Game Review

Now I absolutely love Final Fantasy VII, and my passion for this story and these characters has only been further stoked since the release of Remake back in 2020. The things that the original game did to me back in early '98 changed my outlook on gaming, and while it's certainly not the best game ever made, it's very much my favourite.

However, outside of the original game, expanded FF7 content has always been a little, how shall we say, odd. But for the most part, I've been willing to give it all a go.

So much so, that every console I have bought after the PS2 has been mostly due to this franchise. My PS3, that I picked up in July 2009, was something I only bought because I had ordered Advent Children Complete on blu-ray, and needed something to watch it on.
And my PS4, a console I was 6 years late to, only came into my life because of the approaching release of Remake.

However, both of those consoles had other things going for them, and other games I could easily see myself playing, so their purchases weren't seen as really big risks at the time.

The PS5 however, does not have anything else going for it. With the possible exception of the upcoming Stellar Blade, there is no reason for me to own this console, beyond needing one to play Rebirth. So in that regard, this game needed to be very very good in order for me to justify this purchase, otherwise it would end up being a very expensive piece of metal and plastic scrap.
And to heap more pressure on to this game, it's the first game I have ever pre-ordered, despite TotalBiscuit's old warnings still ringing in my ears.

Like Remake before it, this game is a 3rd person action game, with some of the old turn-based elements retained for fans of the old, original game. Whereas Remake was confined to the main city of Midgar, here we see Cloud and the gang hitting the road, and going on adventures through a brand new, very impressive, and mostly open, world.

The gameplay therefore is fundamentally the same, though with some new features added in combat, allowing more ways for the characters to deal with very fast or flying enemies. In addition, the characters can now perform synergy abilities, which are powerful combo moves.

I never fully got my head around all of the new synergy systems, as there were so many new things to try and do. I mostly stuck to the combat as I knew it from before, only really bringing in the new techniques when the situation arose, such as for launching Tifa up into the air.

There are however some really cool looking skills that I barely ever used, such as for deflecting incoming ranged attacks, or doing some really cool counters. If I dip back into the game, which I am obviously planning to do in order to clean up some of the stuff I missed, I imagine I will start using these more, just like how I only started using the L1 shortcuts during my second playthrough of Remake.

So does this thing hold up? Or did I potentially buy a £400 piece of garbage?

Well, just like Remake before it, the game has many ups, but unfortunately plenty of downs as well.

The first thing that needs to be said, is that the game is a behemoth. This thing is huge. I've spent longer playing this the last couple of weeks than I have done on both of my Remake playthroughs combined. And by half way through this game, I decided I had had just about enough of all the side content, and pretty much pushed on with the main story. To fully complete everything would take ages.

And, at least in my opinion, this is one of the game's downsides. In the second part of a remake trilogy, based on a game that I love purely for its characters and story, should there really be this much filler pumped into the game? There are hours and hours and hours of side content, from playing cards and other mini-games, to exploring and analysing areas on the map, to taking photographs, to tracking and killing unique beasties, to spoiling the fun of little Moogles, to digging up loot with your chocobo, to playing piano. The list goes on.

Now here's the thing. Having all of this extra stuff in the game is certainly not necessarily a bad thing. What is a bad thing, is that the game seemingly is desperate for you to take part in everything. And not just take part, but excel.

I say this because, in most games that contain a lot of side content, such as the Witcher 3, the side content is optional. Completing a good chunk of the side quests in games like that will level you up a great deal, giving you a boost going into the end parts of the game. This feels almost like a reward. In Rebirth, I did a load of the side content at first, and over the course of the game I must have easily done more than half of all such content available. But when I got to the end game, I was only a single level higher than the recommended level for those last few quests.
So this makes me think, just how weak would my party have been, had I only played the main story (which I was constantly desperate to get back to!), and not done any side content?

And in addition, you had to get maximum scores on a bunch of different mini-games in order to unlock a bunch of different weapons. Now, some of these games were ok, but some I really didn't like, and some didn't control particularly well, making them frustrating to play. To hide gameplay mechanics behind these things, including such important and cool abilities such as Tifa's Starshower, or Aerith's Ray Of Judgment, really narked me.

The world itself was incredibly impressive, with wildly varied and very large open zones to explore. I obviously got way more used to it as the game went on, and skipped far more than I should have done, but to begin with, I was exploring everywhere, struggling a little bit to comprehend that this world and these areas even existed, and that I was walking through them. It was very enjoyable, and a massive nostalgia trip.

By far the main issues I had with this new world were down to continuity. If you compare this new map to the one from the original game, they simply do not match, and are not really anywhere close. In addition, there are technically two maps in this game alone, with one being a fully zoomed out view of the world, as well as a more zoomed in one for each zone. And to make matters even more confusing, these two map types, that are both from the same game, do not match either. It's all a bit strange.

In Remake, one of the parts of the game that I was most impressed with was the voice acting, and I'm happy to report that it's very much the same here. Pleasantly, Britt Baron as Tifa probably had the most to do in this one, at least in terms of having the most introspective and tender moments. Her voice is perfect for really getting over how gentle and sweet, but how determined and strong, Tifa really is, despite her fears. If there's ever been a fictional character that needs a massive hug, it's Tifa. Especially at the end of this game.

Cody Christian continues to put in stellar work as Cloud, and Zack's actor is much better than he was in Remake. I don't think Red's "teen" voice suits the character at all, but really shows the actor's range.
John Eric Bentley remains the one with probably the hardest job to do, in trying to bring to life this very over the top and dramatic character in the form of Barret, which he continues to do very well. There were some really good Barret moments in this game, especially the Dyne section.

I could just be remembering wrong here, as I tend to laser-focus in on Tifa, but as much as she suits the character, and as good a job as she does, I think this time Briana White didn't really have as much to do in comparison to the previous game. This is odd, considering how important Aerith is to this part of the story. I think maybe I would have felt different, had we ever got to see these little secretive meetings between Aerith and Tifa, but the game would constantly cut away.

As for the new actors, I really like who they cast for Elena and Cait Sith in particular. The only one I'm still not sure of is Cid, whose actor really doesn't sound like what I was expecting.

Though the character writing is still good, and the voice acting is still great, there did however seem to be something a little lacking in a way, when compared to Remake. I think this is because most of these characters are fairly recent acquaintances, and the strong sense of camaraderie didn't seem to be as strong because of it.
The game felt like it really missed that close-knit group of friends we had in Remake, with how well Biggs, Wedge and Jessie used to fit into the original Avalanche team.

I guess it also didn't really help that for large chunks of this game, Cloud is not exactly himself, and this makes the other characters be a bit cagey around him. I am very much looking forward to the later parts of the third game, when Tifa helps Cloud recover his true self, and the whole team can be truly together as a close unit in their quest to stop Sephiroth.

As I alluded to earlier, and yes I am no doubt very biased, but Tifa was the absolute stand out character this time for me. Her friendship with Aerith, that really started to blossom in Remake, is one of the best character-driven elements of this game. It really comes across how much they trust in each other, and confide in one another. I just wish the game had let us see more of it.
And at this point, we still don't know how much they have confided in one another, but their secretive information sharing certainly seems to be helping Tifa get through to Cloud faster than she did in the original. And I really liked that she got more to do in this regard, and seemed to take on more responsibility than at this point in the original game.

After Tifa, I would say my next favourite character was probably Barret. He was nowhere near as over the top in this one, and also had some very introspective and deep moments.

In terms of combat, by far my two most preferred characters were Tifa and Yuffie. I'd been hoping for the last few years that these two would be fun to use together, and they did not disappoint. They're both so fast, and have tools to dish out great damage in nearly any situation, that they were nearly always my team mates if I had the choice. It also really helps that they're really easy to use.

Barret and Aerith seemed very situational this time. For whatever reason, I felt like Aerith had been quite nerfed. I know I missed one of her weapons that would have given me Ray Of Judgment, but I felt like she had very little else to contribute when it came to dishing out the damage. I did really like her radiant ward which powered up her basic attacks. It's a shame that other characters also didn't get this bonus when in this ward, just like how they do when they are in the arcane ward.

I struggled a lot with Red, at least until much later in the game when I started to understand his play style a bit better. However, I'm not a fan of having to do so much blocking in order to build his stronger attacks. But I very much appreciated that there is a way to take him a bit more supportive.

Cait Sith was the weakest for me. I kept getting so confused with all the different things he's got going on, and was also not a fan of how a lot of his abilities are very random. Because of this, I really didn't use him much, but I bet when I play again I'd probably get more used to him, and tap into more of his potential.

There were probably fewer annoying fights in this game compared to Remake, but the ones that existed were annoying in their own way, and tended to contain some pretty big "aha, got ya!" moments. Usually, after getting caught out by these moments, and then being prepared for them, it would mean the fight was much more agreeable.

I know I only played on normal, but the only fights that were actually hard were ones that had been designed to be pretty annoying, rather than an actual decent challenge. And there were a few of these fights, where they were seemingly unwinnable without taking a very specific materia loadout, or having to use one specific type of tactic. When it comes to these things, I'm an old curmudgeon, and usually want to do things my way. Being forced out of my comfort zone can get me frustrated sometimes.

Show / Hide Spoiler Talk

Well, it's been a week since I finished the game, as it's taken me that long to get this blog entry together. But I guess I'd better re-activate my gaming thumbs, and get back into the game. All that extra stuff isn't going to play itself, after all.

