Haney 0:05
Hey, listener first encounter is an explicit podcast by grownups for grownups. Content warnings can be found in the episode description. Can you actually find tapes of them though? Oh, if only goddamnit I was like, oh, like that’s actually like some significant good good like not sex tapes. I mean, yes, sex tapes, but also not sex tapes Will be cool too. Yeah, I’m just googling Hojo reveal.

Chris 0:27
Oh, Joe reveals all. And we’re like, how are you doing?

Unknown Speaker 0:46
You want Okay, are you? Yeah,

Haney 0:48
you don’t seem like you’re doing okay. You seem angry. Quick to violence against me. In particular. Which is funny because I’m the one who should be mad at you.

Unknown Speaker 0:58
I think it’s fine. Mr. savepoints all over the place.

Chris 1:01
I feel so fucking drained. And I didn’t do anything.

Haney 1:05
Yeah. So last real gameplay episode, we beat up heiliger and Scarlet in their fun old machine. The proud Claude Yeah. Spank those puppies and moved on with our life and saved right outside Shinra tower. That’s really yeah, that’s I mean, that was that was the Yeah, that was the that’s that’s the tweet send it send tweet. I don’t know. I try saying mean sometimes that I see online but I have no context for and just see if it sticks. That one didn’t stick.

Chris 1:38
I’m not cool enough. So that’s why you’re talking about all right.

Haney 1:41
Yeah, so we we beat up the proud quad possibly killed Heidegger and Scarlet made our way over to Shinra tower and click Save. today. We bumblefuck a little bit early on. Can I interest you in a real ropeway station of a time?

Chris 1:56
What the fuck is the ropeway station? This Chris? Right here.

Haney 2:07
This is not where we want to be.

Chris 2:09
Did you save over now? Okay. Please leave.

Haney 2:15
I like that I have to reload the entire game and can’t just go to another safe point. I’m sure that’s fine. Can I interest you in a real continuation of a time?

Chris 2:23
Hope so. Hey, look, some crates. Hey. Hey. mystyle

Haney 2:28
What do you think that is?

Chris 2:29
Can I interest you in the excellent video game missed?

Haney 2:33
I’ve never played missed.

Chris 2:34
We should probably play together and I’m why st looking awful. Yeah. Did you say it’s fucking awful? It would be fucking awful if you and me.

Haney 2:42
Why are we we were outside of Shinra HQ though. Why are we here now? Instead of outside of center HQ,

Chris 2:48
because you ran away from it.

Haney 2:51
Should I go back?

Chris 2:52
Yeah, if you want to go in there. I Will have to backtrack.

Haney 2:54
Yeah, yeah. I want to see what’s in chinar HQ. I want to climb some stairs. So why am I not at chinar? HQ when I should be. Do I need to turn right here instead of keep going down? I got to go back in the cellar. Yes. Oh, I have to climb up that ladder. Right?

Chris 3:08
Yep. The seller?

Haney 3:10
Yeah, yeah. You know where you keep your roots and your vegetables.

Chris 3:14
Someone in my fruit set up. Punch, punch, punch, punch punch. Can I can I can I come on? Come on. All right, cool. This isn’t the way. I mean, this isn’t where we want to be.

Haney 3:26
I don’t believe you. jakka. Covering level up. Yeah, you’re welcome. All right, head back in. Head back in. Yeah.

Chris 3:33
We don’t want to be here. I think you want to take the other fork in the road. pppppp p p, p p. Here we go. All right. Now we’re talking.

Haney 3:50
Now we’re getting our ball stuck in a dictionary while reading in the nude. We get up session this hour. And Chris is like, Hey, how you gonna get in today? And I was like, I’m just gonna walk through them. I’m just gonna walk through the door. I don’t think anyone’s left here. Which is kind of true. Absolutely obliterated. Yeah, so there are people but I wouldn’t call them worthy adversaries by any means. There are some Shinra grunts I believe that I got into a little little combat tickets with and

Chris 4:19
they’re definitely on the cusp of like retirement too.

Haney 4:23
Yeah. I assume at this point, no one’s really left in the building to stop me from just I

Chris 4:28
don’t know who would still be working for Shinra

Haney 4:31
It’s me. Are these grunts

Chris 4:33
enjoy?

Haney 4:34
Oh, no. I’m so Oh, no, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

Chris 4:40
They just wanted to raise. They were just good boys. They did five damage. The bosses were like, Listen, nobody’s going to be coming through here. Just stand here. Keep whiteflies watch the cameras. It’s fine. Listen to some podcasts.

Haney 4:56
Kate, Seth has double cut now. Yeah. And Kate set is also equipped really readily to be my heavy hitter. So this was I believe Chris said the best I’ve ever done in terms of preparing a suite of a party of a suite of followers party, I guess is the way that you can use the word party I guess.

Chris 5:18
So yeah, I guess we should touch on the fact that when you open the game, you immediately unequipped everyone just dropped all the material

Haney 5:25
missing Phoenix. Yeah, concerned about that. I’m sure it’s fine.

Chris 5:28
Yeah. But when you want to re equip everyone, you’re like, Hey, did you know that this metiria actually affects your stats? Yeah. To which I replied, Yes, we’re 50 hours into the game.

Haney 5:40
Yeah. I’m gonna have a real material the time and I’m sorry, you’re gonna hate this, but I really need to fucking go through everything. What’s happening here? I’m sorry. I said this would be a quick episode.

Chris 5:53
And then Haney just had his way with it. Chris,

Haney 5:55
I just don’t understand why you don’t want me to play this game. You seem like you want me to play it until I start playing it and then you get real angry. Oh, fuck read 13 has a ribbon. Fuck that D strip that right? Oh, yeah. Give me that back. Cover counter attack. And then I’m gonna look at these. So it raises max HP. So that’s great. Yeah. And then this raises as well. So those aren’t penalties at all. Right? Yeah, those are great. God, look at that bucket hp. Yeah, I could liquidate it with NP plus, but he’s not going to be doing a ton of magic. I don’t think so. Let’s do something more like barrier maybe? Because it lowers your max HP. But he has a hp up from HP plus,

Chris 6:39
can’t believe 50 hours into the game. You’re finally playing it.

