Interlude
He’s back briefly with the crystal-cocooned Lucretia. She just says “awake,” and I”I’m so sorry.”
-Now he’s with
-wait
-is this the basement of Shinra Mansion with Hojo??
Yeeeah! I know that ponytail and evil laughter anywhere.
-IS THIS A FLASHBACK???
-Point of view from a Mako Tank. But it looks like Shalua Rui is there. Though in this flashback, she has both eyes working. Must be a flashback then. Though we don’t get a good look at her, and she could be a different scientist.
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Headquarters Under Siege
-The present, with Vincent, Reeve, and Rui. WRO HQ.
-He describes “Chaos” as the beast that went wild back there. Interesting – she refers to it as the “Chaos gene.”
“Oh, so that explains your relationship with Lucrecia Crescent. Were you the product of one of her experiments?”
Wow. He didn’t know she was experimenting, didn’t know she was researching Chaos, and I get the sense they were pretty close. I suddenly feel less sorry for Lucrecia. Consent in human experiments is cool, k?
-She wrote a thesis on “The Planet’s Pulse.” Sounds lifestreamy.
-Called Chaos a “sentient xenoform.” Not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds like more than just a simple genetic mutation.
-OH! That must have been Lucrecia in the Hojo flashback just then.
-Reeve pops in.
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Tsviets HQ
-This is Azul’s lab. Tsviets. He asks Orangehair (Azul’s companion) about “the keeper.” No clue what this means.
-Orangehair picks up an orange materia on the table and walks away.
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WRO Headquarters
-Briefing Reeve on the encounter with Rosso.
-Shalua gives a creepy bit of poetry about some relation between Chaos and Omega.
I wonder if the Omega they’re talking about is the superboss we see so often, that four-legged robot.
-Omega, Chaos, Dr. Lucrecia Crescent, and Vincent are all tied together. Somehow.
-Red alert! An alarm interrupts their conversation.
The Tsviets are attacking, led by Azul.
-Shalua catches a glimpse of someone through a camera. Might be Azul, can’t be sure though. Whoever it is, it freaks her out. “What? No! It couldn’t be.” Etc.
-Combat section. (There are a LOT of cutscenes in this game.) I have to fight up to the top of the headquarters from the bottom level.
-It’s a fun stage, but has some of the frustrations that I’ve seen in water levels: z-axis uncertainty. Stuff is going on above or below me and it’s hard to track where.
-The music is intense! The music plus the layout makes this feel very Die-Hardish.
-HAHAHA YES!! A Tsviets soldiers drops down from above on Shalua. I think it’s about to be a hostage situation where I have to save her, but she beats the shit out of him.
-Got to the top floor. I feel like I’m missing a ton of secrets, but I’m kind of okay with that. The shooter genre makes me kind of uncomfortable tbh, and I’m fine with just making it through this game.
-I have a timer now to save the commissioner from enemy forces. Thankfully, it counts up, not down, which makes me think it’s just kind of a bonus/high score thing rather than “DO IT IN 50 SECONDS OR YOU HAVE TO DO IT OVER.”
-Tried going limit break form, and it was SO FRUSTRATING. No range attack, so I just kept getting knocked back by enemies shooting at me and couldn’t do jack shit. Note to self: only use this when I’m already in close range against stuff that can’t knock me back.
-Reeve and Cait Sith are safe.
Very weird to see the two of them together.
-Time to take on Azul.
-BY WHICH I MEAN “TIME FOR PCSX2 TO STOP WORKING, FUCKFUCKFUCK I HAVE TO DO THAT WHOLE FUCKING STAGE OVER AGAIN FHDJKLSFHDJK:LSFHDLSHFDJKLS
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Next time: I redo this and continue moving through the headquarters and chasing Azul. (It’ll be pretty quick now that I know how to move through the stage; I just don’t feel like doing it right now.)
