I have weird mixed feelings about this chapter.
I really liked the “Under the Rotting Pizza” rendition, but the battle version didn’t work for me. I did find the battles in this chapter to be very challenging - even if the side quests themselves weren’t my favourite either. I don’t really need to be endeared to these people, the way I had to be in Sector 7. Cloud lives in Sector 7 and is meant to get work there, so that felt a lot more organic. But, all that said… I loved whack-a-box. It’s very silly, but I liked the references to the Gold Saucer in the kids’ hideout. Oh, and a reframing of the “this guy are sick” guy, that was sort-of worth that whole side quest.
The Turks were probably the best part of this chapter for me. The way they introduced both Reno and Rude (and Scarlet, on the tv!) left a bigger impression than they did in the original. And both were really good boss fights showing off their specific fighting styles. I can just imagine them teaming up in future games to kick my ass. But yeah, as an introduction to these characters, that was awesome.
More explicitly negative - The camera still feels awful whenever it takes control away from me. It’s really hard to form an instant connection to Aerith when her first two encounters immediately introduce a completely new story element. Chadley is the worst character I have ever encountered and he just feels so out of place. I hate him. The dozens of “kids played by adults” this chapter grate the most, but his voice direction is second. Aerith is hit and miss so far - hearing her say "I'll show you what I can do!" in the same way when I switch to her in battle got on my nerves. She's just a little too cutesy at times, but then at other points her dialogue is actually endearing.
For how much this part of the game keeps referencing “the steel sky”, it’s baffling that they put the half-finished plate overhead.
The NPC kids in the slums have a dialogue about their grandparents building the plate, so that dialogue was definitely written under the assumption that there was a plate. Aerith talks about the steel sky, except everyone can very clearly see the actual sky when looking up. Then there’s the fact that all the NPCs at the station mention watching the reactor when I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what they were looking at because there was nothing to see. I think they goofed here.
It’s also weird how some of the cutscenes look so good when some of the others look terrible. There are definitely parts where some algorithm decided the camera angles based on who’s talking and those parts just feel awful. The part where Aerith talks about the sky comes to mind as looking particularly poor in terms of camera angles. Before that, this mostly happened with inconsequential NPCs and all the dialogue with main characters had more deliberately chosen camera angles. It just made parts of this chapter feel a bit messy. Which, again, only stands out because of the other parts that are super polished. I know a lot of games do the "auto-angles", but as a former film student, it's a big pet peeve of mine. Never looks good.
Aerith’s house is super gorgeous, though, so there’s that. I really felt a sense of wonder there. But then the dialogue with Elmyra felt incredibly rushed to me too. Likewise, being able to look around the slums from the rooftops was incredible. Very mixed feelings about this chapter, basically - huge highs but huge messy lows at the same time.
Bait, bait, bait, bait, bait, don't fall for it, don't fall for it, don't fall- I was never really on the Clephiroth scene but what even-
