Final Fantasy 7....by a non gamer

RedXIV

Mindkiller wrote: »

The Yuffie section should really be skipped the first time through imo, at least until disc 2. If you're not overlevelled you're going to have a tough time of it getting to Wutai and beating Raps or Aps or whatever he's called. Those birds with the lightning attack are a pain.

I always went to Wutai straight after Rocket Town, never occurred to me not to. To be honest though, she's at a high enough level to take on Raps, she just may find it difficult. She has a good 10 levels on me when I usually get to this part of the game.

Yup, the birds with the lightning attack are the ones that killed her.

noodler wrote: »

..........I think you can at least remind her to save man!

I think all the challenge and benefits of Wutai are goen by disc 2 so would urge her to go on.

I didn't realise she hadn't saved, at least until she was halfway through the fight she died in. To be honest though, your not dying enough if you don't see a save point and think "YES!"

Retr0gamer

RedXIV wrote: »

she's not a gamer so her first reaction was "30 hours of fighting to waste?! for this?! what a load of BALLS!!" followed by "This is all YOUR fault!! You told me to get Yuffie and look what she did!" with a finger pointed right at me and then "You've been waiting for this haven't you!?".

Haha, didn't expect that reaction but makes sense. As an experienced gamer you have seen this scenario before and it's obvious you'll get your materia back but the poor thing has no experience of that

ancapailldorcha

I got so pissed off that Yuffie got to

live through the Wutai sidequest. I was really fumed at losing my materia and nearly got wiped out by Rapps save for he filled Cloud's limit meter at the last moment.

Memnoch

When Yuffie stole my Materia I was still relatively new to gaming so I wasn't sure if I would get all my materia back or not. Man was I angry. And it wasn't like I ever used her in my party so I was doubly pissed.

I think the next big highlight is going to be seeing what happens at the end of Disc one.

This thread is a great idea by the way, wish I had thought of it the time I got herself to play through ff7. Maybe I'll copy it when I get her to play X after it comes out in HD this summer.

Lantus

This is a great thread! When the FFX thread started I made an epic journey to the loft and replayed X again doing all the extra levelling up stuff to super buff my chars.

FFVII held special memories and I was reading the thread while playing the CD which was great.

Might just have to rumage around for 7 and boot up on the PS3. I dont think the missus would be too bothered as she's not a gamer type. A serious contender as Wii bowling tho'!

RedXIV

Ok so she was playing it yesterday while I was in work and I got the following through her updates. She was looking for Yuffie for a good bit and when she first got in touch she told me she had found her twice, in her house and the old man's house. Her next message was quite joyful as she told me she had her surrounded at a jug and this was the end of Yuffie's reign of terror.

This was followed by frustration again as Yuffie caught her with the cage trick. At least Ms. RedXIV had the good sense not to trust Yuffie and pulled the other lever, not that it mattered. And in fact I told her as much trying to make her feel better but she got annoyed with me because by this stage she had already restarted the game to pull the other :P

I didn't get the chance to hear how she took to the storyline of the girls getting captured but I did hear alot about her victory over Raps. She did die the first time she fought him, Aero3 being blamed as the primary cause and similarly the second time, she again was at one man standing, but Aeris's Seal Evil limit break has gotten ferocious use since she discovered it. She's been quite proud since she beat Raps sans materia, which is understandable, this is a boss fight that radically altered her combat strategy.

She has just left wutai now without attempting the pagoda, thats fine with me though, I think the sooner she left wutai, the happier she was going to be. Only problem now is she doesn't know where to go. She's forgotten about the mention of the Temple of the Ancients as she acquired the Tiny Bronco but from my vague and distant memories, alot of people in alot of towns talk about it now before you find it. The temple of the ancients is definitely a step up in the dungeons she has encountered so far so this should be interesting. It also, for me, signifies the start of the events that lead up to THAT event, so this should be more interesting. With her growing attachment to the character, this should be very interesting!

Hopefully will have more for you guys later!

MitchKoobski

Finding the Temple itself shouldnt be too hard, its basically trial and error going into new places you come across.

The tricky part will be figuring out that the keystone for it is in the Gold Saucer.

Retr0gamer

Think that's the bit where you have to look for that little hut just below the golden saucer. Took me hours to find it since it's not marked on the map and you are not given any instructions where it is.

noodler

Theo, isn't it?

The Battle Arena owner who has the keystone?

How do you eventually find out you need it? Do you go to the Temple first?

In that case, how do you get directed to the Gold saucer?

RedXIV

noodler wrote: »

Theo, isn't it?

