|
|
Post by Optimal Megatron on Apr 18, 2020 3:21:32 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, it's absolutely Barret just being that charismatic, and a bit I've noticed recently is that they keep those sunglasses on him (at night!) until later when he takes them off and you realize he actually has rather soft eyes. About the same time you see more than just the hardass that he portrays through much of Chapter 1 and 2. The ghosts are showing up more often, and I'm wondering at their timing. They seem to make a point of making sure Aerith doesn't go anywhere and that Cloud runs into her, but don't interfere with the Shinra troops at all. I'd almost chalked it up to Aerith and Cloud's shared connection to some of the supernatural aspects of the setting with Aerith being a descendant of the Cetra and Cloud having Jenova all up in this, but then Tifa, Barret, and Jessie clearly see them fine later on, even as the rest of the townspeople don't. Cloud noticed them once he touched Aerith, but there's no daisy chain of contact to explain it that way. Given Cloud's scene beforehand, I'd almost expected it to be a dream sequence that he'd wake up from, but no, it's real, and conveniently opens some spots for Cloud to go along on the second reactor raid. Roche is an interesting addition, and I chuckle at the fact that you hear the other Shinra troopers being like "Oh fuck, time to back off". Shinra must invest a TON into their SOLDIERs if even a Third Class like Roche is basically invulnerable to being busted over actively seeming to kill one motorcycle trooper, and deliberately trashing some Sweepers later just because Cloud gave him a proper duel. Also our introduction to the fact that AVALANCHE is more than five people in Tifa's basement, and giving some context to the comments about "Command" that kept coming up before. Also, Jessie's backstory gives us a bit more grasp on why someone would be jumping jobs with The thugs that were sniffing around Barrett weren't too hard, but that anti-stagger juice was a bit obnoxious. The summon mechanics were interesting, and with my other DLC, Tifa and Barrett are running Chocobo Chick and Cactuar for the upcoming raid. I'm kind of amused that Barrett is ending up my utility type, since he has so many Materia slots. Also, I managed to tie with everyone but Biggs so far, hitting in 9 darts. But finally I gave up to actually progress the plot.  |
|
|
|
Post by Matrix Dragon on Apr 18, 2020 6:15:24 GMT -5
So, the fighting tournament was great fun, leading up to a mildly crack induced final fight. HELL HOUSE IS A BOSS, WHAT THE HELL? Also, the color commentary is great.
Also, Johnny. Oh Johnny, you're a special kind of stupid...
|
|
|
|
Post by Greatshot on Apr 18, 2020 13:50:26 GMT -5
I quite liked the fact that SOLDIERs are actually dangerous now. Roche is still (much) stronger than the generic 3-Cs you encounter, but that those are fairly dangerous themselves (as opposed to the generic harmless fodder they are int he original) is much less of a disconnect. And the whole Colosseum scene is amazing. Between Scotch and Kotch being repurposed as WWE announcers, to turning the original game's most WTF is this shit enemy, who's hilariously OP for the point you encounter them... into a boss? I started laughing when Hell House showed up, and couldn't stop until it killed me. Also it actually uses the (again, W.T.F!) rocketpack now. |
|
|
|
Post by Optimal Megatron on Apr 18, 2020 14:09:15 GMT -5
Given 3-C is a rank, I could see it being that Roche might be 2nd Class or 1st himself, and just got busted down to the lowest class SOLDIERs can get, even though he is still a SOLDIER. Thus his power isn't necessarily accurately reflected by his rank.
|
|
|
|
Post by Greatshot on Apr 18, 2020 17:41:11 GMT -5
I'm guessing it's likely that he's either an S or G type (probably G given the hair color, and I see absolutely ZERO reason Sephiroth wouldn't have taken control of him in that fight if he was an S type) and the generic 3rd Class mooks are just mako infused only. Hojo specifically begins making Sephiclones to make better grunts. But SOLDIERs seem to be given a LOT of leeway, even more so than Turks, as to how they operate in their other appearances (Sephiroth, even before he goes nuts, automatically takes command whenever he shows up, and even Angeal who's as close to a "good guy" as SOLDIERs get, does things outside of any sort of chain of command) so I don't really suspect much in the way of disciplinary action.
|
|
|
|
Post by Optimal Megatron on Apr 18, 2020 23:51:14 GMT -5
So, got through Reactor 5 and the immediate church sequence afterwards. Reactor 5 was mostly a cakewalk after navigating the underplate, though the bottom of Midgar just kind of drives in how enormous the city is, that they can have areas that don't get sunlight if they don't have massive sunlamps underneath the plate itself.
The Airbuster kicked my ass, and had a particular beef with Tifa, nuking her out of existence several times. I burned probably 8 Phoenix Downs on that fight and got off at least four limit breaks as well as an Ifrit summon. And this was the NERFED version that had all the BBs removed I could and an AI core crippled.
