meltykarasu

[meltykarasu]

I Am Sakuya review

It's not another light novel review. Sorry if you follow me for that.

Basically at the start of December one of my friends was like "I should make a spreadsheet of my backlog." I had actually made a spreadsheet of my backlog back in 2018 and never followed through with beating about half of the games on the list, mostly JRPGs, before I began buying and playing other games. I happen to also compulsively purchase Metroidvanias and not complete them and instead decide to play Super Metroid for the fiftieth time.

I went back through and made a new spreadsheet of my current backlog; there are around 80-90 entries (some are doubled) and now I'm dedicating myself to beating at the least the majority of that before I buy another game.

As of writing I am five completions deep — some of which were just polishing off games I hadn't finished but had put substantial hours into. I thought it might be fun to log these with reviews. They're gonna hopefully be short. We're starting with I Am Sakuya, available on Steam.

I Am Sakuya is a Touhou Project game that manifests as a Doom engine shooter. It's got a pretty threadbare plot retelling this sort of fanon explanation for the employment of Sakuya Izayoi, human head maid of the vampire-filled Scarlet Devil Mansion.

As for the game itself, it's a heavily projectile-based Doom with a visually bright coat of paint. None of the enemies have hitscan weapons and you only have one with a maximum ammo count of 50. If you've played any classic shooter like Doom, Quake, or Marathon, you'll be right at home. The projectile-based shooting makes every encounter a little 3D bullet hell, which is quite fun. The weapons are fun and funny — the hitscan weapon is a plushie, and the shotgun is a four-barreled monstrosity, and the throwing knives bounce off walls to create a functional blender. And most interestingly of all, there is even a watch that stops time completely.

I really dug this. It's not long but it's got a fair amount of charm. My favorite part is the penultimate level of Episode 1, which is an elevator stage from a beat 'em up — enemies board your elevator and you gotta survive the whole way up. Second place goes to filling the library of knives and watching the boss's health deplete chunk-by-chunk.

See you next time!

#zerobacklogreview

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 24

Cloud and company ascend into the executive suites pursuing the trail of alien blood and eventually he wanders into President Shinra's office, where the man himself has been thrown out the window. He's offering anything. Money. Power. Anything you want.

"I want my father back, you son of a bitch," Barret says.

Nah, just kidding. Barret does tell him to clear AVALANCHE's name and then the President pulls a hidden gun on him—

And then is immediately killed by Sephiroth, who also stabs Barret.

Sephiroth mutates into Alien Freakazoid JENOVA Dreamweaver with one of my favorite battle tracks in the entire game. See, it's an arrangement of the original JENOVA theme but it doesn't hit you with it at once, subtly working in the layers as the fight progresses until you hit the last phase and the iconic synths start in and you're like "Now! That's What I Call Boss Music!"

Anyway, you gotta cripple its tentacles or somethin' like that. I just really dig the music.

Anyway then the illusory battlefield it's pulled Cloud's party into fades. Barret's life is saved by one of the Whispers and Cloud chases after what appears to be Sephiroth, hauling the black-cloaked corpse of what had been Jenova until it was beaten and reverted to seemingly being human. The Sephiroth he's pursuing is ALSO a man in a black cloak, who leaps from the building to parts unknown.

AVALANCHE's helicopter descends to the heliport but is promptly blown up by an arriving Shinra helicopter. It's Rufus Shinra, everybody! [APPLAUSE]

Cloud says he'll delay Rufus if Barret gets Aerith out and then comes one of my favorite boss fights in the entire game — a solo fight between Rufus and Cloud, guest starring Darkstar, Rufus's pet guard hound. Rufus is just a really dynamic fighter and the entire fight is really fun. I don't know how else to describe it.

After the fight Rufus escapes via helicopter and attempts to blow Cloud off the side of the heliport. He's saved by Tifa at the last second.

Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII descend down the elevator but are waylaid by The Arsenal, another Shinra mech. This is not one of my favorite boss fights, mostly because I like playing as Cloud and Tifa a lot more than Barret and Aerith. I blew a lot of Aerith's MP early and it was a lengthy fight because he would not do the thing that let me stagger him.

Meanwhile, Whispers throw Wedge out a window.

