Final Fantasy VII Ep. 15: Cloud Strife and the Mansion of Secrets

Haney 0:00
This episode of first encounter contains spoilers for the video game Final Fantasy seven. If you’ve not played this game, first off, what are you doing? Don’t be like me. And second, go play it instead of listening to us. If you’d like to follow along, listen to the end of the episode for where we play to next, as well as how you can get in touch with us. We would also like to take a second to say that we are in no way affiliated with square. We’re just a couple of guys trying to have fun with the cool video game.

Chris 0:21
We don’t need to hurt him. Chill. Take a seat back. It’s gonna be alright. Do you have protect on I don’t know. What happened to protect

Haney 0:35
got stolen. I remember I block. Yeah,

Chris 0:38
that would have been really helpful.

Haney 0:40
Thanks, buddy. What a treat. Thank you.

Chris 0:50
Welcome to the podcast.

Haney 0:52
How you doing pal?

Chris 0:53
doing okay, you want to do 123

Haney 0:55
I would love to 123 Ah, that was actually really sad. Let me take a little sippy sip here.

Chris 1:06
So we’re, you want to tell the listeners what we’re drinking today.

Haney 1:09
I’ve talked to Chris This is actually your choice today. So I am drinking the Madonna double IPA from zero gravity. Burlington brewery here in Vermont. I’m delightful. One of the best in the state I’d say which is a pretty aggressive statement to make considering how goddamn many breweries there are. But

Chris 1:30
um, so many good breweries there.

Haney 1:32
Yeah, this is this is a really good one. And this is. This is my second favorite beer from them. We haven’t I don’t think we’ve drank my favorite beer on the podcast before. Which is the conehead IPA

Chris 1:42
coneheads really good. Zero Gravity is my personal favorite brewery.

Haney 1:45
Really? I did not know that. Yeah. Is this your favorite beer?

Chris 1:48
It’s definitely top three. Yeah. Yeah, it’s really good. I like everything that they’ve put out so far. It’s really

Haney 1:56
good. This is a 8%

Chris 1:59
Yes, we patched up a different 8% because it was an A B Yeah,

Haney 2:02
but then you’re like oh, I like the Madonna so I was like, Okay, well here’s the thing about 8% I can handle 1% gently um,

Chris 2:10
I can handle 1% Yes. We’re getting into troubled waters Yes.

Haney 2:15
Um, so this is eight times troubled waters which I’m pretty sure is a hurricane at this point.

Chris 2:20
I live in troubled waters. So well. The first encounter podcasts gonna talk right over you there.

Haney 2:26
That’s fine. This is great. Can’t wait to edit that later. Hey,

Chris 2:29
how you doing? Doing good. So we played we continued our journey through Final Fantasy seven the hit sequel, popular Final Fantasy seven animated last order.

Haney 2:38
Oh, I’m so mad about that. So the reason Chris brought up last order is because I was looking up Final Fantasy enemies.

Chris 2:44
Which What have I told you about looking up anything related to Final Fantasy?

Haney 2:47
Okay, I like Final Fantasy now and I want to do more with it. That’s not outside the seven. Do you know how long it’s gonna be until we finish this game?

Chris 2:55
You waited 20 years? I think you can wait a couple more. A couple more here. And when we finished this popular hit series, first encounter,

Haney 3:04
so I was looking up anime yesterday while I was editing and I was looking at specifically Final Fantasy anime, because I was like, that’s gonna be relatively safe. Like I’m just looking at titles. And I saw one called Final Fantasy last order. Yeah. And I messaged Chris, I was like, Hey, have you ever heard of this? And he was just like, no, no big spoilers do not do not. Don’t Don’t touch it. Yeah. Um, so I immediately put it on my Plex server and started watching it. Obviously it’s getting, um, but yeah, now. I believe we picked up heading out of Cosmo Canyon. Is that correct? That’s correct. All right. Why don’t you take us away.

Chris 3:41
So we drained across the plains, through the forests and over the rivers.

Haney 3:47
It was like a river and like maybe like two sets of grass. It’s really close a couple

Chris 3:52
encounters. And then we came across a familiar town.

Haney 3:56
So I was not expecting to go back to nibble home right now. I don’t know that I was ever expected to go back there. definitely wasn’t going back there and expecting it as it was when we found it if that makes any sense. Um, so we roll up into niflheim and one thing is very strange. Right off the bat. It’s not burned to the fucking ground. Oh, I don’t think I’d been here. Oh, you

Chris 4:20
don’t think so?

Haney 4:21
Oh, what? Oh, wait. Yeah. Oh, now, this was all burned down, wasn’t it? I thought so. Then why my house is still here to the hell’s going on this a dream or something?

Chris 4:36
I’m not lying. I remember the intense heat of the flames.

Haney 4:41
I smell a little bit of a gas lighting going on here. Christopher Hmm, I’m gonna go on here. Wait, there’s like people here too. Yeah.

Chris 4:49
But what’s up with that?

