Editor
I didn't get far enough in my test run to see any of that stuff (only to Misty, and I really only trained one... "Pokemon"), but I did pick the game because I figured it was believable that I'd want to play it! <_<
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
First I go to Bone Village and buy a few Rune Armlets - equipment with 4 Materia slots and Double Materia Growth. Then I head into the Sleeping Forest and grab the "Kjata Summon" Materia before it runs away from me. I also pay a visit to the Weapon Dealer and give him Mythril in exchange for Great Gospel, Alice's best Limit Break, which I promptly teach her after grinding to unlock all her other Limit Breaks.
...
pfffff ahahahahahahahahaha
oh man. they must've just put this in as a joke and/or a giant "fuck you".
this is never getting used in any playthrough of mine ever <_<
Anyway, with that silliness out of the way we can make our way to the Wutai Area, and get attacked by Shinra goons. Yuffie runs off and I realize that I forgot to swap her out of my party for someone else, so it's up to Claude and Tifa to take care of these guys. Luckily 2/3rds of TEAM AWESOME is more than enough to handle it, even without Materia!
Yeah, if you didn't know through either playing the game or hearing about it elsewhere, Yuffie steals all your Materia. This was memorable enough to have a trope named after it. Or rather, it was until the trope's name was changed to whatever the fuck it's called now, which is like 40 words long and is a snide parting remark rather than an actual name, which makes it impossible to ever use in a sentence, but whatever.
After the fight, I swap in Red XIII just to make it bit easier on me, since he has the Seraph Comb which is pretty strong. Although he's like 5 levels lower than Claude/Tifa, so he's still worthless. Ah, well. At least now I have an excuse to give Claude the Yoshiyuki or whatever, which is strong but has like zero Materia slots so there's no reason for me to use it normally.
Okay, heading into Wutai proper now, we chase Yuffie around and find an "MP Absorb" Materia (which Yuffie immediately steals -_-), a Hairpin, and a Magic Shuriken. We also find the Turks in a bar. Elena goes to attack us but then Reno and Rude yell at her for ruining their vacation. XD Eventually we corner Yuffie and she leads us to where she's hidden the Materia... only to drop a steel cage on Tifa and Red XIII and run off.
...But then Claude just flips the switch again and frees them. That's the worst trap I've ever seen. Anyway, we chase Yuffie into a secret passage under a bell, and find that... she's been kidnapped by Don Corneo. And so has Elena. What the hell? Since when was Corneo even a moderate threat? A PC and a boss-level character should be able to take down his goons with ease. This is just the usual dumb sexist "girls cannot escape when men grab their arms" thing, isn't it? For shame, FFVII. We steal a Swift Bolt and an Elixir from the room before giving chase.
...So we follow and find that Corneo is surrounded, us on one side and SOLDIERs on the other. The SOLDIERs declare an attack on Corneo, but then he jumps out of the way and they end up running smack into us, which... causes an encounter to begin. Goddammit, you cannot be serious. Yuffie is losing awesome points just for being loosely associated with this.
We take care of them without too much trouble thanks to two Limit Breaks. Tifa learned the Level 2 Limit Break Meteodrive after the fight. And, of course, Corneo is nowhere to be seen. However, the Turks are hot on his trail, and they let us tag along! We head to the Da-Chao mountains/statues north of town and grab a Dragoon Lance for Cid before confronting Corneo. He's got Elena and Yuffie tied to the statue/mountain wall (somehow he did all this in the, like, 30 seconds he was off-screen). Ah, well. Let's... kick his ass, I guess.
BOSS FIGHT:
RAPPS
Oh look, it's another one of Corneo's pets. I wonder if this one is better than the last?
...
Well. It instantly killed one of my party members on turn 1 with Aero3, but then I killed it next turn. I'm not sure if that's better or worse?
Oh, but Corneo has a trap set up.
"If I push this button, they'll fall upside down, and we'll have a SQUASHED TOMATOES!" [sic]
...Ignoring the horrible translation oh my god, what difference does falling upside down make?! We're on the side of a mountain! There's a certain altitude after which it doesn't really matter which part of your body hits the ground first!
Corneo says he's got the last laugh, but then Reno shows up and is like, "No, that would be us." And then Rude appears and nails Corneo with a thrown... something? From like 300 yards away. It's awesome.
(paraphrased)
Reno: "Let me ask you a question. Why do you think the Turks would team up with guys like them [the PC group]? 1. Because we're ready to die. 2. Because we're sure we'd win. 3. Because we're clueless."
Corneo [hanging from a ledge]: "Number... number 2?!"
Reno: "All wrong." *steps on Corneo's hand, causing him to lose his grip and fall to his (presumed) death* "The correct answer is... because it's our job."
(Also note that Corneo fell feet first.)
Of course, the awesome immediately dissipates when Reno says "Elena, don't act so weak. You're a Turks!" [sic] Goddammit, this translation. This translation.
Reno then gets a phone call and informs Rude/the party that the company has told them to find Claude. There's a dramatic pause, and then he says that they're off duty today. XD
Yuffie returns our Materia to us... sorta. She doesn't give it back in the right order, which is annoying because after the long hiatus I don't really remember how I had it set up. Note that Yuffie had an MP Plus Materia and two Enemy Skill Materia with Beta on them, and yet couldn't defeat Corneo/his monster. The party tries to leave without her because she's clearly incompetent, but she insists on following us. >_> It's also around here that I realize that during this entire sidequest, I've had Red XIII and Tifa in the back of my party, despite Red XIII not using a ranged weapon like Yuffie and Tifa lacking her Long Range Materia. lol wate i mess up
Outside of Wutai, I learn the Enemy Skill "Magic Hammer" from the Razor Weeds and "Death Force" from the
BOSS FIGHT:
GORKY
BOSS RUSH IN THE PAGODA. And yes, Yuffie has to solo these guys.
Gorky is a terrible boss who handed me one of my only defeats in the game so far. Didn't cast Big Guard at the beginning of the fight and that was a mistake. Even with it cast, he still hits like a freight train and I only barely won by spamming Beta and Aqualung.
BOSS FIGHT:
SHAKE
My name is...
Shakezula
The mic rulah
The ol' schoolah
You wanna fight?
I'll bring it to ya
...He sucks, I cast Beta until he died.
BOSS FIGHT:
CHECKOV
He spent the first like 6 turns of battle spamming Stare Down, which has a 100% chance to paralyze unless you're wearing the ring that makes it so you can't be paralyzed. WHICH I WAS AHAHAHAHAHAHA
BOSS FIGHT:
STANIV
...I spammed Beta until he died. =/
There's one more fight, but the guide I'm using says if I do it now, I miss out on learning Trine on the last two Enemy Skill Materia, so I'm going to wait on it. And I'm also going to stop there. Luckily this is the end of the silly non-main plot stuff for... at least a bit.
</spoiler>
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
The first few battles are easy enough, but after I get inflicted with 1/2 Speed (twice if it stacks) and Frog, I decide enough is enough and give up after winning that battle. I leave with 198 points, the Keystone, and a Protect Vest as an extra present from Dio. If you win all eight fights you also get a Choco Feather, but I think I did pretty damn well winning like 6 fights with no prep at all. <_< Although I guess I don't get to keep my points? Ah, well.
Anyway, we try to leave but the tram is busted, so we need to stay the night at the Ghooooost Hotel. The party asks Claude to explain what's going on because the stupid Law of FFVII Physics that says that any traveling party with more than 3 members will spontaneously combust kinda keeps them out of the loop. Claude recaps about Sephiroth and the Promised Land and such, then Alice gets mad for some reason(?) and runs off. During the night, Claude is visited by... Tifa. (You can get Alice, Tifa, Yuffie, or Barret; IIRC, you only get Barret if you've sufficiently pissed off everyone else.) Tifa insists Claude sneak out with her to have some fun; what luck that this sequence of events should happen on Gold Saucer's special night of enchantment!
...There's a play happening in the Event Square and we're the 100th couple, so we get to play the starring roles. Ha. I wonder if the similar scene in Tales of Vesperia was a spoof on this. <_<
Next, in the Round Square, is a gondola ride. Note that in the PS3 version, the gondolas have been removed and cannot be ridden. Anyway, Claude is pretty much the worst person to take on a date ever (despite being gorgeous) and just spends the whole ride staring into space and ignoring Tifa. Tifa, meanwhile, fumbles around trying to tell Claude something but being ultimately unable to spit it out.
When the gondola ride is over, they start to head back but run into Cait Sith acting weird(er than usual). Oh snap! He has the Keystone! We chase him around but despite him being a cat riding a fat moogle he's somehow faster than the two of us. So he manages to toss the Keystone to Tseng before we catch up to him.
What a terrible character.
Oh, so he reveals that this body is just a toy that's being controlled remotely by someone in the Shinra Building. There's some part of that that isn't quite believable enough, but I'm not sure what it-oh wait it's every part of that. How the hell do you NOT NOTICE that one of your companions ISN'T A LIVING BEING? Technology in this universe is not THAT good.
He says he's going to continue traveling with us as usual and Claude's like "pfffahahaha no what are you stupid", but then he reveals that Shinra has Marlene hostage so they have to do what he says. Wow. We really should have taken some extra time after we uh... infiltrated the Shinra Building to like... blow it up or something. If only two or three of the main characters were like, some sort of radical terrorist bombers who hated the Shinra and had access to explosives of that caliber. Sadly this isn't the case.
Anyway, next morning Cait Sith reveals the Temple of the Ancients to us. We decide to figure out who's going (because once again, we can't just all travel as a group, even if we know we're heading towards a confrontation with every single major enemy of the game thus far), and Alice and Claude are both required. I steal Yuffie's Materia (ha! the ironing is delicious) and take Tifa as my third.
Alice is horribly underleveled and doesn't have a good weapon, but I give her an Adaman Bangle (90something Defense) so at least she won't die horribly before I even get to the Temple. Speaking of horrible, outside the Temple are random encounters with bees. My god.
Okay, so just outside the Temple, Alice starts wigging out and acting dumb(er than usual). There's a black cloak outside talking about Black Materia, but then LENS FLARE causes him to disappear. Uh... kaaaaay. Inside, we find Tseng wounded and he and Alice have some dialogue in a language that is almost, but not entirely, completely unlike English. Oh, FFVII... You have a silly, silly translation. It results in us getting the Keystone to open up the Temple and learning that Sephy McRoth is inside, at least.
We use the Keystone and get dumped into an area that looks like an Escher drawing - you know the one. Fortunately it's a bit more simple than it looks and we find a Trident, a Mind Source, and a Silver Rifle while following a mysterious character. Turns out he's an Ancient in a spirit body who cannot talk. Uh. Sure, Alice. Whatever you say. You clearly understand this game's plot better than I do. But the guy sells us items, heals us for free, and lets us save the game, so that's nice.
Still in the labyrinth, we find a Turbo Ether, a Rocket Punch, and the "Luck Plus" Materia. Then we follow another Ancient into the Indiana Jones room where we have to dodge U shaped boulders. This an extremely dumb minigame, even for FFVII. Eventually we get to the other side and the boulders stop, at which point Alice makes us backtrack for more semi-understandable plot. Apparently the liquid here is a pool of consciousness and it gives us a vision of Sephiroth appearing, creating clones of himself(?), and attacking Tseng. He says he's going to become one with the Planet. Back in the present, a Sephiroth clone falls from the sky, bathes in the pool, and then jumps back into the sky. Creepy. We grab the "Morph" Materia from near the pool and then head out of the room, stopping at another Ancient to save/heal.
The next room is a room with a giant clock and 12 exits. You can probably figure out how this works without me having to explain it, yes? First though, you have to fail once to fall down below and get the Nail Bat item. Next, I use the guide to determine which exits will get me: a Princess Guard, a Ribbon, a Megalixir, and a Trumpet Shell. After grabbing those, I proceed with the game through door VI. This leads me to another puzzle where... you know in Scooby Doo, where the gang would run from a monster in a hallway with a bunch of doors, and those doors would lead out other doors somehow, and eventually everyone would get mixed up and start chasing random people until finally both groups exit doors straight across from each other, at which point they'd slam into each other and fall down? It's basically like that, but to catch an Ancient. I just random chance it until I succeed. Once I do, the exit is unlocked, and I can save and heal.
The next room is the room from the vision. Claude calls out Seph, who immediately appears before them (Claude's thought process: "wait **** I didn't actually mean it!") and tells them to follow him. As the party runs down the hallway, they keep seeing Seph, but he just says a few cryptic words and flies off, only to show up again 5 feet later. If you could change the camera angle during this scene, you'd just see a long row of Sephs, and it would be terrifying. Eventually we corner him and he says that the Planet gathers spirit energy to heal itself when injured. So he's going to give it a lethal wound, and then be there to steal the boundless energy it'll use to heal itself, and thereby become one with the Planet somehow.
...
Makes perfect sense.
also he wants to be God, but I think that's a given because JRPG villain and all
Anyway, he says he's going to use the Black Materia to call Meteor. Then he runs off and Claude starts flipping out and doing the creepy clone thing too. Eventually he snaps out of it and we get attacked by someone who isn't Sephiroth.
BOSS FIGHT:
RED DRAGON
Uhh, we cast Aqualung at it until it died, because it absorbs Beta. =/ After taking a few hits, I decided to put up Big Guard as well, because it was pretty strong. Alice poisoned it, used her Healing Wind Limit Break, and, more importantly, got attacked while not being a more important character like Claude and Tifa. We get a Dragon Armlet off its corpse.
After the fight, Sephy is nowhere to be found, but we do get a Bahamut Materia for our trouble. Heading to the right, where Seph was, we find a levitating pyramid with something written on it. Let me stress that the following scene happened almost exactly as written:
Alice: Black Materia.
Claude: Black Materia.
Alice: Hey! Black Materia!
For a second I thought this was happening from Tifa's point of view and she was just bored and mentally summarizing huge blocks of text. But no, they actually said that. After you beat the game, you should unlock a special option where all dialogue is replaced with "Black Materia". That would be awesome. Eventually Alice decides to be useful and ask the Ancients what that means. Turns out the entire Temple is the Black Materia. So we can't take it.
...Or can we?
Yes! We can! If you solve enough puzzles in the Temple, the Black Materia will get smaller, until you can carry it around with you! But you can only solve the puzzles while inside the Temple, so you'll get crushed to death. For villains, that's no problem, since they have mooks, but we can't do a thing.
......Or can we?
Yes! We can! Cait Sith rings us up and reminds us that his body isn't real. Claude's like "lol no" but then Cait Sith is like "any better ideas" and Claude's like "goddammit fine".
After resting/saving at an Ancient just outside this room (and some antics involving my PS1 not working), we head back to the clock room, which seems to be frozen in such a way that only allows me to go to room XII. Ominous. For some reason, I feel suddenly compelled to strip Alice of any unique equipment she might be holding. There's a door up ahead, but it's locked... and then a giant monster appears from the wall dear god
BOSS FIGHT:
DEMON'S GATE
Yeah, this guy's pretty tough I guess. He takes like 200 damage from Beta and Aqualung. However, he's weak to getting stabbed in the face and having items thrown at him, so he never even takes off half our HP. We get a Gigas Armlet from its corpse.
Cait Sith pops out of the now open door and prepares to go to work, but first: wacky hijinks! Alice asks him to predict her romantic compatibility with Claude. Cait Sith says they're perfect for each other ("Poor Tifa", lolz). Then he heads off and the characters (including Cait Sith) act this is some significant sacrifice/goodbye forever EVEN THOUGH IT'S A STUFFED TOY AND NOT A REAL PERSON. I mean, Cait Sith even trips and says "Ow!" HE'S NOT A THING THAT CAN FEEL PAIN WHAT IS GOING ON THIS IS SO DUMB WHAT A TERRIBLE CHARACTER
Back outside, the Temple shrinks to nothingness and Claude and Alice hop into the pit to grab the Black Materia. Alice says we can't use it unless we find the Promised Land, though, and that since Seph isn't an Ancient, he can't find the Promised Land. Then Seph shows up and says "bwahahaha I ALREADY HAVE" and makes Clod do that creepy-ass clone thing and hand over the Black Materia. Then Seph flies off. Well. That was pointless.