Haney 6:43
Is this bad for you? You seem upset? Honestly. I need to find a place to attend if you Will. What do you think outsiders? Looks like a gun. Game happening right now. I really need to just be shopping. You know?

Chris 6:58
Do you have any time? Well, Chris, now one Phoenix down. I guess we know what your gills going into?

Haney 7:07
Yeah. So I finally learned how to play the game today. And lo and behold, when you put thought into what materia and who’s doing what in your party makes this pretty smooth actually. So

Chris 7:20
I have to say I was impressed. Yeah, and it good.

Haney 7:23
I think I did pretty well with the allocation. I did lean on you a tiny bit in some spots, but like Yeah, what would you do here? Yeah, for this just to make it smarter but just allocated materials, some of the best of my abilities there and started storming Shinra tower. Not much happened in a tower.

Chris 7:41
Yeah, I was gonna say storming is a strong

Haney 7:43
Yeah, I would say nothing really happened until floor 60 and 460 we are able to pop out into the little bonkers computer room that had the stupid I think that’s for 60 maybe 61 doesn’t matter. No one cares. Someone’s gonna care. You know what? Tyler’s gonna care Okay,

Chris 8:04
so here we go. Floor 59 is the first one you can get off at. And then 60 I don’t want to write I don’t know what the bunkers computer room you’re talking about.

Haney 8:14
The bunkers computer room is the one where you have to climb through the vents in the first hour. Okay,

Chris 8:18
so we got library I think

Haney 8:20
the computer room is 6162 is probably the mayor dominos library.

Chris 8:27
Well that would have been 60 then because we already said library okay. Yeah, it doesn’t matter it’s fine

Haney 8:32
like we did I think we did this the exact like when we recorded the first stormy ocean it’s our two we’re like oh this

Chris 8:37
doesn’t fucking matter yeah you’re not here for this

Haney 8:42
I’m basically nothing happens I found a weapon for said that was ridiculously underpowered didn’t use it. and proceeded up to finally take off one of my long standing two dues, which is get that damn megaphone from that locker. And turns out it’s Kate’s its final weapon. Yeah, dog. And it’s strong. Good. Seth is in a gnarly, gnarly way now. Yeah, that’s really all that happened in the tower. We we found some very low level enemies.

Chris 9:12
Spanx on the ladder against the wall. Absolutely mess them up, spread their insides across everything.

Haney 9:18
So we decided to depart Shinra headquarters because you can’t go up to the top floor. So what’s the point? Because there isn’t any. They’re gone now. What’s gonna go see if I can find Rufus is, you know, parts scattered around. But uh, no. None of that

Chris 9:36
collect the five different parts of Rufus and

Haney 9:39
Rufus the forbidden one. Looks like Rufus. His floors are off limits. I think it was. Let’s try 59 Hello, I’m back. Oh, is this the same floor?

Chris 9:53
Yeah.

Haney 9:54
You could have told me that. Now. I didn’t know that. Grow Lance. I bet it has double growth. Well, that’s cool.

Chris 10:05
I also call my grower Lance. I don’t it’s not a grower. It’s also not a shower.

Haney 10:12
Fuck Oh. Oh my goodness gracious.

Chris 10:18
Hey, Jim time. We’re gonna get swole together.

Haney 10:21
Chris Why is no one here? nap or nap room? Oh actually that’s probably a good thing to do not use stuff. Save point and that’s where we’re ending the game for today. We actually Okay, did I never know have you

Chris 10:35
done anything I’m very gullible I’ve not done anything

Haney 10:40
we’re just gonna hold last animate this huh

Chris 10:44
69 floors later you’ve never watched SpongeBob Fuck off. I haven’t. Is that what that’s from? Yes, I never knew

Haney 10:52
Yeah, I hate you. Again getting out of here I’m gonna I’m gonna go do things to Hojo that he could only dream of in his experiments. So he leaves Shinra HQ after obtaining the sweet sweet megaphone of doom for Keith and make our way down to the other part of the upper plate that’s not generate its cue basically. In this area we find a bunch of scaffolding that leads us up to where Hojo is operating the SR re

Chris 11:27
Yeah, I remember what we grab on the way up there.

Haney 11:29
I do so my party at this point consists of the Dream Team. I believe this is the Oji Dream Team. Yep, cloud Barrett. Kate Seth. Yes, Kate Seth is now flush with his final weapon and on the way up we find Barrett spinal weapon What a fucking convenience missing score and delightful so we equip that bad boy do a little more cleanup on material not too bad and keep going up so this party is actually in pretty damn good shape when we had up top so yeah, I’ve got high level material now with smart with my allocations really just fucking feeling it.

Chris 12:06
Yeah. Flying high. Head up

Haney 12:08
to the top of this tower received incident on the way up and Vincent’s like, oh, Joe, you son of a bitch.

Chris 12:13
left him behind?

Haney 12:14
Yeah. Yeah, fine. That’s fine. That probably could have been I don’t know how how much they go and stuff. But it could have been interesting to have Vince and my Friday when facing how Joe speaking of Whoa, Joe, we make our way up to the top and confront the bastard. He’s clacking away. Yeah, sneak up on him. And he’s like, Hey, what are you doing up here? You failed experiment and clouds like fuck you. What are you doing up here? You failed scientist.

Chris 12:39
I mean, that would have been a good burn if Clint actually said that. Yeah. Whoa, Joe, stop right there. Oh, the failure. At least remember my name. It’s cloud.

Unknown Speaker 12:53
Every time I see you, it pains me that I had so little scientific sense. I saw you as a failed project. But you’re the only one that succeeded as a separate rock clone. I’m even beginning to hate myself. Just get in line just now. Like this far in.

Chris 13:15
None of that matters. Just stop this nonsense.

Unknown Speaker 13:19
Nonsense. Oh, this separate that seems to be counting on the energy. So I’m going to lend him a hand.

Unknown Speaker 13:30
Why?

