Sector 1 Platform
-Shinra’s new train is the MK93 II.
-The trains are frequently delayed nowadays according to a Shinra employee waiting on the tracks. No train at the moment, so I assume I can’t get to Sector 5 yet.
I’ll come back later.
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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Peacekeeping Troops > Challenge from Security
-This is that friendly training mission with Shinra security.
-Lots of random encounters here. Zack cuts through them like a hot knife through butter though.
Excuses, excuses.
-Reward is “Shinra Alpha,” an accessory with a major vitality boost.
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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Peacekeeping Troops > Second Challenge
-Lol. The security dudes have robots this time.
-This one’s shorter, and the robots don’t seem to do much.
-At the end, the security captain’s all, “Yeah, we were going EASY on you! We’ll get you next time, Gadget!” etc.
-Got a metric ton of materia at this point, but still can only use a few at a time.
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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Peacekeeping Troops > Third Challenge
-One criticism I have of this game so far is that it seems to suffer from Dragon Age 2 syndrome. It keeps reusing these same few maps for missions. It’s okay at the moment, but I’ve only done 2% of the missions. After 20% or 60% or 90%, I imagine I may be tired of the “desert” or “building” maps – though I expect they’ll add more variety as time goes on.
-I keep trying to push or click on these boxes, but it seems like the only thing I can interact with are the silver treasure chests.
-Zack wins again, and (surprise!) the security leader says SOLDIER only wins because they get scienced-up by Shinra, getting all sorts of mako-enhancements.
Actually… pretty good excuse. Fair point.
-The reward for this mission is “Four Slots,” an accessory. Unlike FFVII’s Four Slots, it doesn’t seem to impact my materia slots.
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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Peacekeeping Troops > Getting Serious
-Slum zone.
-These security types like to toss grenades around for me to dodge. I tried going for some friendly fire action, making them hit each other with those grenades, but it seems to not work.
-So many random encounters here.
-After winning, this time the security dude says Heidegger’s now giving them a budget to test new weapons. I imagine that’ll make the upcoming training interesting.
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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Peacekeeping Troops > Armed Challenge
-This missions feels a little bit weird. Zack’s supposed to win to prove that SOLDIER never complains about budget as an excuse… but if we win, how does that prove it? I guess now that security has some weapons to try, but even so, SOLDIER seems to have way more institutional support.
-Whoa! Security now is using Mech Warrior types that look like the original Final Fantasy’s superboss, “Warmech.”
-Man, I really, really hate how being silenced lasts until I cure it rather until end of combat. Grrrr. Bad job, game.
-The boss here was a pair of the mech warrior types. Waited until they channeled their silence gas, ran around, and slammed them with a series of back attacks.
Like the guy who keeps saying, “Best two out of three? Four out of seven?” every time he loses.
-Security is coming around. One last test.
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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Peacekeeping Troops > Last Challenge
-Yikes! I died in the first fight to a “Flying Machine.” Not sure what killed me.
[Later edit: the Flying Machines use big blasts that I eventually learned to dodge.]
-You know, I have to give the enduring status effect credit: it’s a great encouragement for me to learn how to dodge that silencing attack and not just ignore it.
-Last boss is tough. Giant spider tank looking thing. Was tense enough that I forgot to check its name in combat.
”Arachno” casting EMP.
Only when reviewing my screenshots did I notice my “spider tank” description was… accurate.
It used a few main attacks. A frontal spider web that stops me (temporarily; unlike prior games, it’s not a death sentence). An EMP field that damages me if I stay close. And some normal gun attacks. Lots of HP, but victory again! Sub-campaign complete.
-The reward is really interesting. It’s a Fat Chocobo Feather that, when fused with other materia, gives +10% HP. I want to fuse this with my Cure materia, the one I know I’ll probably always keep up, but it turns out that my Fuse Materia option on the main menu is still grayed out. Huh.
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Next time: A new mission campaign: “Hojo’s Laboratory.” This should be fun.
