LogFAQs > #936613649

I wasn't exactly sure what Bone Village was, but given that I've learned the names of most places, I wasn't too surprised to find that it was the area to the north that you need Tiny Bronco to reach. They say that Aeris has gone through the forest, but I still need a Lunar Harp. Fortunately, it seems we can... mine it? It takes me a few tries to understand exactly what's happening (I thought that the five guys were going to dig, but apparently they're just there to triangulate your position, and you don't need all five). Once I get the hang of it, it's really fun to do, so I do it an extra time for good measure and wind up getting I think some nice armor.

The route that follows is a little hard to parse visually. This is the forest that Cloud saw in his dream with Aeris. But it's not too long, and soon we're out on the other side and headed into the City of the Ancients. The visual design here is fantastic. In my eyes, this aesthetic is vastly superior to the temples of FFX, which are clearly similarly inspired. There's not too much going on here, whereas it feels overly ornate there. This segment of the game doesn't have random encounters, allowing me to bask in its glory. We encounter some runes on the wall, but they don't speak to Cloud, other than to give him even more of a headache.

At some point, there's a napping point. We take it, and then night falls, and Cloud is even more determined to go seek Aeris. My exploration stops there largely; I'm no longer able to walk through one of the routes of the tree, so down the hole I go. The descent here is another visual feast, and at the bottom is a set of platforms leading to... Aeris, sitting and apparently meditating alone. There was a point earlier in the story where Barret essentially ceded leadership of the party to Cloud, though it wasn't exactly clear to me why... but Cloud, as both leader and Aeris's closest confidant, is the only one to cross the platforms. And the moment he gets there, he has another psychic break, this time resulting in his drawing his sword.

This next part I didn't know about: Cloud walks up and is about to kill Aeris. It's really cool to experience it - like in one of the closing segments of MGS3, the game forces you to perform the actions yourself to lift the sword above Aeris's head; Cloud actively resists if you hit anything other than A to advance his motions. He's shouted out of his trance by Barret and Tifa. Aeris continues sitting and smiling placidly. And that's when Sephiroth descends and puts his sword through her back.

This is the most famous spoiler of all time, so I, er, was not exactly shocked when it happened. That said, the circumstances behind it are really interesting to me. I expected it to happen at the end of the winding Temple of the Ancients, perhaps following a grueling boss fight, perhaps right when we were about to get an upper hand on Sephiroth, perhaps as part of a clear sacrifice, perhaps with a rousing speech and tragic/ironic parting words from Aeris. Instead, we've been looking at her face for a few minutes, and it feels almost random. But the way Cloud reacts to it is brilliant. It's understated - a sort of "what is this unpleasant sensation I'm feeling," "why would you do this," and most crushingly, a short lament of all the things Aeris will never again do, one of which is speak. Perhaps the craziest part of her death is that she doesn't get to have any words at all in her death scene.

This version of Sephiroth isn't at all what I expected from the game; he's entirely unhinged already, and not in a particularly charismatic or funny way. He just cackles maniacally and says more nonsense about merging with the lifestream before taking off again (and honestly, the fact he can fly looks kinda goofy; his walk is full of menace and is super-badass).

Music is so capable of twisting the heart. From the moment we met Aeris, I was touched by her theme song and the way life sprouted around her - the best way I could characterize it is plaintive. It's peaceful, but it almost pleads for that peace. And it's viciously denied her. That theme doesn't play during the part of the scene where Aeris is alive, but rather in the wake of her death, as Sephiroth flies off. Chills run down my spine as we get a boss fight... with no interruption to Aeris's theme. (Sephiroth really gonna just keep droppin pieces of mommy, I guess). It's utterly heart-wrenching.

Jenova-LIFE's first attacks are pretty weak, and by the time I get around to using Sense on it, it's already down to under half its 10K health. Great. This also informs me that it's weak to Earth. Hey, Cloud has Quake3... I cast it, and I guess I probably should've paid more attention to the "Reflect" spell it cast... it hits Cloud himself for 2400ish damage, leaving him at around 300, and Jenova makes short work of me with a few attacks that hit for 1200 apiece. (It's the same Aqua Lung attack that was hitting a single dude for 300 before; whyyyyy!) I die and have to experience Aeris's death again, though this time I don't attack into Reflect and dispatch Jenova-LIFE cleanly. Barret with heal powerz OP.

Cloud lifts Aeris's body and deposits her into the water of her city, and that's the end of Part 1 of the game.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness