Part 14: Flashbacks
Chapter 14 - Flashbacks
Midgar.
A place for the dreaded.
The land of humans in the Norse Mythology.
But one could say Midgard is Hades itself.
For in truth - what is more hellish than ourselves?
As Jean-Paul Sartre would say, "L'enfer, c'est les autres."
"Hell is other people".
It's in Midgar where our story starts.
And it's in Midgar where our story shall reach its end.
This is a pretty WTF sequence when you think about it. AVALANCHE is gone, and so are hundreds of thousands of people.
I like this because it shows how things have consequences. Sometimes they don't make sense to us, and sometimes they don't make sense at all. Hell, most of the time, they don't.
In rio, there are over 900 slums.
If you haven't watched City of God or Elite Squad, I recommend you do. They're too very good Brazilian movies. City of God is Top #19 on IMDB.
A friend of mine watched it while in US, and commented some of the people saying the movie was completely unrealistic because it showed kids with guns.
These two movies are actually fairly realistic depictions.
To some outsiders, reading news about the drug dealers and the police in Rio may sound like a Civil War. Indeed, some crazy shit happens from time to time.
Just recently, tanks were employed in the "war" against the drug lords.
It's pretty hardcore.
One of the most terrifying moments was when a drug gang locked down a bus and set it on fire, making sure no one would escape from it through the windows.
That's because it was a bus from the line my then S/O was taking to visit me. Of course, I was terrified about what could have happened to her.
Luckily she had taken a bus about 10 minutes earlier. It's one of those moments you go apeshit glad about someone being alive.
Of course, that is one of those stories where everything ends up well. Where 10 minutes is the difference between life and death, but in the end everything worked out.
Not all stories have a happy ending, though.
This whole Ancient thing is a little creepy. What we know so far is that Aeris is not just a regular person, but what is she exactly?
Of course, Cloud has another one of his psychotic breakdowns.
And yet we have this name,
Going back we find a [Sense] Materia. Sense reports the Health Pool and weaknesses of enemies, as long as they have lower than 30,000 HP.
Back in Sector 5 we fight the Vices, which are basically random thugs on the street. These are very dangerous fights because they can steal a random item from you (any item, including our most prized ones) and then run away right after.
However, we can now [Steal] a very good item off of them:
Speed Drinks, which cast Haste. Haste makes our ATB bar fills faster, which is always good.
Naturally, the Shinra Information Network is already telling everyone that AVALANCHE did it.
We go back to the kid we almost stole from.
Naturally you only get this conversation if you didn't steal from him.
Yeeah I'm not so sure you're gonna do good on being a tradesman, kid.
A Turbo Ether heals all of your MP and at this point and time is such a prized item you either just save it or sell it.
With our business done, we go back to Aeris' house.
Yes yes the plot is ~HILARIOUS~ if you name everyone Sephiroth.
Actually no, we just want Marlene back. Bye.
I like how Cloud is not a silent protagonist as people complain. He's actually the one who moves the plot forward and talks to everyone and crossdresses etc.
See Shinra? That wasn't so hard, was it?
I should have named Aeris Daeneryth, shouldn't I?
Cmon Barret, you're no newbie to being a foster parent.
I sense a sad flashback incoming.
Oh God.
The saddest thing is seeing how happy and naive young Jessie and Biggs are in this screenshot.
Run away you two
That's damn sad.
"Then, one day..."
See this is just how Daenerys when she arrived in arghgh3wg43i
I like the sincerity of the "I was lonely" part.
This is where I make a Firefly joke with River Tam.
Kids telling you someone just died is a recipe for a creepy movie.
But seriously though, that's sad as hell.
You guys do suck at searching though.
The bad jokes, they come to me, I can't resist urgghhhh
Well that sounds... great and all...
Too good to be true, in fact.
What I never got is why didn't they just take her? I mean, it's not like they don't kidnap people, like they just did to her.
Instead she just runs away.
FF7 makes much more sense if you think about it as the X-Men.
Yes Barret, you fuck up everything.
Like I said, Soap Operas.
Hahahaha
Hell yes, he is.
Oh God
There's a love triangle in this game.
Cloud, Barret and Don Corneo.
This is a very interesting point for one reason.
The reason is that Cloud is giving a fuck about someone and that he's not a total asshole as he wants others to think.
Truer words never spoken, Tifa.
And we go back to our favorite place in the game!
Chapter 14 - Bugs & Bytes
We're getting a triple Bugs & Bytes!
Stealing
Stealing is entirely based on the level difference between you and the dork you're trying to steal from.
This means that those extra levels make my life less painful.
I think it's clear but Steal wouldn't be so useless if bosses were actually challenging. So far we have Demi, Haste and a weapon far beyond our league thanks to Steal and we barely have it!
The other issue is that Steal is not intuitive. Bosses rarely have something worthy to steal from, and the best items you're getting from random trash mobs.
Bigs, Wedge, Jessie, Por que?
You may have noticed, but FFVII is full of Star Wars references all the time.
Bigs and Wedge are actually two characters from the original trilogy of Star Wars. They're recurring names in Final Fantasies too.
You can see Biggs' wikia page here and Wedge's page here.
Like FF7, they started as generic bystanders, NPCs one would say, and were completely destroyed by the EU. It rhymes!
While we're at Flashbacks...
I'm gonna get you this video here.
What is it? It's one of the "removed" scenes, or one of the alternate versions of the Cloud and Tifa flashback of the well.
There are many, many inactive alternate sequences like this in the game.
As always, Youtube videos have a risk of having spoilers in the related videos.
A Note
DO NOT TALK ABOUT POSTING
Do not talk about how someone is posting about spoilers or whatever. That kind of crap is the worst derail and you're shitting the thread more than the guy who spoils that Cloud is Magneto and Tifa is in truth a robot from space. DO NOT TALK ABOUT POSTING.
I obviously would prefer if you guys talked just about the LP, but I don't care if you guys derail talking about other FFs, as long as everything is tangential to the game (FFs, other J-RPGs, other RPGs if you stretch a lot). When you guys are not talking about posting the discussions in this thread have been enjoyable to follow.
I don't care either if you guys mention spell names as long as they're not spoilers (sometimes they are). My only worry is to make this a fine, spoiler-free thread for those who haven't beat FF7 yet and an entertaining, informative thread for those who have.
Talking about Aero is not gonna ruin the fun of the former, but complaining about talking about Aero is gonna ruin the fun of both.
So don't talk about posting or Barret is gonna be sad. This also includes talking about this, so just read it and move along.