The Battle Arena owner who has the keystone?

How do you eventually find out you need it? Do you go to the Temple first?

In that case, how do you get directed to the Gold saucer?

Dio is the owner yep. I can't remember actually what prompts you to get it. Perhaps you can't enter the temple without it? I know you have to go to the tiny weapon's shop to get told that the owner sold it to Dio but think there is no one who tells you to go to that shop, its just randomly there

Vokes

What Retr0 says sounds about right. There is a blacksmith I think somewhere in a standalone house and he directs you to the Gold Saucer.

I remember back in 1997 being utterly lost at the point of leaving Rocket Town. The mention of the Temple of the Ancients completely passed me by there.

I think I may have made my way at first to a town or village in the northern continent and the comments of the townspeople there directed me towards the southern continent.

Retr0gamer

I wasn't lost after rocket town. I just wandered along all the coasts and went to anywhere that was new and got back on track. Only time I didn't know exactly where to go was looking for that hut to get the key or black materia, can't remember which. Took a few hours wandering but I've been stuck a lot worse in games before.

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I wasn't lost after rocket town. I just wandered along all the coasts and went to anywhere that was new and got back on track. Only time I didn't know exactly where to go was looking for that hut to get the key or black materia, can't remember which. Took a few hours wandering but I've been stuck a lot worse in games before.

I honestly can't remember if I even went to Wutai first time around (Actually I think I did but I didn't have Yuffie).

So I definitely can't remember how I copped where to go after Rocket Town.

God, nostalgia.

Arawn

By far the greatest thread on boards right now. Kudos red for the updates

MitchKoobski

I'm eagerly anticipating the next few updates (fingers crossed!) from Red. I'm not sure how that reflects upon my life as a whole...

RedXIV

OK guys, so she had just left Wutai after our last update and was trying to find her way back to the Tiny Bronco, slightly more difficult than anticipated, due to the way the path is rendered for her. After taking her time and rotating the camera a lot she finally got back onto the Tiny Bronco and headed straight towards Rocket Town. Bypassing the town she instead headed towards Mt. Nibel and finally manages to navigate her way back to the buggy while looking for the Temple of the Ancients.

Deciding it wasn't on this continent, she went back to the Tiny Bronco and after a while of navigating through the shallow seas, she managed to make her way up to Bone Village. Before entering the village, she got in a few fights, nice to know she's paying attention as she won a "nut" after a battle and straight away came to "I'm not finished with Chocobos am I?" She's also started to run away from fights far more often now, she was very much of the opinion that every fight was worth completing but now that she's searching for something, the irritation of random battles has hit in full swing.

So in Bone village we get the clues that "To get to the temple of the Ancients, you need a keystone" but couple that with the hints of the City of the Ancients being behind Bone Village, and a gamer new to this, she was now sure she had the location nailed and just needed the keystone.

After about an hour of searching for places to visit, and its worth noticing that she doesn't seem to recognise the outside of places, only when she enters them, so she visited Midgar, Costa Del Sol, Junon, Chocobo Farm, Kalm and spent a good 20 mins trying to get into Mideel but the landscape doesn't allow it. Eventually she stumbled across the weapons shop and as she entered, the conversation started about the keystone. The weapons shop owner refers to the new owner of the keystone as a very rich man and she copped it was Dio before he confirmed it. She's getting into the story more and more it seems

Heading to the Gold Saucer, she finally heads into the wonder square arcade where she tries a couple of games before encountering the pain that is mog house and deciding its totally not worth it. She heads towards the battle square and finally spots the keystone. When Dio tells her about the challenge he's set them, she gets thrown into the battle arena and really has a pitiful run, not even getting past the first fight. Thankfully this is not necessary and she gets the keystone and gets diverted to the hotel after the railcar is busted.

In the hotel lobby we get a summation of events from Cloud and co to try and reaffirm the story line. This was taken well and even though there are bits that blatantly baffled her (Red XIII having a tattoo was one here as well as confirmation of the "Promised land") she seems to have a good grasp on what's happening. Then we came to date night and she was approached by.....TIFA! Not really surprised but a nice change considering I only ever got Aeris or Barret myself. She really enjoyed the randomness of the event square and the gondola ride was nice because Tifa is trying to say something to Cloud and Ms. RedXIV has been rooting for Tifa so she was all for her to make a move but as we all know, now is not the time.

So after the gondola ride we hop out to see Cait Sith, and when he shows he has the keystone, the rage is almost equal to that of Yuffie stealing materia. Really enjoyed that. Nice to see her getting worked up over the story and when Cait Sith is trying to say can we all just forget it and move on, she was pretty much pre empting the lines from Cloud and Tifa with slightly less profanity "Are you kidding?!" and "Not a chance!" being almost word for word. The bit about Marlene being held hostage didn't bode well with her either.