Intro & Chapter 1 - Flashback Sequence

• Did this thing really just arrive 2 days early?
• Get that thing installed already.
• Weather warfare? It's Zack's stamp - are we starting with Zack, in Zack's "timeline" - YES!
• Wait - he's arriving after the group flee from Midgar? Is he in their timeline? Did going into the singularity mean they have gone to an alternate world, and somehow reshaped the original world? Hmm. Probably not. But what's with the time discrepancy? Zack and Cloud should have got here weeks ago.
• Wait, if Zack saw Aerith on the screen being taken away, why did he go to the church at the end of FF7R DLC? Surely he would know she was not there.
• Not fucking Kyrie again.
• Wait what? They're not comatose? At least Red isn't.
• OK, now he is. Or dead. Don't you dare leave him Zack.
• Wait now I'm confused again. Zack now has Aerith. Why the fuck did he go to the church? If that scene comes later, why is he outside psyching himself up? Maybe he takes her there, and she wakes up while he's away?
• Did she just die? WTF?
• Who does Sephy think his father is? Gast? Hojo?
• Unlock more photo filters as I progress? That's a weird unlock.
• Tried to play I Stopped To Fill My Car Up by the Phonics.
• ZANGAN! YES! Who is that voice? I know it.
• Being guided by Tifa - Cloud's movement is already being limited if I try and go a different way to Tifa - don't do this Square!
• Mako vacuum, like a ghost trap?
• RIP the other Shinra guy.
• How far away did that river send us? FFS.
• Really don't like all this teleporting the other characters are doing.
• The length of this flashback is ridiculous. Let's get the story going forward.
• More vacuuming? Really?
• What's with this weird dynamic lighting, always going dark and light?
• Ahh, a skip to the reactor. Thank fuck.
• Lol got stuck at first on shutting off the valve - didn't realise the PS5 controller could alter the pressure required on its triggers. Turned that shit off.
• Not such a big fan of this mansion redesign. Hmm, locked door in the basement. I wonder who could be in there?
• Ahhhhhhrrrggghhh. How slow do you want me to walk, stupid game?
• Are you gonna shoot him or what? Stupid Mayor.
• Wait, Tifa and her Dad went there to hide? That's a fucking long trek as we discovered earlier. Also how did they get there if the bridge is out?
• Could really do with some insight about now, Red.
• Tifa's gonna give Aerith a massage? Are we not invited?
• Aerith thinks that in Remake she used to know the original timeline, but the Whispers erased it? Now Tifa's telling Aerith the full story early?
• Tifa midnight visit? This is new. Maybe Aerith told Tifa to do this?
• Oi, you jazz playing weirdos. It's the middle of the night. Shut up.
• Damn it, I wanted more story than that. Ouch, Tifa. That stings, and I'm not even Cloud.

Chapter 2 - Kalm & The Grasslands

• Queen's Blood? Oh fuck I forgot about this. Not sure I really want it.
• Ahead On Our Way. Smiley face.
• Ned, you're weird. But I smashed him in my 1st QB game.
• Of course Barret's in the bar.
• Shinra's here. Wasn't Red looking out for these goons? And I said I could count on him. Shit I forgot the other QB matches.
• Lead the way, Brodude.
• Arrgh this game and all it's slow movement. It's painful.
• How do none of these choppers see me climbing over the roofs like this?
• You ok there, Brodude?
• Aerith why would you say that? Tifa's already pissed off with me lol.
• The fully zoomed out map doesn't match the geography of the immediate area map. What's that about?
• Got locked on some terrain running in place. Luckily wiggled free. But not a good start.
• Exploring like a madman. Found a resources hot spot. I wonder if these resources respawn?
• Finally looking through and sorting out my equipment and materia. Just noticed my summons from the FF7 and DLC saves are not in the inventory.
• It's a nice wide open area. But seems very empty so far.
• Went to investigate some church looking thing, and found a cave with loads of yellow glowing things. WTF is this?
• It was great start with a few answers and loads of questions from Zack's little bit. Then the flashback went on way too long. Didn't like the distrust between Cloud and Tifa in Kalm. And now the adventuring since leaving Kalm has been kinda stagnant. On a replay, these early parts of the game are gonna be brutal.
• Just checked, going back to the main menu and scanning for saves from earlier games now says I have no eligible bonuses. So where the fuck are my Leviathan and Ramuh? Yuffie better have them, or I'm gonna be pissed.
• Just checked if resources respawn - none at the crystal hotspot.
• Weird Chocobo themed HZD mission.
• Chadley is here. Yes we created lots of materia together. THAT WE NO LONGER HAVE!! Stupid game.
• CHAD module. Don't think I qualify to be able to use that, lol.
• Titan!
• Hmm. Protorelics. Is that the yellow things from earlier?
• After this visit to the Choco ranch things seem to be moving forward.
• Red climbing a ladder. That's cool.
• Female Chadley? WTF.
• Yes I've found a lifespring. I've been here twice already.
• Ok this map is huge.
• Here I am picking flowers again.
• Ahh, the weird yellow things are to strengthen summon materia.
• First time using Aerith's Chrono Aegis saw 2 wolves jump at her and damage her with no repercussions. Something shady, or did I do something wrong?
• You want me to stop the little Mooglets having fun so that they can work? That doesn't seem right.
• Ok, now there's something at the coastal churchy looking place. There was nothing here when I came here before. It's Beck and his goons? Lol.
• Chasing these goons is already getting tiresome.
• I was thinking about leaving, but I've not even been back to Kalm yet.
• Urgh, photos? Spider-man game?
• Played Nene in QB, dominated.
• Mercenary is fixing the leak? Don't be Roche. Don't be Roche. Don't be Roche.
• I just heard cherries and chocolate? And I can't get any? And now Chocobo ice cream? As weird as that sounds, it would still be nice to be able to get some.
• Played Zahira and only just about won.
• Played Vash, won, but 1st time someone took a row off me.
• Hey, how'd you get that little Cactuar?
• Played Virgil and wrecked him.
• Thorin Oakenshield?
• Oh, beat Titan first time. Wasn't expecting that. Dude was jumping around all over the place.
• So Brodude's not feeling too well. That sucks.
• Oh so it's not Roche. But why did it have to be Kyrie? Sheeit.
• Done enough in this area for first playthrough. Want to move on to the next location. Time for the Zolem.
• Hey we won that fight fair and square. Didn't need no Sephy help.

Chapter 3 - The Mines

• I doubt they're ok, Tifa.
• Tifa killed that flappy thing so fast I didn't even assess it.
• God damn, Tifa's still my girl. Kicking absolute ass.
• Just 2 ogres, living their life in an abandoned mine, and we come along and chop them to pieces.
• Elena! Ooh she's sassy, I like it.
• Cool fight. Took a little to get into, but I liked it.
• That was rude, Tseng. What did that guy ever do to you?
• Yeah, I really like Elena.
• Did I really come all this way for 2 sprigs of sage?
• How come Barret doesn't run out of ammo when he's shooting terrain?
• Lol, polystyrene rocks.
• Wait, Barret can push this cart casually with one hand, then it takes him effort to push it downhill?
• That Mythril Golem was hard. I'm not good with Barret and Red. Serves me right for not using them much yet.

