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Let's Play Final Fantasy 7 - Part 3 - It is NOT the only way goddammit
Reznik
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Reznik presents: Let's Play
KEEP ALL VII AND COMPILATION SPOILERS IN SPOILER TAGS! Some people haven't played/seen all of the compilation and some people *gasp* haven't played VII, so please, please, PLEASE use spoiler tags.
Part 1 - Bombing Mission Go Go Go
Part 2 - Cloud is a terrible Donkey Kong
Part 3 - It is NOT the only way goddammit
Some of you may have heard of this game. Apparently it was sorta popular and a few people bought copies of it. For those of you unaware, it looked something like this:
So what the heck is it?
Final Fantasy VII was released on that newfangled Sony PlayStation contraption back in 1997 and introduced some people to this crazy, angsty, androgynous, spikey-haired genre known as Japanese Role Playing Games, or JRPGs for short. It is a traditional, ATB (that's active time battle) based RPG. Battles occur randomly (except for bosses) and on a seperate screen from the overworld map. It is long and includes much talky talky, though I hear not as much talky talky as something like Xenogears. If you are impatient and you like super fast paced action games, this is not a game for you. However it was apparently a game for about 9 million people. It made Squaresoft buckets of money back in the day and now they are milking the name for everything it's worth with this thing they call the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII (although Advent Children was pretty, and Crisis Core looks pretty freakin sweet, the other titles really aren't worth mentioning).
A lot of people think FFVII is overrated, and I tend to agree, but overrated doesn't mean bad and FFVII is still a very good game, and perhaps my favourite of all time. Unfortunately, it was marred by some horrible translation issues, so I will try to straighten out some story confusion as we go along. That way, you guys won't have to scour the internet for translations of obscure books and interviews that explain just what the heck is going on. I've done it for you!
But gee, Reznik, isn't this kind of a long game?
Yes. Yes it is. Luckily for you, I will not be filming or documenting the inevitable grinding unless something important happens. So that cuts out a good.. uh.. few hours of play time. I think I will be doing a mix of screenshots and videos. Videos will only be for boss battles or important, exciting things, and I'll save the walls of text for.. uh.. walls of text. And pictures.
You haven't done a LP before! I bet this will suck!
It's true, I haven't, so I will be trying to take my cues from some good ones I've read and watched. I'm open for suggestions if you guys have some ideas to make this better. We'll see how I fare after the first post.
How will you be doing this?
I'll be playing the PC port instead of the PlayStation version for a few reasons.
1. The translation is better
2. It's easier to take screenshots and make videos
3. I can install mods for make graphics pretty(ish)
4. My PSX version disc 1 doesn't work
Wait, mods? What mods?
The good folks at qhimm.com have been modding FF7 for ages and they've done some good work. The mods I will be using are:
-NPC Reconstruction Patch (takes the little chibi models and replaces them with higher quality, human looking models)
-High Quality Cloud (uses the HQ Cloud model that only appears at the end of the game in the last battle for some reason)
-FF7Music (allows me to switch the soundtrack with whatever I want, in this case OCRemix and Black Mages rendtitions)
-FF7w (plays game in windowed mode so's I can get good videos)
Okay! Let's go!
Checklist:
-Beat main story first, then go back later and...
-Beat all optional bosses
-Get all final limit breaks
-Get all ultimate weapons
-In general, 100% the game
Mod approved! Yay.
Do... Re.... Mi... Ti... La...
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Reznik on
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I have created a monster.
You obviously need to 100% everything. All ultimate weapons, all Limit Breaks, all summons. This is not negotiable.
This means that, at some point, yes, you WILL have to breed a Golden Chocobo. If I may humbly request a video montage of your frustration during that process, that would also be good.
But yeah, this is going take a very long time, I hope you can stay with it until the end.
I actually bred a golden chocobo the first time I played the game (I still have the save on my PSX memory card). I didn't remember it being that difficult.
Then I tried doing it a second time.
I think my original memory was repressed or something because goddamn. I'll need to allocate like a week for Chocobo Breeding alone.
I can make a diary:
Day 1: 3 hours of random encounters. Did not find Wonderful chocobo.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Day 17: Today I reset the game 129 times. Still no satisfactory results. Considering ritual seppuku.
Heh. I played FF7 for the PC, so I was never aware of this until a couple years ago when I was watching my roommate replay the game on Playstation. Hilarity.
"We're going to have a squashed tomatoes."
"Wait, you're a Turks?"
Word of warning, my voice is terrible
I'm setting everything up now, and if all goes well I should have part 1 good to go for either tomorrow or early saturday.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Nonsense!
Sounds like a good plan. I mean let's face it a lot of the extras don't really expand the story at all they're just cool fan services. Having them all together in one final chapter that is seperated from the main story line kind of like a dream sequence would be neat, but I mainly want to see the main story line seen as I was to young and impatient to ever finish this game ):
And Barret blocks it with his fucking Cover materia.
Also, do the Barrett Date for maximum awesomeness.
Also, you gotta grind out Aeris/th's last limit break. Remember it has to do with the number of limits used and the number of enemies KO'd, so you can grind them out on the easy enemies outside of midgar and not gain too much experience.
I'd also like to see you beat the ruby and emerald weapons.
I would also like pie. Delivered to my front door between 4 and 4:30 pm, everyday for the next week.
I tried reinstalling my copy with all the fancy mods some time ago but got an error on startup and wiped the game off the hard drive again in frustration. Good times.
I'll take some pie.
Wii U NNID: MegaSpooky
Godspeed, you magnificent bastard.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
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If so, does it throw off the geometry when interacting in the environment?
Yes, and no. Well, a little. Barret's arms clip into his chest a lot, but otherwise everything works great. The battle models still fit on the skeleton that's used for animating the regular models, so there aren't any issues there.
Also, I'm just finishing up the first post for this. It should be done in maybe... a half hour? Maybe less? There's a ton of stuff there, I may have overdid it, but I'm almost done.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
By the way, will this be a marked spoiler thread, or an open discussion for everyone familiar with the story? Whichever it is, it's probably best if you mark it in the OP.
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As for spoilers, please mark them. I put a warning in the OP, but I'll make it bigger.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
tl;dr version at the bottom of the post
Note: This is an insanely comprehensive rundown of the opening of the game. Like... down to every line of dialogue. I realise now that it's a) a bitch to write up and b) not entirely necessary, so I am more than likely going to tone it down for the next update. This is my first LP, so I'm still learning the ropes and I'm more than open to suggestions.
It begins...
There are two red-coated guards standing by the train station. Once the train grinds to a halt, a man leaps off and judo-throws the first guard. A woman boots the second guard in the chest, sending him flying hard into the side of the train. Two more people run off the train: a fat man in a yellow shirt and a burly black man with a gun arm.
The black man looks up, and we catch our first glimpse of the spiky-haired protagonist as he flips off the top of the train and lands in a crouch. Nice. The man with the gun arm doesn't seem particularly impressed.
He runs ahead, following the other three members of the team. They disappear off screen, and now we have control of the protagonist. We can pick up a potion from each of the downed guards (I did not find this out until several years after my first play-through), but before we get to the second one, two blue-uniformed guards run at us and we enter our first battle.
Our protagonist is called 'Ex-SOLDIER' for now. Why is the word soldier in all caps? We'll find out soon. It's a one hit kill on each guard and it nets us 32 xp (and a level up!), and 4 ap (which we will find out about later). Next screen, we meet up with the rest of the group and learn a few things about the setting.
Hooray, we get to name our character now! I will be using the default names, because somehow the story seems to suffer if the protagonist is named Poopy McFartHead. Then again, I did name Squall 'Douche' when I played FF8... Anyway. We are introduced to one Cloud Strife, former SOLDIER turned mercenary.
Ain't he purdy? Well at least he doesn't look like a girl in the original drawings.... (I'm shaking my fist at you, Advent Children!)
