this is the point of no return
Saturday, May 2nd, 2020 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amovingtargetBarrelling through the finale here. It's been wild. It gets wilder.
Part 5/5
⊛ Ooo I love how there's a shot of Cloud looking up at the Shinra building that kind of echoes the way he looked up at the reactor in the opening except now it's fucking personal.
♥ Deciding what to do :') Barret: "Frontal assault. Guns blazing. Makes for a good story." Cloud: "Why'd we bring you along again?" Oh we don't even have a choice! Does this mean the stairs are canon :')
♥ Barret: "So far, so good." And then he falls off the fuckin truck :"D
⊛ Oh my the Shinra lobby! That's pretty damn cool! Playing hopscotch across the lights to get a keycard :'D And they're so impressed with her :')
♥ HERE IT IS! ELEVATOR OR STAIRS bahahahah this is the moment I've been waiting for, buckle up Barret :')
♥ Barret: "You have got to be shittin' me." Cloud: "Nope. We're a lot less likely to get caught this way." Barret: "But a lot more likely to die of boredom." Cloud: "It's only fifty-nine floors." Tifa: "Nothing to it." Barret: "Well, at least it ain't a race. Small blessing."
♥ IT IS A RACE. The little character status bars a flipping depending on what order we're in :'D
♥ Barret: "You can stop if you want. You can say it's for me." Cloud: "Just say you can't hack it." Barret: "I'll hack you, jackass."
♥ Tifa: "Hey, you're sounding better." Barret: "Think I've got, like, stairclimber's high."
♥ Can't run up these stairs any more :"D there was definite slowing by floor 15, we're at 30 and I can only walk :"D
♥ Barret: "But tell me, these stairs… are these stairs ever gonna end!?" Tifa: "I dunno! Ask the stairs!" Cloud: "I don't think the stairs are talking."
♥ They're so grumpy at each other I love it :'D This is everything I ever wanted :"D
♥ Breaking floor 50. There is definitely no other word for this than trudging.
♥ Barret: "This sucks! I wanna go back!" Tifa: "You wanna go down all those stairs you just climbed?"
♥ Barret: "Another day, another struggle… Climbing stairs is so much trouble."
♥ THEY FINALLY MADE IT :'D Thank you Square, that was beautiful :"D
⊛ Cutscene with Scarlet and some fiends doing materia research… and a peek at Cloud and gang on the security monitor that no one is looking at. And they're scrubbed off! Reeve is that you?
♥ The view…. Barret: "Terrible, but beautiful all the same…"
♥ Cutscene of Reeve…. poor bab…. Reeve: "Whatever reasons they might've had, destroying an entire sector is… It's beyond the pale. Assistant: "Director. I would strongly advice you not to say such things outside this room." Reeve: "Don't I know it."
⊛ President Shinra exhibit… Tifa: "I think I just threw up a little…"
⊛ Ooo the model of Midgar!!! Cosmos Theatre…. Oh my…. This whole cutscene is amazing!!! And then Cloud has a vision of meteor?! D': Sephiroth killing Tifa and Barret D':
⊛ Palmer sees someone mysterious walking through the building -- Sephiroth?
⊛ Oh my! They all saw that meteor as part of the presentation! Makes me wonder how much of that was the presentation and how much Cloud hallucinated… or foresaw, I suppose. Surely the part where Tifa and Barret die was just in his head...
♥ Hart? He knows who we are?? Ah, escorting us to Mayor Domino. Avalanche's man on the inside! I love that Barret is the one to sympathise with him when he goes off on his self-pity tirade. Barret: "Okay! They did you wrong, like us -- but we'll make it right. So just calm down. Deep breaths, man. Deep breaths." Barret Wallace telling someone else to chill, how far we've come :")
⊛ Do I give the secretary 10k or not hmmm…. Well it would have been cool if there was that password mini game.. No I shan't >_> Damn it would have been adorable to see these guys riffling through the library :') I can imagine Barret getting frustrated and throwing a book over his shoulder :")
⊛ Time for another peek at Shinra… Hojo >:[ Telling Aerith about collecting her mother's remains >:'[
♥ Beat the combat sim to get the next keycard grumble grumble BUT THEN THEY DID THEIR VICTORY POSESSSSSS :"D I swooonnnnn
⊛ Ah awesome weapons available hereeee Mythril Saber!!
⊛ ! The security officer that recognised him at the beginning!!!! "We went through training together. … Some of the guys heard you got smoked, but I told 'em it was all bullshit! Hey, sit tight man -- I'mma go get Kunsel." HE STILL LIVES!! :'D (And he's still with Shinra D: Do I have to revise some headcanons…. ) And poor Cloud D:
♥ Barret's not gonna fit in that duct :') He's on guard duty I guess :')
⊛ Oh no they don't believe Palmer saw who he saw…
⊛ Permission to scare the ever loving shit out of Aerith? I love that Scarlet and Heidegger both jump in with offers of torture equipment and Hojo is like, how uncouth. Hojo: "I … had something psychological in mind. Better to scar the psyche than mar the flesh." Shinra: "Do as you see fit. However. You will not make the same mistake twice. Is that clear?" Oh my? Is this about losing Ifalna? Finding someone to mate her with… start with candidates from SOLDIER. "These would of course include S and G types."