So after all this, she got her instructions from Cait Sith that the temple is east from here but she takes a seriously long route to find it. She goes around the map twice and finally finds it. At this point its 1am and she's been saying for about 20 mins, she's knackered and going to bed. However once she finds the temple, vigour is renewed and she enters. Once again she's exposed to alot of story now primarily about black materia and Sephiroth's plan, she seems to be keeping up well though (we will review tonight), and she moved on to the maze. we both agree here that mazes suck but she gets just about everything and gets past the rolling rocks to find herself in the clock room.

And thats where she has stopped yesterday as it was close to 2am. she told me she was dying to play it this morning but it waiting to enjoy it tonight with me and so I can report to ye, but by god this bit is gonna get exciting

Next update is tomorrow guys!

Mindkiller

Woo Aeris gon die soon. Pity the game gets super boring for a while after. At least until the bit with the big cannon.

MitchKoobski

Mindkiller wrote: »

Woo Aeris gon die soon. Pity the game gets super boring for a while after. At least until the bit with the big cannon.

Super boring?

The big North Crater sequence, two weapon attacks, getting an airship and a runaway train to name a few. Red's missus will love the Cloud/Tifa stuff it seemse.

Mindkiller

MitchKoobski wrote: »

Super boring?

The big North Crater sequence, two weapon attacks, getting an airship and a runaway train to name a few. Red's missus will love the Cloud/Tifa stuff it seemse.

The big glacier place is what I mean. I mentioned the weapon attack as an exception.

Sephiroth_dude

Having read through this thread,I'm wanting to play ff7 again : )

ride-the-spiral

Me too. Although I only played it last year so because of this thread and also from listening to the Black Mages I started playing FF6 and 8 again.

Fergus_

I'm looking forward to seeing her reaction to

Aerith's death

RedXIV

Ok!

So as you knew we were dealing with the clock puzzle room and as she started up the game, within minutes she was hit by the second hand knocking her down to go through the maze again. She learned the value of patience here and took her time from there on in with the clock hands to ensure she wouldn't have it happen again. After getting to the room where you need to intercept the ancient who jumps through the doors, she spent a good half an hour just following him through the doors thinking that's what she needed to do. I kinda took pity on her after the half hour and told her the point was to intercept and not follow and sure enough, 30 seconds later she caught him.

So we got inside the room where Red Dragon is and Sephiroth began to unveil his diabolical plot to merge with the lifestream and that was the reason he was summoning meteor. I can honestly say I was blown away at how quick she took in this story line with her simple comment of "oh thats a good plan" after all this, I even got her to recite it to confirm she understood what was being said and she did! I get the feeling sometimes that either I'm vastly under estimating her or the story line is alot easier to discern when you're 26 rather than 11. But still, I'm very impressed. Even better again was when she got in a fight with Red Dragon and while fighting him she came to the logical conclusion of:

1. He's a dragon
2. Dragons breathe fire
3. Fire probably won't hurt it
4. Start the fight with fire1
5. See the green numbers,
6. No harm caused.

Which is a fantastic display of understanding of how the elemental properties work, considering she never heard of them from me, the beginner hall or (no matter how much I say it) the manual. As expected the Red Dragon did not pose much of a threat to her and she went ahead and picked up Bahamut and went to the dial where you find out the temple IS the black materia. Really really didn't want to trust Cait Sith here but eventually she gave in and she got ready to leave the temple.

And completely bypassed the ancient to save and heal and walked straight into Demon's Gate. As expected, with half HP, less than half MP, and no idea what she was getting herself into, Demon's Gate destroyed her in about 2 minutes. Once again learning the importance of the save file she again went and destroyed the dragon before saving and resting before the fight. Round 2 went just as bad to be honest, after the success of her summon materia against the Red Dragon, she equipped everyone with summon materia, unaware that each summon can only be used once until they level up. Not only that but some of the summon's were pitifully weak against Demon's Gate, Titan for example taking a mere 75-78hp off of her enemy. She was also adamant that Seal Evil should work against him regardless of the evidence otherwise from the multiple attempts to use it and it being ignored.
So, while it took longer than expected, she still got destroyed by him.