Haney 4:50
In addition to not being burned down. There’s it’s a fully populated running town, full of people who seemingly have lives and who swear up Going down that they’ve been there their whole lives.

Chris 5:03
This town was supposed to have been burnt down five years ago. What the hell’s going on?

Haney 5:08
Sir? Don’t say such awful things. I was born and raised in this town. What do you say never happened? Oh, we’re getting real gaslighting. If you’re going to talk like that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Hi, welcome. Nice town, huh? We’ve been in business here for a long time. You’re lying. Do you have anything to do with this town?

Chris 5:26
How about being born and raised here? I was here until I was 14. And I don’t remember you.

Haney 5:31
It’s not nice to lie. The fuck is happening here, Christopher. You can ask everyone what’s your story basically. And they all feed you seemingly lies about how they’ve lived there their whole lives. It’s a prosperous little town. They love the Shinra there, everything’s perfect. And it’s just a mess of a town. You won’t pick it up from there, Chris? Yeah,

Chris 5:51
well, there is another group of travelers that was in the town appearing in black cloaks and being very mysterious and hunched over.

Haney 6:01
Travelers is a strong word. They were there on the way to a reunion so we finally start meeting some men in black cloaks with numbers on their hands tattooed I think we got four through 12 throughout the village so there was a lot of them just hunched over in corners hiding behind barrels just doing all sorts stuff. Cool thing is they give you a lot of items

Chris 6:23
yeah they’re pretty cool about it.

Haney 6:25
But they say some weird stuff that’s not super Gucci is a tattoo number six he has something oh there’s what

Chris 6:34
receive what source?

Haney 6:38
is good to review Oh Chris, we’re getting some good good today. Yeah, another person in a black cloak A is a tag the number tag hey,

Chris 6:50
here’s a tattoo of the number 12 he has something

Haney 6:54
received elixir Oh, could you hear the voice of raw

Chris 7:02
get it in bring to the Sephora and become one with Sephora.

Haney 7:08
I don’t like that

Chris 7:10
this guy’s number five

Haney 7:13
after they stopped giving me presents not really sure I agree with that. They all said something to the effect of must find Sephora must go to the reunion Are you going to the reunion and it was all like dragged out really messy they they all said something to that effect gave you items It was weird. Didn’t seem to be well, no, no, definitely not. Not a ton actually happens in town aside from getting items and figuring out that everything is weird. We did take out teeth as house as well. There was that was populated by um, guys. I I’m calling them um, guys now that was honestly there now. Um, guys. Yeah, that was populated by black cloaked figures with numbers on their hand. And her house had been basically replaced with like, her whole room looked the same but it had like, different stuff in it. Was there the letter on the desk in her house? That was that was what described the operation that was happening in there, right. Receive Platinum fisting. Yeah, using platinum.

Chris 8:17
Where are you okay, Sephora.

Haney 8:20
me mom.

Chris 8:21
No, still there.

Haney 8:23
I’m gonna go

Chris 8:25
you’re gonna jam on that.

Haney 8:26
I realized that I went the wrong way. The letter is here and everything but I can’t read it either. Oh, oh, here we go. Here we go. Periodic Report to Professor Hojo. One clone Activity Report. Unfortunately no clones have left this town this corner. As previously reported the clones seem to be sensing something but all they say is reunion or suffer off and show no other signs of activity. To confidentiality report a total of eight people have visited this town this quarter. Unfortunately, none knew about the incident five years ago. Therefore no one knows this town was restored exactly as it was five years ago. Our staff disguised as temps people have improved their acting skills and we do not report any problems at this time. That is all

Chris 9:08
Ah, sounds like you fucking nailed it.

Haney 9:11
Yeah, I got pretty close. Yeah, you called that Who are they clones of that we saw no. Seemingly saffer off but yeah, Yo, this is fucking tight.

Chris 9:23
I really like the idea that there’s like a theater troupe division of Shinra Inc

Haney 9:27
one 100% Yes, there’s really I want to go to school and get my drama degree and join Shinra Inc. As a person living in clouds house number four. Yes, please, please. So this is where I was like, oh, okay, I see what’s going on here. This is what they call a cover up. Is this is what the kids call it cover. No, I’m saying so yeah, we get the kind of like everything’s bad letter. At that point. there’s kind of two options left to go to. We can either go to the mansion or We can go up to mountain nibble. Yeah. And when someone told us that Sephora was in the mansion Yeah, one of the black cloaked figures right I was trying to remember who it was I thought it was a one of the black cloud figures that Sephora was skulking around the mansion as he’s want to do here. I mean, yes, history tells us Yes, we decide to roll up to the mansion and have ourselves a real mansion at the time and start exploring. We found yet another goddamn letter

Chris 10:28
I must get rid of those that stand in the way of my research even that one from the Turks I scientifically altered him and put him to sleep in the basement if you want to find him search the area but this is merely a game I thought of it is not necessary for you to participate if you don’t want to do you want to play a game usually move the dial on that safe carefully but quickly you have 20 seconds you cannot get past the numbers while turning the four hits for the numbers are

