SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[looneymoon]

it took many MANY tries but I finally beat that fucking asshole @_@

No 2 minute strats here. Maybe if I knew how to play Aerith better. She's too fragile to withstand glittery katana man without me manically switching to Tifa every few seconds.

Anyways, for anyone who attempts this - heres what my strat was:

Spoiler

Ths is the war of the waifus. Cloud is there to more or less tank the fight and cast buffs (haste is a must). For phase 1, you're basically dodging a lot as Tifa. Keep dodging and you'll eventually stagger him (it's probably gonna take a while to learn his moves to do this). Save Cloud/Aerith's ATB for when he's staggered, or for healing if needed. I gave Cloud the gotterdamerung (you're gonna need it for this fight) to limit him when staggered. Have Aerith use arcane ward + level 3 magic while staggered. Keep control of Tifa and spam the stagger % up abilities.

Phase 2 is the part I suck at. At this part he is immune to physical attacks. You basically wanna blast him with Aerith's magic. Cloud tank through this part, so I was basically switching back and forth between him and Aerith casting magic. You wanna try to keep Weiss targeting Cloud (easier said than done). If things look bleak, switch to Tifa and spam block + dodge, as he has a really difficult time keeping up with her.

Eventually he'll go to phase 3. You REALLY want to avoid dying up until this point, because he WILL instakill you. The only way to avoid instant death is using reprieve (weapon ability) or Revival earrings. Reprieve only works if you haven't died yet (this is the method I used). Quickly heal after this, and he'll go back to the phase where you can only use magic. Now it's possible to finish him off at this point with Aerith if you're good with her, but because his insta-kill ability gave both Coud and Tifa their limits again, I wanted to wait for when he wasn't immune to physical attacks. So I just switched to Tifa and spammed dodge until he went into dual-katana mode. As soon as he did, I hit him with 2 limit breaks to finish him off.

Time was 5:57 BTW

 

[Makoeyes987]

I gave Cloud the gotterdamerung (you're gonna need it for this fight) to limit him when staggered. Have Aerith use arcane ward + level 3 magic while staggered. Keep control of Tifa and spam the stagger % up abilities.

Ahh, so you figured this out.

While Weiss's fight prevents Gotterdamerung giving you a full limit break at the start of battle, it still works in accelerating the filling of the limit bar. Dunno if this is a glitch but yeah.

Congratulations! You thankfully didn't see him enter Rosso's Phase Shift. That one is the most bullshit because he drains HP and heals himself.

 

[Shademp]

On the topic of whether Yuffie "knows too much" about Deepground (DG) at this point in order for Dirge to logically happen:
As I myself have done on multiple occasions, you can definitely make arguments and imagine scenarios where Yuffie's knowledge is too incomplete to retroactively grant our protagonists any additional advantage in DoC (or to prevent those events from occurring altogether).

HOWEVER. Yuffie's encounter with any aspect of Deepground still has the consequence of watering down the original concept and premise of Dirge of Cerberus: The absolute logistical nightmare of Deepground being so impossibly secret that not even six degrees of separation could lead you to a person who knew anything substantial about this underground army (not counting Hojo, Scarlet, Heidegger and Shinra senior). Players *might* have interpreted the secrecy level of DG to be a bit higher than the authors intended, but the overall premise remains the same: Every aspect of DG was ridiculously well-hidden despite its large scale.

So I don't think Clement is erroneous to be fundamentally bothered by Yuffie's encounter with DG. No matter how creative- and smart we get with mental gymnastics explaining that "logical necessity is not dictating plot contradictions" here, the Yuffie DLC has still encroached on the basic premise of DoC regardless of how many plotholes have- or have not arisen.

Assuming that the FF7R Yuffie DLC happens retroactively in the DoC timeline/world is doable (mileage, as always, will vary) but the encroachment on DoC's premise still adds a touch of inelegance. A truth that can be said of many aspects in any franchise lore: "It works but it's not elegant".

I say this as a person who absolutely loves Deepground's inclusion in Intermission and how their presence was handled.

 

[Makoeyes987]

It's not even that Yuffie's knowledge is incomplete. She doesn't even have knowledge of them. Yuffie only encountered their armed SOLDIERs and escaped one of their Tsviets.

