SPOILERS FFVII:R Chapter 15 Spoiler Discussion

[Odysseus]

One line I missed a lot from the OG was when those scrap guys in Wall Market (I think) talk about how they live from scrounging stuff that falls from above.

There's a group of NPCs by the plate support pillar in I think Chapter 3 that are gathering scraps to sell.

 

[Makoeyes987]

....Dozens of rats (not monster rats, normal rats) openly run across the floors and ground of the slums, and the water is said to smell like rotten eggs without separately bought filters.

That's not terrible?

Most buildings are shanties with no plumbing, insulation, or any level of real construction while people regularly go about digging in trash for food. I have no idea how one could look at the slums as anything but squalor. Just because people are able to make do with squalor, doesn't make it any less squalor.

As for the platefall, regardless of changes and soundtrack choice, the new Remake depiction still shows a socioeconomic genocide and it's aftermath. While some escape, the majority of people are either dead, or completely destitute. Those survivors are literally left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no home at all. There's no safety net, no aid. No resource that will provide for them. It may not match up to the depiction of the OG but.... How in the world can what was shown, not be as bad? Those survivors are left with not just zero, but not even a place to even be in poverty.

 

[Mayo Master]

....Dozens of rats (not monster rats, normal rats) openly run across the floors and ground of the slums, and the water is said to smell like rotten eggs without separately bought filters.

That's not terrible?

Most buildings are shanties with no plumbing, insulation, or any level of real construction while people regularly go about digging in trash for food. I have no idea how one could look at the slums as anything but squalor. Just because people are able to make do with squalor, doesn't make it any less squalor.

To add to this: last year I had the experience to have to spend a week to clear the home of a deceased relative, which was in an unsafe neighborhood in another country, where we had access to running water ~4 hours a day. Let me tell you, not knowing when you can have the shower or use the bathrooms can change your perspective on some of the comforts we have in our daily lives. And that's nowhere near as bad as the squalor in the slums described in here.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Oh, I see what you mean. I wasn't thinking about the material aspect of life in the slums so much as the psychological aspect - the strength of their community. Everybody knows everybody else and keeps an eye out for them. It's all quite cosy, really.

This discusson really belongs in - is it chapter 13? All I wanted to point out here is that the debris leading up from Wall Market to the plate is devoid of the kind of detritus you would expect to find in the ruins of a residential sector, and I think that's a shame. It was a missed opportunity to really drive home the significance of the Plate drop. Obviously some of you don't think that was necessary, and weren't bothered by the fact that you were climbing through the ruins of what looked like an abandoned building site in the last stages of construction, before the decorators moved in.

Also, where did Wall Market go?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

....Dozens of rats (not monster rats, normal rats) openly run across the floors and ground of the slums, and the water is said to smell like rotten eggs without separately bought filters.

That's not terrible?

Most buildings are shanties with no plumbing, insulation, or any level of real construction while people regularly go about digging in trash for food. I have no idea how one could look at the slums as anything but squalor. Just because people are able to make do with squalor, doesn't make it any less squalor.

Well, that's precisely what undercuts for me the route chosen for empathic focus. Their squalor got rearranged here, but they're basically where they were before rather than just gone.

The more time we're given to digest the incident in the remake, the less lasting its impact. In the original, it never gets any better.

Those survivors are left with not just zero, but not even a place to even be in poverty.

Not true. Thanks to the tireless dissection of the ending we all did for the sake of Schrodinger's Plate, we now know they moved right back home.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Not true. Thanks to the tireless dissection of the ending we all did for the sake of Schrodinger's Plate, we now know they moved right back home.

Some moved back, but we know there are a lot who are gonna just aimlessly wander or try to basically restart from zero.

And what good does moving back really do? You're moving back into what's essentially a toxic trash pile. A trash pile that may or may not have a hole that leads into a zoo of Shinra born and bred killing machines.

That's on top of already being flat broke and destitute. Just because 'grounders' have the instinct and will to survive, doesn't make their existence any less awful or depressing. Especially not when we see (or will see) what other towns/locations are like outside of Midgar.

 

[Theozilla]

Well, that's precisely what undercuts for me the route they've chosen for empathic focus. Their squalor got rearranged here, but they're basically where they were before rather than just gone.

The more time we're given to digest the incident in the remake, the less lasting its impact. In the original, it never gets any better.



Not true. Thanks to the tireless dissection of the ending we all did for the sake of Schrodinger's Plate, we now know they moved right back home.

They really aren’t where they were before. And there still are plenty of people who didn’t survive and are still gone. And what little the survivors did have got destroyed, and for those who have so little to begin with that even more significant for them.

I essentially had the exact opposite experience, for me the the more time in the Remake we spend “digesting” the aftermath, the more I felt the gravity of the consequences and situation the grounders had to deal with now.