Chris 13:31
Why do that? Quit asking

Unknown Speaker 13:33
me why you moron. Actually, you might make a good scientist. Lucky you. Oh, Joe. energy level is that 83% it’s taking too long. Oh, no. No,

Haney 13:53
I didn’t want it to be there.

Chris 13:55
They asked me if you would find out.

Haney 13:56
I didn’t want it to be like this.

Chris 14:03
My son needs power and help. That’s the only reason your son but he doesn’t know it. Small mercies. I think when he finds out, I’m his father. He always looked down on me. Sephiroth is your son.

Unknown Speaker 14:25
I offered the woman with my child to Professor guests Genova project, when Sarah was still in her womb with two Genova cells.

Chris 14:37
I can’t believe you’re the one who did this. Oh, Chris. was

Haney 14:41
just the fucking worst. in confronting her Joe. were like, Why? Why are you doing this? And he’s like, well, I got a pump sefirat full of all this juice because he’s trying to gather all the energy he can and they’re like, why are you helping him? What the fuck is wrong? With you, and he’s like, I have to get my son to all that I can and then we’re like, oh don’t don’t downtown zones. Oh, don’t don’t No, no, not like this. No, not like this.

Chris 15:13
You don’t see the resemblance.

Haney 15:16
I can literally hear collage Yes, screaming at you in my head right now. So

Chris 15:22
you realize what we have to do now is go back through the episode and redub all of Sephora lines with Whoa, Joe’s voice.

Haney 15:33
So the big reveal here is that Hojo is sephats biological father and Safra does not know that we from Vinson splashback could perceive that a scientist was the father but it was unclear in the flashback if it was gassed or Hojo or someone else. Given the past we assumed either gassed or Hojo. We kind of saw it coming but I was like please now please not Whoa, like just just fucking now. But yes. Hojo is SAF Ross biological father. And Lucretia is the biological mother. Well, Lucretia was pregnant. Hojo offered her to Professor guests Genova project to inject with Genova cells. So Sephiroth is a for all intents and purposes, a fucking normie that just happened to be injected with Genova cells, which isn’t any different than half of the fucking planet at this point, apparently. So Hojo does his big reveal, and is like Well, I’m gonna go ahead and let you know that I’ve injected myself with Genova cells to let’s see if they’re working. And you get into a fight with fucking Holy cow. The first thing he casts is capsule, which seems to summon two or three support monsters to fight. They’re not really that strong now, but we spank them spank Kojo, and we’re like, oh, cool, but before we spend Kojo He’s like, well, let’s see if the Genova cells are starting to take effect. So he turns into a very horrible monster. So I believe this is the Hellenic Hojo Aleta Kojo is a very monstrous hybrid human thing. I mean, it has Hojo space just warped and twisted and ripped open and disgusting and then the rest of it just looks like a Genova mess.

Chris 17:23
Yeah, yeah,

Haney 17:24
just DNA monster. How do you think I did in a holistic Kojo?

Chris 17:27
I think the whole fight you did very well. I think previous to the prep you did this episode you kind of went into every fight the same with just like fashion dead. Right? Now you have a strategy. You got a plan going to every fight you know, it took me till the end of the login game. You know what role every character fills and your party at this point? crushed it.

Haney 17:47
Yeah, but hell, let’s take Kojo to bed and I was like, finally. Good. Now let’s move on. Oh, wait. Now here comes Hojo again. So this one I believe was called Hojo life form, which is a nightmare. Obviously some sort of like experimental like code name kind of thing. I could see lifeform dash Hojo dash and like being on a test tube and some dusty shelf somewhere. But this one was less gross, because it looks less like Hojo but much harder fight.

Chris 18:14
Not because it looked less like a genetic mess,

Haney 18:17
but because we’ll take a genetic mess over Hojo any day. Honestly. Am I wrong? No, not at all.

Unknown Speaker 18:26
I was defeated by my drive to become a scientist. I lost the last time to I’ve injected Genova cells into my own body. He here are the result.

Haney 18:42
Oh, seriously, I have to find a gross Whoa. Joe monster at least now you can kick his ass. Oh, I’m gonna fucking kill him. Is he green? Okay, Clap. Clap.

Chris 18:54
That’s the name of the cube. Surf cloud shipping. Clay. Yeah, let’s see how the Miko juice is reacting. Sorry. What is happening? You did it?

Haney 19:10
What the? What the shit Good job. Oh, boy. Is that thing Whoa, Joe.

Chris 19:16
Yeah, did what do you think?

Haney 19:18
I hate it. I guess his new style. I mean, he looks better than he does his head. Yeah, that’s true. I hate that. It’s still like kind of his face just like split open. Hellenic dude, help broken let’s look crashy I’ve been to choose Hojo over.

Chris 19:35
I don’t know you’re you’re young Hojo voice was pretty. Pretty powerful. Why am I so good? Oh, God. Awful. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s fine. Oh,

Haney 19:57
oh, what is that? That’s like straight up freeze. That’s pretty cool looking at life form Hojo a Is that what it’s nameless? we smash that subscribe button on whoa Joe’s face a whole bunch. I think I cast Hades on him.

Chris 20:09
Very good fight.

Haney 20:11
Yeah, thank you. I had a lot of fun in that fight too. It was tense enough that I was like, you know, giving it my all but not so tense that I can make some comments. I think throughout it. I

Chris 20:20
think this might be one of the coolest fights in the game. I can only think of one other enemy that has had multiple forms. And that was missing number.

Haney 20:28
Yep. And No. last number. Last number missing number is from Pokemon.

Chris 20:34
Also a fucking terrifying.

Haney 20:36
Yes. And

Chris 20:38
but yeah, you don’t you don’t encounter too many of those where they go through different transitions. So the fact that there’s one that’s so late in the game, and it’s not an optional boss, yeah, means that that’s going to catch a lot of people by surprise. Pretty cool.

