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

The time has finally arrived. Twenty two updates and almost two weeks later, my retelling of the events of Twitch Plays FF7 will soon be over. As expected I'm struggling a bit with this one. I'm probably gonna be sappy all over the place in here, because this time we'll probably be focusing on chat more than anything else, and they are what made this a truly special experience. Beating the game at this point is mostly a formality, the superbosses lay defeated and are orders of magnitude more powerful than anything the final dungeon has to offer. There's only a handful of things left to take care of first.

Chat drops in to Kalm to receive their rewards for defeating the Weapons. A full set of master materia and a golden chocobo, all effectively superfluous at this point with the greatest enemies already defeated. We quickly pop back to the ranch to free up a stable slot, bidding farewell to MOM, and adopt our new golden chocobo. These trophies were hard fought for and shouldn't be left behind. There's still a few mountains left we can try and climb though. Joe and Teioh, superbosses of the racing circuit, are still undefeated. We swing up to the choco sage for a final batch of greens and cram them into our original golden bird Maple, then head back to the Golden Saucer for one more showdown.

Maple has the best chance at winning, given her superior stats from breeding, but beating Joe was never going to be about raw power, as his bird will simply always be better than yours. Sure enough, one attempt proves that Joe sits decisively beyond chat's reach and this challenge is swiftly abandoned. While here it's decided to do the special battle at the arena, as there's literally nothing else left at this point. Once Cloud is set up properly he effortlessly sweeps it, earning the Final Attack materia. This nice to have anyway, and gets slotted with phoenix on Yuffie, providing a free party revive if she goes down. There's no more dawdling available now. One final round of party setup is completed, a save is made, and chat embarks to the final dungeon and the end of the game.

Northern Crater

As chat entered the final dungeon, I broke my self imposed vow of silence, firing a single #GoodLuckTPFF7 which didn't even breach into the screen ticker. I intentionally didn't made a big deal about my departure, I'm not the type to cause a scene and storm off in a huff, I just stepped away. A few minutes later I spotted someone in chat I recognized, sharing their own sorrow at the run rapidly approached its end. This person had discovered the ladderboss killcode, and I messaged them a simple XN-o5 of respect. I would pipe up in chat a bit more going forward, but generally still kept to myself and avoided inputs. The game was effectively on autopilot at this point, and as always I was more interested in what the chat could do anyway.

Viewer count was steadily growing throughout this segment, likely as the word began to spread. Twitch had beat both Weapon superbosses. They were about to beat the game. Throughout the run average viewers was usually somewhere in the 100s to 150s, entering Northern Crater it was over 200, by the end of the game it was close to 300. This might not sound like a big difference, but it meant a lot more active chat inputs. The party was so overpowered at this point anyway it didn't matter too much, but the influx of fresh blood led to a significant error in judgement.

Within the first hour of the run, the start button had been permanently disabled outside democracy. It had been discovered very quickly that spamming start in battles to pause the game was an intolerable experience, but most currently present were not aware of this. There are several points during the dungeon where the party is split up, and you're forced into a PHS screen requiring start to exit. Annoyed at this relatively minor inconvenience, chat requests start to be re-enabled. I stayed silent, mostly amused, knowing they would eventually realize their drastic mistake. A half hour later, chat is pleading to have this change reverted.

With more viewers streaming in and a few clearly devoted to derailing the run, it quickly became obvious this wouldn't be a carefree stroll to the finish. Even the simple act of healing between battles had to be done in democracy during the final dungeon, chat too frantic to allow any one person in the menus. Watching this whole sequence was a distinct departure from the rest of the run, but not in a negative way. Even the trolling didn't bother me anymore. They had tried all week to stop us, and they had already failed. It would have been a lot different if it had always been this busy, but at this point victory was inevitable, even if it took a dozen wipes.

At just shy of 169 hours, the save crystal is dropped just before the point of no return and the final save of the run is made. The descent sequence can throw a random number of minibosses at you, and chat lucks out only receiving two, but they again pose almost no threat regardless. We quickly arrive at the final boss gauntlet, starting with Jenova-SYNTHESIS. The w-summon KOTR win button is dutifully pressed and the boss dies in one round, but behind the scenes real life drama begins to completely engulf chat. I'm going to preface this by saying that I am not a regular of TPP. I only participated in the very first Red run prior to this, but so did half the internet so that barely counts. So I have no idea who these people are or any of the context behind this situation. And I am definitely NOT going to get into the allegations discussed or weigh in at all. All I'll say is, to have such a dramatic episode occur right at the end of this buck wild run, it was surreal to say the least.

Many were scared and confused, chat experiencing a bit of a meltdown to put it plainly. Democracy had been enabled to complete the final PHS menus but inputs had completely stalled, something I had never seen before. Someone mentioned offhand they wished I were here, to which I replied I was. I finally decided to leap back in. It felt like people needed some direction, so I started firing the necessary inputs to build our final party, others soon following suit. I don't want to sound like I'm taking credit here or something, but sometimes all it takes is seeing someone else heading in the right direction to get others to follow. I stepped back once more as chat arose from their stupor and faced down the Bizarro Sephiroth battle. Despite some determined malicious actors, KOTR is diligently summoned and one shots the boss, chat regaining their stride and swiftly proceeding to the final phase of the fight, because every FF end boss needs at least two forms.

