The Let's Play Archive

Final Fantasy VII

by Elentor

Part 17: God damn it, Hojo

Chapter 17 - God damn it, Hojo




Jenova... this isn't the first time we read this name. We assume that Jenova is the... woman-thing in the tank.



Barret of course doesn't find a purple headless woman with eye-nipples weird at all, it's just "stupid".



Further ahead we find the [Poison] Materia. It's a great addition.

The thing about Poison is that this entire place is a creep-ass laboratory. So we'll equip Elemental-Poison on the Armor for the sake of not getting whatever diseases they're searching here.

We go up to the next area.



THANK GOD YES.



Hojo never asks their name on the first date.



Hojo: Outsiders... there are so many frivolous things in this world.





Oh cmon, this is bullshit.



Hojo is high on thinking "man I'm SUCH an INTJ right now".



What



God damn it Hojo, you're a creepy bastard.



Seriously Hojo



God damn it Hojo



You have some creepy weird-ass fantasies.



Well, technically, she's an ancient.







Finally, they get the right idea.





My eyes are kinda getting used to this lovely shade of puke rainbow.



HOLY SHIT



Obligatory music for this scene.



Cloud still haven't had his date.



Oh shit something is coming



Hahahaha for some reason I always find this quote funny.



HOLY CARP!!!!!!!!!!! THE DOG TALKED!!! HOLY SHIT WHAT



OH GOD WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS LAB



HAHAHAHAHAHAHA



Awesome, Cloud, I sense an exciting boss battle incoming!



We get to choose between Barret and Tifa to leave for the next battle. I officially take Barret off, but I'll show both battles.



I like how Cloud is completely indifferent to the talking animal.





YAY NEW PARTY MEMBER! A... talking dog. We'll stick to Red XIII because I like my games without ridiculous names.


BOSS TIME



Sample H0512 is one of Hojo's creepy experiments and as such, is a very, very weird monster. For starters, to fit the theme of very weird experiment, Sample H0512 absorbs Poison Damage.
It also starts the fight by tossing Poison on everybody.

H0512's gimmick is that he starts the fight with three little monsters called H0512-opts. These bastards cast spells on you and attack you on their own timers. They have about 300 HP, but the problem is that H0512 will also reanimate them when you kill them.

First, let's get this out of the way, shall we?



Bosses who have managed to do their gimmick against us before we kill them: 0/5

Of course this was not very fun. I mean, sure, it's kinda amusing to see Cloud one-shotting the fifth boss before he gets the chance to do anything, but we didn't even get to see the fight. How about we have some fun?

I took as a challenge killing H0512 AND the little bastards without taking damage from them, since they're his gimmick. It's harder than it seems - There are three of them... sometimes they get the first turn. Even if we manage to one-shot them with limits, H0512 will just reanimate them in the next turn, and odds are that they will respawn with their timer full, ready to strike us. So we can't one-shot them, and yet we can't wait long enough until H0512 to run out of MP. What are we to do?



The answer: The Loco Weeds we've been stockpiling. I told you we'd use those shitty items we've been taking.

Nothing more amusing than seeing the Boss being killed by his own pets, eh? We used the [Loco Weeds] to put [Confusion] on the pet. This gave us enough time to use [Ghost Hands] on the boss - three and he's out of MP, so he can't reanimate them. After that it's a standard fight.

I was lucky with Tifa's limit in this video - I was holding Cloud's limit to see which pet I should Blade Beam, but Tifa took care of all of them.




Defeating H0512 gives us a Talisman, which is another accessory. Talisman increases Spirit, which increases your Magic Defense. Unlike the Magic Defense bonus you get from armor (which is bugged - it doesn't work), Spirit really works.

Anyway, now that we've truly soul-crushed H0512, let's move on to the plot.





Stop being so jealous, Tifa.



This entire conversation is awkward.



I AM AN ANCIENT, AERIS COME HERE.



Oh great, we got a dog that talks, and he talks philosophical crap. We just can't have nice things, can we?



Or a cat. Or maybe it's a furry costume and there's a guy inside. No, that couldn't possibly exist.



Tifa must be dying inside of jealousy right now.




Yeah, right. We're keeping an eye on you, Scooby.



What if when you arrive you just save Red XIII and he goes "I'm sorry, but the Ancient is in the other Headquarter?"



It would suck, that's what.



It's almost like we're playing FFX-2!



This plan makes no sense, it just doubles the odds of you being captured. God damn it, Barret.



Why, THANK YOU FOR YOUR WISDOM I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED!



You know what we do next? We take the [Enemy Skill] Materia.



The Enemy Skill materia turns your character into effectively a Blue Mage. It allows you to steal some specific spells from certain enemies, as long as:

1) They hit the character with the materia while he's alive.

2) You win the battle.

To a new player, [Enemy Skill] may sound a little useless. It's very possible that you play for a long time and not find or get a single spell for it.

If you know which spells can be stolen, however, Enemy Skill completely and utterly breaks the game, yes, even more so than we're doing here.



These are Aeris' limits that I got altogether with Cloud and Tifa, but we never had the chance to use them.

Breath of the Earth is very meh - it basically removes every status ailment from your characters. It's a horrible limit and you should never use it.

Fury Brand on the other hand, instantly fills the Limit bar from the other two party members. That's absolutely right, I don't even know what to say about it.





Well, that was easy.



Unfortunately it's kinda pointless, as we're supposed to meet up in the 66 floor elevator.



Oh god the MIB is following us.





It was too easy to be true.





Couldn't he just fight them? It's not like he hasn't beat one of them to a pulp before, you know.



And with that we're taken as prisoners to the top floor.


NEXT TIME! Find out what is gonna happen to our heroes!



Chapter 17 Bugs & Bytes

Poison

Poison is %-based - after the initial damage, every turn will take away exactly 1/32 of the enemy's (or the player's) health.

That means that enemies that are susceptible to Poison will die in 32 turns. This is a long-ass time though - you can win most boss fights with auto-attacks in much less than that.

Weapon Magic

Weapons actually also increase your Magic attribute, even if it doesn't show in the actual equipment screen. For example, Aeris' Striking Staff (the one we stole) has Mag 7 instead of Mag 3 that the Mythril Rod had.