It's the entertaining facility. Dio has dirt on every single one Shinra executive.
So God help him, if you want the keystone, you will fight a dragon as a toad, and he will film it, Shinra or not.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
It's the entertaining facility. Dio has dirt on every single one Shinra executive.
So God help him, if you want the keystone, you will fight a dragon as a toad, and he will film it, Shinra or not.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Aside from Palmer (who is enough of a gag to feel shame and be blackmailed if its funny) and Reeve (who has a conscience), I struggle to think what any of them could possibly have done that would actually make them feel shame enough for blackmail to work
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Guile
Having a really great time right now
Dio: Rogue ShinRa Executive.
He'd fit right in with the rest of the loonies on the board.
More seriously, I imagine it's a Russia situation, where the government and the oligarch are so interconnected through a hundred kickbacks, sweetheart deals and nepo appointments it's hard to separate them.
Participating in that school-level play and smooching the dragon.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's a good question!
One possible answer is that we've just been wrong this whole time and Gold Saucer has no affiliation to Shinra, the destruction of Corell just happened to clear the land Dio picked up as real estate as a legitimate customer and Shinra only mattered to the whole affair in that they provided the land.
I think what's more likely is that Gold Saucer is run by Shinra but Dio is given both a relative degree of independence and little information about Shinra's most sensitive dealings, so he's not an effective toady; he doesn't even know or care that Cloud and his friends are wanted terrorists and nobody is breathing down his neck to get him to behave because Gold Saucer is too profitable. He was probably brought on board after Corel happened and had no involvement in its destruction, and made Gold Saucer his personal fief over time, but as long as it keeps making the parent company the big bucks, they're uninterested in messing with the golden goose - meanwhile, Dio himself is fantastically wealthy in the same was a casino CEO would be.
I think he purchased the Keystone out of personal interest and had no idea the Shinra execs were looking for it, and no one asked him because why would they assume this one guy has it for some reason? He's a spanner in the Shinra works without even knowing it.
Yeah, I always got the strong impression that Dio was his own thing; a super-rich idiot with his own playground living in his own fantasy world. Shinra likely indulges him because he's rich and that's how they roll, but I rather doubt they'd trust him. "Reliable" is not the first thing I think of when I consider Dio.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
President Shinra saw that Dio had made a gold statue of himself and said "That's my kinda man, we are on the same wavelength, give him twenty billion gil"
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
Interesting; what's the reason for presuming that? The evidence I'm recalling seems to be mostly against it, but I may be missing something.21stCentury said:
Like, for one, when first meeting Cait Sith, there has to be an actual introduction; it's not "Oh, hey, it's a robot/costume of world-famous character <name entry screen>, and it's coming towards us.". And has Cait Sith's likeness appeared anywhere except Cait Sith?
Oh, Mog, sure, I think there's plenty of evidence that can support that.21stCentury said:
21stCentury
Let's get down to bismuth
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Cait Sith was a summon in some other FFs. Therefore we can infer that Cait Sith may be considered, if not a corporate-created character, a folk or myth character here as well.
same for Mog.
So maybe not a Mickey mouse suit, but maybe more like a Disney's Hercules' Phil the Satyr suit.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Not really? A quick check of the wiki shows that, excepting remakes (specifically ff2) ff4 and ff5 had in certain language versions certain common, normal enemies get called Cait Sith.
Then ff6 actually had it as a (minor, plot unimportant summon) alongside its pile of other summons.
ff7 is the first time anything all that significant was done with it, and only the second definitive appearance of Cait Sith at all.
Like even aside the fact that the status and background of various monsters, summons, and so on changes wildly between games/settings of the franchise, this isn't like if we had a party member of, say, Shiva, Ramuh, Ifreet, Odin, Bahamut, or Leviathan, all of whom have had much more major and overall more consistent significance throughout the prior games.
A chibi-bahamut I'd agree could be assumed to be a sort of mascot character, but I don't see a reason to assume Cait Sith necessarily is anything other than just a remote control drone with no particular background, at least not based on the series precedent and plot so far. Maybe something later in ff7 will put forward the idea, but not at this stage at least.
REEVE: "But sir, we've heard some disturbing rumors that this Mr. Dio is utilizing the inmates of Corel Prison as indentured labor for his Chocobo Racing and gladiatorial games. In fact, there's evidence of collusion between-"
PRES SHINRA: " That's it, I've heard enough! ...Make it thirty billion gil, and an invitation to the office Christmas party. I want to personally shake this man's hand!"
Of course, all of that comes out of Palmer's operating budget.
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Final Fantasy VII, Part 22: The Temple of the Ancients, Part A
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back to Final Fantasy VII, the game where I caught the sickness midway through writing this update and wrote most of it while dying on the inside and also the outside, so please forgive if my brain is not at full power.
It's time to head for the Temple of the Ancients.
The Temple of the Ancients. Located on the far southern archipelago of the Planet, it seems modeled after the Aztec pyramids - it has their traditional stepped architecture with a raised shrine at the entrance, and is located deep within some kind of jungle. It's an interesting style to use for the bygone civilization of the ancestors. Though as we're about to see, the Temple blends architectural styles, with internal Egyptian decorations inside this Aztec temple.
As we approach, Aerith does something weird, stepping forward and leaning down across the bridge to listen to the… voices? Of the Temple? Of the Planet?
Okay look Aerith I know you work with the 3D backgrounds you're given but can you not do this in the middle of a suspended rope bridge over a bottomless moat girl please.
Aerith: "I… I know… I feel it… The knowledge of the Ancients… floating…"
Aerith: "You could become one with the Planet, but you're stopping it with the strength of will."
Aerith: "For the future? For us?"
Cloud: "What are you saying? Do you understand?"
[Aerith stands up and crosses the threshold before looking at the Temple.]
Aerith: You're uneasy… But happy? Because I'm here? I'm sorry… I don't understand."
[At the top of the stairs, another Black Cape emerges, staggering around and falling.]
Aerith: "I want to go inside!"
Hmm. How did that Clone even find its way there?
If my theory is correct, and Sephiroth body-jacks Copies to get around, then it's most likely that he got here while possessing this Copy, did whatever he needed inside the Temple, and then ditched it when he was done. Which means we're going to find we were predictably preceded here not just by Shinra, but by Sephiroth himself.
The clone moans the name of the Black Materia, then a great light shines and its body rises into the air - and disappears.
It looks like the Temple is home to the spirits of actual Ancients, still active, resisting the pull of the Planet with their will for a greater purpose - interesting. Let's see what that's about.
Inside the temple, we find a gravely injured Tseng. Gravely, but not fatally; the man is still alive, and can talk and move. Sloppy on Seph's part, if you ask me. As we approach, he gets up, and drops a… possibly huge reveal?
Tseng: "Oh, I've been tricked"
Tseng: "It's not the Promised Land… Sephiroth is searching for…"
Cloud: "Sephiroth? He's inside!?"
Tseng: "Look… for yourself…"
Tseng: "Damn… Letting Aerith go was the start… of my… bad luck… The President… was wrong…"
Aerith: "You're wrong. The Promised Land isn't like what you imagined. And, I'm not going to help. Either way, there's no way Shinra could have won."
Tseng: "...Pretty harsh. Sounds like something… you'd say."
Tseng: "The Keystone… Place it… on… the altar…"
[He gives us the Keystone, then gets up and stumbles away from the altar. Cloud approaches Aerith.]
Cloud: "You're crying?"
Aerith: "Tseng's with our enemy, the Turks, but I've known him since we were little… There's not a lot of people I can say that about. In fact, there are probably only a handful of people in the world who really know me."
It's funny. Once again, I can see how that exchange's original context might get blurry over time and someone might come out of this thinking, 'Aerith is so pure of heart she'll even weep for Tseng', when the reality of that scene is a lot… Sadder? There's something really poignant to Aerith having had so few people who truly knew her that she ends up mourning a man who abducted her and delivered her to Hojo because he's the closest thing she's got to a family friend.
There's a kind of loneliness to Aerith that she masks with her gregarious playful behavior but that's at the heart of a lot of her character conflict, including roping Cloud into her Wild Slum Adventure at the start of the game, and that's only intensified after the discovery that she was an Ancient - different from everyone else; in a very real sense, alien.
We put the keystone on the altar, and it begins to glow and then, instead of a door opening, Cloud just… phases through the floor.
We find ourselves in some kind of mad architectural landscape, bridges and stairs looping in and around themselves. Not far from us, there is a weird… Blue… Bearded thing wearing a hat? As Aerith and Tifa take in the place with wonder, it flees. Following it through the level's labyrinthine architecture is going to be our first goal for this dungeon.
As a dungeon, the Temple of the Ancients is pretty cool. It's one of the more 'classical' dungeons in the game, being an actual ancient forgotten temple, which is something VII's not given us much of (though it did have several of the other classical model of dungeon, 'literally just a cave'), and it's cool that, as appropriate to such an ancient temple, it's full of cool artifacts for us to loot. Some of which are… a bit less explicable than others, perhaps (there's a new weapon for Barret in the form an ancient high-tech rocket punch). Also, cool monsters!
Love the detailing on the temple walls in the combat background.
Eventually we make our way to a room in which Purple Beard has fled, and attempt to confront him - without very much success, though the encounter is informative enough: It's mute.
Aerith then explains to us that this thing is… An Ancient? Specifically the "spirit body" of an Ancient, that stayed behind rather than return to the Planet. Okay, when Aerith said she could hear the voices of the Ancients I didn't think she meant they were literally, physically hanging around. Or, well, 'physically.' Over time, they somehow lost the ability to talk - Aerith is able to sense their 'voice' but only partially.
How convenient. We meet actual Ancients, and we can't even ask them anything. But I guess if I just spent thousands of years sitting in the same empty temple I'd probably forget how to talk at some point too.
The Ancient (and other identical Ancients we'll meet throughout the dungeon) acts as a save point, inn, and shop all at once, which we probably shouldn't be looking too hard at (why do they need money?).
The path through the Looping Room is obscured by its, well, looping architecture, eventually we make it through, collecting a bunch of items on the way, which include new weapons for almost everyone - the Silver Rifle for Vincent, the Rocket Punch for Barret, the Nail Bat for Cloud…
Yes, that's right, a nail bat.
All of these items have one thing in common - they have very high stats, far superior to the other equipment we have access to at this stage in the game, but they lack something else.
Say, do you remember how Sephiroth told us about how Materia is the condensed knowledge of the Ancients?
So, Ancients, who already did have that knowledge themselves, and who at the time of their apogee were not extinct and all drifting around as souls pooling together in places, would have no need for Materia, and Materia might not even have existed in their time, right?
Therefore, none of the weapons found in the Temple of the Ancients has any Materia slots.