Haney 10:57
right dial one one the lid of the box with the most oxygen and it just is vague clues about how to find the combination on a safe on the second floor so a spoiler for the rest of this episode I didn’t get a fucking I didn’t get past the safe yet. I that’s on my to do list okay listener it’s all my to dues what else is on your to do list? Go back to mid Gar find the megaphone figure out the rest of them guy shit which I think I can probably next time in mid Gary can probably go talk to um guy and have a little bit more a conversation with him now that I know where he is but again we’ll get there go back to June on harbor go over to the underwater maker reactor. Oh and find the jogger and the ninja

Chris 11:42
jogger ninja Yeah, so I’m jogger and Ninja if you’re listening hit us up in sculpting calm

Haney 11:50
so yeah, we follow the clues on the on the letter. It’ll be interesting to see what the random encounters are on care. Well I regret it Yeah, what would you tell me buddy? Um, it seems to be a man swinging from an excuse me?

Chris 12:06
Fabio isn’t

Haney 12:07
it definitely looks like Bobby Oh Oh those are really cool aren’t they? They’re a little like pumpkins with like I believe like Batman things kind of Yeah,

Chris 12:18
these things are a pain in the ass.

Haney 12:20
Oh fun. Are we just kidding fantastic. We had a lot of enemy encounters in this area. So goddamn many

Chris 12:31
we got a guy hanging from the ceiling with a blade as his dick love that guy we got fucking scales who switch from magic to physical resistance

Haney 12:41
What a nightmare

Chris 12:42
we got fucking pumpkin heads.

Haney 12:44
Yeah, yeah, those are nasty. Oh and the mirrors

Chris 12:47
got mirrors which we can attribute the first death to What a treat

Haney 12:51
speaking of Chris did anything special happened this episode that you want to tell the listeners about and where they can find more information about it

Chris 12:59
so we’ve been keeping track of how many times you’ve died in the game very few haven’t had any trouble with any boss correct no other random encounters real good in this game yeah. crushing it. I think everyone can attest to

Haney 13:12
I just dad Chris is not okay.

Chris 13:15
Excuse me while I collect myself so if you go to first encounter podcast.com you can check out the death count where we’ll be keeping track of all of that loved me a website plugs Yeah, I think we ended on five

Haney 13:29
oh Tifa sweet Tifa What the fuck just happened to Tifa

Chris 13:33
Oh you know what did happen? I’m not going to tell you Oh, thank you Mr.

Haney 13:40
Hey, do you think they’re okay? I think we’re gonna be okay Chris. I really do do you I’m

Chris 13:50
over death

Haney 13:52
count three that sucks though because I haven’t saved and like forever I don’t think the deaths I don’t think any of the deaths really were poignant or stuck out they’re all just stupid shit and I was getting angry first one

Chris 14:04
was pretty fun

Haney 14:06
but there’s yeah I killed myself until it became the first of many yeah I both all two mirrors and it reversed the bolts all back to me and fucking twice and I just died lot of Game Over screens I didn’t actually I missed the times when I could say I’ve never seen the game over screen or I don’t remember what it looks like it’s burned into my damn retinas after after today, what a nightmare so we got the clues we got to the safe we got the clues we got to the safe and I tried the combination a couple times but nothing seemed to be working. So we ended up trying to go and figure out why. Turns out there’s actually a fourth number for the combination. So we went back to the note read the read the invisible fucking stupid line of ink on the note what the hell so we got the last digit head back to the safe. We also had a nightmare opening the safe I was trying to do it with the the joystick because The D pad doesn’t work on my ps4 controller, which I am going to purchase a PS one USB Controller if I can find one before anything else because I’m the one to die

Chris 15:11
I’ve never seen you concentrate so much in this game

Haney 15:14
I feel you know why it I’m so sweaty My hands are so sweaty and I have a fucking joi con to do this, but this is a nightmare. How many tries does this usually take? Yes.

Chris 15:24
I mean, I don’t even bother. I look up the numbers on the internet. And I use a fucking D bed and it’s fine. It’s

Haney 15:31
just easy. It’s fine. Easy as can be the best fucking day of your life.

Chris 15:36
This is a podcast you’re going to have to express yourself in audio format, not just with your face Shut

Haney 15:42
the hell up. How about that?

Chris 15:44
So how’s the how’s the joystick?

Haney 15:47
really awful? Love it really love it.

Chris 15:50
You could probably do with the keyboard too. I might be easier actually. Holy Holy shit. Would you like me to do the joystick while you’re doing the keypad?

Haney 16:00
I Will absolutely not.