Chapter 4 - Junon Area

• Pretty sure my Leviathan and Ramuh are gone. Better look into that. Ahh shit, maybe not. Just found them in my menu. Had to activate them first. What a dumbass.
• Why after catching the Chocobo Belle are the other Chocobos not afraid of me any more? Stupid birds.
• Who does Gabe think he is? Mad Max?
• This music sounds like Pirates of the Caribbean.
• How the fuck do I get up in the air? These flappy things are annoying me. Yuffie. Get here quick.
• What's this Fort Condor madness? Lol.
• I can't remember how to play Fort Condor. Waaaaa.
• Is this Captain trying to sound like Optimus Prime?
• Hey, come back here with that relic? Gotta do this again? Fuck.
• Oh ok. Not yet.
• Right, I'm sick of these flappy birds. Gonna go try and get Yuffie.
• You don't scare me, Rhonda. I have a sword bigger than your entire body.
• Chadley, will you stop following me around.
• Oh man. If she's got cards like Shiva, I'm gonna get fucking smashed.
• Oof, won by 1 point.
• Oh, kids. You can't call yourselves the Double D duo. That has an entirely different meaning.
• Fuck. 1st QB loss, to the Double D kids. I'll be back you little shits.
• Someone's shouting and it won't let me out of the inn! Stupid locked camera!
• Mr. Dolphin!
• WTF! Can't get any ATB.
• That was lucky. Ramuh ultimate right as it was staggered.
• Ha ha. Gotta do the CPR on Yuffie this time?
• We don't need CPR. We have healing spells and Phoenix Downs.
• That's right Cloud. Touch the underage girl's chest.
• Well that was lucky. No prison time for you.
• Ha ha. Is Red putting on his voice? That's funny.
• Yay. Tifa's finally happy with me. At least a little bit.
• Cloud, those were sit-ups, not squats. What are you doing, you mad lad?
• FFS. So not only do we not get Yuffie yet, we also gotta contend with knobhead Roche now?
• Bloody camera can get really jittery sometimes when indoors. It's sickening.
• I don't trust you, Rhonda. Got my eye on you.
• Calling All Frogs? Right on it.
• What the hell is happening? Ribbit.
• Just tried to fast travel back to the grasslands. It wouldn't let me. So can I go back through the mine?
• It seems I can. Played Thorin for the Chocobo card. Dude had me on the ropes and gave up. Weird match.
• So if I can't fast travel between zones, if I go up to Junon I might not be able to get back down and come back to do things later. Better clear these zones while I'm here.
• Ahh, I really should have done all these combat simulations earlier to get the materia instead of buying it all. Oh well.
• Yay, Tifa's music from Remake.
• There's so much I want and need to do! Arrgh.
• Time to pay Beck a final visit. Oh it's that gate I found ages ago.
• Hang on. If they buried the key, how did they get back to the hideout? They were even worried about that when I last saw them.
• Protorelic? Wutai? Gilgamesh maybe? WTF?
• Wait. Can my Chocobo do a Kung-fu kick?
• The other Mus are called Mis? Are they collectively Mumis or Mimus?
• What does fecund mean, Chad? Stop trying to be smart.
• Grasslands complete. Back through the mines. Sigh.
• Don't like how these resources keep spawning as I pass them, then I have to turn around to get them.
• You ok there, Aerith?
• What do you mean, we can't come into the Crow's Nest? This anti-Shinra base? There's nobody more anti-Shinra than us.
• WTF? Can I not take any of this gold?
• Errr, what are all these balloons?
• Must be for a later quest.
• Found another Fort Condor board. Absolutely gonna be back here later.
• Ooh, I just spotted the condor.
• Can't seem to ascend the lighthouse to get a good look.
• Fuck. Forgot to hand in the photo quest to the guy in Kalm.
• These mushrooms are like fever dreams.
• Aha! Travel between Junon and the Grasslands unlocked. Time to hand in the card quest.
• 300 gil! Robbin' bastards.
• I've gotta do an escort quest? With a dog? Hmph.
• Fuck's sake, I know where Crow's Perch is. Can't I just fast travel?
• Holy crap. I've got to play On Our Way? This isn't gonna go bad or anything.
• How the hell did I get an A? That was trash lol.
• Just noticed I've been playing for over 20 hours and still only on chapter 4. Holy shit.
• Just lost my first battle in the game. Part 3 of Conquerer Of The Skies VR challenge. Too many FUCKING FLAPPY THINGS!!!!!
• Got it 2nd try, but lost Tifa at the end. Bloody stupid birds.
• Managed to beat Phoenix, but what a shit show. I think I mistook the instructions when it said any minions tethered to it would make it invulnerable. So I was focusing the minions, even the ones that weren't tethered. When I realised this and focused Phoenix, I was able to spank it down.
• Please tell me Kyrie's not gonna be in every zone.
• Yeah, bite her face off, Red.
• How am I supposed to know if it's safe for the Condor to eat? I'm no expert on such things.
• Mindflayer just took my 2nd life. Just can't build ATB charges fast enough.
• Trashed him on 2nd attempt. Went with a tanky Barret.
• Got absolutely spanked in Fort Condor. Bad flashbacks of the Yuffie DLC. Gonna ignore this side mission. I hate this mini game. Onto the next zone.
• That dolphin bit was just as annoying as in the OG.
• Wait, if they're going up on the tanker, and that's the only way, how's Cloud getting up there?
• Who the fuck is Glenn? Supposed to know this guy?
• Magnus materia? Will they stop adding shit please?
• Ooh, hello Commander.
• She can boss me around any day.
• Sorry, were you conducting an interview?
• Oh dear, Rude. I used to think you were cool.
• Shit me. Are they gonna follow me all the way down the road? Lol.
• Wow there were some cheap shots in that parade. But I think I pulled it back with a 20 great combo on the third part of the performance.
• Tseng can't have a phone like that! Where's the flip phone?
• Ahh balls. Fuck you Roche. Gonna kick your ass later I hope.
• Oh, that was not the award I was after. Never mind. Still gonna kick your ass.
• Yuffie with them ninja skilz again.
• It's the darts all over again.
• Hmm. Disorder on the Rune Blade. That was on the Nail Bat last time right?
• Don't fully understand why Shinra is now fighting Shinra?
• Dude straight up shooting at the ghost in the corner.
• Man these troops are gonna be pissed when they learn they're butchering their mates for no reason.
• Ah bloody hell. Roche again. Can we at least kill this prick?
• Seriously, he's gonna live again?
• Lol the robed dudes are just lining up to get on the ship?
• Don't let her on!
• Ha ha. Suck it Kyrie.

Chapter 5 - Shinra 8

• Sheesh. How long was chapter 4? I read there's supposed to be 14 of these?
• Ahh Red loves it really.
• Faz guy? Need to know more please!
• Queen's Blood? Not again. Didn't even do the Junon ones. Completely forgot.
• Ahh Chadley just beat Barret. So why am I even gonna try this? Chadley's only gonna stomp me again like he did in Fort Condor.
• A 30-0 win over Felix the stoner dude in round 1.
• Aww, I gotta play my team mates?
• 26-0 against Barret in round 2.
• 6-19 defeat to Madam M, through misuse of the Shiva card. The text on that does not make it clear what it does in my opinion. But now I know.
• 34-0 on the rematch. Thanks to Shiva. Suck it. Shouldn't have made me fight all those battles 4 years ago, and not give me any of the winnings.
• 3-7 loss to Chadley. Could have been waaaaaaay worse. He let me off.
• 14-12 to me on the replay.
• Sigh. Just realised the PS5 doesn't save screenshots properly. I only have a 1080p monitor, but it's saving screenshots at 4K, and kinda pixelish. Hopefully they'll be ok when I shrink them down.
• 7-5 victory first time in the final. Nice.
• Oh my god, Red. That is so good. Honestly, I can happily lose here.
• Did Tifa just cheer on Red? I'm hurt.
• Also how can Red even challenge here? He didn't go through the qualifying rounds.
• Ahh, exhibition match. Cool.
• 7-15 defeat to Red. Then an 11-22 rematch. Dude's got stupid cards. No way can I beat him with my deck.
• Ahh Red, don't talk bollocks about learning strategies. You won because your cards are better. Just like how Chadley beat me in Fort Condor because he had better units.
• Whose is this luggage by my hammock? Am I about to steal someone's hammock? Or luggage?
• So if Hojo's not on the boat, then I guess no Hojo on the beach?
• Woah, is this the Farscape version of the Jenova theme?
• What the shit is this Jenova version?
• No Cloud. Don't let him fool you.

Chapter 6 - Costa del Sol

• Yuffie's happy to be on solid ground again.
• Are we gonna be able to kick a ball at Red?
• Nothing like a good lay to kickstart your getaway?
• Can we buy a villa?
• Just looked at the map, and have seen the "Run Wild" field. What is it? And what are we gonna be playing? Looks like a dog? Is Red gonna get to do some racing?
• Yuffie got ice cream? Why can't I have any!?!
• Can't find any chests or loot anywhere in this place.
• Well, other than food breaks, I've been playing for about 14 hours straight today. Better give it a rest.
• Just checked the screenshots after changing to png from jpg, and still no better. Seriously, the videos I've been saving have a better image. Stupid Sony PS5 trash.
• Here's Johnny. Small world, innit?
• Lucky 7s.
• Find my partner? It's gonna be Yuffie, isn't it?
• Ahhh, got 13400 on the shooty game. Really need that Time materia. 16150 on 2nd attempt. That'll do me. Hate aiming on controller.
• Not this pink haired loser again.
• At least this version of Queen's Blood is more interesting - more like a puzzle than a "take that" game.
• Oh yes, these card puzzles are much more my style.
• Hmm, what's going on with the white materia?
• The Whispers have invalidated this white materia? Good job there's another one out there with Zack and his Aerith.
• Guide me, O Tifa.
• Red wants the meat.
• We're gonna play togga with Red?!
• Damn it, was doing the piano really well, until missing a couple right at the end.
• Lol, of course Hojo's here.
• Screw you, Hojo. I'm going for a dip.
• Is this a battle I'm scripted to lose?
• I suppose so.
• Don't let him go Aerith. Let Red kill the freak.
• There's the ball. Let me kick it!
• Dayum Tifa. Your sports bra must have been puttin' in work.
• She'll be counting on Cloud when that moment in the future arrives?
• I don't really like Johnny, but I hope when we visit this place later it's done up all nice.
• Wait. Is Yuffie still optional? Or are these choices without purpose?

Chapter 7 - Costa del Sol Area & Mt. Corel

• Get your filthy fucking eyeballs off my materia you little shit.
• Actually thought for a split second she may still be optional. That would have been brave. I would have respected it to be honest.
• Why am I now allowed on the beach without proper swimwear? This game's rules keep changing.
• I'm never getting 18000 at this shooting game. Give me a mouse already!
• Clone Johnnys? Really?
• Ha! What the fuck is this bird wearing?
• Yeah all these Johnnys is dumb. Don't like it.
• Oh no! More gym stuff? I'm getting PTSD.
• Snaps says I know how to find beautiful spots to take photos in the world? But he's the one sending me to these places.
• Right. Been in this beach wear long enough.
• Hmph. Not doing all that gym crap again.
• Time to climb a mountain I guess.
• Taking a break with Aerith and Red. Story time?
• Hang on. How's Aerith getting her 4th weapon when Barret still only has 2. Clearly I've missed one somewhere.
• There's still monsters on this trail? You would have thought the others would have cleared them out for us.
• Loving this climbing music.
• Wait, Reeve. Don't take that shit. You absolutely tried to stop his father. Stand up to him, man!
• Zack! Here we go!
• Is that all we get? Damn it game.
• Hmm, I wonder if Aerith somehow heard that conversation?
• Yuffie's not the most observant is she? No nasty surprises and no materia? I'm pretty sure we found both on the way up here.
• Why's Tifa lagging behind. I've seen the trailer. I know what's about to happen.
• Ok. It didn't happen. Colour me confused.
• Yuffie still stronk.
• This is a pretty good re-creation of North Corel.
• Why we using this fancy light to track this dude when there's seemingly only one way to go?
• Ellie the Elusive and Barry the Brash? More like Smelly the Intrusive and Bury the Trash.
• Just used Red's ability to give haste for the first time. How fast does that run out? Holy shit.
• Scarlet's still wearing the same clothes she wore 6 years ago?
• Saucer-bound, baby!

