, the sense of speed and dynamism it's using, the background shots, it's great action.
But now, we're stuck dead in the water. To be clear, the Tiny Bronco's engine still works, it's the tail rudder which no longer does, which means the plane's engine can work, it just can't… fly, specifically.
Which means we are in the extremely odd situation where we just obtained a new vehicle which is ostensibly a plane, but its actual use case is as… A ship.
Cloud asks Cid what his plans are now, and Cid says he has no idea, he's now going to be persona non grata with Shinra and Rocket Town is a dead end. Cloud asks about his "wife, Shera," and Cid laughs off the very possibility of them being married, saying "just thinkin' about marryin' her gives me chills."
I love that we have a Sexism Cid now to go after Banana Mengele. Just what we needed.
Cloud offers Cid to join their group, asking 'what about it, everyone,' only because the team is currently made up of Vincent and Yuffie, the result is Vincent saying he doesn't give a shit and Yuffie not even bothering to answer.
Cid: "So, where we headed? Rufus was going after Sephiroth to the Temple of the Ancients." Cloud: "Really!? …Where is it? That Temple of the Ancients?" Cid: "Dunno. That numbskull kid was tellin' me he was headin' 'the wrong direction'... so maybe it's off this way?" Cloud: "Let's just head for land and get some information. Temple of the Ancients… That name bothers me." Yuffie: "...Hm. How 'bout goin' west? No, no reason. NO reason at all!"
Yuffie, you're the least suspicious person alive, it's kind of incredible.
But hey at least she's giving us a clear direction, because the whole exchange about the Temple of the Ancients and going the wrong way and where 'off this way' is even meant to be is pretty much impenetrable. So let's go West!
As said, the Tiny Bronco essentially acts as a ship, and not a very good one. It can't go into deep waters (presumably because the waves would capsize it), so it has to hug the shores. Within these limitations, however, we can get some use out of the thing; it's immune to random encounters, so we can take all our time scouting the shores we have access to. However, the Tiny Bronco can only land on 'shore' area, like those beaches:
Which means getting to any actual location involves trekking overland, sometimes pretty circuitously.
As a side note, I redid the entire Rocket Town sequence with a different party (Barret and Aerith) to see if they had special dialogue related to either Rufus or the Temple of the Ancients, but no, they mostly just let it all go without comment.
And I think with this, we've officially completed the full FFVII party roster? I've seen enough lineups of the playable characters that I don't think there's anyone missing. That would make Yuffie and Vincent the two optional characters, and I think everyone else mandatory?
So far, I'm not impressed with Cid, I gotta say. The entire Rocket Town sequence is just kind of baffling. Like, a story about how, for one moment, there was a dream of space exploration, and then it was shot down by prosaic concerns over finance and selling energy and now the planet is dying, would… Probably have hit better before real-world politics shifted space exploration into the realm of 'the rich want to escape this earth so that they don't have to bother keeping it from dying,' but still hit me somewhere in my nostalgic sci-fi feelings, but no. The Cid/Shera psychodrama is too ridiculous for this. It sure is funny that he says a lot of swear words, though!
With the Tiny Bronco, we can now do some measure of exploration! Sort of. The FFVII map sucks ass compared to the Pixel Remaster world maps; its transparency makes it hard to read, its various obstructions and navigable environments are not indicated (can't see rivers, can't see the exact spread of shallow waters), and the camera can only see a very small slice of the world at a time, so navigation is very frustrating, and I end up deciding to just go with the last directions I was given - West, as Yuffie suggested extremely innocently and with no further motive whatsoever.
See what I mean?
Just as we set foot on the continent, Yuffie runs ahead of the group and blocks the path. When Vincent asks what she's doing, Yuffie folds her hands behind her back, doing her best fake innocent air.
Yuffie: "I know this area pretty well. It gets pretty tough past here. Better get ready…" Vincent: "Further down? I don't see any signs of danger…" Vincent: "There's something unnatural in the way Yuffie is acting…" Yuffie: "No! It's REALLY tough…" Voice: "There they are! Catch them!"
Shinra Soldier: "Hey, that's not them! These are the other guys from before!!" Vincent: "So what does this mean? You will explain later." Yuffie: "I didn't know! I had nothing to do with this one!" Vincent: "What do you mean, 'this one'? You had something else in mind?" Yuffie: "No, umm, uh…" Shinra Soldier: "What do we do!?" Other Shinra Soldier: "Uh… Get them! Grab them and ask questions later!"