And ironically, she didn't actually even get to go the Deepground as we speculated before release. Their forces went to her within the Shinra Building. For Yuffie, they're the equivalent of the Deepground Unknown Lifeforms and Failed Experiment Cloud, Tifa and Barret encountered in the actual Deepground facility they fell into. They don't realize what they even faced.

 

[Odysseus]

If you'd like to add another layer of confusion to this, we could start debating if the Weiss VR battle is canon and the implications that would have.

 

[Makoeyes987]

If you'd like to add another layer of confusion to this, we could start debating if the Weiss VR battle is canon and the implications that would have.

Why wouldn't it be? It's part of the whole subplot of Chadley and his work.

It features it's own cutscene within the main chapter. Given it's conclusion, we're meant to conclude that Hojo, having witnessed our performance and Weiss's, now has gotten the idea to utilize neural digitization for his own personal needs. An important beginning seed for his scheme in Dirge.

 

[Odysseus]

I'm gonna assume the party can't see the sepia tone parts, so I guess there's not much issue. The stuff with Hojo is obviously a set up for his interest in digital consciousness, which is another reason I think this is deliberate foreshadowing for dirge rather than proof it's not gonna happen in this timeline, but I guess we'll see. Of course this means that any combination of Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith have all also heard the term "deepground" spoken by Weiss lol. They have even less context than Yuffie though so it's not like it matters.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I'm gonna assume the party can't see the sepia tone parts, so I guess there's not much issue. The stuff with Hojo is obviously a set up for his interest in digital consciousness, which is another reason I think this is deliberate foreshadowing for dirge rather than proof it's not gonna happen in this timeline, but I guess we'll see. Of course this means that any combination of Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith have all also heard the term "deepground" spoken by Weiss lol. They have even less context than Yuffie though so it's not like it matters.

I definitely don't think they can as well. I think those are images from the neural data or memories that compose the data simulation of Weiss.

During the beginning of the fight, as Weiss is saying his opening speech during his digital composition, we see flashes of Deepground SOLDIERs fighting to the death as well. Which I'm pretty sure are references to the training missions DG SOLDIERs go through routinely. So we're seeing a glimpse into what makes of Weiss's data and those words... They're like a promise of what he intends to do to you in that battle

 

[Fiz]

I knew some parts because of you guys, because I've seen some gifs and clips, but never the full story. It was on PSP lol do you really think I had a PSP? Nope. I had little care for the Compilation, I only had watched AC/C (and hated the former version of it).

And I didn't play nor watched BC or DoC either! Which is why I'm plenty lost about the DoC discussions and let the people who know about it discuss it XD DoC is maybe more interesting to me (Vincent!) but I'm not keen on FPS either (boo), sooooo yeah lol. Not super keen on watching BC because it's not written by Nojima and the characterisation of Zack - whom I loved in CC - will probably bug me. I'm extreme like that

You’re not the only one. I played DoC for an hour or two back when it was released. Didn’t like it, put it down. Later watched a let’s play to just get the story and found myself zoning out.

AC and AC/C I’ve watched, just found them fanservicey as hell and didn’t like what they did to Tifa, or Aerith/Zack/Septhiroth. Just felt like fan service to me really.

CC is the only one I find tolerable.

 

[Eerie]

For anyone wanting to read a blind person's opinions on Remake and the DLC, someone posted their thoughts in Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/o53cas

 

[Tetsujin]

"I don't think he will be a party member since he's just a dude"

 

[Eerie]

They're reallyyyyyyyyy spot on though, it's quite impressive what one who pays attention to characters can guess.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

IRK, that one was funny.

It's really interesting to see this and how much people *do* pick up on things even if they've never played the OG and other Compilation stuff.

 

[Tetsujin]

They didn't mention Cait though, I need their take on that

 

[ForceStealer]

That bit only seems to bother people in the know. Others it just seems to wash past them and doesn't leave an impression, lol.

 

[Odysseus]

Rufus colluding with Sephiroth is a funny idea. In reality I'm certain he helped orchestrate the Avalanche infiltration to off his old man instead.
Since palmer wasn't around to see Sephiroth kill the president this time, do Shinra actually believe that Cloud and co. killed him?

