FFVII Crisis Core – Part 11: Tonberry Fields Forever

Summary: I complete the Tonberry Quests. Have to fight through SO MANY TONBERRIES. The story itself is a let-down, and the Tonberries become more standard tough monsters than the brutally punishing pain-machines from earlier in the series, but the mechanics are active and engaging. The Master Tonberry goes down and joins my DMW.





Mission: Mysteries of the World > Tonberry Quests > Find the Tonberry!

Misunderstanding all I see.

-Well. The first of these three missions has a less than enthralling plot. How did he steal it? Did the chef lose it in a bet? Is there a Tonberry strike force that values that knife as a holy relic of their people?

TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE TONBERRIES PLZ. If they remain jokey and mysterious, that’s okay too I guess, but I’d like to see this terror that’s haunted me since FFV fleshed out a bit.

-The cave is so far full of worms. It’s good practice for dodging their spells, since I have to time and aim my dodges as soon as I see the “Thread” spell cast. It’s not enough that I dodge non-directionally, since if I roll back the Thread still hits me. I have to dodge to the side.

-There’s the Tonberry.

Ok, I think I have an educated guess about her two abilities:

Kitchen Knife: Once she casts this, she stalks towards me. I was able to get in her face, causing her to stab at me. It didn’t do much damage (at this point – I imagine it becomes a one-shot later), but this is dodgeable.

Karma: She channels an aura around herself. This ability in past games was called “Everyone’s Grudge,” and did damage to the player based on the number of enemies they had killed up to that point. I hit her when she had this glowy aura up, and it did damage to me. This’ll ramp up heavily as the game goes on probably, so I think I may just have to wait it out.

-Success!

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Mission: Mysteries of the World > Tonberry Quests > Tonberries Everywhere

-….

-Apparently, the chef’s legendary knife wasn’t held by that Tonberry, but by another Tonberry. They went with the “your princess/knife is in another castle” approach.

-It’s not bad exactly. The idea of Zack scouring the world and tackling its deadliest monsters for a cooking utensil is kind of funny. But this feels like a bit of a missed opportunity to have used the game’s mission format to explore the Tonberries beyond this.

Well, it’s still early. Still times for Crisis Core to go there, and I have to remind myself to be patient.

-Died quickly in this mission. The normal enemies around this cave here are Tonberries. And they hunt in pairs. Yikes.

-Looks actually like Karma isn’t dodgeable. It’s not a bolt or an aura. The Tonberry casts it and after a few seconds I just take damage. I’ll see if the “Jump” materia can dodge it… Nope.

I think “Karma” may just be a case of “Thank Bahamut that I chose to fight the Tonberries now rather than much later in the game when Karma would hit like a freight train.”

-Camera is still a major issue for me. When the fight start out, I often just see Zack on the screen and have to run around to get the enemy in focus.

Killing isn’t easy with eyes closed.

Non-rhetorical question: Is there a way to zoom out that I’m not seeing?

-OH GOD THE FINAL BOSS IS FOUR TONBERRIES AT ONCE

Hm. What’s the word for that? A flock? A gaggle? Oh, I know. A murder.

Let Zack take the murder of Tonberries down, cause they're going down!

-I get a lucky DMW roll early for “No MP cost,” which lets me pop Barrier and spam Fira on the pack. That only whittles them down. The fight is a lot of dodging out of Kitchen Knife, healing up from Karma, and running around them for back attacks.

-Victory! Got “Gysahl Greens” for my troubles. Smells like Chocobos.

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Mission: Mysteries of the World > Tonberry Quests > Master Tonberry

-This mission is listed as hard. Of course, the legendary kitchen knife wasn’t on that last pack, but now Shinra really found it. Time to kill the Master Tonberry for the crime of having something that the Shinra chef wants.

-The mission maps are usually pretty limited in scope. I don’t say that as a negative – it’s just that they usually give you a direct and linear path to follow. This time, the mission departs from that. There are two ways to go. I want to explore both of them, so if I go down one and see the boss, I’ll backtrack and explore the other before engaging.

-LOL WTF WAS THAT.

-A Magic Pot attacked me. When I’ve seen this creature in the past, like in the Cultists’ Tower in FFVI, I cast on it and it renews my magic. This one took me by surprise. It said, “Use Jump!” I didn’t notice that until a few seconds had passed, and then it just said, “Disappointed…” and ran away. Cool! A mini game.

-So many Tonberry murders in the cave.

-Got another magic pot, and… what? I did Jump! on command and it was happy. I then did Fira, and it was even happier. It then asked me to use “Gravity,” but I don’t have Gravity. It ran away. Huh.

-Lol – Tseng just did an airstrike on a bunch of Tonberries.

I DON’T KNOW GRAVITY, YOU GOOFY MAGIC TALKING POT. STOP ASKING.

-This place is just a relentless crush of Tonberries. So. Many. Tonberries. So much HP.

-Ok. Explored the whole thing and now all that’s left is the terrifying Tonberry with a gold star on his head. The Master. *deep breath*

-Aha! I see his game. When he uses “Kitchen Knife,” he teleports behind me after going invisible for a few seconds. I have to wait for him to reappear and then dodge.

The stealthy Master Tonberry. Tough, but nothing to get hung about.

-VICTORY!!! HAHAHAHAH YES

-Got two things: A “MAG Mako Stone” and a “Tonberry’s Knife.”

-Oh Lord.

-Ok. So “MAG Mako Stone” says it’s used in that still-gray Materia Fusion thing. “Tonberry’s Knife” though is the gem. It add “Murderous Thrust” to my DMW. I GET TO SUMMON A TONBERRY.

Welcome to the team, Master Tonberry.

[Later edit: it hit me that I haven’t actually seen Ifrit’s “summon” come through yet, and it probably isn’t a summon at all based on how the rest of the DMW has worked. When I get three Angeal images, Angeal himself doesn’t show up; Zack just remembers a tactic Angeal taught him and uses it.

Remembering Angeal’s mentorship.

Maybe he won’t actually summon Ifrit or Tonberry, but rather would remember something he learned from watching them and do the stabby stab himself.

On yet another hand, when he gets three Tsengs in the DMW, he actually calls in an airstrike from Tseng himself. So it probably depends. We’ll see.]

Non-rhetorical question: A couple of y’all have mentioned that DMW means “Digital Mind Wave,” which makes sense given how it acts. How did you find out it was called that? I haven’t seen that term used in game. Is it from the instruction manual or something?

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Next time: All my non-“Very Hard” missions are done, so time to head back to the main story. With Tseng to the village of Genesis, the missing/rogue (OR IS HE?) Shinra First.