Board 8 > I'm playing Final Fantasy VII for the first time *Spoilers as I go*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have to read up on everything that's happened so far in this topic later but for now I will tag with a Platinum Fist

You beat the remake content!

Also characters only learn new limit breaks by using their limit break and killing enemies themselves. So I like rotating regularly, but you don't have to. And yeah there are ways to switch entire materia loadouts.

Mobilezoid posted...

I also already regret supporting Kefka/Ramza over Aeris, we should go back in time and switch my votes.

you would've been enough to comfortably switch the Kefka result but Ramza no chance

Okay I'm all read up and looking forward to continuing to read through this journey (and ideally Crisis Core and FF7 Remake afterwards).

Alright NOBODY TELL Roba how to get Yuffie as a party member, that is a spoiler if you do so and you should be sorely admonished with severe account-related penalties!!! lol. I guess it's not the end of the world I trust the Aeris love will outweigh any positive Yuffie feelings, surely...

Robazoid posted...

Well, my family had the PC version when I was a wee lad, but it was super broken.

This was my origin to everything too - I would borrow PC games off a friend of mine who'd buy a bunch. And one time, one of them was FF7 on PC. And mine had an issue where it would randomly crash at the beginning of battles, but emphasis on random, sometimes it'd crash on the first battle, sometimes I could string a few together before it crashed. It was ridiculous but I had fallen so instantly in love with the game so I couldn't stop, I wouldn't let repetitive crashing stop me but yeah, it tooks like weeks to get through Midgar and there's more than a few times in the game where you face like 4 or 5 battles between possible save points but I'd grind through those too. Could never get through end of final dungeon/final battle sequence though, so that had to wait until I rented a Playstation w/ the game for that...

But yeah, good ol' buggy as hell PC version, funny how in a complete opposite direction my life would've gone if I just gave up rather than sticking through the repeated game crashes. I'd probably be Martin40K or something.

I was going to recommend the finger pop-up indicators that provides red arrows for area exits and green arrows for ladders but I see that was already covered, what else...

Robazoid posted...

Cloud and Aeris got into a battle against some sort of monstrous house. This house kicked my ass

I literally lol'd pretty heartily

DragonGargoyle posted...

I didn't know that this was a thing lol

I tried all kinds of party combinations throughout the game, but Red and and Barret were my favorites. So if there's more Tifa + Aerith party dialogue, I probably missed it

It's also funny if you take Barret and Red, the dialogue is something like:

Tifa: "well, that was..."
Aeris: "...unexpected"

lol

Now you're on the world map so you get the greatest Main Theme in FF history oh babyyyyyyy

Very exciting times ahead, man. Disc 1 post-Midgar is just so good.

MartinFF7 posted...

I literally lol'd pretty heartily

Like rinoa

Not enough Ls to be Rinoa

pjbasis posted...

Like rinoa

Was thinking about editing in a pun after typing that but yeah...

also Julia > Rinoa

LOL no need to try to outdo Roba's takes

DragonGargoyle posted...

I didn't know that this was a thing lol

I tried all kinds of party combinations throughout the game, but Red and and Barret were my favorites. So if there's more Tifa + Aerith party dialogue, I probably missed it

Your tastes continue to be based af

Tifa was always in my party if she was available

MartinFF7 posted...

Alright NOBODY TELL Roba how to get Yuffie as a party member

Well, now that I know she's missable, I'll at least look up when I can get her to ensure I won't accidentally go too far and miss it!

MartinFF7 posted...

But yeah, good ol' buggy as hell PC version, funny how in a complete opposite direction my life would've gone if I just gave up rather than sticking through the repeated game crashes. I'd probably be Martin40K or something.

Oddly enough, I did get into Warhammer 40k as a child thanks to Chaos Gate, a PC game that actually worked. Maybe if my PC copy of FFVII had functioned, my life would've taken a different path and I wouldn't have a 3000 point Chaos Marine army...

Leonhart4 posted...