Chapter 8 - The Saucer

• The Gold Saucer approach was the first time I've had goosebumbs so far this game.
• What is happening?!?
• WTF why do I keep missing?
• Jesus we're gonna be here all night.
• Holy crap the hotel. How's this gonna go down in this new game?
• Was Cait Sith's fortune a message to the players? If so, what's gonna happen at the end of this game? Or end of the trilogy?
• Hmm. Biggs still has both arms. That's one theory shot down.
• Who's that knocking at my door?
• It's not Tifa. Disappointed.
• Maybe I shoulda tried that gym stuff.
• No Chocobo racing yet? Boo.
• Tony Stark?
• That stupid bird was lvl 39?!? No wonder it took forever.
• Are the main characters of the game gonna have their own QB cards?
• This 3D brawler game is ass. Fucking seriously?
• Only 2 games in Wonder Square, plus QB?
• Would have been good to see Jessie on the stage, Aerith? I get the feeling we will...
• I need 500 more points. Urgh. Back to the bike.
• How the hell did I get an S rank? I am not good at that.
• I just don't have the cards to win even the 1st QB match. This is fucking dumb to lock important items behind shitty side games. Luckily, getting S on the bike is a piece of piss.
• Yeah, I fucking hate QB like I hated Fort Condor. So broken. And to put so much of the story locked behind it. Retarded decision.
• Fucking hell I just want to carry on with the story. Please let me passed these stupid card game missions. Really fucking spoiling the game.
• Why is it I've had trouble beating pretty much every QB player I've come across in the last few chapters, only just dinged level 3 in QB, and then I go up against a level 6 opponent and smash them first time 34-8? This game is so weird and random.
• Oi! Plant! Come back with my plant!
• What the fuck was that? My first game over, to a bunch of Cactuars. Out of nowhere.
• Then on the rematch I won really easily. I swear anything about this game can be random.
• Aha! That's the first time I've seen our normal Stamp. I was beginning to wonder exactly what "timeline" this now was. But there's my answer. Still doesn't explain the time discrepancy for Zack and his Cloud. But oh well.
• The swindler mission had me scratching my head. I wrote down all the clues they gave and went and proved all of them were lies, whereas one was supposed to be the truth. When I double checked what they said, the last guy had changed the name of the monster in his statement. Either that or I'm an idiot who wrote it down completely wrong. Seems fishy to me though.
• Ahh fuck me. Tifa's next weapons are locked behind another mini-game? This is gonna take a while...
• Shit. 39,000 on 2nd attempt and need 42,000. Guess I go again...
• Sod it. Tifa's gloves will have to wait. Too impatient right now. Need story damn it.
• Hey, that bird looks familiar.
• Wait Teoh is no longer Joe's bird?
• Well I liked Elena at first, but what the fuck was that little hissy fit?
• Won the chocobo race 1st time? Not expecting that.
• WTF is going on in this Dyne fight? How can he be strong enough to pick up all that metal? Square, stop being so fucking mental.
• I liked what they did with Dyne except for the fight. That was stupid.
• Intercept these troops? They're not even approaching.
• How many steroids do you think Dio takes?
• Tifa Vs Elena. One on one fight. Make it happen, Square.
• Hmm. I wonder why Rufus didn't have Darkstar in Advent Children? Maybe he died from Diamond Weapon's attack?
• Ok, we found Biggs. But what happened at the church? I want more than these piecemeal little bits.

Chapter 9 - Gongaga

• Six-person team bouts at the Gold Saucer?!? That would be chaos. With a capital CHAOS.
• I'd better clear the Corel region before moving on. I've barely touched it.
• Can't believe I started playing this a week ago. I've played it in pretty much all of my free time. And I'm still only hovering around North Corel and the Gold Saucer.
• Why does Yuffie get to ride shotgun?
• Hate these stupid swallowing worm things. What an anti-fun mechanic.
• Lol, just let Cloud carry everything.
• Had enough of sand for now. On with the next part.
• After Red's shimmy, wanted to see how Barret climbed this rope with one hand. He did a pretty good job.
• Was not expecting this vibe in Gongaga. I dig it.
• Shit. Forgot to get Alexander, so I'll have to go back anyway.
• Getting a little sick of talking to Chadley on this weird device every 5 minutes.
• I've never played Crisis Core, but CISSNEI!!! Makes sense that she's here I guess, what with her links to Zack.
• Hmm. I wonder if Zack's name will be on that?
• I guess not.
• Got nothing but greats, and then just 3 misses on Cinco De Chocobo, and still only got an A. Is there no S rank? Maybe no misses are allowed at all.
• There's a Chocobo that plays cards?
• Apparently I don't have to go back to get Alexander. I can just do the fight here. I assumed I would have to be in the corresponding zone.
• Ha! Cloud called Zack a loser. Little does he know.
• Hmm, at least Cloud can hear and say Zack's name now. But it looks like Aerith has definitely confided in Tifa. So Aerith probably knows Zack was in Nibelheim 5 years ago, and that Cloud somehow knows all those details, even though Tifa thinks he wasn't there. I'm really wondering how much Aerith knew about all this back in Remake, before the Whispers removed her memories.
• Bollocks. Now I'm locked with Cait Sith, who I haven't used yet.
• Sephy now has full control of the Whispers? I wonder if he has also somehow woken the Weapons up earlier than they did in the original. Or has his meddling woken them up as a side effect?
• Wouldn't let me pick up the power cable and plug it in until I had first clicked on the area I needed to plug it in. Dumb, as we'd already done this "puzzle" earlier, so Cloud should know what he's doing now.
• Hmm. Why's this chapter called The Planet Stirs? Makes it sound like big things are happening. When we're in Gongaga of all places, which in the original was a very minor place, and could easily be missed.
• That was quite the boss.
• Did Cissnei just pull 3 grapple guns out of her arse?
• Boingee!
• Controversial, but I think Yuffie may be even more fun than Tifa. Having them both in the same party is a blast.
• Cloud, put that sword down right this instant.
• This seems like a strange setup if Sephy's plan here was always to turn Cloud against Tifa. Why bring them to the reactor?
• What exactly are they going to do with this?
• White Whispers and black Whispers? Maybe some are not under Sephiroth's control yet?
• We're re-living Tifa's memories instead of Cloud's? WTF? What are they planning? I'm so intrigued.
• Just an easter egg I think.
• Hmm. Sephy definitely seems to see Tifa as a bigger threat than Aerith in this game. But surely he could have killed her there?
• I know she found the memories that she lost, but why's Tifa so supportive of Cloud after he just cast her into the Mako, and into the belly of a Weapon no less?
• Can anyone lip read?
• Wait, was this part of Aerith's plan? Whatever Tifa is up to?
• What an interesting sequence. Got the questions pouring into my brain.
• But seriously though. Got through the main story parts in Gongaga, and no flash to Zack at all?
• All the way back to Junon to catch up on cards. 33-0 and 34-0 wins against the Double D Dickheads. It's all on what cards you own, for the most part. Dumb game.
• This card game is weird. Struggle with Michaela, and need 3-4 tries to beat her, then smash Cameron, the supposed champion, first time.
• WTF? Now what is happening? Mate, the terrible truth about Queen's Blood is that it's not very good.
• On the way through the Gongaga jungle I saw a blue materia up on a ledge I couldn't get without a chocobo. Now I have a chocobo I can't find the damn materia again. Grr.
• Finally found it right next to a fast travel point that I could have just gone straight to.
• What are these nutters doing on their chocobos?
• Decided I might need more affection with Tifa so thought of how to tackle the gym stuff. Thought back to using my KX adapter on the PS4 and how I changed button allocations. Checked if I could do this on the PS5 and it's possible. So changed all the bumper buttons to the triangle, square, circle and cross buttons and wrecked Amina first time 29 to 16. And to think I couldn't beat her at all on the bumper buttons. Now to see how long it takes to beat the others, if possible.
• Fucking hell. Can't do it on the front buttons as the new mechanic requires you to hold a button in half way, which these can't do.
• Man that's awkward. I have to hold the controller upside down between with third and little fingers so that I can use my thumbs on the bumper buttons. Got some good speed up to beat Ronnie though 33-20.
• 27-23 against Jay. Didn't do so well as I got caught out by the reintroduction of the button mash.
• Do we kick those people out of the boxing ring every time we want to do one of these challenges? They must be getting pissed lol.
• Jools got 50 to my 33 on first attempt, but I made 2 fuck ups. But can I get to 50 with a flawless run? 38 on 2nd attempt with 1 fuck up. Come on dude.
• So, it took a few goes. But I had to turn all the sound off, and throw a t-shirt over half of the screen so I couldn't see Jules or the time. No other distractions at all, and managed a flawless run to win 59-50.
• After all that, I don't even think Tifa's affection changed. Lol.
• I thought the multiple Johnnys was a dumb idea, but I gotta admit, they done good at this hotel. It was a pain to get Tonberry's crown, but it was worth it I think.
• Ahh, so this is why there were all those collectible items earlier, that I completely ignored. Oh well.
• Hey, these are all our weapons from the previous game. I wanna use my Mythril Saber. Gimme it gimme it. Dumb game.
• Also would have preferred to buy my own villa, but hey.
• So other than cards in Corel and Fort Condor in Junon, there should be nothing to look back for. Time to fully explore Gongaga.
• You wanna catch some chickens, lady? Grapes. My nephew's chickens will peck your eyes out to get at some grapes.
• WTF is this quest? It's like the goat quest from Witcher 3.
• Trust me. If chickens want something, they do not move this slow.
• These chickens are so slow. Why don't we just pick them up?
• I gotta take this last one all the way back? I can stand right next to it. Just grab it.
• Oh thank fuck.
• Jesus. How much salt do we need?
• There's a mushroom picking minigame?
• Cloud's a perfect plucker.
• This Savage Grandhorn fight is dumb.
• Did it after the 4th time of asking, but couldn't do it in the time limit. Nowhere near.
• Navigating this jungle is not the easiest task.
• So this chocobo will bounce off a mushroom, fly about 100ft in the air, and land on solid ground safely no problem. But try and jump off a cliff about the size of a house into some water and it point blank refuses.
• Kinda pissed that Cid is in Gongaga. Not a fan of his voice actor yet either.
• Why's Yuffie so excited about flying?

