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

(+) Yeah! (+)

LeonhartFour posted...

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

A robot riding a robot, man what a strange party member. Thanks for the clarification! As Martin said, though, his dice limit break is pretty cool. If I weren't going for the harem route, Cait Sith would probably be in my main party.

Robazoid posted...

Dyne said that his hands were too stained to hold Marlene now, and Barret echoed that line a bit later too.

Such a great scene.

Robazoid posted...

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 she was in helping out her friend. She's such a scamp

Yeah...I'm just never going to be a Yuffie fan.

Yuffie and Vincent get the shaft a bit because they're optional, so the game kinda has to write around them. That's one of the things I expect the remake to fix.

Barret's storyline is so good that even reading about someone playing through it for the first time gives me chills.
Leonhart4 posted...

Yuffie and Vincent get the shaft a bit because they're optional, so the game kinda has to write around them. That's one of the things I expect the remake to fix.

Yeah, I feel like it'll do so! The moment she got her own DLC in the first one really cements this hope for me. At least Vincent had his own game back in the day.

IMO Yuffie is way more likeable in Remake so far.

Aeriths level 2-1 limit break is pretty bad, yeah. Probably the worst in the game. But if you can get past that, her later ones are great.

tcaz2 posted...

IMO Yuffie is way more likeable in Remake so far.

I feel the opposite, personally. It might just be that she's worse because she's voiced, though.

That's crazy talk

It would be hard for Yuffie to be less likable than she is in the original game

Yuffie is fun and great.

Yuffie sucks.

For literally one reason

I played a bit more. The next area I went to was... Nibelheim? Everyone was confused and doubted Cloud's story, but I had Tifa in the party and she really should've been able to vouch for most of it so I dunno. In any case, Nibelheim is still standing, but it's populated by strange people in black cloaks. They all have numbers tattooed on them and are rambling about reunions and Sephiroth. Clearly this is a big mystery, and... oh, there's a note in Tifa's room explaining these people are clones or actors. Mystery solved! I have no idea why Shinra would go to all this trouble to create a fake Nibelheim, I mean they didn't do that with Barret's town, but oh well.

More importantly I went on a long adventure through a haunted mansion. And I mean long. There were two kinds of enemies here. One was a guy swinging on a boat anchor who looked like he belonged on the cover of a bad pirate romance novel. Then there were the pumpkins... these fucking pumpkins. They cast silence and confusion, and they always managed to get all their turns in before I got one. Fighting these guys was so annoying. Silence meant I couldn't clear them quickly, confusion meant half the time I couldn't even get basic attacks in. And I had to fight a bunch of them, too, because it took me a few laps around the mansion to find the safe combination. At least the pumpkins were good experience, I guess. I eventually found three of the safe numbers, but I had to look up the last one (I assumed I had to play a specific song at the piano, but no, I just had to look behind the piano). Actually putting the combination into the safe without overshooting the numbers was the hardest part of the boss fight that followed. By the time I battled the safe monster, Cloud, Aeris, and Tifa were all hilariously overleveled thanks to pumpkin fights.

They ran into Sephiroth in the basement too, but all he did was chuck a Materia at Cloud's face and then float away. Not gonna lie, the way he hovered off like that looked kind of silly. More importantly, though, I had the key to go into a secret room and discover a sleeping vampire named Vincent. Once he realized we were on our way to beat up Hojo at some point, he was happy to join the party. Welcome aboard, vampire dude! You can go sit in the buggy with Barret, Red, Yuffie, and Cait Sith. I'm sticking with my hilariously overleveled harem squad.

Next up came exploring the mountains behind Nibelheim. Other than some confusion with pipes leading down to some items, this area wasn't bad. Even the one big boss monster was pretty easy. I expected to find Sephiroth in the old Jenova reactor, but as far as I could tell there wasn't anything there. In the next area, I found a town built around an old decaying rocket. A lot of the townsfolk whined about how boring their lives were. Haven't they ever heard of tempting fate? Calling it now, this town is super doomed and so is everyone in it.

Inside the rocket itself, I finally met Cid, the would-be astronaut who turned into a jerk. I don't know why all of you are so down on Yuffie, this is the guy I don't like. Yeah it sucks that you missed out on your dream, but maybe you guys shouldn't have started the launch when Shera was still in the engine fixing things? Maybe it's a good thing she was doing that because, you know, you might've died in space if she hadn't? The guys who were on Apollo 13 didn't get to fulfill their dream of going to the moon either, but I wouldn't let them get away with being abusive to their wives. Not that Shera is his wife, Cid vehemently denied that a bit later, but he's still a jerk. I don't like him. I did like beating up Palmer when Rufus came to town, though. And now I have an airplane that can only act as a boat! I'm taking a break before doing some more exploration, but I'll play more later today.