♥ Yes…. What if Aerith/Sephiroth…. Delicious…. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the original game tbh (unless of course I'm just forgetting…)
⊛ Those mako tanks… Holding Hojo at gun point (although I don't have a gun arm equipped for Barret) and he's like oh so you're her friends?? "Just imagining how she might react if I were to present to her your fresh corpses." ugh and he gets away and opens a tank Specimen H0512 yikes what an ugly son of a bitch .____.
⊛ "My boy, you weren't a SOLDIER." Those spectres again…. dragging Hojo off. Too early for that reveal, I guess...
⊛ Aerith saved! But no scene with Red XIII? Oh here he is :'D Wow, but what is this thing Aerith does. The same as that little glitch type thing with Marlene? Can Aerith make people like her??? Remove fear? Something else?
⊛ Something is wrong with Cloud again :( Jenovah calling to him :( calling her mother :'( Collapsing :"(
♥ Tseng, Reno and Rude… was it worth it… these guilty children Rude: "What are we going to do about Sector 7?" Tseng: "We are going to do nothing." Rude: "Been thinking. Was all that necessary?" Tseng: "Had we refused, someone else would've completed the task. We have spared that someone the burden of a guilty conscience. Perhaps that will ease yours." Rude: "Yeah… nope."
♥ Cloud coming to… "Where are we?" Aerith: "Where I lived -- when I was still a child." What a beautiful mural! And then talking to the others before Aerith -- Barret: "Don't scare us like that man…" Red XIII: "I'm the one who carried you here." I can't believe we were deprived of seeing that.
⊛ Talking about the ancients the promised land… the spectres appear again. Red XII: "Whispers. Perhaps best described as arbiters of fate. They are drawn to those who attempt to alter destiny's course and ensure they do not." Did I call it? I think I did.
⊛ Aerith saying there's a bigger enemy…. Tifa: "What are you not telling us?". Aerith: "I'm lost in a maze, and… every step is taking me further from the path… every time the Whispers touch me… I lose something. A part of myself. Follow them… the yellow flowers..." She sees… was that her hand or Sephiroth….
♥ Tifa, pulling her out of the circle of Whispers: "It's okay. We'll find a way out together."
♥ WEDGE!!! Avalanche HQ trying to flush out the President… He came out to help us hiding the fact that he's still hurt ;__;
♥ Bahaha what is that about? Did something happen while Cloud was out of it???
⊛ Those unknown entities again… but where's the tank in here that's supposed to hold Jenova…. Here she is…. .____. Oh no remembering Nibelheim… Sephiroth? Is he really there? It seems like everyone can see him. Cloud gets worse, stumbling forward to him… clutching his left arm… isn't that the one he gets geostigma in??? Sephiroth: "Don't deny me. Embrace me." Cloud striking him, Sephiroth cutting the walkway out from under as he's running up… that's reminding me of something… did it happen that way in Nibelheim?
⊛ Hojo, watching: "And thus the hypothesis proven correct." He's talking about Reunion Theory isn't he? :(
♥ Cloud alone… until Red XIII arrives to help. Not a controllable party member though. And then finding Barret. And the girls :)
⊛ PHS terminal!!! Switching parties to the girls so we can indulge Hojo in some weirdness or other and then he can let us out… that's so cool what they did with the party switching mechanic.
⊛ Tifa worrying about Cloud…
♥ Hojo: "I hope you're enjoying your experience." Barret: "Why don't you come down here and ask me." Ah that was cool, Barret shooting at the window, Cloud swinging a piece of wreckage into a closing door, holding it open for Red XIII to barrel through and…. Hopefully bite Hojo to death??? Oh no, we gotta rescue him!
⊛ Barret: "Remind me, this ain't a hospital is it?" Red: "Test subjects don't receive treatment." Cloud: "They're enhanced… or dissected." You know…. It's kind of appalling that Cloud can say this kind of thing with such clarity. Because… I'm not sure he should know this stuff. I don't think it occurs to him to ask how he knows it.
⊛ THAT WAS REALLY COOL. Flying fishbot battle starting with Cloud and Barret, ending with Tifa, Aerith and Red! And I was thinking that it's a fucking weird premise that Hojo would be putting them through this convoluted 'test' while Avalanche is trying to bomb the building, but who are we kidding, this is totally on brand for the greasy asshole.
⊛ And he just lets Sephiroth take Jenova…
♥ Barret: "Band's back together." :"D And tbh that bit with the door was adorable :')
⊛ Following the trail of Jenova's blood…. This is new… president Shinra hanging off the edge of the helipad, and Barret, a man of modest dreams...…. Here's Sephiroth to kill him ._. And Barret? what? Gotta love the absolute horror in Cloud's eyes watching it happen though .__. Jenova Dreamweaver ._. Defeated ._. it was remnant #49 ._.
⊛ I kind of like that little detail that the Avalanche helicopter is still making passes to look for them… and the Whisper saved Barret! And Sephiroth was Remnant #2 all along.
♥ RUFUS! Handsome but absurdly dressed bastard…
♥ And! Cloud:: "I'll buy you guys some time." Barret: "I could stay here -- back you up." Cloud: "Barret… I'm asking you. Please." Gosh...
♥ Rufus: "You're a SOLDIER, aren't you? Which, of course, would mean that I own you." Cloud: "Ex-SOLDIER. I quit." There's so much smirking. And the battle banter. This is fine. I'm fine.
♥ Tifa to the rescue! "You gotta be better than this if you're gonna play the hero." And of course, she's gonna get to play the hero for a while later! :'D
♥ The elevator battle!