This a pretty funny gag, and it does make in-universe sense. It also severely limits how useful the loot from this Temple will be to us, though. There are uses for it - Tifa is a strong attacker with a multi-hit limit break, so equipping her with the 'Work Gloves' (which are mittens) and just using her mostly to attack would work fine. In the end, though, I decide not to use them because Materia growth takes enough time as it is already.
Once we've made our way out of the Looping Room, we find this: a really annoying piece of platforming in which giant three-quarter circle rocks are rolling along a bridge across the void. If they touch us, they'll pancake Cloud and drag him back to the entrance (though this does no damage). In order to make it through, we have to time our run to be under the open part of the three-quarter circle when it goes over us… And then do it again multiple times as more rocks come falling down. It's impossible to get right the first time, trial and error is the only way through, and it's damn annoying.
At least there's this weird mystical pool in which we find the Morph Materia. Yay? Morph is weird, potentially game-breaking Command: what it does is deliver a very weak attack, but if that attack would kill the enemy, it instead transforms it into an item. This is a… Better and more interesting idea than Ragnarok's Metamorphose which was purely luck-based, I think, but it's also one that requires considerable set-up to actually make use of (you need to bring an enemy to within a very low percentage of health but not kill it and all that), and the rewards would be, as far as I'm concerned, totally random unless I actually look up a guide to find out which specific enemies give which specific items.
If I did do that, though, Morph would be the way to farm Source items, increasing my characters' ability ratings potentially up to 99 and breaking the game. But mostly it's probably going to stay in the cupboard.
Once we make it to the other end of the room, the stones stop rolling in, and the group splits us to sigh in relief at their success - then Aerith turns around and asks the others to come quickly, as the magic pool is acting, well, magically.
Aerith: "It's full of the knowledge of the Ancients."
Aerith: "No… Not knowledge… Consciousness… A living soul…"
Aerith: "It's trying to say something."
Aerith: "I'm sorry, I don't understand. What is it?"
Aerith: "...Danger? An evil… Consciousness?"
Aerith: "...show? You're going to show me?"
The pool glows with a great light, engulfing the characters, and we are shown a vision of the past - incidentally, what did I say? Egyptian murals inside an Aztec pyramid.
This is making me irrationally mad. Ancient things are not interchangeable. I get that the Ancients are fictional but - you can't just grab a literal Egyptian mural, down to THE STYLE OF HATS AND HYEROGLYPHS, and put it in a Mesoamerican pyramid!! You can't do that!! It's illegal!!!
Anyway.
In the vision, Elena appears.
Elena: "Tseng, what's this? Can we find the Promised Land with this?"
Tseng: "...I wonder. Anyway, we have to report to the President."
Elena: "Be careful, Tseng."
Tseng: "Yeah… Hey, Elena, how 'bout dinner after this job's over?"
Elena: "Th… Thank you very much. If I may be excused…"
INAPPROPRIATE WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR, TSENG. DON'T FRATERNIZE WITH YOUR SUBORDINATES!
As Tseng studies the mural and everyone is looking at him, another ghostly presence appears - then, shortly after, manifests within the vision.
…hm.
Can't help but notice Sephiroth was translucent a moment ago - like Cloud, Aerith and Tifa. As if he, too, were someone observing the vision as a dematerialized spirit, rather than a presence in the flashback being replayed. Also… When he appears, he is briefly fully white before taking on his normal colors.
Sephiroth: "So you opened the door. Well done."
Tseng: "This place… what is it?"
Sephiroth: "A lost treasure house of knowledge. The wisdom of the Ancients…"
Sephiroth: [He opens his arms wide, looking up towards the sky.] "I am becoming one with the Planet."
Tseng: "One with the Planet?"
Sephiroth: "You stupid fools. You have never even thought about it. All the spirit energy of this Planet. All its wisdom… knowledge… I will meld with it all. I will become one with it… it will become one with me."
While he speaks, a second Sephiroth appears, and that one is translucent, standing ghost-like in front of the party.
Tseng: "...You can do that?"
Sephiroth: "The way… lies here."
[He cuts down Tseng.]
Sephiroth: "Only death awaits you all. But do not fear. For it is through death that a new spirit energy is born. Soon, you will live again as a part of me…"
[The screen turns red,and the vision fades.]
Hmm.
I don't know if my "disembodied Sephiroth in the Lifestream" hypothesis is correct, but if it isn't, then I think it's what he's trying to achieve. He's trying to merge with the Lifestream in a way that will grant it full control over it. That weird effect where he was first translucent, then became white, then became physical, though, that's interesting - was he teleporting? Or are we seeing the process of Ghost Sephiroth materializing himself? Did he teleport while in the body of a Copy and it put too much strain on its body, so Sephiroth ditched it before it could die?
I think the presence of two Sephiroths in the vision at the same time, though, a physical one talking to Tseng in the past and an intangible one, suggests to me that Sephiroth saw this - saw us watching the flashback.
I don't think it's going to be very safe here for much longer.
Outside the pool, Cloud asks where the room with the pictures on the walls is, and Aerith tells him it's not far - and Cloud declares that "no matter what he thinks, it's going to end here. I'm taking him out!"
The next room is…
…this damned thing.
So, this a fairly simple puzzle: the Time Guardian allows us to move the minute hand of the clock. By moving the hands to a specific hour, we can cross the room by using the hands. So for instance, as the clock is configured when we enter, we can leave from this X exit and head through the II doorway. It's time-consuming but straightforward; most of the entrances contain either a simple chest room, or nothing but rubble.
The 'Trumpet Shell' is, of course, an Ancient Megaphone for Cait Sith.
One of the doors actually leads us back into the looping room, where we actually find something really valuable: our first Ribbon!
Ribbon, as ever, provide immunity to nearly all status effects, which should make the Battle Square easier once we get back to it.
The door at twelve o'clock contains an ominous door which plays Trail of Blood as we approach it, but it's locked and we can't get in yet.
While in the process of working the clock, though, something happens that I hadn't thought about - the second hand of the clock, which moves much faster across the room, connects with us as we're making our way across the minute hand, and sweeps Cloud at the knees, sending him toppling down!
As soon as we land in front of this dinosaur mural, we are attacked by two dragons - not just dragons, but ancient dragons! There is a kind of insectile, dragonfly-like cast to their wings that I like as a design touch.
They're not too tough, though.
Zantetsuken looks so cool.
We beat them, collect the Nail Bat from the chest at the foot of the dino mural, exit back into the looping room, back to the clock, and complete our turn, landing… there.
An Ancient spirit runs away from these doors into this tunnel as we approach; when checking the door we find that it's locked, so we have to catch the little rascal to get his keys. It's an annoying puzzle where each door you go in leads to a specific other door, so we have to watch the Ancient move, memorize which door leads to which door, and then ambush him by going into the door connected to the next door he moves through… Did that make any sense? I'm struggling to explain this puzzle in comprehensible English. Anyway, because of the number of possible doors this is really annoying and takes a really long time…
…unless we just memorize which door the first door he enters leads to, exit the room, come back in, resetting the puzzle, and then ambush him immediately.
Aerith, when you say things like that it actually makes me more worried.
We enter the door that's now been unlocked and, surprise! It's the Egyptian mural room!
Cloud walks into the room, and asks aloud for Sephiroth to come out and show himself.
I guess this is the part where we find out if Sephiroth was physically, actually inside the pyramid, in which case he wasn't possessing the Copy outside and it just showed up for unrelated reason and my whole theory crumbles…
GHOST SEPHIROTH APPEARS. THE THEORY STILL HOLDS UP.
Sephiroth: "So cold. I am always by your side. Come." [He flies up; the screen flashes.]
'I am always by your side'... That definitely doesn't sound like something to be worried about re: Cloud's mental state!
The group rushes forward, the screen flashes, and there…
…well.
It does look like Sephiroth is, in fact, here, physically present. So… why did he just show up in ghost form and disappear, when his physical self was literally a few meters to the side? Now I'm no longer sure.
Sephiroth turns away from admiring the mural to approach the group, sword in hand.
Cloud shouts that once again, he has no idea what cryptic bullshit Sephiroth is on, and Sephiroth starts chuckling - then starts flashing and flies up through the ceiling.
Oookay. Maybe not so physical a presence then. The group advances and once again, looking at a different mural, there's Sephiroth.
Sephiroth: "Look well."
Cloud: "At what!?"
Sephiroth: "At that which adds to the knowledge of…"
Sephiroth: "I am becoming one with the Planet."
"That which adds to the knowledge of" sounds like the translator had an off day and just copy-pasted a dictionary definition in there. It's not a sentence anyone would say like that. In the Retranslation, he instead says "At the one who will be endowed with the wisdom of the Ancients," which makes a lot more sense. As well, the present tense of "I am becoming one with the Planet" makes it sound like this is a currently happening process, that Sephiroth is, right now, merging with the world-spirit, which lends credence to my theory… But in the Retranslation he says "I will become one with the Planet," future tense, so who knows.
Again, he flashes and disappears, and we move on.
…okay, so, these murals are telling a story, aren't they.
The temple contains something - a crystal (a Materia?). The Ancients take the crystal from its altar. They brandish it to the sky. This summons a meteor which strikes the world. The Ancients burn in its flames.
…did they build a doomsday device Materia?
Why on earth would they build a doomsday device Materia???
Well, luckily, while we may not be getting a reason, we're getting the next best thing - Sephiroth's plan, finally laid out for us. As the group approaches, Sephiroth, unworried, stands up from next to the altar, and for once, actually answers our questions.
Aerith: "How do you intend to become one with the Planet?"
Sephiroth: "It's simple. Once the Planet is hurt, it gathers Spirit Energy to heal the injury. The amount of energy depends on the size of the injury."
Sephiroth: "...What if there was an injury that threatened the very life of the Planet? Think of how much energy would be gathered!"
Sephiroth: "All that boundless energy will be mine. By emerging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence."
Sephiroth: "Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now… Only to be reborn as a 'God' to rule over every soul."
Aerith: "An injury powerful enough to destroy the Planet? Injure… the Planet?"
Sephiroth: "Behold that mural. The Ultimate Destructive Magic… Meteor."
Something I can't easily convey in still pictures is the physicality of Sephiroth through this entire exchange - or, indeed, his lack of it; the animators are going ham with the limitation of the LEGO field models, with Sephiroth chuckling, waving his sword, stabbing the earth when he talks about injuring the Planet… And also, something about him is off, unreal; there's a second, translucent model whose motions don't perfectly match his main model, so it looks like he's splitting apart, dissociating, or that he's some kind of after image; as his monologue reaches his end, he begins to turn white, until he eventually flies out of the screen, seemingly passing very close to or through Cloud.
Okay. Maybe not so physical a presence after all.
Meteor as the Ultimate Destruction Magic sealed in a temple… We're drawing on FFIV again, huh. Only this time, the effects seem a lot more… dramatic. Meteor not as "the ultimate personal-scale destruction magic that may kill you to cast," but as the ultimate destruction as in it might destroy the world.