Haney 20:49
Yeah. And it caught me by surprise every time to like, I was like, Oh shit, I don’t know how many fucking forms there’s going to be. Luckily, life form Hojo When was the last form? We beat him up? put him to bed. And that was it. Really? I mean, we’ve we won fucking great. Oh, wait, except there’s still so much bad happening in the world. We did stop Hojo from pumping more mayco from SR re up to Sephiroth of the North cavern. But this point, we realized we really need to get up to North cavern and stop Safra if we determine that we can leave Midgar so we’re back on the deck of high wind with everyone else. And cloud has probably my favorite speech in the game today. Wow. It’s It was incredible. Um, honestly, the only reason I didn’t cry was because I was so enraptured in it. But like I bet if I go back and watch it again, I Will absolutely sob. But really the precursor to the speech is cod being like, how long do we have? So Meteor is gonna fall and read their teens like, well, ugen says that it’s going to be in seven days, without SR a pumping. sefirat full of energy. We have a week basically to save the planet. Yeah, so the order of operations here is we have to ignore weapon basically, at this point. I don’t know what we’re gonna do. I’m hoping that once holy is cast, they just go back, just like go to sleep again. That’s for sure. But we’ll see. But holy has to be cast to save the planet to stop Meteor to stop saffer off, we have to do this stuff. And it’s a moment where the cloud is like, Hey, what are you fighting for?

Chris 22:22
Shinra has finished. meter is going to fall in about seven more days. That’s what grandfather said. Read 13. You want to see everyone in Cosmo Canyon again? Yes. You want to see Marlene right? Don’t ask me that Will be Sephiroth. Then if we don’t release the power of holy in seven days, there won’t be a planet left to protect. If we can’t beat suffer off. It’s as good as death for us. We’ll just go a few days sooner than the rest who Will die from Meteor? Don’t think you’re gonna lose before you even fight? No. What I meant was, what are we all fighting for? I want us all to understand that. save the planet for the future of the planet. Sure, that’s all fine. But really, is that how it is? For me? This is a personal feud. I want to beat Sephiroth and settle my past. saving the planet just happens to be part of that. I’ve been thinking I think we all are fighting for ourselves. And that someone something? whatever it is that’s important to us. That’s what we’re fighting for. That’s why we keep up this battle for the planet. You’re right.

Unknown Speaker 23:40
It sounds cool saying it’s to save the planet. But I was the one who blew up that maker reactor. Looking back on it. I can see that wasn’t the right way to do things. I made a lot of friends and innocent bystandard suffer. At first it was revenge against Shinra for attacking my town. But now. Yeah, I’m fighting for Marlene from Arlene’s future. Yeah, I guess I want to save the planet. For Marlene sake.

Chris 24:06
Go and see her. Make sure you’re right. And come back. All of you get off the ship and find out your reasons for yourselves. I want you to make sure then I want you to come back. Maybe ain’t none of us Will come back. meteors gonna kill us anyway. I’m fighting to save the planet. And that’s that. But besides that, there’s something personal to a very personal memory that I have. What about you all? I want all of you to find that something within yourselves. If you don’t find it, then that’s okay, too. You can’t fight without a reason. Right? So I Will hold it against you if you don’t come back.

Haney 24:44
I don’t think I expressed it well during the gameplay so I’d like to express it more here and I’m tearing up actually here so we I don’t know if this is cry Kenworthy, but it’s going but I love it. Damn it. Um, I love the hero trope. I guess I’ve like that. Why are we doing this? Like, sure it’s easy for cloud to be like, we’re doing this to save the planet. And you know, bear it’s like cheese Barrett says the same thing he’s like, it’s cool to say we’re doing it to save the planet. But that’s not really why I’m doing this. I’m doing this for Marlene, I’m doing this for her future, read their teens doing it to save his family, his friends and cosmic Canyon, you know. And, you know, Reeve has so many plans and so much prot like so much stuff he wants to do for the good of humanity. So like, clouds, like, Hey, take the day, you know, leave tonight, come back tomorrow, come back the next day, whatever it takes for you to go find what you’re fighting for.

Chris 25:43
I think what’s really powerful about this moment is actually the fact that cloud doesn’t necessarily expect everyone to return.

Haney 25:49
Yeah, he’s says like, if you don’t come back, that’s fine. Like I get it. Like if you don’t have a reason to fight, don’t come back. Yeah. But I mean, we’ll get there. It’s hard to put into words how powerful this moment is, that’s where I’m really struggling is just like, I honestly, fuck, pause the podcast, go to YouTube, watch the scene, if you can find it in a walkthrough, or if you’ve already played it, you know, just remember it and just understand how impactful this moment is. Really, because to me, this is probably now my number one part in the game. Like, I fucking loved this part. If I wasn’t fully taken already with it, which I obviously have been for the past over a year. This would have sealed the deal for me. But like for me at this point, this is basically just like the fucking writing. I seen candles on the cake like everything. I love this thing. I just I absolutely love it. So everyone on the entire ship leaves except for cloud and Tifa. Because at this point, all they have is each other. Everyone’s gone.

Chris 26:52
Yeah, we don’t have anywhere anyone to go home to your right.

Unknown Speaker 26:58
But I’m sure someday they’ll come back. Don’t you think? I wonder? Hmm. But that’s all right. If no one comes back. As long as we’re together with you, by my side, on never give up no matter how bad it gets. Tifa no matter how close we are now, we were far apart before. But when we were in the livestream, surrounded by all those screams of anguish, I thought I heard your voice. You probably don’t remember this. But deep in my heart. I heard you calling my name. Or at least I thought I

Chris 27:31
did. Yeah, I heard you calling me. You were calling me back from the consciousness in the Lifestream. After all, I promised that if anything ever happened to you, I come help. Cloud.

Unknown Speaker 27:44
Do you think the stars can hear us? Do you think they see how hard we’re fighting for them?

Chris 27:50
I don’t know. But whether they can or not, we still have to do what we can and believe in ourselves. Someday we’ll find the answer. Right. Tifa that’s what I learned from you when I was in the livestream. Yes, that’s right. Hey, Tifa I there were so many things I wanted to say to you. But now that we’re together like this, I don’t know what to say. I guess nothing’s changed at all. Funny is

Unknown Speaker 28:18
cloud. words aren’t the only thing that tell people what you’re thinking. So good.

