Part 37: The Sealed Cave that wants to kill you

Chapter 37 - The Sealed Cave that wants to kill you

Oh God these updates are getting long.




Not really, it's gonna take me a while to recover from all the fun I had today.



You know, in case you didn't get the complete Star Wars Special idea, it also includes dad issues.



Including the "your father is not what you think" deal.



It's time to talk to our friends and see what they're thinking.





Barret is going through a guilt trip, all is sound like usual. He talks a lot, I'm gonna skip it for your own protection.







Tifa is speaking nonsense and living in the past. Sounds like she's fine as always.





Add "hiding stuff".



5 years ago is the Nibelheim incident. The one we can't remember much and Tifa can't remember either.



You know what also happened 5 years ago? You can go back and read Chapter 35 for some in case you forgot.





Memories... of what? WHAT ARE YOU? And why are you in my party?



Yuffie - Just like Red XIII, according to Bugenhagen.







Aeris has been slowly going more and more introverted as we travel.





Which is kind of worrying because the last time someone had these thoughts he burned up an entire town.





We're now having these little Lost moments.



In which we learn a bit more about each of the characters in our party.





It's time for us to figure out what this is all about.



Bugenhagen: "The place may be dangerous. Cloud, will you and one other person come with us?"



Team Interracial Hojo Fantasy, Go!



Yes, we're all very curious aren't we?



HOOO HOOOO HOOOO





And we're off to one of the most traumatizing dungeons of the game!



We go down a rope in what might be the weirdest cave we've seen.



This dungeon is one of the most hated places in FF7. There are lots of reasons for this.



The first reason is that the enemies here hit hard - considerably harder than anywhere else we've been. They also cast [Death Sentence], which is a very important Enemy Skill (you'll know why later on). Death Sentence puts your characters on a Timer and kills them once the timer reaches 0.



The Dungeon is actually surprisingly short and is only three screens long. You can breeze through it if you know how, but it tries really hard to inflate its duration the first time you get to it.

See those little holes in the wall? THEIR SHAPE IS MADE FOR YOU. Some of them have switches that allow you to move on in the dungeon. They also have scripted fights once you go inside.



The random battle rate here is really high, and there are lots of items in this dungeon that require you to move back and forth. In other words, this dungeon is actively trying to fuck you.



This is the second screen. You see that delicious black ooze in the left corner?
If you run through it it will slide you toward spikes on the wall which hurt a lot. Did I mention this dungeon wants to kill you?




Passing by the black ooze without running and you get back to the first screen where you can get this materia. [Added Effect] is very interesting conceptually. It adds an effect to your attacks. For example, if you couple [Added Effect] with [Time], you can slow/stop enemies simply by attacking them.



This is the first dungeon in the game that I can look back and say "Yes, that is hard". If you're playing in real time at fastest speed, the Death Sentences can really screw you up.



While fighting some random battles, Aeris gains [Planet Protector], her 3-1 Limit. Planet Protector is what makes Aeris so completely broken. Back in the day I remember that a failsafe strategy to get Beta was to use Planet Protector. To put it simple - it renders everyone in your party invincible, immune to all damage for about three turns. Did I mention it makes you invulnerable? And that's her 3-1. There's still two to go.



What exactly is a [Black Megaphone] doing in this place?



The top chest has an [Ether]. Nothing too important.



Are you crazy? If they attacked through here you could simply stay in a chokepoint shooting arrows/bolts/magic. Maybe that's what the Megaphone was used for. They tried to use it to cause a cave-in and failed. If they had only watched 300.



This is the third screen. There are five passages, so this is more or less of a maze. To move forward you have to step into these webs which - obviously - leads you to an encounter.



Oh God look at this thing.



[Fairy Rings] protect you from Poison and Darkness.



And the last reward from the dungeon, a Turbo Ether. All in all, fairly disappointing, except for [Added Effect].





"We wanted to give him a mounted machine gun but he thought it'd be too easy.".







Oh, did I mention there was a Save Point earlier on?



That's because we're going to have the obligatory Boss Fight!







This fight is much, much harder than the previous boss fights.

To start off, Gi Nattak comes with two adds - the Soul Fires. And they're annoying. Not only they heal each other, they can also possess your characters (making them untargetable) and cast Fire 2. Their cast animations take a long time, making the fight very boring to watch.

So the boss gets three turns. His basic attack deal around 500 damage. The adds have a lot of HP and absorb Fire, so Beta can't kill them. The three of them nullify Water, so Aqualung can't do shit either.

Of course, they couldn't just make a hard boss fight without a call line hint available, right?






That's right, the boss is vulnerable to [Phoenix Downs], [X-Potions], [Elixirs], you name it, you kill him.

I've been promising you guys something amusing to watch, though, and I've been planning a long, long time for this video.





Yes, you just saw that.

Remember the weapon we got at Gold Saucer? Aeris' [Umbrella] is the best weapon we have right now, damage-wise. We throw in the [Champion Belt] from the Battle Square which adds +30 Strength, the [Hero Drinks] we got at the Chocobo Race and Aeris is the first of our party to join the 2000 Club. It's a Gold Saucer Extravaganza!

Also, this might be the only use we'll ever have for Cloud's Finishing Touch, so there you go.




And at last, we get [Wizer Staff], the Double Growth weapon for Aeris. She deserved it.



I am but a humble feeder of Hero Drinks, sir.



"Too bad your limits are mostly terrible."



I can't imagine a red cat saying "Oh yeah?". Specially after your hear his voice actor.





[Gravity] gives us Demi, which are spells that deal damage based on the enemy's current (not Max) health. Demi 1 deals 1/4 HP damage, just like the Graviballs we used on Midgar Zollom. Demi 2 deals 1/2, and Demi 3 deals 3/4. Unfortunately the Materia is rendered useless as we already have the Enemy Skill Laser which acts as Demi 2 at half the cost.



















And thus we conclude the story of Red XIII, with his father's redemption.



You know



Why exactly would they not celebrate him as a hero?



I mean, what would they gain by just not letting anyone know the story?



"Oh hey, let's have his kid, the last member of his race, have a harsh time. No one needs to know his father was a hero."



"Then maybe one day we'll take him to the extremely dangerous place his father worked so hard to seal shut so we can show him we were just trolling all the time."



I suppose it's anime logic. Which means there's no logic.



"No one has to know our plight or our wars or our history. Nope. Knowing history is for sissies."





You're not very good at this whole motivational thing.





It's not getting better



Bugenhagen: "I've been thinking if there was anything WE could do,"



Bugenhagen: "as a part of the planet, something to help a planet already in misery..."



Bugenhagen: "No matter what happens, isn't it important to try?"



Bugenhagen: "Am I just wishing against fate?"



Bugenhagen: "I am too old to do anything about it..."



Bugenhagen: "This year, I'll be 130. Ho Ho Hoooo."





Bugenhagen: "Ho Ho Hoooo. Well, I've had a long life."






Ok, look.



Here's the thing.



I know this is poetic license and what not...



But wouldn't you be terrified if you found out the guy was still alive while petrified and crying? I'm pretty sure he isn't crying because he just overheard and found the story beautiful, but because he wants to fucking get out of there already and they're soon to go back and seal the cave and oh god the horror



We get no message about it, but as a reward for finishing the dungeon we get this weapon for Red XIII. And yes, 68 Attack is ENORMOUS and way above everything we have right now.



Yes, that would be appropriate.

And with that, we conclude our time in Cosmo Canyon.



NEXT TIME:

A Halloween Special!