The Great Glacier
-A bit tough to get my bearings here, even with the map.
-First stop is a cave, where Cloud hilariously rolls like a bowling ball down a slippy slide out of some Mario 64 level, getting plopped outside the mountain.
-Next, across an expansive snowy field. Then into a forest. I’m trying to make my way towards the lake in the middle.
-Reached the lake. Now, to cross, I need to get through a jumping puzzle.
-I sink a couple of times on this puzzle – the goal seems to be to not get boxed in. It’s a pretty fun little logic puzzle. On the fourth try, I make it.
-There’s a bleached skull in the cave, which is not promising, and a Safety Bit, which is. Nothing else in the cave though.
-We wander around a bit more, and collapse in the snow.
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Holzoff’s Cabin
-Rescued by the legendary climber from town, Holzoff!
-Apparently, something fell here a while back that formed the cliff. The Cetra maybe?
-Holzoff gives us two pieces of advice when outside: know the route, and keep our body temp up (which we conveniently can do with the [SWITCH] button).
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Gaia Cliff
-Honestly, I’m a bit frustrated with myself. I feel like I should’ve explored the Great Glacier more fully… on the other hand, I didn’t know this mountain path would be the end of my journey in the Great Glacier.
As a game design thing, I really prefer that games let me know before I’m about to leave a zone, that I get a “You’re feeling exhausted. Turn back or press on?” kind of thing. Oh well.
-lol – everyone here hates the cold. Our party (Tifa, Red, Cloud) goes ahead of the rest to scout the path.
-The climb goes swimmingly.
We climb a bit, reach a cliff with a flag, and do an “I have to pee” dance to warm up. Our body temperature meter never goes below 35.
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Inside of Gaea’s Cliff
-Pretty caverns. Again, I’m a sucker for the snow and ice motifs.
-The game continues its weird monster streak with monsters like “Evilhead,” “Headbomber,” and some… “creative” abilities.
-Interesting! A pack of Zolokalters (the toxic barf guys) turned on each other. I didn’t cast charm or befuddle or anything, but they just started toxic barfing on each other.
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Gaea’s Cliff
-I’m thankful the game didn’t keep my temperature running down during combat. *glares at the timers in FFV*
-Some more climbing, with choices this time. A dead end or two. Pretty straightforward.
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Back Inside Gaea’s Cliff
-Ok, a cool mechanic here. We get to a top level in the cavern, and start encountering large icicles as monsters. But they’re not really monsters, just obstacles we fight against. We hit them and ice shards “hit” us. We “kill” one and the icicle in the ceiling cracks, crashes to the ground below, and opens up a new room.
Creative, yet intuitive!
-The bats here keep targeting Tifa with their “Ultrasound” attack. Did her relationship with Cloud go a bit farther than I thought?
-Knocking off all the icicles from the ceiling nets us a Megalixir.
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Gaea’s Cliff
-NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! My nemesis.
-The devastatingly powerful “Malboro” return to the series, complete with “Bad Breath.” Cloud has the Ribbon and so he doesn’t get Bad Breathed, but I only have one Heal materia and it’s not on Cloud. I immediately remedy this after the fight.
-Briefly through another cave, then back outside. The path up the cliff got more winding.
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Inside Gaea’s Cliff
-Save point. We must be nearing the end of this.
-Hey… is that one of Sephiroth’s clones?
-That kickass boss music bursts onto the scene. (I don’t know whether I like this boss music better than FFVI’s, but I like both better than all the others I think.) Snow-woman time?
-Correct!
Well, correct if by “snow-woman” I mean “two-headed dragon.”
-Kujata just heals her, so I assume elemental attacks are a no-go. Chocobo/Mog hurts a bit, and Bahamut DEFINITELY hurts.
-[TW: ableism] V xabj gur tnzr vf sebz gur 90f, ohg gur svtug srryf n jrr ovg hapbzsbegnoyr gb frr Erq pnfgvat "Yhangvp Uvtu" va gur svtug ntnvafg "Fpuvmb."
-Quake 3 also does hefty damage. It’s a tough fight, since the dragon does Quake 3 right back at me and kills Tifa a couple of times, but we survive. It helped that Cloud and Red had elemental rings, absorbing some of the damage and turning it into heals.
-Save, then back outside past the boss.
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Next time: Atop the cliffs.