Chris 16:03
Would you like me to I swear to you

Haney 16:05
I want you to sit there and be beautiful because you keep making me get a 25 instead of 26 Why are these don’t work perfectly? Why is that? Because the game is bad

Chris 16:16
How dare you? How dare you sir

Haney 16:19
I’m very upset if you can sell we had a nightmare of a time finally realize that can use my keyboard to the directionals on my keyboard to get the numbers it’s still really wonky and it’s really easy to go pass a number I think it’s intentional so that it’s hard to do you also have to do it on a timeline it says 20s I guess it took us probably 15 tries to get it finally opened it boy did I wish I didn’t so the the safe swings open you see a key inside of it and the material falls out and rolls across the floor. It’s red which means I fucking want it because it’s a summon and that triggers a battle Chris what is that enemy called? last number with the last number

holy shit What a nightmare. That’s that’s awesome yeah, that’s boss music. Oh hey that’s cool guy

Chris 17:16
that’s the thing. What’s his name?

Haney 17:18
I haven’t seen yet I’m gonna diamond Dustin

Chris 17:21
This is the most invested I’ve been in any of your fights so far Really? Cuz I don’t want our podcast to end in a rage quit at my I’m so upset. We just switched to physical resistance and also closed Frank right everyone’s good

Haney 17:41
oh god damn it This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life. So this is a fucking nightmare of a boss battle. I tried it so many fucking times and died every time Chris told me that I could move past it because it wasn’t actually part of the story and we gave it one more go I did really well on the last battle but did not win so I decided that at this point I don’t think I’m strong enough to to do this so I’m going to hang my hat up and move on with my life for the time being we got some good good grinding and after that and we’re gonna definitely come back I’m gonna take it I’m gonna put that hat on my head and I’m gonna wear it because I want to know what what the fuck is and I want to know the key I want to know the summons like what is all that shit especially if it’s optional shit that’s cool that usually means it’s better so explore the rest of the mansion you know pick up some treasure here and there not a ton happens aside from we decided to revisit the lab in the basement and who is there Oh, he’s actually here

Chris 18:49
sepher off being

Haney 18:51
here brings back memories are you going to participate in the reunion?

Chris 18:57
I don’t even know what a reunion is shit out loud.

Haney 19:01
Genova Will be at the reunion Genova Will join the reunion becoming a calamity from the skies

Chris 19:07
Genova a calamity from the skies. You mean she wasn’t an ancient?

Haney 19:12
I see. I don’t think you have the right to participate. I Will go north path Mount nevel If you wish to know then follow. So after that really odd conversation with Sephiroth which has just kind of reinforced what we talked about last episode, which was how Sephiroth and clouds seemingly keep missing each other. They don’t really seem to remember as much about each other as they should considering how close we’ve seen them in the past. I’m still on the cloud has weird amnesia train from getting his shit kicked in by Sephora and Sephora off is just on his high horse and just doesn’t he’s too important to remember a cloud but who knows really at this point, like It’s so fucking weird. So we have Throw some material at us to destruct which is pretty cool he he Son Goku is away and we’re left to explore the secret lab. So we decided to go into the library first I believe and start reading notes about the first two specimens. escape your report number for other B’s whereabouts is currently unknown but pursuit is unnecessary due to his diminishing consciousness awaiting further instructions. b.

Chris 20:28
b

Haney 20:29
Christopher is the second letter of the alphabet as in two as in this might be um guy who has the two tattoo on his hand because he’s diminishing consciousness and his whereabouts are currently unknown escaped me report number three status a shopper resisting be escaped during his resistance book escape the report number two description at the time of capture a former member of soldier number redacted no effect could be detected from either Maiko radiation therapy or Genova on him be regular number reactions digenova detected yikes yikes so some bad real bad stuff happened in here huh? They did some real bad things to to be um guy our boy if you can see the look on my face right now. When we think back to our old friend um guy with his number two tattoo on him hand back in mid Gar oh boy am I excited I want to go back and talk to him right now. I might have jumped to some conclusions at this point but I’m firmly believing that um guy is part of these what we find out by reading more notes in the lab are clones of Sephiroth I don’t know why they were trying to clone him I don’t think we figured that out presumably because they think he was the greatest of all time like member a soldier which is there the goat goat Sephora um, we also went into the lab after that point and we looked in two beakers in the lab see project specimen B codec or code c sorry, scratch look by finger now inside the beaker let’s get out of here. Don’t like that. A scratch slipped by a fingernail inside the beaker feeding time that’s our chance bead may see more yeah definitely don’t like that getting some real feed me Seymour vibes What a nightmare this little places Yeah, Becca Shall we

Chris 22:25
don’t like any of this gonna not right now.

