Part 26: Trip-Hop City

Chapter 26 - Trip-Hop City












Rufus for President.

Rufus: Things are different than when father was in charge.

Heidegger: Gya...

Rufus: Is the ship ready?

Heidegger: Yes sir, we'll get it ready quickly.



Well that was awkward.

After the lecturing Heidegger gets pissed off and runs towards the guards to punch them.







Yeah, seems like we're on the right track.



Although if you think about it, I fail to see the advantage in finding that guy. What are we gonna do, say "hey thanks for killing Shinra people"? It's not like Cloud didn't try to kill him in the past, you know.



Ah, we are back to asshole Cloud. I was really missing him.



He didn't like our answer and takes us back to the locker room. This is yet another briefing for another utterly pointless mini-game.





To be perfectly fair, it's not so bad in-game when you can just smash the button to skip through the pointless dialogues.

You know what, I'm gonna sum it up for you:
You can practice it here, then they don't know what their Special Move is, they ask Cloud to show something, Cloud does his victory pose and they like it, hooray.



I know, right?



This Winter was strangely cold in Rio. One day we had 11C/52F, which trust me, is damn cold here. Specially when our summer this year was the second hottest summer in the world.



OH YES, WE FINALLY GET TO EXPLORE JUNON.

Junon is actually a city I enjoy. It's fairly straightforward, has nice colors, a smooth vibe and I don't mind the Parade music. Also, are you seeing who I'm seeing?



It's Rude, of the Turks. The guy who caught us in the Shinra Elevator. Seems like he's going down the alley.



Oh okay



I've missed these lovely rendered little shops.



Of note we have the [Revive] materia, which is useful if we're out of Phoenix Downs. No reason not to buy it.



Junon is filled with these little shops on the main street, but this guy here is lying. His weapons suck.

When we go down the stairs this music starts playing.





A small curiosity, it's written ΣHOT BAP on the ground. P in Greek makes an "R" sound and the first character is Sigma, which works as S, so "SHOT BAR".



Rude: "Then take your mask off and come here. That's our rule."



Cue the Marine's sound from Starcraft 1 going "Oooh yeeaah" and "That's the stuff".



Anyway that's enough, let's leave before we get high too.



Another useless shop.



This is the entrance to another Tutorial Room.



Like the previous room, Cloud is actually the one who teaches stuff. The NPCs "ask" and you answer.



That's so sweet Cloud. Talking about Materia, look at that shining yellow love in the ground.



You know what that is, don't you? Can you feel it?



Yess another [Enemy Skill] Materia.

Unfortunately we can't really get another Beta right now, but we will.



Have you noticed how the macho guys are half-transparent? That's right, they're spirits.



That's a very amusing excuse for you to have access to the Beginner's Hall Tutorials again.



Wandering around we find these rooms with stuff. Wait, what is this?



Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo



This motherfucking item has been the reason of much pain and suffering because reading the description is hard. There are not 35 soldiers, 1:35 is the scale. There are 12 in the set.

Furthermore, here's what you need to know about them:

A) They are completely, utterly useless. Magazines back then reported that you could decorate some place with your set if you got all of them or that you could use them as units in the Fort Condor battles. You can't. They have no purpose. None at all. Just like the Battle.Net Gem in Diablo 2. Its only purpose is to drive you mad.

B) You can only get two of them in your normal playthrough, but you can win more as a mini-game reward. In fact, you can get infinitely more if you have enough patience, and they still do nothing whether you get 12, 35 or 99.



The other items are Sources, which honestly make me feel like I'm cheating in this game again.



There's a lot of Sources hidden in Junon. We also find this dude who's not going to the parade.



Tell me about it, bro.



If only he knew.



We go to the next area, but we need to cross this hallway. If we go down, we find this:



Unfortunately we can't really go down yet. There are more Game-Breaking stuff in this hall but we can't do anything about it now, we'll explore it later in the game.



You find some more turks in another bar, with Tseng, Reno and Elena being all very nice.



I'm pretty sure being in a bar guarantees the guy will survive should someone try to kill him right now.



Nothing to see, move along.





That's right, dude hired some chicks to greet you in the shop.









Maybe we can get you a job on the Honey Bee Inn if that's what bothers you. I'm pretty sure Mukki makes more than you too.



Nevertheless, he sells some items that are good and are costing me all Gil I have, fuck life.

We buy 3x [Headband] and one [Silver Glasses]. These protect us against Darkness. I buy it just for completion's sake.





Welp.



This is the second street, past the tunnel, that we've been exploring. Only one door left.



Don't worry, buddy. We're very serious about our full-time job of following Sephiroth.



Nothing to see here, move along.





How did this guy even end up here? "Sorry Mr. Executive, our hotels are full, why don't you stay, uh, *points at random direction* there?"



Yes, this city has a lot of shops. This one is useless for now though.



We finally cross the city and get to the reception event.



Blahblah we have to make sure the president feels good by watching us.

Wait.

What is that? Quickly, send it to AVALANCHE CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION.

Jessie, we need to enhance.

Jessie: Doing my best, sir, but there's a firewall hacking us!



ENHANCE, JESSIE! That's not good enough



Why don't you try checking the reflection on the wall and...

Jessie: Sir, I know! I'm gonna make this next enhance special, just for you. It's gonna be really special.





















AHHH NOT AGAIN NOOO







Why do people do that to us? Why, why?



Anyway we keep busting our DDR moves to impress Rufus.



Great, we have 120 stars. Can we fight Heidegger yet?



SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP.



TRIPLE JUMP.





[Force Stealer] is the reward for over 100 points. Some people prefer the second-best reward which is an [HP Plus] Materia (increases HP by 10%) but I see no reason to increase our HP. It only makes Limit Bars fill slower and it's not like there's any boss in this game that can kill us.

Force Stealer on the other hand is the best weapon for Cloud available up to now. It has the drawback of having no linked materias and only 3 slots, but each slot has DOUBLE Growth, so the materias in it gain level twice as fast.





Why do they even care about Cloud anyway? Why not "Aeris and her friends" or "Barret and his friends?"?





Rufus is the best president.







Wait, what the frak? So Hojo is on the run too?

Anyway, we are free now. Time to mess around.



We equip our latest beauty.







And with that, we're off.

NEXT TIME:

Dolphins! Sea Men! Red XIII! A hard boss!



Chapter 26 - Bugs & Bytes

Dancing Nights



Just after you get your reward, you can still smash your buttons to perform animations, however the special animations for the event are not loaded. Instead, you get the standard NPC set of animations for you to mess with and produce horrible gifs to post on the Internet.