FFVII Dirge of Cerberus – Part 2: Shoot ‘Er!

Summary: Finished the tutorial, experiencing much of the game’s firearms systems. All pretty well explained except for limit breaks, about which I learned jack.


Tutorial – Session 2

-So I HAVE to lock the gun on a target to hit it. Even if the target is in my line of sight directly, if the thingy is green it won’t hit.

Bad.

Good.

-Killchains are not just nifty, but also give me more power. Like “He’s heating up!” and “HE’S ON FIRE!” in when you score in the SNES version of NBA Jam. (What? I already told you I don’t have any other shootery points of reference. Don’t look at me like that!)

-A few times there, the screen split in half. The left half was normal, but the right half was warped and weird. Thought it was a graphical bug until I remembered the split title screen.

Split screen for unknown reasons.

Must be a mechanic I don’t know yet.

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Tutorial – Session 3

-Rifle time. This looks like it’s going to be a much more expanded version of the snipe-the-robots mini game in Crisis Core. (Which I sucked at horribly.)

The sniper rifle.

-It’s tough. I have to bob and weave, crouching behind a shelter, getting a lock, popping up, shooting, and popping back down before I take too much damage.

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Tutorial – Session 4

-Machine gun. I’m pretty comfortable now calling this a shooter game.

-Died. Luckily my Phoenix Down saved me.

-This game has materia! Nice.

Died in the tutorial. Urk.

-THERE ARE SO MANY BUTTONS TO LEARN.

-Three types of magic: fire, blizzard, and thunder. They actually function similarly to Crisis Core, where blizzard takes a while to connect, thunder is a straight line, and fire explodes.

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Tutorial – Session 5

-Materia.

-Uhh… where are the controls for this? I’m just seeing guns.

-AHA! R-buttons control guns, L-buttons control magic. But the materia can be TIED to guns – so if I put fire materia on my pistol, then when I have my pistol out the L-button casts fire.

-Limit breaks. If I use L1 + R1 it makes the limit break go away. Why would I ever want that? In FFVII and Crisis Core those were always the most powerful attacks.

-Dang. It said I’d learn to use my limit breaks here, but I still have no idea how.

-I checked a TTT terminal, the reference terminals in the tutorial, and it was exceptionally unhelpful. “Use a limit breaker to trigger your limit break.” WTF DOES THAT MEAN

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Tutorial – Session 7

-Gun turret.

-It’s fun, and I get to mow down some random enemies. Unlimited ammo, but high visibility.

-And that’s it! That’s the tutorial. Next time, onto the real game where I will likely die over and over. Wheee!

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Next time: the main game.