Good on that guy for calling a lot of stuff ahead of time accurately, though.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I should have known this thread would have been 12 pages of talking about Zack before any of you had even fucking played the thing.

If it makes you feel any better, I restrained myself yesterday from making this post:

----

Of all the streamers I watched, Max was the only one who came up with the “Aerith is dead” idea so it’s not like scenes like this are meant to be obvious as to what they imply. Everybody who has ever been sure about where a story is going justifies it with “well, obviously THIS is the creator’s intent”, and everybody can’t be right you know lol.

Like I said, I’ll get on that train when the devs tell me to. For now, them choosing to end with Zack saying “Aerith?” can just as easily be simply what they felt was the most dramatic way to end the scene. I don’t think “what happened?” packs quite the same punch even though both questions can evoke the same sense of “I was expecting to find my girlfriend and instead I find all these people. Why?”

Given Zack's character traits, they could have totally chosen to end the DLC with more of his Anime Bro humor (which his part of the scene already begins with). Maybe he opens the doors, finds the church empty, and goes "Hm, now where did she get to?" -- or perhaps Kyrie is still hanging out in there by herself and Zack is like "Uh, Aerith?"

Instead, they went for an overt sense of dread with the music, visuals, and blocking of the scene. That's comprised of a melancholy rendition of Aerith's musical theme; her visual symbol wilted (or trampled); her own special oasis filled with mourners; and all of it is then hooked upon Zack uttering in a concerned voice "Aerith...?" following a sudden cut-to-black.

Obviously they can do whatever they want and could end up going in an altogether counterintuitive direction from here. To me, though, "Aerith is in trouble" is just a Cinematic Storytelling 101 reading of this scene.
----

See, I could have posted that, Force, but I di -- whoops.

In my fight, things were starting to go tits up at the end, but both of my team had limits, so I used Sonon's, it went off, and Nero promptly killed him, and then Yuffie's limit finished him. If the story had acted as though that was how Sonon died, it would have been a lot more impactful. "Why this super drawn-out death? I don't even know who this guy is."

The scene with Sonon would have been perfectly effective if it just ended at the elevator doors sliding closed, leaving Yuffie alone and horrified on the other side, her face stained with Sonon's blood; and then that is followed up by the scene of her running outside distraught to witness Sector 7's fall.

Like, as overly drawn out as Zack's death scene in CC has often been argued to have been, this one with Sonon takes just all the fucking cheese. All of the cheese!

 

[Makoeyes987]

It was drawn out brutality. Sonon was repeatedly impaled like a pin cushion.

Either it was a statement to Nero's piqueristic sadism and necrotic fixations or it was a testament to the DLC's higher maturity rating in order to showcase a "complete" death. Either way it was excessive. I'm not sure how anyone san Jenova cells would survive such a butchering. A butchering within corrosive darkness no less.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Like, as overly drawn out as Zack's death scene in CC has often been argued to have been, this one with Sonon takes just all the fucking cheese. All of the cheese!

Either it was a statement to Nero's piqueristic sadism and necrotic fixations

And this is why I am suspecting Sonon isn't actually dead. It's incredibly out of character for Nero to not just kill both Yuffie and Sonon at the same time and leave the bodies lying there for someone else to deal with (or just absorb them into his darkness like he did with the scientists). Which begs the question... "why does Nero *need* Sonon's body so much?" And why show a bunch of scenes of Sonon's past we've already seen once before?

If only we knew of some reason the Tsivets would need someone with a personal beef with Shinra who is good enough to fight at the Tsivets level... I'm sure they don't have *any* kind of plot that could use someone like that... none at all...

 

[Tetsujin]

I'm pretty sure Sonon will be back. As some sort of fucked up darkness-infected puppet which Nero controls with those dark tendrils like that one time he strung up the DG SOLDIERs. He'll be the Tsviet's equivalent of Screaming Mantis from MGS4, puppeteering barely alive people around and it'll fuck Yuffie up because Sonon's actual death will have to be at her hands when she is forced to put him down

 

[LNK]

And this is why I am suspecting Sonon isn't actually dead. It's incredibly out of character for Nero to not just kill both Yuffie and Sonon at the same time and leave the bodies lying there for someone else to deal with (or just absorb them into his darkness like he did with the scientists). Which begs the question... "why does Nero *need* Sonon's body so much?" And why show a bunch of scenes of Sonon's past we've already seen once before?

If only we knew of some reason the Tsivets would need someone with a personal beef with Shinra who is good enough to fight at the Tsivets level... I'm sure they don't have *any* kind of plot that could use someone like that... none at all...

I agree. I could see Sonon being like a deamon Ravus later on.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

They wouldn't have to go that far. Just make him into a 7th Colored Tsivet or something and have him be on board their goal. And *not* want Yuffie to get revenge on Nero because he's one of the Tsivets' aces against Shinra and they *really* need him if they're going to bring Shinra down. Turn it into more of a "how much revenge is too much revenge against an organization that does deserve it on some level" story.

Everyone kinda agress Shinra needs to stop what they're doing... but how much Shinra should pay for that is a lot more up in the air. So bringing that out in more flavors of story would be a good thing. And someone needs to be on the side of too much revenge for something like that to work.

 

[Clement Rage]

Interesting that y'all think Nero was amped up, for me he went way down. In Dirge, if he wants you gone, you're gone, no screams, no corpses, nothing, and you're either Vincent, Vincent adjacent, or gone. Here they get to have an extended fight, it stabs rather than consumes, meaning it can be blocked by jumping in front of someone, and somehow the teleporting guy is impeded by a locked door.

I rather thought the point of the protagonist of Dirge online mode was that they could be anyone.

It's been three weeks from the time that happened until the start of the game. Time in which they've been doing research, probably into Scarlet, and plausibly pointed in that direction by Yuffie.

Also, Reeve is on the record that the WRO has been lying to the media ...

Also also: is it established anywhere who the crew going down there were? Do we even know they were WRO? The reporter just says something about volunteers.

They demonstrably don't have much information, though. They know what Deepground soldiers are, and seem to have a list of Tsviet names, but Shalua doesn't know her sister is a Tsviet until she sees her on camera in chapter 4, they don't know Azul can return from the dead or turn into a Behemoth (which Scarlet would) and the WRO Commander in Edge doesn't know what Rosso looks like.

Reeve straight up says they're nothing like he expected in chapter 2.

As I mentioned before the screaming of the captives in Midgar are still just rumours, they don't know what happened to those 1200 people (my bet would be Nero's darkness, shown to be able to disappear people without trace). The WRO doesn't begin to fully mobilise until chapter 7.

You're technically right about the reporter, but I can't imagine the WRO not taking an interest in a crew poking around Shinra HQ or allowing it to happen without being involved.

The DGs are not just some random weirdos, they killed someone she cared about in front of her, and were recognised by both Yuffie and Sonon as something distinct and notable from everything else they had been fighting, an event which the story is trying to set up as a pivotal moment for Yuffie and a core part of her motivation. You can't have it both ways, where it is the climax of the story and a defining moment for the character, but also she wasn't really paying attention and never thought about it again or told anyone.

It's also very difficult to imagine Reeve not asking people in his intelligence dept what they knew about Shinra's secrets.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Not quite sold on the likelihood the writers would bother bringing Sonon back, however if they did, it would definitely not be "Sonon" anymore. I mean, he died. Hard. Impaled through all his torso vital organs, without the benefit of being a SOLDIER.

Nero took away his corpse and he was as dead as a Norwegian Blue. Now maybe Shinra could turn his body into a Corrupted Lifestream Makonoid or rebuild it into a fucked up version of those Raven troops AVALANCHE used back in the days BC but I would wonder why go through all the trouble? Why him?

Sounds more like the Nifelheim Empire to me, lol.

But yes, Nero did take his body into the darkness. It could have been visual metaphor for Sonon slipping into the darkness of death or something far more sinister. I guess we'll see. Curious what will be said in the Intermission edition of the FFVII-R Ultimania.

 

[Roundhouse]

There is something heartbreaking about reading that player's reaction to FF7R. Having to get their first impressions of characters in such a weird way, with the changes and such warping certain aspects.

But yeah, some really good guesses from them.