Cid is great

...Did Yuffie just steal all of my Materia?!?

Mobilezoid posted...

...Did Yuffie just steal all of my Materia?!?

It begins

Mobilezoid posted...

...Did Yuffie just steal all of my Materia?!?

The moment of truth has arrived.

and that's what you get for recruiting her into your party!!!

btw I forgot to post one of my favourite FF7 fanarts earlier:

Robazoid posted...

I also found Professor Hojo chilling with some babes on the beach

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/6/AAC56kAAE5Aw.jpg

big pimpin' Hojo

Mobilezoid posted...

...Did Yuffie just steal all of my Materia?!?

I never thought leopards would eat MY face, sobs GameFAQs user Robazoid.

for the record Yuffie has a limit to how much Materia she can steal (I think it's around 50), so you could have some stuff at your disposal if you came here later in the game

but the game tries to lead you here early so that the pain is at its maximum level

redrocket posted...

I never thought leopards would eat MY face, sobs GameFAQs user Robazoid.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/0/5/AAC56kAAE5A5.jpg

LeonhartFour posted...

but the game tries to lead you here early so that the pain is at its maximum level

last time I played I wanted to try finishing the game Yuffie-less with all materia loss but it won't let you board the Tiny Bronco again... devastating

next time I need to try it on Disc 2 actually, would the game prevent you from getting on a chocobo...

MartinFF7 posted...

i'm going to assume Materia Keeper (boss in Mt. Nibel) didn't cast Trine on you, but I guess you were overleveled anyhow

No, it did. I remember because I learned it on my Enemy Ability materia. I was just keeping everyone at almost full health so nothing the boss did really mattered, haha.

MartinFF7 posted...

-there's more than pumpkin and axe-swinging guy in the manor but the "Jersey" (floating animated scales) are very rare encounters iirc. Also in the basement leading to Vincent's room/the lab is the enemy Ying/Yang which is still burned in my memory after all these years...

Oh yeah, I fought one of these things too! It kept saying stuff like "Ying is happy" and I didn't really get the puzzle, but it eventually died. Definitely the hardest part of the mansion though.

Now here comes a big update, sorry in advance everyone but a lot of big stuff happened.

Alright, time for a big update! Obviously the first thing I did was the Yuffie quest. While exploring the westernmost landmass, that rascally ninja stole my Materia. It honestly wasn't too big of a deal because Cloud/Aeris/Tifa were strong enough to bash everything to death anyway. Still, it was annoying, so I chased Yuffie to her hometown. One of the buildings here was chock full of cats, which is pretty cool. Having to track down Yuffie was less cool. The quest was basically a game of hide and seek. It wasn't so bad the first few times, but after she tricked Cloud with a cage trap and ran off I couldn't find her for the life of me. I finally looked it up, and... oh, go ring a bell in a side area I hadn't even realized was open now because PS1 graphics make it difficult to tell.

As annoying as that part was, this quest honestly wasn't that bad. It was fun seeing the Turks on vacation. I laughed really hard when, after opening a chest and finding another Materia, Yuffie dropped down from the ceiling and stole that one too. Now that's dedication. I also got a look into her mindset. She wanted the Materia to empower her homeland, which had essentially become a tourist attraction after being subjugated by Shinra. Sadly, all the Materia in the world couldn't save her from getting grabbed by Corneo, that sleaze from way back at the beginning of the game. Elena got captured somehow too, so we teamed up with the Turks and rescued everyone. Yuffie returned the Materia, rejoined the party, and then everything was fine.

After that, I did some more exploration with the airplane. I'm just going to come out and say it, this airplane sucks and I hated riding around in it. It took forever to circle around the continents. I eventually found an archeology town, which told me where to go. Then I found the Ancient temple, but I needed a keystone. So I circled alllll the way back around the continents and just brute-force searched areas until I finally got a clue at some blacksmith's hut. He'd sold the keystone to the owner of the Gold Saucer, so I headed over there and won it in the battle arena. Well, I didn't really win. Poor Cloud got petrified in the second battle. Still, Dio took pity on him and handed over the keystone anyway.