As for Sephiroth's plan… Hm. It makes sense given the mechanics of the world as we know it, although "become a God and rule over the world" is a little pedestrian compared to the weirder plot stuff regarding space and the Promised Land, but I guess it depends what he wants godhood for; we'll see.
More important things are happening right now, though. As Sephiroth flies through Cloud, the phrase "Wake up!" echoes in unboxed dialogue - the typical sign of voices inside Cloud's mind, and then things get… Weird. Cloud shouts at Sephiroth and runs off screen, Aerith and Tifa chase after him, the screen flashes white for a long time, and returns with the lights dimmed… And Cloud is standing in front of a mural, his body flashing, laughing.
Cloud ignores the two calling his name, instead creepily chuckling about "Black Materia" and "Call Meteor." Aerith shouts at him to get a hold of himself, and the laughing ends with Cloud clutching his head like he does during Flashback Migraine, whispering his own name: "Cloud, I'm… Cloud…" And then his body starts splitting into an afterimage like Sephiroth's did, as if something inside him was struggling to get out, or as if he is having an argument with himself, until eventually it subsides and he manages to say "I remember! I remember my way," the light returns, and he turns around to the girls and… Says this.
Dude.
It feels like we're reaching some kind of critical point here. Previously, Cloud's fugues regarding his memory issues could be chalked up to avoidance mechanisms, trauma, refusing to look directly at or confront his problems, but here - he just went into a weird trance laughing and mumbling about summoning Meteor and he doesn't seem to know that he just did that. Our boy has never been less okay.
…unfortunately, our girls here are also trying to avoid some uncomfortable conversation about what's going on with Cloud, and Aerith tells him "It's nothing, don't worry about it" and just moves on. So that's not going to backfire.
Aerith comments on what she's managed to glimpse of the nature of Meteor - it's a magic that finds 'small drifting planets' and brings them into collision with the earth. In other words, it doesn't create a magical explosion effect, it literally brings about a real collision with an actual meteor. We could be looking at an extinction event here. That's fun!
But then, the temple starts to shake, the group takes on combat stances and shout a challenge to Sephiroth, whose voice is heard laughing and saying that's not him doing that noise - cue boss fight.
Our opponent this time is the Red Dragon, a stronger variant on the Dragon. But, well, 'stronger.'
Remember how Wutai is an optional sequence we tackled as early in the plot as possible and got multiple levels and a new tier of weapons out of it?
Cloud opens the fight with a Meteorain Limit Break that hits the Red Dragon for about 5k HP out of its 6,800 total, and Leviathan immediately finishes him off in a tidal wave. The whole battle takes one turn.
There's some kind of dramatic irony to Cloud developing a meteor-based Limit Break right around the part of the plot where we find out that a literal meteor is a major component of the villain's plan, but that aside damn that thing hits hard.
As the boss is vanquished, the group looks around; no trace of Sephiroth… But, on the floor, a new Materia; and what Materia could be more appropriate to defeating a dragon than the iconic draconic summon himself?
I was not expecting Bahamut this early, I gotta say. Which probably means there is a tier of summons beyond Bahamut… We'll see.
While cool, its animation isn't nearly as good as Odin's. The damage is there, though.
Split for image count.
It's time to head for the Temple of the Ancients.
The Temple of the Ancients. Located on the far southern archipelago of the Planet, it seems modeled after the Aztec pyramids - it has their traditional stepped architecture with a raised shrine at the entrance, and is located deep within some kind of jungle. It's an interesting style to use for the bygone civilization of the ancestors. Though as we're about to see, the Temple blends architectural styles, with internal Egyptian decorations inside this Aztec temple.
As we approach, Aerith does something weird, stepping forward and leaning down across the bridge to listen to the… voices? Of the Temple? Of the Planet?
Okay look Aerith I know you work with the 3D backgrounds you're given but can you not do this in the middle of a suspended rope bridge over a bottomless moat girl please.
Aerith: "I… I know… I feel it… The knowledge of the Ancients… floating…"
Aerith: "You could become one with the Planet, but you're stopping it with the strength of will."
Aerith: "For the future? For us?"
Cloud: "What are you saying? Do you understand?"
[Aerith stands up and crosses the threshold before looking at the Temple.]
Aerith: You're uneasy… But happy? Because I'm here? I'm sorry… I don't understand."
[At the top of the stairs, another Black Cape emerges, staggering around and falling.]
Aerith: "I want to go inside!"
Hmm. How did that Clone even find its way there?
If my theory is correct, and Sephiroth body-jacks Copies to get around, then it's most likely that he got here while possessing this Copy, did whatever he needed inside the Temple, and then ditched it when he was done. Which means we're going to find we were predictably preceded here not just by Shinra, but by Sephiroth himself.
The clone moans the name of the Black Materia, then a great light shines and its body rises into the air - and disappears.
It looks like the Temple is home to the spirits of actual Ancients, still active, resisting the pull of the Planet with their will for a greater purpose - interesting. Let's see what that's about.
Inside the temple, we find a gravely injured Tseng. Gravely, but not fatally; the man is still alive, and can talk and move. Sloppy on Seph's part, if you ask me. As we approach, he gets up, and drops a… possibly huge reveal?
Tseng: "Oh, I've been tricked"
Tseng: "It's not the Promised Land… Sephiroth is searching for…"
Cloud: "Sephiroth? He's inside!?"
Tseng: "Look… for yourself…"
Tseng: "Damn… Letting Aerith go was the start… of my… bad luck… The President… was wrong…"
Aerith: "You're wrong. The Promised Land isn't like what you imagined. And, I'm not going to help. Either way, there's no way Shinra could have won."
Tseng: "...Pretty harsh. Sounds like something… you'd say."
Tseng: "The Keystone… Place it… on… the altar…"
[He gives us the Keystone, then gets up and stumbles away from the altar. Cloud approaches Aerith.]
Cloud: "You're crying?"
Aerith: "Tseng's with our enemy, the Turks, but I've known him since we were little… There's not a lot of people I can say that about. In fact, there are probably only a handful of people in the world who really know me."
It's funny. Once again, I can see how that exchange's original context might get blurry over time and someone might come out of this thinking, 'Aerith is so pure of heart she'll even weep for Tseng', when the reality of that scene is a lot… Sadder? There's something really poignant to Aerith having had so few people who truly knew her that she ends up mourning a man who abducted her and delivered her to Hojo because he's the closest thing she's got to a family friend.
There's a kind of loneliness to Aerith that she masks with her gregarious playful behavior but that's at the heart of a lot of her character conflict, including roping Cloud into her Wild Slum Adventure at the start of the game, and that's only intensified after the discovery that she was an Ancient - different from everyone else; in a very real sense, alien.
We put the keystone on the altar, and it begins to glow and then, instead of a door opening, Cloud just… phases through the floor.
We find ourselves in some kind of mad architectural landscape, bridges and stairs looping in and around themselves. Not far from us, there is a weird… Blue… Bearded thing wearing a hat? As Aerith and Tifa take in the place with wonder, it flees. Following it through the level's labyrinthine architecture is going to be our first goal for this dungeon.
As a dungeon, the Temple of the Ancients is pretty cool. It's one of the more 'classical' dungeons in the game, being an actual ancient forgotten temple, which is something VII's not given us much of (though it did have several of the other classical model of dungeon, 'literally just a cave'), and it's cool that, as appropriate to such an ancient temple, it's full of cool artifacts for us to loot. Some of which are… a bit less explicable than others, perhaps (there's a new weapon for Barret in the form an ancient high-tech rocket punch). Also, cool monsters!
Love the detailing on the temple walls in the combat background.
Eventually we make our way to a room in which Purple Beard has fled, and attempt to confront him - without very much success, though the encounter is informative enough: It's mute.
Aerith then explains to us that this thing is… An Ancient? Specifically the "spirit body" of an Ancient, that stayed behind rather than return to the Planet. Okay, when Aerith said she could hear the voices of the Ancients I didn't think she meant they were literally, physically hanging around. Or, well, 'physically.' Over time, they somehow lost the ability to talk - Aerith is able to sense their 'voice' but only partially.
How convenient. We meet actual Ancients, and we can't even ask them anything. But I guess if I just spent thousands of years sitting in the same empty temple I'd probably forget how to talk at some point too.
The Ancient (and other identical Ancients we'll meet throughout the dungeon) acts as a save point, inn, and shop all at once, which we probably shouldn't be looking too hard at (why do they need money?).
The path through the Looping Room is obscured by its, well, looping architecture, eventually we make it through, collecting a bunch of items on the way, which include new weapons for almost everyone - the Silver Rifle for Vincent, the Rocket Punch for Barret, the Nail Bat for Cloud…
Yes, that's right, a nail bat.
All of these items have one thing in common - they have very high stats, far superior to the other equipment we have access to at this stage in the game, but they lack something else.
Say, do you remember how Sephiroth told us about how Materia is the condensed knowledge of the Ancients?
So, Ancients, who already did have that knowledge themselves, and who at the time of their apogee were not extinct and all drifting around as souls pooling together in places, would have no need for Materia, and Materia might not even have existed in their time, right?
Therefore, none of the weapons found in the Temple of the Ancients has any Materia slots.
This a pretty funny gag, and it does make in-universe sense. It also severely limits how useful the loot from this Temple will be to us, though. There are uses for it - Tifa is a strong attacker with a multi-hit limit break, so equipping her with the 'Work Gloves' (which are mittens) and just using her mostly to attack would work fine. In the end, though, I decide not to use them because Materia growth takes enough time as it is already.
Once we've made our way out of the Looping Room, we find this: a really annoying piece of platforming in which giant three-quarter circle rocks are rolling along a bridge across the void. If they touch us, they'll pancake Cloud and drag him back to the entrance (though this does no damage). In order to make it through, we have to time our run to be under the open part of the three-quarter circle when it goes over us… And then do it again multiple times as more rocks come falling down. It's impossible to get right the first time, trial and error is the only way through, and it's damn annoying.
At least there's this weird mystical pool in which we find the Morph Materia. Yay? Morph is weird, potentially game-breaking Command: what it does is deliver a very weak attack, but if that attack would kill the enemy, it instead transforms it into an item. This is a… Better and more interesting idea than Ragnarok's Metamorphose which was purely luck-based, I think, but it's also one that requires considerable set-up to actually make use of (you need to bring an enemy to within a very low percentage of health but not kill it and all that), and the rewards would be, as far as I'm concerned, totally random unless I actually look up a guide to find out which specific enemies give which specific items.
If I did do that, though, Morph would be the way to farm Source items, increasing my characters' ability ratings potentially up to 99 and breaking the game. But mostly it's probably going to stay in the cupboard.