Tifa was always in my party if she was available

I will say, my one negative with Tifa is that I don't like her slot machine limit break. I assume it would do more damage if I got all 'Yeah!' And no "Hit", but so far I've failed every time. I hope her later limit breaks are different, otherwise I might need to bench her whether I want to or not when the fights get tougher

She's not missable in the sense that it can be too late to get (I think?)

Same with Vincent btw, but you'll find him naturally if you explore.

There's an exact timing to the Slots. You just gotta learn it.

And yeah, you can't permanently miss Yuffie, but your odds of encountering her get progressively higher as the game goes along.

wait don't look up the Yuffie thing - you can get her in your party soon enough, it's like pj said it will happen in due course (don't want to spoil the surprise!!)

I missed Vincent and Yuffie in my first playthrough since I wasn't exploring of course... because of the bugginess, lol.

and yeah I never really liked the Slots limit either so Tifa was really lower tier for me in original game. In Remake she is the best.

My PC copy of FF7 at least made it to the chocobo race before dying.

When I played through FF7 the first time, I was still kinda new to RPGs so I also used a guide from a magazine (probably GamePro). That guide told me how to get Yuffie before I even tried to find her myself. Seems like I likely wouldn't have found her myself anyway, so I'm curious if others managed to get her on their own.

My PC copy of FF7 worked the whole way through! I had kinda a weak PC at the time, so load times were actually worse than the PS1 version, but I made it all the way to the end. Loved the control guide you put over the numpad.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/2/2/AABKTfAAE4Yi.jpg

I played that version several times, actually. After getting a better PC the load times were great. Swirled into battle so dang fast.

yeah the swirl is where the crash would happen for me, held my breath every time, lol.

Actually was just thinking about how I had given up at Wall Market but eventually returned to it and got through. Because I was such an RPG noob I didn't do anything to get Cloud selected so had to deal with
-2 battles in the manor
-Aps boss battle
-at least 1 sewer battle, maybe two

And I feel like I still have the faint memory of successfully getting through the sewers and the Train Graveyard save point and what a relief that was, lol.

Other two non-stop-fight gauntlets are almost back to back later in Disc 2 but by that point grinding through game crashes would've been old hat for me I guess, lol (edit: actually there's another one in Disc 1 - Cave of the Gi - but I don't have a memory of getting stuck there, minimum 3 battles + any random battles that occur. Wondering if I just got lucky w/ avoiding crashes then...)

They keypad template is pretty cool though! never saw that before.

First thing in today's session was heading to Kalm so that I could get my damn Materia back from Barret. I figured it would be as simple as meeting up at the inn and then I could reform my party, but it wound up being a lot more involved than that. Cloud had a story to tell, one of his days working for SOLDIER alongside the legendary Sephiroth. Their mission took them to Cloud's hometown, and the first thing they did was slay a dragon. Uh... Sephiroth is pretty tough, you guys! 3000+ damage, damn man. I'm glad the dragon only ever attacked him because Cloud would've died in one hit.

Once in the town, I ran around exploring as much as I could. Some parts made me laugh, like when Cloud started sharing a conversation with a random NPC. Barret, who was listening to the story, didn't give a shit about no random NPC, so he told Cloud to skip past it. When it came time to visit his childhood home, though, it was Cloud who was wary of sharing things. The recollection kept skipping around as his mom rambled on saying mom things. Get a nice older girlfriend and settle down, that sort of thing. I also liked the bit where Cloud snuck into Tifa's empty house and she was like "wait you went into my house? Into my room? And you played my piano?" I tried snooping more just to get more of a reaction out of her, but sadly I couldn't find any embarrassing things or underwear drawers.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get across is that this was a neat way to do a flashback sequence. It incorporated imperfect memories and the people listening in played a role too. Cloud also met Tifa's dad, and he told him to stay away from his daughter. I don't blame you, dude. If my daughter brought home a guy with spikey anime hair, I wouldn't them getting together either. Too bad for you though, because Tifa has been hired as a guide! She was wearing a cowboy outfit, too. She wore something similar in World of Final Fantasy, and I was always confused by that since her white shirt and black skirt look is so iconic. Now I know where it came from.

