- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
21stCentury
Let's get down to bismuth
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The rest of the game is shinra's board having ineffectual meetings about how to deal with the WEAPONs.
You thought Fort Condor sucked? Wait 'till you see the red tape minigame!
- Location
- Italy
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Quoting this old post because today I learned something about Nasir Gebelli-
View: https://www.tumblr.com/desert-palm/716500570705362944
Text from tumblr post: "In 1989 Iranian-American programmer Nasir Gebelli was forced to leave Japan, and the Squaresoft offices he worked at, over work visa issues. In the middle of programming Final Fantasy III, his coworkers wagered Nasir was so essential to Final Fantasy that it was more economic to move the entire crew to him than wait out another visa process. The rest of Final Fantasy III was created in a motel room in Sacramento, California, as seen in this photo."
I looked up sources and found an excerpt from an interview with Sakaguchi in Electronic Gaming Monthly- "[...] So for Final Fantasy II and III, our staff actually brought all the equipment, everything that was necessary to finish those games, to Sacramento, because (Gebelli) couldn't come back to Japan. [...] We finished Final Fantasy II and III in Sacramento, California. [Laughs]"
Something tremendously ironic about FF3 being finished in California but not receiving an English port until over 15 years later.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As you talked with Aerith in Gongaga, you get some times, as well: Zack left Gongaga ten years ago (per his parents) and vanished five years ago (per Aerith afterwards).
Final Fantasy VII, Part 26: Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back to Final Fantasy VII, the game where we explore just how much psychological impact Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion had on the Japanese cultural output of the 90s. Spoilers: It's a lot.
We are now on Part 26 of this Let's Play, which is the number of updates that it took to cover all of FFVI, plus a closing thoughts update. And we are nowhere near done, but we have reached a suitably dramatic Act 2 downer twist. So what comes next? Cloud fell completely under Sephiroth/Jenova's control, the Black Materia is lost, the Weapons are loose, Meteor has been summoned, every has fled on a Shinra airship...
Fade to white, and then - back into view.
Tifa wakes up on a medical bed. In a really neat play on the fourth wall, the 'fade to white' is both a transition effect and a diegetic side-effect of her waking up in a brightly lit room after a long time asleep, leaving the picture oversaturated.
Barret is sitting in the same room, watching over her, and tells her that she'll be better soon - she's been asleep for a long time.
Okay, but how long. Like. She banged her head a bit on the ship's railing. Did that just send her in a week-long coma??? This is such a bizarre justification for a timeskip. It's not like she got hit by the energy wave directly or anything, she just got knocked around a bit and bam, out for several days.
I mean head injuries are weird and dangerous and sometimes do work like that but narratively it's unsatisfying.
Tifa mutters that she's hungry, and instead of answering her, Barret asks her why she's not asking about 'him.' As if the question pierced through the haze of lingering unconsciousness, the glare immediately clears up and Tifa sits up.
Tifa: "...Because I'm scared."
Barret: "Don't worry. I don't know what happened to Cloud either."
Barret: "Guess I shouldn't tell you not to worry… None of them know if he's all right either."
Tifa: "He's still… alive, right? How long… was I asleep?"
Barret: "Lessee now… Must've been about 7 days."
Tifa: "What about Sephiroth?"
Barret: "You ain't over it yet? Remember that huge light in the Northern Cave? Since then, the Crater's been surrounded by a huge barrier of light. Everyone knows Sephiroth sleeps in that big hole, protected by the barrier. We can't do a damn thing about it. We just gotta wait till he wakes up."
Barret: "And on topa that, some huge monster called Weapon's been on a rampage."
Tifa: "...Weapon?"
Barret: "Remember that huge monster that was with Sephiroth at the bottom of the crater? Well it's up here now. They say it's some legendary monster from the past."
Tifa: "Weapon… is protecting Sephiroth?"
Barret: "Dunno. But he's up here goin' around tearin' stuff up. Right now Rufus' fighting it. I hate to say it, but he's got guts. We shoulda been the ones to destroy it, but we ain't got no time…"
Tifa: "Time…"
Tifa: "...Hey! How about Meteor?"
Anyway, Barret motions to Tifa to come closer, and opens the shutters, revealing Meteor in all its apocalyptic glory.
We're in Junon, apparently.
Oh that looks absolutely sick.
God, look at that thing. It's bigger than the moon, sitting there in the sky wreathed in flames like the eye of an angry god. Just outstanding visual design.
That's not really… How meteorites work, I don't think? Part of why they're so devastating is because of how fast they are going, but even if that wasn't the case, a meteorite wouldn't hang around in low orbit just slowly dropping over days like this. Of course Final Fantasy is not beholden to that kind of scientific accuracy when portraying magic rocks summoned from space, but I mention it because I choose to believe that this is because the Planet is actively trying to hold Meteor at bay, and that the flames wreathing the celestial body are very literally the magical energy of the Planet and Meteor fighting each other.
Also, in case it wasn't previously obvious, this really makes it obvious how the Seventh Legion's Project Meteor in FFXIV was a direct homage to VII - Dalamud in the Answers cinematic pretty much looks exactly like this.
Tifa: "Do we have to give up?"
Barret: "...Dunno."
Man. This is such a simple, understated exchange but it's also just… So much. Tifa plainly asking Barret if there's even a point in fighting anymore and Barret shrugging and admitting he doesn't have an answer.
This is the point at which Rufus Shinra enters the room, and he's going to put to rest any concern that Barret's earlier praise of his efforts might have suggested Shinra being any less evil.
Rufus: "I thought Cloud would show up to save you all…"
Rufus: "Professor Hojo wanted to check up on Cloud, too."
Tifa: "What are you going to do to Cloud?"
Rufus: "Sephiroth's alter ego… Meteor has been summoned… Essentially, it's all over now."
Rufus: "So, there's no need for you now. No, maybe there is an important task for you…"
[Heidegger enters the room.]
Heidegger: "President! Preparations for the public execution are complete."
Barret: "Execution!? What're ya gonna get by executin' us?"
Rufus: "You are to be executed for causing this situation. People are ignorant. They'll feel better as long as someone is punished."
Barret: "I take back what little praise I had for this damn jackass!"
Rufus: "Well, enjoy your last moments together."
[He leaves the room.]
This is just.
Incredible.
This is such a pointless gesture that literally makes their chances of surviving the calamity worse by killing the only people who have the skills and knowledge to maybe perhaps stop Sephiroth because the guys in charge have decided that it's hopeless so the most important thing to do is preserve public order while waiting for the calamity to kill them all. Also, is the line 'Professor Hojo wanted to check up on Cloud, too' implying that Hojo is still working with Shinra? They didn't shoot him and throw his body in a ditch the second they were outside the crater's blast area? And they're executing us? There is a kind of genuine, bones-deep organizational stupidity here that's just…
I mean it makes perfect sense. Rufus basically laid it all out in his introduction speech back in Midgar: The only thing he cares about are profit and control. Absolute, iron-fisted, control-through-fear. When faced with the apocalypse, his reaction is to ensure that he at least maintain control until the end. It's the only thing that matters. He will sit in his office as Meteor bears down and incinerates Midgar and the last thought left in his mind will be satisfaction that at least he ruthlessly put down any riots.
After Rufus has left, Heidegger ties up Tifa and Barret and leads them out of the room and through the base towards the execution chamber, giving us a look at parts of Junon that we didn't get to see the first time around.
Look at this immaculate 90s open office aesthetic, with the CRT monitors and everything. It's amusing how that wasn't meant to be retro at the time of the game's production, but now looks retro anyway.
The resolution is too low for me to be able to tell who this is a statue of, Rufus or his father.
Our group is led to a small conference room with sparse attendance, which includes a conspicuously shaped man in a trenchcoat.
Scarlet is the one officiating the grim proceedings, introducing Tifa and Barret as "the ones who brought this madness into the world" and saying our miserable deaths will be broadcast live on national television.
Trenchcoat Man: "Scarlet, why a public execution in this day and age?"
Scarlet: "With the chaos resulting from the Meteor reports, we desperately need to rally public support… It's better that we punish somebody, anybody."
Tifa: "You make me sick…"
Scarlet: "Kya, ha, ha! They'll never admit it, but everyone loves this stuff!"
Scarlet: "We'll start with this girl."
Barret: "If you gotta do it, take me first!"
Scarlet: "Camera, this way! Make sure you get this, the audience eats up tearful goodbyes!"
We haven't seen much of Scarlet's personality in the game, but she's definitely angling for the 'evil arrogant girlboss' archetype; Remake amped that up to some impressive levels.
The fact that Scarlet has a personal gas chamber is just. I don't know what it says but only bad things. Notably, throughout this scene Scarlet is physically abusive towards Tifa in a noticeable way; she's constantly pushing her, shoving her around, and after shoving her into the chair, she slaps her and calls her a 'stuck up bitch.' It's a… weird choice of insult; I think we're meant to take it as Scarlet having some personal animosity towards Tifa related to, I don't know, jealousy? There's a weird sexist undercurrent but we don't really linger on her character long enough to make much of it.
With Tifa in the chair, Scarlet leaves the room, followed by the Shinra soldier who took care of Tifa's restraints… Who drops a key while leaving.
Man, the decision to have Shinra's uniform include a face-covering helmet that allows anyone to easily disguise themselves as one their soldiers never stops biting them in the ass, does it?
EDIT: As the disguised soldier refuses to manifest again it eventually becomes apparent that this soldier was not, in fact, a member of the party in disguise, he just… Dropped that key because he's incompetent? Some weird plot twists today.