Once we make it to the other end of the room, the stones stop rolling in, and the group splits us to sigh in relief at their success - then Aerith turns around and asks the others to come quickly, as the magic pool is acting, well, magically.
Aerith: "It's full of the knowledge of the Ancients."
Aerith: "No… Not knowledge… Consciousness… A living soul…"
Aerith: "It's trying to say something."
Aerith: "I'm sorry, I don't understand. What is it?"
Aerith: "...Danger? An evil… Consciousness?"
Aerith: "...show? You're going to show me?"
This is making me irrationally mad. Ancient things are not interchangeable. I get that the Ancients are fictional but - you can't just grab a literal Egyptian mural, down to THE STYLE OF HATS AND HYEROGLYPHS, and put it in a Mesoamerican pyramid!! You can't do that!! It's illegal!!!
Anyway.
In the vision, Elena appears.
Elena: "Tseng, what's this? Can we find the Promised Land with this?"
Tseng: "...I wonder. Anyway, we have to report to the President."
Elena: "Be careful, Tseng."
Tseng: "Yeah… Hey, Elena, how 'bout dinner after this job's over?"
Elena: "Th… Thank you very much. If I may be excused…"
INAPPROPRIATE WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR, TSENG. DON'T FRATERNIZE WITH YOUR SUBORDINATES!
As Tseng studies the mural and everyone is looking at him, another ghostly presence appears - then, shortly after, manifests within the vision.
…hm.
Can't help but notice Sephiroth was translucent a moment ago - like Cloud, Aerith and Tifa. As if he, too, were someone observing the vision as a dematerialized spirit, rather than a presence in the flashback being replayed. Also… When he appears, he is briefly fully white before taking on his normal colors.
Sephiroth: "So you opened the door. Well done."
Tseng: "This place… what is it?"
Sephiroth: "A lost treasure house of knowledge. The wisdom of the Ancients…"
Sephiroth: [He opens his arms wide, looking up towards the sky.] "I am becoming one with the Planet."
Tseng: "One with the Planet?"
Sephiroth: "You stupid fools. You have never even thought about it. All the spirit energy of this Planet. All its wisdom… knowledge… I will meld with it all. I will become one with it… it will become one with me."
While he speaks, a second Sephiroth appears, and that one is translucent, standing ghost-like in front of the party.
Tseng: "...You can do that?"
Sephiroth: "The way… lies here."
[He cuts down Tseng.]
Sephiroth: "Only death awaits you all. But do not fear. For it is through death that a new spirit energy is born. Soon, you will live again as a part of me…"
[The screen turns red,and the vision fades.]
Hmm.
I don't know if my "disembodied Sephiroth in the Lifestream" hypothesis is correct, but if it isn't, then I think it's what he's trying to achieve. He's trying to merge with the Lifestream in a way that will grant it full control over it. That weird effect where he was first translucent, then became white, then became physical, though, that's interesting - was he teleporting? Or are we seeing the process of Ghost Sephiroth materializing himself? Did he teleport while in the body of a Copy and it put too much strain on its body, so Sephiroth ditched it before it could die?
I think the presence of two Sephiroths in the vision at the same time, though, a physical one talking to Tseng in the past and an intangible one, suggests to me that Sephiroth saw this - saw us watching the flashback.
I don't think it's going to be very safe here for much longer.
Outside the pool, Cloud asks where the room with the pictures on the walls is, and Aerith tells him it's not far - and Cloud declares that "no matter what he thinks, it's going to end here. I'm taking him out!"
The next room is…
…this damned thing.
So, this a fairly simple puzzle: the Time Guardian allows us to move the minute hand of the clock. By moving the hands to a specific hour, we can cross the room by using the hands. So for instance, as the clock is configured when we enter, we can leave from this X exit and head through the II doorway. It's time-consuming but straightforward; most of the entrances contain either a simple chest room, or nothing but rubble.
The 'Trumpet Shell' is, of course, an Ancient Megaphone for Cait Sith.
One of the doors actually leads us back into the looping room, where we actually find something really valuable: our first Ribbon!
Ribbon, as ever, provide immunity to nearly all status effects, which should make the Battle Square easier once we get back to it.
The door at twelve o'clock contains an ominous door which plays Trail of Blood as we approach it, but it's locked and we can't get in yet.
While in the process of working the clock, though, something happens that I hadn't thought about - the second hand of the clock, which moves much faster across the room, connects with us as we're making our way across the minute hand, and sweeps Cloud at the knees, sending him toppling down!
As soon as we land in front of this dinosaur mural, we are attacked by two dragons - not just dragons, but ancient dragons! There is a kind of insectile, dragonfly-like cast to their wings that I like as a design touch.
They're not too tough, though.
Zantetsuken looks so cool.
We beat them, collect the Nail Bat from the chest at the foot of the dino mural, exit back into the looping room, back to the clock, and complete our turn, landing… there.
An Ancient spirit runs away from these doors into this tunnel as we approach; when checking the door we find that it's locked, so we have to catch the little rascal to get his keys. It's an annoying puzzle where each door you go in leads to a specific other door, so we have to watch the Ancient move, memorize which door leads to which door, and then ambush him by going into the door connected to the next door he moves through… Did that make any sense? I'm struggling to explain this puzzle in comprehensible English. Anyway, because of the number of possible doors this is really annoying and takes a really long time…
…unless we just memorize which door the first door he enters leads to, exit the room, come back in, resetting the puzzle, and then ambush him immediately.
Aerith, when you say things like that it actually makes me more worried.
We enter the door that's now been unlocked and, surprise! It's the Egyptian mural room!
Cloud walks into the room, and asks aloud for Sephiroth to come out and show himself.
I guess this is the part where we find out if Sephiroth was physically, actually inside the pyramid, in which case he wasn't possessing the Copy outside and it just showed up for unrelated reason and my whole theory crumbles…
GHOST SEPHIROTH APPEARS. THE THEORY STILL HOLDS UP.
Sephiroth: "So cold. I am always by your side. Come." [He flies up; the screen flashes.]
'I am always by your side'... That definitely doesn't sound like something to be worried about re: Cloud's mental state!
The group rushes forward, the screen flashes, and there…
…well.
It does look like Sephiroth is, in fact, here, physically present. So… why did he just show up in ghost form and disappear, when his physical self was literally a few meters to the side? Now I'm no longer sure.
Sephiroth turns away from admiring the mural to approach the group, sword in hand.
Cloud shouts that once again, he has no idea what cryptic bullshit Sephiroth is on, and Sephiroth starts chuckling - then starts flashing and flies up through the ceiling.
Oookay. Maybe not so physical a presence then. The group advances and once again, looking at a different mural, there's Sephiroth.
Sephiroth: "Look well."
Cloud: "At what!?"
Sephiroth: "At that which adds to the knowledge of…"
Sephiroth: "I am becoming one with the Planet."
"That which adds to the knowledge of" sounds like the translator had an off day and just copy-pasted a dictionary definition in there. It's not a sentence anyone would say like that. In the Retranslation, he instead says "At the one who will be endowed with the wisdom of the Ancients," which makes a lot more sense. As well, the present tense of "I am becoming one with the Planet" makes it sound like this is a currently happening process, that Sephiroth is, right now, merging with the world-spirit, which lends credence to my theory… But in the Retranslation he says "I will become one with the Planet," future tense, so who knows.
Again, he flashes and disappears, and we move on.
…okay, so, these murals are telling a story, aren't they.
The temple contains something - a crystal (a Materia?). The Ancients take the crystal from its altar. They brandish it to the sky. This summons a meteor which strikes the world. The Ancients burn in its flames.
…did they build a doomsday device Materia?
Why on earth would they build a doomsday device Materia???
Well, luckily, while we may not be getting a reason, we're getting the next best thing - Sephiroth's plan, finally laid out for us. As the group approaches, Sephiroth, unworried, stands up from next to the altar, and for once, actually answers our questions.
Aerith: "How do you intend to become one with the Planet?"
Sephiroth: "It's simple. Once the Planet is hurt, it gathers Spirit Energy to heal the injury. The amount of energy depends on the size of the injury."
Sephiroth: "...What if there was an injury that threatened the very life of the Planet? Think of how much energy would be gathered!"
Sephiroth: "All that boundless energy will be mine. By emerging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence."
Sephiroth: "Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now… Only to be reborn as a 'God' to rule over every soul."
Aerith: "An injury powerful enough to destroy the Planet? Injure… the Planet?"
Sephiroth: "Behold that mural. The Ultimate Destructive Magic… Meteor."
Something I can't easily convey in still pictures is the physicality of Sephiroth through this entire exchange - or, indeed, his lack of it; the animators are going ham with the limitation of the LEGO field models, with Sephiroth chuckling, waving his sword, stabbing the earth when he talks about injuring the Planet… And also, something about him is off, unreal; there's a second, translucent model whose motions don't perfectly match his main model, so it looks like he's splitting apart, dissociating, or that he's some kind of after image; as his monologue reaches his end, he begins to turn white, until he eventually flies out of the screen, seemingly passing very close to or through Cloud.
Okay. Maybe not so physical a presence after all.
Meteor as the Ultimate Destruction Magic sealed in a temple… We're drawing on FFIV again, huh. Only this time, the effects seem a lot more… dramatic. Meteor not as "the ultimate personal-scale destruction magic that may kill you to cast," but as the ultimate destruction as in it might destroy the world.
As for Sephiroth's plan… Hm. It makes sense given the mechanics of the world as we know it, although "become a God and rule over the world" is a little pedestrian compared to the weirder plot stuff regarding space and the Promised Land, but I guess it depends what he wants godhood for; we'll see.
More important things are happening right now, though. As Sephiroth flies through Cloud, the phrase "Wake up!" echoes in unboxed dialogue - the typical sign of voices inside Cloud's mind, and then things get… Weird. Cloud shouts at Sephiroth and runs off screen, Aerith and Tifa chase after him, the screen flashes white for a long time, and returns with the lights dimmed… And Cloud is standing in front of a mural, his body flashing, laughing.
Cloud ignores the two calling his name, instead creepily chuckling about "Black Materia" and "Call Meteor." Aerith shouts at him to get a hold of himself, and the laughing ends with Cloud clutching his head like he does during Flashback Migraine, whispering his own name: "Cloud, I'm… Cloud…" And then his body starts splitting into an afterimage like Sephiroth's did, as if something inside him was struggling to get out, or as if he is having an argument with himself, until eventually it subsides and he manages to say "I remember! I remember my way," the light returns, and he turns around to the girls and… Says this.
Dude.
It feels like we're reaching some kind of critical point here. Previously, Cloud's fugues regarding his memory issues could be chalked up to avoidance mechanisms, trauma, refusing to look directly at or confront his problems, but here - he just went into a weird trance laughing and mumbling about summoning Meteor and he doesn't seem to know that he just did that. Our boy has never been less okay.