So now we've met most of AVALANCHE. The fat guy in yellow is Wedge, continuing the FF tradition of having a Biggs and a Wedge in honour of Star Wars. Sometimes Biggs gets translated to Vicks and I'm not sure why. It happened in Chrono Trigger. I would've named the fat guy Biggs for the obvious pun, but maybe that's just me. In any case, now we know that this SOLDIER group is the enemy of AVALANCHE. I can just imagine how this rivalry started: 'You can't have your name in all caps we had it in all caps first!'
Mr. Gun-Arm re-appears! He doesn't seem too happy.
AVALANCHE runs out towards the reactor, but not before Mr. StereoType with a capital T decides to give 'ol Cloud a piece of his mind. I'm curious if he's like this in the Japanese version, or if it's something that just happened in the translation process because the translators felt like doing it. Like how Frog in Chrono Trigger is the only character in the middle ages that speaks in Ye Olde Englishe.
Hey... we re-named him, dammit. It's Cloud.
Now we're given the opportunity to name Mr. Gun-Arm. I know it's tempting to re-name him Mr. T, but we'll stick with Barret for now. Barret Wallace, leader of AVALANCHE.
Before he runs off again, he tells us how to run (in the PSX version, he says it in an amusing sentence fragment. They fixed the translation here). On the PlayStation, hold X. On the PC, it's apparently 0 on the numpad. God I hate the PC controls. I need to get my Sixaxis working on this...
Anyway, we get a nice view of the No. 1 Mako reactor before Cloud runs off to join the party. The next zone has a few random encounters, but it's easy enough to run through quickly without encountering any. Nobody meets on the bridge like Barret told them to. Way to follow orders guys. Instead, Wedge takes up guard duty while Biggs, Jessie and Barret run ahead into the reactor. We follow them.
Barret, in all his anger, walks into Cloud and merges with him to form some kind of super bei-- naw. The other party members just walk in to Cloud and disappear, unfortunately. I like it when you can see them following you around... Anyway, our enemy has been given a name. Shinra. Apparently they own the Mako reactors as well as this SOLDIER group.
Biggs and Jessie open the doors for us. We need to remember which door they each unlocked because we'll have to talk to them on the way back. First door is Biggs, second is Jessie. There's a room off to the right where you can grab a phoenix down out of a chest. Phoenix downs are very good. You will also never have enough of them when you need them early in the game, and end up with 99 of them by the end game when you already have Life spells. So after we pick that up, we run back to the last door and walk in. It's an elevator, and Barret takes this opportunity to lecture some more.
Barret's all angry and clenching his fist, except that he doesn't have a fist because there's a gun there. It should have accidentally gone off and shot up the roof of the elevator or something. How does that gun-arm work, anyway? When you see him shoot it, his hand is always on the forearm of his gun-arm, just above where the gun starts, so it looks like it's just there to stabilize the gun. Advent Children didn't shed any light on this either. They just made his arm a Transformer... which, I suppose, it a lot better than having, say, an arm that psychically controls you and gives you a British accent for no reason.
Anyway, after the elevator there are more stairs and some random encounters. We see that Barret can't cast any magic like Cloud can. We will find out why in a short while. In the next area, Jessie tells us how to climb ladders and we find a potion. We also get to wonder why these Mako reactors have such a terrible layout. Imagine being the maintenance guy in this place...
After the last ladder, we spot something very, very important to us: a save point. We will save often. We will save right now, and then switch over to video mode!
VIDEO - Bombin' reactors, breakin' limits
Many thanks to SimBen for a suggestion which actually got this recording to work properly.
Oh no! Barret's turned into Squall!
BOOM! The bomb goes off, clearing a path for our heroes. Cloud dive-rolls through the wall of fire. Barret, Biggs and Jessie all run or jump out, and Wedge's ass catches on fire so he runs around in circles for a few seconds. Then, the group gathers and Barret gives them all instructions. 'Cause he's the leader and stuff.