Barret's group heads down to the lobby where they are met with Shinra infantry and Heidegger, but then Cloud appears on a motorbike at the last second and does some sick moves to defeat the troops while Tifa pulls up in a dinky pickup truck to grab the rest of the gang. They leap out a window and head down the incomplete expressway.

Whispers swarm the Shinra Building, covering it completely.

Shinra pursues the escapees, throwing a bunch of soldiers and mecha at them including the Motor Ball, an interesting boss which is now fought entirely on the bike, involving repeatedly staggering it by crippling the wheels, and then racking up over 500% damage by doing this several times over. It's interesting.

The gang pulls to a stop because Cloud saw Sephiroth and the Whispers, which is an awful band name. They confront him and he vanishes into a portal and Aerith makes her own portal. Inside, they are confronted by the massive Whisper Harbinger and its gang of Whispers, and basically you have to fight a bunch of the little guys to destroy the big guy. It's an okay boss fight but it's barely about the big guy except for thirty seconds at the end.

Then Sephiroth shows up!

This is a GREAT final boss fight. Sephiroth is in top form here — fast, agile, lethal, he swaps between different elemental weaknesses and affinities at points. He puts a lot of pressure on the currently controlled character, which makes switching pretty necessary. That said, I kept whacking him with Cloud's counterstrike, which is basically how I cheesed most of the bosses tonight. All those Whispers? Counter. Jenny? Counter. Rufus? Counter, and his dog too.

It starts as a solo fight but then you get Aerith and man, when I said he pressures the fuck out of your controlled character, he could NOT stop stabbing Aerith! Eventually Tifa also shows up and throws down and thank god because she has the Cure-All setup going.

I wound up beating Sephiroth with about 30 seconds to spare before midnight.

Anyway, Cloud pursues Sephiroth into the edge of creation and Sephiroth implores him to join him. They duel but Cloud is outclassed. Meanwhile Rufus takes control of Shinra and the people of Sector 7 begin to rebuild.

I did not edit this screenshot to make it look like it was snowing.

Cloud and company stand outside Midgar. Cloud knows that Sephiroth is still out there and wants to pursue him and the rest join in for the sake of the Planet's ongoing health. It begins to rain.

And I, personally, thank you for reading. See you next year!

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 23

Cloud and Tifa sneak through airducts to spy on the Shinra board meeting, where Reeve is really unhappy with the President's decision — as they have Aerith, she will lead them to the Promised Land (which the company assumes is a mako-rich land) and they will build a new Midgar there. Hojo talks about her viability as a test subject a while but is otherwise pretty checked out.

The party follows Hojo up into his lab and hold him hostage. After a quick boss fight and combat encounter, he looks closely at Cloud, realizing he may have been a SOLDIER but after a second recognition strikes his sunglass covered eyes. No, you weren't, he begins — but then is whisked away by ghosts before he can finish.

The party unlocks Aerith's cage along with another test subject, a lion-dog who attacks Hojo on sight. His name is Red XIII. Aerith calms him down after a moment but then Cloud has a compulsion to head for the elevator and faints.

Meanwhile the Turks chill in the basement and chat about their part in Sector 7's fall before Tseng gets an email — the Vice President needs them.

Aerith takes Cloud to her old room from her days as a child test subject. She discusses her mother and the Ancients (aka the Cetra) and their Promised Land, but when Barret indicates he is going to kill the Shinra board, the ghosts reappear. Red XIII and Aerith reveal their name and purpose: Whispers, the arbiters of fate who seek to correct destiny every time it goes wayward.

The party is then contacted by Domino and a somehow-got-inside Wedge. The main branch of AVALANCHE is bombing the tower and will evacuate them via helicopter if they can get up to the roof. They gear up and prepare to head out.

Finally, they go up the elevator and into Hojo's expanded laboratory, where they discover Jenova, Hojo's favorite test subject. Sephiroth appears and Cloud attacks, separating the party.

In true Kefka's Tower fashion, this dungeon requires switching between two parties. Red XIII spends most of his time with Cloud and Barret as a guest party member, attacking but not able to be controlled. The party switching is pretty seamless but it does require you having raised a good amount of materia to fill out the ENTIRE party's gear. You also get the last few weapons around this time, including Cloud's super cool magic-focused Twin Stinger with a dedicated counter ability.