Chapter 10 - Cosmo Canyon

• The summon in Cosmo Canyon is Bahamut? But we already got that in Remake. Technically, we should still have it.
• Aww, I wanted Shani to be the chocobo.
• Not had as many goosebumps playing this game as Remake, but just got hit again walking through Cosmo Canyon.
• Wasn't expecting to overhear a dude in Cosmo Canyon talking with reverence about Gast. Must have been after he met Ifalna and he left Shinra.
• Wow, they really embiggened the canyon.
• Got enough books there, Bugenhagen?
• Tifa sure is interested in that clock. And when she was in the Italian senate, she was interested in a very similar word.
• That was a great little re-creation.
• With so much wood around here, should we really be setting off all these candles?
• Oh shit. Red and Barret have got to do this? Probably the two characters I'm weakest with.
• Aww shit. Those spindly spiders are here.
• Really? A little bit of rope was keeping out the enemy?
• That's a big cave. This is gonna take a while. Like everything else in this game...
• Wait a sec. When did the others get in here?
• So was that really Gi Nattak, or was Sephy playing shape-shifter?
• What a strange place to have a Zack interlude.
• So the Whispers have taken Zack and Biggs to another timeline? And in Zack's case, into the future by a few weeks? Could these be the "white" Whispers we saw fighting the civil war in the Lifestream? Maybe they need Zack and Biggs here to do something?
• Is this even the same Biggs from Remake? Has Zack told him about Cloud and Aerith being sick? And if not, why hasn't Biggs mentioned Zack's sword?
• Ahh, so it is Biggs from Remake. Interesting. But in this timeline, it's a different Cloud. But Biggs thinks he's still in the other timeline. I think?
• So in this timeline, Cloud never joined up with Tifa and Avalanche because he and Zack were pushed into the future? Makes sense as to why he wasn't there at the very start of the game when Zack saw all the dead/unconscious bodies. Doesn't make sense as to why all the other characters had all met up and were all trying to do the same thing as they did in Remake. I certainly doubt Aerith would have been with them, at the very least.
• And now we're supposed to listen to what these Gi people have to say, but they continue to attack us at every turn? Screw these guys.
• WTF? There are two sorcerers in this fight? I can't kill one without the other bringing it back to life. So I've somehow got to kill them both at the same time? Sheesh.
• And the other two combatants keep turning me to stone? This is gonna be harder than most boss fights.
• What a horrible fight. Even with full stone protection, lining up the sorcerers to both die at the same time was a pain. My AI allies would keep killing whichever one was low on HP so it would get resurrected.
• Not massively sure how I feel about all this Gi stuff.
• Just starting to clear out the Cosmo Canyon area, and I find myself desperate for more story. I dunno, just really expected more from Bugenhagen. Gonna push on, and come back to this area later.
• How does Cid see the smoke if he's in another part of the world?

Chapter 11 - Nibelheim

• What the hell is going on with this chocobo wrangling quest?
• Damn, Odin looks ace.
• This chocobo ability does not. Looks silly.
• There it is.
• The Chocobo Sage is advertising in Nibelheim? Are we going to be able to get a gold chocobo? Is that how fast travel will open up all over the map?
• Not sure what Tifa would think if she saw us up here.
• Nah she cool with it.
• Also, how did Tifa get in that house if it's no longer hers?
• Oh, it's now a treatment center. Must be weird for Tifa.
• Hang on. Tifa's wondering why her Dad chased Sephy to the reactor? I thought earlier they had gone up there to hide?
• Holy shit. Cloud's remembering! Yes yes yes!
• What? Cloud doesn't want to tell Aerith or Tifa that he just remembered Zack? He should be spitting that shit straight out.
• Well at least I get Tifa and Yuffie for this trip. This is my A Team right here. Let's hope I don't need tankiness though...
• Now Cloud's remembering things, but remembering wrong. Kind-of. And Tifa wants to talk to Aerith about it. Yeah, pretty sure the two ladies are on the same page and have already pieced together most of what has happened.
• Up and down the lift and pipes we go.
• No idea what was going on in that Diabolic Variant fight.
• All this crap exists below the Shinra Manor, which already has its own basement? Yeah, right.
• Really getting annoying with this Cait Sith section now. Really really slow. Dumb "puzzles". Throwing boxes around? Poor game design.
• What the fuck is this Adjudicator fight? By far the most stupid battle in the game so far. I'm just about ready to throw the damn game out of the window. Forced to use a shit character in a 1v2 fight where both of the enemies are capable of one-hit killing you at any moment with seemingly undodgable attacks?
• Managed it after several frustrating attempts. What a shit fight.
• They immediately followed it up with a stupid boss fight when I'd got barely any health and mana left? Whoever developed this whole section needs fucking shooting.
• This game is trolling now, with how much it wants to waste your time.
• And now, fucking Lost Number? Keeps getting better. Just get back to the story. Please.
• Phew, the team's back together. Worst part of the game by far. Nibelheim should have been a standout good bit.
• Not even Vincent can save the way I feel right now. Just wanna get through this.
• Oh for crying out loud. We've got to fight Vincent now? Just quit it, game.
• I bet he won't be that powerful when we get to use the Galian Beast form.
• My god. This chapter keeps getting worse. Now Roche is back? Can we kill him? Just kill him dead, and put him out of his and our miseries.
• So he killed me after using about 10 attacks that it wouldn't let me dodge away from, when he was on the tiniest sliver of health. I need a break from this fucking game after this shitty chapter. Turning it off.
• Next morning, after some thought and preparation, and absolutely wrecked him first time with full health. Suck it, Roche. Can he at least die now? To be honest, I thought he was going to mutate into some kind of monster.
• Do the robed dudes just carry around spare robes with them? Didn't understand that at all.
• So Glenn is trying to stir up rebellion against Shinra, and Elmyra is watching it on the screen. So my question is, is this the Elmyra and Midgar from our timeline, or Zack's? For that matter, are the Elmyra and Marlene in Zack's timeline the same ones as from ours, or different, seeing as Biggs is the same, but the Cloud is clearly different. All this really needs clearing up.
• So after a night's thought, I have flip-flopped again. I think it best that I actually do go back and clear out some old zones before pushing on with the story. Maybe because I was expecting way more story from the Nibel area. Hopefully I can use the airfield to go back, and not have it force me on to the Saucer. But first, need to find me a cat.
• Kitties!
• Wait, did those cats build a nest?
• Poor cats, stuck with that voice, that sounds even more shrill than their own.
• Holy crap, my first top rank performance on the piano, with 142 perfect notes for Aerith's theme. Just needed kitty inspiration.
• WTF? Cid knew Ifalna? I don't like that coincidence at all. And how did he pick Aerith out as Ifalna's daughter? They don't exactly look a lot like each other.
• Bollocks. It's not gonna let me go back. I guess I'll just have to try and clear Nibelheim and then go. Unless I can go back after getting to the Saucer. Hmm. Not worth the risk.
• Nah, it's really close, but I still think Tifa's the most fun to use. Yuffie makes it a good competition though.
• There are so many new challenges in the combat simulator now that I really should look into those as well. Sigh.
• Somehow managed to take out the King Zu, even though I'd set up my team to do lots of wind damage, and it turns out it was resistance to wind, and weak to lightning. Cheeky game.
• The Chocobo Sage needs to lay off those ciggies.
• Right, done everything I currently want to in Nibel. Time to move on.
• There had to be a Bronco crash at some point.