This encounter wouldn't prove as easy, however. Safer Sephiroth is where the trolls would get their last laugh, a B+S- input spam effectively locking the party out of any strategic action. This stalling allows the boss time necessary to cast his famous Supernova attack, a two minute long summon that always does 15/16th of the party's remaining HP. This quickly pushes Vincent into limit form, which presents its own significant issues. He's carrying the w-summon KOTR combo and with him locked in berserk, our best hope for winning is now lost to us. More stalling results in a second cast of Supernova, and despite a desperate attempt at democracy fighting, the first round ends in bitter defeat. Regardless of our overwhelming power, chat would once again have to battle itself before it could defeat the true enemy.

The second trip proceeds relatively smoothly up until Bizarro round 2. Depending on certain criteria, you may be split into multiple parties for this section and given the option to switch between them. The factors are mostly based on level and so we have a two party Bizarro battle, but only our core team has any setup, and with chat this chaotic menuing is effectively impossible. The A crew has to carry the fight, which is not normally a problem as KOTR can one shot the boss, but if any individual part of the boss dies you are given the option to swap to the other party, with the choice defaulting to yes. In our final moments, a foe appears that has dogged us since the first hours of the run, a good old fashioned menu boss.

This round proves much more harrowing than the last, as the KOTR win button is repeatedly missed and regular attacks destroy a boss segment, inducing a party swap. The secondary crew of Red, Tifa and catJAM are completely useless in this fight, equipped with whatever garbage equipment they had been wearing since Disc 1 and absolutely no materia. Vincent is also quickly pushed into his limit form again, and while Yuffie has master summon equipped, she's not properly tuned for the KOTR combo and only deals half the damage, whereas Vince can now cast it at full strength twice in one turn. To throw a minor bit of shade again, Vincent should have never been carrying the kill button to begin with, his limit directly counter productive to using it. He's a decent caster, but that's not why he was in the crew.

Critically, Yuffie's final attack phoenix combo gets the party back on their feet and although it destroys a limb in the process, the difficult menu immediately after is defeated, preventing another costly swap. After nearly twenty minutes of battle, Vincent finally hits launch on the biggest nuke we have and it's off to another round against the bare chested, weird pants man himself. This time, chat has had enough trolling and opts to immediately enable democracy, simply voting to end the game. At exactly 170 hours and twenty minutes, Twitch beats Final Fantasy 7.

There is technically a final encounter between Cloud and Sephiroth remaining, but it is literally impossible to lose. You can only perform Omnislash on him or do nothing, all other commands are locked out. If you opt to just stand there you counter attack Sephiroth and kill him anyway, in decidedly less dramatic fashion. Chat excitedly spams their best As and drives it home to the proper anime finish. Twitch Chat's final input occurred at 170 hours, twenty six minutes and nine seconds. Almost exactly seven straight days of play. Probably not the best speedrun record, but an achievement nonetheless. Finishing on the same day as it's release back in 1997, January 31st, for some extra bit of poetry.

Every optional superboss has been destroyed. We bred a gold chocobo and obtained the most powerful and broken equipment in the game. We were forced to improvise and adapt each and every step of the way, learning and appreciating a true classic videogame in an entirely unique and thrilling way. Dozens if not hundreds of people arrived at all points, loudly proclaiming everything we would do to be impossible. Chat proved them all wrong, every single time. We battled against some bosses and segments for hours, often the better part of days. Like waves crashing against a cliff, through sheer determination and willpower, we ground this game into dust.

Call me whatever you want, I don't care. I'm willing to admit I was deeply moved by this whole experience. Early in the run, when I verbally sparred with one of our many recurring trolls, he said to me that the fact I considered this some sort of achievement made him want to troll more. I feel deeply sorry for that person, and I'm speaking honestly. They missed out on a chance to feel a bit like I do, having been part of something truly special. It doesn't matter if the rest of the world sees it that way, or even most of the players. That this experience was capable of such a profound impact on me, I welcome it. I spent a week neck deep in this stream, pretty much start to finish, and I've spent the better part of another two weeks writing about it. This is an experience I'll remember and cherish for the rest of my life.

As the credits rolled, the tears started flowing, and I'm not normally an emotional guy. It was an overwhelming feeling of pride, achievement and relief. Bitter sadness that it was over, eternal gratitude it had ever happened. As the ending plays out, the command queue fills with one input, repeated and enthused. WAIT, WAIT. Not yet. Please. The starfield begins to scroll. The operator says he's just waiting for the ending to stop and I refuse to tell him it loops forever, wanting to just sit in this moment a little longer. I finally notice the updated ticker in the corner of the stream. #ThankYouKerik. It breaks me.

No, NO. Thank YOU chat. WE did it. #ladderboss

With a similarly heavy heart, it's here we must part ways with this blog series, as no more remains to be written. I have deeply, truly enjoyed doing this and I'm crushed it has to end. I hope I can divert this energy into something new, but either way I'm extremely glad to have chronicled this adventure. Thanks to GB for the community showcase and twitter features, and a place to host the dang thing. Thanks to TwitchPlaysPokemon for doing this at all, a complete side project to their regular fare. Finally, thank you for reading and sticking with me over these incredibly lengthy updates. If even a handful of people felt a fraction of the excitement and amazement I did, then I've done a good job I think. I'm not a professional writer nor do I have any sort of training, but hopefully you enjoyed my stories anyway. Thank you so much once again for reading, and hopefully you'll see me around!

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