Eventually they reunite and make their way upstairs to where Jenova and Sephiroth were, only to find her missing and a trail of blood leading away...

Tomorrow is the finale! I'm gonna be streaming on Twitch that night and we will hopefully get through the last boss gauntlet before midnight!

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 22

Here we go — the climb up the Sector 7 wall was a prelude, but the Shinra Building is the final dungeon proper and consumes three entire chapters of an eighteen chapter game.

Cloud and company emerge onto the catwalks before the building. Security is tight, and Barret suggests a suicidal charge straight through the front. Cloud spies a rear entrance and the party slips aboard a cargo truck that slipped into the parking garage. They carve their way through the security in the garage and head up to ground level.

In the lobby the group is immediately stymied by doors requiring keycards. Cloud spies one in the reception desk — which is currently closed off by a force field except through the top. Tifa leaps and monkey-bars her way over to it and secures the card.

I went up the elevator, incurring a few combat encounters and a scene where Tifa watches a man who calls his mother to find somewhere safe given the danger in the city over the last few days. The group also scares a woman half to death.

The elevator lets out at floor 59 — six shy of Hojo's laboratory on floor 65. The group signs up for a self-guided tour up the next few floors. Floor 60 is a museum extolling the virtues of Shinra and displays images and exhibits about the various departments and the president.

Meanwhile, in a series of asides, we are introduced to the unfolding intrigue of Shinra. Scarlet, the domineering head of Shinra's Advanced Weaponry Development, is in the midst of overseeing the development of new materia when an experiment goes wrong. Hojo of the Research Division menaces Aerith. Reeve Tuesti, the head of Urban Development, displays his distaste for Shinra following the collapse of Sector 7. President Shinra and Heidegger of Public Security discuss their PR narrative tying the troubles in the city to AVALANCHE and further out to Wutai.

And finally, Palmer of the Space Program is enjoying a cup of tea in the hall when he is passed by a familiar man in a black cloak...

Cloud and company watch a video presentation discussing Shinra and their view of the Ancients, who apocryphally sought a "Promised Land". Shinra believes it is a place rich with mako energy. As the presentation wraps up, it glitches out to reveal—

A meteor hangs apocalyptically over Midgar, windstorms and tornados buffeting the town. People flee in terror.

And Sephiroth appears once more to menace Cloud.

The presentation wraps up and a man opens the door. His name is Hart and he leads the party up into the archives at the behest of the Mayor of Midgar, Domino. He reveals: He is AVALANCHE's man on the inside and has been hiding the party from the wider Shinra security intranet — and he can get the party up to the next couple floors, updating their keycard and pointing them towards another collaborator who will provide another keycard, should they respond with the proper countersign — "The Mayor is the best."

So they head up into the employee recreational area and find the collaborator beside the Shinra VR simulator. He tells them to fight a simulated fight in order to get the keycard which is definitely not the devs realizing there hasn't been a fight in like twenty or thirty minutes depending on if you chose the elevator or the emergency staircase.

You can stick around and fight for some armor and Gil Up and Exp Up materia. I did so and it took like an hour or so?

Cloud heads back to the stairs and is interrupted by a pair of infantrymen. One of them prepares to call intruders but the other says, no, this is Cloud, my old buddy from basic training. Cloud grasps his forehead in pain. The infantryman says wait here and he'll go grab Kunsel (applause from the Crisis Core players in the audience for mention of a side character).

Tifa shows concern and Cloud brushes it aside and sets off for the stairs.

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 21

For the shortest day of the year, I sure had a packed schedule. I'm actually only just starting my session for the night about forty minutes before the date change, so it makes more sense for me to wrap aaall that up in the 22nd's write-up.

Have a leftover screenshot that didn't make the post but which I really liked from last session and the promise of a lengthy discussion of the first leg of the Shinra Building tomorrow (i.e. in a few hours).

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 20

Cloud and company ascend the wall and make their way up through the ruined Sector 7 plate. Shinra is patrollin' and monsters are riflin' around. I loaded Cloud up with Aero-Elemental and Tifa up with Lightning-Elemental on their weapons and went to town.

Cloud uses a freshly dead SOLDIER's radio to respond to a call and the other end bitched about AVALANCHE, so Barret swiped it and barked out threats only to discover they'd already hung up.