Scene change! The city is in disarray. There's debris everywhere, and one guy and his five clones* are running around in a panic. We see a girl dressed in pink. She gets knocked over by one of the panicky clones, but gets up as our hero, Cloud Strife, appears on scene. She approaches him.
*not literally
So now we've got ourselves a flower. Awesome. The next area is just as panicky and debris filled as the last. We can grab a potion here, as well as read some lovely graffitti:
Wow! That was very informative! Thank you AVALANCHE! You have opened my eyes!
In the next area, we get approched by Shinra guards. We can either fight them or run. I usually fight them, just to get that extra bit of EXP. The battles aren't hard at all, even though it's just Cloud solo. There are 3 battles total. Cloud still ends up surrounded by troops no matter if you fight or run, and this forces him to jump off a bridge onto a conveniently placed moving train that the rest of AVALANCHE happens to be riding on.
There are some noises coming from the roof of the train. I think they're supposed to sound like running and banging or something but it's hard to tell. Eventually, the door opens and our good friend Cloud swings in, does a flip, and lands in a crouch. Showoff. Everyone except Barret seems to be excited to see him, and he's just standing there all cocky-like. So far he's been a pretty cocky bastard, I must say.
lolcocks
Barret, Biggs and Wedge leave the car and move up into the passenger cars. Jessie walks up to the side door, which is still open.
Jessie: Careful, I'll shut this. [she shuts the door, then turns around to face Cloud] Oh, Cloud!! Your face is pitch-black... [she wipes the dirt off his face.. or.. something] There you go! Say, thanks for helping me back there at the reactor.
Jessie leaves and we get control of Cloud back, but there's nothing particularly interesting in the car, so let's follow everybody else.
Inside the next car, there are actually seats. And more people. Apparently AVALANCHE is very scary. Or at least, Barret is, because a bunch of other passengers decide to run to the next car. Barret drops down into a seat like he owns the whole damn train, and decides to relax. Biggs and Wedge stand around, and Jessie invites Cloud over to look at a monitor.
psst... I think she likes him.
whisper whisper, saying whisper out loud isn't the best way to look inconspicuous
also, line change from the PSX version: Anyone can tell we look suspicious, so we're using fake IDs
In any case, the lights turn red and start flashing, and that siren noise like the one from the reactor video starts going off. ID checkpoint! Woo!
Now that I think of it... that's a very interesting line coming from Cloud. Remember it.
FMV! Train goes aorund the plate.
The train pulls in to the Sector 7 station. Or rather, the Train Graveyard. There are rusted corpses of train cars all around the place. We'll be back later to see the sights. Anyway, the crew disembarks from the train and Barret calls everyone over while some NPCs make out in the background or something.
So we head on over to the Sector 7 slums. Everything looks like it's been made out of scrap material haphazardly nailed together in the shape of a building. You can see support beams sticking out randomly... a couple doors even look like they've been taken out of a submarine or something else that needs a watertight door.
If you run straight to the HQ as fast as you can, Barret will say "Heh heh... You wanna meet your little baby?" and then you get the dialogue options of 'Little baby?' or 'Out of my way!'. If you take a while to get over there, then this won't happen.
So Cloud strolls in to the AVALANCHE HQ which is actually... a bar! Wait, why is there a kid here and why is she calling him papa--OH GOD CLOUD RUN! YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME BACK TO MIDGAR AFTER THAT--wait. The kid's just made a mistake. Ah. Ha. heh. yeah.
Name time! This here lady is Tifa Lockheart, childhood friend of Cloud Strife and owner of this here establishment.
Now, since we bought that flower from the flower girl after the reactor explosion, we get this piece of dialogue...
But suddenly.. A CHALLENGER APPEAR-- no wait, it's just Barret barreling in like a drunken rhinoceros.
So everyone takes the secret pinball machine elevator (did I just write that?) down to the HQ. We could follow them, but instead we're going to have a chat with Tifa at the bar and Barret will just have to pity us for missing the meeting oh god that was bad I'm sorry guys.