At this stage it should be pointed out that I'm getting excited about the prospect of her having to learn about buffing up her characters with the likes of haste or having a dedicated healer. And when she continued to add similarly ineffective materia for the third time (I think Titan was included every time) I was convinced she was going to have a hard time with this boss. So on attempt number 4 she is pummeling away at him and finally realises that she needs to heal also and operating with alternating attack then heal strategy for each character, she ends up killing him. Its not the strategy I envisioned and perhaps this draws back to being overpowered (taking approx 500hp per normal attack now) but she beat him and that's the main thing.

So she watches Cait Sith get squashed to bits with little to no remorse but is very much getting disturbed with Cloud's actions. Showing remarkable insight, she's getting wary about his actions and actually points out there is no point in going to fight Sephiroth since he just does what he's told. We had various theories about whether or not Sephiroth possesses Cloud, whether Cloud IS Sephiroth, Cloud is an ancient and so on. Great debate and really getting impressed with her insight into the story. Almost tragically she also says after the scene with Cloud's assault on Aeris and her forgiveness of him as she heads towards the city of the ancients that she's actually starting to warm towards Aeris, and she thinks she is starting to like her more and more. I am loving this though as it should bring greater impact to "The scene".

Taking the cue from Aeris (as well as heeding the warning from Sephiroth), she heads back towards Bone village to find the Lunar Harp. After some difficulty with the concept of the digging (in fairness, due to some dodgy translation) and a wee push in the right direction from me, she found the lunar harp and headed towards the forest. Unfortunately she missed the Kjata materia but after a few minutes of trawling through the maps she got to the forgotten city.

At this stage I've turned off the movie I'm watching and sat beside her to watch the next scene unfold. She totally knew something was up.

She got into the Forbidden city and finds the beds where she's supposed to go down before Cloud decides to look for Aeris. Heading towards her, he finds the Comet materia (doesn't equip it) and heads down towards the dais where Aeris is. Spotting a save point and with me turning off everything, she knows something is coming but is expecting a badass boss. She walks up towards Aeris and doesn't quite grasp the implications of how every button pressed by the player forces Cloud a little closer towards killing Aeris and instead, bashes the buttons until Barret roars at Cloud forcing him back. And then it begins.

As Sephiroth's sword actually goes through her and you see her arms go limp, Ms. RedXIV seems taken aback. Summing it up in all its glory with "Is she dead?", I let the scene play out before saying anything. Cloud's speech about not seeing Aeris talk or laugh anymore starts to drive the point home and I can see she's clearly ignoring Sephiroth. She's reluctant to admit it but she does say she's a bit sad over it and as Aeris's Theme kicks off and the Jenova boss lands, she see's now why I said most people who know the song attribute it to sadness whereas she used to really like it.

The Jenova boss doesn't provide much challenge bar its initial Aqualung attack. The only interesting thing here is how after casting reflect on itself, Ms. RedXIV wasn't watching, instead was still asking me if Aeris is really dead and like anyone who's every played the game has ever said "Why don't we just use a phoenix down?". Unaware of the fact there is a spell on Jenova, after two attemps of casting magic, she lets loose with summons until they are all used and then proceeds to hammer Jenova with physical attacks. It doesn't take long for her to go down and then we see the scene at the lake and this is where she admits she really didn't see this coming and how sad it is. Its not the tears I envisioned but its alot better than "its just a game character, who cares?".

She has finished Disk 1 now and is truly pleased with herself. She did say that she's not sure she'll play another game after this but the reasoning is because she's "too into" this one, so I'm not sure how well that will hold up. I also mentioned how I was terrified she was gonna find out about this ages ago, after all, a simple google of "Aeris FF7" brings up information about her, most notably because she dies and her death topped a few polls as best video game moment. Having gotten past the game's main surprise, I'm feeling much more relaxed about talking about the story now. I was worried I'd let something slip but that was the main one I was worried about.

She starts Disk 2 now, Not sure how she'll take to it as she was just getting attached to Aeris but either way, this will be interesting!

Retr0gamer

Glad to see she is getting a bit of challenge out of the game but not getting frustrated. That alternatating attack and healing strategy that she finally figure out however is all that is really required by the game. If she can keep that in mind then there shouldn't be much trouble unless she is specialising characters instead of making them jacks of all trades.

The story in disc 1 isn't hard to follow at all, Sephiroth wants to destroy the world because basically he's a FF bad guy. It doesn't really start getting banana's until after disc 1. I'll be amazed if she cottons on to the fact that Sephiroth really isn't the main bad guy, I'll be impressed if she does.

The end of Disc 1 wasn't really anywhere close to a tear jerker for me, a bit sad yes but more of a shock. It's more the little reminders throughout the game after that point showing that the supposedly weak Aeris was really the strongest character in the group that really endeared me to her.