Clod does the clone thing again and starts attacking Alice, until Tifa jumps into the pit and smacks him. Also Cait Sith #2 shows up and introduces himself OH MY GOD THIS IS SO DUMB GO AWAY CAIT SITH.
...Clod says "If I'm dreaming, don't wake me" and suddenly we're in the Sleeping Forest and Alice keeps teleporting and tells Clod to let her take care of Sephiroth. This is some serious Evangelion **** right here. Alice says the City of the Ancients is up ahead, past Sleeping Forest, and that she's going to go there and stop Sephiroth. Then she runs off. Clod tries to run after her but is stuck in place. Then Sephiroth shows up and talks to Clod and WHAT IS GOING ON and now we're back in some inn oh boy
Tifa and Barret are there. Clod says Alice is in the City of the Ancients and Seph already knows she's there. Barret yells at Clod saying that he's stupid and that they've all got problems "[b]ut you gotta understand that there ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on, till we get to the end of the line."
yesssssssssssssssss barret
Clod says he's afraid to find out who he really is and he's afraid he might go crazy and so on, and so forth, but eventually he decides to go anyway. Oh, and the town we were dropped off in is Gongaga. Get it, because Claude has gone gaga? Ahahaha. Even funnier the second time!
Okay, get the hell out of my party, Barret, it's time for the long-awaited return of TEAM AWESOME
</spoiler>
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
I forget where I first heard it, but a better idea would be to name every character Sephiroth and still be able to follow the plot.
</spoiler>
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
Oh god
I don't even understand the plot as is!
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
...After about 5 tries at this ridiculously slow minigame, I find the Lunar Harp and awaken the forest. There's not much of note in it, though. Just a Water Ring and a path back to the world map, which in turns leads me to the Forgotten Capital/City of the Ancients. To the left of the starting area is a save point, a Magic Source, and an Aurora Armlet. To the right of the starting area is a Guard Source, an Elixir, and a bed to restore HP/MP. Oh, and perhaps most importantly: an Enemy Skill Materia. Also important: an ominous scene where Claude says he can feel the presence of Alice and Sephiroth. Heading back and now up the main path, into the main building of the area, I find a "Comet" Materia. It's also really creepy that there haven't been any random encounters here. <_<
The main building had paths leading up and down. Up was the Comet Materia, down leads to a huge crystal staircase, which always means "there's plot here". There's also a save point, which usually means "boss fight time".
Alice is praying on a platform in the middle of a small lake, so Claude hops over to see her and then draws his Buster Sword. Why do the other PCs keep letting him do this? >_> But they do shout "Stop, Claude!" which luckily snaps him out of it, though one would have thought actually going him with in case a physical presence was necessary would have been a better idea, but whatever. FMV time.
...You know what? Let's not even make any assumptions here. Even if you didn't know that the main character of this game is named "Cloud", or who all the party members are, or how to use Materia, or ANYTHING else about this game, I'm pretty sure you could still describe this scene from memory without ever having seen it. It's absolutely infuriating that such a major plot point in such a major game would become that well-known in that amount of detail through only trolling - lots and lots and lots of trolling, consistently, since the game's release and up to the present day - and I'd argue that this says more about how juvenile the average person who plays video games is than all the sales of crappy licensed cartoon games in the world. So, no, I'm not describing this scene. I refuse to contribute to the troll-culture that surrounds it, even with a spoiler warning. Let's just do this boss fight.
BOSS FIGHT:
Jenova*LIFE
...I'm either overleveled or this boss was just terrible. Beta + Bahamut put it away. Giving Yuffie the Water Ring also helped since Jenova could only heal her. >_>; But even if I hadn't abused stuff like that, she just wasn't threatening at all! I dunno. We get a Wizard Bracelet, in any case.
Okay so, yes, Claude lays Alice to rest in the water, Jenova tells Claude that he's a puppet, Claude tells the party that he really should quit this journey before he does something terrible but that he needs to keep going and stop Sephiroth, they agree to go with him and stop him from doing something he'll regret (yeah good job so far guys). All very sad and dramatic and all that, though I'll note that a game with a translation/dialogue this bad really has no chance of making me tear up or anything. If the Futurama episode with Fry's dog didn't, FFVII really doesn't have a chance. >_>
Anyway...
END OF DISC ONE
PLEASE INSERT DISC TWO
</spoiler>
[Spoiler for Final Fantasy VII, disc 2, click to show]The game picks up almost immediately where it left off, with us still in the Forgotten Capital. Claude and the party are planning to chase Sephiroth to the northern ice fields. Heading north from this area gets us a Viper Halberd and Claude and Tifa nearly get killed by an enemy using L4 Suicide. -_- Heading into a cave, we find... lots of stuff: a Bolt Armlet, a HypnoCrown, a Megalixir, a "Magic Plus" Materia, and finally a Power Source before we exit to the world map.
Eventually we end up in Icicle Town. I buy new weapons for Claude and Tifa, but Yuffie's current weapon is better than the one they're selling here. In another house, I steal a Hero Drink, a Vaccine, and the Glacier Map Key Item. We also steal an X-Potion from the upper level of the town's inn. There's a suspicious house here with a Turbo Ether to steal; checking a machine reveals that it belonged to Professor Gast and allows us to play some movies. There's a bit of backstory about Jenova and "Weapon". It also reveals that Gast was Alice's father and was living here with Ifalna (or did we know this already? Can't remember). And, just in case you were under the impression Hojo was going to have vague anti-villain traits like Reno and Rude, no, he shows up at the end of the last video and pretty much instantly becomes the least sympathetic character in the game.
Back outside, there's an extremely pointless scene with Elena where she punches Claude in the chest because I didn't understand the instructions of how to dodge. >_> This eventually leads to Claude fleeing the town via snowboard. I suck at this minigame and just run into things over and over and it takes me like 3 minutes. Terrible.
...The next area is called the Great Glacier, and it's by far the worst area in the entire game so far. It's confusing as hell, takes forever, you faint if you wander around for too long... it's just a horrible, horrible area. It took me over an hour to finish, and I leveled up about 5 times. I could have just left after passing out the first time, but I wanted to get the following goodies: a Potion, an Elixir, a Mind Source, a Safety Bit, an "Added Cut" Materia, an All Materia, and the "Alexander" Materia. Eventually I finished it, though. Goddammit that was annoying. And then I didn't really even play any more because I needed some time to cool off. What an awful area.
</spoiler>
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
You know you've played Final Fantasy games too much when:
You can predict the first boss
You know when a boss is coming up
You know when a disk change is about to occur
You know what suffering REALLY is. (Aka, those bosses that are so hard they make you almost cry)
<->
"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
Liberal Arts Major
Unlike in previous FF games where most enemies were on par, or weaker then you, most of the enemies FAR surpass you in strength.
Their attacks, not so bad. However, the problem is their life points.
Most enemies late in the game have over 30k hp. THESE ARE REGULAR RUN OF THE MILL ENEMIES.
No, not special enemies. Not mini-bosses. Not bosses.
This just makes killing fucking annoying especially when you're only doing about 1.5k damage, and your OTHER 2 character are FORCED into a defensive and healing role.
Thing that pisses me off the most:
Regular enemies that have over 100k fucking HP
Over 90% resistance to Stagger*
Require the stagger meter to fill to 300% or MORE to Stagger them.
AND on top of that, halve all damage.
*
Stagger is this games version of Overdrive. When an enemy takes a certain amount of damage from Ravagers (Ravagers fill the meter quickly, Commando only adds like .1% to the meter) the meter fills, when it hits full, your damage is MASSIVELY increased, enemies get weaker, or just stop doing things, and special attacks will be activated. (e.g, the Commando can use the ability Launch on most enemies which fling them HIGH into the fucking air so they basically can't do anything)
How's this enemy for absolute dickish?
Behemoth King
Around 760,000 hp, 95% stagger resistance, 500% stagger meter requirement.
And once it hits 30% HP, it fully fucking heals itself and turns into a super monster capable of hitting over 2k+ life TO EVERYONE. (At this point? Only ONE of my characters has that, the rest have under 1.5k life)
THIS IS NOT A SPECIAL, MINI-BOSS OR BOSS MONSTER IT IS A REGULAR ENEMY (Bold applied for emphasis)
Another problem with this game.
When the party leader (The character you control) dies? It's game over. Even if one of the AI controlled characters is in a Medic role with Revive?
Still Game Over. ABSOLUTELY no fucking questions asked, it's game fucking over.
<->
"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
Liberal Arts Major
The day that I shelved a Final Fantasy game without completing it.
<->
"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
Editor
So you're saying I shouldn't rush out and buy FFXIII, I take it?
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Hope (One of the party members) is more whiny then Cloud is >_>
<->
"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
Editor
In the next cave is a... sort of pointless thing where we need to destroy a bunch of icicles in order to get some items. We get an Elixir, a Last Elixir, a Fire Armlet, and a Speed Source. Perhaps more importantly: 3k EXP per icicle fight. Not bad. It also allows us to exit and continue onward and grab an Enhance Sword. Oh, I also take a minute to learn the Enemy Skill Bad Breath from the Marlboros. (Thanks, Ribbons!) And yes, I know they're actually named Malboros, but I'm leaving that typo in because it amuses me. <_< Tifa learns the Level 3 Limit Break Meteor Strike.
Let's review. We've got: Meteor, via the Black Materia, Sephiroth's attack. Meteodrive, one of Tifa's Limit Breaks. Meteor Strike, another of Tifa's Limit Breaks. And Meteorain, one of Claude's Limit Breaks.
This game has a meteor fetish.
Also Yuffie apparently learned the Level 2 Limit Break Landscaper at some point. If I mentioned that already, my bad, but I can't remember it. I don't think I say it enough: this game has dumb names for everything. Landscaper is about the least threatening attack name I've ever heard.
There's another mountain climbing adventure and another cave, but this one has a save point and a heal point. That tells me two things: 1) "finally, a boss fight!" and 2) time to do some minor grinding. Luckily it only takes a few fights before I encounter a Blue Dragon and cause it to drop a Dragon Armlet. That's all I wanted, thanks. Movin' on.
In the next room, we see a black cloak get attacked and killed by... something. The boss cam explains why WE can't see it, but I don't understand why Claude, Tifa, and Yuffie are looking around in a confused manner. <_< But then it makes its presence known or something, and we get dragged into a fight!
BOSS FIGHT:
SCHIZO LEFT & SCHIZO RIGHT
lol, political incorrectness
Anyway, this guy is a joke and a half. Well. That's not entirely fair. While both heads are alive, he's definitely a joke. I spent the first like 20 turns of the fight just dicking around and trying to steal a Protect Ring (which I eventually succeeded at, btw). After you kill one head, though, the other goes ****ing nuts and actually becomes a credible threat, often getting three actions per turn. That can hurt a lot when you don't have Big Guard up and fail to realize that White Wind is a million times better than Cure2. But eventually he goes down and, to his credit, he even has a desperation attack before dying. Not bad. We take a Dragon Fang from his corpse (oh look, an enemy drop that actually makes sense).
We leave the cave for one final mountain climb which is extremely slow for a reason that isn't immediately apparent. Once you get to the top, though, it all makes sense. Yes, Square, that aurora borealis effect is very nice, and the blizzard is cool too, but the slowdown made that climb excrutiating.
The party talks about how something collided with the Planet here and left a gash which it's trying to heal with Mako energy, but Sephie McRoth is here wrecking **** up and trying to cast Meteor and we need to find him and punch his stupid jerk face in. Tifa says she's lost a lot because of Seph and the guide informs me that Tifa would be butting into my party right about now if I didn't already have her there. Please tell me there won't be a section where I'm forced to use Cait Sith. Ugh.
Anyway... this area is called Whirlwind Maze, but hopefully that's just a name because I really don't want to deal with any more Lost Woods bullshit. In fact, I just grab the "Neo Bahamut" Materia and use the save point and stop for now. Man, they're just handing out those summons like candy. <_<
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
We take two steps forward and a cutscene happens. Rufus, Heidegger, Scarlet, and Hojo, and probably some other dudes, are all in an airship(?) talking about how this is the Promised Land and how the Reunion is going to take place here. Yeah, it'll be a Reunion all right. A Reunion of our Buster Sword with Sephiroth's face!!
On the next screen we get a Hi-Potion and an Elixir from two dying black cloaks, and we learn that we need to cross the gap when the wind is calm. It's sort of hard to even tell when that is, but we make it across anyway. On the next screen is a huge row of black cloaks, a lot of whom die spontaneously but none of whom give us items. We do get a Kaiser Knuckle from a chest, though.
On the next screen is another wall of wind, but this one has green blasts that make it even more annoying to figure out when to go. Also, the perspective makes it impossible to even tell where you are in relation to the green blasts. I really only get by on my second try due to blind luck.
On the next screen is Mr. McRoth himself, who is murdering black cloaks for some reason. Probably because he's a huge dick. Claude says it's the end, and Seph counters by saying that it IS the end... of this body's usefulness. Then he vanishes in a puff of evil. Claude and company are smart enough to realize it's never that easy, and sure enough, some mysterious voice starts talking to Claude, saying its his/her sole purpose to bring the Black Materia to their master and other cryptic, barely understandable nonsense. It's worth mentioning that during all this, I have some level of control over Claude and can inch him around, which makes me wonder if there's something I'm supposed to be doing. But eventually Seph appears from inside the camera and descends upon the party, one-shotting them all.
That's the end of Final Fantasy VII guys, hope you've enjoyed the playthrough. Overall: 8/10, perfect game.
Oh wait, Claude's getting back up.
Claude: I've had all I can stands, and I can't stands no more!
And then he pops a can of trains into his mouth and grows huge forearms. Because eating trains gives you super-strength if you are badass enough to eat trains.
BOSS FIGHT:
JENOVA*DEATH
The problem with this Jenova - and the last one - is that they don't bother with type coverage. The previous one was packing Waterfall/Aqua Tail/Surf/Hydro Pump, and this one's packing Ember/Flamethrower/Flame Wheel/Fire Blast. And my characters all have some level of protection from these elements. Also, I love using Tifa's Limit Break on these bosses, because seeing her pick up giant god-monstrosities and just suplex them like it's no big deal is so badass/hilarious.
In any case, I threw summons at her until she turned inside out, and got a Reflect Ring for my troubles.
After the fight, the entire party has shown up, so thanks for helping in that battle, you dicks. Claude says some things that are almost comprehensible; he also says we've been chasing Jenova, not Sephiroth, this whole time. Gee, what tipped him off? THE FACT THAT WE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING ****ING JENOVAS AND NOT SEPHIROTHS? Also apparently Real!Sephiroth is up ahead? I dunno. But whatever, fine, Claude picks up the Key Item "Black Materia" again, and nobody says "hey uh no offense, but I think one of us should prrrrrobably hang onto that this time".
...Oh hey what the hell, Tifa just told Claude to give it to someone else to hold onto. WOW. AMAZING. I am legitimately in awe at what just transpired. I was just assuming they wouldn't but then... huh. So, let's see. My choices are: traitor, traitor, drunk, kid, chick, jerk, and Barret. I THINK MY CHOICE IS CLEAR. Before exiting to the north, we save, use a Tent, and grab the Poison Ring and "MP Turbo" Materia.
Goddammit another one of these stupid walls of wind. And now there's lightning to make it even more fantastical. But at least the perspective is better so I have SOME idea of when to run.