I was sad that there wasn't more of a reunion between her and Cloud here, but I suppose he had just left for an indeterminate number of years. I guess they grew apart. It's probably safe to say they got close again real quick after surviving what happened next, too. In the mountains, the group entered another Mako reactor and found past experiments on Jenova. Sephiroth began freaking out, wondering if he was some sort of lab experiment too and ranting about Hojo. Over the course of a few days rifling through books in an old Shinra mansion, Sephiroth went completely off the deep end. I'm not sure I buy this sudden shift from being good soldier into being completely evil and slaughtering a whole town. Then again, given how quickly he got suspicious, I guess these doubts have been brewing inside of him for awhile?

In any case, Sephiroth is an Ancient or the son of an Ancient or somesuch, and now he wants to kill everyone to reclaim the world for his dead husk of mother. That was my understanding of it, at least. This feels very much like an event where I still don't have the full story. I also, literally, don't have the full story because Cloud himself doesn't remember it. He went from cradling a horrifically wounded Tifa to facing off in an impossible battle against Sephiroth... and then he doesn't remember what happened next. Man, what a tease. Even Barret got angry at that crappy ending to the story. Still, the group's goal is clear. Hunt down Sephiroth and stop him from killing everyone.

Luckily, a guy right outside the inn had seen a suspicious man heading east. I quickly did a loop around the map seeing what else I could find, but, as usual for an early FF game, there wasn't much. I did find a big snake swimming around on the world map, though, and thankfully I saved before confronting it. It was Midgar Zolom! All these years on B8, I've always heard of Midgar Zolom. He was one of the ASCII people always used to post back in the day! Anyway, I put up a surprisingly good fight against him. He kept missing, Aeris was keeping up with the healing, and I even got my first full 'Yeah!' on both sides of Tifa's limit break. Them Midgar Zolom smacked Cloud and Aeris out of the fight entirely and annihilated a solo Tifa. Lesson learned, don't fight the giant snake.

I reloaded and did what the game wanted me to do instead. I learned how to wrangle chocobos, then sprinted across Zolom's domain like my life depended on it (because it did). The chocobo ran away when I got to the other side, and now I am terrified of the prospect of having to go back this way someday. A cave dungeon came next, and it was surprisingly tiny. The big thing here was that I ran into the Turks again. They were kind of angry that I had injured Reno, except for Elena, a blonde girl who got promoted thanks to his absence. I can see why she was their second choice because she isn't very good at her job. She got confused about her orders and then accidentally gave me some valuable information on Sephiroth's whereabouts. In one cutscene, the Turks became a goofball squadron rather than a legit threat... but I like goofballs so I'm fine with that! Elena should be a fun character.

In the next area, I found a tower where some locals were fighting Shinra to protect a condor egg. It all sounded kind of unimportant compared to Sephiroth running amok somewhere. Still, I figured I'd give it a shot. This stupid RTS minigame took me a few tries to figure out. It also took a really long time and cost me all my money. The only thing that kept me going was my ironclad conviction that anything this lame would have to have a big reward at the end to make it worthwhile. Then, I finally won! And my reward was...

https://imgur.com/a/TCcO4vG

Fuck this condor and its stupid egg. I'm never coming back here again.

Still, the tower had a free healing spot (after several tedious ladders), so I took the opportunity to run around the overworld to grind some levels and get my gil back. It wasn't long before I ran into someone though! As soon as I saw a familiar little ninja, I instantly alt-tabbed and looked up how to recruit her. Don't judge me, I was afraid that killing her in battle might mean losing her forever and I hadn't saved since winning that stupid Condor minigame. On my own, I don't think I ever would've correctly navigated the labyrinthine dialogue choices needed to win her over. I was glad that I looked it up.