RedXIV

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Glad to see she is getting a bit of challenge out of the game but not getting frustrated. That alternatating attack and healing strategy that she finally figure out however is all that is really required by the game. If she can keep that in mind then there shouldn't be much trouble unless she is specialising characters instead of making them jacks of all trades.

She should be fine and in fairness to her, she hasn't gotten a materia yet without trying it so she knows what she likes.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The story in disc 1 isn't hard to follow at all, Sephiroth wants to destroy the world because basically he's a FF bad guy. It doesn't really start getting banana's until after disc 1. I'll be amazed if she cottons on to the fact that Sephiroth really isn't the main bad guy, I'll be impressed if she does.

I didn't get that for YEARS, really wasn't until I played through the 3rd of 4th time I realised that Sephiroth was in effect, a puppet as well. But she's seemed to take the concept of merging with lifestream energy in her stride, which as a phrase I thought would leave her with a "....wha?" expression.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The end of Disc 1 wasn't really anywhere close to a tear jerker for me, a bit sad yes but more of a shock. It's more the little reminders throughout the game after that point showing that the supposedly weak Aeris was really the strongest character in the group that really endeared me to her.

I'm hoping the same happens here, she is still a bit down about the whole thing but I'm loving its getting an actual emotional response from her (other than frustration or smug victory)

RedXIV

Her head is bubbling with theories at home, we are talking about the relationship with Cloud and Sephiroth and check out her response:

Cloud thinks he's following sephiroth...if cloud was following him then wouldn't sephiroth already have done the big stuff (get black materia) rather than cloud getting it and sephiroth taking it. There's a reason why he's getting cloud to do the dirty work...actually...maybe that bit was because only aeris could understand the dead ancients so he was using cloud to use aeris to get the materia. Who knows. The theories could bring you around in circles.

I don't know how he's controlling him. But I bet it was done at the very beginning when cloud and him were a team.or with that free materia that sephiroth gave to cloud in the basement of the mansion!! I bet that's it!!!! It's that piece of materia!!

Mindkiller

Jenova isn't the 'true' villain of FFVII. Unfortunately, that isn't really clear with the foggy translation. But Square confirmed as much in their Ultimania book. The Sephiroth you see through the game is Jenova, obviously, but manipulated by Sephiroth's will. You don't see the real Sephiroth until disc 2, and again at disc 3.

Besides, how would Sephiroth figure into it as a 'puppet' if it's Jenova who's going around killing dudes at Shinra and participating in the Reunion? If Sephiroth is a puppet then he's a pretty lousy one. All he does is sit about in the northern cave for years and years. It also pretty obvious that Sephiroth is far more powerful than Jenova when you meet him in disc 3 ("is this the true power of Sephiroth?")

keane2097

Catching up fully with this thread is always gutting cos I'm always hoping there'll be more to read!

Retr0gamer

Mindkiller wrote: »

Jenova isn't the 'true' villain of FFVII. Unfortunately, that isn't really clear with the foggy translation. But Square confirmed as much in their Ultimania book. The Sephiroth you see through the game is Jenova, obviously, but manipulated by Sephiroth's will. You don't see the real Sephiroth until disc 2, and again at disc 3.

Besides, how would Sephiroth figure into it as a 'puppet' if it's Jenova who's going around killing dudes at Shinra and participating in the Reunion? If Sephiroth is a puppet then he's a pretty lousy one. All he does is sit about in the northern cave for years and years. It also pretty obvious that Sephiroth is far more powerful than Jenova when you meet him in disc 3 ("is this the true power of Sephiroth?")

I'm only going by what I got from the game and not any extra material square published, afterall I've seen how badly Square like to retcon stuff in the entire anthology of FFVII rubbish they brought out. As far as I'm concerned he's been controlled by Jenova as far back as the Nielheim event. He was a pretty stable guy up until that point. Would explain the way too quick trun from normal guy to bat **** insane as well in a far more satisfactory manner.

The last boss of the game is an illusion created by Jenova, Sephiroth is still being controlled by her. After Jenova is killed in the northern crater cloud faces off against Sephiroth and without Jenova is dispatched easily. The Sphiroth fans love to think that he's the real guy in control but it's all Jenova, she needed a body, got one, then lost it but was able to use some deus ex machina to project his spirit or something while letting Sephiroth think he was in control.

Anyway everyone knows that Hojo is the real villian :P

RedXIV

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Anyway everyone knows that Hojo is the real villian :P

Thats what I was getting at

If you think about it, everything that happened in FF7 could almost be directly attributed to Hojo!