I couldn't leave right away due to a tram malfunction, so the party took some time to go over the plot so far. It was a nice scene where everyone was present. I also liked the sorta-date that Cloud and Tifa went on right after. They wound up acting in a stage play (which seems like a horrible idea. Hey, let's take random people and have them do improv, that'll be fun for the rest of the crowd). Then they went on a ride on the Ferris wheel. After previously going up with Aeris, it was nice doing it with Tifa this time. She almost confessed her feelings, even trying to psyche herself up by saying that Aeris wouldn't be afraid to confess... but, in the end, she couldn't do it. And poor dense Cloud didn't realize what she was going for. Oh, will these two dorks ever find their way?

This heartwarming moment was then interrupted by the traitorous Cait Sith handing the keystone over to Shinra. It turns out the robot party member is being controlled by someone from the company, and they even kidnapped Marlene to force the party to keep it around afterwards. Man, now I've been betrayed by two of my party members! I hope we get to hunt down whoever is controlling this thing at some point, but for now my only means of rebellion will be refusing to ever use it. I'm nowhere near as angry at Yuffie, her betrayal was played for laughs, but I'm still going to wait for her to redeem herself before I officially welcome her back into my party.

The next day, the party circled allll the way back around the continent (seriously, this airplane sucks) and finally we got to the Ancient temple. Tseng was sitting wounded at the entrance, so, good job Cait Sith and friends, all you did was give Sephiroth a head start. Going in with my usual party of Cloud/Aeris/Tifa, this area wasn't too difficult. The layout was confusing, but I managed to grab all the items and even eventually made my way past a rolling rock puzzle. Aeris felt a deepening connection with the ancients the further we got. However, Sephiroth was here too, and he was connecting to the temple as well. We eventually found him in a room full of murals depicting a meteor. This destructive spell is what he's going to use to injure the planet, and then he'll overtake the healing lifestream in order to become a god. That's a scary idea!

What's even scarier is that there's something seriously off with Cloud. He kept acting funny, and it was like Sephiroth was able to take him over at times. The party came up with a plan to sacrifice Cait Sith's robot body in order to get the Black Materia. They tried really hard to make this sad, but... you're a traitor, Cait Sith. I don't like you anymore! The nicest thing I'll say is that it was kind of funny when, in the middle of the next big dramatic scene, his body double showed up and went "whoops, this is a bad time for me to introduce myself isn't it". Anyway, everything went well, at least until Sephiroth overtook Cloud's body and forced him to hand over the Black Materia.

With Cloud seemingly compromised, Aeris went off on her own to try and prevent Sephiroth's plan. I liked the little dream she and Cloud shared, where she basically told him to take care of himself. It also gave me a clue of where she went, and obviously Cloud would never let her go alone. I rode the stupid airplane back to the archeology town, dug up a magical harp, and then I moved through the forest. The group finally tracked Aeris down in the center of the next area. Cloud even managed to resist Sephiroth's influence, which tried to get him to hurt her. Sadly, all that did was force Sephiroth to take direct action. It was finally time for the famous scene. Aeris was stabbed through the back and died. Obviously I knew this was coming at some point, and in the lead-up to this I was pretty sure this would be it. Still, I'll admit, it managed to get to me, especially seeing my two party members say a quiet goodbye before Cloud put her body to rest.

END OF DISC ONE... oh my god the entire game up to now was only disc one? And I still have two other discs?!? How long is this game? I played a bit of the next section too, where Cloud grappled with the apparent corruption inside of himself. He's afraid of what he might do, and he suspects that him abandoning the quest might be the best thing for everyone. Still, he's come too far, lost too much, and is way too pissed off at Sephiroth to stop now. It was nice seeing him ask the others to come with him, so they could stop him from doing anything bad if it comes down to it. I'm not sure what the implications are of Sephiroth calling Cloud a puppet, but I'm excited to find out! I saved for the night once I hit the world map again in some sort of snow zone.

So, to recap the day's progress. Cid is a jerk. Cait Sith is a traitor. Yuffie is a thief. I'm hoping future events will redeem the three of them, but I guess I'll have to wait and see. And, lastly, Aeris is dead. My party for now is Cloud, Tifa, and a depressingly underleveled Barret. I'm really feeling the gap in my party composition without Aeris there to cast spells and heal everyone. I'll play around with Barret, Red, and Vincent to see who fits in best, at least until Cid, Yuffie, or Cait get a moment that makes me like them again. Still, RIP Aeris, I miss you already.

This playthrough is great. Thank you for sharing. To this day I still hate Yuffie for stealing all of my Materia. I need to play the remake.

Also - I don't think it's spoilers to say that Disc 3 is more or less just the final dungeon and the ending cinemas. So, even though it's a fairly long game, it's definitely not three times as long as Disc 1.

