Tuesday, July 14, 2015

FFVII Crisis Core – Part 33: Zack Tyson’s Punch-Out!!

Summary: Some various missions, and thoughts on the game’s cool combat system.


Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Plan for New Equipment > Urban Combat Operations (1/6)

-This mission is listed as hard, so probably won’t progress far in this campaign yet.

-Got a new Aerith cutscene. She proposes a bet.




If he can do this, they go on a date. If he can’t, he has to grant her a small wish.

He fails the first time, but gets a second chance and succeeds. Dang! Was hoping he would lose to see her wish.

-It’d be nice if you could click through the limit breaks the way you can click through the super long summons.

-Just hit level 40.

-Last boss was a nasty drill enemy, but Hell Thundaga kept her at bay.

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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Plan for New Equipment > Cyber Sabotage (2/6)

-This mission is set up as four mini-bosses to kill.

-First boss (and maybe all the others?) is a Red Scorpion mech. Easy pattern. Hit it three times from behind and run out as it lets off an EM pulse.

-The normal encounters here are even tougher. “C***y Daggers.” I can dodge their drill attacks, but there’s not much room for error.



-New Tseng DMW cutscene of Zack collaborating with the Turks after Genesis’ attack on the Shinra Building.

-And a new Sephiroth DMW cutscene of Zack asking Sephiroth about whether Firsts get special treatment.



t’s a bit weird. Sephiroth goes into Grumpasaurus Rex mode and walks away, when some random Second walks up to Zack and tells him that Firsts get all kinds of freedom and discretion.

-FUCK. Got through the whole zone, three of the Red Scorpion mini bosses, and died on the last one due to carelessness. I really don’t want to do this again. Ugh.

-I do this again.

-The encounters here feel (both in this zone and in Crisis Core more generally) feel a lot like “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” Highly dependent on pattern recognition and reaction timing. It’s one of the things that makes combat pretty satisfying. Also one of the things that makes me enjoy raiding in WoW.


Hit, hit, hit, RUN OUT!! …wait… Hit, hit, hit…

Not even sure why. Scratches a particular itch is all.

-Success!

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Mission: Shinra Electric Power Company > Plan for New Equipment > Stolen Shinra Weapons (3/6)

-The next mission is about recovering items that AVALANCHE stole. I don’t expect to see anything AVALANCHE-y, though it’d be a cool surprise if Biggs or Jessie were to pop in.

-Generic cave setting.



-One of the dogs kills me almost immediately whipping its tentacle (yes, it’s a dog with a tentacle on its head). Will try once more.

-Hm. I killed the final boss, a random C***y Dagger, but there was a lot of cave behind it that I didn’t get to explore… heading back in to check out the area I missed.

-Bah. All I was missing were a couple of mini stat boost materia.

-The next mission in the campaign is “Very Hard,” so I’ll come back later.

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Mission: Monster Research Report > Monster Report > Slums of Midgar (1/6)

-Some low level monsters in Midgar to kill.

-Interesting. That’s it for the campaign for now. Maybe I’ll unlock more by talking to other people.

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Mission: Genesis’s Forces > Genesis’s Forces on the March > Midgar Defense Operations (6/6)

-The last mission in the campaign, one I think I left off a while back.

-Long map, but I one- or two-shot most of the monsters.

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Mission: To End the War with Wutai > The Remnants Strike Again > A New Threat (1/6)

-This mission follows up on the one where I killed the Five Saints. Some new group of Wutai remnants is taking their place I guess.

-The camera in this game is so bad. Just really hard to see where I want to see at any given time.

-Died to three dogs (what’s with Crisis Core killing off so many dogs?) casting Firaga at me. Going to equip an anti-Fire accessory and try again.

-The fire becomes easy to beat, but their regular attacks one-shot me. I’ll do this mission later.

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Next time: A Hojo mission and probably back to the story.