Part 35: Gon Ga Ga

Chapter 35 - Gon Ga Ga


Last time we had just fought some Turks in Gongaga. Let's do some quick recap on what is going on:

Cloud is a mercenary who was initially recruited by Barret and his friends in order to assault Shinra, the megacompany that rules the world. Their plan is to destroy the Mako Reactors, because raw Mako is actually the very energy from the planet and draining it is slowly killing the world. This is seen again and again as every place with a Mako Reactor nearby soon turns into a barren wasteland.

Shinra's goal seems to be finding the "Promissed Land", a place theorized by the Ancients/Cetra (which Aeris was thought to be the last member), the first lineage of humans which was decimated by a "disaster that struck the planet". In the Promissed Land Mako flows freely, which to Shinra means more profit, although when you control the entire world why would you need more profit for? It's not like there's anything regulating them.

Cloud himself is an ex-SOLDIER. SOLDIERS are the elite military force from Shinra. Why he quit SOLDIER isn't known - both he and Tifa (specially him) have very faint memories of the past, for reasons also unknown.

Central to the plot is Sephiroth. Thought to be dead, Sephiroth used to be the top 1 SOLDIER in the world and a war hero. Once he found out that his mother was a Cetra and was being used in crazy bizarre experiments (conducted by Hojo of course), he went BATSHIT INSANE, burned Cloud and Tifa's hometown and almost killed them too.

Sephiroth's "mother" is Jenova, a 2000 year old frozen organism that he believes to be a Cetra. What we see from Jenova however is a true Lovecraftian horror - a nightmarish monster being used to fuel monsters in terrible experiments. It's implied that Sephiroth was "made" the same way, as an experiment. At the beginning of the game, Jenova was being kept at the Shinra HQ.

Then out of nowhere Sephiroth appears and kills the Shinra president, taking with him Jenova's body - or so it appears. We're now pursuing him, as he is pretty much a full-fledged Marvel supervillain who can fly and go where he pleases at will. Knowledge that he is alive immediately turns Cloud from an indifferent asshole to a very focused guy because, as he puts it, "this is the real crisis of the planet".

No one really knows Sephiroth's agenda. He originally said that he wanted to "return the planet to his mother" and later it's theorized that he's now looking for the Promissed Land.





Cloud is wondering who might be the spy, if that's the case.



Since we ambushed the Turks, that means there are random encounters in this area. These plants are specially bizarre.



They grow out once you hit them and SURPR-I-ISE you're now asleep.



They also drop [Earth Drums] which say they cast Quake 2 in the description, but these descriptions are never accurate. You should never believe offensive items descriptions in this game.

Regardless, it's not like we don't have enough to kill the last boss if we wanted to right now, so it's just another item to the pile.



Ahhh, progress. Technology. A fucking ruined Reactor. The further we move from Midgar, the more fucked up things are. It's fun to think about it - Midgar really is paradise in FF7's world, because everywhere else is unbelievably bad.



Wait what, is this a rhinoceros mixed with a tank?

Anyway, back to the story:



Yep. The sad thing? There are lots, lots of places like this in our world.



Meanwhile, Scarlet and Tseng arrive just in time. Scarlet is the head of Shinra Weapon Development.







No shit.



It's almost like the reactor was destroyed on purpose





I'll admit that this is some pretty lazy exposition. Isn't Tseng supposed to know this? Did she just call him and went "hey buddy, let's go visit some ruined reactors to laugh on the poor".




I can't help but imagine Tseng saying this in a very monotone voice, as if he genuinely doesn't give a shit. In a way that would make GladOS fall in love.





"Them" doesn't make sense. Shouldn't it be "you", since it's Scarlet who's getting the money?



Actually, no, I get it.



He envies us.



He's probably in his "happy place", where he is Cloud and doesn't have to listen to this bullshit. Except we do.



Instead, the best he can hope for is a paycheck and booze to make the guilt go away.



Checking the same place as Scarlet will give us this...



[Titan] is a summon. This time it's the Earth-Element. It's fairly unremarkable as usual.

Out of the reactor and back to the main track...



This, however, is not. [Deathblow] is a Command (Yellow) Materia. The Deathblow command works as an insta-crit at the sacrifice of accuracy (that being, most of your attacks will miss).

Thing is, There are several weapons in the game with 255% Accuracy (most of them are around 100%). Which means that with Deathblow, all your hits with that weapon become critical hits.





Another one to the list.



Right at the entrance we can see some people mourning. Gongaga is a pretty fucked up place, but there's one thing in special to see here. There's an event that happens depending on whether we have Aeris or Tifa. So we go in with both.



Damn this is a really sad place.



Oh God who is it is it Sephiroth



The plot thickens.







Gaga, Gon, Ga, Ga.



Gaga, Gon, Ga, Ga.



Caught in a Zack Romance.





The plot has evolved into a Safe Door.



Well, time to figure out!






We're about to start one of the creepiest dialogues in the game if you've beaten it at least once. If you don't, put your tinfoil hats, ladies and gentlemen.