The party was discovered by Shinra moments later.

It's a neat dungeon that really delivers on the promise of grappling guns and precarious heights. Lots of the industrial machinery made me think of NieR Automata. Man, NieR owns.

The group ascends a crumbling building only to come face to face with the Heli Gunner — okay, I reflexively call it that because of OG FFVII. It's "The Valkyrie" now. It pelts them with machine gun fire until they reach a point where they can confront it and then the fight is on and by that I mean Cloud and Tifa beat the shit out of it because their weapons are elementally imbued with what it's weak to.

That's what we call Chekov's Gun. Kinda.

Its destruction and ensuing fireball causes the platform to give out and the party nearly plummets to their doom. Cloud grabs Tifa and she grabs Barret with her own grappling gun. They arrive on more stable ground and prepare to head for the Shinra Building.

#final fantasy vii #ffvii advent calendar

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 19

We're pretty much done with side stuff! I wrapped up the last of it (the Whack-a-Box Hard Mode) at the start of this session. Now back to regularly scheduled Plot Focus until basically the end of the game!

Cloud and co. barge into Don Corneo's mansion only to discover his lieutenant Leslie, who had previously helped Aerith and Tifa by delivering their gear during the previous visit to the mansion. He's in the middle of preparing to go after Don Corneo, who has fled into the sewers.

And he knows a way to get up to the plate, so he offers the group a trade: they help him get through the monster-infested sewers to Corneo's hideout, he gets them up there.

The sewers are marginally rearranged and midway through split off from the original trek, and there's an entire detour when a creature grabs the key Leslie needs for the door. Once they catch up and defeat the monster, turns out, it's not a key, it's a pendant from his fiancée. He's going after Corneo out of revenge, as she had been chosen as a bride and vanished.

They catch up to Corneo, who once again unleashes Abzu on the group. During the chaos, Corneo slips away, Leslie is knocked out, and the party beats the monster's ass again.

After Leslie awoke, the party comforted him over Corneo's escape, and Tifa reminded him the flower depicted on the pendant was one of reunion. He vowed to seek out his wayward fiancée and gave the party new grappling guns to ascend the wall between Sector 6 and 7, along with a warning to finish what business they have in the undercity before ascending.

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 18

I said I was wrapping up side stuff yesterday but guess what! I forgot all the coliseum challenges to do, which earn you bonus SP and the level 2 limit breaks! I did all of them in one go because to be quite frank I'm very tired from work today!

Again: better post coming tomorrow! For real!

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 17

I feel like most of everything relevant for today was covered in yesterday's post. I just did more sidequests and finished the pedometer materia, netting me the AP Up materia! This functionally replaces the double AP weapons and armor of the original, but only works for a linked materia.

I only have one sidequest left (grabbing the last of Corneo's vaults, which is gated behind main story progress) so we'll talk more tomorrow! Sorry for the short post!

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 16

Cloud awakens to footsteps. Tifa can't sleep — broken up about the the destruction of her home at Shinra's hands for a second time. She cries into Cloud's shoulders, but Cloud's mako-enhanced strength causes him to hurt her by hugging her too tightly.

In the morning, Elmyra relents and allows Cloud to rescue Aerith. The group thank her and embark. But without trains or leads on ways to get topside, Tifa suggests a hail mary play: ask Corneo, the most connected man in the undercity.

At the heart of the Sector 5 slums, a young woman named Kyrie is offering news of AVALANCHE — but twisted by Shinra's biases. Tifa stops Barret before he can make a scene: the people here need hope, not anger. The group prepares to help everyone they can before ascending to the plate.

That leads us into the last major sidequest section of the game!

These sidequests wrap up most of the loose ends of the game's secondary plots and are intensely connected. Johnny's wallet is stolen, leading the party to Kyrie, who stole the key to Corneo's stash, which is also being pursued by the Angel of the Slums. In order to get both, the party has to go to Wall Market, where Madame M tells them that Corneo's thugs are heading back to Sector 5. Meanwhile in Sector 5, a doctor needs medicinal herbs and other ingredients, and in Wall Market, a little girl from Sector 7 wants to gather music to reinvigorate people and Andrea Rhodea from the Honeybee Inn is training at the gym! Plus, Chocobo Sam's stablehands are looking for wayward chocobos, which open up further locations to fast travel to!