Scarlet comes out and addresses the 'crowd' (there are like, five people who aren't either soldiers in uniform or Obviously Disguised Party Members), only to be interrupted by blaring alarms - one of the Weapons is approaching the base, all military personnel must take their positions.
Notably, as before, the script uses the term 'Weapon' in the singular form, as in 'Weapon is approaching.' It seems like the translator actually believes that 'Weapon' is a singular entity, despite the opposite being obvious from the cutscene that introduces them; at this point I'm starting to wonder if we haven't reached the point where the translator didn't have time to play through the rest of the game anymore and was translating from the script alone without playing the game to see what visuals accompanied it, which would be… I mean, it'd explain some things, but damn that would mean the translation will only get rougher from here.
The handful of genuine civilians run out of the room in a panic (to go where, my guys), but the suspiciously large trenchcoat man instead approaches Scarlet and asks her 'how she feels.' She starts answering, but it was only a trick to get in range of her; the man holds out his arm and sprays some kind of gas in her face, and Scarlet falls, before the man dramatically tosses away his trenchcoat and reveals himself as…
Okay, fine, saving Tifa and Barret from execution does count as redeeming his past actions, I guess.
This encounter with two Shinra goons is made slightly more bothersome by the fact that it didn't occur to me to open the menu and reallocate all my Materias in the brief segment of game between the medical room and the execution chamber (and even if it had, I wouldn't have expected Cait Sith), so all Barret and Cait Sith can do is Attack. Which… doesn't really matter, we obliterate these soldiers easily, and then the two can talk.
Barret: "Why you… Ain't you part of Shinra?"
Cait Sith: "Let's just say I'm against capital punishment. Besides… I hate this broad. Come on, we gotta help Tifa."
I gotta say, while it's pretty clear Cait Sith is deflecting with an excuse to cover for the fact that he's helping us because, I don't know, he grew feelings for our group, or he's tired of being pushed around by Shinra, or whatever (OR MAYBE HE'S STILL WORKING FOR SHINRA AND THIS IS ALL A DOUBLE BLUFF), the idea that he might be telling the truth and he literally did all this out of principled objection to the death penalty is the funniest possible interpretation here and I want to believe it.
Talking to the half-unconscious Scarlet, she reveals that she already pushed the switch to the gas chamber, which is filling with deadly gas as we speak! Barret rushes to the door, but despite his best effort, he cannot force the heavy metal door open. While this is happening, we move to the command room of the base, where Rufus is staring out an immense window at the sea and the incoming Weapon.
Heidegger asks for orders, and Rufus tells him there's 'no need to ask,' which Heidegger understands as an implicit command to make use of the really huge cannon that is Junon Harbour's defining feature.
Oh, baby. I was nearly thinking I would never get to see this Chekhov's Gun fired. But we're doing it.
The cannon has an entire FMV dedicated not just to its firing, but to the build-up to its firing. In pure military porn tradition, we get to watch metal doors slide up to armor residential buildings, trapdoors open to reveal gun turrets, the giant articulated arm holding up the barrel of the cannon moving in order to align it with its target and to convey the sheer weight of the thing… Fantastic stuff.
We briefly move back to the command room, where a sailor announces the preparations are complete, and Heidegger orders "Fire!"
Oh hell yeah.
I have no notes, this is perfect. Except maybe that the explosion could be bigger. Well, it's mainly a factor of distance, the gun is clearly striking very far away, sending a double shockwave that rocks the waves.
In the quiet that follows, Rufus asks if they got their target, and Heidegger, hesitant, says it seems so… Then the alarms blare again, the whole room turning red, soldiers shouting that the Weapon is approaching at increasing speed of 50 knots, a speed beyond most real warships.
Classic "Sachiel shrugging off the N2 bombs" right there. Panicking, Heidegger says the cannon will take time to reload, and Rufus orders him to use conventional fire in the meantime, leading to one of the most Hideaki Anno scenes in the entire game so far - no, I'm talking about the weird mindfuck at the North Crater, I am talking about lovingly rendered shots of artillery guns lining up in order to deliver volley fire against a distant looming kaiju.
I'm gonna be real with you guys, this is hitting all of my brain's button, I unironically love everything about this kind of scene. It helps that the cinematography is on point, with the camera leaving the Weapon half-concealed, a shadow under the water that only progressively begins to emerge while soaking up fire, reveling in how cool "shooting a shitton of guns" is while at the same time the beast walks through it all as an implacable avatar of the Planet's wrath. Soldiers warn that the creature's speed has increased to 70 knots, and the beast hits the fortress, rocking it, just before moving back to Tifa in the gas chamber.
The gas begins to release, but Barret is still unable to force the door open. As Tifa calls for help, he asks her to hold her breath for as long as she can and turns around to find another way of saving her, saying the chamber is probably locked from another room.
This prompts one of the weirder sequences in the game. Now, granted, with the door refusing to budge, Barret doesn't have much choice other than try and find some other way to free Tifa, but the way they go about it is…
Cait Sith leads Barret out of the room, after which the door lock behind him and Scarlet gloats that they'll never save their friend now; and Cait Sith says that they have to run to… the Airport? When Barret asks how the airport will in any way help them save Tifa, Cait Sith says to just trust him, and we're handed back control, fighting through random encounters as we make our way back to that air field that was first introduced many, many hours ago.
…hey, would you look at that. The most common opponent we run into in this area are 2nd Class SOLDIERs. This is only the second time we come across SOLDIER opponents, with the 3rd Class encountered in the Shinra Building way back in Midgar. They have the classic style associated with their organization, wearing the same uniforms in red instead of blue and wielding large swords, and they're noticeably tough compared to every other enemy encountered at this stage, with 4,000 HP and a counterattack against magic attack - still easy for us, but there's been some work put into making them stand out from other enemies of this range. It's a bit of a foolish endeavour to try and treat gameplay stats as in-character reality but, if you'll humour me for a bit, with these stats a single 2nd Class SOLDIER would have proven a very resilient, dangerous but straightforward boss as far as the Shinra Building (where Hundred Gunner combined had a total of 2,600 HP), which… Sorta fits narratively, given that we now know that Cloud wasn't a true SOLDIER and so probably started the game significantly weaker than a First Class?
I'm so curious about SOLDIER's role in the story. Like, the SOLDIER program looms incredibly large over the entire plot, it's a major component of Cloud's backstory (and the twist that he wasn't in SOLDIER is itself a major plot point), it's brought up by multiple characters as an important element of the setting, it's tied into Shinra's whole human augmentation programs… And yet, as I said last update, the only SOLDIER who is ever given a narrative role is Cloud, and as of last update, Black Hair Guy. Yet the rest of the organization clearly exists, since we're fighting them. But only in random encounters! We never meet one even as nameless NPCs hanging around Shinra-affiliated areas! It's odd.
It's part of why I appreciate the inclusion of Roche in Remake, who serves as an example of 'this is what SOLDIER members are like, this is why normal soldiers hate working with them, this is how dangerous they are as opponents,' with an added function of hinting to truth about Cloud in the fact that this Third Class is capable of going toe-to-toe with alleged First Class Cloud.
Soon, we emerge out into the open air, where Barret and Cait Sith run into a familiar-looking reporter…
Reminder: Tifa is holding her breath this entire time.
Barret shouts at her to get out of her way, only for the 'reporter' to tell him to keep it down - it's her, Yuffie, didn't he recognize her?
Yuffie really gets no respect, it's amazing. She put on a hat and glasses and Barret instantly went 'new phone who dis.' However, their touching reunion is interrupted by the emergence of the Weapon from the water.
I will say, that thing would be scarier if I had any idea what it looked like, but they've really not picked the most flattering angle here.
That said, this scene is also a huge flex, I'm pretty sure. I'm not going to try to capture it in screenshots, but a lot of what's happening in this whole sequence is water moving, waves, ripples, shockwaves, and I am informed that fluids are, like, hell to animate in 3D? So a lot of this feels like the devs flexing the incredible power the PSX hardware has given them and their skill at using it (even as the PSX's limitations harshly restrict the game's capabilities in other ways).
With no time to explain, Yuffie gets absorbed back into the group and we beeline for the airport, where the very same airship Rufus rode into the Northern Crater on is waiting.
Barret: "Yo! You sure this is the right way? It's a dead end!"
Cait Sith: "Uh oh? Did I make a wrong turn?"
Barret: "You damn cat! What the hell're we gonna do now? They all be comin' soon!"
[He turns around, facing the camera with his gun-arm.]
Barret: "Yo, better watch my back till the end… partner!"
Again: Tifa is trapped in a gas chamber holding her breath as all this is happening. Thankfully, we won't need these guys to save her, because she'll have to save herself!
With the most annoying minigame of all time.
…
Okay. Here's the thing.
This minigame would probably be a lot easier on the PSX controller for which the game was initially designed, because it was designed ergonomically. To move Tifa's head, you would press triangle, the top face button. To move her left arm, you would press square, the left face button. And so on. The button you're pressing corresponds to the correct limb you're trying to move.
Unless you took pains to make your control scheme for Final Fantasy VII Steam Port On PC replicate that, like by tying these keys to 8-4-6-2 on the numpad, which is something only an insane person would do, then on PC the limbs have no relation to where the key you're supposed to press is located, and, because the UI is so bad, as always it tells you the function of the key, not the key, which is to say it tells you to press [SWITCH] instead of, like, Insert, which is the actual key that [SWITCH] is tied to. It's, like, [OK] is the Enter key for me, and is the left arm, but [CANCEL] is Backspace and that's the legs, which are on the same side and above Enter. So it's completely non-intuitive and extremely frustrating to muddle through.