…unfortunately, our girls here are also trying to avoid some uncomfortable conversation about what's going on with Cloud, and Aerith tells him "It's nothing, don't worry about it" and just moves on. So that's not going to backfire.
Aerith comments on what she's managed to glimpse of the nature of Meteor - it's a magic that finds 'small drifting planets' and brings them into collision with the earth. In other words, it doesn't create a magical explosion effect, it literally brings about a real collision with an actual meteor. We could be looking at an extinction event here. That's fun!
But then, the temple starts to shake, the group takes on combat stances and shout a challenge to Sephiroth, whose voice is heard laughing and saying that's not him doing that noise - cue boss fight.
Our opponent this time is the Red Dragon, a stronger variant on the Dragon. But, well, 'stronger.'
Remember how Wutai is an optional sequence we tackled as early in the plot as possible and got multiple levels and a new tier of weapons out of it?
Cloud opens the fight with a Meteorain Limit Break that hits the Red Dragon for about 5k HP out of its 6,800 total, and Leviathan immediately finishes him off in a tidal wave. The whole battle takes one turn.
There's some kind of dramatic irony to Cloud developing a meteor-based Limit Break right around the part of the plot where we find out that a literal meteor is a major component of the villain's plan, but that aside damn that thing hits hard.
As the boss is vanquished, the group looks around; no trace of Sephiroth… But, on the floor, a new Materia; and what Materia could be more appropriate to defeating a dragon than the iconic draconic summon himself?
I was not expecting Bahamut this early, I gotta say. Which probably means there is a tier of summons beyond Bahamut… We'll see.
While cool, its animation isn't nearly as good as Odin's. The damage is there, though.
Split for image count.
Final Fantasy VII, Part 22: The Temple of the Ancients, Part B
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Unfortunately, it looks like the doors are locked again, and we can't get out. Instead, the group turns back to study the altar.
A kind of… holographic projection of the pyramid is hovering above the altar, and the name 'Black Materia' is written on it (wait, did the Ancients speak the same language as modern humans?). So we have found it… But Sephiroth hasn't taken it yet despite being here first?
This, it turns out, is because the Black Materia is… weird.
This entire beat is weird, really.
As Aerith explains after listening to the voices of the Ancients again, this projection above the altar isn't the Materia, it is only a projection of the Materia… That being, the entire temple.
The temple itself is the Materia. And because of its size, it can't be taken away and used by anyone. Instead, the model contains a device which shrinks the temple as you solve a series of puzzles. If you can solve all the puzzles, the temple will eventually fit into the palm of your hand, and can be used as Materia. There's only one problem: You can only access the puzzles while inside the temple, so in the process of shrinking it for use as Materia, one will inevitably be crushed to death.
I… This seems so unnecessarily complicated. If this was the FFV Ronkans, who had no sense of right or wrong, I might get it, but like - why did the Cetra even build a "destroy the world" button?? Why all the weird hoops put on its use that make it almost, but not quite, impossible to access?
I guess the idea is that, if there were ever a legitimate need to use Meteor, then it would only be accessible to people who are both skilled and clever enough to go through all the temple's traps, and brave and selfless enough to sacrifice their own life to make the Black Materia usable. I can sort of understand the logic, if we presume there would ever be a reason to use Meteor.
Maybe as a kind of 'planetary reset button' after the Cetra had fulfilled their purpose on the Planet and moved on to the next, but… At this point I'm starting to think the whole thing about the Cetra being space travelers might have been a mistake on Gast's part, considering how tied they are to the cycle of the Planet's life energy.
I can't see why, though. Even now, the dilemma faced by our protagonists is that they want to remove the Black Materia so that it can't be used. Tifa suggests that since the Black Materia can't be used without sacrificing one's life, it's safe and should be left alone, but Cloud counters that Sephiroth an army of 'flunkies' who would think nothing of throwing their lives away for him to get the Materia. Which… Yeah, the Copies seem like they'd be all too happy to die serving the great Sephiroth, but I'm not sure they're mentally capable enough to solve the required puzzles; although, if my theory regarding Sephiroth body-jacking them is correct, he would only need to possess one and solve the puzzles himself before leaving the body as it is crushed. That theory seems shakier now, though, given how Sephiroth has spent the entire temple sequence seemingly teleporting in and out of places.
Still, I can't help but notice that Cloud's plan is to keep Sephiroth from claiming the Black Materia by throwing his flunkies at it… by doing all the job for him and getting the Black Materia in a ready state for retrieval. This the day after we got played in exactly this way by Cait Sith for the Keystone.
Well.
Speaking of Cait Sith.
Just then, the phone rings.
Cait Sith: "Hi, Cloud. This is Cait Sith. I overheard the whole story!"
Cait Sith: "Don't forget about me. Everything you said makes perfect sense! You can use my stuffed body for the future of the Planet."
Cloud: "We can't let Sephiroth get his hands on the Black Materia. And we can't let the Shinra get theirs on it either."
Cait Sith: "But Cloud. There's really nothing else you can do. Everyone, please trust me."
[There's a dialogue option to choose whether to trust Cait Sith or not, but choosing not to just loops us until we agree.]
Cait Sith: "All righty then! Leave it to me! Please hurry, you've got to get out of here! I'll be waiting at the exit!"
I…
Okay, let's put a pin in this for now. I'll just make a note that 'I overheard the whole story' is, considering that we're in the middle of a temple miles away from him, a hilarious way for Cait Sith to put 'I bugged everyone so I could spy on you,' but I'm not exactly surprised he would have done that. Anyway, we'll get back to this later. For now, it's time to escape. We race out of the room, across the Time Room (where the clock is conveniently already set to 12:30 to let us straight across) and towards the final door - but as we enter the room, the Temple of the Ancient BGM is replaced with the ominous Trail of Blood, and with it, the slow beating of a heart. Cloud approaches the door, but it's locked - and strangely warm. As Cloud turns to say this to the other, they shout a warning, and something materializes behind him!
This is the Demon's Gate - the true boss of the Temple of the Ancients, and a considerable leap in difficulty compared to the Red Dragon. Like its counterpart from FFIV (and this Temple really is full of callbacks to that game), it has a mechanic where it gets closer to us, only here it's not "slowly inches towards the party and kills everyone when it reaches them" but more "visibly moves, then a turn later uses a high-damage attack." It's capable of powerful party-wide attacks and hitting everyone for half their HP at once, while being fairly tough itself at 10k HP… And more importantly, having sky-high Magic Defense. Even Leviathan does less than 500 damage.
Its most notable feature, however, has nothing to do with the mechanics of the fight. Instead, it has to do with graphics. You see, Demon's Gate is in the unique position of being a very large boss, contained within a confined environment, who moves across the screen to get closer to our characters. This results in… This.
Summons just clip through him, their animations becoming barely readable. It's pretty funny. Unfortunately, between magic being ineffective and the Demon's Gate attacks hitting so hard…
…I think this may be my first 'proper' party wipe outside of unique circumstances like Battle Square or Yuffie's questline? I don't remember seeing that Game Over screen before, with the damaged film and film reel - it looks really cool.
Anyway, reload, try again, and now that we know this thing's so resistant to magic, we just hit him hard with physical attacks while keeping up Big Guard and healing, with Tifa's Limit Break alone hitting for several thousands of damage.
With the magical demon door gone, Cait Sith enters the Temple.
And now it's time.
It's time for Cait Sith's Great Adventure, and for us to figure out what the fuck our takeaway from it should even be. Let me just… Let me just transcribe the whole thing word for word.
Cait Sith: "I'll handle the rest!"
Cait Sith: "Well, everyone… Take care of yourselves!"
Aerith: "Cait Sith… Come on, Cloud… Say something."
Cloud: "I'm not good at this."
Cait Sith: "I understand. I feel the same too. Why don't I read our fortunes?"
Cait Sith: "Say, that's right… I haven't done it in a while, huh? I'm so excited. Right or wrong, I'm still the same ol' me. Now, what should I predict?"
Aerith: "Hmm, let's see how compatible Cloud and I are!"
Cait Sith: "That'll cost ya. Exactly one date!"
Cait Sith: "Here I go!"
[Cait Sith does his thing, then turns around.]
Cait Sith: "This isn't good. I can't say it. Poor Tifa."
[Tifa turns around and looks away sadly.]
Aerith: "No! Tell me! I promise I won't get mad!"
Cait Sith: "Is that so? Then I'll tell you."
[Tifa jumps, visibly startled.]
Cait Sith: "Looks good. You are perfect for each other! Aerith's star and Cloud's star! They show a great future!"
Tifaaaa nooooo don't be sad I swear you're the one in my heart-
Cait Sith: "Cloud, I'll be your matchmaker, preacher… I'll do whatever you want me to! You just call me when it all happens!"
Cait Sith: "Thank you for believing in me, knowing that I was a spy. This is the final, final farewell!"
[Cait Sith heads off screen, the screen fades to black.]
Aerith, [voice-over]: "Be strong, Cait Sith!!"
[As Cait Sith hops forward, the temple starts shaking, and he trips and falls.]
Cait Sith: "Owwww… What happened?"
Cait Sith: "I can still move more."
[He gets up and arrives in front of the altar.]
Cait Sith: "This must be it! The Ancients sure did a great job making this."
[Cait Sith turns to the camera, cat and moogle both waving to the player.]
Cait Sith: "I can protect the Planet too! I'm kinda embarrassed…"
Cait Sith: "There's plenty of stuffed toys like my body around, but there's only one me!"
Cait Sith: "Don't forget me even if another Cait Sith comes along."
[He turns back to the model.]
Cait Sith: "Good bye, then! I guess I'm off to save the Planet…"
[Fade to outside the temple, where Cloud & co are watching.]
I…
What the fuck.
Did Cait Sith just gaslight us into believing he was sacrificing his life so we wouldn't hold a grudge about him spying on us and blackmailing us by taking Marlene hostage?
Look. Listen. We've all been asking 'how does the game expect us to treat Cait Sith as a beloved party member who shows up in sequels and not just get smashed into computer chips the moment he no longer has leverage over us,' and. Theoretically. "Cait Sith literally sacrifices his life solving the Doom Puzzle so we can take the Black Materia to safety" would be a fitting redemption!
Except he's not going to die because he literally told us that this isn't his real body, he's remote-controlling it from afar, his true body is safe at Shinra HQ.
This is a fake sacrifice!! It's literally an empty redemption!! This costs him nothing but everyone still acts like it's a tearful goodbye to someone who is atoning for their crimes with their life!!!
This is just incredible writing.