Chapter 12 - The Second Saucer

• Ok, so back to Costa del Sol. Cool that we got to float around a while on the Bronco. But that world map doesn't seem right. Seems too different to the original map.
• New quests in all old regions? Holy shit. We were always meant to go back.
• Hmm, free exploration in the Tiny Bronco? Let's go see exactly where we can go.
• Went all the way north, then down the eastern continent. After landing in Junon I realised we straight up left Vincent in Costa del Sol.
• So it's all the central ocean area we can navigate. I know in the old game we could travel all around most of the continents in the Bronco, but I guess this makes sense.
• Hmm. Maybe we didn't leave Vincent. I just fast travelled to the Grasslands port, wondering how the hell there's a Grasslands port, and he's here hiding behind a container. Sneaky old git.
• So I've just come out of the Grasslands port, and are you telling me we could have just got a boat out onto the ocean, and around the corner, and we would have been in Junon?
• Oh no, not the dolphin again.
• More quests?
• Commander's back!
• Thought my game had crashed for the first time then, tracking the monster's scent in Junon. It just froze for about 20-30 seconds and wouldn't let me do anything except slightly move the camera. Then the cutscene came in thankfully. Must have had a loading problem.
• Not that I mind seeing the Commander, but was she really just skulking round the corner with her soldiers, waiting for us to win that fight?
• Of course Vincent is in the Ghost Hotel.
• Wait did I just overhear that Don Corneo is trying to take over the Saucer? I guess that means we're gonna be one of Dio's fighters?
• Cloud just saw the other Aerith. These "timelines" or whatever they are, are starting to blur more and more.
• WTF? So this is the Marlene from the same timeline as our main characters. Maybe it was all one timeline, until the battle against the Whispers. Then from that point, the different timelines split off. This still doesn't make sense as to how Zack and his Cloud are here, several weeks after they were supposed to arrive, or why Stamp is different.
• So the flowers are blooming now, meaning they weren't blooming before? For how long have they not been blooming? If they'd only stopped blooming after the battle on the Midgar highway, with Aerith falling unconscious, surely they would not have wilted so fast. This is all very confusing.
• Another knock at the door. Please be Tifa. Please be Tifa. Please be Tifa.
• Sweet!
• Why are we putting on these goggles? Do we have an AR version of the play? If that's the case, why gather everyone in a big theatre? Things are about to get weird.
• Ahh. That's how Jessie is here. She's not really here.
• Aww. Barret and Tifa.
• Holy crap. Tifa is Rosa. I'd been led to believe Aerith would be Rosa, because she accompanied me in chapter 8. I'm much more on board with this.
• How fucking sweet does Nanaki look in black? Would be cool if all these costumes unlock in Costa del Sol.
• I have to choose my beloved? Damn it. Can't remember the stage show in the OG game.
• Cid. You need to wake up mate.
• Hol' up a minute. If Aerith plays Rosa, does she go straight from that to her song?
• This singer sounds nothing like Briana White at all. Shame.
• Do it!
• Yes!
• Wait. Aerith didn't know the other Avalanche crew, right? Maybe Biggs. But why would she see an AI representation of them and know who they were at all?
• OG Aerith wouldn't have known them either. Unless, if I remember right, does she meet them in the Lifesteam after her death?
• Oh she absolutely knows her time is limited.
• Aww, that was so nice of Cloud.
• And if Aerith can sing like that, why don't she and Tifa get a musical act going?
• Aww, they're so shy.
• Don't give me that little bit of a tease of their conversation, then cut away. Damn it game.
• Do it. Take that hand.
• So they smoochin' in the Gold Saucer? That's something else that's pretty early in the timeline compared to OG. I wonder if the same thing happens if Aerith is the date. That would be kinda confusing.
• Yay, Cloud and Tifa get the big high five moment this game.
• Been trying to piece together these alternate timelines, or whatever. Just watched Maximilian Dood play the Zack section, from when the team are on their way to the Gi village. I didn't realise on my playthrough, because I ignored them, but several of the townsfolk mention that there is now some kind of rift in Midgar, and that Shinra is planning on attacking it? How did I miss that?
• Get fucked, Rufus.
• The Rufus fights in both of these games have been horrible. He's just so fast, with barely any opening for attack. I was never in danger of losing the fight, but it took so long to wear him down.
• Wait a sec. We beat Corneo's goons. We beat Corneo. We beat the Turks. We beat Rufus and Darkstar. But somehow we still haven't won the competition?
• We can't let him get away? I know! The game won't let me sprint after him when I want to. Stupid restrictive game controls.
• Shush, Tifa. Let Barret do it. It's only a toy any way. And I never understood in the OG game, or this one it looks like, how the team let Cait Sith back in so easily.
• Maybe we have kicked him out. But what was Reeve expecting?

Chapter 13 - Temple Of The Ancients

• Elena just said "See you up north" for the temple's location? In the OG, the temple was very south.
• So the fog has given way and we can head further north on the sea. I don't like this new world map though. Looks nothing like the old one so far.
• This transforming temple just looks weird.
• Hmm. That cutscene seems to have deleted all the loot in the ocean.
• Can't return after landing? Point of no return. We're in the endgame now.
• So, the Temple is in the north, and we've passed the point of no return. We know from the devs that the game ends at the City Of The Ancients, and that moment. So are we gonna go straight from the Temple to the City, with no key required? No submarine, or any of that?
• I've owned the game for two weeks today, and have played it almost every single minute I've had available. And have skipped a hell of a lot of stuff, especially since Gongaga. The game is huge. And doesn't really have any right to be. Replays of this are gonna be a nightmare.
• Just walked into the Temple's Union Room, and for a split second my brain registered it as Onion Room. Man, I'm too tired.
• Hopefully when the temple goes all crunchy-squeezy, Roche will too.
• Yuffie's havin' fun choppin' up all these Shinra dudes.
• Not looking forward to "the Labyrinth".
• Well this ain't goood. Red Dragon?
• It was all going well until it wasn't. What the fuck are those lava attacks?
• Yeah, eat Tifa's boot ya big ugly git.
• Got really confused with the way the intel was given. Made it sound like I'd got to attack the chest while the dragon was prepping its attack. Whereas in actuality you have to cripple the chest before it attacks. Still a dumb fight.
• Can we get back to the story yet? I just want the story. Do what you're told, game!
• Aerith going all Yuna on us.
• Any time it stops me picking my party, I get pissed.
• Fucking hell. Nearly missed Tifa's new weapons there.
• Yep. Can't just let us run down the stairs. Gotta waste even more of our time. For no good reason.
• Why are the others so upset with Cloud killing Shinra dudes. What do they think we've been doing this whole time?
• Several hours prior? Did going up that elevator send the others back in time? That was only a few minutes ago.
• Did Aerith really screw up? Or did she actually want to do that?
• Introducing new ways to buff Aerith's combat? This late in the game? Is this a little hint that she may survive after all? Or is it just an extra little thing just for the Temple section?
• Sucks for Aerith if she keeps having to expend this Lifestream energy. She's never gonna keep enough to have the buffs.
• And yet again, in one of these Remake games, I'm finding a section to be one hell of a slog. And I get the feeling I'm nowhere near the end of it yet.
• Don't be a dickhead, Cloud. Don't just rush in a make it a 3-way fight. Let them all fight first.
• Though, not massively sure the game is coded to let the Turks win this on their own.
• Bollocks. Why'd it have to be a team-up? I wanted to go down there and smack the Turks around while they were trying to fight the monsters.
• Tifa with them moves.
• Aerith and the others took an elevator up. So how did we find them after crashing down through the floor?
• There was some bullshit in that fight, but I managed a first time win, even though I was down to just a very weak Cloud at one point.
• Hmm. It definitely seems like Aerith and the others went back into the past. Or the game thinks that Cloud's team's adventures have lasted hours. I mean, sometimes it feels like it, but I don't think that's really happening.
• Wait, so Aerith's journey was happening at the same time as Cloud's? Why did it say several hours earlier? That's dumb.
• Wow. I thought the Tseng and Elena fight would be hard because I'd only got Yuffie in the team who I am any good with. But Red stepped up to the plate and constantly knocked them out of their abilities, and I absolutely smashed them while losing very little health. Surprising.
• They're gonna stop Cloud from killing the Turks, aren't they? Why don't they just let him finish them off, so we don't have to do this song and dance routine any more?
• Why are you stopping him?!?! I know he's a bit weird right now, but we were just fighting! They were lobbing grenades at us, and shooting us with guns, and kicking us in the face. And we were tearing into them with claws, and throwing fireballs at them, and throwing ninja death stars at them. We were all trying to kill each other! Just let him finish them off. FFS.
• Vincent's here. Are we gonna get any juice?
• Nope. Absolutely nothing.
• Must be getting somewhere near to the end of this section. Are they really gonna go so far as have Cloud beating the snot out of Aerith at the end of this, like he did in the original?
• Better watch that robed dude, Tseng. You never know who they may turn into.
• Who'd have seen that coming?
• I know you're bleeding out, Tseng. But I gotta check for loots.
• Ahh crap, I've just remember that weird wall boss in the original game. We gotta do something like that in this one?
• Why is Aerith worrying about this dude? He's stalked her since she was a little girl.
• How does Tseng know that? He's only just got here, just like us. And he's never been here before. So how does he know that?
• Fuck's sake. Only just reset all my materia. Now this bollocks.
• My mom are sick?
• These games and their slow walking sections. Sheesh.
• Some of the animations during Aerith's speech seemed really stiff. Like they'd been animated by hand, and in a rush, rather than motion-captured. It was jarring.
• Hmm. This room is called the Spiral Of Rebirth, is it? Something about to happen?
• The fuck is that thing?
• So if the Gi are from without, as the Cetra put it, I guess that also makes them aliens? That's why they can't return to the planet? Was that ever hinted at in the original?
• Oh hell. Here it comes.
• Yeah, early doors, but I get the feeling this is gonna be a fight that really annoys me.
• Oh, easier than expected.
• Hang on a sec. It took us all that time to get through the temple, then as it starts to collapse, Cait Sith arrives and runs inside. You telling me he's gonna get to us before the temple collapses? That seems dumb, especially as those switches to the other party were "several hours earlier".
• Also, in the OG, the temple was the black materia. But here it no longer is? Why are they changing things like that in this game?
• Also, how does Cait Sith/Reeve even know that his fake toy body will be needed in there?
• Also, thinking about it, the Turks clearly knew earlier that Cait Sith was working with Shinra. So I assume they know it's Reeve. So later on, when Reeve goes back to working with Avalanche, why don't Shinra go and stop him? That's a plothole from the OG that I've only just realised.
• Keep running you daft bastards. Why do they always do that in these games?
• Don't feel terrible about Cait Sith, you idiots. He's an out and out traitor, and he's an animatronic toy FFS.
• If Sephy wanted it so much, why'd he drop it? Just to make Cloud give it him back, maybe?
• Creepy Cloud is so much creepier than Sephiroth.
• They'll be alright. Cloud survives falls like that all the time.