The goal here is first to have Tifa stretch out her legs to grab the key dropped by a guard earlier with her feet, then slide it underneath her, then press multiple buttons at once so that she first lifts the key up between her feet to her mouth, then grabs the key between her teeth, unlocks one of her arms with it, and then the other. The entire process takes several minutes, during which the gas just keeps happily pumping into the room, but thankfully there is no game over, you can just… keep doing it forever.
I will say I do appreciate that Tifa is the one to free herself here, although it does make the others look kind of stupid for her needing to. Once freed, Tifa just has to find a switch located inside the chamber which turns off the gas, and she's now safe, if still locked inside the room.
Not to worry, though. Fish Weapon is coming to the rescue.
Okay, that's a much better look at the big guy.
The kaiju unleashes a Godzilla atomic beam at the fortress, cutting a gash in the front wall, and then its mouth starts to glow as it prepares for a second beam attack; but, before it can do a repeat, the main gun has finally completely reloaded, and fires a point-blank shot in the Weapon's face… And this time, it even works.
Hoooooly shit.
It looks like the shot ripped that thing's head clean off, and we can see the radioactive-green blood dripping down its chest; then it… falls? Dives? Under the water?
Okay, I'm sorry. I don't usually do this but I had to actually go and check, because I was genuinely unclear on this: That thing is fucking dead. We'll never see it again. I did have to go and check, though, because the motion of its tail as it plunged really looked like it was actually diving, and given how little we know of the Weapons' biology and limitations, it's completely possible that it could have survived the loss of its head and grown a new one instead or something, especially with the smoke obscuring the extent of the damage.
But no. Score one for humanity: It did kill Fishzilla.
I wasn't expecting that degree of success from the cannon, and I appreciate that it got it; I like my kaiju stories better when conventional weaponry finds some success in fighting off the monsters, just not enough (which forces humanity to bring in the mechas/superpowered individuals/trucks full of coagulant agent). This is probably the single most powerful man-made weapon on the planet, and it should have some success in fighting off the Weapons - in much the same way as the N2 bombs temporarily drive Sachiel to a halt, buying NERV enough time to field a second traumatized teenager in a giant meat robot to destroy it for good. Now, actually killing one of the Weapons was not something I had anticipated at all, and in fact my initial read of the scene was that it had just dived to safety, but no! Shinra actually managed to kill one of the Planet's major antibodies that are trying to wipe out mankind! Credit to them for that much, at least.
But of course, there's only one Junon Gun, and it's static by nature, and only managed to accomplish this much at point blank range after Fish Weapon shrugged off a long-range shot; this is the ultimate triumph of Shinra's military technology, and unless the Junon Gun grows wings, it's not going to be enough. Shinra's technology cannot stop this threat alone.
…
Okay but what can though.
Our protagonists are, at this point, superhuman fighters who can summon the power of the gods, who can hurl thunderbolts and fireballs, and while the games tend to shy away from visually depicting them as doing anything physically superhuman (see Barret defeated by a door), they're clearly incredibly skilled fighters who have put down dragons, giant robots, and horrors from beyond the stars. But the Weapons are just… They're on a scale no previous Final Fantasy monster has been, except maybe the Monument of the Gods, which was more hostile architecture than a moving, rampaging monster. That thing was the size of a skyscraper.
It's going to boil down to 'we enter combat and the enemy model looks smaller than you'd think and everything plays out as normal' in the end because we're still playing with limited tools, but it's certainly daunting to imagine that fight.
Back in the execution chamber, Fishzilla's Atomic Breath cut a convenient opening into the roof. While Scarlet is banging on the door demanding to be let in, Tifa climbs out and emerges onto the outside of the fortress.
Scarlet barges into the room moments after Tifa starts climbing down, and sends soldiers after her - which is not a riskless endeavour; we immediately get to see one of them slip and fall to his death. Also the fact that Scarlet opened the door like that probably means she just had the keys and Barret and Cait Sith didn't need to do… whatever it is they are doing?
Anyway, Tifa climbs down the front wall onto the barrel of the giant cannon, Scarlet and her soldiers hot on her trail. Unfortunately, there's nowhere to go from there - now Tifa is trapped between Shinra soldiers on one side, and a precipitous plunge hundreds of feet into the ocean below.
And now it's time.
For the funniest, dumbest minigame of the entire game.
For you see, this is the 90s, and two female characters are now engaging in a physical confrontation: A younger, prettier protagonist, and an arrogant, older, implicitly jealous villainess. What can this mean? Did someone just say 'a solo boss fight just like Cloud got against Rufus and Barret against Dyne'? You idiot. You buffoon. You absolute moron. That would be dignified.
No. It's time for a slapfight.
Now, 'Scarlet slaps Tifa, Tifa slaps her back harder' would be one thing. But I did mean it when I said it was a minigame. And a slapfight. It's both those things at once. Scarlet and Tifa just take turn slapping each other, and we have to press the slap button with the right timing in order to deliver more slaps than Scarlet does.
#BestAnimaBattlesOfAllTime
It's just so completely ridiculous. Anyway, due to trying to navigate the slapping minigame and timed screenshots at the same time, I unfortunately fail the minigame. Tifa exclaims "What!?" and dramatically falls to her knees, defeated by, and I can't emphasize this enough, slapping.
I realize the Shinra goons probably took away her arms and armor along with her Materia, but this girl once punched Jenova.
Anyway, Scarlet orders her soldiers to grab Tifa and tells her to stay calm or she'll drop her into the sea, but then! A voice rings out, calling out to Tifa to run to the end of the cannon! Who could this possibly be?
Barret is on the deck of the Airship, calling to Tifa! He throws a rope out the side of the ship, its end dangling in front of the cannon. Our girl runs to the end of the barrel and leaps into the air, at first failing to catch the rope, then narrowly managing to catch the lower end before it's too late, and the ship pulls away into the sky, leaving a furious and impotent Scarlet behind.
For some reason, none of the artillery that was moments ago unleashing hell on the Weapon bothers to shoot down this defenseless aircraft as it departs with Shinra's most wanted criminals aboard.
Barret asks Tifa if she's okay, she asks what the hell is this all about, Cait Sith declares that we have now taken possession of the Airship Highwind, Yuffie is moaning and retching and dying of air sickness. It turns out she has just as bad a 'sky leg' as she does a sea leg.
The Highwind is a massive vessel, so massive in fact that it's not operated by our crew alone, but by rogue Shinra air crew! It's also got its whole internal industrial aesthetic, it's cool.
Barret: "Dammit! Why didn't ya tell me you could fly an airship!?"
Barret: "I thought… Tifa was gone for good."
Cait Sith: "Sorry, but I had to do something to trick the enemy. Come on! Everyone is waiting!"
Wait, okay, so.
I want to be clear on the chain of events here.
Tifa was trapped in an execution chamber filling up with deadly gas… And Cait Sith's solution was 'let's just leave her alone, hike halfway across the base, steal an airship, take off, circle around and come back to save her from the side of the fortress that is a solid armored wall with no windows, and then ????, profit?
Like, this entire rescue only worked because of two consecutive and completely unpredictable events, one being that Tifa managed to free herself thanks to a guard dropping a key within reach of her feet, and the other being the Fish Weapon blasting a hole in the chamber. Without these two entirely unpredictable factors, all the Highwind would have accomplished is hover outside the wrong side of the execution chamber as Tifa died horribly!
Are we sure Cait Sith is actually on our side and this wasn't an elaborate plot to kill Tifa.
Wait a minute. Speaking of Cait Sith! WHERE'S MARLENE? WE HAVEN'T EVEN BROUGHT UP MARLENE EVER SINCE THAT NIGHT AT THE GOLD SAUCER! HE STILL HAS HER HOSTAGE SOMEHOW!
Like at this point Cait Sith is allegedly fully on our side, right? He just betrayed Shinra and helped us steal their best airship and escape execution and personally attacked Scarlet. SO WHERE IS MARLENE, YOU DAMNED CAT?
Ahem. Probably it'll just come up when it's relevant.
But wait, can Cait Sith even turn against Shinra when his body is at Shinra Headquarters remotely operating the cat toy? Can't they just pull him out of his seat and throw him in a cell?
Well, hopefully these are simply questions to be answered later. Speaking of questions to answer, let's ask some of the crew how they got here!
Crewman: "Working on the Highwind, we spent every day slaving under Heidegger. Whenever he got yelled at by the President, he'd immediately take it out on the crew. We put up with this all the time, even when he beat us. I mean, I finally made it on the crew of the famous Highwind, and there's no way I was going to quit over him. "
Crewman: "Let's see, it must have been a week ago… it was my shift and we were heading towards the North Cave. Everyone, including the President and Scarlet, got on. And with them, I saw Cid, a legendary pilot! And he was looking around the inside of the airship looking really, y'know, nostalgic… He even talked to us. I couldn't believe it! I was so impressed! He was every bit as warm-hearted as we'd always heard."
Crewman: "Cid said that if he had the Highwind, things would be a lot easier. And now here we are off to save the Planet. It's true. He really overwhelmed me. And that's why we decided to help. After the North Cave, we went to Junon, and I started screaming 'Fire! Fire!' In the middle of all the commotion, we stole this ship from Shinra. That's how it happened. Just a mutiny against our leaders."