There's a way this would make sense. If Cait Sith isn't remotely piloted, if instead he is a mind upload, then things would have a very different vibe. With the 'base template' at Shinra HQ, Shinra can just produce as many Cait Sith as they care to, but each one is an individual entity - but, depending on its outlook, one that might not think of itself as such. Each individual Cait Sith thinks 'I'm just a robot whose individual life doesn't matter, there are ten more of me waiting if I fail in my mission and die,' but that Cait Sith instance would still, in a very real sense, 'die' - kinda like Rei Ayanami in Evangelion? And so the Cait Sith who is sacrificing himself right now is the Cait Sith who holds Marlene hostage, the one who spied on us, betrayed us, and stole from us and any later Cait Sith iteration is innocent of his specific crime, even while still being 'Cait Sith,' the same personality template.
…that's how I might do it, but that's not how the game is presenting it. The way the game is telling it is very clear, someone at Shinra HQ is remotely piloting the Cait Sith robotic body, they can just roll out a new body if the first one dies, and Cait Sith turns around to the camera and pretty much says "I know the established facts of the narrative make this sacrifice meaningless and it's not really a redemption arc, but please treat it as if it were that way, thank you!" and then crushes himself to death in the temple shrinkage system.
WELL. MOVING ON.
The Temple is gone, replaced with a deep crater, with the Black Materia at the bottom; Tifa says she'll wait for us and Cloud and Aerith bo go down to retrieve it.
Cloud asks if we could use the Materia ourselves - not sure what we would want it for, considering its effects, but as worth asking as any question; Aerith explains that we can't, as great spiritual power is required to cast Meteor, far more than any one person's spiritual energy. You wouldn't want a person, you'd want a place - a place rich in the Planet's spiritual energy; both realize what they're saying at the same time, exclaiming, "The Promised Land!"
Cloud is immediately worried that Sephiroth might have the same thought, but Aerith is quick to reassure him - Sephiroth isn't an Ancient, so he shouldn't be able to find the Promised Land.
So.
Can you guess what happens now?
No, really, it's easy when you think about it.
You see, what I have come to realize writing this update is that the entirety of this sequence is a Final Fantasy IV homage. There is, of course, the fact that a major plot point involves a forbidden magic of the ancient world called 'Meteor' that was sealed inside a temple, and which can't normally be cast because it requires more spiritual energy than one person could possess. And there are the weird long-bearded blue-ish dudes who are the last remainders of the ancient people, like FuSoYa. There's the boss of this dungeon, Demon's Gate, which very clearly imitates the Demon Wall from the Underworld dungeon. And of course, there is the fact that one of our characters makes a 'heroic sacrifice' that is transparently bullshit and will re-enter from stage left within the next five minutes. So what's next?
Well, what happens after we defeat the Demon Wall in FFIV?
That's right, Kain gets mind-controlled and hands over the crystal to Golbez.
Sephiroth appears over the pit, floating, and gloats about his supreme power. He has "become a traveler of the Lifestream and gained the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients."
A TRAVELER OF THE LIFESTREAM. I FUCKING KNEW IT. I WAS RIGHT ALL ALOOOOONG-
Anyway, he is superior to the Ancients, because not only has he gained their knowledge and wisdom, but also that of those who came after them, us, humanity; with past and present combined in one, he will be the one to write the future.
Aerith challenges him, saying she won't let him, the future isn't his to decide, but Sephiroth ignores her, laughing, and the 'inner voice' once again shouts, "Wake up!" and Cloud… Dissociates.
There are two Clouds. One, the physical one, is crouching on the ground, holding his head in pain, struggling against Sephiroth's influence. The other, watching over his body, is his childhood self - the Cloud of 14 who left to become a SOLDIER, watching impotent as his older self struggles and, eventually… Fails. His disembodied voice shouts 'No!' as the real Cloud runs in slow-motion, as if seen through distorted time, towards Sephiroth.
Cloud hands the Black Materia to Sephiroth, who congratulates him, and vanishes in a flash of light.
The strange purple glow is gone, as is the influence on Cloud's mind, for now. He's left alone.
Aerith is immediately concerned with Cloud's safety - but for Cloud, this is one step farther than his usual denial/fugue/avoidance can take him. At last, he realizes what's happened - that he gave the Black Materia to Sephiroth.
Cloud screams and thrashes, struggling to grasp what happened. Aerith tries to reassure him, to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that he didn't do anything, he was under Sephiroth's influence, but…
Well, that's not quite true, is it?
Cloud's fault isn't in not being strong enough to resist Sephiroth's mind control, or in going along with his orders once he'd failed. His fault, his tragic flaw, comes much earlier than that: It's his avoidance of the problem. His refusal to ever confront the gaps in his memory, the strange visions and flashbacks he's been experiencing. He's chosen the comfort of denial, of just looking away and pretending it didn't happen every time, and because of this, he was completely unprepared for Sephiroth taking control of him.
Cloud shoves Aerith back as she tries to comfort him, hard enough she falls, and as he does he, again, splits - the phantom child!Cloud watching his adult self thrash in pain at what he's done, and what has been done to him. He's… punching? Aerith? Or the ground in front of Aerith? I hope the latter, but the low res makes it hard to see.
Which is, amazingly, the moment Cait Sith picks to come back.
"Cait Sith N°2." THIS CAT, I SWEAR. He's just gonna show up mid-psychological breakdown and slide back into the group and -
WHERE IS MARLENE? THE FIRST CAIT SITH DIED WITHOUT EVEN TELLING US WHERE TO FIND MARLENE OR HOW TO MAKE SURE SHE WAS SAFE!
God he really is the worst.
Tifa, who's been running around the edge of the crater, at first trying to get her hands on Sephiroth, then without a clear purpose, just completely ignores the cat and slides down the cliff to join the others and pull Cloud back and make him stop flailing about in anger.
Fade to white. End scene.
Cloud: "Everything is white…"
Cloud: "What did I do? I don't remember anything…"
Cloud: "My memory… Since when? If everything's a dream, don't wake me."
Well, Cloud, I think we can let you sleep a little longer. This'll make for a good ending for our update.
…
I'm not even sure what to say to sum this all up.
This whole sequence had some of the best psychological horror in VII so far, with Cloud increasingly losing grips with reality and Sephiroth as this ghost-like presence whose reality isn't certain, along some absolutely goofy shit (I'm sorry I can't take the Ancient Spirits seriously and you can't make me), all topped with some of the most baffling writing in the game (CAIT SITH???). At least we have clarity on some of the mysteries established so far - we now know what Sephiroth's plan actually is, he's taken deliberate steps to fulfill it, the stakes have been appropriately raised, we know he's a 'traveler of the Lifestream' and has an ability to directly manipulate Cloud as I had suspected…
You know, we haven't heard the Backseater in a while. I'm not sure what that's about. In the early game he was a fairly frequent presence when Cloud was having episodes, but for the past dozen hours he's vanished from the narrative entirely. One possibility is that the Backseater was always Sephiroth/Jenova's influence, which only seemed helpful by the bias of circumstances and lacking context, but I doubt that, it mostly feels like the game… Forgot he was there.
Actually, Jenova is also kind of conspicuously missing from Sephiroth's plans, isn't she? He's talking about he'll turn himself into a God and all that, and there is one line in which he says he'll soon 'become one' with Mother, but the 'we'll find the Promised Land together' angle seems to have disappeared, especially as Sephiroth just told us he did find the Promised Land and it's a place on this earth from which he wants to use the Black Materia.
It feels like a lot changed for Sephiroth in the five years between Nibelheim and now, and we still don't have the full picture.
Alright, well. That was a weird update but it had a lot of high points, and I am dying of the sickness, so we'll leave it there for now.
Thanks for reading!
Next Time: The City of the Ancients, I think?
A kind of… holographic projection of the pyramid is hovering above the altar, and the name 'Black Materia' is written on it (wait, did the Ancients speak the same language as modern humans?). So we have found it… But Sephiroth hasn't taken it yet despite being here first?
This, it turns out, is because the Black Materia is… weird.
This entire beat is weird, really.
As Aerith explains after listening to the voices of the Ancients again, this projection above the altar isn't the Materia, it is only a projection of the Materia… That being, the entire temple.
The temple itself is the Materia. And because of its size, it can't be taken away and used by anyone. Instead, the model contains a device which shrinks the temple as you solve a series of puzzles. If you can solve all the puzzles, the temple will eventually fit into the palm of your hand, and can be used as Materia. There's only one problem: You can only access the puzzles while inside the temple, so in the process of shrinking it for use as Materia, one will inevitably be crushed to death.
I… This seems so unnecessarily complicated. If this was the FFV Ronkans, who had no sense of right or wrong, I might get it, but like - why did the Cetra even build a "destroy the world" button?? Why all the weird hoops put on its use that make it almost, but not quite, impossible to access?
I guess the idea is that, if there were ever a legitimate need to use Meteor, then it would only be accessible to people who are both skilled and clever enough to go through all the temple's traps, and brave and selfless enough to sacrifice their own life to make the Black Materia usable. I can sort of understand the logic, if we presume there would ever be a reason to use Meteor.
Maybe as a kind of 'planetary reset button' after the Cetra had fulfilled their purpose on the Planet and moved on to the next, but… At this point I'm starting to think the whole thing about the Cetra being space travelers might have been a mistake on Gast's part, considering how tied they are to the cycle of the Planet's life energy.
I can't see why, though. Even now, the dilemma faced by our protagonists is that they want to remove the Black Materia so that it can't be used. Tifa suggests that since the Black Materia can't be used without sacrificing one's life, it's safe and should be left alone, but Cloud counters that Sephiroth an army of 'flunkies' who would think nothing of throwing their lives away for him to get the Materia. Which… Yeah, the Copies seem like they'd be all too happy to die serving the great Sephiroth, but I'm not sure they're mentally capable enough to solve the required puzzles; although, if my theory regarding Sephiroth body-jacking them is correct, he would only need to possess one and solve the puzzles himself before leaving the body as it is crushed. That theory seems shakier now, though, given how Sephiroth has spent the entire temple sequence seemingly teleporting in and out of places.
Still, I can't help but notice that Cloud's plan is to keep Sephiroth from claiming the Black Materia by throwing his flunkies at it… by doing all the job for him and getting the Black Materia in a ready state for retrieval. This the day after we got played in exactly this way by Cait Sith for the Keystone.
Well.
Speaking of Cait Sith.
Just then, the phone rings.
Cait Sith: "Hi, Cloud. This is Cait Sith. I overheard the whole story!"
Cait Sith: "Don't forget about me. Everything you said makes perfect sense! You can use my stuffed body for the future of the Planet."
Cloud: "We can't let Sephiroth get his hands on the Black Materia. And we can't let the Shinra get theirs on it either."
Cait Sith: "But Cloud. There's really nothing else you can do. Everyone, please trust me."
[There's a dialogue option to choose whether to trust Cait Sith or not, but choosing not to just loops us until we agree.]
