Mission: Seeking Precious Items > Midgar City Development Department > Slum Development 2 (2/6)
-Let’s develop the city! Or… at least kill some monsters and presumably that’ll help the city get developed off screen.
-Got a couple of Hero Drinks. I seem to remember those from FFV as making the Chemist job super powerful.
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Mission: Seeking Precious Items > Midgar City Development Department > Mako Excavation Site (3/6)
-One of these sessions, I’ll have to stop and take some time to play around with the materia fusion. I haven’t felt motivated to do so for two reasons:
#1: Combat has been ridiculously easy, ridiculously hard, or somewhere in the middle where basic attacks are usually fine.
#2: It’s overwhelming. I have a billion piece of materia. (I counted, and it’s precisely a billion.) That, plus the items? Yeesh. But I’ll give it a go eventually.
-This cave has those annoying mosquito packs, but some Hell Thundaga puts them in their place. Regular Thundaga would probably be better, but Hell Thundaga sounds way cooler.
-Got access to the Sector 5 materia shop after winning, but nothing I don’t already have.
This is pretty great actually. Even though the missions themselves are the same old “run through a cave/island/grotto/plains, kill some enemies, kill a boss, hooray” routine, the shop unlocks helps tie the missions to a purpose.
Btw, turns out I DIDN’T have the Osmose materia like I thought. Picked up a couple from the Sector 8 shop.
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Mission: Seeking Precious Items > Midgar City Development Department > Ingredient for Soma (4/6)
-On an island to recover some soma components to help the city.
-Osmose is really great.
I’ve always been reluctant to use this spell in the series because of my experiences with it growing up. It existed in FFIV, my childhood FF game. I think it went by a different name that I can’t remember at the moment, but it was definitely there.
IT. WAS. AWFUL.
It pretty much never worked on enemies often draining zero MP, and enemies using it against my party were the WORST because of how expensive and inefficient ethers were. But in FFVI it kicked ass. It basically carried me through the Cultists’ Tower, allowing Celes to spam dualcast Ultima.
And it’s nice here. Game-changing, even. It lets me use spells much more liberally. I have a ton of ethers, and they’re way cheaper in Crisis Core than they were in FFIV, but I still feel an irrational need to hoard them. Just in case.
-WHAT THE SWEET FUCK LOOK AT THIS REWARD!
It’s so beautiful it brings a tear to my eye. Love me some elixirs.
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Mission: Seeking Precious Items > Midgar City Development Department > Making Phoenix Down (5/6)
-Whoa! A wild Death Claw appears. Haven’t seen them out and about in a while.
-Interesting – the reward is “Doc’s Code.” It’s an accessory that lets me automatically use a potion when I get low on health. I like it! I don’t need it right now, but that’s a cool mechanic to put into the game.
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Mission: Seeking Precious Items > Midgar City Development Department > Underground City (6/6)
-Shinra’s about to build an underground city safe from Genesis’s attacks. Sounds reasonable. And actually not a terrible idea. There’s only like a 43% chance that this is a cover for something sinister.
-Victory opened up the Sector 6 Accessory Shop, another pretty bad one.
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Mission: Seeking Precious Items > Zack, the Treasure Hunter > Items in the Wasteland (6/6)
-One campaign’s down. Before closing out the session, I want to try finishing off a Hard mission that was left undone from a while back.
-Died quickly to heavy attacks, but I’m not normal Zack anymore. I’m OSMOSE!ZACK. I can afford to get distance, zap away, and drain my mana back.
-Hell YES! This is the mission with the Titanis ostriches from hell. They hurt if they hit me, but I can fuck them up from afar.
-Hm… yeah, this was still a mistake. Died a couple of times because the ostriches still one-shot me.
-!!?!?!?!? New Tseng DMW cutscene. He and Zack are in a snowy area, and see two crossed swords lying in the snow. “Sebastian and [name I can’t remember as I type this].” I guess the swords belonged to two fallen SOLDIERs.
[Later edit: I had taken a screenshot, and the other name was Essai.]
-AND ANOTHER NEW DMW CUTSCENE! I love these. This one is for Cissnei, just her and Zack meeting up at Costa del Sol.
I don’t know why I love these so much – just really cool and wonderful to see the impact different characters had on Zack and how these memories influence him in battle.
-The boss is a really nasty pack, Boundfat and Titanis. Two of each. Luckily enough, Genesis appears.
Titanis to the left of me, Boundfat to the right. Here I am…
Didn’t think I’d ever say the phrases “Luckily enough“ and “Genesis appears” in the same breath. The resultant Apocalypse drops the boss pack on the spot.
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Next time: a new “Mysteries of the World” campaign opened! Huzzah! Something about Costa del Sol.