Crewman: "But Barret and you were captured by Heidegger… We waited seven days for a chance to rescue you guys before we finally could. So thanks to our successful mission, we were able to see you again. I hope I didn't bore you too much with that long story."
Honestly the least believable part of this is Cid being described as 'warm-hearted.' Dude's defining trait so far has been an abrasive, swear-a-minute temper and relentless aggression towards everyone. Maybe if I spent more time with him in the party I'd see his good side in incidental dialogue, idk. Simply by nature of a large cast there are going to be characters I like more or less than others and I'm afraid to say that Cid is the one I care the least about - even Cait Sith at least activates my neurons when I get mad about him.
With that said… It's kind of incredible how all of this could have been avoided on Shinra's end if they'd just, like. Treated their employees correctly. This posting on the Highwind was these guys' dream job, and their superiors relentlessly abused them precisely because the lure of the 'dream job' made them knuckle down and bear with it and refuse to 'quit over it', until-
Oh wow it's just the video game industry. That's literally how every underpaid gamedev working at their 'dream company' on their 'dream project' describes the process that leads to them enduring harassment and crunch time without daring to speak up, holy shit.
Except in this case thegamedevs flight crew took matter into their own hands and commandeered the airship, and now they're working with us.
I really like the humanity that FF7 allows the Shinra workers, the way they're allowed to be complete people with their own dreams and aspirations, the way Shinra is this massive hegemonic corporate-state that has so subsumed everything that even though it's evil, working for it doesn't imply you're evil, it just defines your horizons, reshapes the world until all is Shinra and all are, in some way, doing Shinra's work, even without evil intentions.
The whole gang is here! (Vincent is slightly off-screen.)
Cid welcomes us to 'his' airship, the Highwind (we're going to have an argument about that at some point, big guy), and we can talk to everyone, catch up some. Cait Sith just tells us that he can answer any Shinra-related questions we have, Barret asks why Tifa looks so sad, Vincent says he's glad Tifa is alright, and Nanaki is the one whose dialogue prompts the next bit of plot dialogue.
Red: "Do you think we aren't strong enough without Cloud? Do you think we can't save the Planet alone?"
Tifa: "Meteor is coming, and Weapon is on the rampage… At a time like this, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. No idea at all…"
Barret: "Get a hold of yourself, Tifa! C'mon, let's think about this! No way we can get offa this train we're on!"
Tifa: "If only Cloud was here, everything would be fine. Cloud would…"
Tifa: "...stand that cocky little way he did, and tell us what to do. He'd say, 'everything's under control, Tifa.'"
Barret: "Tifa! When'd you become such a wimp!"
Tifa: "I'm sorry, Barret. I'm so depressed I'm surprised at myself."
Red: "And Tifa… The reason why we all thought it was Cloud was because…"
Tifa: "I know. That's why I want to make sure. That's why I have to see him again."
Red: "Cheer up, Tifa…"
I have no idea what the 'thought it was Cloud' line is meant to say. But this is a really interesting recontextualization of the group dynamics of the past thirty hours.
Like… The fact that, mechanically, Cloud inevitably ends up more powerful than every other party member by several levels, in turns feeds diegetically into Red and Tifa's anxiety as to whether they can save the Planet without him - of course they feel that way! He's genuinely considerably more powerful than any other member of their little group! And not just that, he more or less… fell into the role of party leader and molded himself to it? When you're watching the story unfold from his own perspective, Cloud doesn't seem all that leader-ly, he's not, like, the kind of shounen protagonist who does a big speech and all his friends feel a surge of enthusiasm and certainty. But his knowledge of Sephiroth, and his desire for revenge, have set forth a path which everyone else ended up following because their own goals aligned more or less with it and it gave them a path forward.
Was single-mindedly pursuing Sephiroth across the entire planet a good plan? No. But it was a plan. At any step, you could ask 'well, what are we going to do now?' and Cloud would be there to say, 'pursue the next Sephiroth sighting,' and even if that ended in tragedy, it kept everyone moving.
Which made him, de facto, the leader.
Tifa, I think, attributes to Cloud more charisma and leadership than he actually has to most people, because she blatantly has a crush on him. She projects onto him an image of Cloud that is cooler than the Cloud who actually exists… But it's close enough to what everyone else is saying. And now that she's gone, she's rudderless, and so is the rest of the group.
…which is why it's particularly interesting that Tifa is now our party leader.
Tifa is now the character we control, and with whom we can form a group, but whom we can't leave behind.
If we talk to Barret, he has a couple of lines driving at Tifa's current character conflict, reminding her that the two of them were doing perfectly fine as members of Avalanche before Cloud showed up, and asking Tifa where the 'tough girl he used to know' as gone. Why do they need Cloud? And yeah - I think in a way, Tifa has come to rely on Cloud in a way she didn't before he showed up? I don't want to say that she 'damselified' herself, but… I think Tifa found it easier to offload the unpleasant weight of decision and confrontation onto someone who projected confidence.
Yet she's not some hapless maiden, she's a martial arts student from Nibelheim who carved out a living in the Slums of Midgar as a bar owner and secret terrorist. But… well, the weight of her secrets over time, and then the double whammy of Aerith's death (and the two girls had genuinely bonded, they were best friends) and Cloud's breakdown and disappearance (and, as far as she knows, possible death!) have done a number on her.
It really does make me wonder how she met Barret and joined Avalanche, honestly. It's a part of their shared history we've yet to explore.
As for where to go next, talking with Cid gives some pointers, but they're vague at best, although his summation of Cloud's character is… honestly pretty apt.
Cid: "I want you to know that I didn't dislike him. I gotta admit he was a strange dude. Just when you thought he was cool, he'd do some damn fool thing. Then when you thought he was smart, he'd show how stupid he was. Everything from his movements to his speech were kinda odd. Well, as long as you stay alive, you just might see him again someday. So cheer up, sis."
Tifa: "...I'll be able to see him someday."
Cid: "If we can find out where he is, the Highwind'll get us there in no time."
Red: "Maybe… Cloud is still stuck deep in the North Crater, where the ground cracked and swallowed him up. Buried in the depths of the underground…"
Tifa: "Deep within the earth… are you talking about the Lifestream?"
Red: "The Lifestream sometimes gushes out from cracks in the ocean floor to the surface. I heard about such a place. Maybe, just maybe Cloud's…"
This is such a cracked theory, I love it. Yeah, sure, half a mountain dropped on Cloud's head and he was buried under millions of tons of stone and ice, but I'm sure that just means he was driven into the core of the earth, where he is drifting through the Lifestream, and he will come out from an underwater Mako geyser at the bottom of the ocean. Which is fine, because we'll find and rescue him from that somehow.
And the thing is, the first time we were in Junon, Shinra characters made references to a submarine and an underwater reactor, so this is almost definitely the case! This is exactly what we're going to do even though it sounds utterly insane!
Not that this gives us an immediate lead on where to find such an undersea whatsit for the time being. Right now, we're left exactly as Tifa is: Adrift, without clear guidance… But with means of travel much, much more powerful than anything we had before.
Behold.
The power of this fully-operational airship.
Oh yeah, baby. We can go anywhere. Do anything. The sky is, quite literally, the limit.
I mean, shame about the giant meteor hanging in the sky ready to annihilate us all within probably days at most, but we'll probably have time to fit in an entire chocobo racing career in there or something, right? No big deal. The plot only moves when we do.
In theory we can return to any place we've been to before? Check them for world state changes, new dialogue, new stuff? I don't know where to go, but we'll find the right place eventually, and in the meantime the world's our oyster.
Thanks for reading.
Next Time: We go wherever!
We are now on Part 26 of this Let's Play, which is the number of updates that it took to cover all of FFVI, plus a closing thoughts update. And we are nowhere near done, but we have reached a suitably dramatic Act 2 downer twist. So what comes next? Cloud fell completely under Sephiroth/Jenova's control, the Black Materia is lost, the Weapons are loose, Meteor has been summoned, every has fled on a Shinra airship...
Fade to white, and then - back into view.
Tifa wakes up on a medical bed. In a really neat play on the fourth wall, the 'fade to white' is both a transition effect and a diegetic side-effect of her waking up in a brightly lit room after a long time asleep, leaving the picture oversaturated.
Barret is sitting in the same room, watching over her, and tells her that she'll be better soon - she's been asleep for a long time.
Okay, but how long. Like. She banged her head a bit on the ship's railing. Did that just send her in a week-long coma??? This is such a bizarre justification for a timeskip. It's not like she got hit by the energy wave directly or anything, she just got knocked around a bit and bam, out for several days.
I mean head injuries are weird and dangerous and sometimes do work like that but narratively it's unsatisfying.
Tifa mutters that she's hungry, and instead of answering her, Barret asks her why she's not asking about 'him.' As if the question pierced through the haze of lingering unconsciousness, the glare immediately clears up and Tifa sits up.
Tifa: "...Because I'm scared."
Barret: "Don't worry. I don't know what happened to Cloud either."
Barret: "Guess I shouldn't tell you not to worry… None of them know if he's all right either."
Tifa: "He's still… alive, right? How long… was I asleep?"
Barret: "Lessee now… Must've been about 7 days."
Tifa: "What about Sephiroth?"
Barret: "You ain't over it yet? Remember that huge light in the Northern Cave? Since then, the Crater's been surrounded by a huge barrier of light. Everyone knows Sephiroth sleeps in that big hole, protected by the barrier. We can't do a damn thing about it. We just gotta wait till he wakes up."