Cait Sith: "All righty then! Leave it to me! Please hurry, you've got to get out of here! I'll be waiting at the exit!"
I…
Okay, let's put a pin in this for now. I'll just make a note that 'I overheard the whole story' is, considering that we're in the middle of a temple miles away from him, a hilarious way for Cait Sith to put 'I bugged everyone so I could spy on you,' but I'm not exactly surprised he would have done that. Anyway, we'll get back to this later. For now, it's time to escape. We race out of the room, across the Time Room (where the clock is conveniently already set to 12:30 to let us straight across) and towards the final door - but as we enter the room, the Temple of the Ancient BGM is replaced with the ominous Trail of Blood, and with it, the slow beating of a heart. Cloud approaches the door, but it's locked - and strangely warm. As Cloud turns to say this to the other, they shout a warning, and something materializes behind him!
This is the Demon's Gate - the true boss of the Temple of the Ancients, and a considerable leap in difficulty compared to the Red Dragon. Like its counterpart from FFIV (and this Temple really is full of callbacks to that game), it has a mechanic where it gets closer to us, only here it's not "slowly inches towards the party and kills everyone when it reaches them" but more "visibly moves, then a turn later uses a high-damage attack." It's capable of powerful party-wide attacks and hitting everyone for half their HP at once, while being fairly tough itself at 10k HP… And more importantly, having sky-high Magic Defense. Even Leviathan does less than 500 damage.
Its most notable feature, however, has nothing to do with the mechanics of the fight. Instead, it has to do with graphics. You see, Demon's Gate is in the unique position of being a very large boss, contained within a confined environment, who moves across the screen to get closer to our characters. This results in… This.
Summons just clip through him, their animations becoming barely readable. It's pretty funny. Unfortunately, between magic being ineffective and the Demon's Gate attacks hitting so hard…
…I think this may be my first 'proper' party wipe outside of unique circumstances like Battle Square or Yuffie's questline? I don't remember seeing that Game Over screen before, with the damaged film and film reel - it looks really cool.
Anyway, reload, try again, and now that we know this thing's so resistant to magic, we just hit him hard with physical attacks while keeping up Big Guard and healing, with Tifa's Limit Break alone hitting for several thousands of damage.
With the magical demon door gone, Cait Sith enters the Temple.
And now it's time.
It's time for Cait Sith's Great Adventure, and for us to figure out what the fuck our takeaway from it should even be. Let me just… Let me just transcribe the whole thing word for word.
Cait Sith: "I'll handle the rest!"
Cait Sith: "Well, everyone… Take care of yourselves!"
Aerith: "Cait Sith… Come on, Cloud… Say something."
Cloud: "I'm not good at this."
Cait Sith: "I understand. I feel the same too. Why don't I read our fortunes?"
Cait Sith: "Say, that's right… I haven't done it in a while, huh? I'm so excited. Right or wrong, I'm still the same ol' me. Now, what should I predict?"
Aerith: "Hmm, let's see how compatible Cloud and I are!"
Cait Sith: "That'll cost ya. Exactly one date!"
Cait Sith: "Here I go!"
[Cait Sith does his thing, then turns around.]
Cait Sith: "This isn't good. I can't say it. Poor Tifa."
[Tifa turns around and looks away sadly.]
Aerith: "No! Tell me! I promise I won't get mad!"
Cait Sith: "Is that so? Then I'll tell you."
[Tifa jumps, visibly startled.]
Cait Sith: "Looks good. You are perfect for each other! Aerith's star and Cloud's star! They show a great future!"
Tifaaaa nooooo don't be sad I swear you're the one in my heart-
Cait Sith: "Cloud, I'll be your matchmaker, preacher… I'll do whatever you want me to! You just call me when it all happens!"
Cait Sith: "Thank you for believing in me, knowing that I was a spy. This is the final, final farewell!"
[Cait Sith heads off screen, the screen fades to black.]
Aerith, [voice-over]: "Be strong, Cait Sith!!"
[As Cait Sith hops forward, the temple starts shaking, and he trips and falls.]
Cait Sith: "Owwww… What happened?"
Cait Sith: "I can still move more."
[He gets up and arrives in front of the altar.]
Cait Sith: "This must be it! The Ancients sure did a great job making this."
[Cait Sith turns to the camera, cat and moogle both waving to the player.]
Cait Sith: "I can protect the Planet too! I'm kinda embarrassed…"
Cait Sith: "There's plenty of stuffed toys like my body around, but there's only one me!"
Cait Sith: "Don't forget me even if another Cait Sith comes along."
[He turns back to the model.]
Cait Sith: "Good bye, then! I guess I'm off to save the Planet…"
[Fade to outside the temple, where Cloud & co are watching.]
I…
What the fuck.
Did Cait Sith just gaslight us into believing he was sacrificing his life so we wouldn't hold a grudge about him spying on us and blackmailing us by taking Marlene hostage?
Look. Listen. We've all been asking 'how does the game expect us to treat Cait Sith as a beloved party member who shows up in sequels and not just get smashed into computer chips the moment he no longer has leverage over us,' and. Theoretically. "Cait Sith literally sacrifices his life solving the Doom Puzzle so we can take the Black Materia to safety" would be a fitting redemption!
Except he's not going to die because he literally told us that this isn't his real body, he's remote-controlling it from afar, his true body is safe at Shinra HQ.
This is a fake sacrifice!! It's literally an empty redemption!! This costs him nothing but everyone still acts like it's a tearful goodbye to someone who is atoning for their crimes with their life!!!
This is just incredible writing.
There's a way this would make sense. If Cait Sith isn't remotely piloted, if instead he is a mind upload, then things would have a very different vibe. With the 'base template' at Shinra HQ, Shinra can just produce as many Cait Sith as they care to, but each one is an individual entity - but, depending on its outlook, one that might not think of itself as such. Each individual Cait Sith thinks 'I'm just a robot whose individual life doesn't matter, there are ten more of me waiting if I fail in my mission and die,' but that Cait Sith instance would still, in a very real sense, 'die' - kinda like Rei Ayanami in Evangelion? And so the Cait Sith who is sacrificing himself right now is the Cait Sith who holds Marlene hostage, the one who spied on us, betrayed us, and stole from us and any later Cait Sith iteration is innocent of his specific crime, even while still being 'Cait Sith,' the same personality template.
…that's how I might do it, but that's not how the game is presenting it. The way the game is telling it is very clear, someone at Shinra HQ is remotely piloting the Cait Sith robotic body, they can just roll out a new body if the first one dies, and Cait Sith turns around to the camera and pretty much says "I know the established facts of the narrative make this sacrifice meaningless and it's not really a redemption arc, but please treat it as if it were that way, thank you!" and then crushes himself to death in the temple shrinkage system.
WELL. MOVING ON.
The Temple is gone, replaced with a deep crater, with the Black Materia at the bottom; Tifa says she'll wait for us and Cloud and Aerith bo go down to retrieve it.
Cloud asks if we could use the Materia ourselves - not sure what we would want it for, considering its effects, but as worth asking as any question; Aerith explains that we can't, as great spiritual power is required to cast Meteor, far more than any one person's spiritual energy. You wouldn't want a person, you'd want a place - a place rich in the Planet's spiritual energy; both realize what they're saying at the same time, exclaiming, "The Promised Land!"
Cloud is immediately worried that Sephiroth might have the same thought, but Aerith is quick to reassure him - Sephiroth isn't an Ancient, so he shouldn't be able to find the Promised Land.
So.
Can you guess what happens now?
No, really, it's easy when you think about it.
You see, what I have come to realize writing this update is that the entirety of this sequence is a Final Fantasy IV homage. There is, of course, the fact that a major plot point involves a forbidden magic of the ancient world called 'Meteor' that was sealed inside a temple, and which can't normally be cast because it requires more spiritual energy than one person could possess. And there are the weird long-bearded blue-ish dudes who are the last remainders of the ancient people, like FuSoYa. There's the boss of this dungeon, Demon's Gate, which very clearly imitates the Demon Wall from the Underworld dungeon. And of course, there is the fact that one of our characters makes a 'heroic sacrifice' that is transparently bullshit and will re-enter from stage left within the next five minutes. So what's next?
Well, what happens after we defeat the Demon Wall in FFIV?
That's right, Kain gets mind-controlled and hands over the crystal to Golbez.
Sephiroth appears over the pit, floating, and gloats about his supreme power. He has "become a traveler of the Lifestream and gained the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients."
A TRAVELER OF THE LIFESTREAM. I FUCKING KNEW IT. I WAS RIGHT ALL ALOOOOONG-
Anyway, he is superior to the Ancients, because not only has he gained their knowledge and wisdom, but also that of those who came after them, us, humanity; with past and present combined in one, he will be the one to write the future.
Aerith challenges him, saying she won't let him, the future isn't his to decide, but Sephiroth ignores her, laughing, and the 'inner voice' once again shouts, "Wake up!" and Cloud… Dissociates.
There are two Clouds. One, the physical one, is crouching on the ground, holding his head in pain, struggling against Sephiroth's influence. The other, watching over his body, is his childhood self - the Cloud of 14 who left to become a SOLDIER, watching impotent as his older self struggles and, eventually… Fails. His disembodied voice shouts 'No!' as the real Cloud runs in slow-motion, as if seen through distorted time, towards Sephiroth.
Cloud hands the Black Materia to Sephiroth, who congratulates him, and vanishes in a flash of light.
The strange purple glow is gone, as is the influence on Cloud's mind, for now. He's left alone.
Aerith is immediately concerned with Cloud's safety - but for Cloud, this is one step farther than his usual denial/fugue/avoidance can take him. At last, he realizes what's happened - that he gave the Black Materia to Sephiroth.
Cloud screams and thrashes, struggling to grasp what happened. Aerith tries to reassure him, to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that he didn't do anything, he was under Sephiroth's influence, but…
Well, that's not quite true, is it?
Cloud's fault isn't in not being strong enough to resist Sephiroth's mind control, or in going along with his orders once he'd failed. His fault, his tragic flaw, comes much earlier than that: It's his avoidance of the problem. His refusal to ever confront the gaps in his memory, the strange visions and flashbacks he's been experiencing. He's chosen the comfort of denial, of just looking away and pretending it didn't happen every time, and because of this, he was completely unprepared for Sephiroth taking control of him.
Cloud shoves Aerith back as she tries to comfort him, hard enough she falls, and as he does he, again, splits - the phantom child!Cloud watching his adult self thrash in pain at what he's done, and what has been done to him. He's… punching? Aerith? Or the ground in front of Aerith? I hope the latter, but the low res makes it hard to see.
Which is, amazingly, the moment Cait Sith picks to come back.