Now I have a cute ninja on my team! I hardly know anything about her yet. She apparently planned the whole confrontation as an excuse to join the party, though. And her laugh was a mischievous 'nyuk, nyuk, nyuk', so I like her already. I swapped out Tifa to try the new character out, and she can hold her own in battle well enough. The characters in my main party range from 16 to 18 as of now. I saved on the world map right outside of the next location, so next time we'll see if I'm strong enough to continue!

You can swap materia from the menu without needing to have the character in your party

Also you can actually find Tifa's underwear drawer, sounds like you need to improve your creepy snoop game

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/9/AADcu0AAE4fN.jpg

Leonhart4 posted...

Also you can actually find Tifa's underwear drawer, sounds like you need to improve your creepy snoop game

Damn, I'm sad I missed that! Clearly I do need to get better at snooping, and not just in Tifa's house. I checked the houses in Kalm in clockwise order and didn't find any hidden items. Then in one of the last ones I opened a certain kind of door with an item in it. When I went back to the other houses, sure enough there were items behind those doors too. There's an art to opening things in VII that I'm obviously still struggling with.

I wonder what reaction Tifa had to finding out Cloud rifled through her underwear, lol. I was joking when I used that as an example! Why would he even tell her that part of the story

You can actually lie about it when she asks you

Robazoid posted...

Now I have a cute ninja on my team! I hardly know anything about her yet. She apparently planned the whole confrontation as an excuse to join the party, though. And her laugh was a mischievous 'nyuk, nyuk, nyuk', so I like her already. I swapped out Tifa to try the new character out, and she can hold her own in battle well enough.

https://i.imgur.com/Zvw3EAl.gif

Yeah Fort Condor always sucks so sorry you had to learn the hard way.

I didn't have as much time to play today. The next town was a Shinra port, and the water around it was so polluted that monstrous fish regularly swim ashore to accost little girls and friendly dolphins. This was the hardest fight in the game so far, mostly because I was an idiot. The fish encased Cloud in a bubble. I tried attacking the bubble and it did 0 damage. Then I tried using magic and it just hurt Cloud without destroying the bubble. I figured it would pop on its own at some point, so I kept healing him to prevent drowning. Then Yuffie got caught in a bubble too and I finally realized... oh, Cloud and the bubble are different targets. I needed to cast the spell on the bubble! Whoops. After freeing everyone, the rest of the battle went fine.

The friendly dolphin helped Cloud climb higher into the city. A lot of Shinra military forces were putting on a parade in honor of Rufus, and stealing a uniform allowed Cloud to participate. There were a few marching minigames, and I hilariously failed at every single one of them. The second one where I had to do the same drill moves as the other two guys was especially stupid because the prompts were confusing. [OK] [MENU] [SWITCH] [CANCEL], man, I can't instantly remember what button those are. I got a score of 40 and everyone was disappointed in me. At least, while everyone was berating me, the rest of the party used that distraction to sneak aboard the boat Rufus was taking to the next area.

It was fun finding everyone disguised on the boat. Yuffie had some wicked seasickness and Red XIII had transformed into a human... somehow? The fun and games didn't last long, though, because it turned out Sephiroth was onboard too. I switched back to Cloud/Aeris/Tifa because Yuffie was still seasick, and then I went down below and fought some sort of manifestation of Jenova. Sephiroth was there too, but he mostly just seemed confused before flying away. Once the boat reached port, everyone headed into the city, getting away from the dock just before Rufus and Heidegger exited. Rufus was disappointed and reprimanded Heidegger for letting seven people sneak onto the boat. Heidegger was so angry that he started chucking sailors into the ocean, which was a funny visual.

I ran around the beach town checking out what the people not in my party were doing. Red was playing soccer with some kids (aww), Yuffie was helping out at a store (what a helpful person), and Barret was... hiding in the Inn's a bathroom trying on his sailor outfit. He pretended not to like it before, but Aeris called it cute and I guess that must've struck a chord with him! I also found Professor Hojo chilling with some babes on the beach. This guy is clearly evil, but when Cloud was about to attack, Tifa told him not to. But why not, Tifa? He's evil! We should kill him! But we didn't, so oh well. I'm guessing he'll become a big problem later.