Haney 28:25
To find cloud spend the night together and wake up the next morning. Teeth is on clouds shoulder. They’re both asleep.

Chris 28:35
It’s almost done. Huh? Sorry. Did I wake you up? It’s almost done. Tifa

Unknown Speaker 28:44
Good morning cloud. Just a little longer. A little bit longer. This day Will never come again. So let me have this moment.

Chris 28:54
Sure. This may be the last time we’ll ever be together.

Haney 29:02
Right in the fields. My heart hurts.

Chris 29:09
We’d better go but I still it’ll be all right. Tifa you said so yourself yesterday. At least we don’t have to go on a load. Yes, that’s right. Okay,

Haney 29:21
let’s go Oh, that’s good. I like that a lot. Eventually we get back to the highway and see if unclad are kind of in the belly of the ship and they’re like wow the you know the ships pretty lonely with that everyone else here? Because at this point we think the entire crew is gone. You know, not just our party, but also the the whole crew like the pilots, the helmsman, all those people are gone. But then the ship shakes violently and starts trying to take off clouds like What the shit and runs upstairs. When we get upstairs. We find Syd Barrett. Kids. Read 13 Vincent all bass Trying to figure out how to operate the shift said as you know, like, oh, like hey cloud, hope you don’t mind I’m back. So everyone’s there, except for Kate’s up who is a power down suit in the corner and up. So the screen starts flashing aggressively red. And everyone’s like, ah, the general manager is coming back online. He’s just like basically, he’s like, Hey, I got out and you know, some people took me in in the slums so sorry, it took me so long had to figure that whole shit out. And while they’re like, Oh, I guess everyone’s here. Everyone except up and then bear. It’s like she’s not coming back. Like he’s like, Elysian still I damaged Syria this time. And if he’s like, I take offense to that and drops from the rafters and is like I’m hearing it’s just like punching. Just start punching up. So good. Up is good. I’ve given he’s grown on me a lot. As a quick aside, he has a great moment where she’s like, yeah, I’m here. I’m gonna go find my spot. And yeah, just like flips away to go vomit.

Unknown Speaker 31:02
This airship is too big for just the two of us. Yeah, it’s a little lonely without everyone.

Chris 31:09
Don’t worry. It’ll be okay. I’ll make a big enough records for everyone. Besides, I’m the pilot. No more flying around casually like before. We won’t have time to feel lonely.

Haney 31:22
You’re doing a real shit job. Huh?

Chris 31:26
It’s moving. I’m sorry. This has never happened before.

Haney 31:30
It’s my first time it’s never moved on its own.

Chris 31:34
Barrett said. Oh. Oh, is that okay with you? Read 13 Vincent was such a puzzle book. Do you want me to come? Always Vincent? No, it’s just the Euro is so cool too. What’s happening? Right? I thought you didn’t care. Cool.

Haney 31:52
I guess that’s just how I am sorry. What a cool guy just flips away. Oh, hello. With that, as I keep getting online, but flashy red light. Excuse me, but wanted to come with the main group. But I can get away. So some people in mid guard took me in. I know I have a stuffed animal body but it all worked really hard. I guess that’s everyone know you fees missing? She ain’t gonna show up. least this time she didn’t steal our material. Thank God for that. That was gonna come.

Chris 32:31
How could you say that? After I came this far with you? Even with my air sickness. I didn’t go through all that just to have you guys have the best parts all to yourselves. Welcome back up. g clan. That’s so nice to say that you sick or something? Well, whatever. I’m going to be in my reserved seat in the hall waiting to the grass.

Haney 32:53
We also learned during this point that Earth soul is trapped.

Chris 32:57
Okay, horrific.

Haney 32:58
That was a nightmare. That was not something I was ready to deal with. Thanks, everyone. We didn’t come back for your spiky headed as I came back from Marlene. I guess it’s just my feelings or something.

Unknown Speaker 33:14
Although she’s not here, she left us a window of opportunity. We can’t let it go like this

Chris 33:20
earth. She’s smiling to the end. We can’t just let it end with that smile. We have to do something. Let’s all go together. Memories of Earth. Although she should have returned to the planet by now. Something stopped her. Now she’s stuck. That’s horrible. We’ve got to let go of various memory block.

Haney 33:42
Has anyone here changed their mind?

Chris 33:43
I’m counting on you said

Haney 33:46
yeah, yeah. These two levers have been bugging me for a while. Let me try them out. All right,

Chris 33:53
so what shall I do? You decide cloud This is our last battle. Our target is the North cave. Our enemy is Sephora.

Haney 34:02
So let’s move out aside from having all of our party members the crew also comes back while says trying to pilot and says like what the fuck like I told you all to get out of here like what are you doing here? And they’re like now never like our homes here with you said beautiful

Chris 34:18
art. Also the high wind transforms

Haney 34:20
Yeah, to rocket high winds and drops all the way and becomes a fucking rocket ship. Shark. Why not and then die. Oh, cool.

Chris 34:29
Can I interest you in a rocket high wind always.

Haney 34:33
doesn’t go fast. Now.

Chris 34:34
We’re almost to the north cave. We’re on our way Sephora. Man. I’m going to stick it to him. Please. What is it said?

Haney 34:46
some incredible force losing control.

Chris 34:50
We never had this problem with our pilot said.

Haney 34:54
Get the hell out of here. flunkies did not tell you all to go home. Yes, sir. But this is our home. No, stop trying to act so cool. All right, you jokers hold me down with everything you got. are they holding him so he can control the things though he doesn’t fly away with the turbulence. That’s incredible. All right, Geronimo.

Chris 35:17
Amazing.

Haney 35:17
This is everything I wanted it to be. Yeah. I’m gonna fucking kill Sephora. So the one hovers at the North crater and one of the helmsman drops down a rope ladder for you to climb down into North crater. We save because there is a safe point here is not even a safe point. Whether or not a safe point here and of disc two lets you save. That’s right. So I got an achievement on Steam. That achievement was and a part two.

Chris 35:47
Hell yeah.