Awww, you got the Tifa date? Must have treated Aerith poorly ;)

And if you didn't know, who you go on a date with, with the whole play thing, is determined by actions and dialogue you chose throughout the game. You can see how the other dates with Aerith Yuffie...and even BARRET go down on YouTube.

Yuffie da best.

When I played, my party ended up being Cloud, Yuffie, Vincent. It probably would've been better to use more written characters but oh well.

And yeah, seeing your party makeup even after you pick up more characters... I was wondering what you'd do after Aeris baked her pies.

fyi each party member has a different reaction animation post-Aeris death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atciTPojlpM

Rewatching it now and I was thinking wow, they gave Vincent almost nothing, maybe that's because he's optional - but then they gave Yuffie arguably the best one, so I guess Vincent really is just that cold! But I recalled this because I remembered Tifa's running away crying, big oof.

also there's a more direct path to the Temple than going all around the entire continent... sorry you had to deal with that :/

Demon's Gate (last boss in the Temple) is well-known for being uh, what's the phrase when the difficulty ramps up. Another one of those "burned in my memory" encounters from my earlier days but yeah I think your party's just too strong (and the game is relatively easy anyways).

.....I also have a vague memory of just wandering the world aimlessly trying to find the keystone, the game really doesn't point you in any directions for that does it? The shack is the only thing but I don't remember going there on my first playthrough, I really think I was re-tracing my steps in various areas including trying to explore Wutai without Yuffie in my party. Eventually stumbled on it in that Gold Saucer room, I don't think I ever went to the shack.

ok Disc 2 time hell yeah, I imagine it'll be more enjoyable for someone who hasn't repeatedly gone through it (whereas Disc 1 always has the magic for me...)

By the way, since you're playing the Steam version, you can turn off random encounters if you don't want them in a specific area, or if you feel like you're getting overleveled.

Disc 1 is basically half the game

MartinFF7 posted...

I also have a vague memory of just wandering the world aimlessly trying to find the keystone

I also have this memory. I was using at least a rudimentary guide, so I'm pretty sure I knew I needed to go to the Gold Saucer, but was having trouble remembering how to get there. I think it was finally figuring out that the Tiny Bronco could navigate rivers that helped.

Did you do the Pagoda sidequest with Yuffie in Wutai after you got her back? You didn't mention it, and it opens up right away. If not, you can do it later - there's no particular rush, and it would be annoying for you to go back to Wutai from where you're at anyway.

A robot riding a robot, man what a strange party member. Thanks for the clarification! As Martin said, though, his dice limit break is pretty cool. If I weren't going for the harem route, Cait Sith would probably be in my main party.

Despite knowing better, I still conceptualize/mentally picture Cait Sith as the giant Moogle to this day. I can't help it.

Yuffie did nothing wrong and how dare you think she has anything to atone for.

Robazoid posted...

Yuffie returned the Materia, rejoined the party, and then everything was fine.

Man, no mention of her returning it by just equiping random materia rather than putting it back how it was.

That was such insult to injury by the game and solidified my hatred.

That was indeed the last straw

She apparently just grabbed materia blindly out of a bag and just stuck them in people's weapons and armor.

So annoying. I would have rather she equip nothing and just put them in your inventory.

Pokewars posted...

Awww, you got the Tifa date? Must have treated Aerith poorly ;)

That's cool that it can be different characters! I'll definitely have to watch videos of the other ones. I'll also need to check what choices determine the date to see why I got Tifa instead of Aeris...

MartinFF7 posted...

fyi each party member has a different reaction animation post-Aeris death

I'll watch this when I get home from work too

MartinFF7 posted...

Demon's Gate (last boss in the Temple) is well-known for being uh, what's the phrase when the difficulty ramps up.

Was this the one that came through the wall? I was lucky enough to enter that fight with Aeris having her limit break. I used the one that filled the gauge for Cloud and Tifa, and then both of their limit breaks killed the boss >_>

MacArrowny posted...

By the way, since you're playing the Steam version, you can turn off random encounters if you don't want them in a specific area, or if you feel like you're getting overleveled.

Oh, I have no problem being overleveled. If anything, I'm going to have to grind a bit to catch my new third party members up!

Fiop posted...

Did you do the Pagoda sidequest with Yuffie in Wutai after you got her back?

Was this the building that wouldn't let me in because I wasnt from Wutai? I made a mental note of that, but by the time I got Yuffie back I was just glad to fix my Materia and get out of there. Whoops. I'll make sure to head back whenever I get back to the main world map

Maniac64 posted...