I didn't progress any further, but I did run around the new world map a bit seeing what I could find. The only enemy in this whole area is an evil Matryoshka doll, which was annoying to fight and only gave middling experience. Ah well, hopefully I'll be strong enough to continue without grinding next time.

I can understand the confusion with the Bottomswell bubbles - Reno's Pyramid attack from earlier in the game served the same function and you only had to target the character with a physical attack and not the Pyramid itself. Props to you for figuring it out first try in the middle of a heated boss fight!

Robazoid posted...

f*** this condor and its stupid egg. I'm never coming back here again.

I too, was bamboozled by Fort Condor. I now only go to buy some materia.

Thankfully I didn't have enough Gil to get swindled at Fort Condor. I have never played that mini-game.

Mobilezoid posted...

I will say, my one negative with Tifa is that I don't like her slot machine limit break. I assume it would do more damage if I got all 'Yeah!' And no "Hit", but so far I've failed every time. I hope her later limit breaks are different, otherwise I might need to bench her whether I want to or not when the fights get tougher

Yeah, minor spoiler about that

The fights dont get tougher, lol.

This is so fun reading through and is really hyping me up for Rebirth!

There are some key boss fights that are tough, but for the most part grinding is unnecessary.

Leonhart4 posted...

I have never played that mini-game.

Is that possible?

He looks like a bear wearing a marshmallow

Please keep that line in Rebirth

Leonhart4 posted...

Tifa was always in my party if she was available

Yup, this. I mostly used Cloud/Barret/Tifa but neglected trying to level up the others, which made things tougher later. I liked it the challenge because of how easy the game had become. Don't think I ever used Yuffie.

I mostly only remember the things that happened in Remake, which was an expanded version of Midgar. Nothing beyond that. Rebirth is gonna be MASSIVE, and I'm gonna love it.

Cloud/Barret/Tifa or Aeris was my main team. Based on whether I wanted healing or more damage (usually damage).

I'd swap Red in from time to time to mix it up. Yuffie was rarely used by me.

I would regularly rotate the third character, but Cloud/Tifa/Barret was my personal favorite party.

Leonhart4 posted...

He looks like a bear wearing a marshmallow

Please keep that line in Rebirth

I will honestly be sorely if disappointed if they don't keep that line, or really any of the sailor Barret stuff.

But surely they would, right? The trailer we got is already goofy as fuck as it is ...

Maniac64 posted...

Cloud/Barret/Tifa or Aeris was my main team. Based on whether I wanted healing or more damage (usually damage).

I'd swap Red in from time to time to mix it up. Yuffie was rarely used by me.

This was mostly me too, but replace Red with "literally anyone who wasn't the "main four"". I'm one of those people who needs to level up every character and build them even when I don't use them haha.

Oh yeah I was talking up to this point. Red and Cid regularly rotated into the third and sometimes even second spot.

Didn't use the others much but of those Yuffie was my most used.

Thankfully FFVII does give your idle characters half EXP for battles so at least they don't fall too far behind from not being used

I've played for a bit so far today. After heading to the only other area on the world map, the group fought their way through an abandoned mine. I thought it was neat how the three people I didn't pick were available halfway through. It was like they were out exploring on their own and not just randomly teleporting to wherever I was going. I also found some cute baby birds napping in a nest built around some treasure. I had the option of stealing the treasure, but my party was Tifa and Aeris and I'll be damned if I make Cloud look like a jerk in front of the ladies. They were both very proud of him for letting the chicks sleep peacefully. Aw yeah, Cloud just scored some major points!

