Chapter 8 impressions!
Oh boy, we spent a lot of time on that chapter screwing around. Whack-a-box!
- Starting the chapter, I hand the controller to my spouse saying "it's probably going to be rather quiet for a bit" -> she had to deal with Reno's boss fight, barely making it by cross-slashing him twice. Great boss fight though. Liked seeing Reno showing that he really took a beating by the end of it.
- When the Guardians of Fate began to help Aerith and Cloud, my meter of
Qu'est-ce-que fuck? reached new heights. At first I thought they'd be Sephiroth-related, now I have no idea what's the deal with them. I is confuzed.
- I really liked some of the banter between Cloud and Aerith. Especially the one about monsters going after the weakest target.
- I absolutely loved the environments. And the music. Such a masterful rendition of the original fields between the church and the market place of Sector 5. Loved the new version of Aerith's house, and I also enjoyed seeing how gradual the vegetation was laid out (in the OG, the contrast between Aerith's house and the rest was a little jarring). Very slight disappointment that the environments that I had spent so much time modelling personally were only partially recreated here (the materia shop is entirely different, the weapon shop is no longer a bus, but downsized to a big van, the item shop presents the same big pipe and counter space, but not the rest). It was not as close a match as it was in the Sector 7 slums. That's ok, it took me 0.5 s to get over it
. I made up for it by looking at all the flower models
- Hello, Scarlet!
- The one thing that's been my biggest pet peeve by far: when you get to Aerith and Elmyra's house, she says: "if you want to get to sector 7, it will take you a lot of time. It's already late. Better spend the night here and start fresh on your way tomorrow." Next thing she says is "there's a bit of time before dinner, why don't you run an errand or two". And then you probably spend the equivalent of 3 days worth of side quests, which is waaayyy longer than what it would actually take to reach sector 7. The narrative and the timeline do not make sense at all. It's a real pity.
- I did enjoy all the side-quests though. I was really happy to hang around.
- Still blown away about all the enemy models... they even replicated some of the very absurd monsters. Will they dare to include Hell House?
- Whack-a-box!
- IMO Rude had such a class upgrade. So much style. The impeccable suit. The shades. The other shades. I really don't mind he's not as taciturn as he was in the OG. My spouse and my friend I'm sharing the playthrough with have elected him as the coolest character in the entire game (up to now).
- After finishing a bunch of side-quests, I hand over the controller to my spouse saying "I think that all you have to do now is get to Aerith and Elmyra's house and see what happens next" -> she had to deal with Rude's boss fight
she actually did much better than vs Reno, actually.
- Really enjoyed the cutscene where Cloud dreams of his last time with his Mom in Nibelheim.
- I managed to get out of Aerith's house on the 2nd try, which I was rather happy about. It had taken me many more tries to get that cleared on my first OG playthrough.
I think that's good for now!
He was actually pretty verbal, but there wasn't any Renos around to do the talking.
