Bathhouse Final Room
-Angeal’s here. Just chilling and feeling guilty that Zack dealt with Genesis rather than him.
-LOL NOPE. I called that one a bit early. Angeal SENT Zack to kill Genesis to prepare him for his next fight – AGAINST ANGEAL. WTF IS GOING ON.
Angeal’s going full heel?
-And now Hollander pops out of nowhere to cheer Angeal on, to get him to “enact vengeance to avenge our family’s suffering.”
ANGEAL: “No! My father is dead!”
I REITERATE: WTF IS GOING ON
-Hollander starts to elaborate. Sort of. Angeal’s mom killed herself apparently, out of shame. Hollander feels she should’ve been proud for being “the namesake of our experiment.”
-Project G wasn’t for “Genesis.” It was “Project Gillian.” Angeal’s full name? - nope. The mother’s name.
-AH! Now I get it slightly more. Gillian had Jenova cells implanted somehow. Genesis had them within the fetal stage implanted and was a failure, but Angeal is purely born from Jenova-infused Gillian.
ANGEAL: “Zack... I am perfect. My cells can absorb genetic traits and pass them onto others.”
-And he’s also a “two-way conduit.” Hollander says Jenova’s full power has passed onto Angeal. That’s probably bad.
-Angeal says he “created his own suffering.” But how? This was all from before he was born. He still seems like a pretty noble dude.
-Lovely. He’s going to show us what he means.
-A swarm of Angeal-clone-monsters appear. He’s going to sic them on Zack I guess.
-WAIT NO HOLY SHIT I WAS WRONG
-THE CLONE MONSTERS SPRINT PAST ZACK, TOWARDS ANGEAL, AND START TO GLOM ONTO HIM OR SOMETHING?
-This is pretty fucked up right here.
-His new form is “Angeal Penance.” I still don’t understand WHY he’s doing this. Is it just the nature of those who have Jenova cells to be like this? Or does he hate the fact that he’s this Jenova clone monster mash thing so much that he’s embracing it and hoping to be beaten/punished?
-As he dies, he seems to confirm my theory. Thanking Zack.
-This is really shocking to me. The first Big Bad goes down, Genesis. And the person I thought would usurp him, Angeal, goes down shortly after. Who’s left? Will Zack join forces with Yuffie? (PLEASE – but probably not.) Will Hollander become the Big Bad?
-Angeal sets Zack to weeping as, with his dying words, he passes on the Buster Sword.
Dusty in here, no?
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Church
-We flash forward to church, Aerith talking about the flowers liking the sky or something.
-Zack’s on the floor weeping openly as Aerith hugs him.
I love that Zack’s totally cool with just flat-out crying when he’s sad, and the game doesn’t try to stop him or shame him.
(The sad guitar music is a bit over the top to be honest.)
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Shinra Building
-Zack looks despondent. We see the scar on his face from the fight with Angeal.
-Twirls his Buster Sword. Walks on.
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Shinra Building
-We see Zack in command, inspecting a line-up of SOLDIER and infantry. Cloud’s in the line-up!
Cloud’s point of view.
-Teaching the rookies! Passing on Angeal’s wisdom to them. This is awesome.
-Title screen. Cloud.
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Next time: The next act! WHICH I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT IT COULD POSSIBLY BE ABOUT??? This is kind of exciting.