Haney 22:29
don’t need to do anything else there time to head past mount nibble. There is a locked door down here that we couldn’t get into because of the safe note and the key that’s in the safe pretty sure if I beat that monster I’ll get the key and the material and be able to unlock the door and see who’s hiding in there so we skip out a lot of time did a little save real quick before heading up to Mount nibble re equipped and also reformed my party at this point so decided that the Dream Team if you Will was going to be cloud aerith and kitset what a dream what a dream so I decided that Chris was right and that no one gives kids the chance so I’m gonna I’m gonna make Kate Seth great again and I brought him brought him into my little fold and he’s actually been a really pretty good party member so far very good at tanking because he seems to attract enemy hits a lot. And he has high HP so we can just kind of absorb hits and then I can use Arif to heal him while cloud deals damage

Chris 23:25
so we went through a mountain nibble we crossed the bridge didn’t fall this time

Haney 23:29
did not fall I was really mad that we actually had to walk through this area because I was expected to be exactly like the first time where I was like walk cutscene the shortest of paths and then hey look at that here the reactor yay did not happen we actually had to walk through the whole fucking mountain complex dot some items did some did some crimes against random encounters. Really nothing special until we get to basically back to the reactor. We walk into this the first industrial area you see, which is a whole series of pipe slides down to other areas of this like map. What is this Chris? So they’re numbered 12345 Okay, okay, I’m just taking I’ve learned to take note of things even if it’s not important now in like 60 hours it’ll be like, in order for you to understand how to advance the next level you’ll need to remember the order of the pipes and mountain nibble.

Chris 24:27
Why is this room here this stupid empty right Chris?

Haney 24:30
Shut up. Well, you know what I should have done was looked at where each of these fucking went, but we’re just gonna start

Chris 24:36
I’m just gonna fucking jumping in there. nail this.

Haney 24:40
That’s what brings me to the bottom with no reason. Yeah. Alright, so one sucks.

Chris 24:46
Solid takeaway. Put that down in the notes?

Haney 24:49
Yes, sorry. I’m trying to figure out which thing excuse Where? Yes. And Yep. And I’m trying to figure out which one goes where. In this whole area. You can come into random encounters and I got three times four times perhaps a dragon the dragon we watch suffer off killer one one fell swoop. Whoa. Okay, is that a dragon? Do you think I can turn it into a frog?

Chris 25:16
It’s worth a shot now Kate says he’s coming back burned out too quickly he

Haney 25:26
the darkest stars burnout so stupid

Chris 25:31
This is a pretty rare enemy.

Haney 25:32
I was gonna I was literally just about to ask you I was like is this gonna be like a thing? Like, just getting my shit stomped in by dragons?

Chris 25:39
They aren’t too common. Oh no. This these guys weren’t as rare as I thought they were

Haney 25:44
Chris This is the rarest fucking creature in the game. You’re

Chris 25:50
playing awfully close to the sun right there my boy

Haney 25:53
Why are you like this? Why does it get so many attacks before? Goodbye What a nightmare. What a treat. I fucking died again. Luckily I just saved it like a few minutes before there’s also a visual boss and what I mean by a visual boss is a boss that you can actually see from the map did pretty well actually especially because I’m coming off hot off of the last number boss battle and not doing so well there so I was feeling pretty good it was it was a longer fight but we did well and he also gave us an enemy skill and that one’s called train train and that is a basically lightning all enemies skill and it’s been really nice that has replaced my go to Monster missile magic. Excuse me monster magic I only say just happens to be a missile Yeah, it’s missiles so you know Magic Missile rocket, but um, we ended up winning the fight and went out the path of the boss’s blocking. This is a path out of the nibble time and into an open space. What did we find that this point,

Chris 27:06
mostly just the world map but as we journeyed further, we saw a town in the distance

Haney 27:11
cloud put on his looking goggles. And not only did we see a town we saw a oddly shaped town. Yeah, some sort of lean structure in the background. Hey, Chris, welcome to this town.

Chris 27:23
What’s that?

Haney 27:23
Is that a rocket to space? space program? Yeah,

Chris 27:30
and who was part of that polymer? rusty old rocket wonder why they made something so huge

Haney 27:37
clouds that document my penis is a rusty old rocket. The first place I went into was the in we talked to the innkeeper and we find out that we’re looking for a guy called the captain.

Chris 27:50
That’s the Mona Lisa right there

Haney 27:53
sure is another reference to real world Yeah. Huh? The real or fake?

Chris 27:59
Fucking Yeah, like cloud knows our

Haney 28:01
cloud is our teeth. Looking at Shanghai in Oh, Shanghai. Hmm, that’s not so real. Yeah,

Chris 28:08
what’s going on here?

Haney 28:09
Well, the Mona Lisa is in Shanghai that’s what it’s going on here. Chris. Did you meet the captain already he’s really the town’s representative so you should really talk with him. The captain is a former Shinra member of the space program. Everyone in town knows him we talked to multiple people all across the town they all say that they used to be you know, part of the space program for Shinra until something happened and Shinra abandon the space program and that structure that we saw leaning outside of the town is actually Shinra rocket number 26 which was supposed to be the manned mission to the moon that said was supposed to or sorry well that the captain was supposed to lead so we investigate the town a little bit more item shop up and shop some houses man I mean here like you can see him shaking his head sitting on the toilet we’ve all been there. He might be the most reliable care honestly I’m there right now. Comedian Oh fuck my job to make people laugh all over the world. Try me. Let’s see do I know any good jokes? Knock Knock it’s my job Okay, he knows nothing you can suck back Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with this guy’s the neon couch shaking his head but same I’m so bored. Isn’t that anything buzz can excite me. Hello,

Chris 29:30
my name is cloud.

