Part 22: Let's drink the whole whiskey bottle

Chapter 22 - Let's drink the whole whiskey bottle


We can now access our menu, so let's take a look at Sephiroth.



Sephiroth's sword is called masamune, which pretty much makes zero sense.

On the other hand his sword is pretty much far beyond what we have now.



Another great translation brought to you by Squaresoft.



It's kinda interesting that Sephiroth has a full character sheet for him. They could have just blocked the menu and called it a day.

You may notice that Masamune's Attack% is 255 - that makes it impossible to miss.



Sephiroth is filled with crappy boring mastered materia. When you try to remove it, he says, uh, "...".



This is Tifa, I'll be your guide today. Here we cross this very dangerous bridge that's been here for centuries with about 0 maintenance.



That's a Bolt3-All. This may sound impressive but don't worry, we'll get at this damage sooner than later, and long before level 50, I guarantee you.

I like that there's a specific battle battleground for this bridge.



Don't worry the insurance cov SHITT HE BRIDGE IS FALLING AHHH



There's great precedent for Cloud falling 50 meters and surviving. Maybe gravity in FF7 just works differently.





The thing I don't like about Sephiroth is that he doesn't really have a lot of personality. Whenever he says something I think of Microsoft Sam.




This is Tifa, your guide again, here we cross these very touristic passageways in this very beautiful mountain. Please walk close to the mountain wall, as it's very common for tourists to fall down and die.





Now you all know why they built the Mako Reactor here, mystery solved.



Please do not take pictures as we don't want to wake up the many horrors that lurk in this wonderful touristic attraction. Throw your coin at the well of wishes and wish that we don't die on our way back.



Nibelheim is fun for ages 8-80.



Seriously, is there anything positive coming out of Mako Reactors?



I suppose that explains why we found a materia at the bottom of the first reactor.







No, but I can hold my breath for 10 minutes.



The main idea, as you might have guessed, is that when you die you go back to the planet in form of Mako, and everything is merged.



Materia is that energy condensed. Somewhere on the internet you'll find a fanfic about a guy who found a materia formed from a stripper and can now use the command [Seduce] to get laid.





What is Tifa doing, seriously?









Hojo: IT'S ALL SCIENCE, SCIENCE!



I, for one, can't help but agree with Sephiroth here.



The knowledge of a much more advanced civilization being converted to electric power for your convenience.



I know Nibelheim is shitty but couldn't they have taken a Helicopter? Or maybe that was part of the deal between Shinra and Nibelheim. "Fine, we let you build the reactor, but you WILL support our touristic attractions."



I can never decide if this game is Cyberpunk or Steampunk. A mix of both I suppose.



A death rate of 20% is Tifa's new personal record, though. I'll let you decide if it's the lowest or highest so far.



I don't know about you, but I WOULDN'T want to go inside a reactor that spawns eldritch horrors and drains the life force of the planet, killing the fauna and flora and turning a whole mountain range into the ugliest sight conceivable.







Uuuh... this place is awfully familiar...



And this is... awfully disturbing. This whole place looks too organic for my tastes.



I wonder, where have we seen this place before?



Oh yes, it was here.



So, something was leaking out and whatever was being leaked out produced horrible monsters and abherrations. We know that Mako energy changes you, but not like that though.



I wonder who designed this place. "Here, make this room, it has to be as creepy as possible."



"Please add red lights so the tubes look like veins pumping blood and/or intestines."



Oooh, now that explains everything.



Hojo: Here, make this room, it has to be as creepy as possible.



Hojo: Please add red lights so the tubes look like veins pumping blood and/or intestines.







Oh God, another tank with something inside, made by Hojo. Why do I feel like we're gonna have another traumatizing vision?




















Right now I feel like Hojo never really made anything scientific or even has a diploma. He just lied his way to Shinra with a fake curriculum and then he was like "AWESOME now I can test all my crazy theories."



But they're really just crazy thoughts with no real reasoning. "WHAT IF I TRY TO MERGE A REVIVE MATERIA WITH A FRIED EGG? MAYBE IT WILL REVIVE THE CREATURE AND A CHICKEN WITH POWER OVER LIFE AND DEATH WILL RISE."



"A CHICKEN AS POWERFUL AS A COCK... I SHALL HEREBY NAME YOU COCK...ATRIX."



Ok, what now?



Cmon Sephie, I know my cockatrice joke was bad, but not that bad.



Whoa.



I like to call Sephiroth "Zé Farofa".



That would be Portuguese for "Joe Crumbs".



Ok, let's pay attention here. Shit is happening, Sephiroth is finally linking the dots and is freaking out.



I suppose there's one personality trait in our friend Zé. He's very savvy of the things going on.



I mean, you saw how he talks about Hojo.



Well as far as I know you don't have head-tentacles.



OH SHIT





Jesus Christ.







Tifa on the other hand is not so good at linking the dots.



It's Hojo, he's the real villain of the game.





You know, if you complete disregard the setting and everything else, this is a pretty creepy story by itself.



Out of all people to freak out, you just happen to be standing next to the most dangerous one in the planet.



"Ah I love this city, look at the beautiful mountains. Such a wonderful place to spend the vacations at. How about we ruin it?"



Even with the perspective distorting its size, the mansion is still bigger than the whole city.



I WOULDN'T wanna go inside that mansion though. I wouldn't doubt if Hojo hid vampires or sealed failed experiments in it.



A secret door, of course.



I mean, look at this staircase. It's like it was designed on purpose to be fucking horrible.



Chains and skulls. How are these chains even used anyway?



There's a door but we can't really open it.



This place kinda reminds me of Alone in the Dark.



Why is Sephiroth reading it outloud?



Zé is also part of the name of one of City of God characters, Zé Pequeno. Zé is short for José (same roots as Joseph). You don't pronounce it as "Zee" or "Zay". It's more like Zeh.



In Portuguese, É is pronounced like the first e in "Ever", very open.



Who even told him that her name is Jenova anyway? Couldn't they just, you know, make up a name that would not risk him running into terrible secrets like that?



Ana Carolina is a fairly common name here in Brazil. I suppose the american equivalent would be Anne Caroline.



Did you know Caroline is the feminine form of Charles? In Portuguese, Charles is Carlos, by the way.



My name has Germanic origins but is by no means a Germanic name nowadays. Only Spanish and Portuguese people use it. There's no real English equivalent.



'Sephiroth is a goon' joke goes here.

Anyway...



We wake up to this music.



This game is very good at setting a disturbing atmosphere with the soundtrack.



Ooook...











So basically Cetras were just humans who liked to travel a lot?





Well, duh.







My middle surname doesn't have an English equivalent either.



Cetra is close to Cetera, which means "others" in latin. It also relates to "etc", which is "et cetera", which is "and others/and other stuff".



I like how he says that so casually.





This is pretty what the fuck.



Yeah, this is pretty what the fuck.



HOLY CRAP HOW DID HE PUT FIRE ON EVERYTHING SO FAST

(FIRE3-ALL)



This is really fucked up though.



He goes and checks his house, but comes out disappointed.



The entire town is gone, and most people in it are probably dead.



And we see him, at last, killing some villagers, then turning around and leaving.










Damn son.



This is exactly the imagery we saw in the flashback in the reactor.



A lot of people get Tifa and Aeris' personalities switched, I would imagine so because they skip dialogue/don't remember the game. Or perhaps it's because one wears a pink dress and the other punches things.



What I mean is that a lot of people see Tifa as the badass while Aeris is the shy virginal boring priest when in truth it's the exact opposite. Tifa is the calm, collected, patient woman (which I suppose fits the role of the "Monk" class) while Aeris is more upbeat and straightforward.





This, however, is one of the strongest moments from Tifa in the game.



Even though all she does really is getting her ass beaten.



So she was blackmailing him for nothing on the Seventh Heaven Bar?




Again, someone had to design this. Someone, somewhere in Midgar thought "I went to engineering school for this?" And what are the instructions?



Yeah wait what




What a BRILLIANT idea Sephiroth, I wonder how you came up with that.





What







I find bizarre that the mask is modeled exactly like a human face but Sephiroth is that creepy deformed low-poly anime thing.



That mask is probably the best model from the game.



If you compare it, it doesn't even look like it's the same game.



Oh lord not that again









I'm not sure arguing with a psychopath about who's saddest is going to work, Cloud.







Yeah we've lost him, he's gone into full JRPG villain mode.





Oh shit





WAIT WHAT HAPPENED WHAT HAPPENS NEXT





I knew the turks looked too much like the MIB.







Welp.



So do we all.



It's cold this year in Rio. I think it's the first winter in years that is actually cold.



I like cold, but Rio is not really a pretty city when it's cold.



I prefer to spend the winter in mountain towns.



Small towns, but there's really not many small towns anymore. Most of them feature huge skyscrapers already.




There are still some cities that live off of tourism obviously, so they do their best to not grow too ugly or build reactors.



Contrary to popular belief, there IS snow in Brazil.



It happens during winter to the states in the far south.



There's also sand dunes, to the far north.



And of course the Rainforest to the far northwest.



Here in the southeast it's mostly grasslands.



So to sum it up, Brazil is a reverse RPG Map.



Rio de Janeiro means "River of January". There's no river in the city though. It's a long story.



The biggest city in São Paulo, which means Saint Paul. That little symbol, Ã is a sound like "ahn", so you pronounce it like sahn-uhm paw-loh.



A Megalixir is like an elixir-all, it heals everything from everyone. It's a mix from Elixir with Mega, which is greek for "great". In the metric system, it means "a million". Like "megapixel" or "megabyte". That's right, you use the metric system all the time.







PHS is a command in the menu we can use during Save Points and the World Map to change our party members.





Onward we go. To east!




Chapter 22 - Bugs & Bytes


L is Real 2401 Eternal Star



So, we're here to talk about Jenova's Helmet. What the hell is written in it?

For years people tried to figure out, but due to the horrible quality it's simply impossible. However in the making of of FF7:AC a higher resolution image was included, revealing:



MADE IN HONG KONG
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1996
SQUER COMPANY LIMITED

They couldn't get the company name right, Jesus.

Anyway, in Advent Children, her helmet reads differently:



| µ | —Era 19591010 Discovered
| µ | —Era 19670702 Sealed

Keep in mind that FF7 follows a very Christian-like calendar. The Cetras existed "2000 years ago", Jenova was found in 1959, etc. The game occurs in 2007.

The same inscriptions are present in Crisis Core, although pretty much unreadable:



Last but not least, in the Anime Last Order, her helmet reads:



STRICT SECRECY
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY SECTION
SHIN-RA COMPANY LIMITED

Credits: http://www.ff7citadel.com/secrets/s_jenova.shtml

Proto Product Placement



PHS means "Party Henshu System" which means "Party Editing System" which is pretty much a cellphone. The idea is that since the group splits, they use the cellphone to contact each other and change party members, hence party editing.



And the PHS is exactly that. It's been since then featured extensively in FF7 media.

Still doesn't explain why they have to split the party though.

See you next time!