And just because some survivors are returning to rebuild doesn’t mean it’s all howdy-doody good for them. Regardless of their own optimism and determination, they still have immense challenge and hardships ahead, and that’s just for the ones who survived.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That's on top of already being flat broke and destitute. Just because 'grounders' have the instinct and will to survive, doesn't make their existence any less awful or depressing. Especially not when we see (or will see) what other towns/locations are like outside of Midgar.

This applied before the plate was collapsed, and applies to all the sectors' slums.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

They don't seem depressed, though. Most of them have a real can-do attitude. They're enjoying life. They have dreams and ambitions. Their children are loved and cared for. Sometimes they ask themselves if they regret moving to Midgar, but on the whole, they don't.

(It doesn't make sense that they have so many rats as well as so many cats, but that's a trivial detail).

 

[Odysseus]

Okay this is something I've thought since well before the remake. Did everyone even actually die in the original?

Please excuse my shit mouse handwriting:


Okay, maybe not "most" actually, but a fair few. They're literally like 30 feet from the entrance to the park, and it takes you a while to climb that stairwell. Tifa even yells at everyone to get out of sector 7. Johnny isn't exactly mourning his parents when we see him later in Costa del Sol either.

 

[Makoeyes987]

They don't seem depressed, though. Most of them have a real can-do attitude. They're enjoying life. They have dreams and ambitions. Their children are loved and cared for. Sometimes they ask themselves if they regret moving to Midgar, but on the whole, they don't.

(It doesn't make sense that they have so many rats as well as so many cats, but that's a trivial detail).

It's more like 50-50. There are women who are bemoaning having to be sexually harassed while going to Wall Market, men digging in trash for food, a kid complaining about rats everywhere, a couple wishing to move to the upper plate so they can live better lives and vendors complaining about their inability to sell their fenced goods because it's got blood on it.

They're not all happy. Some are happy. Which is perfectly normal in the face of poverty. Some make the most of it, others cannot. But it's still a terrible condition to be in. The adaptability of human survival succeeds through it's ability to minimize what would be objectively horrifying conditions. Just because someone can smile in hell doesn't make it any less hellish.

 

[Rydeen]

I'm disappointed that there wasn't more gang/criminal activity in the slums. Maybe even to have differentiated cultures between the different sectors, making some more violent than others. I guess Wall Market kinda counts. I think the sense of community was good; it just seemed a little too excessive/wholesome to me, but I've also lived in The Bronx, so

I do think that the game did an okay job conveying why everyone was pro Shinra. Electricity was the only thing they really had.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I'm disappointed that there wasn't more gang/criminal activity in the slums. Maybe even to have differentiated cultures between the different sectors, making some more violent than others. I guess Wall Market kinda counts. I think the sense of community was good; it seemed a little too excessive/wholesome to me, but I've also lived in The Bronx, so

I do think that the game did an okay job conveying why everyone was pro Shinra. Electricity was the only thing they really had.

In Wall-Market you can walk into its back alleys for dialogue and find...

An extortion by two men on another dude for protection money.

In another alley you can find two guys accosting a man for money he's owed and they threaten to beat the shit out of him.

Near Honey Bee Inn, a guy has a heated, pressuring conversation that sounds like extortion for sex when it's really for trading cards

And two guys in another back alley near Madam M's district, discuss 'tying up a loose end' for a botched "job" they were doing for Don Corneo.. And Choco Sam.

So yeah. Wall-Market is preeetty violent with crimes. Especially when you consider the Don's goons are the ones that accost and attack Cloud throughout the story. Don't forget Burke's Badasses trying to mug you and steal from an orphanage

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I agree. Shinra also symbolised all their aspirations for a better life. So many of them dreamed of working for Shinra and moving topside.

Some of the most poignant characters in the Remake, for me, were the old men who'd built Midgar and were now relegated to the slums. Midgar was their city; they were so proud of having built it; but Midgar isn't proud of them. Midgar hasn't rewarded them for their service, or celebrated their historic contribution. We don't see them in Shinra's Museum. They're just scrap.

The Remake did a fabulous job with Wall Market. It was perfect.

 

[youffie]

Well, I think it’s also fair to point out that we experience the slums through Tifa and Aerith, who are both respected members of their communities. The moment we branch out to slightly different territories, it becomes dangerous even for them (Wall Market, though that’s probably more of an extreme).

 

[Rydeen]

I was referring to how people in the other underplate sectors came off as a little too starry eyed. It just doesn't match my experience, but this is a game that was made by people who are from a completely different country with a completely different history. Wall Market wasn't really residential, so I wasn't looking it as an actual settlement.

I was very happy with Wall Market (except the theme song). It reminded me very strongly of Vegas. People visit from all over the place to have a good time, but if you don't want trouble you do not go off the beaten path. I would actually say that OG's Wall Market wasn't quite glitzy enough to justify why people from all over visited there - surely there were better brothels around. Unless brothels were illegal, I guess, but I can't see Shinra really caring about such a thing. Wall Market makes me pretty excited for the Gold Saucer.

Overall, I think the remake topped the OG with regard to Wall Market (as well as the Shinra building). Oh, and I loved Andrea Rhodea. I kinda hope we'll see him again when we return to Midgar.