Anyway... now that we're alone here :winky:
Keep this conversation in mind. It'll make a lot of sense in a while.
So anyway, Cloud downs his drink and then heads down the secret pinball elevator, and we see that they aren't really having a meeting down there at all. Everyone's just kinda doing their own thing. Barret's working a heavy bag with both arms for some reason... wouldn't punching stuff with a gun-arm just.. uh.. not work? I mean I guess the Advent Children gun-arm would work since it can transform into a fist and stuff, but... anyway, I'm rambling.
Cloud and his corrected grammar take the secret pinball elevator back up to the bar. Tifa follows and stops him before he can leave.
They disappear, and now we just see the flashback of their younger selves. Oh god Young Tifa, what kind of horrible mutant are you! It's like Monica from Friends and that fat-suit!
Aww. A shooting star.
Remember that scene. We'll be coming back to it much later in the game.
We'll also be coming back to the present. Right now!
tl;dr
We are introduced to Cloud Strife, our protagonist. He's a mercenary and an ex-member of SOLDIER, an elite military squad owned by Shinra. Cloud is working for Barret Wallace, leader of the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE. AVALANCHE is trying to stop the use of Mako as an energy source. Mako is supposedly the lifeblood of the planet and is currently being used by Shinra corporation as an energy source via their Mako reactors. AVALANCHE has taken to bombing these Mako reactors in an attempt to stop the drain on the planet. The first bombing mission is a success, and the crew returns to the HQ where we meet Tifa Lockheart, owner of the 7th Heaven bar and a childhood friend of Cloud's. We witness a flashback to their youth, where Cloud makes a promise to Tifa that if she's ever in trouble, he will be her hero and save her. Cloud then signs on for another mission with AVALANCHE.
Notes:
Wow. That took a long time. I need to tone it down for the next update.
I'll work on the mic popping and the framerate issues for the next video.
I'll try and find a fix for the screwed up FMVs. I've seen one on qhimm.com before, I just need to find it.
Should I do more video? Now that I've got a hang of doing the videos, I could post more of them and cut down on the text considerably. I'm struggling with deciding how in-depth to make this. Since it's early in the game I can't go in to a deep story analysis or anything (which is what I am planning for near the end because man, I have this game memorized) so I kinda just fell back on 'here is the game's dialogue', which I think is a mistake. I just think a lot of the game might be a bit boring for video, but... I dunno. I could do all the cutscenes and just cut the battles, I suppose.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Where's the video?
EDIT: I'm apparently also retarded. Nevermind.
EDIT2: It sounds like you have a fan blowing into your mic the whole time.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Also, as a suggestion, instead of writing down every single scene as it happens, how about you simply offer your own thoughts on the matter? We all know how it went down, so there's no need to describe the story in full. For example:
This was always one of my favorite scenes, simply because it showcases (at the time) the level of emotion that could be conveyed through 3D graphics. I love the way Barret angrily shakes his fist, leers at Cloud, then silently just continues with the mission. It's the sort of thing that wouldn't be really possible to pull off in the old sprite based FF's.
Oh and,
Not to be a prude, but I hope you don't take the SA route and resort to boob jokes every paragraph. Yeah, I know it's a misshapenly large rack, but it wasn't really intentional.
Carry on.
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how old are you?
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
It's so odd seeing realistic models in FF7 though.
I will definitely cut down on the 'this is what happens' and replace it with 'this is what i think about what happens'. I've got a good story analysis in mind but it has to wait until later in the game. I think I'll throw in some interesting development facts and some more analysis of the differences between the PC and PSX versions.
Also, the Tifa boobs joke was just for that one part. I had to get it out of the way.
And cooljammer00, I'll be turning 19 this year. I'm also a girl, and my voice translates horribly to mic
What do you guys think about the number of screenshots? More? Less? Replace screens with more video?
Next update should be within the next day or so. I won't be able to do much today because we're having family over, but I should be free for tomorrow. If I remember correctly, the next 'section' won't take so long.
And then after that, it's everybody's favourite part....
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Otherwise, good job!