So the next screen is... Nibelheim. Huh. Oh, Claude says it's an illusion made by Seph to trick them. But also time travel, apparently, because Sephiroth and his band of merry men from the Nibelheim flashback have shown up. Yuffie's confused that Claude isn't with said party. Instead, his spot seems to have been taken by a non-Claude guy. Similar, and yet different. Like some sort of... black-haired Claude.
Tifa says she doesn't want to be in the illusion anymore, and just like that it changes to Nibelheim ablaze, presumably to punish her for her insolence. Claude correctly predicts that it won't be him emerging from the mansion, but his doppelganger. Tifa tells Claude not to watch, but Claude says it's just an illusion and she shouldn't be scared. If I didn't know what was going on already, this scene would be very suspenseful.
Scene change to inside a burning house. Yuffie momentarily forgets they're in an illusion (*facepalm*), but Claude cuts that nonsense short by calling Seph out. He says that Seph is trying to imply that he (Claude) wasn't in Nibelheim however many years ago that was. Seph appears and is like, "bingo". But Claude has HEROIC RESOLVE and says that he knows he was there because that's what his heart tells him! Seph says he's a puppet with no heart and his memories are the real illusion. Claude asks Seph why he's doing this. Look. IT DOESN'T ****ING MATTER. You came all this way to stab him in the face and now you're face-to-face with him and yet his face remains unstabbed! What is the freaking hold up?! HE'S JUST STANDING THERE. GET HIM. MAKE HIM BECOME GOTTEN.
Seph talks about Claude giving him the Black Materia and says Hojo would die if he found out a failed experiment proved so useful. Seph says Claude was created by Hojo after Nibelheim burnt, "[a] puppet made up of vibrant Jenova cells, her knowledge, and the power of the Mako. An incomplete Sephiroth-clone. Not even given a number. ...That is your reality."
Tifa says not to listen to Seph, and Claude's like "huh? sorry, I wasn't listening" and then Tifa's like "we have memories togetherrrrrrrr" and Seph is like "pffffahahahaha Tifa you are the worst liar in the world except for possibly Yuffie". And then nobody defends Yuffie because they know that her inability to lie is indefensible. Seph then disappears, leaving Claude and Tifa to share another exchange of "DON'T BELIEVE HIM CLAUDE HE'S A LYING LIAR WHO LIES" "I'm not, he's a jerk, but YOU'RE not a jerk and you wouldn't lie to me!" which is all very tragic/somewhat hilarious. Seph reappears and says that Jenova can change one's looks, voices, and words. Also: "Inside of you, Jenova has merged with Tifa's memories, creating you." Which makes no sense at all, but sure, let's see where that takes us.
There's more back and forth and eventually Seph brings up the picture they took before leaving for Mt. Whatever. Claude, in a stunning display of intelligence (...sorta), says Tifa shouldn't worry because even if he's not in the picture, it'll just be because it's part of Seph's illusion. Seph vanishes again and Claude gives a recap of what happened before that mission, but then realizes he can't remember when he joined SOLDIER and falls down in pain. He ends up saying "That's right... I didn't have to worry about it because..." and trailing off. He then tells Tifa it's time to go. SUSPENSE.
Scene change to Rufus for Rufushenanigans. They're examining a giant Materia. Rufus thinks it's the Promised Land, Hojo's like "lol no". Then Rufus insults Hojo and it's awesome. But then they get attacked by Weapon so the scene gets cut short, though they don't exactly seem worried, which I'm calling bullshit on unless they are multiple types of Weapon and this kind isn't the bonus boss kind. >_>
Back to Team Not Awesome. Barret gets sucked into a time dimension, but then Tifa appears and pulls him out of it and says Claude's in trouble and the rest of the party is already there BUT THEY NEED BARRET'S HELP and he's like "this is the most obvious trap ever, but I don't see why THAT should stop me from falling into it!" And then Tifa is, of course, Seph, and the rest of the party wakes up and finds Barret and Tifaroth gone. WELP. You know what's the only thing that could make that better?
MORE RUFUSHENANIGANS. They decide to head back to their ship, but then TEAM AWESOME gets teleported into the room. "awkward". Claude says they should get out and leave the rest to him, but then Barret shows up and is like "I'm here to rescue you!" So then Claude goes over to Barret and says "gimme the Black Materia now" and Barret is like "welllllllllll. You did tell me not to hand it over to anyone, but I see no reason not to completely disregard that. Here y'go." You can't see it, but I am facepalming as hard as I have ever facepalmed before. Claude apologizes to everyone and says to Tifa that he never lived up to the real Claude. Then Hojo says his experiment was a complete success. What is even going on. This is so dumb.
Hojo asks for Claude's number (you know, to call him and ask him out), and Claude says he didn't have one because he was a failed experiment. Claude asks to be assigned a number now, but Hojo's like "i'm too busy wallowing in my failure to admit to my success!" and then Seph takes Claude away on a maaaaagical carpet ride, so that solves that.
Rufus and Hojo talk. Jenova's Reunion is the process by which Jenova reassembles itself. It took five years for the clones to begin to arrive. He also confirms that Claude is a failed Sephiroth-clone. The Reunion was supposed to happen in Midgar, but then Seph was like "no u" and moved it. Claude, meanwhile, is having a tea party on the ceiling, and is like, "I wasn't pursuing Seph, I was being summoned by him!" *dramatic chipmunk* Claude asks for Seph to come out because he brought him the Black Materia. The huge Materia partially falls from the ceiling and... oh my god, it's full of Sephiroth! WE NEED TO GIVE IT A SEPHIROTHECTOMY, STAT.
Hojo is quite pleased with himself, but Tifa's like "Uh, except that Meteor is going to KILL US ALL". Then Rufus tells them to evacuate. Which they do only after Claude actually hands over the Black Materia. IF ONLY ONE OR MORE OF THE CHARACTERS PRESENT HAD SOME SORT OF DEVICE THAT WAS CAPABLE OF IGNITING A SMALL EXPLOSIVE CHARGE IN ORDER TO PROPEL A METAL SLUG FORWARD WITH GREAT SPEED, THIS COULD ALL HAVE BEEN AVOIDED. Unfortunately, as far as I know, no such device exists.
There's an FMV. Nirvash type:theEND appears from the Northern Crater and attacks the Gekko, but they manage to get away.
There's a cutscene of Tifa meeting Claude for the first time. blah blah blah Tifa is a selfish jerk, she knew something was up but got him to sign onto AVALANCHE to keep him around so she could figure it out.
SUMMARY OF WHAT TIFA LEARNS UPON WAKING UP ABOARD THE RUFUSMOBILE or wherever she is:
-She's been out for 7 days.
-Claude's still alive.
-We don't know where he is.
-Sephiroth is still in Northern Crater.
-Northern Crater's surrounded by a barrier.
-Weapon is going around "tearing shit up", to quote Barret.
-Rufus is fighting Weapon (but. he wasn't even a match for claude! how. this doesn't. you can't. but. love hate claudes *falls over*)
Tifa asks about Meteor and she gets a nice view of it looming menacingly in the sky for an answer. Niiice.
SUDDENLY, ENTER RUFUS. Hey, aren't you supposed to be fighting Weapon with your fake impossible stat boosts or something? Oh, I guess he's going to execute Tifa and Barret because it'll make the public feel better about their imminent doom or something. Wow, that's a productive use of time that could be better spent FIGHTING SEPHIROTH WITH YOUR FAKE IMPOSSIBLE STAT BOOSTS.
As interesting as this all is, it's late and I'm too tired to even proofread this horrifyingly long mountain of text so I'm going to call it quits there. Note that that was roughly 10 minutes of gameplay and 100+ minutes of cutscenes, though most of that time was spent writing up this horrifyingly long mountain of text.
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Several years ago, we were getting TRULY good games. Now? We're getting sub-par CRAP.
Just the latest games I own:
Forza 3 was a let down.
They tried to improve, but they just fucked up. The "Heat races" are fucking annoying.
They require you to race down the EXACT same strip of a track 3 times. After one Heat is over, it switches to a new point on the same track and you have to repeat this. There are a total of 4 races (12 total) each Heat.
And unlike Forza 2, the Endurance Races are SLOW AND FUCKING BORING. I FELL ASLEEP DURING ONE!
---
Modern Warfare 2 is a piece of absolute SHIT compared to Call of Duty 4.
The maps are TOO complex, massive weapons imbalance (Literally, Assault Rifles > Pretty much everything)
The graphics are at the point where this happens:
*Walks around corner*
"OH SHIT A PERSON!"
*Shoots*
"Oh, fuck, it was just a bush"
And the hackers. OH FUCK THE FUCKING HACKERS.
This is fucking bull shit because THIS SHIT HAPPENS ON XBOX LIVE.
----
Mass Effect 2 was pretty good.
Fun game, but the problem lies in the fact that they completely dumbed the game down to the point where it's Gears Of War 2 with MAGIKZ
----
Final fucking Fantasy 13
That is all.
<->
"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
Editor
So anyway, Barret and Tifa have been tied up and are going to be executed on live national television. For some reason that is not explained, Tifa can't just... I dunno, beat the crap out of everyone. My disbelief is not yet suspended enough to think that handcuffs alone could stop a martial artist who frequently kicks god-monstrosities to death.
Oh, and then as if to insult me, they remove Tifa's handcuffs and she still doesn't just lay Scarlet out with a single punch or anything. Faaaantastic. And now Tifa's going to be killed in a poison gas chamber. Luckily Weapon attacks and most of the SOLDIERs run off. Some fat idiot asks Scarlet how it feels, and hits her with knock-out gas. SURPRISE! It's Cait Sith. You know because it makes total sense for a Shinra employee to rescue the party from Shinra even though they wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't sold them out to Shinra in the first place. And now Barret and Cait Sith have to handle the two remaining SOLDIERs, which is bad for reasons that should be obvious. Namely, no Materia or good equipment. Also they both get put to sleep on turn 1. THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING BATTLE OF ALL TIME. It's almost like I'm playing nothing at all!
But FINALLY we win that fight. And... AFTER the fight, Cait Sith unties Barret, which means that he was perfectly capable of fighting unimpaired with his hands tied and just... didn't until now, for some reason.
...
Makes perfect sense.
Cait Sith justifies his actions by saying that he just hates Scarlet, which is about the most logical thing that has happened in this entire scene so far so, sure, let's go with that. Barret goes to rescue Tifa but can't open the door.
Cut to Rufus and Heidegger. They discuss how they're going to fight off Weapon, and eventually decide to fire their big-ass cannon at it. Oh, I guess we're in Junon, not on board the Rufusmobile. That's a shame, I was about to make a MOONSTONE CANNON, FIRE reference. They fire their big-ass cannon and it hits... the open ocean. Wow. Frickin'... frickin' master marksmen, you guys ain't.
"I've had a helluva day, Vegeta! I sank their battleship! And their whaaaales."
Rufus and Heidegger discuss whether they got 'em or not, and Rufus immediately becomes the dumbest character in the game by saying he thinks so. You know how I know you didn't get them? BECAUSE I HAVE THE MAGIC OF SIGHT. And yep, here comes Weapon, chargin' towards 'em. And Rufus' cannon can't fire multiple times so they need to use tiny cannons and just Macross it up. This of course does nothing and Weapon slams into them.
Back to Barret, who still can't get the door open, and now Tifa is being gassed. Cait Sith says we should head to the airport and to "trust him". Yeah sure, that would honestly still rank in like... the top five most logical parts of this scene so far. Luckily on the way we run into Yuffie, so 1/3rd of TEAM AWESOME is back in action! And actually, Barret's like... an honorary member of TEAM AWESOME, so it's more like 2/4ths. We reach the airport, at which point Cait Sith says he must've made a wrong turn. DERRRRRRRRRRRRRRP
So it falls on Tifa to rescue... Tifa. There's a sort of amusing minigame here to pick up the key that Scarlet dropped on the ground (-_-) and have her free herself. Eventually I manage it, but the door is still locked. WHY IS A GODDAMN DOOR CAUSING SO MANY PROBLEMS TO PEOPLE WHO CAN CREATE LIGHTNING AND FIRE AND NUCLEAR BLASTS WITH THEIR MINDS. URGH.
But luckily, a cutscene happens!
Weapon: I'MMA CHARGIN' MAH LAZER
Weapon: I'MMA FIRIN' MAH LAZER
Rufus: Yeah, me too...
So Weapon blasts the side of the complex, but then Rufus BOOM HEADSHOTS it with the giant cannon at point blank range. What luck that that blast should allow Tifa access to the outside world. Scarlet tells Tifa to open the door and Tifa's like "make up your mind!" and runs off. owned scarlet owned. Also, I find it HILARIOUS that apparently Scarlet was having just as much trouble opening that door as we were, despite being the one who locked it in the first place. Maybe it was just defective or something. That would be an awesome bit of reality seldom seen in fictional stories.
Tifa starts climbing down the outer wall while Scarlet and some goons finally manage to get past the nefarious door and start climbing after her. But if you're not fast enough, they just stop and wait for you to get a good distance away before resuming. Who says chivalry is dead?
Eventually Tifa falls like a thousand feet, but she's totally fine and starts running. But she runs towards and onto the barrel of the giant cannon, which is dumb for so many reasons. Scarlet catches up to her and smacks her, at which point Tifa decides, "okay, it's pay back time! I know! Instead of fighting her using that Active Time Based combat system, I'll just slap her like the woman that I am! This is perfectly logical."
After getting slapped around for a bit, Scarlet decides that she's had enough and calls for her hired goons. Tifa realizes that there's no way she can defeat a few generic enemies that would probably die to a single Beta. Luckily, she hears a voice telling her to run to the end of the cannon, and suddenly, like at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, it's Barret in the Rufusmobile, here to rescue her!
On board, Tifa reveals that the worst thing she suffers from despite being nearly poisoned to death is that her cheeks hurt from being slapped. This is so dumb I can't even see straight. Cait Sith says that the Rufusmobile is called the Highwind and that it now belongs to us, which I guess makes it the Barretmobile. Or... the Claudemobile? The Tifamobile? The Cidmobile? Wait, just give me a second, I'll get it. The Yuffiemobile? I sorta like the sound of the Yuffiemobile.
Well, might as well talk to people. Yuffie is airsick and/or drunk, so I head inside and talk to a guy who reveals that the Highwind's crew rebelled because Heidegger was such a jerk and because Cid showed up and told them about the Planet needing help and stuff. That's about as good a justification for why we have the crew needed to pilot an airship as any game is likely to give, I think. Heading into the cockpit, Tifa finds Vincent, Red XIII, and Cid, as well as Barret, Cait Sith, and some generics. Talking to everyone triggers a pretty stupid conversation where Tifa basically says they're nothing without Claude, which in turn triggers:
Barret: "Tifa! When'd you become such a wimp?!"
*nods approvingly*
Anyway, eventually she's sent to the Operation Room, where I can save my game, heal, and form a party. TEAM MOSTLY AWESOME (Tifa/Yuffie/Barret) is go! And now that we have an airship, we can go do some optional things!
-I collect a "Full Cure" Materia, a Magic Source, and an Elixir from the backroom of the item shop in Cosmo Canyon.
-Yuffie learns the Level 3 Limit Break "Gauntlet", which is at least a slightly more threatening name than "Landscaper".
-In Rocket Town, I grab a Guard Source and a Fourth Bracelet.
-I visit the Chocobo Sage and acquire the final Enemy Skill Materia. What does this mean for us? It means I can return to Wutai and do the final pagoda fight. Unfortunately, if I want to learn Trine, I can't equip any Materia that already knows it, so I'm gonna have to do this without Big Guard/Beta. ...Ah well, let's see what happens.
BOSS FIGHT:
GODO
This guy is a jerk. I once waited for him all day and he never showed up. =/ Also, he's Yuffie's dad.
...but yeah, this wasn't hard at all. Learned Trine and kicked his ass with ease. <_< Got the item All Creation from him. As you might have guessed, this is Yuffie's final Limit Break.
After the battle both Yuffie and Godo are on their backs and out of breath, as if it was even slightly close. Then they do the stupid "at the end of the fight, both fighters start laughing, first quietly, and then quite loudly" thing. Godo gives Yuffie the Leviathan Materia, and Yuffie calls Godo out for turning Wutai into a resort town after they lost the war. He says that she's right and asks the party to take Yuffie with them. It's all very touching, yes. And then after everyone else leaves, Yuffie and her dad hatch a plan to steal the party's Materia after everything is over. Ha.
You know what this game needs? That Earthbound thing where the run button even affects movement during scripted scenes, for both the player and the NPCs. At least, I think it was Earthbound that did that. <_< But yeah, more optional things... tomorrow maybe.
</spoiler>
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
-The guide I'm referencing says I can get a good piece of equipment called the Tetra Elemental by Morphing Cactaurs on Cactus Island. As far as I can tell, Morph works like this: equipping the Morph Materia adds the Morph command to that character. Using this command deals very, very low damage. However, if you kill the enemy with it, it gets morphed into a certain item. It's actually quite easy to get Tetra Elementals off the Cactaurs because they're level 40 and thus vulnerable to L4 Suicide. After getting three Tetra Elementals, I call it quits. Why did I bother with this? Because the Tetra Elemental absorbs Fire, Ice, Earth, and Lightning, and that sounds preposterously broken. And if there's one thing I can never make myself avoid doing, it's attempting to break games. >_>
-On Goblin Island, I learned Goblin Punch from Goblins. Goblin goblin goblin hobgoblin hemoglobin. Note that the Cover Materia is not credit to team when trying to learn single target Enemy Skills, and has been subsequently removed and placed in solitary confinement until it apologizes.
-I also took a moment (okay more like several moments because the damn Midgar Zolom would not cooperate) to learn Beta for my last two Enemy Skill Materia.
-For no real reason, I decided to do the "get Quadra Magic early/without a Chocobo" glitch. I don't even know what Quadra Magic is. I just knew that I wanted it early and without a Chocobo. <_< But yeah, "Quadra Magic" Materia GET! I guess it lets me use the paired Materia four times, which seems like something that sounds more useful than it actually is. But what do I know? Nothing.
-I also grab another Chocobo Lure Materia from the Chocobo Ranch. It's pretty much safe to say that any sidequest that involves breeding, catching, racing, or interacting with Chocobos in any way, will never get done. Actually, you can sub out "Chocobo" for "minigame of any kind" and that statement would still be mostly true.
-I take the time to learn a handful of Enemy Skills to my last two Materia, such as Matra Magic, White Wind, Big Guard, Frog Song, and Death Force. I cannot yet get Aqualung again unfortunately because my buggy is gone and the Harpy enemies can only be encountered in the desert. Sigh.
-Last but not least, I spent some time grinding against Cactaurs after making Yuffie hyper. The result? The level 2 Limit Break Bloodfest and the level 3 Limit Break Doom of the Living. The result of the result? Level 4 Limit Break All Creation.
I'm going to repeat that, as if you needed more evidence this game has horrible names for things. Yuffie's Limit Breaks include: Bloodfest, Doom of the Living, and Landscaper.
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
The party overhears some people talking about a young, spiky-haired man who washed up on the shores near here a while ago. He's in the clinic right now, so the party rushes in. It is Claude, but... he's apparently comatose from Mako poisoning. Well. That's not good. The party exits the clinic to talk with the doctor, leaving Tifa and Claude alone.
"An immense amount of Mako-drenched knowledge was put into his brain all at once..."
.......................................
Tifa comes back out and says there's something she wants to tell us all, so we all follow her back into the clinic. Oh, I guess she wants to stay with Claude. Huh. Well, we're back down to 2/4ths of TEAM AWESOME, then. Before leaving, Barret asks if Claude is really Tifa's childhood friend, and she says yes, but again, everyone in this game is a horrible liar. Especially Tifa, but especially Yuffie.
Back on the Highwind, Cait Sith says Shinra are up to something and lets us eavesdrop on a conversation between Rufus, Heidegger, Palmer, Scarlet, and somebody who's too far away for me to identify. They're talking about their two big problems: namely, how to destroy Meteor and how to kill Seph. The first plan involves gathering all the Huge Materia and ramming them into Meteor. That sounds like an intensely bad, impractical, and ineffective plan. They've already got all the Materia except the ones from Corel and Fort Condor.
Barret says the party needs a leader, but that it can't be him, so he forces Cid into the job. lolz
Well, our party is now Cid/Barret/Yuffie, and we're heading to Corel. We land right outside the town and trek all the way back to the reactor. There are two Shinra goons standing guard outside the reactor. They attack, but it's not like they can actually _stop_ us... Oh, but then a train leaves the reactor with the Huge Materia in tow. Damn.
Yuffie: We need to catch up to them!
Barret: It's no good! There ain't no gettin' onto that train they're on!
Yuffie and Cid: -_-
Barret: *awesome face*
Okay no that never happened. What actually happened was more like:
Yuffie: We're in trouble, what're we gonna do?!
Cid: I'M GOING TO DO MY LAUNDRY! Could I have some change?
...okay no let me try again.
Yuffie: Cid, what are you going to do?
Cid: Who the hell do you think I am? I'm not Claude, our old party leader! I am Cid! Cid the Pilot! MINE IS THE SPEAR THAT WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS!
that's
that's pretty close to his actual response
We head into the reactor and take our own train in pursuit. This is a dumb idea. Or it would be if we didn't know about the greatest of all train techniques - multi-rail drifting!
no but seriously it's just a minigame where you alternate pressing up and triangle
Eventually we catch up to them.
Cid: We need to jump!
Barret: Impossible! There ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on!
Yuffie and Cid: -_-
Barret: *awesome face*
never gets old
There's a gauntlet of five encounters here. The first two are cake. The second two are mini-bosses, but still go down fairly easily. (I also stole a Warrior Bangle from the fourth encounter.) The fifth is just a single SOLDIER, which means he's cake. Then we're tasked with stopping the train via a minigame that is completely incomprehensible. Note that all of this had to be done within 10 minutes, though I finished with 3 minutes to spare so it must not have been THAT bad.
After stopping the train just outside North Corel, we receive the Huge Materia it was carrying, and the "Ultima" Materia as thanks for saving everyone. We also receive a free night at the inn. After the rest, we talk to a woman nearby who gives us the item "Catastrophe" to help us stop Meteor. What is Catastrophe? It's Barret's final Limit Break. Sort of weird how Yuffie got her final Limit Break through a very Yuffie-centric sidequest, while Alice, Barret, and Red XIII have all just happened to find them somewhere. <_<;
Next up is the Fort Condor Huge Materia. It's probably worth mentioning that, according the guide, I could have backtracked to Fort Condor about 20 times since I did the first fight there for additional fights. I cannot possibly convey how little I cared about doing this. The one battle I fought there was already like four too many. What an awful minigame.
Luckily, it seems like I can just ignore this battle, let the enemy reach me, and then kill it, and am actually rewarded for doing so. So let's... do it to it, I guess.
Okay, I wait like five minutes for the enemy to reach me, and then...
BOSS FIGHT:
CMD. GRAND HORN
Yeah, this guy was pretty worthless. He did manage to poison both Barret and Yuffie though, and got like three actions per turn. That's... that's definitely something. I get an Imperial Guard off his corpse, which is why the guide recommends fighting this guy. <_<
Outside, there's a cutscene of the giant egg hatching, and the condor that was protecting it falling over dead. Uh. Okay then. We head outside and find an extremely ugly condor chick that flies away, and the "Phoenix" Materia. Back inside, we talk to a guy who gives us the Huge Materia and says he deceived us because they were really protecting the condor, not the reactor. Except that's what we knew the whole time. And it also makes no sense in this context at all. So uh. TRANSLATION, WHAT HAVE YOU DOOOONE.
I should also mention that, until it dies, no visual indication is ever given that that condor was more than a statue. Yes, we're TOLD it's alive, but it was made of prerendered graphics, which are generally reserved for like... buildings and mountains and ****.
The party talks about a huge Materia underwater in Junon (...when did they find out about this, again?), but they decide to go see Claude before messing with Shinra again.
Back in Mideel... Claude says "they're coming" and bad things start happening. Cid rushes outside and says the Lifestream is trying to surface or something, whatever, point is: HOW THE HELL DOES HE KNOW THAT?! Then the
BOSS FIGHT:
ULTIMATE WEAPON
It has 100,000 HP and flees in a few turns. The annoying thing is, I'm pretty confident I COULD beat it if it stuck around. I mean, I did probably like 16k damage before it even managed to flee, and it heals me when it casts Quake2, so yeah. But more importantly: it has a Curse Ring I can steal, and I want it. Got it on the second try, right before it fled. Stupid Weapon.
So Weapon flees and everything seems fine, until the tremors suddenly get worse. The party runs off (wow, some loyalty there) and Tifa is left to try to escape with Claude on her own as the town collapses into the ground behind her. She almost makes it, but then she and Claude both fall into the Lifestream, which is apparently green water. Tifa finds herself in a pitch black area and starts hearing voices. She talks cryptically and calls out for Claude to help her. This is some seriously Evangelion-esque **** right here. Eventually she hears train noises and gunfire and then collapses.
Tifa wakes up in Super Mario Galaxy land, except there are a bunch of Claudes around and a giant partially transparent one in the sky. Well then. Oh, I guess we're in Claude's mental world or something. Tifa's trying to help Claude piece together his memories, and we're eventually led to a memory of Nibelheim five years ago. Everything starts going down as usual, until Mental!Claud tries to possess Memory!Claude and Tifa says that she's been lying because she was worried something terrible might happen. Claude never visited Nibelheim five years ago. She waited but Claude never came. Black-haired Claude shows up and the vision ends.
Next we're drawn into the memory of the night Claude and Tifa made a promise. Tifa says she believes Claude is the same Claude from Nibelheim, but that Claude is doubting himself. The vision ends. Tifa says that if Claude and she both share a memory, that memory must be real. She asks why Claude joined SOLDIER. Young!Claude shows up and says he joined because he wanted Tifa to notice him. She asks why, and is led to a "secret, locked-up memory".
SUMMARY: Tifa and Claude weren't as close as children as she thought. They grew up together but never actually hung out. She hung out with three other friends, and Claude thought they were immature and that he was different from them. That's why he called Tifa out to the well. ...Or something, I'm not really sure. Suddenly it becomes apparent that this memory is of the day Tifa's mom died. Young!Tifa runs off to Mt. Nibel to see her mom because kids are dumb and don't understand death in fiction. (Seriously, it's stupid. My 2-year-old neice has a better grasp of this **** than Young!Tifa apparently does.) Her three friends are scared and run off, but Claude follows her.
Tifa took a misstep and Claude ran to catch her, but they both fell off the cliff. Some adults showed up and scolded Claude for bringing Tifa to a place as dangerous as Mt. Nibel. Claude says that Tifa was in a coma for seven days and everybody thought she wouldn't make it. Claude says he blamed himself for being weak ("slow" would seem more appropriate). After that he started picking fights. Eventually he learned about Sephiroth, and the rest is history.
Tifa says they've almost got this sorted out, and they head back to Nibelheim. This time they go to the reactor. They enter and see Sephiroth striking Tifa down. Black-haired Claude is there, in Claude's place, obviously. Claude finally remembers that the man's name is Zack. It was Zack who came to Nibelheim with Seph five years ago. Zack followed Seph further into the reactor but was blasted out of the room. Then one of two nameless Shinra SOLDIERs who accompanied the two of them shows up. He grabs Zack's Buster Sword and charges into the room. He stabs Seph, gravely wounding him. It's Claude. This would be an incredibly cool plot twist if I hadn't had it spoiled for me.
Now we get to see the entire Nibelheim flashback from real Claude's point of view. He was embarrassed about being in SOLDIER and didn't want anyone to see him(?), so he kept his mask on. Eventually the flashback works its way back to reactor... Claude backtracks to the previous room to check on Tifa and Seph escapes further into the reactor. Claude is told by Zack to kill Seph. He pursues Seph but is immediately stabbed. Seph says "Don't push your luck", at which point Claude grabs Seph's sword - still inside him, FYI - and ****ing THROWS Seph against the wall and into the depths of the reactor. I don't get to say this enough, so I want to make the most of it:
OWNED SEPHIROTH OWNED
We're back in the mental hub world. All the Claudes converge into a single Claude. This is the real/present-day Claude apparently. Tifa asks if they're in the Lifestream, and says it's time to go home. If only this was the end of the game we could have a "Claude's Mind" and it would be hilarious. <_<
All right, we're back in the ruins of Mideel, and Tifa and Claude are safe with the rest of the party. Blah blah blah, Tifa says that Claude is good and Barret says he shouldn't have doubted him. Tifa says it's funny that people are made up of memories and that they can still forget so many things, etc, and then passes out. It would be very dramatically appropriate for Tifa to have died here. Probably more so than Aeris, even. Whatever.
Back on the Highwind, Claude says he was never in SOLDIER. But... wait, what? Then why was he... What was that vision about, then? I thought those blue mooks were the SOLDIER grunts, but then... Then he says that heard the story from his friend Zack and made up everything and... What? Is he just lying, or...
...
I don't even know. This game doesn't make any goddamn sense. It's impossible to know when a character is telling the truth, or lying, or trying to tell the truth but the translation is making them lie, or when a character is trying to be cryptic, or trying to be clear but the translation is making it cryptic, or... goddammit. Somebody who actually gets this needs to explain what just happened. (Editor's note: Pretty much immediately after this scene, Claude can have an optional conversation with Yuffie where he gives her some advice he learned while in SOLDIER. Goddammit.)
Okay, moving on. Claude says that it's his fault Meteor is about to hit the Planet, so he needs to fight twice as hard to stop it. He says it's like Barret always tells him, and then the whole party shouts: "There ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on!" It's pretty awesome/cheesy.
All right, so Cait Sith tells us about a reactor in Junon, and see NOW it makes sense, but bringing it up at Fort Condor was just dumb. Claude joins back the party (wow that might be the most obscure reference I have ever made) and I celebrate the return of TEAM AWESOME. Though I sorta miss having Cid and Barret in my party. If I play through this again, definitely using them.
OPTIONAL STUFFz:
-In Bone Village, I dig up the item Key to Sector 5, which lets me revisit Midgar.
-In Wall Market I get the Premium Heart, a great weapon for Tifa. (Editor's note: I later learned it doesn't have any Materia growth, so scratch that.) I also buy the Sneak Glove, an accessory that raises my success rate when using Steal, for an outrageous price, but whatever.
-In Nibelheim, I can get Tifa's last Limit Break from the piano. Hey, you know what all those cutscenes and flashbacks didn't explain? HOW THIS PLACE IS STILL HERE.
...I swear I didn't plan this, I just type up all of my reactions as the game happens... playing the tune on the piano gives a sort of half-assed explanation for what I was just complaining about the game not explaining. There's a note from Zangan in Tifa's sheet music. Five years ago, he went to the reactor to save Tifa, his best student, and ran off with her as Shinra troops started arriving. He traveled all the way to Midgar to find a doctor for her. He says that he was surprised to find the town rebuilt sometime later, and that it reeks of Shinra, but that he's old and doesn't want anything to do with the situation. Still, he left the "Final Heaven" item for Tifa, which I immediately teach to her.
Okay, plot time. We head to Junon and through a series of elevators and hallways until we end up at the submarine docks. The Huge Materia has been loaded onto a sub, and we find Reno overseeing everything. He runs off leaving us to battle a dumb looking robot.
BOSS FIGHT:
CARRY ARMOR
...wow.
WOW.
That was fantastic. It used Lapis Laser twice and killed my entire party BEFORE I GOT A SINGLE ACTION.
SURE IS FINAL FANTASY 1 IN HERE.
I'M SURE GLAD THERE WASN'T A SAVE POINT IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THAT, BECAUSE THE ONLY THING I ENJOY MORE THAN POINTLESS GENERIC HALLWAYS IS POINTLESS GENERIC HALLWAYS I'VE ALREADY BEEN THROUGH.
WHATEVER. Let's try that again. Maybe this time the game will realize there are difficulty levels between "impossible to lose" and just "impossible".
BOSS FIGHT:
CARRY ARMOR
Hey, look how much difference it makes when the game actually lets me do ANYTHING. It lets me go from losing on the first turn to basically soloing the boss with Tifa for a while because the boss can also decide to just pick up two members of your party and not let them act until its arms are destroyed! Fuck this stupid boss. Does it bother anyone else that I was perfectly capable of stalling against the Ultimate Weapon indefinitely with a B-party but some random crane machine made by Shinra could INSTANTLY KILL MY ENTIRE A-PARTY? We get a God's Hand item off its corpse but that is not NEARLY ENOUGH to make up for this.
Before boarding the submarine, we take a Battle Trumpet, a Scimitar, and the Leviathan Scales from assorted chests. Then we jump onto the sub and are immediately attacked by some Shinra goons who are never threatening at all.
Inside the sub, some more goons attack, though before the attack one of them suggests that maybe they shouldn't piss us off. Smart idea, but A BIT TOO LATE FOR THAT. Inside the bridge are the dudes from the Junon marching minigame, and I take pity on them for having their entire existence revolve around this game's dumb minigames and take them hostage instead of killing them.
Tifa: "What are we gonna do? We stole a submarine but we can't pilot it!"
...yeah this was a pretty poorly thought out endeavour.
Well, luckily the submarine controls suspiciously like a video game, and also it's easy as shit. It's sorta like Aquas in Star Fox 64, in that you just spam torpedoes until everything dies, except easier because you don't get attacked or have to avoid anything and you win in about 3 seconds. So really, it's not like Star Fox 64 at all.
We get the item "Shinra Sub" (which we will carry around in our item bag, I'm sure!) Claude says the Huge Materia is at the bottom of the ocean. Shinra starts radioing our sub; Claude says he'll handle this.
"Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?"
Nah but seriously, we're heading back to Junon airport to... I dunno, do something, who can even follow this game anymore. Oh, I guess we were trying to catch the new Slave I inspired Rufusmobile. But we didn't manage to and it left without us. "Whoops". I guess we'll have to catch up with it at Rocket Town! .....OR DO A BUNCH OF OPTIONAL THINGS WITH OUR NEW SUBMARINE!!
-The downed airship Gelnika. In the first room is the weapon Heaven's Cloud for... take a wild guess. There's also a save point, which is good because the enemies here are crazy tough. In the upper room is: a Megalixir, an Escort Guard, a "Double Cut" Materia, and the Conformer, Yuffie's Ultimate Weapon (not like... the creature, Ultimate Weapon, though that would be badass).
The left room leads to... oh wow, a confrontation with Reno and Rude. Fancy seeing you guys here! Listen I'm just trying to find my way out, could you-
BOSS FIGHT:
RENO & RUDE
=( Fudge.
Ah, well. We kick them around until they decide they've had enough and run off. Also, Yuffie stole a Touph Ring and a Ziedrich from them. No, I'm not sure if that's supposed to be "Tough Ring".
In the last room we find the "Hades" Materia, a Megalixir, a Spirit Lance, the Highwind (Cid's final Limit Break), and an Outsider (a weapon for Vincent).
...I also seem to have discovered a rather... annoying bug. This guy seems to have found it too, which saves me the trouble of having to explain it. Hopefully this won't continue throughout the whole game, that would be... tragic.
-I exit the wrecked ship and see... huh. You know, I am really curious.
BOSS FIGHT:
EMERALD WEAPON
Ha. Okay, yeah, I just wanted to see if this guy is as pathetic as the Ultimate Weapon. Spoiler: he's not, and TPK'd me in like three turns. Note that it took three times longer for the Emerald Weapon to TPK me than for the Carry Armor to do so. JUST SAYIN'.
-Okay, that silliness out of the way, this time I search the ocean for the wrecked red sub and recover the third Huge Materia.
-North of Costa Del Sol, there's a secret tunnel underwater that leads to a lake, which leads to a cave behind a waterfall (there are ALWAYS goodies behind waterfalls). Having Vincent in the party gives me a scene where he sees Lucretia, but she yells at him to stay back. Some incredibly cryptic flashback scenes play out. It's revealed that Lucrecia gave birth to Sephiroth(?). Vincent(?) gets shot and experimented on and given his current body. He says it's his punishment for being unable to stop Hojo and Gast. Back in the present, Lucrecia says she wanted to die but the Jenova cells in her body wouldn't let her, so she hid away in this cave. She says she never got to hold Sephiroth even once and thus can't be called his mother. She then asks Vincent if Seph is still alive. Claude starts to answer but Vincent stops him and says Sephiroth is dead. Symbolically, that's true, I suppose.
To get the next scene/rewards, we need to fight ten battles, so I might as well do that with Vincent to work towards his Limit Breaks. As if I'm actually going to bother getting everyone's! On a side note, I love Vincent's attack animation. Everyone else puts effort into it; Vincent just calmly takes a step forward, draws his gun, shoots the enemy once, and if it's not dead, he's like "fuck it, I'm not shooting this guy more than once" and gets back in line.
Back in the cave after ten battles, Lucrecia is gone, but Vinnie receives the Death Penalty and Chaos, his Ultimate Weapon and final Limit Break, respectively.
-This isn't optional, but since I'm here I decide to pick up the Key to Ancients key item from another underwater tunnel. What's it for? Who knows?
-With the Leviathan Scales I can return to the Da-chao statues in Wutai and navigate the superheated cave. One would think it would like... make me immune to fire, but no, it just magically shines and causes flames to disperse. >_> I get the "Steal as Well" Materia. It allows me to take things from enemies while polymorphed into a hole sunk into the ground as a source for water, oil, natural gas, or other fluids. I mean while using the paired Materia. I also get the Oritsuru, a pretty nice weapon for Yuffie.
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Regarding Zack/Cloud/Sephiroth/That flashback...
From what I know...
SOLDIER has a kind of tier system in it.
God Tier is SOLDIER First Class. Zack and Sephiroth were both in it, and IIRC, in FFVII they're the only ones who were (in Crisis Core I think a few more show up or something but whatever). They're like... capable of soloing armies and other ridiculous stunts.
Then there's the other SOLDIERS, though I forget the other ranking levels (if there even are any).
Then, outside of SOLDIER entirely, Shinra has its own army.
Now, I forget if Cloud was simply a much lower ranking SOLDIER, like the lowest tier, or if he wasn't SOLDIER at all, and just a random Shinra Soldier (not to be confused with SOLDIER). I think he was just a Shinra Soldier, but I don't recall entirely.
</spoiler>
---
xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
Ah, that would explain my confusion if true... Though I could've sworn the game has used SOLDIER to refer to those Shinra army guys, but maybe I'm mistaken or that's just the translation being dumb.
--
Plot time. We head over to Rocket Town's rocket and find Shinra there. After the obligatory fodder fights we climb the ladder to the rocket and find Rude. Also, Cid's in the party, you know, for laughs.
BOSS FIGHT:
RUDE & FODDER (2)
9000 HP? are you serious. That stupid red dinosaur enemy from the Icicle Area has like 4x that! I just stole Rude's Ziedrich and killed him in like two turns, it was pathetic.
So... one more fodder battle, and we head into the rocket and learn some **** we already knew, blah blah blah Shinra's firing it at Meteor. Cid suddenly has a change of heart and decides science > magic (lol) and that he's willing to give Rufus' plan a shot. Then Palmer forcibly blasts the rocket off. Cid reveals there's an escape pod, so we steal the Huge Materia and head towards it. As if this plan has any chance of working without the Huge Materia, but whatever. On the way there, the oxygen tank #8 explodes and traps Cid under debris. He comments that Shera was right, it WAS malfunctional. He tells us to save ourselves, but then Shera turns up (having stowed away on the rocket) and helps us free him. We jump into the escape pod and eject as the rocket collides with Meteor and doesn't do **** to stop it. So that was a waste of time.
Back on the Highwind, Cid is more determined than ever to save the Planet, but we have no plans so Red XIII suggests we visit Bugenhagen. There's insanely cryptic - even for this game - soulsearching and everyone leaves to "visit the Planet" or some such, while Claude leaves the Huge Materia with Bugenhagen for safekeeping. We also get the "Bahamut ZERO" Materia.
Okay, so we're going to... the Forgotten Capital, I guess. But we can't get into the main room, so we try the other big room, and stuff happens here. We learn that the Black Materia's Meteor can only be matched by the White Materia's Holy. But Alice had the White Materia, and it's gone now. Claude laments not figuring this all out earlier, but I think it's pretty damn impressive that he even understands part of this game's plot at all. Oh, but then we use the Key to Ancients and the temple plays a video recording(?) that shows that the Materia was glowing when Alice died, so she... already activated it, I guess. Holy hasn't occurred yet because it's being stopped by something. Claude says it must be Sephiroth, then wonders where he is. What?! But, you already know where he is! He's in the Crater! Where else could he POSSIBLY be?!
Suddenly, we get a call from Cait Sith saying that Rufus moved the giant cannon from Junon to Midgar and is going to use the Midgar reactors to fire Mako shells at Sephiroth. No. No, I'm sorry. It is not humanly possible to suspend one's disbelief hard enough to accept moving a cannon that size half a continent away and reinstalling it in like two days, in order to fire shots ACROSS HALF THE PLANET. NO. THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE EVEN FOR A CARTOON VIDEO GAME.
Okay, we head back to the Highwind and see a scene of
Cait Sith: Barret, you always worry about Marlene, but how many people do you think you killed when you blew up the reactors?
Barret: A lot less than would have died when the reactors eventually killed everyone on the planet, you Shinra piece of shit?
Cait Sith: derp
Tifa breaks up the argument and Claude decides that we'll just go kill Weapon ourselves. We land outside Midgar and wait for Weapon to saunter over to us.
BOSS FIGHT:
DIAMOND WEAPON
Oh god it's not Palkia at all! It's uh... some character or mecha I've seen before... Dammit. This is going to drive me crazy.
It was a pathetically easy boss, though. After you've done a certain amount of damage, it'll start a Countdown to its strongest attack, Diamond Flash. Well, unless you're awesome like I am, then you just kill before it finishes its countdown, WHILE using crappy equipment to double the massive amount of AP it gives on defeat! I also stole Rising Sun, a weapon for Yuffie, from it.
So after the fight, Diamond Weapon's looking pretty beaten up, but it continues sauntering towards Midgar. Cue Rufus chargin' his laser/firin' his laser (which apparently required all of
*flies towards Northern Crater*
Oh huh, it's not up. We're about to land, but Cait Sith has important news. Also I guess he's Reeve? That's what it seems to be implying, at least. But uh, yeah, they can't reach the President, and the reactors aren't cooling down like they should after firing the cannon. Ah, it's Hojo sabotaging everyone. You'd think they'd have learned by now to have constant tabs on him and/or shoot him in the face. Apparently not.
Okay look, Shinra, guys. You outnumber him by so much. KILL HIS ASS. We have had our differences in the past but THIS IS SO GODDAMN SIMPLE HE IS BETRAYING YOU AND GOING TO KILL YOU UNLESS YOU KILL HIM FIRST SO KILL HIS-
URGH
GODDAMMIT
Fine, we'll fly HALFWAY ACROSS THE PLANET to stop YOUR OWN GUY from killing YOU, OUR SWORN ENEMIES.
AUGH
Just... just DON'T make it harder on us, okay? We'll do your work for you if you don't-oh, okay, fine, arrest Reeve, the only one of you with any self-preservation instinct. That's fantastic. Goddammit, guys. Oh, but I guess that has no effect on his ability to control Cait Sith, so... wonderful.
So we can't enter Midgar on foot because... I dunno, it's not really explained why they believe anyone in Shinra is competent enough to actually stop us. We can like... two round Rude and Reno, Rufus is dead and was barely a match for early disc 1 Claude, Hojo has gone maverick, Elena is less competent than Yuffie, Scarlet couldn't even tank being slapped a couple times, Reeve is on our side now, and Heidegger and Palmer are fat sacks of crap. Who else is gonna stop us? The nameless grunts? Yeeeeah. Their only chance is if they have Mass-Produced Carry Armors. But anyway, I guess we're parachuting in, because it's more fantastical that way. Also, the whole party decided to come along, because clearly this is a bigger deal than all the other climactic **** we've done where they proved too lazy to tag along.
In the main Shinra complex, we find an Elixir and a Megalixir. I dunno, it's hard to get excited about those. Elixirs are pretty worthless; just use Tents, they're so much better. On the next screen we backtrack via a different path and collect an Aegis Armlet. We try to go right, the floor breaks and drops us down, so we head left instead and up some ladders. LADDERS! My worst foe! why are you so slow to climb. We head through a vent and collect an Elixir and a Starlight Phone from the platform it drops us off on. We take a short side path to acquire the Max Ray, a weapon for Barret, then follow the main path upwards to a save point. I use the save point and head through a vent to the next area.
As we try to head upwards, Elena shows up with Reno and Rude. They say that they really have better things to do than confront us (no kidding), but an order's an order.
BOSS FIGHT:
RENO, RUDE, & ELENA
Oh look, it's this boss fight again.
I steal a Minerva Band, a Touph Ring, and a Ziedrich, and then just nuke them to all hell. At least they have decent amounts of HP this time! It was ALMOST a challenge............... to keep them alive long enough to steal their stuff! (I swear I'm not even overleved... I mean maybe a little because I've been doing optional stuff, but I even screwed up in that boss fight and healed the entire enemy party for 6k HP and it still wasn't a challenge. This game is just too easy.) The Turks run off and Claude learns Finishing Touch after the fight, how dramatically appropriate is that?
Note that I was given the option before the fight of either fighting them or not. I chose yes because of EXP and items, but I'm sorta curious what difference it makes, plot-wise, if any. <_<
Up leads to plot but down leads to items, so I obviously go down despite these hallways being the most boring thing ever. This game's running speed needs to be increased by like 10x. Anyway, I acquire a Power Source, a Guard Source, a Mind Source, and a Magic Source. More importantly: the "W-Item" Materia, which lets you cheese the game horribly. Basically, it lets you duplicate any(?) item infinitely. I'll try not to abuse this too much because it just seems unfair.
Now, once I get back to where I fought the Turks (and it takes a while, ugh), I can either move on with the plot or go back to the Shinra Building and get some items. And you know me, I love items, so that's where I'm headed.
Unfortunately, I have to climb the stupid hundreds of stairs to get a weapon called Behemoth Horn for Red XIII. God, I wish I was playing this on an emulator with a fast-forward button... Ugh.
...Except uh... wait, what? There were only like three screens of stairs and no item. What the heck?
...
Okay so.
I took the elevator down to the bottom, went back up the three screens of stairs, entered the main Shinra Building, went back to the stairs, started climbing back down, and this time I found the Behemoth Horn and also there were a million more screens of stairs this time.
STRANGE THINGS are afoot in the Shinra Building.
Going in through the main entrance this time to avoid those non-Euclidean stairs... I finally read the last Turtle's Paradise flyer, so I can finish that sidequest. I also get the Master Fist (weapon for Tifa) and Pile Bunker (weapon for Barret) from what used to be an item shop or something. I collect the Glow Lance from the 63rd floor (in my inventory it's called the Grow Lance, but I swear it said Glow Lance when I acquired it). I receive a Mind Source and a Speed Source from the 64th floor vending machines, and the HP Shout - Cait Sith's Ultimate Weapon - from the lockers here. I think that's everything, so back to the plot I go!
...Or at least we try to, but then Heidegger and Scarlet stop us! (shut up these guys do not count as plot) They're in a giant mech that's supposedly an anti-Weapon weapon. Err, yeah.
BOSS FIGHT:
PROUD CLOD
...it's like 10x funnier because I named my character Claude. >_>
This guy also looks like some mecha. I wanna say.. Big Duo? Maybe? I dunno. I'm probably thinking of some mech I've seen pictures of but haven't watched the actual series so I can't remember what it's called. <_<
Anyway this guy is pathetic. The big problem is that he's got 60,000 HP and I ran out of summons eventually. But then I just beat him to death with regular attacks, so it still wasn't a big deal. I got a Ragnarok off of him - it's a weapon for Claude. Also I guess Heidegger and Scarlet are dead now? I dunno. They were riding in that thing and it did explode...
I put Barret in my party momentarily to collect his Ultimate Weapon, the Missing Score. Then I swap back to Yuffie and head onwards to face Hojo. There is a conversation of little significance here.
Hojo: I'm giving energy to Sephiroth!
Claude: But that's the dumbest thing anyone has ever done in a game full of people doing dumb things! Just... WHY?!
Hojo: FOR SCIENCE!!
Oh, and I guess Sephiroth is Hojo's son (which we... already knew, I'm pretty sure), but he is definitely just doing this for the lulscience. And he injected himself with Jenova cells, also FOR SCIENCE!!
BOSS FIGHT:
HOJO
I uh... one-shotted him with Tifa's Limit Break. Luckily he's got multiple forms, or that would be the worst boss in the world.
BOSS FIGHT:
HELLETIC HOJO
...please tell me that's supposed to be a mix of "hell" and "lunatic" and not a mistranslation of "Heretic". Please please please...
Anyway, he's uh... hideous, but aside from managing to confuse Yuffie into casting Magic Breath on us, he just went down in a few turns to basic attacks/Magic Breath spam.
BOSS FIGHT:
LIFEFORM-HOJO N
I hit him with Slow, he hit me with Slow, he hit Yuffie with Silence... I love battles where nothing happens for long periods of time. Riveting. I also like how he kept using Combo on Tifa, who has the Counter Materia equipped.
Hojo attacks Tifa for 140
Tifa counters for 1446
Hojo attacks Tifa and misses
Tifa counters for 1372
Hojo attacks Tifa for 156
Tifa counters for 1390
Hojo attacks Tifa and misses
Tifa counters for 1429
It's like I'm really playing Disgaea. Except if it was Disgaea, it would be me getting screwed over by counters, not the enemy.
But yeah, I just smacked him around until he died. I didn't even use summons because they take too long and are boring to watch.
After the fight, there's no dialogue from Hojo or anything, though there is this:
Tifa: I can't believe Sephiroth... is Hojo's son.
Yuffie: How sad for him...
WHAT?! HE VOLUNTARILY INJECTED HIS SON WITH JENOVA CELLS FOR SCIENCE. Everything that happened was his own damn fault! He didn't even care about Sephiroth, he was just giving him energy to screw with him! He's not sympathetic AT ALL!
The scene cuts to the Highwind. Cait Sith says Shinra's finished. About damn time, though that was anticlimactic as all hell. Rufus, pretty much the second most important villain, dies randomly in a cutscene, and then the final Shinra boss is... Hojo, a guy whose threat ranking is somewhere between "nonexistent" and... well, no, it's just nonexistent.
Claude tells everyone to find out WHAT THEY'RE FIGHTING FOR because clearly it's impossible for anyone in FFVII to be well-adjusted enough to be motivated by the untold millions of people who will die if Meteor hits the planet. Even if, up till now, all indications pointed towards that being their motivation. No, it has to be personal for everyone. So let's see:
Claude - Wants revenge against Sephiroth/to figure himself out.
Barret - Marlene
Red XIII - Everyone at Cosmo Canyon
These are the only ones listed, presumably because the others don't have any. But let's take a shot in the dark about this:
Tifa - Claude. Makes sense.
Vincent - BEAUTIFUL LUCRECIA. Again, this actually was his motivation all game, no problems here.
Cait Sith - Uhhhhhhhh. The people of Midgar? You know the ones he was killing while in Shinra. Actually, speaking of Cait Sith, what the hell happened to Reeve? Did the game just forget about that?
Cid - ..........................Shera? Maybe? Except no, after the rocket hit Meteor he outright stated that his whole motivation is that the Planet needs protecting. Apparently the game just FORGOT about that.
Yuffie - .....................................Wutai? Her dad? I guess you could say her motivation is to steal the party's Materia, but that would be giving this whole scene far too much credit. We're moving on.
So Cid says that nobody's going to come back if Claude sends them away now, but Claude says that's fine, and that they're not obligated to.
Down on the ground... Claude and Tifa have a moment where they talk about how, even if no one else returns, they'll be fine as long as they have each other. Very sweet, but the only thing I could think about during this whole scene was how much Tifa looked like a cat. I swear to god she was doing the :3 face the entire time.
Night passes and at daybreak Claude and Tifa are snuggling. Oh, god, why. HOW WILL I WRITE MY CLAUDExVINCENT FANFIC NOW.
So Claude and Tifa return to the Highwind and comment that nobody came back, blah blah blah they have each other, whatever. They should have really searched the entire ship before saying this though. Surprise surprise, Barret, Cid, and Cait Sith are already present and accounted for in the cockpit. (Also, Cait Sith weakly justifies why Reeve isn't here, but I can't even remember what his reason was. Just know that it was immensely unsatisfying.) Red XIII shows up shortly thereafter, and then Vincent appears and... homing attacks Claude for some reason. Barret comments that Yuffie's not coming back, but at least she was considerate enough to not steal their Materia this time... at which point Yuffie DROPS FROM THE CEILING. YES. THAT ONE SCENE HAS MADE KEEPING YUFFIE IN MY PARTY THIS WHOLE TIME COMPLETELY WORTH IT.
Anyway, that whole "everyone came back even though we thought they wouldn't come back!" scene was pretty cool, but it was just handled so poorly in regards to Cid and Barret and Cait Sith being right there when Claude and Tifa entered the cockpit. It really needed to be more like the scene in... I think Eureka Seven, because that was amazing.
Cid activates the Highwind's special deluxe thrusters for no apparent reason since it can already traverse the entire world in minutes, but he can't handle it by himself! Luckily the Highwind redshirt crew appears to help him! See, the entire scene needed to be dramatic entrances like that. Would've been so much better.
We blast off towards Northern Crater and that's the end of disc 2. That just flew by. I was really expecting another like... 4 areas or something. Though the world map was pretty thoroughly explored, so eh. (In case you don't know, disc 3 is pretty much just Northern Crater and maybe like... one sidequest, I dunno, my sources are conflicting on that.)
NEXT TIME... we do optional things and maybe even beat the game!
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
BONUS BOSS:
ULTIMATE WEAPON
...oh, I see how this works. You have to damage him, then he runs away, and you chase him down and ram him with the Highwind, and that makes him stop somewhere, and you repeat the process. Except there's no way to actually FIND him reliably, so you just have to wait for him to decide to show himself and/or just wander the world map and hope to stumble upon him.
THIS IS A MINIGAME.
MINIGAMES IN FINAL FANTASY VII. WHY.
ONLY THIS GAME COULD MAKE HUNTING DOWN AN ANCIENT SENTIENT WEAPON CREATED BY THE PLANET UNFUN.
(Actually that's not true at all, lots of games could do that quite easily.)
But yes, I pretty much made Ultimate Weapon flee in one or two rounds each time, followed by about 25 minutes of searching for him and ramming him. Eventually he went over to Cosmo Canyon and I equipped all my Enemy Skill Materias to Claude and let him kill Ultimate Weapon, triggering a retaliatory Shadow Flare (which is an Enemy Skill, so I learned it on all four Materias). Not bad. Also, Ultimate Weapon dropped Ultimate Weapon, Claude's Ultimate Weapon. o_o
For fun, let's examine the other sidequests I can do:
1. Acquire Omnislash.
Why it's not happening: The whole Gold Saucer system is too fundamentally flawed for me to even attempt this once.
2. Acquire W-Summon Materia.
Why it's not happening: See above.
3. The Special Battle at the Battle Arena.
Why it's not happening: Requires Omnislash and W-Summon Materia.
4. Master Materia from Huge Materia.
Why it's not happening: oh god the grinding
5. Mime, HP<->MP, Knights of the Round.
Why it's not happening: Requires interaction with Chocobos.
6. Ruby and Emerald Weapons.
Why it's not happening: I feel like the lack of the above items would make this way too hard without massive amounts of grinding, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Etc. There are some sidequests I do want to do, though. And also I want to beat the game. SO THAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT TIME. FOR REAL THIS TIME. MAYBE.
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Advanced
Carry Armor is the toughest boss in the game next to Emerald and Ruby Weapon. There are some tricks to him, though it would be impossible to figure out without a guide:
Two magic hammers will reduce his MP to 0, preventing Lapis Laser. Hitting the arms once for less than 2500 will reduce the chance of Arm Grab to 1/128.
With that in mind I was able to finish him off with my characters at level 20 in my low-level no materia game, but he really is a nasty boss.
As for beating Emerald Weapon without grinding, you can do it with Cait Sith's slot limit break if it hits the 3 reels that instantly kill any enemy.
(good luck getting that to happen though).
My lulziest way of killing it was just to go Knights of the Round linked to Sneak Attack, KOTR linked to HP Absorb, and Magic Counter linked to Mime so all I needed to do was enter the battle and set down the controller, and my party would kill Emerald Weapon with no commands from me. You can do the same to Ruby, just make sure only one character is alive during the process and that they can survive Ultima initially.
Lastly, as for the battle arena:
During the "slot machine" handicap sequence, rapidly tap Square in the Battle Square section at Gold Saucer. The slots will slow down, allowing an easier selection of your handicap. Note: This trick will also work in a similar manner with Cait Sith's limit break.
</spoiler>
---
"A man chooses. A slave obeys." -Andrew Ryan, Bioshock
Editor
-We get Limited Moon from Bugenhagen. It's Red XIII's Ultimate Weapon.
-There's a scene in the basement of the Shinra building in Nibelheim that gives some backstory for Claude and Zack. Presumably it explains what happened after Claude "killed" Sephiroth, though it's not really 100% clear on that.
-...I could do the Ancient Forest at this point since Ultimate Weapon's deathsplosion created a path to it, but reading the description of it, it sounds boring. <_< WHICH I GUESS MEANS THAT WE'RE HEADED FOR THE FINAL DUNGEON
I give all the characters their Ultimate Weapons to make this more fantastical, and then head out. The first chest contains a Save Crystal, which lets you create one save point inside the dungeon. So, instead of fixing their broken save system, they just added prizes. Amazing. However, there's a glitch where sometimes you won't actually keep the Save Crystal, and it's already happened to me once, so I need to make sure I actually get it.
...Wow, my first encounter here, Tifa gets hit with L4 Death and killed. That bodes well for us. But whatever, I get the Save Crystal for real and move on. In the next few areas I collect two Guard Sources, a Mind Source, a Magic Source, an Elixir, a Power Source, and an HP Absorb Materia. On a side note, I ****ing hate Gargoyles. WHY WOULD YOU GIVE ENEMIES FINAL ATTACK-L4 DEATH. THAT'S JUST INCONSIDERATE. More importantly, I learn the Enemy Skill Dragon Force from a Dark Dragon here.
...
DRAGONFORCE DRAGONFORCE DRAGONFORCE DRAGONFORCE
...Anyway there are some party splitting up shenanigans and a bunch of items that aren't important. I'm way too lazy to do a writeup for this. Also, while I do hate Gargoyles, I hate Tonberries so much more.
Eventually we group back up and Claude says "Let's mosey", and the universe punishes him by sending some enemies to force 2/3rds of the team to stay behind. Yarr, the universe is a harsh mistress. So Claude, Tifa, and Yuffie forge onward, through the endless walls of Zombie Dragons and Iron Men, until they reach the very bottom of the crater...
BOSS FIGHT:
JENOVA*SYNTHESIS
joke boss
Dropped a Finishing Touch and a Bahamut on it, then just beat it to death. Pathetic.
The team falls even further down into the Lifestream and Claude sees a bright light, which he assumes is Holy. Then suddenly, we're all on a platform, even the other party members who were left behind. There's a blast of energy and Sephiroth appears from within the bright light. He continues blasting us while levitating us in the air until pretty much everyone is ready to give up. Then Claude starts talking about Holy.
"The Holy is shining...... Alice's prayer is shining......!"
These words fill the party with RESOLVE and make them suddenly capable of overcoming Sephiroth's energy waves. Except Cid and Red XIII, who get blasted away because I didn't put them in either party. Fuck those guys anyway, we've got Cait Sith.
BOSS FIGHT:
BIZARRO SEPHIROTH
ME AM BIZARRO
Okay but seriously, this is a REALLY cool boss fight. I had to split into two parties, and they had to tag-team Sephiroth to destroy the shields around his core. It was just really awesome to switch back and forth, throwing huge summons and Ultimas and so forth at Seph, as he tried to revive body parts and such. Wasn't HARD, like at all, but still, very cool. My parties, for those wondering, were:
Team 1: Claude/Tifa/Yuffie
Team 2: Barret/Cait Sith/Vincent
As a note, I planned this REALLY poorly in every way regarding Materia, but I somehow managed to win regardless.
THE FINAL BOSS:
Eneru! Ya look different!
(+10000 points to you if you read that in a valley girl accent.)
I think Supernova is supposed to be really cool, but it's really just stupid and goes on about 5x longer than I need it to. Which reminds me, I love Tifa's Limit Breaks. "i'm gonna go suplex that guy who just blew up the sun, brb"
Anyway, this battle was actually fairly challenging... well, I wouldn't go that far, but my entire party was dropped to <200 HP a couple times. In the end, though, we beat him the same way we beat everything else in the game: spamming the most broken attacks we had. <_<
Sephiroth fades to dust and Claude says we've done all we can and that it's up to the Planet now. Everyone except Claude and Tifa exits stage left, but then Claude collapses and starts doing that creepy clone thing again.
Sephiroth: Hahahaha! The Sephiroth that existed in the mind of you, Claude Strife, still lives! You have accomplished nothing!
Claude: Ah, but the Claude Strife that exists in the mind of you, Sephiroth, still exists as well! WE OUTNUMBER YOU.
Sephiroth: ...Look it doesn't work that way.
Claude: Yes, it does. It totally does.
Sephiroth: NO IT DOESN'T.
Claude: FINE WHATEVER.
Sephiroth: So are we gonna do this one vs. one thing or what?
Claude: ...Yeah, alright. This one's for all the marbles. Let's mosey.
Claude & Sephiroth: One, two, three, shoot!
Sephiroth: I have rock. What the hell is that?
Claude: Omnislash.
Sephiroth: There is no Omnislash in rock-paper-scissors!
Claude: Yes there is. And it beats everything.
Sephiroth: But-
Claude: Beats. Everything.
Sephiroth: ...Goddammit. He's right. Okay fine but the movie better damn well make up for all this!
(yeah I don't even know)
So Sephiroth dies for good and Claude nearly falls into the Lifestream but then Tifa tries to save him and nearly falls in as well so he has to save them both.
Claude: Where are the others?
Barret, Red XIII, Cait Sith, & Cid: Heeeeeeeeeeeeey! We didn't leave after all! We just felt like not helping you!
Claude: Okay but where are the OTHERS?
Barret: I think they're like, evacuating people in Midgar, but also they were canonically here for the final boss.
Claude: ...Makes perfect sense!