⊛ Wait… what happened to Wedge ._. did the Whispers get him for cheating death ._.
♥ I just fell over laughing! Heidegger: "What is this ragtag bunch of misfits I see before me?" Barret: "Avalanche!" Aerith: "Local florist!" Red: "Lab rat dog!" Heeeee and then it's time fOR CLOUD'S ENTRANCE ON THE BIKE :'D SUCH A SHOW OFF GOD I CAN'T WITH THIS WHOLE SCENE :"D
♥ Barret and Red are so adorable in their nonsense grumbly banter.
⊛ Whispers swarming Shinra building… Rufus sees them… Tseng doesn't… I'm intrigued by this… I must be in the endgame… I haven't been able to take screenshots since Cloud bust in on his bike :(
♥ More bigger enemy appears. Barret: "Oh come on, don't you see the piece of shit we're driving here?" Red: "Says the three hundred pound sack of it." Bahahahah
⊛ Oh my god there's so much fighting… and that giant mech… Cloud and Red tagteam! at last the end of the highway… why is there a rest point here…. do we get to explore the overworld after all????
⊛ Sephiroth… Aerith: "You. You're wrong." Sephiroth: "Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows." Aerith: "Everything about you is wrong." Sephiroth: "All born are bound to her. Should this world be unmade, so too shall her children." What does this mean?? A reference to Jenova and the people carrying her cells???
⊛ The end of Crisis Core? I'd recognise those lines anywhere. Why are the Whispers here? It seems like it was something only Aerith saw? How is Aerith making a path through the Whispers back in the… present? The voices of the planet? The game warning me to be prepared? 0___0?
⊛ Did we just get turned around? Wow, yikes… that… looks like a boss… I don't like it 0____0
♥ Friend shapes, thank god! Barret: "You're alive!!!" Cloud: "Happy to see me?" Barret: "Wouldn't go that far."
⊛ Another fuckin boss battle??? Whisper Harbinger, and underlings Rubrum, Viridi, Croceo…. Fuck…. Using Assess on it… An entity from a future timeline that has manifested in the present day. It fights with a sword to protect the future that gave shape to it. What the fuck is happening.. Wasting ATB to confirm a hunch. Viridi fights barehanded. Croceo fights with guns. The party are fighting their future selves? Their alternate future selves?
⊛ Whisper Rubrum defeated (now that it's just him…) Croceo and Viridi defeated? How many times are you gonna make me do this I think I'm going to die of anxiety…. Wtf r u doin Square Enix…. Well, I do love the way we keep switching parties? And they keep having flashes of the future… :(
⊛ They came back and turned into a dragon WHISPER BAHAMUT ARE YOU KIDDING ME on the one hand, fuckin cool, on the other hand pls stop Editor's note: Fuck I can feel the anxiety just watching this on youtube. [war flashbacks]
⊛ Now the big one… 0____0 Assess on the Harbinger… An accretion of Whispers, the so-called arbiters of fate. The creatures appear when someone tries to alter destiny's course. They are connected to all the threads of time and space that shape the planet's fate….
⊛ Sephiroth now? This is … Advent Children…? It reminds me of it anyway… And all the party jumping in at intervals, coming back one at a time...
♥ Sephiroth: "Careful now. That which lies ahead… does not yet exist. Our world will become a part of it… one day. But I.. will not end. Nor will I have you end." Cloud: "This is…?" Sephiroth: "The edge of creation. Cloud… lend me your strength. Let us defy destiny together." Cloud: "Never." Sephiroth: "Seven seconds until the end. Time enough for you, perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see." What does it mean ;___;
♥ It's over…. O.O Omg there goes Heidegger getting on Rufus' nerves already… I love that, that's some palate cleanser. And of course no one bats an eye at Hojo's mad scientist laugh at the wreckage of Jenova's tank… just another day at the office.
⊛ Zack: "Wait. Was that all of them" What… and what was that explosion 0___0 Biggs is alive too? And what is this moment where Zack and Cloud in the past (?) pass the same place as Cloud and Aerith in the present (?) I don't understand what this means, but it's also good to see himmmm
⊛ I'm just waiting for these credits just in case there's a secret at the end... No secret explanation after all grumble grumble
⊛ Ooo chapter select. It looks like we get to keep all our items and materia and shit? Thank goodness. An option to skip the bikes? Why would you want to skip the bikes.... D: There are different dresses you can get? For Tifa and Aerith too?? Chapter 14 resolutions??? Howwwww????
⊛ Me in chapter 3: "Looks like they're ironing out their lore." Me in chapter 18: "Okay, never mind…?"
♥ The battles were… actually really great. I played on Classic, with the firm intention that I would just sit back and let the battles mostly play themselves out, but ended up really enjoying playing through them, even the boss battles. Even for a button masher like me, it was awesome. It's just the right amount of difficult -- engaging and tactical, and I really had to pay attention, which couldn't have been said for FF15. I wonder what it will be like to play on higher difficulties :X
♥ Speaking of boss battles, there were so many what the fuck… and the ending holy shit. Me, when I should be going to bed: "We're going down the highway… this must be the ending I'll just keep playing." Me, several hours of marathon boss battles later: "Okay, never mind ;___;" I'm a casual gamer Square why would you do this to me ;___; I feel like I've lost ten years off my life. Somehow I still enjoyed them!
