FFVII Dirge of Cerberus – Part 6: Inside Edge

 Summary: Vincent infiltrates Edge, which is overrun with enemy troops. (I’m assuming most enemies are Deepground, since I don’t know enough about the Tsviets.) Encounter with Rosso.
 

 
Stage: Silent Edge

Town of Edge – Rosso

-Rosso is GLEEFULLY recounting that radio transmission guy’s announcement about shot, executed, slashed, etc.

-She confirms that the guy in the transmission is Weiss.

-I just noticed that she has the same claws that Vincent has. I wonder if they were shaped by similar techniques/experiments.

-Oh btw, as the camera pans out we see that she’s surrounded by corpses of her victims. Nbd.

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Town of Edge – Vincent

-A scientist sneaks up on Vincent elsewhere in town and pulls a gun on him. Brief standoff until he notices she’s WRO.

Is it just me, or is the clothing choice the game designers made for Shalua a bit… problematic? Honest question.

-She’s Shalua Rui. One eye is closed. Blind in that eye?

-500 people have disappeared from Edge. If this were Crisis Core, I’d assume all these disappearances were people being turned into clones. I’ll still guess they’re being captured for some kind of horrific Deepground experiments.

-As with much of the game, the music here is pretty great. Fits the setting well.

-Town is a bit labyrinthine.

-Came across one of the survivors of Rosso’s massacre. …lol, and two seconds later he dies. I called that “survivor” business a bit early.

-HUGE improvement from Crisis Core (and, to be fair, from every other FF game before it): the lack of random encounters. I only see a set number of enemies. I don’t know for sure if they eventually respawn, but I don’t think they do. This gives me a lot of incentive to explore the city without feeling like I’m slogging.

-Genesis, you continue to haunt me from beyond the grave.

LOVELESS. LOVELESS everywhere.

-Found a new gun frame. “Hydra.” Intended for snipery stuff it looks like.

-As I walk into the town square, I get the point of view of a sniper lining up to take a shot at me from a rooftop. This is the next task: eliminate the snipers on the rooftops.

-Going to change up my weapons. The short weapon is a bit useless for me since I tend to melee when enemies are really in my face, so I’ll go with a short-barrel griffon (machine gun), normal barrel Cerberus, and a long barrel Hydra.

-Really enjoying the quiet of this part of the game. Trying to lure snipers out of hiding, spot them, zoom in on them from cover, pop out of cover…

…and BAM!

-Found a kid running around the area. Seems like I gotta save him.

-Got the last soldiers hunting him. As thanks, he tells me how to get to the warehouse where the citizens were taken.

-Oh no. An escort mission. I have to follow the kid and protect him. I’m AWFUL at these in MMOs.

-Success! The kid took me through the city while I fended off attacks until I found the guy who has the keycard that’ll let me into the warehouse.

-This is kind of a cute relationship here. Like Dick Tracy and the orphan. Though this orphan wants vengeance for his abducted family from Vincent more than anything else.

-Found what appears to be a final boss. A “Heavily Armored Soldier” and an army of Deepground snipers.

-SUCCESS!

This was my favorite fight yet because I knew what I was doing and had a decent strategy. I took cover first, then took out the snipers one by one with my rifle. Started working on the Heavily Armored Soldier next, sniping him and dodging back into cover when he fired rockets at me.

Finally, when he charged me, I transformed with my Limit Breaker into some kind of werewolf thing and finished him off. Woohoo!

….and of course pcsx2 chose this moment to stop working. FUCK.

-At least it autosaved before the encounter! Pretty easy to repeat.

-WHAT??? Rosso cinematic says she never saw the sky until today. Deepground really must mean underground. Literally. Also makes me assume she wasn’t just a normal human who was turned into a supersoldier, but grown in a lab.

-She calls Vincent “keeper of the protomateria, key to controlling omega.” Wtf?? At least Vincent is as confused by this pronouncement as I am.

-SHE’S KICKING HIS ASS LOL. At least until he goes demon mode on her, transforming and emitting some purple magic light thing that blows her away. (0% chance she’s dead imo, but she’s gone for the moment.)

Demon form activate!

-This exhausts him and knocks him out. The last thing he sees is Shalua Rui walking towards him.

-The chapter rankings are actually pretty useful for showing me where to improve. For instance, I’m not using magic as much as I could’ve. I also have way more machine gun bullets than handgun bullets – should use that more.

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Next time: he… wakes up?