This prompts a fight with the Shinra soldiers. Now, we've had a dozen of those at this point, there's not really anything weird to… expect… from…
Okay so just as the soldiers rush in, Yuffie turns tail and ninja-runs away.*
*Incidentally, I think I forgot to mention what I meant by this earlier, but Yuffie's running animation literally has her holding one hand in front of her, presumably doing a hand-sign, while her other arm trails behind her Naruto-like. She's ninja-running.
Okay well I guess we have to do this without Yuffie, not a big deal, we'll just-
Hey. Wait a second. Why do I only have the Attack and Item commands???
IT'S NOT JUST CLOUD IT'S VINCENT TOO, ALL MY ABILITIES ARE GONE.
Okay so even with that handicap and only two party members, these are still Shinra soldiers at the end of the day, we kick their teeth in but, but but but-
The fight ends and Yuffie is gone. It's only Vincent and Cloud.
Vincent: "I thought something was wrong. So that's it. My Materia's been stolen…
…and then Barret arrives, exclaiming that ALL OUR MATERIA WAS STOLEN. ALL OF IT.
How did she even do that??? Half of this stuff is slotted into gear which our characters carry on their person! Did she - did she swap every single Materia with a similar-looking but useless shiny rock overnight?? Is this why it's taken her so long to put her plan into action? Was Yuffie carving fake Materia rocks every night until she had a full set to swap in to fool us?
Well, logistics of it aside, we.
We don't have any Materia left.
She stole all of it and ran.
Absolutely outstanding move. I am utterly flummoxed.
Obviously, the group declares that we can't let her get away, and that we should follow her 'North.' Which is…
A trek.
…
Final Fantasy's maps have never really be engaging to traverse, as such. At best, they may be aesthetically neat. The Floating Continent is cool, the Dwarven Underworld is cool, the Merged World has a lot of 'figuring out where everything went in this new configuration' energy, but ultimately it's a map, and very utilitarian.
Here though, the game has practically created an overworld dungeon. There is one path through the mountain, through rope bridges and mountain passes. It actually does a decent job at making the world feel a little bigger, like this is a real trek through the wilderness. And the fact that the Materia is gone gives it an edge of challenge, although one that has to be brief to not overstay its welcome, as the Materia being gone also means that, uh, all the mechanical depth of the game is gone beyond "Attack "and "Limit Breaks."
Trying to make a mental note of that cave in the distance and remember to get back there when I have the chance.
Oh hey, look! The… Adamantaimai? Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is supposed to the Adamantoise.
Only - okay, this is interesting; it looks like the 'Adamantoise,' in Japanese, has always been 'Adamantaimai', which is a portmanteau/pun of 'Adamantite' and 'Taimai,' with Taimai being the Japanese name for a particular species of sea turtle. So 'Adamantoise' was the translators' way of rendering that portmanteau in a way that would scan to an English audience…
…but I think the word didn't even exist at this point?
It looks like translations of earlier games in the series all had a weird idiosyncratic way of translating the name within character limits - Adamanti/Adamant in II, Turtle in IV, Adamantaim in V. And the FFVII translator just went with the name as written because he had no time to be coming up with Pokémon-style translations of puns and portmanteaux. So the Adamantoise, at this stage, did not have its name.
Anyway, with its ability to cast Barrier spells on itself and our continued lack of Materia, the Adamantaimai is a brief stumbling block, and then we've reached the northern tip of the westernmost continent on the map…
Oh my. Those roofs… Those red walls… That aesthetic… Could it be?
Yes, indeed: This is Wutai, the very country against which Shinra was at war until a scant few years ago - and, it would seem, Yuffie's homeland, and where she ran off to with our stolen Materia. She sees us as we arrive, and immediately runs off out of the screen. But we won't be chasing after her today, as this seems as good a point as any to stop for now.
…
Well that was a hot mess and a half, wasn't it? I think I've said enough about the Rocket Town sequence at this point, so I'll just leave it at "[gestures at the whole thing]." Also, I'm pretty sure Yuffie successfully waylaid us here, and the Wutai continent was not where we were supposed to go for that whole 'Temple of the Ancients' thing and this whole subplot just side-tracked us into optional content. I can't begrudge her, though; her theft of the century of all the party's Materia, somehow is genuinely kind of hilarious, and I'm intrigued to see where it leads and finally get to discover Wutai after it was brought up a few times (and more in the Remake; interestingly, the Remake posits Wutai as a rival power that is actively engaged in a cold war/standoff with Midgar and that they need a casus belli to move against, hence all the cloak and dagger around the terrorist attacks, whereas here they seem to come in very much already beaten). And… yeah, I think that's all there's to say for today.