The next town was in bad shape, and the people there blamed Barret for it. In a flashback, he advocated for the construction of a Mako reactor. Then Shinra blamed the townsfolk for an attack on it and slaughtered everyone. Barret blamed himself for it, but, like... how was he supposed to know Shinra was evil and would slaughter a whole town? That wasn't his fault. Still, he was in an understandably bad mood. Not even riding up to the Gold Saucer, a floating amusement park, could cheer him up. Barret got angry that we weren't busy looking for Sephiroth, and then he ran off. Despite that, Aeris argued that the group should have fun since they were there. Because she was the most eager to go, I decided to see the sights with her. I had to pay to get in, after all, and I may as well try to earn some of the park currency for prizes. I bet for bird #2 on the chocobo races, and then bird #2 pulled off a surprising win! I got second place wrong, though, so no prize for me. Nuts to this. I tried some games in Wonder Square too, but the only one I had any success at was a dead easy one where I fed Mog some kupo nuts so that he could find a mate.

In another area, I ran into a creature named Cait Sith. It introduced itself as a fortune telling machine, but I'm still not 100% sure what this thing is. Is the big thing the machine and the cat riding on it real? Are they both machines? Which is the one that's talking? I dunno, and I'm not sure it matters. His flimsy reasoning for joining the party is that he wants to see if his fortune comes true. And that fortune was that Cloud would find what he was looking for but lose something precious. That doesn't sound ominous at all! Time to go back to mindless fun! Riding the roller coaster was neat, but I sucked at the shooting minigame. I also took Aeris up on the ferris wheel, and it was neat looking out the window at all the unique sights. I was going to see if I could switch party members and then go up with everyone else too, but when I went up with Cait Sith he just stared blankly out the window and there wasn't much to it, so I decided not to waste my time. The inn here was a spooky haunted house for some reason. I liked Mr. Hangman flying down from above like a jumpscare.

The plot finally progressed again when I went through battle square and saw a bunch of dead people. The gang suspected Sephiroth, but their wounds were caused by a gun. They were afraid Barret might have gone off the deep end. Still, I believe he's innocent. Since the park owner had no reason to trust us, he declared my party guilty of the massacre and tossed everyone down a hole, which led to the desert below. The gang ran into Barret again, suspiciously standing over another corpse, but I still believe in you buddy! Sephiroth is probably out here with an uzi, and it's up to us to hunt him down.

Time for my favorite side plot! The real reason I love Barret so much.

Robazoid posted...

Aw yeah, Cloud just scored some major points!

Literally, yeah

You get major affection points for sparing the chicks

Robazoid posted...

I tried some games in Wonder Square too, but the only one I had any success at was a dead easy one where I fed Mog some kupo nuts so that he could find a mate.

ya go my Mog House, starring the Mog (FFVII) from SMFFFCXV fame

Also Cait Sith is the cat, and it's riding on a mechanical stuffed moogle that it controls. They're both artificial.

A robot cat riding a robot moogle. Definitely one of the stranger party members in the series!

I always rotated through everyone because I wanted them to have their Level 4s by the endgame

In the 30+ (probably 40+ by now) times I've played through the game the ones the most use out of me have been Cid and Yuffie for best materia growth & ultimate weapons respectively

Red XIII by far last place, Cait Sith 2nd-last because he got some use from me in my early speedthrough days because I thought Dice was the best thing ever, lol.

Robazoid posted...

Sephiroth is probably out here with an uzi

I lol'd

Robazoid posted...

I liked Mr. Hangman flying down from above like a jumpscare.

iirc the flying down is also accompanied with a scream sound effect! I think it legit jumpscared me the first time I encountered it.

skulltrumpets posted...

I will honestly be sorely if disappointed if they don't keep that line, or really any of the sailor Barret stuff.

But surely they would, right? The trailer we got is already goofy as fuck as it is ...

This was mostly me too, but replace Red with "literally anyone who wasn't the "main four"". I'm one of those people who needs to level up every character and build them even when I don't use them haha.