♥ I liked the weapon modding more than I expected to. At first I didn't like it very much, it felt a bit gimmicky? But then it turned out to be a good way to have fun with playstyles, or ahem keep the swords that look best on Cloud's back, rather than just keep going for the weapon that has higher and higher attack stats. Speaking of aesthetic choices, I love the designs and I love that we can see the weapon changes on the characters! Maybe it goes without saying that we'd be able to see it, but I'm glad. Too bad we don't get to see the accessories in the same way, but they look awesome too! And you can see materia slots on everything!
♥ Thank you for offering to port me back to the quest giver when I'm done omg, that's just [chef kiss] why don't all games do this? all games should do this!
♥ I love the summon animation too. I liked it in Advent Children, and now it's a million times cooler.
⊛ On the one hand I kind of liked the new/different materia, on the other hand I want all the old stuff back D':
⊛ I love the little threads of reunion that keep coming up. Not just the threat of Cloud's reunion with Sephiroth, either. The flower Aerith gives to Cloud, that he gives to Tifa. The flowers talking to Aerith about, I'm sure, her own reunion with the planet, with the lifestream. Talking about Biggs and Jessie, and what Barret says that they should have returned to us. Helping Leslie, and then telling him not to give up hope of finding his lost fiancee, while they're finding a way to bring Aerith back…
⊛ Even though several chapters felt like filler, I enjoyed them fairly well. I do wonder how well that feeling is going to stand up to repeated playthroughs, though.
⊛ And where are the other limit breaks!!!
♥ I'm looking forward to playing again! When is the next one out! If they release one next year.. and if they release the third part the year after, that would mean the finale would be in time for FF7's 25th anniversary, right? I'm nervous about the changes, but I think I'm excited more than that. I really want to see where they're going with it.
⊛ I kind of have a thought… that if they're going some kind of timeline divergence -- maybe Sephiroth coasted through the lifestream until he found a chance to change time? -- I think it should be choice based, like, depending on your choices in the game, you can have chances to change the future or not… I've always heard about fans trying to figure out if there was ever a way to save Aerith from dying, and theories that she always knew what was going to happen to her. Are they centering the remake around this idea?
♥ Also… I think maybe if I had been paying more attention to the words from TPTB in interviews and stuff -- I generally avoid prerelease conjecture for anything -- maybe I would have been less surprised by the fact that there were changes, if not for the… level of changes. I get the impression now that maybe they always wanted to do something more with this story, and maybe that meant something different all along. This may be an unpopular opinion in general, but I think story creators are allowed to do what the heck they want? The original is always going to be there. I think the Whispers were a bit.. um.. what's the phrase I'm looking for? A bit too much? An overwrought metaphor for fate (especially after FF15 and the confusing final DLCs)? And I feel like the final battles with 'destiny' were a bit too high stakes for a first installment? I mean, how are we going to go back to a game's worth of overworld trawling after that? And given the comparisons to Kingdom Hearts, I'm wary about the level of ambition in this story, in the changes they've made to it -- will they be able to take these new questions and give us answers in the next games? or are they just going to pile more and more questions with no real resolutions? I'm nervous, I can't really lie about that, but my feeling is that I don't really care what they change as long as I still get all the things I loved about the original. I got that and then some. Everything else is just extra, and I'm excited by the possibilities, and what they might do with it, but if I end up not liking it, I can just ignore it. So far I feel like anything that gives me more world to play with is a good thing, and so far they've surprised me with the depth of storytelling. Characterisation has been on point. Dialogue has been amazing. Level design has been a lot of fun. They've had me keeling over laughing, and keeling over from heartbreak. They took me on a real ride, start to finish. Yeah. I'm happy with this game.
♥ Okay, this is not my opinion but while I was looking for a video of the final chapter I stumbled onto a reddit page and found this comment that made me laugh. "The absolute balls on these guys." I love it. (^_^) On a serious and possibly meta level, someone also commented this about the last line of the game
Goodness there has been so much flailing! If there's anything you'd want to hear me talk about in more detail, please ask me!! :)
PART 1 -- PART 2 -- PART 3 -- PART 4 -- PART 5
Part 5/5
⊛ Ooo I love how there's a shot of Cloud looking up at the Shinra building that kind of echoes the way he looked up at the reactor in the opening except now it's fucking personal.
♥ Deciding what to do :') Barret: "Frontal assault. Guns blazing. Makes for a good story." Cloud: "Why'd we bring you along again?" Oh we don't even have a choice! Does this mean the stairs are canon :')
♥ Barret: "So far, so good." And then he falls off the fuckin truck :"D
⊛ Oh my the Shinra lobby! That's pretty damn cool! Playing hopscotch across the lights to get a keycard :'D And they're so impressed with her :')
♥ HERE IT IS! ELEVATOR OR STAIRS bahahahah this is the moment I've been waiting for, buckle up Barret :')
♥ Barret: "You have got to be shittin' me." Cloud: "Nope. We're a lot less likely to get caught this way." Barret: "But a lot more likely to die of boredom." Cloud: "It's only fifty-nine floors." Tifa: "Nothing to it." Barret: "Well, at least it ain't a race. Small blessing."
♥ IT IS A RACE. The little character status bars a flipping depending on what order we're in :'D
♥ Barret: "You can stop if you want. You can say it's for me." Cloud: "Just say you can't hack it." Barret: "I'll hack you, jackass."
♥ Tifa: "Hey, you're sounding better." Barret: "Think I've got, like, stairclimber's high."