Chapter 14 - City Of The Ancients

• Fucking hell. How is Roche still around? You telling me they rescued him from the temple for some reason?
• WTF? Are Zack's decisions shaping the timeline somehow?
• So is this actually a dream, or have the Cloud and Aerith in Zack's timeline just woken up?
• The flowers aren't blooming.
• It's also the Zack Stamp? WTF is happening? Is this actually Zack's timeline? Or has Zack's timeline been Aerith's dream all this time?
• Actually, no. I think this is a third, different, Stamp. I'm so confused.
• Yeah, maybe this is Aerith's dreamscape, as the stall owners seem to know this is their end.
• Ahh, is that the rift in Midgar that they spoke about earlier?
• WTF, now there's another Stamp? These are all different timelines? This is going totally off the rails. Just what I didn't want.
• Oof, did not see that coming.
• So, yeah. Basically multiverse bullshit.
• So have we gone back to our original timeline, but with a white materia from the other timeline?
• If it's as simple as just a load of alternate timelines, why were Zack and Cloud in the terrier timeline so late getting to Midgar? They still haven't explained that.
• Also, all this multiverse crap just made Zack's timeline completely pointless.
• Aww, we're getting the little sleeping forest section. I'm glad.
• Ok, so we get Aerith's empty white materia. That will no doubt come into play in the next game, I imagine.
• Oh, and they absolutely chickened out of the Cloud and Aerith scene at the end of the temple section. I mean, I get it. With these graphics, that beatdown would have been quite harrowing. But they absolutely bottled it.
• Let's hope we don't have to fight him again. He should never have been the end boss of the first game, and really shouldn't be here either.
• The white Whispers don't like us? I thought we were all on the same side trying to stop Sephy? Or is it because of us beating the Whispers at the end of the first game? Maybe the Whispers think they're only in this situation because of us, even though we're all trying to stop the same dude.
• Are we gonna save her, or not? This is the biggest question of these new games.
• Strange that both the black and white Whispers are trying to stop me getting to her.
• Holy shit, blocked it! Or is it going to make us think we can save her, then he'll stab her later.
• Wait, what? Did Seph just absolutely psych us out, and make us think we'd saved her? That would be so cruel on Cloud, and very much like Sephiroth.
• There's a lot of moments in this game, where we see people's lips moving, but are not allowed to hear what they say. If they expect us to remember all of these moments, and their context, for flashbacks in game 3, they've got another thing coming.
• What is this camera in this Jenova fight? Trying to do anything at range is impossible.
• This MOFO just picked up Tifa and Yuffie and yeeted them. Has Cloud really gotta do this on his own?
• And now they're immediately back. That was a weird little mechanic.
• Ha ha, did Tifa just call it "fuck face"?
• I thought it was going too well. Now we're getting locked into certain characters? Up first, Cait Sith. What a joy.
• Holy crap, that was all on Tifa. Had to do all the damage, and keep Cait Sith alive. Only just made it.
• Barret and Red had a much easier time. Cloud and Yuffie should sort this out.
• Ouch. Cloud and Yuffie immediately got clapped. And there were 4 options to restart. I wanted to restart from the Cloud-Yuffie section, so I checked the internet, and learned I should click before current battle, which I did. Then promptly got sent all the way back to the start of the Jenova fight.
• Oh no, my mistake. It's put me back to before the Cait Sith and Tifa section. Shit me, I nearly cried.
• With nearby pets making a right racket, and a neighbour pressure washing their driveway, I found myself having difficulty concentrating, and I got a bit irate during that battle. So I walked away for half an hour and had a sandwich. Came back and smashed that stupid alien.
• Wish it didn't keep making me use Cait Sith though.
• Oh, I forgot Zack was still wondering around wherever he is. Are they gonna have him find our group, now that these timelines seem to be converging in some way?
• They actually just did it.
• Cloud and Zack vs. Sephiroth? This was a theory I read ages ago, that these 2 would team up.
• Now they put me up against some weird Bizarro Sephiroth like at the end of the OG?
• WTF is happening? This is so weird.
• Tifa's gotta team up with Red and Cait Sith? Yuffie and Barret are right there! Oh I'm so sorry Tifa. You got a lotta carrying to do here.
• Managed it first try. But those other characters do not make things easy.
• Solo Zack fight? Who's he gonna get?
• Yeah, all this must seem really freakin' weird to Zack.
• Hmm. Back to Red, Barret, Yuffie? How is this fight taking place, as all of them seem to be fighting Sephiroth at the same time in different places?
• It was all going well until it wasn't. Crippled his wings, crippled the core, then immediately got taken down to 1 HP across the board. As I'd used all ATB attacking the core, I had nothing left, and his next two attacks killed the party.
• Ok, how the hell do you combat this Heartless Angel attack? I barely did anything with Red all through my 2nd attempt, so that his Watcher's Respite would be ready for when I needed it. But before he could cast it, even though it was queued, Seph followed up with another quick attack before it cast, so Red and Yuffie were dead and Barret had nothing he could really do. I'm getting the feeling that this might need me to drop it down to easy, but I'll give it another go, once I've allowed the rage that is starting to simmer die down a bit.
• Jesus Christ. After several attempts during which I got close to throwing the game out of the window, I managed to do it. All 3 party members were so freaking low, because he'd just cast that Heartless Angel attack for the 2nd time. Phew.
• So Aerith's still alive? Or is she still alive in one timeline, and dead in others, and this is her from that one timeline? Just like how Zack appeared? Or is it dead Aerith from the Lifestream? And if so, why are the white Whispers seemingly on her side, when earlier it was stated that the white Whispers don't like us much? This game has gone so confusing, just like how I feared it would, once that Remake seemed to point at alternate timelines. I'm really disappointed with the story so far.
• At least I managed to beat that fight first time. Yeah get out of here, stupid Seph. Mind you, how many times are we gonna beat this dude only to have to fight him again. It's dumb that these games have put him as the end boss both times. He'll have to be the end boss next time as well, and as these characters have already beaten him twice, why would they fear him a third time?
• Is that it? Am I done?
• Ahh, so it was Lifestream Aerith. So did Seph kill her after all, and just made it look like we had saved her, just to mess with Cloud?
• She's absolutely gonna wake up, isn't she?
• Called it.
• Wait. What just happened there? Is she alive or dead? Like everything else about the nonsensical plot of this game, it's just not clear.
• Ooh, the others didn't see her? Is she somehow using her powers to get in Cloud's head like Sephiroth does? I mean, he needs the help, but his mind is already a mess as it is without adding someone else into the mix.
• Aww, Cloud. Give her a hug damn it. Don't just walk away. Or don't you care about Tifa now you've got your own internal girlfriend?
• Rufus needs a gun that can take more bullets. Then he wouldn't have to keep worrying about reloading all the time.
• So she is dead. They just sent her off in a different way.
• Can't lie. I expected something different at the end. But the story is pretty much in the same place as it was after Aerith's death in the OG. Now we go up north, Sephy gets the black materia, summons the meteor, and all shit hits the fan.
• Wedge and Jessie had entries in the credits? I know I didn't do the whole game, but where the hell were they?
• Welp, I've now got over 1000 images and video clips to go through in order to put the blog post together. This might take a while.

Munkfish

Up first was Munkfish, one of the very rare pre-built machines I've bought over the years. This came from a company called Cyberpower back in 2012, and is easily one of the two most consistently troublesome computers I've ever owned.

When I first got it, the computer squealed like an absolute pig-bitch. This took ages to troubleshoot, but it turned out to be a combo of some settings in the BIOS, as well as the computer really not liking being anywhere near my old audio interface I used to use back when I recorded music. Yes it was a weird one, but at least I figured it out.

After that, the Toshiba hard drive in it went all clunky just 5 months later. They sent an exact replacement, which itself didn't last a particularly long time at only two and a half years. I made a mental note never to use Toshiba drives again and bought a new Western Digital, which is still happily working away in the computer to this day.

Then in late 2018, the GPU, which was a Radeon HD 6850, started playing up, prompting me to replace it with a cheap GTX 1050.

In early 2023, I needed a machine with an optical drive for some archival work, and I recovered this computer from the loft. The damn thing wouldn't start at all, and the red CPU LED on the motherboard was lit. I assumed the computer was toast, but after some research, it seemed it was more likely to be the PSU. I thought this odd, as the PSU was almost brand new, as I'd replaced it along with the GPU back in 2018, and the computer had not really been used since.

I didn't get around to buying a new PSU until August, but when I came to sort the machine out, I did some more testing with the old PSU. I noticed each time I booted, a different warning light on the motherboard would light up, not just the CPU one. Curiously, this problem turned out to be a flat CMOS battery, as when I changed it, the computer was fine. So now I've got a spare PSU should I ever need one. Oh well.

As this thing's installation was fairly new and fresh, I simply renamed it to MUNKFISH12-7.

Ferai

This little work horse is the first laptop I ever bought, which was back in 2008, and named after a species from the game Primal. It did me so well, and lasted so long for what I needed it for, that I only stopped using it regularly in late 2019, when it was finally relegated to the loft to hang out with its older siblings.

However, as it had not been re-installed for a great many years, and also possessed a slightly clunky hard drive, it was only fair to give it a bit of a refresh, on the off chance that it would be needed again for something.

I replaced the drive with a slightly newer 2013 one, that was no longer needed in its original role as a backup. But then I had to jump some hurdles to get this thing re-installed.

The laptop had originally been shipped with Vista, which I absolutely loathed back in the day. This led me to downgrading it to XP, which has been on it all this time, and which I wanted to install again. However, the re-install led to my discovery that the XP activation servers had been shut off.

Apparently, manual activation was still a thing, provided I could get the confirmation ID, that was. But this attempt also proved fruitless, as the licence key was no longer active. That makes a lot of sense, as it was an old work-related code that I most certainly should not have still been using all these years later. So fair enough. But what were my options now?

Well I certainly could not begrudgingly re-install Vista, as upon examination of the laptop, the old code had long been worn off.

I decided to take a risk, and followed an online guide to tweak parts of the registry to make Windows think it was activated. While it worked at the time, with the OS assuring me it was activated, a month later it crapped out and cried like a baby about wanting to be activated.

Not really sure what to do next, I hunted around the net a little more and came across an XP image on archive.org that a lot of commenters said was good. And sure enough, upon installation I discovered that it didn't even need to be activated at all, and is still happy more than a month later. Not sure what's going on with it, but I'll take it.

All I had to do then was get the machine open to remove a loose little piece of crap that was rattling around inside and driving me mad.

And with that, FERAI08-XP is all refreshed and ready to serve again if I ever need it.

Ashe

Ashe was the computer I put together in 2016, named after the League Of Legends character, and it's probably been my favourite computer I've owned so far. Other than an annoying, low level humming, that required new fans and some foam for the hard drive to sit on, the machine never gave me any issues throughout its six years as my main computer.

For a while I've wanted to put XP on a newer machine to play some old F1 games, which are very hard to get working on Windows 7+. I'd always intended this to be Munkfish, but when I looked into it, there are no XP drivers for the 1050 GPU in that computer. After exploring the possibility of putting this old OS onto Ashe, I found it may indeed be possible, though would need some workarounds.

Knowing I would potentially need new hard drives to fix up all these old computers, I had already bought a few cheap 2.5" drives from Amazon. These were older drives, manufactured nearly 10 years ago, but had supposedly never been used. One of them was given the task of storing all of the backup images from all these new installations I'm doing, and it seems to be fine. The hard drive I selected for this task however, appeared a bit more sketchy.

Though it was still sealed in its anti-static bag, it is most certainly not new. For a start, I could clearly see the dust that had built up on it. As well as that, there was a little broken black bit rattling around in the bag, though I can't see where that is from. There were also some little blue bits of plastic or rubber in the screw holes for some reason.

This was all very odd, but I formatted it and it seemed ok. In the end, I elected to use it here because I'd rather not risk using it in a more important role.

When I booted from the XP DVD, I soon got the blue screen of death. It turned out that I needed some AHCI drivers for my motherboard, which were easily sourceable. However, without a floppy drive, I couldn't load them on boot. This meant I had to use a program called nLite to slipstream the drivers into a new XP boot iso.

Another slight problem, which I knew about in advance, were the GPU drivers. Support for Windows XP ended with the GTX 960, but this computer contained a GTX 970. However, as both cards use the same architecture, it turns out it is possible to fool XP into using the 960 drivers so that the 970 can still be installed.

And with that, another task was complete, and ASHE16-XP is ready for some new old gaming.

Dark Star

Oh boy. Where to start with this old clunker...

This computer has been featured on this blog in the past, when I tried to get Resident Evil 4 working back in 2019. I couldn't get much use out of it back then, but could I get any success now?

I had vague recollections of this thing's origins, which I first put together in 2002 to replace an IBM Netvista machine I had foolishly bought the year before. I also clearly remember replacing its CPU and motherboard in 2006, which I can only remember so well because of the behaviour of a work colleague, who had accompanied me to the computer fair to get the replacement parts. Now I used to go to this computer fair a lot back in the late 90s and early 2000s, but I'd never seen someone so aggressively barter and haggle like this guy did. And he wasn't even doing it for himself.
In a way, I thought it came across as quite rude, but he got me a few quid off so I shouldn't really complain.

Thinking about it, that was probably the last time I went to a computer fair. My, how the internet has changed spending habits.

Up until deciding to do this old machine renovation project, I thought these vague recollections were all there was to it. But how wrong I was.
Upon looking into the history of this machine, I actually discovered (or should that be re-discovered) that this thing had more going on than I remembered.

It was initially an absolute Frankenstein's Monster of parts, using the floppy drive and optical drive from the Netvista, and an already year-old 3D Prophet II MX GPU that had failed to find a home in either of my 2 other computers at the time. Then over the following few years, it got changed many times.

It originally had a Pentium 4 1.7Ghz CPU, on a mainboard that I do not remember. This board got replaced in late 2004, again for reasons I do not remember, with a Gigabyte P4 Titan, along with a GeForce FX 5500. In early 2006, that GPU got changed yet again to its current Radeon 9600XT, and the CPU got upgraded to a P4 3Ghz.

Then both the CPU and mainboard got replaced again, as I could remember, with an AMD Athlon64 3500 on an ASRock 939Dual-SATA2. And this is how the machine has been all these years, though I did stop using it when I bought my laptop in 2008, as the laptop and my old iMac were much faster for playing LAN games at the time.

The primary idea with this old beast was to see if it was possible to take it back to Windows 98, just in case I wanted a really retro experience when playing any of my old games like Final Fantasy 8. While I agree it is very unlikely I will ever do such a thing, there was just this urge to see if it was possible, as I am a massive idiot who can not help but get nostalgic about old things.
Of course, if possible it would be good to also keep its current Windows XP installation and have it dual boot.

I managed to find old drivers for both the mainboard and the GPU, which was impressive as the board was from 2005. But the sound card was a problem, as no Windows 98 drivers existed for it.
I'd bought that card, which was a Sound Blaster Audigy, at some point because I was having some issues with the onboard sound on the new motherboard. But I was now going to have to remove the card and go back to onboard sound for Windows 98 to work. Hopefully, I'd be able to figure out the Windows XP problem at a later date, whatever the issue was. I really don't remember.

There was some disappointment during my first installation attempt. Firstly, because the motherboard was more up to date, it booted from the Win 98 CD fine. This meant that my one and only surviving floppy disk would not be needed to start the installation. Kinda wanted to use it, but oh well.

Secondly, after the installation, and upon first boot, the computer kept crashing. I learned this was because the machine had too much RAM in it, which Windows 98 didn't like. There was a fix for this, but I needed to get into the OS first in order to make it happen. Luckily, I'd still got an old 512MB DIMM lying around that I was able to use.

But then, when things looked like they could move forward, I tried to enter my information in the setup screens. This was when I learned that my one and only surviving PS2 keyboard, from that old Netvista no less, was faulty. This put my experiments with this machine on hold while I ordered some new gubbins.

As the machine was very loud, I bought some new fans to quieten it down a bit. I also took the opportunity to buy an old VGA cable, just in case I ever get my really, really, reeaaaally old computer back from my sister, which I think only has VGA output.

I'd got plans to change the fan in the PSU, by splicing in one of the new ones. Though just in case I messed up, I also ordered a spare PSU. While this new one has molex connectors, they're only for hard drives, and not for the floppy drive. I doubt I'll ever need that drive again, but just in case, I went through with my plan, and the old PSU seems quite happy.

After replacing the front case fan, I unfortunately learned the loudest fan was the one on the CPU heatsink. This was not part of the original plan, as that fan was smaller than the new ones I had bought, but I decided to try and replace it anyway. Well, what was the harm? That I'd end up breaking a twenty year-old machine that I never use, and never be able to use it again?

I had to drill a couple of holes in the fan casing, as well as snip a couple of access points for a screwdriver to get in, but I managed to get one of the new fans into position and fairly securely. Now, while the machine is still way louder than a modern computer, it's infinitely better than it was.

And with that bodge job done, it was time to get back to the installation.

It was certainly weird setting up this old OS again. So many things I take for granted now just didn't exist back then. But it's also way simpler with way less options, and way less crap rammed in there by Microsoft.

The main problem with the dual boot funtionality is that Windows 98 crashes if the Windows XP SATA drive is plugged in. So I'll have to keep remembering to open the damn thing up and unplug it if I ever want to use Win 98.

Up until this little renovation project, this computer had been called Death Star. But as Star Wars is no longer a thing my brain likes to acknowledge, it will from this point forth be called Dark Star. So for this installation, it received the moniker DARKSTAR02-98.

While I could really do with re-installing the Windows 7 side of Ashe, and the Windows XP side of Dark Star, this will have to do for now. These little experiments have taken far too long.