Haney 29:32
What? Basically everyone’s just kind of pushing you towards this one area. Just an empty house go through the house and into the backyard and we get a pink plane and it’s cool shit.

Chris 29:45
There’s a Shinra logo on it. Tiny Bronco is it’s cool

Haney 29:49
hold me closer a tiny bra go let’s take it okay cloud. Fucking white. Man help you oh my Girl aerith here was just gonna fucking steal your goddamn airplane. As we’re admiring this plane that aerith is very tempted to steal a woman in a lab coat comes outside and she’s like, hey, the fuck you doing in my backyard? And we’re like, sup wasn’t gonna take this? Well, I’m gonna take this. I’m cloud. And she’s like, oh, you’re not with the Shinra. We were waiting for Rufus. He’s supposed to come and meet us and tell us now about the future of the space program. I’m Shira, by the way. And she’s like, you should go talk to the captain. He’s always in the rocket. pretty direct marching orders at that point. So we run up to the rocket and go inside and see a character that I actually fucking know. And it’s familiar to me, which was very exciting. said Oh, is that? I think I know who that is. Chris. You might. That said,

Chris 30:48
What are you guys doing here? We heard the captain was here. The captain. I’m the captain.

Haney 30:54
Oh, this is excellent music. Yeah. I know this character. Thank you Kingdom Hearts.

Chris 31:00
Tell me about this rocket.

Haney 31:02
Wow, now bad for your kid. Alright, then I’ll explain it to you. You know, Shinra developed a lot of technological gadgets during the meaningless war right? Now it’s a makeup company. But in the old days, it was a weapons manufacturer. Oh, good, good, good, good. Well, I came up with a rocket and there was so much excitement about the thought of going into our space. Our dreams got bigger and bigger. They put a major budget into it and made a prototype after prototype. Finally, they completed Shinra number 26. They chose the best pilot and Shinra know in the world. I mean, come on. And finally we get to the day of the launch, everything was going well, but because that dumb asherah Oh boy, the launch got messed up. That’s why they became so anal. So Shinra next, their outer space exploration program. My dream was just a financial number for them. Look at it as a rusted racket. I was supposed to be the first man in space with this every day it tilts a little bit more at this rate. I don’t know what Will be first this thing falling over me getting out of here. My last hope is to talk to the president. He is a salty old asshole. He blames his entire life basically at this point on Shira basically Yeah, at that point we had back to share and I’m talking to her when sitting bust down the door and it just sort of parading this far woman about not making us tea. That the captain saying anything

Chris 32:23
said you were dumb s

Haney 32:26
Nope. Oh, fuck here. Are you playing? Are you blind? We got Yes, get some tea. Fuck.

Chris 32:38
Really Don’t mind us.

Haney 32:41
Shut up, sit down those chairs and drinking goddamn tea. Sure, I’ll be in the backyard tuning in Bronco. Make sure to serve them from theory. All right. Are you okay? Yeah. Hello,

Chris 32:59
I’m good. We’re like hey Shira like the fuck How do you let them What do you let them treat you like that? And she’s like, Well, let me tell you about all of our things that happened in the past

Haney 33:10
and then if you’ve ever listened to our podcasts before you know at this point we get what we call that good good doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo oh good good. Yeah, get your ass in gear you work like a snail even the moon get tired of waiting around for your ass Christ. I’m sorry Don’t take so much time checking that fucking oxygen tank. Being careful is good but no matter how many times you check that oxygen tank it won’t matter that thing won’t break if if hell froze over Oh boy. Wonder what could have possibly gone wrong? But you’re not stupid to be more efficient. Sorry.

Chris 33:51
Hey look other people Captain our dreams are finally coming true. You’re so proud to be part of the lunch shinar number 26 preparations are complete all that’s left is lift off Yeah, leave it on me I’ll be back in a few all right Captain fly our dreams into outer space.

Haney 34:09
Thanks guys. So we get a flashback of the launch day of rocket 26 and what was supposed to be the first mission to space with said as the captain and seemingly alone I don’t know if Shira was actually supposed to go with him but I said rolls into the lower engine room of the rocket and just start screaming at Shira even then so he was always like this even before the you know events that transpire at this point so we watch it said makes his way up to the cockpit of the rocket and prepares to lift off and he gets a warning that there’s still a life form in the engine room and he’s like what the fuck whoever’s in there is gonna get roasted and he goes who’s there and it’s like Shiraz, just me checking the oxygen tanks there’s a God dammit. God dammit Who the fuck still in there? Sure a captain. Don’t mind me go ahead with lunch. Sure What are you still doing in there? I was still concerned the results of the oxygen tank test wasn’t satisfactory. You’re gonna be burnt out Chris you’re gonna die you know that don’t you? I don’t mind Jesus Christ. If I can just fix this one should be success. I’m almost done.

