Part 58: Holzoff Ice

Chapter 58 - Holzoff Ice




58 chapters in and we're up for a NEW mini-game.



You can say whatever you want, but this game does not cut corners.



It's like those Indian movies that are comedy+drama+musicals+special effect showcases.



Anyway, this mini-game is awesome once you have a lot of practice. It's brutal, however, in the first time. It's hard to dodge things and whenever you hit anything you fall on the ground.



The balloons are useless - They give you points, but you cannot collect any point right now.



There are two intersections, resulting a total of 4 different ways out of the mountain.



There's pretty much everything here to make sure your life is as miserable as possible.



EVEN MOOGLES.



AND THEIR HOMES.



After 4 minutes of this we finally reach the exit and fall to our doom.



The location you fall is not random, but is based on which turns you took while snowboarding.



I played the snowboard mini-game blind as in, I don't remember which turns led to where. Either way...



Welcome to the Great Glacier, where playthroughs go to die.



The Great Glacier is famous as one of the most annoying places in the game



It's a mixture of everything players hate the most. It's a maze with multiple entrances in what is pretty much a non-Euclidean labyrinth. There are unintuitive puzzles, annoying unique mechanics not seen anywhere else and an obnoxiously high enemy encounter rate.



I love it.



But I'm getting ahead of myself here.



Let's take a look at the situation at hand. Remember the map we got?



Unfortunately our GPS coverage doesn't reach here. The map - as you'd expect - doesn't show our position in it. Which means we'll have to locate ourselves manually.



Going immediately to the right and we find ourselves in this pretty icy cave.



Again, I can't express how much I find this entire icy section of the game beautiful.



Following the ice platforms and we exit in this screen. It's a somewhat rare place in the game.



If you go on, Cloud will start sliding in the ice tobogan all around the screen.



WHEEEE.



Eventually you get spit out and back to the World map. Huh.



Either way, once you re-enter the glacier you're back to the "official" start screen, not the one we ended up at. Again, this is another one of those screens I just love. It just "feels" so right. Also, much easier to find ourselves now. Let's go north.



In order to maximize confusion, between every place there's this horizontal tree corridor.



We exit in a mazy forest. I think it's safe to pinpoint our position now.



Right. To the west there's... an airplane tail. To the east there's this weird ice island. Let's go east.



Yea, sounds accurate. Now that we know we are in the map, let's check out that island.



Oh yea, we can't reach it before engaging in a random battle. This place has a lot, a really lot of random battles. It's really annoying.



Screw you Ice Golem. You look like a WoW pet.



To get to the island we need to cross this puzzle. It's a really simple puzzle and if you did it with magazines or faqs shame on you.



Whenever you step on a platform the adjacent platforms change. If it's inactive it becomes active and vice-versa.



The challenge is to cross without finding yourself in a position where there's no available adjacent platform. If it happens, you're back to zero.



Try to do it mentally from the initial puzzle image. Good luck.



Once we cross it we find ourselves in this now uninhabited cave, with a [Safety Bit].



The Safety Bit is an accessory that makes you immune to instant or countdown-based death and petrify effects. Hooray!



Oh yes, you also have to solve the puzzle again on your way back.



Right, one puzzle down. Let's go all the way to the west now, to that airplane remains. I'm curious about it.



I decide to gain some levels to catch up. All I have to do is not run away from every battle. About 50% of them will do the trick - there are just so many.



The amount of Exp we gain is pretty high, and I want the lower level characters (Cait) to catch up some. Last boss we fought was Level 50 and the next few are level 40+. The enemies are starting to deal obscene amounts of damage to our relatively low health even after Sadness+Back row.



After we cross the forest area again we reach this place. I still don't know whether this is an airplane tail, a three-way sign or the world's flatest tree.



Following north there are three transition screens.



Full of more random encounters. Remember how much we buffed Cait Sith's magic?



That and the fact encounters here are mostly weak to Fire (and they obviously absorb ice) means Beta unleashes true terror towards these 800 HP critters.



And we find this weird place exactly as pointed in the map.



This screen is actually fairly big, and with all the random encounters it's easy to get lost in it. But, you see, this is a very special place...



Because of this cave. There's an Elixir here, but there's something unique about it.



You can just walk away after picking it up, without confirming that you received it. Why is this important?



As you can see, we're about to get out of the cave and the elixir is still there.



Once you get out the message box disappears, naturally.



And the elixir is still there. You see, every time you pick up a world object the character control is locked until you hit the confirm key to pass the "Received ____" message box. And while the Item-Add happens as soon as you activate it, the Item is only removed from the field once you confirm the message box.



Which means, with enough patience to deal with the random encounters, this place effectively gives you an infinite source of Elixirs.



So, yea, life is good.



We're out fighting all sorts of creatures and stuff.



But then while we're out in the snow, something happens. The screens starts to black out and Cloud falls.



Oh yes, this is another one of the fun mechanics in the Great Glacier. After a certain while, you pass out from the cold.



And we're greeted by the dude who ran away from his wife. Say hi to Holzoff.



"I'm irresponsible as fuck."





"We would be the proof Darwin was wrong, but then I went ahead and isolated my genes from the world anyway."



It's possible to get to Holzoff without passing out, but most of the time this is what's gonna happen.



Basically, in the Great Glacier (where we just came from), you have a fixed quantity of steps (yes, steps, not time) before passing out.



Leaving the Glacier resets that quantity so I'm sure someone with enough OC can do all the side-quests in that place before that happen, but that someone is not me.



Either way once you pass out the count is reset, and as soon as Mr. Holzoff stops the morbid tutorial for the next area, we're going back.





Again, this is the tutorial for the next area. I wouldn't mind if we could use it immediately so as to not pass out in the middle of the snow.



Hey guys, feeling cold?



Oh God.



I feel the same. From home. I'm not sure I'd fine nature so amazing after passing out of cold.



Pretty much my father to every city we spent vacations at when I was a kid.



Barret would go around and about equal distribution of wealth to penguins and moogles, maybe blow up some mountains to, you know, cause an avalanche.



To quote Farnham the Drunk, "Always you gotta talk about Midgar? Listen here friend - you're obsessive, you know that?"



Wait, what






And with that, we conclude the update.


NEXT TIME:

More puzzles! More random encounters! More passing out! It's like a saturday party at your friend's friend's house!