Barret: "And on topa that, some huge monster called Weapon's been on a rampage."
Tifa: "...Weapon?"
Barret: "Remember that huge monster that was with Sephiroth at the bottom of the crater? Well it's up here now. They say it's some legendary monster from the past."
Tifa: "Weapon… is protecting Sephiroth?"
Barret: "Dunno. But he's up here goin' around tearin' stuff up. Right now Rufus' fighting it. I hate to say it, but he's got guts. We shoulda been the ones to destroy it, but we ain't got no time…"
Tifa: "Time…"
Tifa: "...Hey! How about Meteor?"
Anyway, Barret motions to Tifa to come closer, and opens the shutters, revealing Meteor in all its apocalyptic glory.
We're in Junon, apparently.
Oh that looks absolutely sick.
God, look at that thing. It's bigger than the moon, sitting there in the sky wreathed in flames like the eye of an angry god. Just outstanding visual design.
That's not really… How meteorites work, I don't think? Part of why they're so devastating is because of how fast they are going, but even if that wasn't the case, a meteorite wouldn't hang around in low orbit just slowly dropping over days like this. Of course Final Fantasy is not beholden to that kind of scientific accuracy when portraying magic rocks summoned from space, but I mention it because I choose to believe that this is because the Planet is actively trying to hold Meteor at bay, and that the flames wreathing the celestial body are very literally the magical energy of the Planet and Meteor fighting each other.
Also, in case it wasn't previously obvious, this really makes it obvious how the Seventh Legion's Project Meteor in FFXIV was a direct homage to VII - Dalamud in the Answers cinematic pretty much looks exactly like this.
Tifa: "Do we have to give up?"
Barret: "...Dunno."
Man. This is such a simple, understated exchange but it's also just… So much. Tifa plainly asking Barret if there's even a point in fighting anymore and Barret shrugging and admitting he doesn't have an answer.
This is the point at which Rufus Shinra enters the room, and he's going to put to rest any concern that Barret's earlier praise of his efforts might have suggested Shinra being any less evil.
Rufus: "I thought Cloud would show up to save you all…"
Rufus: "Professor Hojo wanted to check up on Cloud, too."
Tifa: "What are you going to do to Cloud?"
Rufus: "Sephiroth's alter ego… Meteor has been summoned… Essentially, it's all over now."
Rufus: "So, there's no need for you now. No, maybe there is an important task for you…"
[Heidegger enters the room.]
Heidegger: "President! Preparations for the public execution are complete."
Barret: "Execution!? What're ya gonna get by executin' us?"
Rufus: "You are to be executed for causing this situation. People are ignorant. They'll feel better as long as someone is punished."
Barret: "I take back what little praise I had for this damn jackass!"
Rufus: "Well, enjoy your last moments together."
[He leaves the room.]
This is just.
Incredible.
This is such a pointless gesture that literally makes their chances of surviving the calamity worse by killing the only people who have the skills and knowledge to maybe perhaps stop Sephiroth because the guys in charge have decided that it's hopeless so the most important thing to do is preserve public order while waiting for the calamity to kill them all. Also, is the line 'Professor Hojo wanted to check up on Cloud, too' implying that Hojo is still working with Shinra? They didn't shoot him and throw his body in a ditch the second they were outside the crater's blast area? And they're executing us? There is a kind of genuine, bones-deep organizational stupidity here that's just…
I mean it makes perfect sense. Rufus basically laid it all out in his introduction speech back in Midgar: The only thing he cares about are profit and control. Absolute, iron-fisted, control-through-fear. When faced with the apocalypse, his reaction is to ensure that he at least maintain control until the end. It's the only thing that matters. He will sit in his office as Meteor bears down and incinerates Midgar and the last thought left in his mind will be satisfaction that at least he ruthlessly put down any riots.
After Rufus has left, Heidegger ties up Tifa and Barret and leads them out of the room and through the base towards the execution chamber, giving us a look at parts of Junon that we didn't get to see the first time around.
Look at this immaculate 90s open office aesthetic, with the CRT monitors and everything. It's amusing how that wasn't meant to be retro at the time of the game's production, but now looks retro anyway.
The resolution is too low for me to be able to tell who this is a statue of, Rufus or his father.
Our group is led to a small conference room with sparse attendance, which includes a conspicuously shaped man in a trenchcoat.
Scarlet is the one officiating the grim proceedings, introducing Tifa and Barret as "the ones who brought this madness into the world" and saying our miserable deaths will be broadcast live on national television.
Trenchcoat Man: "Scarlet, why a public execution in this day and age?"
Scarlet: "With the chaos resulting from the Meteor reports, we desperately need to rally public support… It's better that we punish somebody, anybody."
Tifa: "You make me sick…"
Scarlet: "Kya, ha, ha! They'll never admit it, but everyone loves this stuff!"
Scarlet: "We'll start with this girl."
Barret: "If you gotta do it, take me first!"
Scarlet: "Camera, this way! Make sure you get this, the audience eats up tearful goodbyes!"
We haven't seen much of Scarlet's personality in the game, but she's definitely angling for the 'evil arrogant girlboss' archetype; Remake amped that up to some impressive levels.
The fact that Scarlet has a personal gas chamber is just. I don't know what it says but only bad things. Notably, throughout this scene Scarlet is physically abusive towards Tifa in a noticeable way; she's constantly pushing her, shoving her around, and after shoving her into the chair, she slaps her and calls her a 'stuck up bitch.' It's a… weird choice of insult; I think we're meant to take it as Scarlet having some personal animosity towards Tifa related to, I don't know, jealousy? There's a weird sexist undercurrent but we don't really linger on her character long enough to make much of it.
With Tifa in the chair, Scarlet leaves the room, followed by the Shinra soldier who took care of Tifa's restraints… Who drops a key while leaving.
Man, the decision to have Shinra's uniform include a face-covering helmet that allows anyone to easily disguise themselves as one their soldiers never stops biting them in the ass, does it?
EDIT: As the disguised soldier refuses to manifest again it eventually becomes apparent that this soldier was not, in fact, a member of the party in disguise, he just… Dropped that key because he's incompetent? Some weird plot twists today.
Scarlet comes out and addresses the 'crowd' (there are like, five people who aren't either soldiers in uniform or Obviously Disguised Party Members), only to be interrupted by blaring alarms - one of the Weapons is approaching the base, all military personnel must take their positions.
Notably, as before, the script uses the term 'Weapon' in the singular form, as in 'Weapon is approaching.' It seems like the translator actually believes that 'Weapon' is a singular entity, despite the opposite being obvious from the cutscene that introduces them; at this point I'm starting to wonder if we haven't reached the point where the translator didn't have time to play through the rest of the game anymore and was translating from the script alone without playing the game to see what visuals accompanied it, which would be… I mean, it'd explain some things, but damn that would mean the translation will only get rougher from here.
The handful of genuine civilians run out of the room in a panic (to go where, my guys), but the suspiciously large trenchcoat man instead approaches Scarlet and asks her 'how she feels.' She starts answering, but it was only a trick to get in range of her; the man holds out his arm and sprays some kind of gas in her face, and Scarlet falls, before the man dramatically tosses away his trenchcoat and reveals himself as…
Okay, fine, saving Tifa and Barret from execution does count as redeeming his past actions, I guess.
This encounter with two Shinra goons is made slightly more bothersome by the fact that it didn't occur to me to open the menu and reallocate all my Materias in the brief segment of game between the medical room and the execution chamber (and even if it had, I wouldn't have expected Cait Sith), so all Barret and Cait Sith can do is Attack. Which… doesn't really matter, we obliterate these soldiers easily, and then the two can talk.
Barret: "Why you… Ain't you part of Shinra?"
Cait Sith: "Let's just say I'm against capital punishment. Besides… I hate this broad. Come on, we gotta help Tifa."
I gotta say, while it's pretty clear Cait Sith is deflecting with an excuse to cover for the fact that he's helping us because, I don't know, he grew feelings for our group, or he's tired of being pushed around by Shinra, or whatever (OR MAYBE HE'S STILL WORKING FOR SHINRA AND THIS IS ALL A DOUBLE BLUFF), the idea that he might be telling the truth and he literally did all this out of principled objection to the death penalty is the funniest possible interpretation here and I want to believe it.
Talking to the half-unconscious Scarlet, she reveals that she already pushed the switch to the gas chamber, which is filling with deadly gas as we speak! Barret rushes to the door, but despite his best effort, he cannot force the heavy metal door open. While this is happening, we move to the command room of the base, where Rufus is staring out an immense window at the sea and the incoming Weapon.
Heidegger asks for orders, and Rufus tells him there's 'no need to ask,' which Heidegger understands as an implicit command to make use of the really huge cannon that is Junon Harbour's defining feature.
Oh, baby. I was nearly thinking I would never get to see this Chekhov's Gun fired. But we're doing it.
The cannon has an entire FMV dedicated not just to its firing, but to the build-up to its firing. In pure military porn tradition, we get to watch metal doors slide up to armor residential buildings, trapdoors open to reveal gun turrets, the giant articulated arm holding up the barrel of the cannon moving in order to align it with its target and to convey the sheer weight of the thing… Fantastic stuff.
Oh hell yeah.
I have no notes, this is perfect. Except maybe that the explosion could be bigger. Well, it's mainly a factor of distance, the gun is clearly striking very far away, sending a double shockwave that rocks the waves.