Chris 35:18
You’re gonna die said we must start the countdown and we won’t make it if we don’t

Haney 35:22
13 engine Wait a minute, you’re still in here.

Chris 35:26
What are you going to do said if we cancel now. It’ll be another six months until the next launch.

Haney 35:31
God dammit Sherif. You want to make me a murder Captain Shira. Tip number seven check is complete. Once I complete Tip Number eight. It’s all clear. Come on. Hurry up. You’re gonna die.

Chris 35:42
30 seconds until ignition. Beginning countdown.

Haney 35:46
Oh boy. I don’t like countdown. What am I What am I supposed to do?

Chris 35:49
15 seconds until ignition. internal temperature rising.

Haney 35:53
Oh man. Outer Space outerspace my dreams.

Chris 35:57
Ignite engine.

Haney 36:03
And rather than letting her roast, he throws away his dreams. He throws away everything for Shinra and hits the abort button on the mission. The rocket takes off makes it maybe 10 feet in the air and then crashes down and starts tilting and that’s where it’s left. And at this point, we get the fucking best transition in the game to date, which is the rocket slowly aging up and like covering the moss and rust. It was really cool. That was a great transition at this point said makes his way back in from the tiny Bronco and is like what the fuck? My favorite part about that animation is when he sits down he puts his feet up on the table, which is just I can imagine the mud just falling off of his shoes onto the table that she probably just polished minutes ago, even though she’s a scientist and absolutely not his servant. Definitely how he treats her that was just why again, he’s exactly like Varick and Julie. Anyway. Yeah, totally. Watch it. Um, yeah, at this point, we’re just chatting with him when we get a visit from a familiar face. They’re late. Where’s Rufus? Paul? Paul, Paul, Paul Murphy. Hey, long time no see. So Sid, how are you Ben? Batman Palmer Are you figuring out give me me wait. So when’s the space program gonna start up again?

Chris 37:34
I don’t know the President’s outside so why don’t you ask him

Haney 37:38
some like my hands off ever for this boss buddy. Good for nothing back Jesus

Chris 37:45
don’t say fat violently rocks from side to side. What a treat. Hey tea. Can I have some do with plenty of sugar and honey? No Yeah, don’t forget to

Haney 38:03
know thanks, Palmer of all fucking people watch them and for talking to him and he’s like president Rufus is outside and it’s like oh cool. And they went so overboard with polymer in the best worst way Yeah,

Chris 38:20
they really leaned into him

Haney 38:23
into that whole nonsense Um, so said basically runs out of that room to go talk to President Rufus. Palmer stays behind is like don’t try new you to cloud me like, shrug. No, no idea who you are. We totally now we head out side for a second see Rufus and said talking and since like, oh, what do you mean you’re jerking my chain about certain the space program again? And Rufus is like yeah, now we’re just here because I’m taking the tiny Bronco where we’re following Zephyr off and we were going the wrong way. So we need your plane, we have to go across the ocean. So there’s that

Chris 39:00
shirt comes out and she’s like, hey, cloud. Can you come here for a second? I think Palmer’s gonna take the plane if you want to go chat to him.

Haney 39:08
So we decided to go back and we see Palmer trying to prep the tiny Bronco for takeoff.

Chris 39:15
Why do I have to do this? I’m the head of the space program.

Haney 39:20
Going to be Palmer

Chris 39:22
Will be taking a tiny Bronco. I’ve seen you somewhere before. I know the Shinra building when the President was killed. Oh.

Haney 39:33
am I fighting Palmer? Oh, you poor bastard. Palmer might be my favorite character in this whole game. I’m gonna

Chris 39:42
slap that ass slap

Haney 39:49
Oh my God.

Chris 39:50
That’s why I was saying that. Oh, I thought you know, I was just saying cuz he had just done that.

Haney 39:58
Why are you Palmer In real life

Chris 40:00
excuse me,

Haney 40:01
okay? Did he just did the plumber just get hit by a truck and runs away from the battle after spanking is at us? And what happens to Palmer Chris

Chris 40:12
gets hit by a fucking truck.

Haney 40:13
He gets hit by a fucking Shinra truck. I don’t know if you saw the huge Shinra logo on the side. Sure

Chris 40:19
did.

Haney 40:19
Do we know if he’s okay, we have no idea because we steal the plane and fucking take off.

Chris 40:25
It’s up in the air.

Haney 40:25
Erica just jumps up on the plane. She’s like, let’s go. And we have cloud on one wing case that’s on the tail and then aerith on the other wing. Just hanging out on the wing is my favorite thing. Who’s driving this thing?

Chris 40:39
I’m not sure there’s anyone driving?

Haney 40:41
What a nightmare.

Chris 40:42
What a treat.

Haney 40:43
Said Run Run Run Run Run, run, dump dump dump dump dump. You ready to fly across the seven seas of Hell yeah. tells me to head

Chris 40:52
emergency landing.