You know, Tifa is the fishiest character.



This isn't the first time she's been lying about something she knows and we/Cloud doesn't.



It's specially unnerving here because Cloud knows she is lying, we know she is lying, and urghh what is she lying about who is Zack



Maybe Tifa is the spy. Think about that.



An attractive young woman working with psychos. First, she recruits an Ex-SOLDIER to join them. Maybe she was hoping he'd be in with her.



Then she escapes the second reactor with Barret fairly unharmed. And look who is "kidnapped" to safety once they decide to blow up Sector 7.



Plus Rude "likes" her. Maybe they've worked before? Shit, what if Tifa is a Turk?



Now, she's been hiding all sorts of stuff. It's a bit too much of a coincidence she doesn't remember the past either. Maybe she's lying.



Or maybe she's been brainwashed by Shinra to become a spy.

Anyway, after that sequence of Tifa changing the subject, let's talk to Aeris.



Well, did you even know this town existed? I don't think Aeris ever went to school. Do they teach geography and geopolitics in Midgar schools?



"So kids, there's this town called Gongaga. We blew it. Moving on to page 86."



"Hmm nope. Chapter 7, Page 111. You specifically say 'It doesn't really matter' and I took your word for it."





Yes. Very strange indeed.







AND THEN WENT MISSING and no one wants to talk about it.

Oh wait.

What if... he and Tifa? And that's why she's hiding something?





If FF7 was released in 2011, let me tell you how this scene would develop:

A "romantic" music played by flute would start playing. Aeris would say "I was hoping maybe you were". The GUI would disappear and we would be presented with a cutscene of two horribly rendered, expressionless 3D models of Cloud and Aeris hugging each other. Brown, lots of brown.

As a female voice starts singing a lot of random vowels in Pig latin, you see the two of them laying down making awkward movements on the top of a cliff. You facepalm. The camera goes up above and we see Gongaga in the distance. Fade to black.

Achievement Unlocked



You're then presented with Cloud and Aeris looking at each other back where the conversation started. Aeris says "See? That wasn't half bad. I hope you've had fun." The voice actress is clearly uncomfortable. As is the player.



You get this if you choose "Poor Guy".



I'll leave it to you to think of a name and description for the achievement. Also, who would have voiced Aeris?

Anyway, let's explore this horrible, horrible place.

First thing, the Materia store.



We buy the [Mystify] Materia, just for the sake of completion, as well as some [Fury Rings]. What do these do?

Mystify gives us access to two spells: Confusion and Berserk. These are self-explanatory. We've seen Confusion back in Midgar (Loco Weeds) and Berserk is a condition in which your character becomes uncontrollable by you, instead just auto-attacking relentlessly, hitting for 150% damage.

Berserk is most of the time a negative status. Not being able to control your characters is never good, because by the time you want to use just physical attacks you're gonna have Command materias to do so (we already have one - Deathblow).

Nevertheless, I do intend to show Berserk to you guys being used. With that said, we buy some [Fury Rings] too. These items force your character to start the battle in Berserk.



If this was an MMO, you'd have just received a quest to find 10 parts of the reactor around the town. The players from the Midgar faction would be stealthed waiting to gank you.



The [White M-Phone] is the Double growth weapon for Cait Sith. It has the same stats and 3 unlinked slots as the other weapons.



Outside Gongaga we can find these annoying frogs. They cast [Frog Song] which is an Enemy Skill that changes your enemy into a toad AND puts them to sleep. Unfortunately, it's also fairly useless.

With that, our business in Gongaga is done. Moving on!





We cross a river and go west. As we move on, the sky slowly gains a purple tint as we near sunset. It's a neat effect.





Unlike Gongaga, this next city is unskippable. The buggy crashes as we pass by this mysterious town in the canyon, effectively stranding us since this area is surrounded by rivers.

And with that, we conclude this update.

Next time:

Weird old men without legs! Naming confusion! Character development! Plot exposition! One of the best music in the game!




Bugs & Bytes


Jealousy

Alright, this may be coming a bit too early since it's supposed to be a secret, but since it doesn't really affect the plot in any way I'm gonna reveal it anyway:

There's a hidden mechanic in the game that works a bit like the one in Star Ocean 2 - it's how much characters like you (Cloud).

Final Fantasy 7 has a huge amount of dialogue and script that is not used in the game. Some of these were discarded, while others were supposed to be available but are unreachable due to glitches or oversights.
Most are simply outtakes. I intend to show some more of these outtakes in the next non-plot-intensive update.


There's a specific script change that happens in Gongaga when talking to Aeris. If you have very high affinity to Aeris (but more than the game actually allows you to have due to an oversight I'll talk more about later), she will actually say this to you after you say you're jealous:





Tifa has also a minor change in script if you have extremely high affinity to her, but it's just a tiny change in the way she phrases she's proud of you and not worth the obscene amount of glitches I had to go through to get you this last screenshot.

Anyway, that's it for now!