In the quiet that follows, Rufus asks if they got their target, and Heidegger, hesitant, says it seems so… Then the alarms blare again, the whole room turning red, soldiers shouting that the Weapon is approaching at increasing speed of 50 knots, a speed beyond most real warships.
Classic "Sachiel shrugging off the N2 bombs" right there. Panicking, Heidegger says the cannon will take time to reload, and Rufus orders him to use conventional fire in the meantime, leading to one of the most Hideaki Anno scenes in the entire game so far - no, I'm talking about the weird mindfuck at the North Crater, I am talking about lovingly rendered shots of artillery guns lining up in order to deliver volley fire against a distant looming kaiju.
I'm gonna be real with you guys, this is hitting all of my brain's button, I unironically love everything about this kind of scene. It helps that the cinematography is on point, with the camera leaving the Weapon half-concealed, a shadow under the water that only progressively begins to emerge while soaking up fire, reveling in how cool "shooting a shitton of guns" is while at the same time the beast walks through it all as an implacable avatar of the Planet's wrath. Soldiers warn that the creature's speed has increased to 70 knots, and the beast hits the fortress, rocking it, just before moving back to Tifa in the gas chamber.
The gas begins to release, but Barret is still unable to force the door open. As Tifa calls for help, he asks her to hold her breath for as long as she can and turns around to find another way of saving her, saying the chamber is probably locked from another room.
This prompts one of the weirder sequences in the game. Now, granted, with the door refusing to budge, Barret doesn't have much choice other than try and find some other way to free Tifa, but the way they go about it is…
Cait Sith leads Barret out of the room, after which the door lock behind him and Scarlet gloats that they'll never save their friend now; and Cait Sith says that they have to run to… the Airport? When Barret asks how the airport will in any way help them save Tifa, Cait Sith says to just trust him, and we're handed back control, fighting through random encounters as we make our way back to that air field that was first introduced many, many hours ago.
…hey, would you look at that. The most common opponent we run into in this area are 2nd Class SOLDIERs. This is only the second time we come across SOLDIER opponents, with the 3rd Class encountered in the Shinra Building way back in Midgar. They have the classic style associated with their organization, wearing the same uniforms in red instead of blue and wielding large swords, and they're noticeably tough compared to every other enemy encountered at this stage, with 4,000 HP and a counterattack against magic attack - still easy for us, but there's been some work put into making them stand out from other enemies of this range. It's a bit of a foolish endeavour to try and treat gameplay stats as in-character reality but, if you'll humour me for a bit, with these stats a single 2nd Class SOLDIER would have proven a very resilient, dangerous but straightforward boss as far as the Shinra Building (where Hundred Gunner combined had a total of 2,600 HP), which… Sorta fits narratively, given that we now know that Cloud wasn't a true SOLDIER and so probably started the game significantly weaker than a First Class?
I'm so curious about SOLDIER's role in the story. Like, the SOLDIER program looms incredibly large over the entire plot, it's a major component of Cloud's backstory (and the twist that he wasn't in SOLDIER is itself a major plot point), it's brought up by multiple characters as an important element of the setting, it's tied into Shinra's whole human augmentation programs… And yet, as I said last update, the only SOLDIER who is ever given a narrative role is Cloud, and as of last update, Black Hair Guy. Yet the rest of the organization clearly exists, since we're fighting them. But only in random encounters! We never meet one even as nameless NPCs hanging around Shinra-affiliated areas! It's odd.
It's part of why I appreciate the inclusion of Roche in Remake, who serves as an example of 'this is what SOLDIER members are like, this is why normal soldiers hate working with them, this is how dangerous they are as opponents,' with an added function of hinting to truth about Cloud in the fact that this Third Class is capable of going toe-to-toe with alleged First Class Cloud.
Soon, we emerge out into the open air, where Barret and Cait Sith run into a familiar-looking reporter…
Reminder: Tifa is holding her breath this entire time.
Barret shouts at her to get out of her way, only for the 'reporter' to tell him to keep it down - it's her, Yuffie, didn't he recognize her?
Yuffie really gets no respect, it's amazing. She put on a hat and glasses and Barret instantly went 'new phone who dis.' However, their touching reunion is interrupted by the emergence of the Weapon from the water.
I will say, that thing would be scarier if I had any idea what it looked like, but they've really not picked the most flattering angle here.
That said, this scene is also a huge flex, I'm pretty sure. I'm not going to try to capture it in screenshots, but a lot of what's happening in this whole sequence is water moving, waves, ripples, shockwaves, and I am informed that fluids are, like, hell to animate in 3D? So a lot of this feels like the devs flexing the incredible power the PSX hardware has given them and their skill at using it (even as the PSX's limitations harshly restrict the game's capabilities in other ways).
With no time to explain, Yuffie gets absorbed back into the group and we beeline for the airport, where the very same airship Rufus rode into the Northern Crater on is waiting.
Barret: "Yo! You sure this is the right way? It's a dead end!"
Cait Sith: "Uh oh? Did I make a wrong turn?"
Barret: "You damn cat! What the hell're we gonna do now? They all be comin' soon!"
[He turns around, facing the camera with his gun-arm.]
Barret: "Yo, better watch my back till the end… partner!"
Again: Tifa is trapped in a gas chamber holding her breath as all this is happening. Thankfully, we won't need these guys to save her, because she'll have to save herself!
With the most annoying minigame of all time.
…
Okay. Here's the thing.
This minigame would probably be a lot easier on the PSX controller for which the game was initially designed, because it was designed ergonomically. To move Tifa's head, you would press triangle, the top face button. To move her left arm, you would press square, the left face button. And so on. The button you're pressing corresponds to the correct limb you're trying to move.
Unless you took pains to make your control scheme for Final Fantasy VII Steam Port On PC replicate that, like by tying these keys to 8-4-6-2 on the numpad, which is something only an insane person would do, then on PC the limbs have no relation to where the key you're supposed to press is located, and, because the UI is so bad, as always it tells you the function of the key, not the key, which is to say it tells you to press [SWITCH] instead of, like, Insert, which is the actual key that [SWITCH] is tied to. It's, like, [OK] is the Enter key for me, and is the left arm, but [CANCEL] is Backspace and that's the legs, which are on the same side and above Enter. So it's completely non-intuitive and extremely frustrating to muddle through.
The goal here is first to have Tifa stretch out her legs to grab the key dropped by a guard earlier with her feet, then slide it underneath her, then press multiple buttons at once so that she first lifts the key up between her feet to her mouth, then grabs the key between her teeth, unlocks one of her arms with it, and then the other. The entire process takes several minutes, during which the gas just keeps happily pumping into the room, but thankfully there is no game over, you can just… keep doing it forever.
I will say I do appreciate that Tifa is the one to free herself here, although it does make the others look kind of stupid for her needing to. Once freed, Tifa just has to find a switch located inside the chamber which turns off the gas, and she's now safe, if still locked inside the room.
Not to worry, though. Fish Weapon is coming to the rescue.
Okay, that's a much better look at the big guy.
The kaiju unleashes a Godzilla atomic beam at the fortress, cutting a gash in the front wall, and then its mouth starts to glow as it prepares for a second beam attack; but, before it can do a repeat, the main gun has finally completely reloaded, and fires a point-blank shot in the Weapon's face… And this time, it even works.
Hoooooly shit.
It looks like the shot ripped that thing's head clean off, and we can see the radioactive-green blood dripping down its chest; then it… falls? Dives? Under the water?
Okay, I'm sorry. I don't usually do this but I had to actually go and check, because I was genuinely unclear on this: That thing is fucking dead. We'll never see it again. I did have to go and check, though, because the motion of its tail as it plunged really looked like it was actually diving, and given how little we know of the Weapons' biology and limitations, it's completely possible that it could have survived the loss of its head and grown a new one instead or something, especially with the smoke obscuring the extent of the damage.
But no. Score one for humanity: It did kill Fishzilla.
I wasn't expecting that degree of success from the cannon, and I appreciate that it got it; I like my kaiju stories better when conventional weaponry finds some success in fighting off the monsters, just not enough (which forces humanity to bring in the mechas/superpowered individuals/trucks full of coagulant agent). This is probably the single most powerful man-made weapon on the planet, and it should have some success in fighting off the Weapons - in much the same way as the N2 bombs temporarily drive Sachiel to a halt, buying NERV enough time to field a second traumatized teenager in a giant meat robot to destroy it for good. Now, actually killing one of the Weapons was not something I had anticipated at all, and in fact my initial read of the scene was that it had just dived to safety, but no! Shinra actually managed to kill one of the Planet's major antibodies that are trying to wipe out mankind! Credit to them for that much, at least.
But of course, there's only one Junon Gun, and it's static by nature, and only managed to accomplish this much at point blank range after Fish Weapon shrugged off a long-range shot; this is the ultimate triumph of Shinra's military technology, and unless the Junon Gun grows wings, it's not going to be enough. Shinra's technology cannot stop this threat alone.
…
Okay but what can though.
Our protagonists are, at this point, superhuman fighters who can summon the power of the gods, who can hurl thunderbolts and fireballs, and while the games tend to shy away from visually depicting them as doing anything physically superhuman (see Barret defeated by a door), they're clearly incredibly skilled fighters who have put down dragons, giant robots, and horrors from beyond the stars. But the Weapons are just… They're on a scale no previous Final Fantasy monster has been, except maybe the Monument of the Gods, which was more hostile architecture than a moving, rampaging monster. That thing was the size of a skyscraper.