Haney 40:53
There’s gonna be a big splash hold on your drawers and don’t get them as we’re watching the Shinra guard shooting up at the plane and Rufus just staring like the fuck since starts just running. He knows what’s going yeah he’s like I’m ready let’s go he just started booking it manages to snag on to the tail and climb his way up on board as well. The tail gets hit is damaged the plane crashes in the ocean and we get a little bit of an aside at this point. We have kids have aerith the Dream Team I

Chris 41:25
believe you called it

Haney 41:26
the dream team of kids f aerith and cloud and said on this wreckage of a ship and says like planes not gonna fly no more. That’s weird clouds like can we use it as a boat and says like do whatever the fuck you want with it. I don’t care. We talked to him a little bit about like his plans and he’s like well Shinra is done with me at this point because I’ve like ended this he’s like so guess I’m gonna come hang out with you guys. Rufus told me that Sephora was heading to the temple of the ancients. So do you guys need to go that way? and clouds like where’s the Temple of the Asians? And it’s like I don’t know but they said they were going the wrong way so I guess it’s this way without a gesture so we have no idea really where to go at this point so

Chris 42:13
join us next time where we go this way

Haney 42:15
yeah so we decided to head this way we I at that point take control of the boat learn how to steer it and landed on shore just to to save the game and end it there. Chris How are you feeling about today’s episode

Chris 42:30
pretty good. I got a couple questions for you. Is there anything you want to go over before I hit you with them? No hit me with them what’s going on with the reunion and all these black cloaked figures

Haney 42:39
my thought with the black coat figures was that they were different parts of Sephiroth soul split out into multiple figures and that the reunion is them all all the clones of Sephora and Sephora himself coming back together and kind of reuniting as one entity

Chris 42:56
one spirit one darklord if you Will yes what one spirit within so I guess coming off right of that what do you what’s going on with the gennova at this point cuz you fuck her once

Haney 43:09
solder once but we haven’t heard from her or set you know we’ve heard from Sephora once more since then. We’ve seen the the clones of Sephora but we don’t know anything else about Genova at this point. So I’m still where I was last time with Why the fuck am I fighting her arms? I yeah, I don’t any more Genova. That’s what I need. I need more Good. Good. I feel like I’ve been lacking some good good lately. Yeah. nibble, Han. Give me a little kiss of Good, good, but I need more Good, good. No, I’m saying yeah, so we’re heading to the temple of the ancients. Next,

Chris 43:42
you know, I talked to me about that. What’s going on with that? What’s up with the Temple of the ancient? seemingly that

Haney 43:47
would be a I would assume, if that’s safe dose, safe to make an assumption without making an ass out of you and me, please don’t do that plenty. Well, myself. Same hard, same. Um, I would assume that it’s some sort of cetra relic, right? So it’s where the ancient people worshiped. Probably. It’s either that or it’s a monument to the cetera. So my guess though is if that broth is heading there, it’s probably a leftover ancient relic and that there’s something that he’s looking for there. So we know that Scarlet and seemingly all of Shinra is searching for big materia, several exhaustive searching for something and we’re just searching for Sephora. So in Rufus is going after Sephora, and Rufus is also searching for Sephora. So it seems like there’s a lot happening right now in terms of looking everyone’s just looking so what is that fraud

Chris 44:43
school would you say

Haney 44:44
Sephora, Sephora, has Genova as far as we know

Chris 44:49
at least her head probably. Either arm once

Haney 44:53
No, didn’t bear it say Where’s its fucking head before Sephora took Genova from The tank strip so my thought would be that Safra is looking for Genova his head we had an episode listeners if you didn’t know called for its fucking head. Go check that out. Good one. They’re all good. I’m a piece of shit. Um,

Chris 45:15
we’d like to take this time to plug the first encounter podcast.

Haney 45:18
Thank you so much to the counterparty gas for sponsoring the person counterpart. Yes. Um, man. Yeah, I think Sephora is searching for Jehovah’s head. I think Scarlet and Heidegger’s organizations. So the Turks by extension are searching for big materia Shinra is searching for Sephora off we are searching for sepher off and also finding Shinra along the way I don’t think we care if we find them or not. They’re basically Team Rocket. Yeah, yeah. 100% Rufus and Palmer or Jessie and James changed my mind How about that? So yeah, I think I believe that Safra is searching for Genova said I’ll leave it there. Okay. Yeah, I think other than that, that’s really all I got today.

Chris 45:59
Got some good stuff coming up.

Haney 46:00
I’m really excited. Looking for good good. Think you’re gonna get it. Give me that. Good. Good. I’m really excited. We are basically just on some land trying to find assemble the ancients. Hopefully it’s the right land. I don’t know. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to the person counter podcast. And with that, we’ll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the first encounter podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please go leave us an apple review. They make a huge difference and we would really appreciate it. Additionally, you can find all of our past episodes and how to connect with us on first encounter. podcast.com. Please come say hi. Join us next time and we’ll save after we hand over the Keystone for safekeeping right outside. Carl, thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you next time.