Welcome to the Final Fantasy VII blog, in which I’m playing in Iron Man Mode – that is, if I die even just once, I’m bound by the rules of the site to immediately stop playing and wrap up this blog. This is currently the longest-running series on the site… in fact, it’s really long, so click here if you want to check out the full list of games on the site (you can click on the FFVII banner down the bottom to catch up on past entries of this series too.)But for now we’re doing very well. Picking up from where we left off, it’s time to enter the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim and finally confront the mighty Sephiroth...
---–
At long last, we've tracked down Sephiroth! Apparently he's shacked up in this mansion according to the caped guy outside, who I think is suffering from the after effects of a stroke.
I wonder what Sephiroth is doing in there. Maybe he'll want to have a sleepover? Should I have brought pajamas? At some point in the evening, will he want to go ghost hunting in the mansion's basement? I hope not, I'm scared of ghosts. Perhaps I should go to the Nibelheim Convenience Store and pick up some lemonade and a copy of Freaky Friday on DVD?
No, Zeke. Let's play this one cool. If Sephiroth wants to have a slumber party, he'll ask.
I enter Shinra Mansion, but Sephiroth is nowhere to be seen. I give myself a mental shake-down and remind myself that we're here to get answers, damnit, not Lindsay Lohan-based entertainment! Naturally I'll try to get both, though.
I recall that there's an optional boss fight here if I choose to crack the safe on the first floor. I do, and being the smoothest cat burglar this side of Midgar, it only takes me thirteen minutes, nineteen attempts and a cup of coffee.
The reason I'm going all sidequest on this mansion's ass is because there's something I desperately need out of the safe. But before I can get to it, I have to fight the formidable Lost Number boss which is strong - both magically and physically - and has 7,000HP. For reference, my guys' current attacks only cause 200HP of damage at best.
The deal with this guy is that while he's classed as a single enemy for fighting purposes, he's made of two parts - right and left, red and purple, which equates to his physical and magical sides. When he gets to around half-health he switches to a single persona depending on my actions.
I want to force him to become purely physical, since if he switches to his all-magic he'll get a big bonus to his MP stats. This will really ruin my day because A) his spells are devastating, and B) I'll be relying mainly on spells myself so I don't want him to get a boost to his MP defence.
Essentially, what I need to remember is that he'll switch persona based on what attack caused him to drop below 3,489HP, so if I hit him with a fire spell at that point he'll turn purple and only hit me with physical attacks, whereas if it's Cloud's sword that does the damage he'll turn red and only use magic from then on. Or maybe it's the other way around. And I'm not sure if I've got the colours right.
Confused? So was Tifa, the dozy tart.
She lets loose with a lightning bolt at the wrong moment and plunges us all into a whole world of pain.
We eventually manage to get through the battle, and although I wouldn't go as far as saying that we in serious blog-ending danger, it was pretty touch and go for the second half of the battle.
I take the Summon Odin materia, which is bitchin'. I also get the key to the basement, where we meet a guy who's more emo than most of the main Final Fantasy protagonists combined, and that's saying something:
The lost member of My Chemical Romance is, of course, Vincent Valentine. He's been writing bad poetry and cutting himself down here for years, and seems reluctant to talk to us. However, we do learn that he was a former member of the Turks (awesome!) and has some kind of beef with Sephiroth.
He also reveals he had a bit of a thang for Sephiroth's mom. It's clarified that he means Lucretia, Sephiroth's biological mother, not the headless eye-boob thing he was mutated with. Thank goodness for that!
We inform Vincent that Sephiroth is still alive, thinks he was created in a biological experiment and that Jenova is his mother. The weight of this knowledge has sent Sephiroth more nuts than a side of satay sauce. Vincent tells us this is all kinda true but reasserts that he was born of a beautiful (human) lady, which does explain where Sephiroth got his luscious silky hair.
We press for more info but he effectively tells us to GTFO.
No worries, we really need to find Sephiroth anyway. The team heads to the library to see if...
... OMG THERE HE IS!
IT'S REALLY SEPHIROTH!
DUDE LET'S BUILD A MAKESHIFT FORTRESS OUT OF MATTRESSES AND WATCH DISNEY!
Awwww he's gone, flying headfirst out of the basement like that's an entirely normal thing to do. In the process he throws a materia crystal full-force into Cloud's gut, knocking the wind out of his sails. Did he do that just for shits and giggles? If so, I would have personally thrown one of those books rather than a super-useful Destruct materia, but who am I to question his methods.
But anyway, he's gone and I have no idea where he's off to. How in the world am I going to find Sephiroth now? Where the hell is he going, and what is he up to?
I rack my brains, trying to remember if he dropped any clues in the conversation we had thirty seconds earlier.
Ah, now it's coming back to me. I get the impression we should be heading North (past Mt. Nibel) in order to join this 'Reunion' thing Sephiroth and the men in black capes outside keep babbling about.
Join me next time to find out if this is going to be anything last reunion I went to, which was ruined when Uncle Derrick got plastered on brandy and spent the latter half of the evening crying about his divorce from seven years prior.
- Zeke