It's going to boil down to 'we enter combat and the enemy model looks smaller than you'd think and everything plays out as normal' in the end because we're still playing with limited tools, but it's certainly daunting to imagine that fight.
Back in the execution chamber, Fishzilla's Atomic Breath cut a convenient opening into the roof. While Scarlet is banging on the door demanding to be let in, Tifa climbs out and emerges onto the outside of the fortress.
Scarlet barges into the room moments after Tifa starts climbing down, and sends soldiers after her - which is not a riskless endeavour; we immediately get to see one of them slip and fall to his death. Also the fact that Scarlet opened the door like that probably means she just had the keys and Barret and Cait Sith didn't need to do… whatever it is they are doing?
Anyway, Tifa climbs down the front wall onto the barrel of the giant cannon, Scarlet and her soldiers hot on her trail. Unfortunately, there's nowhere to go from there - now Tifa is trapped between Shinra soldiers on one side, and a precipitous plunge hundreds of feet into the ocean below.
And now it's time.
For the funniest, dumbest minigame of the entire game.
For you see, this is the 90s, and two female characters are now engaging in a physical confrontation: A younger, prettier protagonist, and an arrogant, older, implicitly jealous villainess. What can this mean? Did someone just say 'a solo boss fight just like Cloud got against Rufus and Barret against Dyne'? You idiot. You buffoon. You absolute moron. That would be dignified.
No. It's time for a slapfight.
Now, 'Scarlet slaps Tifa, Tifa slaps her back harder' would be one thing. But I did mean it when I said it was a minigame. And a slapfight. It's both those things at once. Scarlet and Tifa just take turn slapping each other, and we have to press the slap button with the right timing in order to deliver more slaps than Scarlet does.
#BestAnimaBattlesOfAllTime
It's just so completely ridiculous. Anyway, due to trying to navigate the slapping minigame and timed screenshots at the same time, I unfortunately fail the minigame. Tifa exclaims "What!?" and dramatically falls to her knees, defeated by, and I can't emphasize this enough, slapping.
I realize the Shinra goons probably took away her arms and armor along with her Materia, but this girl once punched Jenova.
Anyway, Scarlet orders her soldiers to grab Tifa and tells her to stay calm or she'll drop her into the sea, but then! A voice rings out, calling out to Tifa to run to the end of the cannon! Who could this possibly be?
Barret is on the deck of the Airship, calling to Tifa! He throws a rope out the side of the ship, its end dangling in front of the cannon. Our girl runs to the end of the barrel and leaps into the air, at first failing to catch the rope, then narrowly managing to catch the lower end before it's too late, and the ship pulls away into the sky, leaving a furious and impotent Scarlet behind.
For some reason, none of the artillery that was moments ago unleashing hell on the Weapon bothers to shoot down this defenseless aircraft as it departs with Shinra's most wanted criminals aboard.
Barret asks Tifa if she's okay, she asks what the hell is this all about, Cait Sith declares that we have now taken possession of the Airship Highwind, Yuffie is moaning and retching and dying of air sickness. It turns out she has just as bad a 'sky leg' as she does a sea leg.
The Highwind is a massive vessel, so massive in fact that it's not operated by our crew alone, but by rogue Shinra air crew! It's also got its whole internal industrial aesthetic, it's cool.
Barret: "Dammit! Why didn't ya tell me you could fly an airship!?"
Barret: "I thought… Tifa was gone for good."
Cait Sith: "Sorry, but I had to do something to trick the enemy. Come on! Everyone is waiting!"
Wait, okay, so.
I want to be clear on the chain of events here.
Tifa was trapped in an execution chamber filling up with deadly gas… And Cait Sith's solution was 'let's just leave her alone, hike halfway across the base, steal an airship, take off, circle around and come back to save her from the side of the fortress that is a solid armored wall with no windows, and then ????, profit?
Like, this entire rescue only worked because of two consecutive and completely unpredictable events, one being that Tifa managed to free herself thanks to a guard dropping a key within reach of her feet, and the other being the Fish Weapon blasting a hole in the chamber. Without these two entirely unpredictable factors, all the Highwind would have accomplished is hover outside the wrong side of the execution chamber as Tifa died horribly!
Are we sure Cait Sith is actually on our side and this wasn't an elaborate plot to kill Tifa.
Wait a minute. Speaking of Cait Sith! WHERE'S MARLENE? WE HAVEN'T EVEN BROUGHT UP MARLENE EVER SINCE THAT NIGHT AT THE GOLD SAUCER! HE STILL HAS HER HOSTAGE SOMEHOW!
Like at this point Cait Sith is allegedly fully on our side, right? He just betrayed Shinra and helped us steal their best airship and escape execution and personally attacked Scarlet. SO WHERE IS MARLENE, YOU DAMNED CAT?
Ahem. Probably it'll just come up when it's relevant.
But wait, can Cait Sith even turn against Shinra when his body is at Shinra Headquarters remotely operating the cat toy? Can't they just pull him out of his seat and throw him in a cell?
Well, hopefully these are simply questions to be answered later. Speaking of questions to answer, let's ask some of the crew how they got here!
Crewman: "Working on the Highwind, we spent every day slaving under Heidegger. Whenever he got yelled at by the President, he'd immediately take it out on the crew. We put up with this all the time, even when he beat us. I mean, I finally made it on the crew of the famous Highwind, and there's no way I was going to quit over him. "
Crewman: "Let's see, it must have been a week ago… it was my shift and we were heading towards the North Cave. Everyone, including the President and Scarlet, got on. And with them, I saw Cid, a legendary pilot! And he was looking around the inside of the airship looking really, y'know, nostalgic… He even talked to us. I couldn't believe it! I was so impressed! He was every bit as warm-hearted as we'd always heard."
Crewman: "Cid said that if he had the Highwind, things would be a lot easier. And now here we are off to save the Planet. It's true. He really overwhelmed me. And that's why we decided to help. After the North Cave, we went to Junon, and I started screaming 'Fire! Fire!' In the middle of all the commotion, we stole this ship from Shinra. That's how it happened. Just a mutiny against our leaders."
Crewman: "But Barret and you were captured by Heidegger… We waited seven days for a chance to rescue you guys before we finally could. So thanks to our successful mission, we were able to see you again. I hope I didn't bore you too much with that long story."
Honestly the least believable part of this is Cid being described as 'warm-hearted.' Dude's defining trait so far has been an abrasive, swear-a-minute temper and relentless aggression towards everyone. Maybe if I spent more time with him in the party I'd see his good side in incidental dialogue, idk. Simply by nature of a large cast there are going to be characters I like more or less than others and I'm afraid to say that Cid is the one I care the least about - even Cait Sith at least activates my neurons when I get mad about him.
With that said… It's kind of incredible how all of this could have been avoided on Shinra's end if they'd just, like. Treated their employees correctly. This posting on the Highwind was these guys' dream job, and their superiors relentlessly abused them precisely because the lure of the 'dream job' made them knuckle down and bear with it and refuse to 'quit over it', until-
Oh wow it's just the video game industry. That's literally how every underpaid gamedev working at their 'dream company' on their 'dream project' describes the process that leads to them enduring harassment and crunch time without daring to speak up, holy shit.
Except in this case the
I really like the humanity that FF7 allows the Shinra workers, the way they're allowed to be complete people with their own dreams and aspirations, the way Shinra is this massive hegemonic corporate-state that has so subsumed everything that even though it's evil, working for it doesn't imply you're evil, it just defines your horizons, reshapes the world until all is Shinra and all are, in some way, doing Shinra's work, even without evil intentions.
The whole gang is here! (Vincent is slightly off-screen.)
Cid welcomes us to 'his' airship, the Highwind (we're going to have an argument about that at some point, big guy), and we can talk to everyone, catch up some. Cait Sith just tells us that he can answer any Shinra-related questions we have, Barret asks why Tifa looks so sad, Vincent says he's glad Tifa is alright, and Nanaki is the one whose dialogue prompts the next bit of plot dialogue.
Red: "Do you think we aren't strong enough without Cloud? Do you think we can't save the Planet alone?"
Tifa: "Meteor is coming, and Weapon is on the rampage… At a time like this, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. No idea at all…"
Barret: "Get a hold of yourself, Tifa! C'mon, let's think about this! No way we can get offa this train we're on!"
Tifa: "If only Cloud was here, everything would be fine. Cloud would…"
Tifa: "...stand that cocky little way he did, and tell us what to do. He'd say, 'everything's under control, Tifa.'"
Barret: "Tifa! When'd you become such a wimp!"
Tifa: "I'm sorry, Barret. I'm so depressed I'm surprised at myself."
Red: "And Tifa… The reason why we all thought it was Cloud was because…"
Tifa: "I know. That's why I want to make sure. That's why I have to see him again."
Red: "Cheer up, Tifa…"
I have no idea what the 'thought it was Cloud' line is meant to say. But this is a really interesting recontextualization of the group dynamics of the past thirty hours.
Like… The fact that, mechanically, Cloud inevitably ends up more powerful than every other party member by several levels, in turns feeds diegetically into Red and Tifa's anxiety as to whether they can save the Planet without him - of course they feel that way! He's genuinely considerably more powerful than any other member of their little group! And not just that, he more or less… fell into the role of party leader and molded himself to it? When you're watching the story unfold from his own perspective, Cloud doesn't seem all that leader-ly, he's not, like, the kind of shounen protagonist who does a big speech and all his friends feel a surge of enthusiasm and certainty. But his knowledge of Sephiroth, and his desire for revenge, have set forth a path which everyone else ended up following because their own goals aligned more or less with it and it gave them a path forward.