 

[looneymoon]

I haven't done any of the summon VR challenges yet. Can I still hit up Chadley at Shinra Tower?

It doesn't really matter because I have been doing fine without em. If not, I can save them as challenges for hard mode

 

[Theozilla]

I haven't done any of the summon VR challenges yet. Can I still hit up Chadley at Shinra Tower?

It doesn't really matter because I have been doing fine without em. If not, I can save them as challenges for hard mode

Yes he appears one more time in Chapter 16.

 

[Sasseli]

I missed quite a few summons, as well. I might have to figure out how I can get that 200% stagger (well, before I am past the point of no return, anyway...) and, of course, I didn't even max half the required materia.
And I missed picking up one. That bothers me the most.
I was also a bit bothered by the amount of hipsters and youngsters in the slums. And the Japanese voice of the Wall Market weapons vendor? WTH? Infinitely unfitting! I always get the laughs when I hear him.
(Oh, the shiny wire of hope would've involved that shop... now I'm sad. )

 

[Strangelove]

if you can use aerith's judgment ray ability (which puts the percentage up to 180%) and tifa's triangle command 4 times (each hit adds 5%), that would do it. but there's a weapon ability later on that is a lot easier to use to get 200%.

 

[Sasseli]

Well, it's already too late for me, unless I use the possibility to go back through the chapters after I've cleared the game. I've never even gotten Aerith's second limit break...
I know, I staggered a certain enemy in chapter 17 far over 200%, which annoyed me a great deal tbh. Why now??
Oh well, so much left for a second playthrough, though!

 

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler: ch14

Wow, this was longer than expected. Aeris apparently knows about her alternate timeline fate and has already picked up her 'wander into Cloud's dreams' trick.

So we rush off to find the way to the plate, stopping only to find lost children and Chocobos, with the occasional digression to play Whack a Box and do pull ups competitions (I beat Andrea and give up.)

The Chocobos are easy enough, I lose in the final round of the four star challenge in the Colliseum after running out of MP.

Corneo's vaults are a combination of stupidly under secure (sure, nobody would ever climb over a gate in the slums) and stupidly over secure (how does he even get to the one in the sewers alive? Corneo must have brokered some kind of alliance with the Sahagin to protect his stuff, which is interesting but weird, how did he manage that? He sure has a lot of moogle medals in his vaults, which is funny for two seconds and then cycles back to horribly disturbing.

I go kill the Behemoth while looking for the sewer vault...I think you're pretty safe, Wymer, it's rather too big to come wandering out of the tunnels, but hey, thanks.

I feel like I'd like this better if these were all original characters or I hadn't read TKAA, as is, it kind of feels like a TKAA interlude episode. Easy enough to deal with their quests. How has Kyrie lived this long with her penchant for pissing off dangerous people?

I was not expecting a real dungeon crawl here, but once it happened the return of Aps was inevitable. In the meantime, I kill all her babies.

Honestly, I was expecting to find Leslie's ex locked in a vault. If she was chosen to be a Corneo bride, it makes sense to book it, but how did she get out?

Aps destroys much of Corneo's stuff with sewer water, which seems like a design flaw.

Once we get out of the tunnels, I finally go find that damned music which is actually pretty tricky to discover, TBH.

That leaves one missing quest, which I eventually find outside the orphanage, having never noticed it til now. Fortunately, I happen to have all the missing stuff in my pockets by coincidence, so now all that's left is to finish the Coliseum challenges and get my third time lucky revenge on Fat Chocobo.

Grapnel guns? That doesn't sound like a great plan. But hey, it works

Spoiler: ch 15

Climbing, climbing, climbing. We run into a bunch of soldiers, and... what in hell are they doing here? Searching for AVALANCHE? But why?

Either they think AVALANCHE was caused by the pillar drop, or they know they were the targets of it. Either way, there's no reason to expect AVALANCHE to be just wandering the wreckage of Sector 7 afterwards.

They complain about having to do OT to search for AVALANCHE, but what are they expecting to find? How did they know AVALANCHE isn't dead?

I die by trying to run past the Shinra security, end up having to fight all fifteen or so at once.
I'm kind of confused as to what we're actually climbing here, hasn't the pillar fallen already?

Apart from that's it's just climbing. Every time Tifa falls into the abyss Cloud launches himself right after her, that's sweet.

Humiliating death count:7

Next, the Shinra building, which is one of my favourite parts of the old game. We'll see

 

[RhinoKart]

Clement Rage, I just need you to know that your quest to kill fat Chocobo has been an absolute highlight for me! Really appreciate your chapter by chapter posts.

 

[Roger]

Spoiler: ch14

I'm kind of confused as to what we're actually climbing here, hasn't the pillar fallen already?

Well there's a whole city with tens of stories tall buildings on top of Sector 7 plate that has now dropped 300 metres.

 

[Clement Rage]

Sure, but it seems unlikely that would stretch the whole distance.