Portal of Severance
-The Goddess Wing Door past Behemoth King pops me out here, in the Portal of Severance near the elevator.
-…shit. Shit shit shit. There’s still one Goddess materia left, and I’ve explored everything I can. That means it’s time to redo this whole place in search of what I missed. DAMMIT. Really not happy about this.
-Just so disheartening. I thought I went explored every inch of this place to avoid this very scenario. The dungeon was fun once. Going back over it and repeating it? Not as much.
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Depths of Judgment
-…HJDFKLSHFJKLAHFJKLAHFJKLAHFJKLAHJKLFHAJKLFHAJLFHAK
-And as I sit here in the Depths of Judgment, typing up this whine, I turn around and look what I see.
-Treasure chest, if you are just a potion or something, I’m punching a wall. Just saying!
-HAHA YES!!!! “Ground Materia.” I swear, it’s like a magic incantation. If I’m in an MMO and can’t find a particular target, all I have to do is type the words “Hey, where is monster_xx?” in general chat and all of a sudden it’ll appear before me.
-I’m just overwhelmed with relief right now that I don’t have to play “Where’s Waldo?” with the last materia. So relieved.
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Portal of Severance
-I pop in the last materia.
The gate opens…
-One of those hair-mutated, winged, clawed Genesis monsters. G Regicide. Jesus, what a name.
-Pretty easy fight actually. I just use Quake a bunch and dodge his “Tri-Thundaga” and “Tri-Firaga” attacks.
-I’m relieved to see that this isn’t, in fact, the final boss. Just a gateway guardian.
-GAME, I LOVE YOU SOMETIMES. The next area is called “The Light of Doom.” This place is so… Genesis! All overblown and dramatic and I kind of really like it in spite of myself.
-Something I’ve complained about in the past gets my praise here. This will probably be the final boss area, and the game tells me!
The warning is honestly appreciated.
-It’s a good question. I don’t know. Let me check if there are more missions I care to try.
-There are.
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Some Mission Thoughts
-I asked last week about what value people found in missions, and what mentality they took going into them. Really helpful discussion resulted. One of the replies was Noybusiness asking if I cared about 100% completion, which was a great question.
I think of myself as an explorer in these games, seeing a lot of content, but I don’t think I am really a completionist. I’m okay just trying out that content. Maybe a “dabbler” is the right word.
Like, I don’t feel the need to go back to an old save point and finish the spy-catching quests. I wanted to do them at the time (and you better BELIEVE I’m going to look up where that next spy was after I finish Crisis Core), but I don’t feel super frustrated or like I lost the game because I didn’t get there.
I’m only 50% done with missions. I’m okay with that. But I’ll do some more, maybe see how far I can go. If I start to get bored, I’ll move on to the Light of Doom.
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Mission: Zack, the Materia Hunter > Anonymous Hints > Treasure Info 5 (5/6)
-This is where Yuffie is hinting us about different treasures and swooping in to take them at the last minute.
-Got to the end, opened up the chest and
-what the sweet fuck is this. A light burst, and now Zack is in a planetarium-type thing faced off with golden Bahamut?
HAHAHA AND ZACK JUST HIGHTAILS IT. That was weird!
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Mission: Zack, the Materia Hunter > Anonymous Hints > Treasure Info 6 (6/6)
-Got to the end, and opened up the treasure chest to another Bahamut Fury. Zack’s fighting.
-He’s really tricky to fight. Quake doesn’t work on him, and that’s my only magic materia equipped. He hangs off the edge, so I can’t reach behind him for crits. I just have to attack from the front. [Later edit: I was eventually able to find a section on the right side of the ledge that gave me autocrits.]
-Got him! Fun fight. Very much like an MMO raid boss.
Dodging nuclear orbs.
Each ability he used had a specific counter, a way to dodge or avoid it.
-HI YUFFIE. She pops in, talking about the kind of Wutai she wants to make and wants to avoid, and using Shinra cash to make it that way. Zack is sympathetic and admiring of her.
-Zack finally corners her about how she got his mail address, and how she knew about all this secret Shinra info.
YUFFIE: “A blond guy.”
HHJAFKLHFAL CLOOUUUUD??
Wait… no. That doesn’t make sense. When she met Cloud in FFVII, it was for the first time.
“Right after the war was over, a blond guy came to visit my dad. He brought all these mail addresses and treasure scuttlebutt with him. So then the blond guy leaves, but my dad doesn’t do anything with all this information.
So it WAS Cloud! You’re a good dude.
“So I thought I’d just spam everyone in SOLDIER. And you’re the only one who came! Sucker!”
Hahahahahaha
Yuffie, you’re wonderful. I know you know it, but it bears repeating!
-She texts Zack the blond guy’s name in an effort to get him to look at it and get distracted so she can slip away with the treasure. As has happened before. He doesn’t fall for it.
-Wow. Talk about a treasure. Got “Bahamut Fury Materia,” and another for my DMW. Doesn’t even matter that I’ll probably never see it. (Tbh, I’d rather get to use Cait Sith at least once more than Bahamut Fury.)
-Well, that was awesome.
A hint at the next campaign?
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Next time: missions!