Was single-mindedly pursuing Sephiroth across the entire planet a good plan? No. But it was a plan. At any step, you could ask 'well, what are we going to do now?' and Cloud would be there to say, 'pursue the next Sephiroth sighting,' and even if that ended in tragedy, it kept everyone moving.
Which made him, de facto, the leader.
Tifa, I think, attributes to Cloud more charisma and leadership than he actually has to most people, because she blatantly has a crush on him. She projects onto him an image of Cloud that is cooler than the Cloud who actually exists… But it's close enough to what everyone else is saying. And now that she's gone, she's rudderless, and so is the rest of the group.
…which is why it's particularly interesting that Tifa is now our party leader.
Tifa is now the character we control, and with whom we can form a group, but whom we can't leave behind.
If we talk to Barret, he has a couple of lines driving at Tifa's current character conflict, reminding her that the two of them were doing perfectly fine as members of Avalanche before Cloud showed up, and asking Tifa where the 'tough girl he used to know' as gone. Why do they need Cloud? And yeah - I think in a way, Tifa has come to rely on Cloud in a way she didn't before he showed up? I don't want to say that she 'damselified' herself, but… I think Tifa found it easier to offload the unpleasant weight of decision and confrontation onto someone who projected confidence.
Yet she's not some hapless maiden, she's a martial arts student from Nibelheim who carved out a living in the Slums of Midgar as a bar owner and secret terrorist. But… well, the weight of her secrets over time, and then the double whammy of Aerith's death (and the two girls had genuinely bonded, they were best friends) and Cloud's breakdown and disappearance (and, as far as she knows, possible death!) have done a number on her.
It really does make me wonder how she met Barret and joined Avalanche, honestly. It's a part of their shared history we've yet to explore.
As for where to go next, talking with Cid gives some pointers, but they're vague at best, although his summation of Cloud's character is… honestly pretty apt.
Cid: "I want you to know that I didn't dislike him. I gotta admit he was a strange dude. Just when you thought he was cool, he'd do some damn fool thing. Then when you thought he was smart, he'd show how stupid he was. Everything from his movements to his speech were kinda odd. Well, as long as you stay alive, you just might see him again someday. So cheer up, sis."
Tifa: "...I'll be able to see him someday."
Cid: "If we can find out where he is, the Highwind'll get us there in no time."
Red: "Maybe… Cloud is still stuck deep in the North Crater, where the ground cracked and swallowed him up. Buried in the depths of the underground…"
Tifa: "Deep within the earth… are you talking about the Lifestream?"
Red: "The Lifestream sometimes gushes out from cracks in the ocean floor to the surface. I heard about such a place. Maybe, just maybe Cloud's…"
This is such a cracked theory, I love it. Yeah, sure, half a mountain dropped on Cloud's head and he was buried under millions of tons of stone and ice, but I'm sure that just means he was driven into the core of the earth, where he is drifting through the Lifestream, and he will come out from an underwater Mako geyser at the bottom of the ocean. Which is fine, because we'll find and rescue him from that somehow.
And the thing is, the first time we were in Junon, Shinra characters made references to a submarine and an underwater reactor, so this is almost definitely the case! This is exactly what we're going to do even though it sounds utterly insane!
Not that this gives us an immediate lead on where to find such an undersea whatsit for the time being. Right now, we're left exactly as Tifa is: Adrift, without clear guidance… But with means of travel much, much more powerful than anything we had before.
Behold.
The power of this fully-operational airship.
Oh yeah, baby. We can go anywhere. Do anything. The sky is, quite literally, the limit.
I mean, shame about the giant meteor hanging in the sky ready to annihilate us all within probably days at most, but we'll probably have time to fit in an entire chocobo racing career in there or something, right? No big deal. The plot only moves when we do.
In theory we can return to any place we've been to before? Check them for world state changes, new dialogue, new stuff? I don't know where to go, but we'll find the right place eventually, and in the meantime the world's our oyster.
Thanks for reading.
Next Time: We go wherever!
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
To be fair, it would've been terrible if Tifa relied on Cloud before he actually showed up.
Quick, time to grind everybody's levels so high they eclipse Cloud when he rejoins!
(Which is absolutely what I would've done if I had played FFVII as a kid and possibly even now)
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If I had my way there would be no silly dropped key, and Tifa's minigame would be about alternating holding her breath and tensing her muscles until she built up a limit break bar at which point she just tears out of the restraints and punches her way out. Probably a little too butch for mid-90s writing tho but eh.
View: https://www.tumblr.com/thedansome/124702604275/honestly-the-catfight-with-tifa-should-have
Emy
Artificial Defender
No. It's time for a slapfight.
This sequence is forever baffling. "Atop a giant gun after a prison break" is an incredible setting for a fight, and Tifa is a martial artist whose weapons throughout the game are knuckles, gloves, and claws. But the prison break was incomprehensible, and it's an undignified slapfight against an evil businesswoman.
FF7 veering between highs and lows is really on display here.
Can't say I liked this sequence. Didn't made much sense while playing it. Like - why are only Barret and Tifa captured? "can't execute people who aren't formal members of a eco-terrorist org"?
Also, fun fact - the americans did use gas chambers for personal executions. Last one was in 1999, and say WHAT how could anyone think it's a good idea after 1945.
First, fort condor - remember how you could refuse their request for help? Only Cloud can do that - Tifa will agree automatically.
Second, remember picking up Yuffie? "You spikey-headed jerk! One more time, let's go one more time!" is her line to Cloud.
To Tifa?
"Hey, boobs! Try that again! Just one more time!"
Can't expect the drone operator to pull double duty as jailor.
'twas their ship five minutes ago.
How we got from this part to "we have an airship" should have been on screen, IMHO
What kinda gas chamber design is that? Why is the switch inside the chamber?
Also, fun fact - the americans did use gas chambers for personal executions. Last one was in 1999, and say WHAT how could anyone think it's a good idea after 1945.
So, two things (that I know of) has changed with Tifa as leader!
First, fort condor - remember how you could refuse their request for help? Only Cloud can do that - Tifa will agree automatically.
Second, remember picking up Yuffie? "You spikey-headed jerk! One more time, let's go one more time!" is her line to Cloud.
To Tifa?
"Hey, boobs! Try that again! Just one more time!"
Meteor will wait!
You know, it's only with this line, in this context, that I wonder if Skies of Arcadia was ever brought up as an RPG of this era that Omicron might find interesting? It would, at the very least, show several different tiers of upgraded air ships.
Edit: Really should have done a thread search before posting I guess, because there was a few mentions of it a couple months ago, but I've just been kind of skimming the thread recently. >.<
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- Location
- Spain
I mean.... the most obvious reading here is that the guard is Cait Sith pilot. That's my guess, anyway.
Alternatively, maybe is just a random guard Caith bribed, that wouldn't be too hard to arrange either.
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Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
good gods the slap fight was real? I was positive it was just an exaggeration in-joke of some sort people who'd actually played the game were fond of...
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I choose to believe that the slapfight is Tifa deciding to pull an M. Bison and beat Scarlet on her own level.
Skies of Arcadia is particularly interesting in the context of FFVII, given how much of a reversal it was. By the year 2000, a great deal of JRPG's had taken the course of this game, be it in tone, themes, or just overall complexity of plot and character. Then along comes this Dreamcast title with a remarkably easy-to-follow story, a generally warm and idealistic tone, and some simple but fun characters on a MacGuffin quest across the world like it's 1995.You know, it's only with this line, in this context, that I wonder if Skies of Arcadia was ever brought up as an RPG of this era that Omicron might find interesting? It would, at the very least, show several different tiers of upgraded air ships.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Cait: "She's... she's here! Somewhere. Give it a minute, she always comes back home when she gets hungry."Omicron said:
Barret: "THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN"
...
Marlene: "Could you show me the neck snap again?"
Rude: "If you fix me another one of those cocktails, you got it."
Reno: "Can we get Elena in here? I hate playing test dummy."
Marlene: "But Mister Reno, you play the dummy so well!"
Reno: "... The fuck did you just say to-"
Marlene: "Well I should probably get back to my-"
Rude, /Reno held in a chokehold: "Now hold on, I was promised a cocktail."
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, uh, is Barrett's Avalanche cell going to be expected to pay the airship crew now?
- Location
- Maryland
I'm excited to see that Scarlet fight in FFVIIR3 where it becomes a Metal Gear Rising boss.
- Location
- Drachyench on Discord
To be fair, from what Omicron's played through a number make sense: Yuffie is technically royalty [of sorts] and I can't imagine Rufus wants to spend his final days locked in Wutai War 2. Vincent is a former Turk and I imagine there's a whole can of worms dragging them into a public execution and risking somebody recognizing them. Red is a cat dog thing that I cannot imagine brings any more catharsis to the average person than watching a lion be put down.
Barret and Tifa meanwhile at least have some months of Midgar propaganda working against them from the plate incident / raiding ShinRA HQ for Aerith.
21stCentury
Let's get down to bismuth
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Counterpoint: Scarlet both gets slapped and slaps back enough that she's actually a level 30 character by that point in the story.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
The real question is how Rufus Shinra, Heidegger, Hojo and Scarlet - i.e. the contents of the ShinRa board of directors - subdued Barrett to begin with.
It's been a long-ass time and a lotta levels since that fight on ShinRa tower, and I don't see Dark Nation anywhere