Reno, meanwhile, was a bit of a surprise. The Turks have always been just sort of highly skilled fighters before, but Reno here DEFINITELY is enhanced. That shit isn't just 'human potential'. It makes sense since the Turks are private troubleshooters, but it's a definite shift.
And then the ghosts show up to save his ass, which is interesting even as they save ours too. I had to chuckle at Reno repeatedly griping at his guards to not shoot at Aerith, though.
|
|
|
|
Post by Greatshot on Apr 19, 2020 2:30:18 GMT -5
Yeah, I really liked that underplate segement, was really well done. I'm greatly amused that they made the Airbuster, quite possibly the easiest boss in the easiest FF game*, such a monster though. That was the first fight I actually had to dig into my inventory against, using a couple ethers for additional healing and thunder casts. A well timed Cloud Limit Break turned the corner for me -- I hit him with it *RIGHT* as he phase changed, which let me bypass a huge chunk of the final segment of the battle. The Turks are, to the best of my knowledge, just basic humans, but VERY skilled (ie, Tifa, who can also do mid air Goku style combos or presumably Yuffie's Ninja abilities or Cid's.. er.. dragoonyness once they show up). Seems to just be the norm for "hero" level people. But neither him nor the other Turks have Mako eyes, and I don't recall any of them being experimented on other than Vincent. They also report directly to Heideggar and the Shinra execs generally don't play nice with one another (though in the original Heideggar and Scarlet seem to have a bit of a thing), so it's unlikely that Mr Gwahaha would let Hojo mess with his personal MiBs. *In the original, the Air Buster is basically a tutorial for "hey, getting trapped in a pincer attack is a really bad thing", as he *starts the fight* surrounded by your party. As long as you're above "I eat paste" intelligence, you realize immediately that the dumb shit turns around when you hit him (back attacks do 2x damage), and if you just pass turns you never have to hit him from the front, and will kill him in about 3-4 shots as it's almost a certainty that at least one of your characters will get a Limit from his Big Bomber attack. Getting Tifa behind him was a big factor in my success in the remake - once I got my team spaced out he wasn't beating me as severely. |
|
|
|
Post by Optimal Megatron on Apr 19, 2020 4:36:46 GMT -5
Yeah, mostly for me it's the super fast lightning streak movement. Like, it may just be trailing off his shock rod, but it looked like it was coming off of Reno himself, which honestly to me seemed like it made sense that they'd be enhanced, if not by Mako, by something to pump them up to that superhuman level. If only because Reno seems not remotely concerned about fighting a SOLDIER (though he does call Cloud on the 1st Class level thing, which makes sense since he'd know all of them). Rude's fight was, by contrast, pretty fun, since Aerith's Arcane Ward + Cure was an amazingly mana efficient full heal, so I could experiment with fighting him. Rude didn't even KO anyone, compared to the fucking scrap heap from the Angel of the Slums quest (full death, Cloud KO'd while Aerith solo'd half his health bar on the second attempt) and Toad King (learned you needed to stagger him so he stopped buffing his minions long enough for you to kill them, and Bounce is so much bullshit when they hit you from outside your field of view) I adore that Rude's AI is in character. He'd just absolutely plow into you as Cloud, but when I swapped to direct control Aerith, he'd use a couple stuns or sleeping gas to disable her but then go back to beating Cloud up. Given he's the most ironically named Turk, I found it just great that the battle makes him behave according to his attitude, rather than him being perfectly willing "self-defense" Aerith into the ground along with Cloud. |
|
|
|
Post by Greatshot on Apr 19, 2020 12:41:06 GMT -5
I did enjoy Reno calling you on your BS -- a nice touch I always felt like was a bit of a plothole in the original. Rude was great fun, the AI is indeed a nice touch. 100% agreed on the Bounce. Huge pain in the ass, after they bounced Aerith into a coma, I restarted and had Cloud playing crowd control on the lackies with triple slash or whatever it's called while I let Aerith ice bomb the king. Soon as that procced a stagger, I swiched targets, killed him and then the munckins fell quickly. And that giant smogger asshole was the fight I was referring to that was "this is easy, wait everything's on fire!" Oh this guy is a piece of cake, I just hit him from this si--CLONG! Cloud takes almost 2k damage and drops like a bad habbit. "uhoh." |
|
|
|
Post by Matrix Dragon on Apr 20, 2020 0:45:18 GMT -5
I did enjoy Reno calling you on your BS -- a nice touch I always felt like was a bit of a plothole in the original. Meanwhile, poor Cloud is legitimately offended by Reno calling Bullshit, which just makes it even funnier. I hope the two of them get an encounter at some point after Cloud puts his head back on properly. "So, about the 'SOLDIER boy' thing that had me so ticked off. Long story short? Hojo." "Ah. Fair enough." |
|
