The Underground Test Facility gets my thumbs up!
- Easier to grind for EXP and AP than in many previous chapters. It is true that I tend to make RPGs too easy by grinding and overlevelling, so admittedly the game design so far is doing a good job of saving me from myself. Seems to me that leveling up your characters breaks the game less than having high-level materia at the ready. It's just that with me being 50 hours into this game I am dying for some grinding and stat growth.
- Having a record-amount of Shinra boxes to destroy was a good pastime between enemy re-spawns. Maxed out Moogle Medals here and confirmed that the max is 99, as expected. Super thankful for the many Hi-Potions I collected here. Potions have limited use now both in- and outside of battles, so the Shinra boxes regularly dropping Hi-Potions was very much appreciated.
- I reckon you could acquire Enemy Skill in earlier chapters, but Ch13 was when I finally acquired the Enemy Skill materia. Learned my first skill from the Varghidpolis. I find it weird that the ability used on the player was called Death "Something" (I don't remember the full name) but the learned skill is called "Self-Destruct". Not only that, but in the list of abilities for the Varghidpolis their Death-Something attack isn't listed. I've noticed a number of times that some named skills used by enemies in battle are not listed in the Enemy Intel data. I hope this is an oversight rather than an indication that I'll have to re-Assess enemies with some Super Assess materia later on.
- Had Enemy Skill equipped on Barret when I started his section in the Underground Test Facility. Quickly unequipped it when I realized that if I used Self-Destruct, with only Barret in my party, I would have gotten a Game Over.
- Accidentally entered the Midgar wireframe and saw that it had changed according with the drop of the plate. I reckon that at least a few people who come into FFVIIR blind, not having played FFVII, will appreciate the spatial references that this wireframe adds.
Wireframe angle 1
Wireframe angle 2
- Playing as Barret was just so much fun and allowed me to
take in the glory that is his character model way easier. I'm happy the game kept to you controlling Barret even after Cloud returned, since that section was so much a Barret moment.
- The
Bizarre Bugs are now called
Bugaboo! They are way tinier than previous designs though. Maybe we'll encounter larger versions and they will retain the name "Bizarre Bug"?
- The atmosphere of the Underground Test Facility
was brilliant. It was cool that the Bugaboo nest in the darkness had
lifestream particles emanating from it before you crushed the nest. The overall feeling of the place with all the cages and the roaring monster in the distance reminds me more of the underground prison in Banora (Crisis Core's final dungeon) than it does any underground network in Dirge of Cerberus.
- My immediate thought was that the Shinra propaganda posters had no business
being in this room. But after seeing the coffee machine I realized it wasn't that farfetched. I imagine that work in this underground facility is something nobody really wants to do. It may involve extended periods of dull isolation coupled with extremely life endangering tasks whenever the human experiments are involved. After complaints reached the higher-ups about the poor working conditions of these underground labs, they did the most they could be bothered to do: Send down propaganda posters and a coffee machine.
- I felt so bad opening the treasure chest right next to the sleeping Marlene. Terrified that I might accidentally wake up the poor thing. Thankfully she didn't wake up and I got my reward:
The Mythical Amulet, which further confirms summons as guardian deities in the FFVII world.
- You can tell that Square made sure that "
Unknown Entity", "
Failed Experiment" and the Underground Test Facility remained ambiguous as to how it may relate to Deepground, if at all. It's true that the FFVIIR demo files refer to these as Deepground enemies (and the final game's files may still retain these namesakes), so conceptually they are inspired by Deepground but they technically don't confirm anything in lore. Does "Deepground" as we know it from the Compilation, with the Tsviets, DG SOLDIER Logo, etc actually exist in FFVIIR canon? Having played up until the beginning of Ch14, I feel that ambiguity is still being kept here.
As it stands, on face value, these failed experiments are no different from any other failed experiment performed by Shinra: They just happen to be underground.
- I cheese'd that boss battle so hard. Just kept spamming Blizzara and Blizzaga and won quite easily. The swarm of "Unknown Entity" was still frightening though.
So if the Slum ruins that are explorable in Chapter 13 are around that area (and or the open margins between sectors) wouldn’t there be less plate rubble there? (also I am not sure exactly what you’re referring to by skyboxes)
I loved being 'forced' to get to know Barret's fighting style better. Shooting stuff with a machine gun is fun! Had some problems first time with the last boss, but after equipping Elemental and Ice on Barret and using a bit of Barrier matiera (and Ice 3) I was able to punch that SOB to a Stagger and then he was done for. Reeealllyy nice playing experience!
