Shinra Corporation
-Heidegger checks in with President Shinra, about their progress against Avalanche. Someone named Reeve, head of Urban Development, has reservations. The mayor shares these reservations, but Shinra and Heidegger don’t care.
-Man, fuck President Shinra. He’s like Gestahl-levels of awful.
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Sewers
-EW GROSS
Yip yip!
-Not only were we sent to the sewers, but a beast called “Aps” attacks us and uses “Sewer Tsunami.” EW EW EW EW EW
-We beat Corneo’s Rancor… ahem, his Aps beast. Some fighting through the sewers, and we’re out.
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Train Graveyard
-The ghosts I fight here have a cool mechanic. Once a character hits them, they fade out and become unhittable for a turn or so. Have to time my attacks more carefully around them.
Navigating the yard.
-Sorry, Cloud and Aeris. Tifa’s limit attack, “Beat Rush,” looks by far the best. She runs up to em and punches and kicks the shit out of them. Go Tifa! Unlike prior punchy characters in the FF series, she’s not a monk or master martial artist or anything. She’s just a barmaid who can kick your ass.
-Hee! A train was blocking my path, so I got inside it, drove it forward a bit, and walked around.
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Sector 7
-Oh shit! The support and plate haven’t fallen, but there’s gunfire up above.
-WEDGE!! NOOOO!! He got shot down and fell from the support tower.
WEDGE: “An’ Cloud… sorry I wasn’t any help.” Saddest. Last words. Ever.
-Aeris heads to 7th Heaven to get Marlene to safety. Barret’s up top, so Tifa and Cloud go to join.
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Sector 7 Support Tower
-Love the helicopter enemies.
-JESSIE TOO DAMMIT
“Because… of our actions… many… people died… This probably… is our punishment…”
-Oh, good. I was worried that Wedge would win the “Saddest Last Words Ever” competition in a landslide, but Jessie’s making it a race.
-Reno drops in by helicopter to both push a button to destroy the support and gloat. Fucking Reno. What a dick.
-The fight with Reno’s, whose weapon of choice basically a cattle prod (?!?), is pretty straight forward, but there’s a mechanic I like. In prior FFs, the Stop spell had no counter. When a character got Stop cast on them, they were out of the fight for good. Here, Reno puts a pyramid shell around a player, and to cure the character, another character targets the pyramid and literally breaks it.
Reno.
-We beat Reno, but he doesn’t die, just leaves.
-Cloud can’t disarm it – it’s “not a normal time bomb.” A helicopter arises as another suited due, Tseng, takes his turn gloating that only a Shinra executive can disarm it.
-DAMMIT AGAIN. Barret starts to shoot at Tseng, but he reveals that he took Aeris hostage.
First, Rosa in FFIV, and now Aeris. It’s a dangerous line of work, to be a female love interest in FF.
-At least she’s not being captured because Cloud likes her. (That sounds sarcastic, but I’m actually really glad of this for some reason.) It’s because she’s “the last Ancient.”
-Aeris reports that Marlene is safe, before FUCKING TSENG smacks her. Sound effect and everything.
-It happened. We didn’t stop it. The pillar explodes in a series of cinematics, the plate comes down to crush Sector 7, and President Jerkface looks from atop his Tower of Evil. Barret, Tifa, and Cloud escape by swinging away dramatically on a wire.
The plate falls.
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Next time: See what’s left of Sector 7.