It's a lot.

The game also provides a pedometer materia at this stage which, like a Pokemon egg, will one day become something neat, and running around for all these sidequests is the perfect way to do that. Just equip it and resist the temptation to use the new fast travel system until you hit 5000 steps.

I got a good chunk of the sidequests done today including the remaining gym challenges — pull-ups as Tifa, this time — and I should finish it off tomorrow. Then it'll just about be main quest straight through the endgame!

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 15

Yeah, we're getting buckwild with the posting times. And despite what the screenshot implies, I am using a controller to play this (a Dualshock 4, what God intended) but my screenshot button is bound to F12 by default and I can't be assed to setup a rebind on the DS4's Share button.

What a stupid idea, the Share button in place of a Select. Tim Rogers said it best when he said the touch pad has been nothing but the world's largest Select Button. I mean, how often are you actually using it for touch padding? I basically only use it for typing because it's marginally faster.

I think this post is running away from me. We were playing a video game or something, right?

Cloud, Tifa, and Barret traverse the collapsed expressway Cloud and Aerith had just gone through hours before. It is now even worse in terms of being collapsed, but they eventually make it to the edge of Sector 6 and the park. Barret bought a new gun-arm from the weapon vendor there and the group slipped into the access tunnel between the Sectors.

In Sector 7, the neighborhood watch was busy searching for survivors. The group visited the ruins of Tifa's bar before being led over to Wedge's home by one of his many cats.

There was a brand new sinkhole in the front yard which the cat leapt down into. It led directly into an underground Shinra laboratory. The party spotted Wedge and immediately fell deeper into the facility.

Unexpectedly, you take control of Barret, who can machine gun apart solid rock obstacles. Amazing. Eventually you catch up to Tifa in the maze of corridors and walkways and take down a nest of bugs. They proceeded up and out of the laboratory, eventually circling around to where they had spotted Wedge. They confirmed his wellbeing and, hearing an impending threat, throw him outside the blast doors as they seal shut.

A bunch of once-human experiments crawl out of the vents at Barret and Tifa. They fend them off until they are menaced by a massive one, which they defeat handily through judicious usage of bullets and fists. Tifa got a new weapon!

Cloud arrives at the end of the fight to stun the monster so Barret can finish it off. They break open the wall behind it to reveal rows and rows of tanks with listless human forms inside. Cloud confirms: human experimentation. He suffers a hallucination of himself in the same position.

Then the entire group is spirited away by the ghosts and deposited outside the dungeon, Wedge included. They take him back to Elmyra's home.

Cloud entreats her once more: Let them rescue Aerith, as they have just found evidence of Shinra's human experimentation. She denies once more and asks them to just rest for the night for now.

I mean like I don't mind the Share button! It's just that it's where you WOULD put the Select button. I think it has value but, like, the Switch has a screenshot button AND equivalent Start and Select buttons. And those controllers are fucking tiny! Have you ever held one of the Dualsenses? I mean, like, we're not quite at Xbox Duke territory in terms of big, large, huge controllers, but hot damn are we getting there.

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 14

Shorter posts for the next few days! And this one's mostly just story.

In the aftermath of the collapse, Barret is furious with grief. Tifa says this may have been their fault but Barret denies it — Shinra pulled the trigger.

Cloud reminds them of Aerith's parting words about Marlene's safety and then begins to head for Sector 5. Barret and Tifa follow. On discussion of the Ancients, which Tseng had mentioned, Cloud has another hallucination of Sephiroth.

They pass through Wall Market and witness the displaced Sector 7 inhabitants and Shinra infantry combing the streets for them and quickly shuffle out of the district to the road that leads directly to Sector 5.

When I got there, I stopped to check in on battle intel with Chadley and wrapped up the last of the latest batch by battling the Fat Chocobo again. Tifa's triangle attacks provide additional stagger damage percentage and I racked up to 300%, netting me a trophy. I also got the Enemy Skills materia, which is a little less useful in this than the original but still useful. I put it on Cloud. I also tried the Leviathan battle but wiped quickly and decided it could wait until the big sidequest dump in the next chapter or so.

Barret barged into Aerith's home, with the others following shortly behind. After checking in on Marlene, Aerith's mother told of her daughter's childhood. Elmyra discusses how Aerith had come into her life — at the train platform, a dying woman told her to take her daughter somewhere safe.

Aerith was a little psychic child who grew up in a facility and knew things — such as when people died. The Turks had previously attempted to grab her, but if she wouldn't return willingly, whatever Shinra wanted with her would not work. So they kept an eye on her for many long years.

Cloud prepares to go, but Elmyra entreats him to not make things worse. They decide, first, to head back into Sector 7 to search for survivors.

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 13

No update today! Busy, tired, and estimating I'll be done with the game before Christmas Eve.

See you tomorrow!

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 12

Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa are waylaid by ghosts — no, the other kind. After a minute or two of fighting, they are allowed past. Wedge falls from the pillar and Aerith and Tifa stay back to patch him up as Cloud ascends.

Cloud tears his way through Shinra infantry and artillery as he ascends the support pillar. Biggs dies; Cloud comforts him as he does so. As he ascends, Cloud is stopped by the Turks' helicopter, and Reno makes it clear by reading off a script that they intend to pin the blame of the plate drop on AVALANCHE.

Below, Tifa sees this and begins to ascend, asking Aerith to go to her bar and get Barret's daughter Marlene. Wedge shows her the way but almost immediately stops to harass Shinra guards into opening the gate out into Sector 6. Aerith and Wedge split off and Aerith goes into the main area. Helicopters are crashing, fires are spreading, but she makes it to the bar — but not before Tseng, the Turks' leader, spots her.

Aerith comforts Marlene and begins to take her out of the bar when the helicopter lands. Tseng says, point blank, her options are limited. Aerith brokers a deal. Long story short, in exchange for Marlene's safety, Aerith goes into Shinra custody.

Cloud and Tifa ascend while being harassed by the Turks. They come across a dying Jessie who feels remorse over the bombings she committed and wishes she could have had Cloud over for pizza.

They reach the top of the pillar and battle Reno and then Rude, who joins once the helicopter crashes. Reno is faster and has new attacks, including an attempt to have his gimmick from the original where he will lock a PC in a pyramid, but his heart's just not in it. Rude feels only slightly upgraded from his earlier boss fight.

Unfortunately, they drop the plate and abscond. Tseng video calls them to gloat a little and Aerith pops into frame to reassure Tifa and Barret that Marlene is safe.

Barret grabs a zipline and the trio escape, just as the plate begins to collapse.

The FMV also shows Wedge having gone back for his cats and I gotta say: really, buddy?

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 11

Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith venture through the train graveyard. And it's haunted. That's why the chapter name is "Haunted."

Okay so I've been saying "menaced by ghosts" and the like in reference to what the UI thus far has called Mysterious or Enigmatic Spectres. These are not those. They are Capital G Ghosts. They're actually specifically the ghosts of children, and as Cloud attempts to restore power to the maintenance building, a group of ghost children form up like Voltron to make the Ghoul boss, which goes intangible (making it immune to physical attacks) or tangible (immune to magic), necessitating switching between Cloud/Tifa and Aerith to do damage with standard attacks.

They emerge into a less foggy and haunted section and climb aboard a still kinda functioning locomotive. As Cloud uses it to clear a path, the radio receives a transmission between the Turks, revealing: yes, they are going to drop the plate — if they can wade their way through the heavily armed poor people in their way.

The group rushes out of the graveyard but are stymied by Eligor, a strange horse-chariot-man-ghost that abducts children or something. He's a jerk but you can steal an Aerith weapon from him, and since weapons confer actual tangible skills they are way more valuable than the original.

I beat him and the trio emerged into the Sector 7 Slums just as another Shinra helicopter rocketed overhead. In the distance, the plate's pillar was lit up with gunfire and the explosions of fragmentation grenades.

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 10

Cloud and Aerith show up for Don Corneo's bridal audition and are promptly drugged and thrown into his dank dungeon which is implied to be, y'know. Tifa is there too!

The group reunite and Tifa reveals she's there because she wants to squeeze information out of Corneo regarding men he sent into Sector 7. Aerith submits: since they all know the plan, and they're all three up on the block, there is literally no way they can fail.

Cloud is picked as Don Corneo's bride — unlike the original this isn't a decision based on how good you did at getting stuff for your disguise, which is a little disappointing. But what isn't disappointing is Aerith slamming a steel chair into a man's face as she breaks out, so I guess it evens out.

Leslie, the Don's apparent right hand man, shows up to deliver the group's gear, Aerith and Tifa show up to deliver Cloud his sword and his clothes. After being threatened by the trio Don Corneo relents: he was told to find Barret's AVALANCHE cell so that Shinra could drop an entire section of the Midgar plate on them. Tifa is like, okay, we gotta go there NOW and Don Corneo is like "hahaha get punked" and all three fall into the trapdoor he's had put into his bedroom and then C-3PO says, "Oh no! The Rancor!"

The trio face off against Don Corneo's pet, Abzu. He thrashes and charges and unleashes sewer water at them. I actually died (like total party wipe) because I didn't dodge a sewer water blast and then had no ATB on Tifa to heal up and revive the other party members!

They make their way through the sewers, another dungeon expanded out from a two-screen original. It's pretty okay? I mean it's a sewer level where you raise and lower water levels, but it's competently made. I like the middle section where you crisscross a more modern, brightly lit sewer area, than the sandwiching sections.

Anyway they emerge back into fresh air in Sector 7 — but in the middle of the Train Graveyard, and just as a helicopter bearing the Turks flies overhead toward the pillar...

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii

[meltykarasu]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Advent Calendar — Dec. 9

I realize I switch tense a lot with these. I'm sorry.

Cloud and Aerith stop outside Sector 7 for a moment. Aerith talks about her first crush, who was the same rank as Cloud was — but when Cloud hears his name, all that he perceives is static.

Anyway Aerith opens up a passageway to Sector 7 right before a chunky purple freakwagon bearing Tifa inside trundles past them. Cloud jumps on the back. Tifa is dressed to the nines and tells Cloud she's going to see Don Corneo, the head of the nearby red light entertainment district, Wall Market. She tells Cloud to regroup with AVALANCHE in Sector 7 and she'll be back soon.

Aerith hears this and decides, no, they should probably go after her.

Wall Market is a maze of dense streets and things to do. Beelining for Don Corneo's mansion gets the pair stopped by flunkies who say "No, Don Corneo won't let anyone in unless they're a bridal candidate." Aerith says "Okay, then I'll be a bridal candidate."

This leads Cloud on a chase all around Wall Market. Now, doing certain things leads you along a different route with different results, but here's the overall sitch as it pertains to this playthrough:

Cloud goes over to Andrea Rhodea whose appointments are booked for three years straight. He goes to Chocobo Sam, who uses a trick coin in a toss. Then he goes to Madam M, who says, sure. If Cloud and Aerith compete in the Corneo Cup and win her a million gil.

They go to do that and bash their way through the tournament — but at the last minute Corneo springs a bonus match at them against another fantastic setpiece boss: Hell House.

Hell House's fight really relies on you bringing a materia of each major spell element. Guess who forgot their Fire materia in their locker? It was me! It was agony and I burned through a lot more MP than I should have and it got way too down-to-the-wire. But I won!

Madam M says, okay, Aerith, let's get you changed into an extravagant dress. Cloud, go do some busywork.

Cloud goes and does busywork — mostly running around town in a big long quest referencing all the subquests from Wall Market's original iteration (see my earlier let's plays for more details). He also stops at the gym and does squats and yes I did do them to the point of getting the trophy and yes I'm calling it a trophy even though I'm playing on Steam so they're "achievements" and YES I listened to the Rocky IV training montage song while I was doing it.

Anyway so Cloud finishes all this up and goes back to Corneo's mansion. Aerith shows up in a gorgeous red dress and Cloud is now kind of realizing he's sending in this young woman to a crime boss's den and is getting cold feet.

Aerith says, "Well, it's a good thing I have a plan."

See, that tournament victory against Hell House earned Cloud a personal invitation from Andrea Rhodea who is going to put Cloud in a disguise and then send him to Corneo as the third bridal candidate of the night. And he's going to do this live on stage, preceded immediately by him and Cloud having an elaborate dance number.

Have I mentioned how much I love this game yet?

#ffvii advent calendar #final fantasy vii