Man, no mention of her returning it by just equiping random materia rather than putting it back how it was.

I didn't mind, I was overdue for moving my Materia around anyway so I just took it all out and started fresh. From a story perspective though, it was kind of endearing. She was in such a hurry to get back on the team that she didn't slow down to put it all back right. I also laughed at how she was initially planning to keep that one extra Materia I'd found in the chest. She only gave it back when it looked like everyone was going to leave without her, haha.

You know what, the more I think about it, the more forgiving I become towards Yuffie. It wasnt the best thing for her to do when the fate of the world is at stake elsewhere, but she's a fun character. At least she wasn't malicious like the traitorous Cait Sith!!!

Mobilezoid posted...

I used the one that filled the gauge for Cloud and Tifa, and then both of their limit breaks killed the boss >_>

wtf he has 10,000 HP!!

....did you unlock Cloud's level 3 limit break by any chance, otherwise you must've landed a critical hit on one of those, or your party really is way overlevelled, lol

Oh, also, the way the relationship mechanics work, you are favored to get the date with Aerith, if you treat her and Tifa the same, but if you treat Tifa well enough better you can get her instead. I didn't know about the mechanic as a kid, and once I knew Aerith's fate, I did one playthrough where I intentionally treated Tifa better. I was shocked when I got Tifa for the date instead.

The other date options are really tough to get if you're not intentionally trying to get them.

Team Tifa welcomes you with open arms

you can check out the mechanics here: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Date_mechanics#Decisions

Aerith 50, Tifa 30, Yuffie 10, Barret 0 are the starting points and what caught my eye was the score torpedoing during the church part

• Push a wrong barrel (-3 Aeris)
• Ask her to fight them (-1 Aeris)
• Ask her to run (No change)
• Ask her to run, but she has to fight (-1 Aeris)

So that was probably like, a -16 to Aeris altogether right, lol

Edit: wowwww I was going down the optional dialogue rabbit hole for Gongaga after the Turks fight when they're speculating how the Turks knew they'd be there:

Cait Sith: You don't think there's a spy, do you Cloud? I hate this. Now everyone's gonna blame me because I'm new.

wowwwwwwwwwwwww the nerve

MartinFF7 posted...

wtf he has 10,000 HP!!

....did you unlock Cloud's level 3 limit break by any chance, otherwise you must've landed a critical hit on one of those, or your party really is way overlevelled, lol

With Cloud I used the meteorite one and Tifa beat it up all the way to Dolphin Blow. My level is about mid 40s on Cloud, was a bit lower on the other two. Barret now is like 37, sadly

MartinFF7 posted...

Push a wrong barrel (-3 Aeris)

I didn't understand the minigame, she shouldn't hold that against me!

Mobilezoid posted...

With Cloud I used the meteorite one and Tifa beat it up all the way to Dolphin Blow. My level is about mid 40s on Cloud, was a bit lower on the other two. Barret now is like 37, sadly

Mid-40s is the recommended level for the final boss <_<

lol i went through old posts on the FF7 boards to find recommended levels

demon's gate: 29

Yeah, if you get the barrel thing right, it's really difficult not to get Aerith for the date, so I have to screw it up on purpose to get Tifa.

Also how much fighting are you doing between towns? That's a high level for the beginning of Disc 2!

I fought a lot of those pumpkins you guys

Disc 3 is just the final boss fight and credits AMV. They really did a lot for the time for the finale.

Cait Sith's oddness got the nickname "He/She/It" - a recurring meme in my stuff, but that started with my FF7 playthrough here many, many years ago. When he/she/it was forced into my party, it sucked because he/she/it wasn't a character I'd focused on at all. I was happy to have some challenge nonetheless, and I persevered with hardly any grinding!

And now you see why Yuffie sucks.

lol yeah you are ABSURDLY overleveled.

it's all good Roba there are a couple of gnarly bosses in Disc 2 that you'll appreciate having the extra juice for!

(that being said I did boot up my PS4 to check and my typical speedrun party level was 40 at games end, lol... lowest I ever got it was 37 and that must have been my "mandatory battles only" party where I also probably abused a glitch to skip a chunk of Disc 2)

I actually cannot believe the Yuffie live, even after she stole then garbled up the material when she put it back. Unforgivable sin tbqh.

Mobilezoid posted...

That's cool that it can be different characters! I'll definitely have to watch videos of the other ones. I'll also need to check what choices determine the date to see why I got Tifa instead of Aeris...

Well for starters you didn't buy any of her flowers. D: