PART 1 - **NEW** PART 1.1 - PART 1.2 - PART 1.3 - PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4 - PART 5 - PART 6 - PART 7 - PART 8 - PART 9 - PART 10 - PART 11 - PART 12 - PART 13 - PART 14 - PART 15 - PART 16 - PART 17 - PART 18 - PART 19 FINALE

I wasn't present for some of the segments covered in this part, and hadn't had a chance to check the vods on it, so we'll be experiencing much of this together. Red has been forced out of the party post dungeon, so after much back and forth chat reforms the party with Yuffie and Cait Sith. Next step was to remember where we parked our damn car. This would be a persistent difficulty throughout the run, events took so long to get through it could be quite disorienting to figure out what chat had actually accomplished in the time you weren't present. This was the added danger of extensive setup changes, as well. A strategy that had been working well could suddenly be thrown into disarray by errant materia placement. Wait, who has cure again? Chat navigates halfway back through the canyon to our ill advised parking spot and at least has something to sit in while slowly trudging back up and around to the next main objective, Cloud and Tifa's hometown of Nibelheim.

Nibelheim

Chat futzes around town while considering the choices ahead. The optional character Vincent can be recruited at Nibelheim, but there are two significant obstacles to accessing him. First is dialing the correct combination into the safe puzzle. While the code is the same every playthrough, there are only 20 seconds to dial the numbers, a practically impossible task given our input speed. Fortunately this was anticipated, likely due to the reactor escape fiasco, and we already had access to a timer hack we had yet to use that would give us effectively infinite time. Yes, this is technically cheating, but some timed sequences would have been literally impossible without it, and this was one of them. Timer hack was not used much during the run overall. Even with it, entering the correct inputs to dial would be tricky, requiring exact movements and confirms. Any error would cancel the sequence. Democracy and careful planning would be required.

The second hurdle to cross was the boss inside the safe itself. Lost Number is a very powerful opponent for this stage in the game, to the point you're not really expected to face him your first time through here. Even as beefy as we are, taking on this boss would be quite delicate. The mansion is a mini dungeon in its own right, filled with annoying and powerful enemies. As many times before, simply reaching the boss in fighting condition would require significant effort.

After multiple attempts, chat manages to dial it in and engage Lost Number for the first time. This boss has a form change mechanic, after reaching half HP he will swap fully to either his physical or magical form, depending on the type of damage that brought him there. It's hard to say which form would be harder to deal with. Magical form throws a lot of powerful party wide spells, while physical simply one shots anyone in the party with a nasty physical attack. The first attempt didn't make it that far though, and friendly fire never helps.

Chat did a bit more setup and tried again, but it was pretty clear the party was not capable of this in its current form. Lost Number just hit way too hard and creamed us almost immediately. The party would need to be quite a bit stronger before this was even feasible with careful driving. He's a good ten levels above us now, nearing almost zolom territory in terms of power differential. Some careful work was needed. Cait Sith AKA catJAM simply had to go and is swapped for Barret. He just wasn't developed or geared enough for this, awesome name aside. Yuffie was also dropped for Red XIII. Red has lacked investment, but given time he could develop well. And so, it was off to the grind.

Grinding was not a regular occurrence in the run overall. For the most part, we gained enough strength just fighting every battle we got into that levels hadn't been an issue up to this point. This was plainly different though, if we wanted to do this now we would need to power up, no way around it. Besides, the extra levels wouldn't hurt and we had a relatively tough dungeon ahead. A bit of tedious work now would pay off down the line. So chat settled in and spent the next two hours or so killing rats in the plains outside Nibelheim. After having gained a handful levels, the fight seemed a lot more possible. Chat was almost ready for more attempts. This was around the time I woke up, instantly aghast we had abandoned our powerful carry. Despite my prominence during the run, this was not Kerik Plays FF7, and I was determined not to railroad chat whenever possible. However, the case had to be made and Aeris rejoined the crew over Barret.

I truly sincerely tried not to override chat wishes as much as possible, but leaving Aeris behind was just an unnecessary handicap. The third isn't nearly as important, all characters are potentially viable in this game, but Aeris is overpowered by design. People have a lot of hangups about her, whether it's preconceived notions or RPG hoarding mentality or what. "She's a waste of XP", I know she leaves, but the rest of your party always get some trickle experience, they never fall too far behind. "She's a healer", she has a healing limit, that's all. Yuffie has a healing limit too, Barret has an MP drain limit and he's the worst caster in the game. Limits don't define a character, just their unique utility. Stats are what truly matter, and Aeris just has an insanely high magic stat, that's all.

It's important to make a distinction between casual play and what we were trying to pull off here. Our intrinsic limitations required specific setups to compensate for multiple factors. I personally would definitely never have rolled with our final party setup in any of my casual games. Every trick in the book would be necessary for us. Prepared as we're going to get, chat faces Lost Number one more time. Over five hours after first entering Nibelheim, the cranky safe dweller is defeated and we can finally begin Vincent's recruitment event.

Another supposedly impossible challenge behind us (with a little help from timer scams), chat quickly retreats to the world map for a critical save, then dives back into the mansion to scoop up Vincent. Vince is an interesting character, all his limit breaks effectively place him in berserk for the rest of the fight, removing control from the player. In our case this is actually advantageous, his AI will react faster than chat ever can and he will spit out strong consistent damage because of it. It's also one less character that requires heavy management, since he'll spend most of his time transformed he doesn't really need materia or spells at all. The downside of course is we lose control of him until the fight ends or he dies, so if he's the only one standing it's up to the RNG gods at that point.

Red is immediately and unceremoniously dumped for Vincent. I like Red XIII too ok, I do. But we need raw firepower, most of our strategy relies on killing things quickly before they can kill us. Another brief trip is made to the materia exchange menu to strip our lesser used characters. Vincent is suited up and we're on the path to our supposedly final objective. But first we have more mountains to cross, and another nasty boss waiting for us at the end of them.

Mt Nibel

This dungeon isn't especially frightening. While a bit of a long trek, the mobs in Mt Nibel are significantly less dangerous than the last few regions we've been through, mostly lacking in debuff attacks. For once the random encounters are not the largest threat we face. That honor certainly goes to the boss at the end of the zone. There's some nice loot spread around the mountain and we take the time to gather most of it. Every little advantage will help for what comes ahead. For once mercy is granted, as there is a save point only a few steps from the boss itself. This only removes some of the sting of loss though. Still have to beat the guy somehow. First try was a wash, partially from bad inputs, but the fight certainly seemed doable. Vincent was a liability at this point though, his first limit form has an elemental attack that Materia Keeper absorbs, and with no way to control him he was healing the boss as much as damaging it. Chat tags Yuffie in, our ever reliable third slotter, and another attempt is made. A lucky seal evil cast gets off and MK is vulnerable to stop, trivializing the end of the fight.

With another dangerous foe in the rear view, Mt Nibel is cleared roughly less than two hours after entering. Now, we have a planeboat to steal and a surly party member to recruit. The game is dutifully saved and the party marches forward to what was supposed to be our final challenge. It seems, at least for now, that we can keep playing. The new goal is still being determined.

Rocket Town

Our lovable airship captain, my personal favorite character, and FF naming convention mainstay Cid Highwind used to work for ol Shinra. He almost got his rocket to space, some drama happened, and he's been wound up over his wings being clipped ever since. He's probably not gonna be thrilled about us coming to steal the one plane he does have left. There's some good shopping to be had here, but it proved difficult to get menus done at this time of day. A lot of important work had to be left to during the off hours, as a busy chat or one with trolls would render the task frustrating for all and potentially dangerous. Purchasing two of the same new weapon could empty the bank in a blink. Usually the only option was to mitigate the damage and wait for the storm to pass. This was generally not harmful, as between the found items and our party's generally powerful nature, equipment upgrades were not entirely critical. Item shopping had been neglected far too long though, as we still did not have revive magic.

It's mostly fine, as Rocket Town presents almost no challenge at all, even the so called boss at the end. The movement here was almost pleasant, camera angles and compass directions mostly made sense for once. The lengthy climb up the Rocket itself features probably the kindest ramps and ladders we've had to deal with yet. Which is fortunate, because we ended up doing the sequence out of order and having to climb it twice. It was no Cosmo Canyon or Kalm Staircase, that's for sure, and the relative safety of the whole event was refreshing. Chat finally executes the necessary triggers and drag Cid out of his rusty rocket to go save the world.

The final part of the sequence is the Palmer boss fight. Calling this guy a boss is a joke, which might be the point. Chat expected no difficulty with this and encountered none. Our round lard drinking friend does have a handful of nasty attacks he can toss out, including your second chance at the Trine eskill, but he's vulnerable to stop and spends most of the fight frozen. Palmer ultimately fails to look both ways before entering traffic and we successfully liberate our plane which quickly becomes a boat. It sure beats walking everywhere and there are no encounters on water.

With that, we've reached the end of this update, at around 70 hours into the run now. With access to rivers and coasts, nearly the full world map is available to us now. Next time we go back to the Golden Saucer, get mercilessly robbed, and start prepping what is fully expected to be our fiercest challenge yet. Thanks for reading!

PART 1 - **NEW** PART 1.1 - PART 1.2 - PART 1.3 - PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4 - PART 5 - PART 6 - PART 7 - PART 8 - PART 9 - PART 10 - PART 11 - PART 12 - PART 13 - PART 14 - PART 15 - PART 16 - PART 17 - PART 18 - PART 19 FINALE