Part 40: Mount Piñata

Chapter 40 - Mount Piñata




It's time to go to the most depressing place in the world - Mount Nibelheim.



The only place where mountains are textured by H R Giger paintings.



Why would anyone want to settle near these mountains? Maybe it's to scare barbarians away.



This is a fairly uneventful place though.



This place is, like most caves we've seen, also a loot piñata.





The Rune Blade is the Tier 2 of Double Growth weapons. They have 4 Slots instead of 3, they're still unlinked, and offer a marginally better damage.





Similar weapon to Red XIII. Please keep in mind that using any weapon other than [Seraph Comb] (the one we got from the GI Dungeon) is just plain wrong and will result in your game crashing.



Oh.



Surprise! The bridge has been rebuilt.



Going inside the cave we reach this bizarre place with pipes. This is a fairly simple setup actually - each pipe will take you to a different place in the screen with a (usually) reward. There's a catch, though.



If before jumping on the pipes you don't go down and activate these stairs, you won't be able to get back up. And you'll have to get out of this place and walk a long, long, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way.



If you don't and jump down the Pipe No. 1, you'll see these two exits. One is blocked by a boss (you can get close to him, he only attacks you once you press a button). The other is the only exit remaining, so let's explore it before getting back to this room.



You exit via the cave above, as you can see Cloud in the falling position. From here you can either walk left of go inside that cave below. I hate whoever made this place.



There's nothing to the left.

I suppose we can appreciate the background. You know what I like about FF7 backgrounds? They have colors. Developers are so scared of colors nowadays. Either that or they go full crazy mode.



This is the place we fell down from the bridge on the flashback, remember? Which means we need to go to the cave to the right to proceed, just like old times.



Yes, it's exactly the same. While we're at it, I'd like to talk a bit about the random fights.



DAT FUKKEN DRAGON

The fights are the same as in the flashback. You might remember how strong the enemies were. Specifically, this dragon. He's strong, very, very strong. It has 3500 HP and deals an obscene amount of damage.



It's also possible to learn the Enemy Skill [Flame Thrower] from him, but the important thing about him is that you can steal a [Gold Armlet].



The Gold Armlet has 46 Defense against Silver's 34, which, after Lost Number's 900 Damage hits, are looking most tasteful.

Sadly, that means being beaten down relentlessly by the Dragon until I finally manage to steal it... three times.



He also likes to open fights beating me before I can run away, doing non-trivial damage.



Remember that fountain Tifa found beautiful? It has crystalized and become an [Elemental] Materia. Having a second Elemental is absolutely fantastic.



Naturally, that's also the first Elemental you get in case you missed the puzzle at Shinra HQ. Which sucks. We won't see another for a long time too.



[Sniper CR] is a very, very important weapon for Vincent at this point.



The reason is that Sniper CR, while having a fairly normal (by current standards) Attack (42 - Still better than Cloud's sword) and Materia slots, has 255% Attack Chance.



That means you can use it with Deathblow and never miss. So, for all intents and purposes (since Vincent's limits are horrible), Sniper CR is a 84 Attack weapon.





Oh God I'm lost.



What do you do when you see a giant blue bird?



You steal its wings, obviously. Go Team Traumatized By Nibelheim.



You can go inside the reactor, but there's nothing to see in, sadly. Going behind it through that door gets us back to the pipes room, right in front of the collapsable stairs.



So let's collect these rewards. The Pipe No. 4 takes us to this [All] Materia, which we have plenty already.



Much more importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, is the [Powersoul].



The Powersoul is single-handed the most important reward from this dungeon by far, as well as the first officially game-breaking item that you can acquire in the game by just playing it normally. Unless you wanna count Beta.



At first glance, the Powersoul may look fairly mediocre. However, the Powersoul has two very important attributes: First, as the description implies, it powers up when Tifa is near death (yellow HP). The Power Up is a multiplier to be more exact, a multiplier of two.

The Powersoul has a different, hidden multiplier also. It's a Multiplier that occurs when Tifa has the Death-Sentence status. A Multiplier of 4. Now, remember a certain something we got at the GI Cave?



That's right, you can cast Death-Sentence on Tifa, and the Powersoul will deal four times damage.

But that's not all.

The ultimate point of it is that both conditions stack multiplicatively, so a Death-Sentence Tifa near death will have its Powersoul doing 8x damage.

With that said, let's fight the boss, shall we?



Normally, Materia Keeper would be a fairly challenging boss. He has a lot of HP (8400), more than any other boss. Still, he's a bit underwhelmed by Lost Number, so other than his HP if you've got Vincent there's no reason you would lose to it.

Let's get to the point here.





POOOOWEEERRRR

UNLIMITEEEED

POOOOWEEEERRRRRR

Damn that did feel good.

Anyway, here's something entirely different. How about we defeat a boss... without anyone doing anything? Neither me, nor the boss.





This is my favorite video in the LP so far.

In case you're confused - Materia Keeper is yet another boss weak to Stop. What I did was put [Added Effect + Time] on Yuffie and three Fury Rings (which I bought in Gongaga) accessories, which make the character start in Berserk.

Unfortunately, we can't really proceed like this. This boss has a very rare Enemy Skill called Trine. Since we've just got Vincent and the past pages have been a talk about how his limits suck, I might as well show you his limits so you can see it firsthand.





Vincent NOOOO.

I used Deathblow with him on the first turn just so you can see how his limits deal less damage than his normal (AS INTENDED) attack. This is the first boss you fight since you get Vincent and yes, his limits HEAL THE GORRAM BOSS.

That's because the boss absorbs Fire (So you don't spam Beta, methinks) and Vincent's limit deals Fire damage. And his AI is too stupid to realize he's healing the boss so if you're unlucky he'll just spam it like a boss. And you can't get him out of the limit without killing him.

Trine deals Lightning damage and is like the lightning cousin of Beta and Aqualung, except it's much worse.




Because Mount Nibelheim clearly didn't give us enough game-breaking items, we're rewarded with a [Counter-Attack] Materia disguised as [Counter] - this is a horrible typo, since Counter actually exists and is a total different beast. [Counter-Attack] is very simple - it gives you a chance based on the Materia level (20/40/60/80/100%) to counter with a standard attack whenever that character is hit.


Next Time!
Rockets! Cursing! Words you don't expect to read in the game! A lot of cursing! Did I mention cursing?