Sector 7
-I visit some home. Two parents talk about their son missing, but they don’t mention who he is. Someone outside says “Johnny’s gone,” so I guess their son is Johnny.
-Some more wandering around town, but not much to see.
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Train
-Pretty confusing conversation at the station. Two kids talking to each other about finally settling on a plan, and they then proceed to lay down face flat on the ground. In the train station. Wtf.
-Everyone in the train car flees at the sight of Barret, because Avalanche is apparently scary shit. Threatening bombings and the like. Barret seems strangely surprised by this. The Shinra ticket-taker is freaked, too.
-We’re on the way to Section 4 (or reactor 5? Not sure), and need to get past the ID scanners.
-Oh SHIT! The ID scanner hit early, and we’re caught.
-We race through each car. MORE COUNTDOWNS. STOP THAT, GAME. I want to talk to people in each car, but (perhaps realistically if frustratingly), there’s just not enough time. I do catch some strange talk about underwear bandits. Again: wtf.
-We jump out of the train. Jessie’s disguised as a Shinra employee.
Jessie, like a sir.
Wedge, Jessie, and Biggs stay behind on the train.
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Tunnels to Reactor 5
-I backtrack a couple of rooms in the tunnel, but seems like an infinite loop. I’ll just go forward instead.
-We encounter Rocket Launchers (!!), but thankfully they’re as weak as the dudes with machine guns from earlier.
-I’m much more nervous and cautious than I had been in prior games because for once I’m not playing with saved states. If I had played with them, I probably would have kept going backward in the tunnels.
-Can’t get past Shinra’s security directly, so we head down to some air duct-type-tunnel-things.
-Blugus, the fish down here, are much tougher defensively than any prior monsters.
-Tifa kind of sucks in combat for basic attacks. Her limit special seems Setzer-esque, a slot wheel thing, though much more manageable than Setzer’s.
-Jessie and Wedge are further ahead. Jessie takes the blame for the ID card thing.
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Number 5 Reactor
-Wheee! Slide down the chute, but I soon come to a fork. Do I go up or down?
-I go up, taken an elevator, then regret my decision for no particular reason. Backtrack. Down.
-This feels right. This is the same layout as the #1 Reactor. We reach the main reactor steering wheel thingamajig. (What? I majored in English and philosophy, not nuclear engineering.)
-AND CLOUD FAINTS WTF WTF WTF
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Flashback
-Young Cloud sees Young Tifa in a factory. She’s standing over her dead father.
-She says Sephiroth did this, but spreads the blame wide.
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Number 5 Reactor
-We turn the wheel, and no boss attacks. No imminent explosion. Nervous.
-Let’s go upstairs. Maybe that upstairs/elevator is the way out.
-I take like a million tries to get this simultaneous button push correct, but it works. Interesting mechanic.
-IT’S A TRAP!!! With… President Shinra?
-Wow. Shinra remembered Cloud, but not his name. “I can’t be expected to remember everyone’s name, especially traits… unless they become another Sephiroth.” [not word for word] So Sephiroth betrayed Shinra?
-Before Barret can lay into the president, he calls for help. Boss time.
”No, Mr. Cloud. I expect you to die. Meet my robot assassin!”
“Airbuster,” a mecha-soldier. Cloud seems surprised that he was part of SOLDIER, since Cloud thinks Airbuster is just a robot. Still not sure what SOLDIER is, but I’m now pretty sure it’s not part of Shinra. Or maybe associated with it?
-Tricky fight – some kind of counter-attack mechanic, where it seems like If I attack his back he counters, but if I attack his face he takes heavier damage, but really unsure. He took massive damage and died.
-When Airbuster died, he took out part of the platform we were on. Leaving Cloud hanging.
That’s right: a literal cliffhanger.
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Next time: Will Cloud survive?? (Probably, though I wouldn’t object to him dying and having Tifa and Barret take over the show.)