Yeah I have the same issue playing Pokemon games

My second play session of the day was all about character quests. The first was Barret's. Well, the first was actually me getting lost in a desert, slogging through a gauntlet of sandworms, and finally being rescued by a guy in a chocobo carriage just when all hope seemed lost. The next time I headed out, I luckily found the place I needed to go. The mysterious gunman turned out to be Dyne, Barret's old friend who turned bad after the destruction of their town. Marlene is actually his daughter as well, but not even learning she was alive was enough to bring him back. Barret defeated Dyne in a one-on-one duel (and it sure would've been nice if I had put a Restore materia on Barret, but I didn't so it was actually a close call a few times). Dyne gave Barret a pendant for Marlene, then threw himself off a cliff.

For as brief as his part in the story was, I liked this guy as a reflection of who Barret could've become. They both went through the same tragedy, and both of them lost an arm and got a gun grafted onto it, showing their desire to fight back. Dyne said that his hands were too stained to hold Marlene now, and Barret echoed that line a bit later too. Still, Barret is a good father, and he's been trying to do the right thing rather than killing indiscriminately like Dyne was. I guess the difference between them would be Marlene. Even if she isn't actually Barret's daughter, she would've kept him centered and given him something to fight for, trying to save the planet rather than just killing for revenge.

Once that was done, Cloud won a chocobo race to get everyone back out. They also got a vehicle, which was neat. I swapped to Cait Sith and Yuffie and spent a bit of time wandering around the world, including heading back to the previous continent for a bit just to see if anything had changed. The best thing I found was in that old beach town. Remember how impressed I was at Yuffie for helping out at a store? The owner mentioned that his mysterious helper had stolen all his money and Materia. That's... that's amazing. I'm sad Yuffie hasn't had more to do in the plot so far because she seems great. Even when we were doing Barret's subplot, I remember Yuffie saying something like "why are we even doing this if we aren't getting paid?". During Red's subplot a bit later, she was more interested in finding unique treasures than helping out her friend. She's such a scamp.

Once it was time to continue the plot, I went back to my mainstays of Aeris and Tifa. I was glad I did, too, because the next area I explored was important for them. I ran into the Turks near a ruined reactor, and Cloud overheard them talking about who they had crushes on. As funny as it was learning there's a confusing romance chart between all these characters, I'm not sure the guys with crushes on Tifa and Aeris have even spent any time with them? Didn't we only interact when we were beating your asses? Well, that's what we did again here, forcing the two to run off. I got a sweet staff for Aeris after this fight with a bunch of Materia slots, it's great.

Then I found a town near the ruined reactor. One house had some parents worried about their son, Zack (who I know from SMFFFC but I think this is the first time his name has come up). He was in SOLDIER too, though Cloud never met him. Now he's gone missing, which concerned Aeris because Zack was the first love she alluded to before. I already knew that she had a boyfriend, so this was nothing new. What WAS new, however, was that Tifa seems to know Zack as well. Combined with Aeris' theory that Zack, a ladies man, probably forgot about her after meeting some other girl, and... did Zack and Tifa hook up?!? When Cloud shared his story about the fight with Sephiroth five years ago, there was that part he didn't remember. My theory is that Zack swooped in, saved everyone, and had a romance with Tifa or something. I can fully understand why Cloud would block those memories out. It's one thing for Aeris to have dated him before, everyone has a past. To have the same guy also get with your hot childhood friend too, man, that's rough. I wonder if Yuffie has a history this mysterious stud too?

Next up came Cosmo Canyon, a town with a sweet theme song. It was also Red XIII's home, and for a bit it looked like he was going to leave the party. However, after speaking with his grandfather about the lifestream and learning that his cowardly father was actually a hero Red decided to stick with the party. This character subplot wasn't as deep as Barret's, but it was nice learning more about him. My only problem here was that new weapons at the item shop were expensive, I didn't buy Red's, and then I couldn't afford his when he got forced into my party. I also struggled a bit because Aeris finally got her next level of a limit break, which doesn't do any free healing. I can only hope that, if I stick on this level long enough, the limit breaks coming up will make it all worthwhile.