♥ Can't run up these stairs any more :"D there was definite slowing by floor 15, we're at 30 and I can only walk :"D
♥ Barret: "But tell me, these stairs… are these stairs ever gonna end!?" Tifa: "I dunno! Ask the stairs!" Cloud: "I don't think the stairs are talking."
♥ They're so grumpy at each other I love it :'D This is everything I ever wanted :"D
♥ Breaking floor 50. There is definitely no other word for this than trudging.
♥ Barret: "This sucks! I wanna go back!" Tifa: "You wanna go down all those stairs you just climbed?"
♥ Barret: "Another day, another struggle… Climbing stairs is so much trouble."
♥ THEY FINALLY MADE IT :'D Thank you Square, that was beautiful :"D
⊛ Cutscene with Scarlet and some fiends doing materia research… and a peek at Cloud and gang on the security monitor that no one is looking at. And they're scrubbed off! Reeve is that you?
♥ The view…. Barret: "Terrible, but beautiful all the same…"
♥ Cutscene of Reeve…. poor bab…. Reeve: "Whatever reasons they might've had, destroying an entire sector is… It's beyond the pale. Assistant: "Director. I would strongly advice you not to say such things outside this room." Reeve: "Don't I know it."
⊛ President Shinra exhibit… Tifa: "I think I just threw up a little…"
⊛ Ooo the model of Midgar!!! Cosmos Theatre…. Oh my…. This whole cutscene is amazing!!! And then Cloud has a vision of meteor?! D': Sephiroth killing Tifa and Barret D':
⊛ Palmer sees someone mysterious walking through the building -- Sephiroth?
⊛ Oh my! They all saw that meteor as part of the presentation! Makes me wonder how much of that was the presentation and how much Cloud hallucinated… or foresaw, I suppose. Surely the part where Tifa and Barret die was just in his head...
♥ Hart? He knows who we are?? Ah, escorting us to Mayor Domino. Avalanche's man on the inside! I love that Barret is the one to sympathise with him when he goes off on his self-pity tirade. Barret: "Okay! They did you wrong, like us -- but we'll make it right. So just calm down. Deep breaths, man. Deep breaths." Barret Wallace telling someone else to chill, how far we've come :")
⊛ Do I give the secretary 10k or not hmmm…. Well it would have been cool if there was that password mini game.. No I shan't >_> Damn it would have been adorable to see these guys riffling through the library :') I can imagine Barret getting frustrated and throwing a book over his shoulder :")
⊛ Time for another peek at Shinra… Hojo >:[ Telling Aerith about collecting her mother's remains >:'[
♥ Beat the combat sim to get the next keycard grumble grumble BUT THEN THEY DID THEIR VICTORY POSESSSSSS :"D I swooonnnnn
⊛ Ah awesome weapons available hereeee Mythril Saber!!
⊛ ! The security officer that recognised him at the beginning!!!! "We went through training together. … Some of the guys heard you got smoked, but I told 'em it was all bullshit! Hey, sit tight man -- I'mma go get Kunsel." HE STILL LIVES!! :'D (And he's still with Shinra D: Do I have to revise some headcanons…. ) And poor Cloud D:
♥ Barret's not gonna fit in that duct :') He's on guard duty I guess :')
⊛ Oh no they don't believe Palmer saw who he saw…
⊛ Permission to scare the ever loving shit out of Aerith? I love that Scarlet and Heidegger both jump in with offers of torture equipment and Hojo is like, how uncouth. Hojo: "I … had something psychological in mind. Better to scar the psyche than mar the flesh." Shinra: "Do as you see fit. However. You will not make the same mistake twice. Is that clear?" Oh my? Is this about losing Ifalna? Finding someone to mate her with… start with candidates from SOLDIER. "These would of course include S and G types."
♥ Yes…. What if Aerith/Sephiroth…. Delicious…. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the original game tbh (unless of course I'm just forgetting…)
⊛ Those mako tanks… Holding Hojo at gun point (although I don't have a gun arm equipped for Barret) and he's like oh so you're her friends?? "Just imagining how she might react if I were to present to her your fresh corpses." ugh and he gets away and opens a tank Specimen H0512 yikes what an ugly son of a bitch .____.
⊛ "My boy, you weren't a SOLDIER." Those spectres again…. dragging Hojo off. Too early for that reveal, I guess...
⊛ Aerith saved! But no scene with Red XIII? Oh here he is :'D Wow, but what is this thing Aerith does. The same as that little glitch type thing with Marlene? Can Aerith make people like her??? Remove fear? Something else?
⊛ Something is wrong with Cloud again :( Jenovah calling to him :( calling her mother :'( Collapsing :"(
♥ Tseng, Reno and Rude… was it worth it… these guilty children Rude: "What are we going to do about Sector 7?" Tseng: "We are going to do nothing." Rude: "Been thinking. Was all that necessary?" Tseng: "Had we refused, someone else would've completed the task. We have spared that someone the burden of a guilty conscience. Perhaps that will ease yours." Rude: "Yeah… nope."
♥ Cloud coming to… "Where are we?" Aerith: "Where I lived -- when I was still a child." What a beautiful mural! And then talking to the others before Aerith -- Barret: "Don't scare us like that man…" Red XIII: "I'm the one who carried you here." I can't believe we were deprived of seeing that.
⊛ Talking about the ancients the promised land… the spectres appear again. Red XII: "Whispers. Perhaps best described as arbiters of fate. They are drawn to those who attempt to alter destiny's course and ensure they do not." Did I call it? I think I did.
⊛ Aerith saying there's a bigger enemy…. Tifa: "What are you not telling us?". Aerith: "I'm lost in a maze, and… every step is taking me further from the path… every time the Whispers touch me… I lose something. A part of myself. Follow them… the yellow flowers..." She sees… was that her hand or Sephiroth….
♥ Tifa, pulling her out of the circle of Whispers: "It's okay. We'll find a way out together."
♥ WEDGE!!! Avalanche HQ trying to flush out the President… He came out to help us hiding the fact that he's still hurt ;__;
♥ Bahaha what is that about? Did something happen while Cloud was out of it???
⊛ Those unknown entities again… but where's the tank in here that's supposed to hold Jenova…. Here she is…. .____. Oh no remembering Nibelheim… Sephiroth? Is he really there? It seems like everyone can see him. Cloud gets worse, stumbling forward to him… clutching his left arm… isn't that the one he gets geostigma in??? Sephiroth: "Don't deny me. Embrace me." Cloud striking him, Sephiroth cutting the walkway out from under as he's running up… that's reminding me of something… did it happen that way in Nibelheim?
⊛ Hojo, watching: "And thus the hypothesis proven correct." He's talking about Reunion Theory isn't he? :(
♥ Cloud alone… until Red XIII arrives to help. Not a controllable party member though. And then finding Barret. And the girls :)
⊛ PHS terminal!!! Switching parties to the girls so we can indulge Hojo in some weirdness or other and then he can let us out… that's so cool what they did with the party switching mechanic.
⊛ Tifa worrying about Cloud…
♥ Hojo: "I hope you're enjoying your experience." Barret: "Why don't you come down here and ask me." Ah that was cool, Barret shooting at the window, Cloud swinging a piece of wreckage into a closing door, holding it open for Red XIII to barrel through and…. Hopefully bite Hojo to death??? Oh no, we gotta rescue him!
⊛ Barret: "Remind me, this ain't a hospital is it?" Red: "Test subjects don't receive treatment." Cloud: "They're enhanced… or dissected." You know…. It's kind of appalling that Cloud can say this kind of thing with such clarity. Because… I'm not sure he should know this stuff. I don't think it occurs to him to ask how he knows it.
⊛ THAT WAS REALLY COOL. Flying fishbot battle starting with Cloud and Barret, ending with Tifa, Aerith and Red! And I was thinking that it's a fucking weird premise that Hojo would be putting them through this convoluted 'test' while Avalanche is trying to bomb the building, but who are we kidding, this is totally on brand for the greasy asshole.
⊛ And he just lets Sephiroth take Jenova…
♥ Barret: "Band's back together." :"D And tbh that bit with the door was adorable :')
⊛ Following the trail of Jenova's blood…. This is new… president Shinra hanging off the edge of the helipad, and Barret, a man of modest dreams...…. Here's Sephiroth to kill him ._. And Barret? what? Gotta love the absolute horror in Cloud's eyes watching it happen though .__. Jenova Dreamweaver ._. Defeated ._. it was remnant #49 ._.
⊛ I kind of like that little detail that the Avalanche helicopter is still making passes to look for them… and the Whisper saved Barret! And Sephiroth was Remnant #2 all along.
♥ RUFUS! Handsome but absurdly dressed bastard…
♥ And! Cloud:: "I'll buy you guys some time." Barret: "I could stay here -- back you up." Cloud: "Barret… I'm asking you. Please." Gosh...
♥ Rufus: "You're a SOLDIER, aren't you? Which, of course, would mean that I own you." Cloud: "Ex-SOLDIER. I quit." There's so much smirking. And the battle banter. This is fine. I'm fine.
♥ Tifa to the rescue! "You gotta be better than this if you're gonna play the hero." And of course, she's gonna get to play the hero for a while later! :'D
♥ The elevator battle!
⊛ Wait… what happened to Wedge ._. did the Whispers get him for cheating death ._.
♥ I just fell over laughing! Heidegger: "What is this ragtag bunch of misfits I see before me?" Barret: "Avalanche!" Aerith: "Local florist!" Red: "Lab rat dog!" Heeeee and then it's time fOR CLOUD'S ENTRANCE ON THE BIKE :'D SUCH A SHOW OFF GOD I CAN'T WITH THIS WHOLE SCENE :"D
♥ Barret and Red are so adorable in their nonsense grumbly banter.
⊛ Whispers swarming Shinra building… Rufus sees them… Tseng doesn't… I'm intrigued by this… I must be in the endgame… I haven't been able to take screenshots since Cloud bust in on his bike :(
♥ More bigger enemy appears. Barret: "Oh come on, don't you see the piece of shit we're driving here?" Red: "Says the three hundred pound sack of it." Bahahahah
⊛ Oh my god there's so much fighting… and that giant mech… Cloud and Red tagteam! at last the end of the highway… why is there a rest point here…. do we get to explore the overworld after all????
⊛ Sephiroth… Aerith: "You. You're wrong." Sephiroth: "Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows." Aerith: "Everything about you is wrong." Sephiroth: "All born are bound to her. Should this world be unmade, so too shall her children." What does this mean?? A reference to Jenova and the people carrying her cells???
⊛ The end of Crisis Core? I'd recognise those lines anywhere. Why are the Whispers here? It seems like it was something only Aerith saw? How is Aerith making a path through the Whispers back in the… present? The voices of the planet? The game warning me to be prepared? 0___0?
⊛ Did we just get turned around? Wow, yikes… that… looks like a boss… I don't like it 0____0
♥ Friend shapes, thank god! Barret: "You're alive!!!" Cloud: "Happy to see me?" Barret: "Wouldn't go that far."
⊛ Another fuckin boss battle??? Whisper Harbinger, and underlings Rubrum, Viridi, Croceo…. Fuck…. Using Assess on it… An entity from a future timeline that has manifested in the present day. It fights with a sword to protect the future that gave shape to it. What the fuck is happening.. Wasting ATB to confirm a hunch. Viridi fights barehanded. Croceo fights with guns. The party are fighting their future selves? Their alternate future selves?
⊛ Whisper Rubrum defeated (now that it's just him…) Croceo and Viridi defeated? How many times are you gonna make me do this I think I'm going to die of anxiety…. Wtf r u doin Square Enix…. Well, I do love the way we keep switching parties? And they keep having flashes of the future… :(
⊛ They came back and turned into a dragon WHISPER BAHAMUT ARE YOU KIDDING ME on the one hand, fuckin cool, on the other hand pls stop Editor's note: Fuck I can feel the anxiety just watching this on youtube. [war flashbacks]
⊛ Now the big one… 0____0 Assess on the Harbinger… An accretion of Whispers, the so-called arbiters of fate. The creatures appear when someone tries to alter destiny's course. They are connected to all the threads of time and space that shape the planet's fate….
⊛ Sephiroth now? This is … Advent Children…? It reminds me of it anyway… And all the party jumping in at intervals, coming back one at a time...
♥ Sephiroth: "Careful now. That which lies ahead… does not yet exist. Our world will become a part of it… one day. But I.. will not end. Nor will I have you end." Cloud: "This is…?" Sephiroth: "The edge of creation. Cloud… lend me your strength. Let us defy destiny together." Cloud: "Never." Sephiroth: "Seven seconds until the end. Time enough for you, perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see." What does it mean ;___;
♥ It's over…. O.O Omg there goes Heidegger getting on Rufus' nerves already… I love that, that's some palate cleanser. And of course no one bats an eye at Hojo's mad scientist laugh at the wreckage of Jenova's tank… just another day at the office.
⊛ Zack: "Wait. Was that all of them" What… and what was that explosion 0___0 Biggs is alive too? And what is this moment where Zack and Cloud in the past (?) pass the same place as Cloud and Aerith in the present (?) I don't understand what this means, but it's also good to see himmmm
⊛ I'm just waiting for these credits just in case there's a secret at the end... No secret explanation after all grumble grumble
⊛ Ooo chapter select. It looks like we get to keep all our items and materia and shit? Thank goodness. An option to skip the bikes? Why would you want to skip the bikes.... D: There are different dresses you can get? For Tifa and Aerith too?? Chapter 14 resolutions??? Howwwww????
⊛ Me in chapter 3: "Looks like they're ironing out their lore." Me in chapter 18: "Okay, never mind…?"
♥ The battles were… actually really great. I played on Classic, with the firm intention that I would just sit back and let the battles mostly play themselves out, but ended up really enjoying playing through them, even the boss battles. Even for a button masher like me, it was awesome. It's just the right amount of difficult -- engaging and tactical, and I really had to pay attention, which couldn't have been said for FF15. I wonder what it will be like to play on higher difficulties :X
♥ Speaking of boss battles, there were so many what the fuck… and the ending holy shit. Me, when I should be going to bed: "We're going down the highway… this must be the ending I'll just keep playing." Me, several hours of marathon boss battles later: "Okay, never mind ;___;" I'm a casual gamer Square why would you do this to me ;___; I feel like I've lost ten years off my life. Somehow I still enjoyed them!
♥ I liked the weapon modding more than I expected to. At first I didn't like it very much, it felt a bit gimmicky? But then it turned out to be a good way to have fun with playstyles, or ahem keep the swords that look best on Cloud's back, rather than just keep going for the weapon that has higher and higher attack stats. Speaking of aesthetic choices, I love the designs and I love that we can see the weapon changes on the characters! Maybe it goes without saying that we'd be able to see it, but I'm glad. Too bad we don't get to see the accessories in the same way, but they look awesome too! And you can see materia slots on everything!
♥ Thank you for offering to port me back to the quest giver when I'm done omg, that's just [chef kiss] why don't all games do this? all games should do this!
♥ I love the summon animation too. I liked it in Advent Children, and now it's a million times cooler.
⊛ On the one hand I kind of liked the new/different materia, on the other hand I want all the old stuff back D':
⊛ I love the little threads of reunion that keep coming up. Not just the threat of Cloud's reunion with Sephiroth, either. The flower Aerith gives to Cloud, that he gives to Tifa. The flowers talking to Aerith about, I'm sure, her own reunion with the planet, with the lifestream. Talking about Biggs and Jessie, and what Barret says that they should have returned to us. Helping Leslie, and then telling him not to give up hope of finding his lost fiancee, while they're finding a way to bring Aerith back…
⊛ Even though several chapters felt like filler, I enjoyed them fairly well. I do wonder how well that feeling is going to stand up to repeated playthroughs, though.
⊛ And where are the other limit breaks!!!
