LogFAQs > #936774860

Played for a few uninterrupted hours last night.

Almost immediately out of the save point inside Mt. Gaea, I run into one of those Nibelheim hooded figures... who yells out, dies, and immediately drops us with a boss fight against a two-headed dragon. This guy's pretty tough; Red XIII is using Cure on probably a solid majority of his turns, and Vincent's transformation winds up healing one of the heads sometimes (since I guess one is fire and the other is ice; the ice guy heals Cloud a bunch due to Aurora Armlet). When he dies, he does an annoying self-destruct which is as powerful as any attack he did when alive. Great. Later, a random encounter bomb actually kills Cloud; he showed up in a pair, but the second was more easily dispatched.

The ensuing scene is again really fun to watch from a cinematic perspective - having reached the summit, we peer over it and into a massive crater, the scar on the earth that the previous meteor left. (I'm not sure if the game has confirmed this yet, but it now seems clear that Jenova came from that meteor, and it's what corrupted the Cetra.) It takes us a while to descend it, and in the meantime we see that Rufus, Hojo, and co. have come in their massive air carrier as well. They're drooling over the giant hunk of materia... and realizing that inside it is a massive, mystical beast known as Weapon. In our party, we see more of the insane hooded people who seek this "reunion" as we twist into the Whirlwind Maze.

At the end of it, we anticipate seeing Sephiroth, so Tifa hops in because it's PERSONAL. I pair her with Yuffie, the lowest-leveled character on the roster. I keep thinkign Cloud will be wrong, but we do indeed see Sephiroth again, who laughs and says something about no longer needing this body. The voices in Cloud's head resound, and Cloud hints that he's beginning to understand what's going on. Sephiroth will be there, despite teleporting and having us question things... Without further ado, Sephiroth bounces and leaves us with another Jenova fight: Jenova-DEATH. We give it the smackdown (it's satisfying to have something with a lot of HP to sink a Meteorain into...) and Cloud explains that everywhere Sephiroth goes, he's leaving Jenova cells... and in fact that Sephiroth's "bodies" have all been Jenova cells. We pick up the Black Materia. (Why would Sephiroth drop this...?)

We're then given a choice to whom to hand the Black Materia. Red XIII notably appears. Since we know he's scared of turning insane, I hand it to him, because that seems most entertaining.

We give chase to Sephiroth, and indeed we find yet another iteration of him. This time we get some more color: some major hallucinations, as we revisit Nibelheim five years ago... but with a black-haired SOLDIER instead of Cloud. (His name hasn't been stated, but thanks to B8 cultural osmosis, I know it to be Zack, who I'll always have a soft spot for, for turning the board into ZackFAQs for 24 glorious hours.) Tifa clearly knows something's up, but is withholding - indeed, Zack is the one in that photo with Tifa and Sephiroth, not Cloud. (Also, Zack appears taller than Cloud; he towers over Tifa and is not as noticeably short compared to Sephiroth.) Tifa keeps pleading Cloud not to think about it. (LOL.)

Poor Nanaki then gets duped by some version of Sephiroth into bringing the Black Materia over to Cloud. It's hilarious how bad of an idea this is; they explicitly gave him the BM so Cloud wouldn't have to hold it. WELP.

The illusions stop, and our party and Red XIII are all surrounded by Shinra's party (including Heidegger and Scarlet, who dislikes Tifa). There's some sniping at one another, but the bottom line is that we learn why Sephiroth puppets Cloud: Cloud is a Sephiroth clone, but a failed experiment by Hojo. Sephiroth did die five years ago (presumably he and Zack killed each other in that duel?) and therefore Cloud was only created then, implanted with false memories. Tifa also fills in some gaps; apparently Cloud is real, and the memories with Tifa are real... but Zack is definitely the Nibelheim one. This seems to confirm that Sephiroth also wasn't "born" five years ago, but rather it's when his clones were "born."

Now it's clear that Sephiroth's clones are made with Jenova cells. But even five years ago, Sephiroth was convinced that Jenova was his mom. So the original dude must have had Jenova cells in him, too... right...? We also see that "reunion," in fact, means Sephiroth's cells/clones reuniting and reforming his body. In other words, aside from the past, none of the screen Sephiroths have been the O.G... the O.G. himself opens his eyes in the frozen materia. Maybe that version will be cooler! Again, the physical presence is super-badass, but to be fair, he has yet to do anything!

Unsurprisingly, Cloud flips and gives Sephiroth the BM. (There's an amusing Spider-Man perspective as he chills from the ceiling, hanging upside-down.) Then things go straight to hell as Weapon bursts out of its materia cage, and people flee with Shinra...

We wake up as Tifa/Barret. She's been KO'd for a week, and during that time, Weapon has been terrorizing the world. We're in Shinra's captivity, and the moment Tifa wakes up, we're being sent for exeuction. The cynicism here toward leadership and the masses is amusing and now depressingly relevant. Cait Sith, having infiltrated the grunts, helps Barret out, but we're unable to rescue Tifa from poison gas. Yuffie joins Barret/Cait Sith on a sprint out onto the helipad at the top of the complex. (I really liked that we finally got to revisit this area; when Cloud infiltrated Shinra before we were able to go here, but it was plot-irrelevant - it's awesome that it's making a return! Chekov's hangar!)

During a breathtaking assault from Weapon - love the panning shots and watching the massive cannon fire directly into Weapon - Tifa has to play a dumb minigame to break out. Since it's all hands on deck for Shinra, we don't have to fight anyone... except for Scarlet. This "rivalry" feels like utter bullshit; they've never even met face to face prior to this latest segment. The fight is literally a slapfight (and hey, I win it), and then we're spirited off onto the airship.

The airship is a true staple of the FF series! I like the remixed world map theme. Apparently these guys literally just defected from Shinra because they disliked Rufus and Heidegger, and they respect Cid. So now we got the Highwind, and we're looking for Cloud. It's suggested that Cloud might still be stuck under the ice, or maybe south of the Lifestream? I didn't quite catch everything.

So since then I've flown all around the world. The materia area is impassable, surrounded by an energy barrier, and I can't really