Part 26: Episode XXV: Beetles, Emu, and Copy-and-Pasting

Episode XXV: Beetles, Emu, and Copy-and-Pasting


There are dozens upon dozens of generic random battle enemies in Final Fantasy VII. There were goblins, wolves, robotic monstrosities, demons of all shapes...


...there was even a Doom House. All that and they went with...an emu with man-hands...?


I hate this game. The killer emu I assume charges and viciously pecks Vincent or something along those lines. I really couldn't tell you. I've yet to have one get within twenty paces of me and this is the only stage they appear in.


Mutant Emu aside, the 'Mountain Pass' offers little in the way of interesting scenery. Or a mountain, for that matter. I think there is a ten foot incline in the whole area. For the most part, it's a slightly less boxy corridor with green and brown textures. Huzzah.

You know how I was just bitching about the absurdity of selection of Final Fantasy VII derived flora and fauna? Yeah, well not five minutes later an equally retarded new nemesis appears...


Giant beetles... Well, no. Not just giant beetles...



Giant beetles which literally shit out acid. Their only attack is literally rushing up, spinning around, and firing a wad of acid from their rear end.

There are no words...

A short while later...


It seems Deepground has been setting up this siege preparation long enough to have literally set up a complete base camp about 500 yards away from the WRO Headquarters entrance. You would think with the whole costly siege last week they'd ya know...step up patrols...? Tighten security routines...? Maybe put up a few more cameras...?


Or maybe they did know about it and just choose to ignore it, as Deepground seems to have set up shop on a nest of Angry Fecal Firing Beetles (AFFB for short.) I'm amazed the beetles, pseudo-wolves, and doom ostriches manage to co-exist in the same stretch of barren mountain. I wonder what it would take to destroy their fragile eco-system...


Oh, right...

A few dozen wolves, emu, and beetles later...


Well, hey. We finally got a Stage Mission - bailing out the WRO...again. Unlike last time, this version of the theme is just shy of impossible to ace. There are twelve WRO members scattered about the area and unless you are some manner of Dirge of Cerberus god, there is no way in hell you're saving them all.

If there does happen to be Dirge of Cerberus gameplay wizards out there, I assure you they have long since fashioned a noose out of a belt.


As always, the WRO members stand squarely in the open blindly firing at the Deepground soldiers who are doing the same...


Only the DG soldiers happen to be standing next to discarded drums full of volatile fuel. So, what's so hard about saving all the WRO guys then? Well, this part is simple enough. It's what follows that is a real trick. And what follows you ask?


Fifteen attack choppers firing insta-kill (for the WRO at least) missiles.


I know it is not uncommon for early stage bosses/sub-bosses to become regular enemies later on. But I find fifteen mini-boss clones in succession to be just slightly excessive.


Luckily, the choppers don't actually stick around to actually attack Vincent or the WRO sidekicks. All but the last one just travel a set, extremely floaty course strafing the area firing the occasional barrage of rockets and gatling gun fire.

Should a chopper not be destroyed, it simply lazily drifts off unto the horizon. If it should get 'shot down' it...also lazily drifts off into the horizon, only it's on fire and sparking. The effect is sort of like if someone was moving a helicopter model in Garry's Mod across a wide distance. That's about on par with the animation effort for this sequence.


The chopper assault is made infinitely easier once the random gatling gun, slightly obscured by crates, comes into play. There's no real indication it is there. I just happened to stumble across it after the third or fourth helicopter.

The WRO must have gotten these things at some sort of wholesale discount outlet. They've got an identical model for indoors, the back of their attack trailers, and outside perimeter defense.


In any case, the final chopper actually does fight like it's an actual enemy and not an ornery piece of the skybox. It even crashes and explodes upon destruction. Though, somehow, the massive explosion which sends a ball of fire and destruction twenty feet in the air manages to spawn...


Three of the stage three bosses. I'd be lying to you if I said there was going to be a variety of yet-to-be-seen enemy models. To my recollection, outside bosses, there is perhaps one left. Maybe two, but no promises.