So the Highwind dives into the crater to rescue us and everybody hops on board as it is forcibly removed from the crater by Holy. Luckily it has an emergency "convert into smaller jet and fly to safety" lever which Cid manages to pull, saving us all.
Meteor begins to crash into Midgar before Holy manages to show up and create a barrier. But then it's not enough and Meteor breaks through anyway. Faaaaantastic. That was the most not pointless thing ever. But then Alice apparently channels the Lifestream and directs it to stop Meteor, because this was a clearly established ability of both Alice and the Lifestream prior to ten seconds ago. And then credits. And then cut to 500 years later when Red XIII's species has somehow not gone extinct, and Midgar has been overrun with nature.
Welp.
That's pretty much the best ending of any game ever.
Can't ask for much more closure than that.
The only thing that would have made that better is if
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Advanced
Oh you.
</spoiler>
---
"A man chooses. A slave obeys." -Andrew Ryan, Bioshock
Editor
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
I'd also like to point out once again that I've been playing this game for 30+ hours. Still no ****ing idea where ANYTHING on my ship is.
-Liara's got nothing interesting to say.
-why is ashley calling me "skipper". shepard, don't take any of that shit!
-Wrex has nothing new to say, it seems. save_us.garrus
-yesssssssss something vaguely interesting, Garrus says that I'm right about all my Paragon nonsense drivel and that he's going back to C-Sec and is going to reapply to be a Spectre and will keep my teachings in mind.
-What do you have to say, Tali? Has the game finally remembered that you exist?
-D'awwwwwwwwww Tali and Shepard are BFFs
-Okay we are going back to the Citadel to try to buy some Spectre gear.
-...I like how somebody on the Mass Effect board on GameFAQs asked how long it takes to get the "Rich" achievement (which makes Spectre gear available), and the responses vary from "2-3 playthroughs" to "do all sidequests and you'll probably have it before the last story world". Yet I'm pretty sure I got it before going to Feros or Noveria. They throw credits at you in this game. "150 item limit? well, this may just be one optional sidequest out of a billion, but here, take 275 pieces of assorted crap that you don't need and will sell just to get rid of". I mean, right now I have 3.5 million credits, and it's not like I avoid buying things when I want them.
-Speaking of which, while I'm shopping around on the Citadel, I might as well sell about 135 pieces of assorted crap just to get rid of them!
-I got a quest while trying to land at the Citadel, something about researchers being driven crazy and they need me to go in and rescue them.
-Okay, I was afraid of this. He's got VII weapons but not X weapons. Ah, well. I did sell my entire inventory almost, so now I have over 5 million worthless credits. 1 credit must be worth like 1/100th of a penny or something.
-Well, let's go... do that sidequest I guess. Where am I going? Oh, right, Chohe, Cacus System, Hades Gamma cluster. AWAY!
-I am finally almost finished with that dumb "survey minerals/metals/gases" quest. Only need two more rare earths!
-It's sort of hilarious how Thresher Maws stopped being credible threats after their first appearance. And yet they seem to be the leading cause of death among military personel! Oh, the incompetence...
-Okay, we're in the base now. The game warns me that the researchers are so drug addled that they'll wander right into my line of fire.
*remembers the Bunker from Goldeneye*
I have been training for this moment my entire life.
-Okay, the evil biotic dudes are spamming Throw. This could be a problem. Barrier, Marksman, let's do this!
-Yeah that wasn't a problem after all.
-I am glad the game tells me all the civilians are safe, though. I certainly couldn't tell, given all the shit that was going on.
-"I wish every soldier had your definition of 'just doing your job'."
Awesome. See that's the kind of Lawful Good I want to play in every game. The kind that, when given the choice between saving the universe and saving the girl, picks both and has the willpower to back it up. The problem is that Paragon Shepard frequently puts up with shit from Lawful Evil characters instead of kicking their asses too, so you get this weird mix of Shepard being hugely Lawful Good and annoyingly Lawful Neutral depending on the situation.
-Okay, whatever, we're headed to Virmire now.
Kaidan: "Check out those defense towers!"
god you are the worst character ever
-So welcome back to Let's Play Metroid Prime 3, we're here on Bryyo and we need to take down the AA guns so our ship can land...
-Crab infested waters! TERRIFYING.
-300 saves. THAT'S NEARLY AS MANY 310 SAVES.
-Have I mentioned I hate Mako levels? You feel bad killing enemies in the Mako for half experience, but it takes so long to kill them on foot. =/
-We disable the AA gun and open some gates, allowing the Normandy to land at the salarian camp.
-I like how Ashley was with my group yet somehow beat me to the salarian camp. I guess I had to find a parking spot or some shit.
-Salarian leader: blah blah blah ten more AA guns pinning us down
Shepard: So what do we do?
Salarian leader: Sit tight and wait for the reinforcements the Council is sending.
[beat]
Shepard: We are the reinforcements.
-Apparently Saren has a base here, has cured the krogan genophage, and is breeding an army. OH GOD, HE'S DISCOVERED MY ONE WEAKNESS: KROGAN MELEE
-"What's so important about curing this genophage?"
...
implied_facepalm.jpg
shepard, you can NOT be cereal
there's just
augh
-Wrex storms off when he hears that we want to destroy the cure to the genophage (this kinda lost me too, why exactly are we doing that?). Shepard goes off to talk with him to try to calm him down. Some highlights of the conversation:
Shepard: Only a geth deals in absolutes!
Shepard: You were the chosen one! You were supposed to destroy the geth, not join them!
Shepard: Saren is evil!
Wrex: From my point of view, the Council is evil!
Etc.
At no point did Shepard say something like, I dunno, "Listen let's go kill Saren's dumb ass and then take his miracle unicorn cure and use it for not-evil purposes." Why not? I dunno. Seems like the appropriate thing to say in this situation.
-Anyway eventually Shepard convinces Wrex to stop being a big baby and I get an achievement for it. Yay?
-Okay, the plan is this. The salarian leader built a bomb IN A CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS and we're going to use it to blow Saren's entire base. The salarian teams will go in the front and distract everyone, allowing us to slip in the back and murder it up. It soon becomes clear why Kaidan and Ashley are actually around for the plot right now: I have to choose one of them to send with the salarians on a probable suicide mission. This is like Sophie's Choice, it's impossible to-Kaidan get outta here, nobody likes you.
-We're storming the base, and throughout the attack we're periodically given chances to go out of our way to help Kaidan/the salarians. Here's what we've done so far:
1. Disrupted enemy communications.
2. Took out some flying drones.
3. Turned off the alarms. We could have sounded the alarms on Kaidan's side, you know to draw the guards that way and make our lives easier (and also for the lulz), but Kaidan's a jobber and my team is unstoppable. Also, precious EXP.
-Eventually we get inside the main base and take out some krogan doctor who was creating husks. Just wouldn't be Mass Effect without EXPLODING ZOMBIES!!
-But then I backtrack because I want to open up some jail cells. There's a single salarian commando here who was captured but hasn't been brainwashed here, and a handful of salarians who are like... lobotomized or something. I let them all out. Sadly we can't tell the one functional guy to like, grab a gun and come with us or anything.
-At this point I had to stop for dinner. See, this is good! This is really fun! Why can't the whole game be like this?
[intermission]
-Okay, we are back, and I'm paralyzed by indecision over the multiple alternate routes. After a long time considering what to do, I end up taking the one I think won't lead me to plot, and I'm led... outside. Oh. I see. I came in the not-sneaky way and this led me out the way I should have snuck in. HILARIOUS.
-Going the correct way this time... We run into Rana, one of Saren's researchers. She tells us that no job is worth being mindcontrolled and dying over. She gives us some info on Sovereign and opens the elevator for us so we'll let her live.
Shepard: I'm gonna blow this thing to hell. If you wanna make it outta here alive, you'd better start running.
Rana: What? But I'll never...
[beat]
Rana: Aaah! *runs*
Ashley: I enjoyed that.
Ashley.
THIS is why I keep you around.
That and you can use assault rifles.
-Oh, Rana also implies that Saren is under Sovereign's control, not the other way around. Hands up if this surprises you. ................... Yep.
-A few rooms later, we find a Prothean beacon. Shepard om nom noms the beacon and it is delicious.
-Heading back upwards, we run into a VI. Except it's not a VI, it's Sovereign.
-Sovereign's dialogue, summarized: "Blah blah blah, organic life is dumb, we are invincible and will destroy you, I'm mecha-Chulhu, here is a Bible quote, I have no actual motives."
-Sovereign: Your words are as empty as your future. [<- actual dialoge] The universe ill needs organic life such as you.
Shepard: WHAT IS A UNIVERSE?! A miserable little pile of-wait, what.
-Okay, so Sovereign - the real, physical Sovereign - is headed our way, so it's time to get outta here. We deactivate one AA tower and the salarians get the other, so the Normandy is free to drop off the bomb. Ashley starts arming it while I take Wrex and Tali to go rescue Kaidan's team. TOLD YOU he was a jobber.
-Oh. Oh, that's horrible. When I try to get to the AA tower, geth arrive to hassle Ashley. Joker is apparently off getting lunch or some shit, I really don't know why he didn't stick around for ten seconds or whatever. I'm given the choice of who to rescue, Ashley or Kaidan.
...So, I pick Ashley, but the problem here is twofold. 1) Everyone in the world who believes JRPGs are somehow not roleplaying games because you can't change the story needs to either start excluding Mass Effect from their fellation of WRPGs, or shut the hell up because this is INCREDIBLY linear. Having choices does not equal nonlinearity, and saying "you can change the story!" is just a buzz-word (buzz-phrase?) unless you can actually change the story in a way that is significant.
And, more importantly, 2) WE HAVE THE MANPOWER TO SAVE BOTH GROUPS. Send Wrex and Tali back to the bombing cite to back up Ashley while Joker meets me at Kaidan's site with Liara and Garrus. We rescue them and take the Normandy back to pick up the bomb team. Hell, we don't even need to go that far. If the Normandy can't get to Kaidan to drop off Liara and Garrus, I'm entirely confident I can win the fight with just Kaidan and the salarians. Or solo, if necessary. There is no conflict here. Like, at all.
-But whatever, I pick Ashley. Part of my team and terrible vs. not a part of my team and really terrible, easy choice. We head back and BOOM HEADSHOT some geth. Then Saren arrives.
-Saren: Blah blah blah the Reapers will destroy us all unless we become subservient to them. I'm saving lives here!
Shepard: Uh, they'll kill us all anyway.
Saren: Shut up, no they won't!
Except it went on for like 5 minutes before THIS happened:
BOSS FIGHT:
SAREN
Yeah, boss fights in Mass Effect are kinda... blah. I put up a Barrier and Marksman'd him until he was down to about 10% health, at which point he one-shotted my entire team in a cutscene and ran away. SURE IS JRPG IN HERE.
No, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. This game is a JRPG. If the characters had more fantastical hairstyles it would indistinguishable from a JRPG in all aspects. Which isn't a problem by any means, but I really want to know which WRPGs are so nonlinear and let you determine what happens in the story, because it's certainly not this one. >_>
Anyway, Shepard points her gun at the fleeing Saren but momentarily forgets that she needs to actually fire bullets out of it in order to hurt anything, so he gets away. Joker pulls in (because I guess the Normandy doesn't have weapons or bombs or whatever, so it couldn't have done anything useful earlier. Or ever.) and we all get out of there right as the bomb goes off. As if to just say "fuck you and your completely reasonable complaints about the plot", checking the journal reveals that, somehow, we saved Captain Kirrahe and a few other members of the salarian attack force. Yep. Even though the bomb went off as soon as we left, and even though Kaidan somehow didn't make it despite easily being the most powerful member of that team and the one our team would prioritize during a rescue.
...
Makes. Perfect. Sense.
-Hey, you know what would have been a pretty cool idea? If we had recruited those two people we found along the way and taken them with us, considering we were horribly low on numbers from the beginning and they would have been crazy helpful at the end there. So, if anyone from the Mass Effect team is reading this, when the inevitable remake comes out, make it happen!
-So Shepard does another mind meld with Liara and learns that the Conduit is in Ilos. Then we radio the Council and they're like "no, Reapers totally don't exist" and Shepard is like "I JUST SAW ONE ARGH". And that's where I'm stopping for tonight.
...
BONUS CONTENT:
I know my complaints here are easy to interpret as me not liking Mass Effect, so let me clarify. I have absolutely no problem with linearity or immutable storylines in video games. In fact, I LIKE those things more than the alternative! Immutable storylines are generally more coherent and promote a stronger narrative arc, while linearity... well, you should have seen how much I agonized over which path to take. I'm not even kidding. This is why other people hate watching me play video games. When I watch them play a game, it's like, "hey I'm gonna go BLOW UP THIS COMPLEX" and then they do it. When I play games, it's like "hey, for the next two hours, want to watch me thoroughly examine a wall, looking for items that don't exist?" But I digress. I have no problems with linearity or immutable storylines; I have a problem with the growing number of people who adamantly believe that those things are inherently negative, or especially that JRPGs are inherently inferior to WRPGs because of them. I'm criticizing those people right now, not Mass Effect.
</spoiler>
Oh, and, given recent events...
[Spoiler for Mass Effect and the Bleach manga, click to show]Sovereign is the Hyogoku. Saren is Aizen.
So far this works on pretty much every level.
</spoiler>
---
"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Always the right decision.
-What do you have to say, Tali? Has the game finally remembered that you exist?
Worst part of Mass Effect 1 - it's like the game tried to give backstory and development to everyone BUT Tali. ...When she's probably the best character. Barring maybe Garrus, because it's close.
-...I like how somebody on the Mass Effect board on GameFAQs asked how long it takes to get the "Rich" achievement (which makes Spectre gear available), and the responses vary from "2-3 playthroughs"
XD 2-3 playthroughs. You should be able to easily hit the cap (9 million, 999 thousand, etc.) well before the end. Probably. I know I did last time I played, but IIRC some of the achievements actually have hidden bonuses in gameplay, so it's entirely possible one or more of them boosts what you get or something.
The problem is that Paragon Shepard frequently puts up with shit from Lawful Evil characters instead of kicking their asses too, so you get this weird mix of Shepard being hugely Lawful Good and annoyingly Lawful Neutral depending on the situation.
Usually because they actually have some kind of justification. For instance, Noveria basically runs itself because it's outside the Council, so the Council laws don't even apply there, so if their staff is "Lawful Evil" well, you have to consider that technically they make the laws there and even if to you it's evil, "Lawful" would say you can't meddle. Of course, some cases are more questionable than others.
-Okay, whatever, we're headed to Virmire now.
Best part of the game by a mile.
Kaidan: "Check out those defense towers!"
god you are the worst character ever
Kaidan > Ashley.
But they're both lamers so whatever.
-Have I mentioned I hate Mako levels? You feel bad killing enemies in the Mako for half experience, but it takes so long to kill them on foot. =/
1/3, actually, I think. In any event, even if you're facing something like an Armature or whatever that does have a ton of health. You can just take it down to nearly no health with the Mako, then hop out when it's nearly dead and finish it off on foot and you get full EXP. Then hop back in the Mako if you want/there are other enemies.
-Wrex storms off when he hears that we want to destroy the cure to the genophage (this kinda lost me too, why exactly are we doing that?).
You know, I'm not exactly too sure myself. I think ultimately it's decided (either by Shepard behind the scenes, or the Salarian STG, if not both) that it's just not worth the risk of leaving a Saren-made cure sitting around, because as long as the cure is there and was Saren's doing, he's basically got the Krogans indebted to him on top of the massive army.
It always seemed kind of shaky to me either way. The only possible justification I can think of is that somehow the cure inherently "enslaved" the Krogan to Saren somehow. Which might be possible, I guess, but I never really thought it worked that way.
-At this point I had to stop for dinner. See, this is good! This is really fun! Why can't the whole game be like this?
