#18 - In Which Final Fantasy Towns are Unreasonably Flammable

We leave behind Costa Del Sol - regrettable because it's one of the most gorgeous and sunny locations in the entire world, but we must press on and there are plenty of other great places to explore! Not here, though. This place is just radiation-baked bullshit.

The journey through the Corel mountain range isn't all bad, however. We hang around the gigantic reactor long enough for the radiation to give us deep-pore exfoliation (our skin looks fabulous!) and I also pick up a Transform materia, which allows me to shrink even the scariest monster into a wittle adorabibble miniature version of its teeny self. Have you ever had a tiny rhinoceros charge at you? It's soooo cute! Speaking of cute, we also come across a chocobo nest; I can leave the chicks be, or take the ten bottles of phoenix down they've used for the base of their nest and ruin their day. Naturally I take the potions since I can't let emotions get in the way of our mission no matter how cute the chocobos are. I also spit on the little chicks but that's just for fun. My pragmatic method of play gets Barret so excited he talks like he's having a stroke.

Eventually we enter Barret's hometown of Corel, which on appearance alone is indistinguishable from the arse-end of Baghdad. But I'm not one to judge a town by its economic circumstances; once we get to know them, I'm sure the locals will prove to be amenable bunch with  so much to offer despite their poverty. Case in point: a few of the townsfolk see their old friend, Barret, and jog over to give him a hero's welcome.

They then promptly punch him in the jaw. This isn't all that shocking. If the game had given me the option I probably would have punched him in the jaw at least six times since we started this shared adventure, but I'd still like to know the backstory behind their quarrel with him. Preferably through the medium of flashback! We have a flashback. Long story short, the FFVII writers set another town ablaze and we're not even at the end of disc 1. The people of this world are too cool for smoke detectors.

There's a bit more to it than that, of course. Barret convinces everyone to let Shinra build a mako reactor, much to the chagrin of his best mate Dyne who doesn't want to throw away the town's coal heritage. Some shit goes down possibly involving Margaret Thatcher and before you know it the entire town is extra-crispy. It turns out that Shinra were behind the fire in retaliation for an explosion at the new reactor, which they accused the townspeople of causing in a rebel attack. Whether they did or not is open to debate, but - and I'm not pointing any fingers here - but I do kinda know a guy who has a penchant for reactor-flavoured explosions... ... just sayin'.

But enough of this place, it's getting me down. And what better way of lifting the spirits than a trip to the neighbouring Golden Saucer? Ah, yes - the Golden Saucer. Following our lazy weekend break in Costa Del Sol, the team decide to continue the hunt for Sephiroth by dicking around at an amusement park. Great work, guys. Perhaps after this we can check out the reported sightings of Sephiroth at the local petting zoo.

We take the free ropeway service from Corel to the 'saucer and pay the hefty 3,000 Gil entry fee. Aeris announces that we should let our hair down and go play. For the first time in this odyssey I agree with her since I bloody love the Golden Saucer. Barret feels differently, and after a lot of goading from Aeris, storms off in a huff. While he's off killing people in a gun massacre while he's working off his sulk, Tifa and I go for a wander around. We meet the owner of the Golden Saucer - a half-naked muscleman called Dio - who tells us that a man in a black cape came through asking about 'black materia', whatever that is. Why does he share this info with us? Because Cloud and the caped guy were about the same age, so they may know each other. I wonder if he's been telling the story to every twenty-one year old kid that has passed through the world's biggest theme park over the last week. We also meet a fortune teller called Cait Sith! This is exciting! Cloud is bowled over by his ability to foresee the future!

Or maybe not? Perhaps he'd be more impressed if Cait Sith had the power to read the past. Like... er, the power of memory, I guess. Cait Sith forcibly joins the party anyway. I then lose a whole load of cash at the chocobo races, which prompts me to drink heavily, send the kids to grandma's, stand on the edge of a bridge and wonder what went wrong in my life as I tilt over the edge, sobbing. Not really. I only lose 200 Gil. But if you do want to see a guy who's snapped, check out the loser who's just killed a whole bunch of people in a gun massacre and no I'm not going to descend into social commentary on gun control here. We quiz one of the survivors; who could possibly have committed such an atrocity?

A GUN ON HIS ARM? Jesus, woman - give us a name, not a cryptic physical description! Dio, the owner, turns up with some armed guards. He asks us if we did it. We respond in the negative. He apologizes for what was clearly a rash and mistaken accusation. We tell him not to worry about it. Cait Sith suddenly yells "LEG IT!" for no reason and we instantly look guilty again. Not only that, but there's nowhere to leg it to, so we're also cornered within seconds. Without any form of a trial, we're thrown into a pit which leads us to the desert beneath the Golden Saucer. Apparently it's a prison from which there is no escape...