FFVII: Disc two
As I said last week, the plot takes a turn toward the crazy once you pop in Disc 2.
But first, I should probably mention who has been in my team as of late, now that I have all of the playable characters.
I used Cloud, Yuffie and Cid to beat the end of Disc 1, but in the early stages of Disc 2, I have been using Cloud, Yuffie and Tifa.
I have made Yuffie my go-to spell caster, since she can be placed in the back row and not suffer any negative attack stats. I got back and forth about using Tifa over Cid—she’s fast and her Strength stat seems to climb more than Cid’s—but I dislike how her Limit Break is a slot machine. It is all up to chance.
The Great Glacier portion of the game nearly drove me insane. No amount of level grinding can help you navigate that maze—and if you are stuck out in the cold for too long, you pass out and have to start over, which was the case with me.
But dang it, I was gonna find the Snow Witch and fight her for that Alexander materia, by hook or by crook (which I will probably end up never using that much). The benefit of this silly task was finding the Added Cut materia, which I use all the time (paired with Death Blow).
The point of this section is to get to a massive, ancient crater at the North Pole of Final Fantasy VII’s world.
Why? Because that’s where Sephiroth is gathering his followers and will try to summon Meteor (that’s bad), which will destroy the world (also bad).
Once you get to the crater, that’s when things get super-nutty.
SPOILER ALERT!
Ready?
To make a long story short, you find out that Cloud is merely a pieced together (and failed) Sephiroth clone made by Shinra, and was injected with false memories and Jenova cells (the big baddy from outer space).
What-the-what?
Cloud is a puppet of Sephiroth—the Jenova cells in Cloud’s body allow Sephiroth to control him. The cells, I believe, also made Tifa think she knew Cloud from her past, when in fact she never did (at least not this Cloud. Oy).
Got all that?
Here is my theory: Sephiroth is not really Sephiroth. The famous Sephiroth has been dead for a few years, and was absorbed into the Life Stream, to some extent, which allowed Jenova to begin to regrow itself.
The Sephiroth Cloud has been following is actually Jenova, taking Sephiroth’s form.
Jenova is attempting to “reassemble” itself—meaning, it is gathering all of the clones injected with its cells and such (which includes Cloud). Jenova wants to harm the planet again, and it needs all of its pieces to do so. Cloud was made in hopes he would lead Shinra to Sephiroth and the Promised Land (which he sort of did).
I think.
Like most Final Fantasy games, the plot has several villains, and usually there are villains behind the scenes that we do not see until we’re much deeper into the game (the “puppet master” if you will). In the first half of Disc 1, it was Shinra. Then it was Sephiroth. Now, it is Jenova and Meteor.
After the events at the crater, the whole world goes to hell. Giant, powerful monsters, the guardians of the planet, are awoken. Cloud is missing. And Tifa was about to be executed in a gas chamber, but escapes.
Oh, and you finally get the Highwind airship.
To me, this is where the game really starts. Buckle up.
Where you at?
Disc: 2
Cloud’s Level: 57 (but he is missing!)
Location: Junon area
Timer: 52:24
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Read Gavin Craig’s week 9 post
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[…] as in the fact that he has two competing and entirely incompatible origin narratives going on. As Daniel noted, at the end of disc 1, Sephiroth claims that Cloud is a failed clone, and only a few years old. […]
I actually got through the Great Glacier pretty quickly, based on luck and nothing but. Too quickly maybe, since I didn’t get the Added Cut materia. I hear good things about said materia, and while I don’t use summons enough to go back for Alexander, I might–might–just spend some time chasing after Added Cut.