"Cait Sith N°2." THIS CAT, I SWEAR. He's just gonna show up mid-psychological breakdown and slide back into the group and -
WHERE IS MARLENE? THE FIRST CAIT SITH DIED WITHOUT EVEN TELLING US WHERE TO FIND MARLENE OR HOW TO MAKE SURE SHE WAS SAFE!
God he really is the worst.
Tifa, who's been running around the edge of the crater, at first trying to get her hands on Sephiroth, then without a clear purpose, just completely ignores the cat and slides down the cliff to join the others and pull Cloud back and make him stop flailing about in anger.
Fade to white. End scene.
Cloud: "Everything is white…"
Cloud: "What did I do? I don't remember anything…"
Cloud: "My memory… Since when? If everything's a dream, don't wake me."
Well, Cloud, I think we can let you sleep a little longer. This'll make for a good ending for our update.
…
I'm not even sure what to say to sum this all up.
This whole sequence had some of the best psychological horror in VII so far, with Cloud increasingly losing grips with reality and Sephiroth as this ghost-like presence whose reality isn't certain, along some absolutely goofy shit (I'm sorry I can't take the Ancient Spirits seriously and you can't make me), all topped with some of the most baffling writing in the game (CAIT SITH???). At least we have clarity on some of the mysteries established so far - we now know what Sephiroth's plan actually is, he's taken deliberate steps to fulfill it, the stakes have been appropriately raised, we know he's a 'traveler of the Lifestream' and has an ability to directly manipulate Cloud as I had suspected…
You know, we haven't heard the Backseater in a while. I'm not sure what that's about. In the early game he was a fairly frequent presence when Cloud was having episodes, but for the past dozen hours he's vanished from the narrative entirely. One possibility is that the Backseater was always Sephiroth/Jenova's influence, which only seemed helpful by the bias of circumstances and lacking context, but I doubt that, it mostly feels like the game… Forgot he was there.
Actually, Jenova is also kind of conspicuously missing from Sephiroth's plans, isn't she? He's talking about he'll turn himself into a God and all that, and there is one line in which he says he'll soon 'become one' with Mother, but the 'we'll find the Promised Land together' angle seems to have disappeared, especially as Sephiroth just told us he did find the Promised Land and it's a place on this earth from which he wants to use the Black Materia.
It feels like a lot changed for Sephiroth in the five years between Nibelheim and now, and we still don't have the full picture.
Alright, well. That was a weird update but it had a lot of high points, and I am dying of the sickness, so we'll leave it there for now.
Thanks for reading!
Next Time: The City of the Ancients, I think?
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
The insane contrast between Cloud freaking out, tackling Aerith and beating the shit out of her, and Cait Sith #2 showing up to cheerily greet everyone never fails to leave me dumbfounded because of how absolutely bizarre it is. Just gives the whole thing this feeling of unreality. I'm not necessarily saying it's bad though, since the whole sequence is very deliberately unreal what with Sephiroth phasing through walls and shit.
My take on the Cait Sith sacrifice is that there's some kind of independent onboard AI on the robot so the Shinra pilot doesn't have to be online 100% of the time. It'd certainly suck if Cait Sith needed to interact with the party while the pilot was sleeping, for example. So that onboard AI, the "real" Cait Sith, genuinely sacrificed itself for the party's sake.
Edit: Hell, I just realized that it was probably talking to its pilot during that scene, not the player.
My take on the Cait Sith sacrifice is that there's some kind of independent onboard AI on the robot so the Shinra pilot doesn't have to be online 100% of the time. It'd certainly suck if Cait Sith needed to interact with the party while the pilot was sleeping, for example. So that onboard AI, the "real" Cait Sith, genuinely sacrificed itself for the party's sake.
Edit: Hell, I just realized that it was probably talking to its pilot during that scene, not the player.
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That would make sense on why it saying the things it does when its only itself in temple. And that would be more useful than someone constantly manning Cait Sith.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Although if that's the case I hope it speaking its comments-to-the-pilot out loud is a conceit for the player, because a semiautonomous spy drone that can communicate its opinions to its pilot only in a way the people it's spying on can hear is a bit of a design flaw.
"What? No, that's a terrible idea!"
"Cait Sith, we're just eating dinner."
"I was, uh, thinking out loud to myself about what I was going to have. Mayo on pizza, what a horrible idea, right? Ha ha ha"
"What? No, that's a terrible idea!"
"Cait Sith, we're just eating dinner."
"I was, uh, thinking out loud to myself about what I was going to have. Mayo on pizza, what a horrible idea, right? Ha ha ha"
- Location
- PA
…Cait Sith…
He's comic relief.
An attempt at wrapping one's head around the notion of someone describing death of one's player character and what happens when someone would be that cavalier about things…
And a part of me wonders-
Did he have Marlene hostage?
Or was that a recording he got because Shinra?
And speaking of Shinra.
Drone pilot.
But how much training did it take for Cait to be Cait.
And well. Nebelheim. How easily could he be replaced?
And worse is the fact that throughout this update despite Cait having fun with the impending game over I'm sitting here thinking of one of the biggest events in video game history that feels RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!!!
Man that pool of knowledge or whatever was raising my hackles like-
Well.
You clearly see that I missed the boat back in the day with this post.
He's comic relief.
An attempt at wrapping one's head around the notion of someone describing death of one's player character and what happens when someone would be that cavalier about things…
And a part of me wonders-
Did he have Marlene hostage?
Or was that a recording he got because Shinra?
And speaking of Shinra.
Drone pilot.
But how much training did it take for Cait to be Cait.
And well. Nebelheim. How easily could he be replaced?
And worse is the fact that throughout this update despite Cait having fun with the impending game over I'm sitting here thinking of one of the biggest events in video game history that feels RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!!!
Man that pool of knowledge or whatever was raising my hackles like-
Well.
You clearly see that I missed the boat back in the day with this post.
Look, she can't help it if the magical area border that triggers her mystical voices is right in the middle of the bridge, they just designed it that way!
I suppose it's just one more bit that partially falls victim to the whole "please ignore everything the Turks did in Sector 7 collapsing the plate", because from what I recall Tseng was kind of an asshole to Aerith during said kidnapping in that scene.
I find it absolutely hilarious that of all thing the high tech super special Ancient technology that Cloud gets is, of all things, a nail bat. It's like you accidentally wandered into the former Ancient Gangster territory or something and Cloud went "yeah this here, this is my new weapon of choice" while everyone else is side-eying him with their new super high-tech guns and rocket arms.
Yeah, much like Ragnarok you won't really be using Morph without a guide.
Luckily for you, there's a guide in the form of dozens of thread watchers who will happily jump in when you reach an area good for farming Source items, so hey, keep Morph in your back pocket until then.
Idunno, are we still on the theory of "The Ancients are Space Travelers who settled down here for a bit"? Because if so, I could absolutely see whoever built the temple just being a big fan of the aesthetics of both and combining them together with zero shits given about cultural appropriation.
Alright Cloud, we believe you, not like Sephiroth was Level 50 even before everything went down and he got magic lifestream ghost possession powers or whatever is going on.
Though really, wouldn't that be something? If after all this buildup the party just offed Sephiroth here and now, end Disk 1, rest of the game is Idunno, fighting against Shinra and Jenova? Would certainly subvert my expectations (jury's still out on if that's a good thing).
Inb4 Omi proceeds to roll "broken accessory" every round before the status effects happen
Oh hey, we're back to Meteor being the big story important magic, after FFVI just sort of had it faffing about as yet another spell you learn.
...Heck thinking about it, even Ultima wasn't really "the ultimate super legendary magic" in FFVI so much as "that one spell that happens to be pretty good, look even some bosses have it".
Cloud is a master of burying his issues on a level that us mere mortals can never match."I remember! I remember my way," the light returns, and he turns around to the girls and… Says this.
Dude.
And that's not even getting into the fact that we already know Shinra is aware of this place. You really think they wouldn't send some intern or a Cait Sith in to clear the puzzles so they could get their hands on the power to smite their enemies from the heavens in materia form?
Damn, if only the game had recently given you a bunch of super strong physical weapons that didn't care about using magic
(Obviously not something you can prep for unless you know it's coming, of course)
Probably a good idea, because this shit gets wild.
Like I said - absolutely wild. Yes, Cait Sith did in fact just have his "redemption" arc, literally an hour after his betrayal in the first place, with no real setup, and I'm pretty sure nobody calls him out on it.
I've certainly seen the theory that there's some uniqueness to the individual Cait Sith machines before, but I don't think it's anything that's really confirmed in game.
Omi
Omi you didn't tell us you found the secret tenth party member already offscreen, shouldn't we have gotten an update for that?
I'm moderately certain it's supposed to be the first one where Cloud is pummeling Aerith while he has An Episode, if only because it just adds more to the insanity of the entire scene.
Nevermind, this was the secret 10th party member all along: Cait Sith 2: Electric Boogaloo.
So this translation implies he's dead, but IIRC in the original (and sequels), he lived.
So does a number of weapons found outside of it, tho (you found Red's one in Wutai, no?)
Like steal, it tends to be more freebies then "go back and grind for it"...With one (1) exception. You okay with us telling you "this enemy, kill with morph)?
See, I forgot about the copies thing, so I thought - "What flunkies? Seph's a solo operator, he doesn't have any minions"
Where do they store these things, that he got over so quickly?
(Also, thanks for posting. Could use a bit of distraction from life here)
Cloud and Co just have no idea how drones work
Their all from either the slums or small towns and ain't got no education
Their all from either the slums or small towns and ain't got no education
Ah yes. The Three Great FF7 Fandom Debates. Who do you ship Cloud with, what is the amount of control JENOVA has over Sephiroth, and finally, exactly what level of sentience does Cait Sith (the doll) have? The Compilation games eventually vaguely decide that each Cait Sith is its own individual sentient personality working in tandem with his Shinra handler, who can override "Cait" and assume direct control. Which is a nice compromise when you consider that vanilla FF7 seems to change its mind from scene to scene on just what is what. I'll elaborate a little more when it becomes relevant, but there's some minor cut content that explains a little bit more about just what the fuck is going on with him. It'll be interesting to see how much of it, if any, will make it into Rebirth.
Anyway, I was a very small child when I first played FF7, and the entire scene from Cait Sith offering to sacrifice himself up to Cloud going nuts made me cry like a baby.
Anyway, I was a very small child when I first played FF7, and the entire scene from Cait Sith offering to sacrifice himself up to Cloud going nuts made me cry like a baby.
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Dybbukpossesed
Falling Somewhere
- Location
- California
Now up to episode 24 of the Abridged series. One interesting difference I noticed rewatching just now is that they don't reveal Cait Sith's nature as a drone until after the "noble sacrifice for redemption" sequence.
FelOnyx
Love and Peace!
- Location
- Gunsmoke
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The weapon of the true hero, at last.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ql66MDopVU[/URL]
If these are the weapons of the Ancients, they must have had some brutal street fights.