A trio of moderately difficult early bosses made trivially easy by a chaingun later...


Following the parade of minor bosses, Vincent is forced to transverse the actual roadway to the WRO. Which makes me wonder where the hell the driver of Vinnie's ride in the intro was heading, if the actual road was a good couple of miles to the north.

Then again, they apparently drove from the next continent over. So, maybe I'm thinking these things over too much.

In any case, this area is littered with exploding barrels to easily annihilate the Deepground and WRO soldiers alike. Since, nothing is better than getting penalties for failing to save friendly NPCs than turning friendly fire on for explosives and putting dozens of explosive barrels that either side can hit.


In fact, there is one point where one of the WRO troops is being assaulted by three Deepground soldiers. This wouldn't bee too much of a problem, except for one thing...


Auto-aim prioritizes explosives and will gleefully blow up the WRO guy, the Deepground soldiers, and Vincent if he should so much as raise his gun with it activated. There's no way he could possibly run over and melee the soldiers in time and the game is nearly impossible without auto-aim on to begin with.

I hope somebody got a promotion for that creative method of giving the player the finger.

Ten minutes of the same bullshit, plus a few snipers, later...


Eventually, Vincent makes it to the WRO Headquarters proper. I'm really confused as to how Azul and company marched up to this point unnoticed if there is a good half mile stretch of checkpoints and gateways on the way. Is there some back road I'm unaware of?

Meh, even if there was, there's probably a foot tall picket fence making it utterly inaccessible to our hero.


Oh yeah, so we now have the stage boss. Does it look familiar?


Yep. I guess the development staff blew all their funds for this stage rendering acidic beetle shit and emu hands, thus having to resort to copy and pasting the boss from the previous stage and adding a few support goons. Bang up job, guys. A real class act. How long before we fight an evil Vincent Valentine bot or Deepground soldiers with a red palette?


This is 'Black Widow II'. Since, they didn't want it to be confused with Black Widow. It is a completely different robot. It's absurd to think it is the same robot. As you can see, there is clearly a '2' to denote this.

So, what does Black Widow II do differently?


I have absolutely no idea. I killed it in ten seconds by complete accident. I did the 'smart' thing and immediately strafed to the left and was startled to find there wasn't an invisible wall at the end of the ledge.


Confused by this turn of events, a doubled back toward the stairs to find the Black Widow II staring down at my discombobulated hero. I then opened fire and to my surprise, hit for 1500+ HP a piece.


Three shots and a total of ten seconds from start to finish, the boss lay a smoking wreckage.


So, yes. I do believe that was the quickest non-joke boss encounter in history. I'd brag about it being an impressive feat of dumb luck, but then I realized what I was playing. It was simply a case of Dirge of Cerberus being so poorly designed I managed to kill a boss by complete accident.



Vincent heads inside the WRO building...



The WRO Building has definitely seen better days. How will the organization go on now that its shining monolith of hallways and staircases lies in ruin? Truly, this is a grim day for the planet.

Elsewhere...


You know what's more embarrassing than having a clone of yourself for a partner?


Having a third clone of yourself hurled at you by err...


Err...

Err... I think Vincent will handle this one...



Special Feature:


Hey, who wants to a refresher on a bunch of minor enemies that'll never show up again?


Sweepers

Sweepers were yet another random battle encounter from the opening stage of Final Fantasy VII. Though, they fired machine guns, not missiles, in their earlier incarnation. They still looked vaguely like tractors, however.



Levrikon

Yet another low-level random battle mob. These appear around the Chocobo Farm after finally reaching the world map. Quite often alongside Chocobos, from what I recall.


If anyone remembers the damn beetle enemy's name, I'll add that too.

Tune in Next Time For:


Betrayl!


A Major Character Death!!


Urination!!!

Bonus Movies:

Black Widow II Beaten in Ten Seconds (or so)


Cutscenes Present: 4
Cutscenes Total: 93