Thursday, June 18, 2015

FFVII Crisis Core – Part 16: Flare-Up

Summary: Months later, the war with Wutai is over. No sign of Angeal or Genesis. Zack does some missions, clearing out Genesis’s troops and tracking down the Bahamut and Odin materia.


Shinra Building

-Zack seems to be talking to Angeal as if he’s writing him a letter or just talking to him in his head.

-Huge jump in time! The war is over. No sign of Angeal since that day.

-Sephiroth calls Zack on the phone, telling him to head to Lazard’s room.

-Kunsel emails Zack telling him about Hojo, who’s now in the Shinra Building. He titles the email “Angel in White?”




Um… no.

[-Oh, hey! I just started the game up for my next session and saw that the title screen is Zack standing amidst feathers. Some black, but some look to be white. Hm.]

-Time to clear some new missions.

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Mission: Genesis’s Forces > Genesis’s Forces on the March > Foes on the Waterfront

-Some Genesis troops near the coast.

-Just some of those generic assassins and their attack puppies.

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Mission: Genesis’s Forces > Genesis’s Forces on the March > Massive Machines

-Soldiers in a cave. This campaign I guess is about wiping out his forces, but I’m curious about what the campaign’s later stages will be like.



-More mechs in this cave, but nothing new. That’s all I have so far from this campaign.

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Mission: Hojo’s Laboratory > Sample Monsters Lv. 1 > Experiment No. 102

-Hojo has a sample of Bahamut for me to fight. This is… weird. Seeing Bahamut as one of the intro-level summons, I mean. In FFI he was the gateway to power via a class change, and in everything since he’s basically been a god. Now he’s Monster #2.

-He’s tougher this time than when Genesis first summoned him. When I try to run behind him for a critical hit, he slaps me away, and sometimes uses Jump.

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Mission: Zack, the Materia Hunter > Starting Out > Clash with Genesis Troops

-Genesis’s troops are stealing Shinra’s stuff, so Zack has to get it back.

-Just noticed that my Libra materia is different from past games. It’s no longer a spell I cast that tells me the monster’s hp and weaknesses. Instead, it just grants me some passive detection of enemy status.

-Desert mission. Dogs and soldiers.

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Mission: Zack, the Materia Hunter > Starting Out > Rematch with Bahamut

-I think I see the pattern here. Someone attacks Zack with a summon (first fight). Hojo replicates that summon in a virtual setting (second fight). And then Shinra reverse engineers the materia’s true location (third fight).

-Oh god, Bahamut’s casting something new called “Laser Orbs.”



It’s a series of light orbs that spam me, but I got saved by the modulation. (Whenever I get a “modulating phase” – what’s that called, btw, limit verge? – any attacks headed my way get blocked. It’s a nice get-out-of-jail-free card.)

-AAARGH THIS VERSION HAS MEGA FLARE


Bahamut soared into outer space, charged up…


…and released!

-Awesome cinematic. Hurts like hell, and also seems to have drained all my mana and AP.

-Turns out I can outrun the Laser Orbs.

-Phew! Survived it. That was a nasty fight, as befitting Bahamut.

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Mission: Zack, the Materia Hunter > Starting Out > Escape from Hojo’s Lab

-A monster escaped from Hojo’s lab which I have to kill. If this is one of Nanaki’s family, I’m going to freak out.

-Open field for this mission. Some floating eyes and chickens. The boss is some kind of souped-up demon ostrich thing.

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Mission: Zack, the Materia Hunter > Starting Out > Mystery Materia

-Some kind of mysterious materia was found in a cave. Final mission of this sub-campaign.

-Some bugs and the occasional mandragora in the cave.

-uuuuuhhhh



-wtf is that

-“Hungry.” It chased me a bit, I dodged it, then whacked it from behind with my sword until dead.

-AND GOT AN ODIN MATERIA? That seems… disproportionate to the goofy little critter I just defeated.

-That’s the end of the sub-campaign for now. The next sub-campaign, “To Hell and Back,” opened up, but the first mission is “Very Hard” so I’ll hold off for now.

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Next time: back to the main story by talking to Sephiroth.

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