♥ I'm looking forward to playing again! When is the next one out! If they release one next year.. and if they release the third part the year after, that would mean the finale would be in time for FF7's 25th anniversary, right? I'm nervous about the changes, but I think I'm excited more than that. I really want to see where they're going with it.
⊛ I kind of have a thought… that if they're going some kind of timeline divergence -- maybe Sephiroth coasted through the lifestream until he found a chance to change time? -- I think it should be choice based, like, depending on your choices in the game, you can have chances to change the future or not… I've always heard about fans trying to figure out if there was ever a way to save Aerith from dying, and theories that she always knew what was going to happen to her. Are they centering the remake around this idea?
♥ Also… I think maybe if I had been paying more attention to the words from TPTB in interviews and stuff -- I generally avoid prerelease conjecture for anything -- maybe I would have been less surprised by the fact that there were changes, if not for the… level of changes. I get the impression now that maybe they always wanted to do something more with this story, and maybe that meant something different all along. This may be an unpopular opinion in general, but I think story creators are allowed to do what the heck they want? The original is always going to be there. I think the Whispers were a bit.. um.. what's the phrase I'm looking for? A bit too much? An overwrought metaphor for fate (especially after FF15 and the confusing final DLCs)? And I feel like the final battles with 'destiny' were a bit too high stakes for a first installment? I mean, how are we going to go back to a game's worth of overworld trawling after that? And given the comparisons to Kingdom Hearts, I'm wary about the level of ambition in this story, in the changes they've made to it -- will they be able to take these new questions and give us answers in the next games? or are they just going to pile more and more questions with no real resolutions? I'm nervous, I can't really lie about that, but my feeling is that I don't really care what they change as long as I still get all the things I loved about the original. I got that and then some. Everything else is just extra, and I'm excited by the possibilities, and what they might do with it, but if I end up not liking it, I can just ignore it. So far I feel like anything that gives me more world to play with is a good thing, and so far they've surprised me with the depth of storytelling. Characterisation has been on point. Dialogue has been amazing. Level design has been a lot of fun. They've had me keeling over laughing, and keeling over from heartbreak. They took me on a real ride, start to finish. Yeah. I'm happy with this game.
♥ Okay, this is not my opinion but while I was looking for a video of the final chapter I stumbled onto a reddit page and found this comment that made me laugh. "The absolute balls on these guys." I love it. (^_^) On a serious and possibly meta level, someone also commented this about the last line of the game
Goodness there has been so much flailing! If there's anything you'd want to hear me talk about in more detail, please ask me!! :)
PART 1 -- PART 2 -- PART 3 -- PART 4 -- PART 5
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-03 11:49 pm (UTC)I love how much you hate him. :')
Priorities! :D
As you know, I have never played a video game in my life, but I really like this approach. I'm no longer the canon purist that I once was -- changing things up can be really fun! -- but I think I would still feel hurt if I felt like a sequel or remake betrayed the heart of the original, if that makes sense. But since this game kept what you loved about the original FF7 and just did some new stuff too... I'm really happy for you! ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-04 09:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-15 04:22 pm (UTC)Every FFVII fan I've seen talk about this has taken the stairs. I feel like it's just necessary, you know? (I loved how they did it in the remake with even the music becoming less and less coherent as you go on.)
Because… I'm not sure he should know this stuff. I don't think it occurs to him to ask how he knows it.
Yeah, I really liked how aware Cloud is of what Hojo does without consciously having those memories. The game gives you enough hints to figure out that he was a test subject even if you didn't play the original.
Rufus looks great from the waist up and I've no idea what's going on below that. Loved his introduction though, can't wait to see more.
it's time fOR CLOUD'S ENTRANCE ON THE BIKE :'D SUCH A SHOW OFF GOD I CAN'T WITH THIS WHOLE SCENE :"D
This whole game is so extra, especially this sequence. Loved it.
This may be an unpopular opinion in general, but I think story creators are allowed to do what the heck they want?
Sure, I think that's uncontroversial personally, and the same is true for audience response. It's okay to like it, it's okay not to like it. I hated the Whispers and the destiny stuff in the ending but I loved pretty much everything else in the game so overall it was a very positive experience. Enjoyed reading your reactions!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-16 10:22 am (UTC)I'm going to have to make myself take the elevator the next time I replay but I'm so glad there's chapter select! Any time I need a pickmeup I'm gonna go stairclimbing :") Maybe I should just keep a save file here. And thank you for telling me about the music! I turn it down a fair bit so I can hear the dialogue better and that's such a neat touch!
The game gives you enough hints to figure out that he was a test subject even if you didn't play the original.
Right? I think they did really good with foreshadowing and stuff in this game. Very pleasantly surprised.
Rufus looks great from the waist up and I've no idea what's going on below that.
THAT IS THE MOST ACCURATE DESCRIPTION (^_^)
Enjoyed reading your reactions!
Thank you for coming along for the ride! ♥
I spent a lot of the end feeling like what the fuck is happening...why the fuck is this happening... and I think I was pretty confused about how I felt for a while. I think for now I'm mostly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about it, but maybe by the time they finish all the games I'll be able to tell whether I liked it or not. I think mostly it depends on what they do with it.
♥♥♥
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-16 10:32 am (UTC)I think for now I'm mostly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about it, but maybe by the time they finish all the games I'll be able to tell whether I liked it or not. I think mostly it depends on what they do with it.
Yeah, I agree a lot will depend on what happens in future installments.