Haney 35:48
We are now in the absolute final stretches of the game. So, end of day see lots of safe. After we save the Highland reaches the North crater. We dropped down a rope ladder and descend into what can only politely be described as absolute Fucking hell. Yeah, this is the most nightmarish thing I have ever been a party to

Chris 36:17
the crater is to sum it up in a less polite way. Satan’s anus? Yes, yes. And there’s no other way to put it.

Haney 36:27
It was horrifying. But we descend into the crater and you have to make your way down in this region. There’s the dark dragon the scissor things tonberry parasite. What did I miss gargoyles gargoyles, which

Chris 36:44
we only encountered once

Haney 36:46
thank god yeah, as we descend into the pit we get into a encounter no problem easy just a little dragon it’s called the dark dragon

Chris 36:54
with killed them.

Haney 36:54
Yeah, no problem. Fucker castle Ultima right out of the gate. Insta party wipe. And I am really well equipped to well prepared at this point. I had full HP full MP. I was ready to go into this fight. It just got ultimate off and party wife me. I did mouth agape stared at Chris and Chris is like yeah, this is gonna be a bad time. And that was

Chris 37:20
Can I interest you in a box? Somebody left here? Yeah. Received save crystal with that. So there’s no save points in fourth grade. So wherever you use this, that’s the one save you get down.

Haney 37:32
So it has to be very intelligent. That’s terrifying. Yeah. And it’s a one use only I presume? Yep. You’re ready for me to get my shit kicked in. You might have Oh fuck

Chris 37:49
you might have died two dragons more than any other enemy in the game

Haney 37:52
dragons and me just oh. Go ahead and ratchet that death and cry counter up one reload from the desk to save point descend again back into the crater and kind of managed to figure out that Hades summon is the best way to deal with the dragons because it causes so much damage but also the status effects is what’s really important.

Chris 38:21
Poison confuse silence we’ve had frog once that stop.

Haney 38:26
Yeah, it does a lot good stuff. But every fight in here is for your life. And there is no safe point. However you do get an item right off the bat called the safe crystal which lets you make an artificial safe point.

Chris 38:40
We’ll come back to that.

Haney 38:41
We’ll come back to that Chris. So we’ll descend slowly into the cavern pick up items along the way there’s a lot of items in this part they’re mostly all sources of some sort. So we got a lot of buffs throughout this part. But as we’re descending we just fucking encounter nightmare after nightmare so dark dragon fucking terrible time. These gargoyle I think they’re just called gargoyle. Yeah, you start out and they’re just like still creatures and I was like still stone still stone. Yeah, like okay, fine, whatever. And I tried casting some magic some material against them. Zero damage. Okay. Oh, now they’re coming to life. Oh, they do a lot of damage. Oh, and they cause fucking petrified awesome fucking great

Chris 39:22
book. We didn’t buy any

Haney 39:25
there’s no there’s nowhere to buy. Like going up or down.

Chris 39:29
purchasei Oh, no.

Haney 39:36
Concern concern concern concern concern concern getting higher concern getting higher. I don’t know what you are, but fuck off. Oh, no,

Chris 39:43
it’s just a gargoyle. Just a pile of stone.

Haney 39:46
Not my favorite. Not my favorite. Not my favorite.

Chris 39:47
Oh, I bet these guys petrify you. Oh, yeah, there goes Kate says

Haney 39:52
I’ve been petrified for so long. waffle hope they have l for death. Good. Good. I’m sure this is fine. I’m sure this is fine.

Chris 40:04
Oh, when they die, they must cast it. Oh, yikes.

Haney 40:09
Big Big Oof. I don’t love it here cus No, no. So that’s the gargoyles bad time, but we only count them once. The next thing we encounter is something I don’t think I’ve seen before.

Chris 40:23
What was it a ton Barry? Yeah, Master tonberry Master tonberry

Haney 40:27
has a little gold star above its head and it just is this little lizard in a trench coat? No, no problem.

Chris 40:34
It’s got a little lantern a little knife

Haney 40:35
starts walking towards you. No problem. That’s weird. Wonder what it does? Turns out it uses a tag called knife. When knife hits you. It is a fucking instant kill for anyone.

Chris 40:48
Yeah. And also as everyone’s grudge.

Haney 40:51
Yes, I’ll let you explain it again. But I believe we lucked out because of the erratic way I’ve done party members up to this point.

Chris 40:57
Yeah, it basically does damage based on how many enemies that character has killed.

Haney 41:03
Yeah. Good. God, man. That thing is nasty. I’m just afraid of catching two of those dragons at once.

Chris 41:12
Can you imagine though?

Haney 41:13
No.

Chris 41:14
Please don’t from both sides.

Haney 41:18
Jump too soon. Oh, wait, let me just I think it’s good that it’s gonna be a dragon.

Chris 41:25
It’s gonna be two dragons. What is that? That’s a tonberry do I run? That’s a Master tonberry What do I do? Kill it.

Haney 41:33
Okay,

Chris 41:34
kill it fast. You don’t want that thing to shake you.

Haney 41:37
Why does it look like that?

Chris 41:39
What do you mean?

Haney 41:40
Why does that have a glow gold star? Because it’s a mess. What is that?

Chris 41:43
Oh, it does damage based on the number of enemies you’ve killed. Or that particular care. Why is it walking towards me? It’s gonna stab you. You have to kill it. You have to kill it. You have to kill. I’m

Haney 41:55
trying Chris. I’m trying. I’m trying baby boy. I’m trying. What happens if it stabs me? Aside from tonberry The other thing that was really scary, was I think it was just called scissor. Yeah, those suck. Because it seemed like there were nothing and then they’re doing damage. You know, they kick you. scissor kick.

Chris 42:15
It’s like 20 damage.

Haney 42:16
Five. Is that five? Okay, I was like, oh, okay, then a little bit a little Nathan’s? Fine. But even though it says five on the screen, it’s a instant kill. Yeah, I had so many close calls where two of my party members were dead because of that. Whereas just just pure dumb luck of getting the right spell off or the right item off at the right time. In order to overcome that. Yeah,

Chris 42:37
they also had two parts then a top and a bottom. Did they? Oh, that’s why they were like legs at one point.

Haney 42:43
Gotcha. Gotcha. I was honestly so concentrated on staying alive that I was not looking. Yeah. It was rough. If you were me, where would you go? Not that way. The fuck out?

Chris 42:56
Maybe you have to go through the cave to get back around. I

Haney 42:58
think so. Now, cuz I can’t get out of the cave here. I fucking just do this like five seconds ago. We’re gonna probably probably end forever.

Chris 43:12
This is dangerous.

Haney 43:14
I know. It’s getting worse every minute. Oh, what are you scissor kick did 95 bucks so bad, but I don’t trust anything in here. Hey, wait a minute. What? problem I don’t like this Chris. I don’t like that. We’re here. I’m just gonna throw up in my mouth a little bit. That’s fair. We had a lot of backtracking and back and forth and getting items and figuring out and eventually it got to the point where there was like a couple of chests left that I could see and I was not worth it. I and this is like for for anyone who knows me or knows how to play games. I really don’t like leaving treasure behind. Boy was I okay with it if it meant getting out of there, so

Chris 44:02
it’s impossible to put how stressful this time was into words.

Haney 44:09
Thanks for getting way stronger. I swear I swear the longer I’m here the stronger everything’s getting the more dangerous things are.

Chris 44:14
You want to heal up? Sure do. Sorry. I don’t mean to backseat game by him sweating profusely getting a little concerned kiss.

Haney 44:24
Holy shit. I don’t like those things. I don’t like this place. No, that’s bad place that place. Why did we come here? You told me to. Yeah, give me a give me give me give me out. Okay, I know what I need to do. No, I’m gonna try. But

Chris 44:43
a lot of stuff going on in this case.

Haney 44:44
Yeah. It’s my heart rates pretty high right now. Yeah. If you can believe it. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t like this.

Chris 44:54
No, no, no, no, no. Oh. Oh, does somebody have Phoenix?

Unknown Speaker 45:01
I should put next buck. Buck kids up, please. Oh, no, it’s

Chris 45:07
got kid. It’s got buche buche buche buche buche buche just called that kids.

Unknown Speaker 45:14
Fucking a dude. It’s got kids. He’s got children. Were going

Chris 45:19
to miss that trigger.

Haney 45:20
Just I’m okay with it. It’s probably a source or something. And I’m okay with that right now.

Chris 45:25
It’s 10 Phoenix stones, is it? I have no idea what it is probably a source of like,

Haney 45:31
everything here has been a source.

Chris 45:32
Oh, my God, a source of pain. I’m not okay, mother. This is where it came off.

Haney 45:39
Right? Don’t Don’t crash don’t hate these things.

Chris 45:47
They actually have reflect on them. Fuck off, fuck off.

Haney 45:52
So we get down to the bottom of the cavern and out of the cave system, and we find the rest of our party. Awesome. I was like, this is a great time to drop the safe crystal

Chris 46:01
crit Well, before that, huh? All right, gang split up.

Haney 46:05
Yes. So the gang decides to split up and you can direct them. I don’t know why. I was like, oh, I’ll leave my party. I’ll go in one direction. And then everyone else going the other direction. Perfect. Not ideal. No, it

Chris 46:16
could be better.

Haney 46:18
So split up the party. And I was like, oh, Chris, let’s be a great time dropped. Save Chris law. And Chris was like, No, don’t you want to see how far you can get before we drop it?

Chris 46:25
Okay, to be fair, that is? No, no, no, no, no. What I said is, don’t you want to save at the bottom? So you don’t have to go through anymore when you reload your save

Haney 46:36
what I took that as is don’t save here hit? Yeah. That’s not where I want you to save.

Chris 46:41
I mean, that’s Yes. Realistically, that is what it was. But I had a method to my madness. All right. I like it. I like it. I like it. Now why was that a problem? Would you say

Haney 46:52
that was a problem, Chris? Because I didn’t drop the save point there and split the party. So I only had my party members with me and continued on. And then there was another option to split the party. And I was like, Well, I guess I’ll I’ll go down by myself and send Barrett and Kate set up. Like I don’t know what the point of this is. But obviously this mechanic would exist for a reason.

Chris 47:12
So at this point, cloud is alone in the cavern by himself. He enemies. Yep. Road splits into two Will split into two groups.

Haney 47:21
Don’t Don’t do that. But you’re gonna choose cloud left. All right, then I’ll go right, left. Then I’m going right. Then I’ll go, right. I’m going right. And I’ll head left. All right. I’m heading right.

Chris 47:40
Now. Don’t any of you die on me? Got to get through to Sephiroth.

Haney 47:44
I’m gonna drop a save point. Okay.

Chris 47:46
Do you think we’re not at the end? What do you mean? Don’t you want to get as close to the end as possible before save dropping?

Haney 47:53
I don’t know. Cloud. Which way you’re going to choose up?

Chris 47:57
down. Left, right, left, right.

Haney 48:00
All right. I’m going up. Then I’ll be having. Yeah. Why not? There’s nothing to worry about. We’re all in this together. I don’t know why everyone. I don’t like this mechanic of splitting up things. This is dumb.

Chris 48:15
That’s how you do it’s the most intelligent decision.

Haney 48:18
Ain’t no way I’m gonna die until I stick this into that guy. That said something very similar verite. Okay, let’s go. We get out. I have a fight. I managed to survive, but it was kind of dicey. I don’t like a gold behemoths. It was a gold behemoth. And I luckily got Hades off which turning the king behemoth is the human King behemoth. I got Hades off, which turned it into a frog, so I was able to beat the crap out of it. So after that fight, Chris is like, yeah, let’s drop that save prestel which is good, because we dropped save crystal, save the game, and continue on. And the next enemy I encounter is a tonberry. By myself. This is the least I’ve ever cared about items. Yeah, that’s fair. This is stressful, Chris. Yeah, I know. At least we’re saying.

Chris 49:05
Okay, now would be a good time to figure out how to run don’t even bother. Don’t think you’re gonna do enough damage.

Haney 49:10
It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay here. I’m gonna turn him into a frog. I’m only doing this because I saved

Chris 49:16
but maybe just in general, we should figure out how to run anyway. Yeah, probably. Well, I guess you’ll get to see Yeah, at least what they do. At least I’ll get this knife. huh

Haney 49:31
that’s about what I thought it was. Hey, I don’t love it.

Chris 49:37
Good place to say. Good call. Good call. Yeah. Oh, god. I’m so stressed out. stab you to death.

Haney 49:46
Yeah, God knife me. I got the scene knife. I didn’t like knife. No.

Chris 49:50
So we ratchet the depth up to this episode.

Unknown Speaker 49:53
Yeah. And the crack hammer up once. Not not terrible. No, no, no, no, it’s been worse. So that’s where we’re at for today’s episode. Chris, how are you feeling?

Chris 50:03
I’m feeling pretty good. I forgotten everything I bookmarked in my head to bring back around.

Haney 50:09
Most of it was hojyo related. Oh, Joe. Head. Yeah, talking my head. Yeah, yeah, I think the thing I want to specifically hone in on here is that Sephora doesn’t know that Hojo is his real father. Yes. However, back in nibble Han flashback saffronart specifically says his father sucks. Who does he think?

Chris 50:26
He doesn’t say his father sucks. He says Haha, what does it matter? True? Okay, which means maybe he doesn’t know who his dad is.

Haney 50:34
Because your guest is a great scientists. My dad. Haha. What’s the matter? Yeah, so maybe he has no idea. Maybe it was raised without any knowledge of his father. Maybe he’s like my dad, he fucking ditch or they just gave him a story like, yeah, your father. Like just bail? Who fucking cares about him? He says, Yeah. All right. That’s, that’s what I wanted to bookmark and come back to was that my understanding was that he had an inkling of who his father was and wasn’t happy about it. Yeah. Which like if he knew that it was her job. Sure. Yeah, I get it, buddy. Yeah. seperates claims about his rights to who he is. It gives me a strong Voldemort vibes. Voldemort has that same sense of like righteousness, right? Because his father’s side is descended from Salazar slither. And so he’s like, yeah, I have this right, you know, to be the heir of Slytherin. But he has everything that slither and would have hated because he’s a mixed blood. Both very tragic

Chris 51:31
villains.

Haney 51:32
Yeah. Yeah, it sucks. It’s all about lineage to like, lineage and parenting and like how that really plays into you. It’s really just about nature versus nurture. And obviously, Sephora was not nurtured. He jumped to some very strong conclusions very quickly. Yes. And I think he was I think Safra was so affected by it all, because he was so ready, just like Tom Riddle was to believe that he was special. Right? Well,

Chris 52:00
it’s also the rejection of the idea that he’s a monster, right? Yeah, he found in the nibble home.

Haney 52:06
Right. But it’s also the you know, the the, I think he still has that same bit as Voldemort. Whereas like, he’s so ready to latch on to it because it makes it sets him apart and makes them different and makes them better. And he, I think, had that mentality all the way. I don’t know how far we’ll get into it. I would love to know how Sephiroth was raised, like in terms of who was present in his life, or if he was just really a lab rat for most of it until he was just like turned loose on the world to go Duchenne remissions.

Chris 52:33
I mean, he was basically raised to be a weapon right? Yeah, like that was what did you know for project was Yeah,

Haney 52:37
super literal, super soldier. Yeah, his, the men who stare at goats Final Fantasy edition. Great film, by the way, never seen it.

Chris 52:46
So actually, the main thing I wanted to talk about in this episode, was you weren’t aware of something that was happening? Yeah. Because you didn’t know what the clones were right.

Haney 52:56
Because up to this point, I still believe that they were just a little little separate off clones.

Chris 53:01
Previous to this episode. I believe in the first time we revisit niflheim as cloud outside of memory. Mm hmm. we’re discovering some things. Mm hmm. And we know that there was a cover up by Shinra came through and is like, Listen, the Boeheim never burned down. None of this happened. Everyone’s here. It’s all fine. Don’t worry about it. But there were definitely people in bodies. Oh, no, there were residents of this town. Not everybody died in the nibble Haim incident. Uh huh. How do you think they covered up? The people that were left alive after that whole fiasco? What the fuck did they do? Those are the Sephora clones. They just like pump them full of. Yeah, well, Hojo rounded up the rest of the people who are left in town. But yeah, basically, the Sephiroth clones who are pretty fucked up are actually members of niflheim. nibble, Han. We’re gonna take us way back.

Haney 53:58
Take them back.

Chris 53:59
You remember in clouds memory income.

Haney 54:02
This is back in calm. Yes.

Chris 54:03
All the way

Haney 54:04
back when he thinks like his soldier first class. Yeah. All right.

Chris 54:07
So you went into a house? And you found a mother. And you found two kids with her? Who were like Shinra salza. No. Yeah. They’re little. Remember them? Yeah. Went back to nibble. Jaime?

Unknown Speaker 54:26
Ah, that’s fucking gross. Yeah, dude. Oh, hey. Oh, Joe so much. He’s no good. Fuck. No wonder fucking everyone in the discord hates him so much. Like I was like, Yeah, he’s gross. Like, I hate him too. But like, no, I get it now. Fuck. Oh, Joe.

Chris 54:43
Yeah. Ah, yeah. Ah, yeah. So that’s the whole mystery behind the Sephora clones. Yikes. I hate that. So, what do you got for me? What do you want to talk about?

Haney 54:58
I have only one question. At this point, and I don’t know if you’ll answer it. Yeah. Is our next recording the last recording.

Chris 55:07
So I think that’s going to be a wrap. And listeners. Thanks for following us this far. We’ll see you next time for final episode foc I am not ready of Final Fantasy seven. I’m not ready. No, I’m not ready. Thanks so much for listening. I Will see you next time. Bye. Bye.

Haney 55:44
Thanks so much for listening to the first encounter podcast if you want the journey to continue please support us@patreon.com slash first encounter and tell one other Final Fantasy seven lover you know about the show? Find our socials and contact info at first encounter podcast calm please stop by and say hey, our intro and outro music is by Alden Zach