Because Virmire is the best ever.
And, more importantly, 2) WE HAVE THE MANPOWER TO SAVE BOTH GROUPS. Send Wrex and Tali back to the bombing cite to back up Ashley while Joker meets me at Kaidan's site with Liara and Garrus. We rescue them and take the Normandy back to pick up the bomb team. Hell, we don't even need to go that far. If the Normandy can't get to Kaidan to drop off Liara and Garrus, I'm entirely confident I can win the fight with just Kaidan and the salarians. Or solo, if necessary. There is no conflict here. Like, at all.
I think part of it is that whoever is with the bomb basically arms it, and I guess maybe that starts a time limit that makes it impossible to do both even though it really should be doable. In any event, yes, it's hard to think of a reason why you can't do both.
checking the journal reveals that, somehow, we saved Captain Kirrahe and a few other members of the salarian attack force.
They're in your hangar if you want to talk with them/see them. Assuming you didn't land anywhere after Virmire yet.
Yep. Even though the bomb went off as soon as we left, and even though Kaidan somehow didn't make it despite easily being the most powerful member of that team and the one our team would prioritize during a rescue.
...
Makes. Perfect. Sense.
Yeah. Three possible explanations here:
1. Maybe canonically Shepard was supposed to go to the Com Tower or wherever the Salarian team was, but since you end up making the team assignments before it throws this choice on you, the only way to make it a dramatic choice is to let you pick at the last second where to go, allowing you to NOT go to the Salarian Team, even if the fact that the Salarians make it to you raises a bunhc of red flags.
2. The Salarian STG split into 3 teams, maybe the survivors weren't in the group(s) at the Com Tower or wherever. I don't think the 3 groups ever were stated to link up.
3. The Salarian STG is just that hardcore.
</spoiler>
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
This is what I eventually decided on, but even then you'd think they could take a sample of the cure and try to... reverse engineer it or something. Either way, would've been nice if the game had been clearer about that. >_>
1. Maybe canonically Shepard was supposed to go to the Com Tower or wherever the Salarian team was, but since you end up making the team assignments before it throws this choice on you, the only way to make it a dramatic choice is to let you pick at the last second where to go, allowing you to NOT go to the Salarian Team, even if the fact that the Salarians make it to you raises a bunhc of red flags.
Yeah, I think that if they had to pick a canon path, it would make the most sense to say that you took Kaidan with you to arm the bomb and sent Ashley with the salarians, then chose to rescue Ashley at the end. The way I did it was just kinda... nonsense. <_< But then, I abandoned any chance of following canon when I picked a female Shepard, so lol.
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
-I try to land at the Citadel but then Liara shows up and ROMANTIC HIJINKS ENSUE as they're about to kiss but then they get interrupted by Joker. That's Our Joker! *laugh track plays*
-We land at the Citadel and talk to the Council/Ambassador Udina. Oh look, those guys who have done everything in their power to stop me from doing my job have decided to stop being subtle about it. Wonderful. We're grounded while they sit around twiddling their thumbs and chanting "there's no such thing as Reapers, there's no such thing as Reapers..."
-Luckily Anderson has a plan and decides to break into Udina's office, override the lockdown, and let us make a getaway and stop the Reapers before anyone knows what's going on.
-Awesome.
Udina: What are you do-
*Anderson PAUNCH*
-Away to Ilos!
-Oh, while on the Citadel, I also talked some drug addict guy into getting help. BEST SIDEQUEST EVER mirite
-Liara shows up in Shepard's room after I select Ilos as the destination. I think we all know what happens here. I cannot believe such a big media fuss was made over 20 seconds of silhouetted, consensual intercourse between adults. <_<
-We can't find a landing zone on Ilos, but Joker says that he can 86 that chump stuff and alley oop the Mako straight into Saren's face.
-Saren escapes through a big door, so off we go in search of a way to open it. Did I mention Ilos is one big jungle? Luckily, we're sharp. As sharp as knives!
-Man, remember back at Liara's dig site, when one geth armature killed me like a billion times?
*wipes out two geth armatures without a problem*
Seems like such a long time ago...
-And those jumping frogs guys! Aiming has always been a big problem for me in SHOOTAN GAEMS, but I feel like I've really gotten better just from playing this game. >_>
-Eventually we find the security panel and open the archives. There's also a message in Prothean warning about the Reaper invasion, but only Shepard, due to the Cipher, can understand it. And then it's not even useful anyway. =/
-Back to the Mako, which we decide to take into an OBLIGATORY SEWER LEVEL NOOOOOOO but then it's just a straight line with only a few rocket troopers. =/ At the end, we get caged in and are forced to hoof it.
-We find a Prothean VI. Oh god, the plot
1. The Conduit isn't a weapon, it's a relay to the Citadel.
2. The Citadel isn't a Citadel, it's mass relay to the location in dark space where the Reapers are hibernating.
3. The keepers were created/indoctrinated by the Reapers to maintain the Citadel until it was time to wipe out civilization again.
4. The Protheans managed to change the keepers so they wouldn't signal the Protheans. That's why Saren is trying to get to the Citadel, to sneak in and... do something bad, I forget exactly what.
5. But if we get there first, we can kill Saren and use the Citadel against Sovereign. One Reaper vs. every single organic lifeform in the galaxy is a pretty even fight, apparently!
-blah blah blah back to the Mako for an ILOS TRENCH RUN, we rush into the Conduit as the Citadel begins to get ransacked by Sovereign/Saren.
-Ding! Last stop: level cap. Welcome to experience level 50.
-Okay, we reach the Citadel control panel and find Saren waiting for us.
Saren: When I look back at my life, I can't help but see an inevitable chain of events.
Shepard: That's ridiculous.
Saren: Do YOU believe there could have been any other outcome than this?
Shepard: That's not how it works. There is no grand story to history. Things just happen. It's the act of looking back on it that interposes a sense of narrative.
Saren: And yet here we are, just as we were always going to be. Doesn't that drive you mad? Don't you hate yourself for it? For never having seen it coming until now? Every little thing is so painfully obvious now. Now that it's too late, you have all the answers, don't you?
Shepard: It's not too late.
Saren: It is for some people.
Shepard: Are you trying to goad me?!
Saren: You know it's going to end here.
Shepard [charmingly]: It doesn't have to. We have the means to kill Sovereign. We can stop the Reapers. It's not too late for you to redeem yourself!
And then Saren commits suicide. Huh. Well, that was anticlimactic.
-We open the comm channels and Joker reaches us. He's leading the entire Arcturus fleet, but needs to know whether to focus on Sovereign or rescue the Council. Hmmm...
Hell, you know what? I've got saves. Let's tell 'em to focus on Sovereign.
Asari: The Alliance is here! We're saved! Normandy, this is Destiny Ascension, we've got the Council-
[beat]
Asari 2: They ended the communications...
XD owned
-Okay, let's try that again, taking the goody-two-shoes approach this time. Rescue the Council blah blah blah.
Presley: Seems we've arrived just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Joker: Big damn heroes, sir.
Presley: Ain't we just!
-Shepard tells Ashley and Tali to make sure Saren's dead, so they go to check on him. Ashley BOOM HEADSHOTs him for good measure, but then he suddenly gets possessed by red energy! OH GOD, IT'S PERFECT DARK SAREN! IT'S SOVEREIGN ASCENDANT! IT'S SAFER SAREN! IT'S SOVEREIGN*SYNTHESIS! IT'S... IT'S...
...
So welcome back to Let's Play Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, we're at the final boss...
THE FINAL BOSS:
SOVEREIGN
Now this is a boss worth talking about. He can jump around like those dumb frog enemies, fire volleys of missiles, sniper blasts, and I think ordinary attacks too. I couldn't even HIT him with any biotic abilities, so I went to the old standby of Barrier + Marksman.
Killing Sovereign!Saren drops Ship!Sovereign's defenses, allowing the entire fleet to open up on it and the Normandy to blast it with some special energy missile or something. Really needed a cheesy one-liner, though. Something like "Hey Reaper... Reap this." Or maybe "I think it's time for you to reap what you've sown." Etc. The possibilities are endless!
So the Council survived and thanks Shepard for all her hard work. They say that they're going to give humanity a space on the Council, and that Shepard's suggestion would carry a great deal of weight. I was really expecting a "We would welcome you to [position of political power], [hero]." "Thank you but no thank you. My duty is to [whatever]." but thankfully it didn't happen! My choices for recommendations are Udina and Anderson. I obviously picked the latter, and he was accepted immediately. Then Shepard says the war isn't over and that the Reapers are still out there, and walks away.
Overall, pretty good ending. The only thing that would make it better is terrible, cheesy rock music.
yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
-...As for achievements, I got Paramour (complete romance subplot), Power Gamer (reach level 50), Tactician (take more shield damage than health damage), and Medal of Honor (complete the game). I don't know how I didn't get Quarian Ally and Soldier Ally, but luckily I don't give a damn!
-Also, official ranking of plot worlds: Virmire > Ilos > Noveria > Feros > Liara's Dig Site >= Citadel 1 > Citadel 2 (which doesn't even really count but whatever)
</spoiler>
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
-We find a Prothean VI. Oh god, the plot
1. The Conduit isn't a weapon, it's a relay to the Citadel.
2. The Citadel isn't a Citadel, it's mass relay to the location in dark space where the Reapers are hibernating.
3. The keepers were created/indoctrinated by the Reapers to maintain the Citadel until it was time to wipe out civilization again.
4. The Protheans managed to change the keepers so they wouldn't signal the Protheans. That's why Saren is trying to get to the Citadel, to sneak in and... do something bad, I forget exactly what.
5. But if we get there first, we can kill Saren and use the Citadel against Sovereign. One Reaper vs. every single organic lifeform in the galaxy is a pretty even fight, apparently!
Saren was heading to the Citadel to activate the Mass Relay on it. Unless that's done, the other Reapers are hibernating/otherwise stuck out in deep space.
Anyway, I'm surprised you didn't point out the hilariously ironic part of all this.
First I'll portray this unfairly, but more hilariously.
Saren once held a position of authority and was basically viewed as a hero by the Council. If all he had to do was activate the Citadel Mass Relay, he should have just walked into the Council Chambers either just because he could and he's a Spectre so why would anyone care, or maybe he could pretend he had a mission report or something. And then since no one at all would think there was anything wrong he could just activate the relay right then. Instead, he chooses to attack Eden Prime and get himself pretty much banished from Citadel Space as well as being hunted down by Shepard so it becomes extremely difficult for him to even get near the Citadel to do the very thing he was supposed to do.
Now that that's done, I'll be more fair. As far as I can tell, the reason that scenario didn't happen is because all Sovereign knew was that the keepers weren't listening so something was wrong. Somehow he learned that there was something called the Conduit that the Protheans made, but he had no idea what it was or did. And apparently he did not like the idea of leaving an unknown in the equation in case maybe it would cause additional problems, especially when the Reaper's cycle of ownage had already been disrupted. So he made Saren attack Eden Prime and do all kinds of other jerk moves to find out what the Conduit was which led to everyone getting pissed off and ultimately leading to Saren being unable to enter the Citadel barring a major assault, which would make things exceedingly difficult.
Sovereign must have been pissed when he learned the Conduit was just another way into the Citadel System. Because it meant he caused all those problems for himself, which ultimately led to his defeat, for nothing really. Now, granted, given that he had gotten himself and Saren banished from Citadel Space, the Conduit was probably actually a godsend to them because it solved the problem of easily getting to the Citadel with minimal difficulty by jumping them right to the place they needed to be.
-Ding! Last stop: level cap. Welcome to experience level 50.
Level Cap is 60, tbqh.
-Shepard tells Ashley and Tali
Tali - Good
Ashley - what is this why is Garrus not in your team. go back and fix this right away.
Killing Sovereign!Saren drops Ship!Sovereign's defenses, allowing the entire fleet to open up on it
This was also amusing because Sovereign seemed to be doing a damn good job at crushing the Citadel and Alliance Fleets before. Now admittedly, I think he was going to have to rez Saren eventually to try and retake the Council Chamber Control Panel to activate the relay, but he probably should have beaten the fleet first and THEN tried that. I mean, what threat was Shepard to him before then. Hell, better yet, beat the two fleets first, then have whatever was left of the Geth Fleet storm the Citadel and retake the Council Chambers. Shepard's good, yeah, but canonically against an entire army? Sure, there'd be a risk of reinforcements coming the longer Sovereign stuck around, but again, it was doing a really good job before losing to Shepard caused it to pretty much die.
-Also, official ranking of plot worlds: Virmire > Ilos > Noveria > Feros > Liara's Dig Site >= Citadel 1 > Citadel 2 (which doesn't even really count but whatever)
Virmire > Who cares those other places aren't Virmire.
...Okay, let me try again.
Virmire >>> Noveria >> Feros >> Eden Prime > Liara's Dig Site > Ilos > Citadel 2 > Citadel 1
Anyway, now you have to play Mass Effect 2. It's amazing. The main plot takes a hit, quality-wise, but then I get the impression it wasn't in that good a standing with you anyway! Character quality jumps through the roof. So awesome.
</spoiler>
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
Yeah, I couldn't remember whether he was trying to open the mass relay or if whatever he was doing involved the keepers in some way. <_<
Anyway, I'm surprised you didn't point out the hilariously ironic part of all this.
I just chalked it up to the fact that every character in the game refuses to solve any problem the easy/logical way, and also that we wouldn't have a story if Saren/Sovereign had just ended the game before the opening cutscene. >_>
Level Cap is 60, tbqh.
Level 60 is locked during the first playthrough though =(
Tali - Good
Ashley - what is this why is Garrus not in your team. go back and fix this right away.
If I play through the game again, I promise I'll use Garrus. I only kept Ashley around because I liked her class; it became pretty unnecessary once I became a walking god, but at that point I wanted to get her ally achievement. lol whoops >_>
This was also amusing because Sovereign seemed to be doing a damn good job at crushing the Citadel and Alliance Fleets before. Now admittedly, I think he was going to have to rez Saren eventually to try and retake the Council Chamber Control Panel to activate the relay, but he probably should have beaten the fleet first and THEN tried that. I mean, what threat was Shepard to him before then. Hell, better yet, beat the two fleets first, then have whatever was left of the Geth Fleet storm the Citadel and retake the Council Chambers. Shepard's good, yeah, but canonically against an entire army? Sure, there'd be a risk of reinforcements coming the longer Sovereign stuck around, but again, it was doing a really good job before losing to Shepard caused it to pretty much die.
This however. This really bugged me. Again, I just chalked it up to the need for a final boss. I mean, honestly, the whole thing with Sovereign possessing Saren somehow and turning him into a super geth was really out there to begin with, Sovereign trying to kill Shepard is one of the least questionable parts of it imo. <_< You could even say that Sovereign was unaware that having his host die would screw him over. The idea of anyone being a threat seemed pretty inconceivable to him during his talk with Shepard on Virmire.
Virmire >>> Noveria >> Feros >> Eden Prime > Liara's Dig Site > Ilos > Citadel 2 > Citadel 1
why would you have citadel 2 over ANYTHING much less...
...
...Oh ****, I made a big mistake here.
Virmire > Ilos > Noveria > Feros > Citadel 3 > Liara's Dig Site >= Citadel 1 > Citadel 2
I was counting Citadel 2 as just going there to talk to Anderson, I completely forgot to include the actual uh... endgame level. >_>
I also forgot Eden Prime, but that was so long ago that I'm not even going to bother. <_<
Anyway, now you have to play Mass Effect 2. It's amazing. The main plot takes a hit, quality-wise, but then I get the impression it wasn't in that good a standing with you anyway! Character quality jumps through the roof. So awesome.
The story really picked up with Virmire, before that I wasn't a huge fan, yeah. As for Mass Effect 2... I'll give you a definite "maybe". >___>
</spoiler>
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic