Haney 0:00
This episode of first encounter contains spoilers for the video game Final Fantasy seven. If you have not played this game, first off, what are you doing? Don’t be like me and second go play instead of listening to us. We’d also like to take a second just to remind you that we are in no way shape or form affiliated with or sponsored by square. Just a couple of guys trying to have fun with a cool video game previously on first encounter, so there’s a lot of stairs that bear and Tifa just bolted up and now clouds chasing after them. Oh my god, I didn’t really get to make me do this. My thumb hurts already.

Chris 0:33
You don’t even know

Haney 0:34
oh my god.

Chris 0:37
So you come out onto this floor and there’s a left to right row of guards who are kind of patrolling back and forth and you have to sneak past them while they’re not looking by hiding behind some statues. The higher ups in the company use the floors above the 16th floor but you can’t get there without a keycard. Get a key card and you can use the elevators freely already have a key card. Just remember there are different types of cards when you go everywhere. So if there’s any one thing I know about you Hetty it’s that you like

Haney 1:10
riddles. I do love puzzles

Chris 1:12
well buckle in baby because we’re going for a ride

Haney 1:19
anyway the puzzles dumb I guess long story short figured out that the fucking password was king went back given the password and then he’s like I’m gonna let you buy because like fuction are basically it’s like why don’t you go out there and cause all sorts of trouble for him and I was just like hell yeah Mayor Domino, let’s go we get to a floor where there’s like fucked up like little maze that someone’s set up this is a bunch of doors and a computer that’s like thinking you have three tries to get through the doors.

Chris 1:49
So there’s a middle room with a giant replica of mittigar and it’s missing a bunch of pieces from each of its segments

Haney 1:56
and all around it are smaller rooms that have locked trunks in them except one that has mid guard puzzle piece number one in it you grab men guard puzzle piece number one you go plug it into the diorama it unlocks the next test and fucking rinse and repeat for eight more times. When you climb up, you gain access to a vent shaft that goes over the top of the conference room and you can listen into a conference that’s happening between President Shinra and four of his like top officials and then another basically goes on to say that fuck them they don’t deserve to be rebuilt the promised land and kneel mid Gar is what’s next there’s no point in rebuilding sector seven if we’re trying to make me a mid Gar so now that they have the specimen which is I think Eric is the specimen that he’s talking about. What’s clouding Genova I know that name. What in the actual fuck is that? Genova suffer offs, so they brought it here? Sup rocks? What? Oh god, he’s actually just locking aerith in a room with read 13 and seeing what’s happening cloudhealth The door opens and read 13 comes out and just start the Malling fucking Hojo which is tight.

Chris 3:12
So you go downstairs, you’re meeting at the elevator you’ve run into the elevator club smashes that button, and a new character that you haven’t seen walks in and clouds

Haney 3:23
like ah shit, is this a trap? Turks buck, we ride the elevator up and we’re kind of pushed into shinners office. in there, we noticed that we see Barrett but no aerith

Chris 3:35
Shinra is basically like, Earth Will lead us to the promised land. She was an ancient, you know, and I think this is the first time you hear the mention of the Promised Land Barrett knows a little more. He’s like the promised land. Isn’t that a legend?

Haney 3:49
Yeah, and we talked about it more in jail, but which is where we go next. So we’re led out of shooting this office into a jail cell, there’s like screen goes dark, and then it comes back up. And at that point, we see aerith is in a cell all the way to the left, then cloud and Tifa are in the center and then to the right are at 13 and Barrett and you can kind of like go up to the door press you know x and then it’ll be like check on earth check on Tifa check on Barrett, check number 13. So we talked to Tifa first and she was just like, Hey,

Chris 4:23
can we get out of here we

Haney 4:24
get out of here and clouds like yeah, leave it to me. No

Chris 4:27
problem.

Haney 4:28
No problem. And then we talked to you earth are you there?

Chris 4:33
Eric? Are you safe?

Haney 4:35
Yeah, I’m all right. I knew that cloud would come for me.

Chris 4:39
Hey, I’m your body guard. Right?

Haney 4:43
Kinda ship at home. To deal with for one date, right? Tifa stirs. Oh, I get it. Whoa, t t TV. You’re there to excuse me, you know I have a question. Boy we’re gonna just have this fight right here right now. This is the promised land really exist. Okay, we’re just gonna get by again. I don’t know. All I know is the sister were born from the planet, speak with the planet and unlock the planet, and then the cetera Will return to the promised land a land that promises supreme happiness.

Chris 5:22
Speak with the planet, you hear it now.

Haney 5:25
I only heard it at the church in the slums. Mother said that Midgar was no longer safe. That is my real mother. Someday I’ll get out of Midgar speak with the planet and find my Promised Land. That’s what my mom said. I thought I would stop hearing her voice as I grew up, but I’m remembering a word live stream to word so as gets into a little exposition about what she knows of the Promised Land, it’s not a ton it’s like it just kind of gives a little bit more flesh to what we already know it’s like this idea that you know there’s a land that’s where Maiko is plentiful and like things grow and there’s not you know there’s the land is fertile and Chris says yeah oh we also learned sutras is the term for the ancients that’s like their actual like race is cetera Yep. Barrett Phil’s a little bit more in like oh, that’s just the legend right? And then he starts just like talking to read 13 and read 13 just doesn’t interact with him at all.

Chris 6:20
Older him right 13

Haney 6:23
is doing I do want to read their teens do grandfather

Chris 6:26
Grandpa

Haney 6:27
Grandpa Grandpa Grandpa you okay very very lost.

Chris 6:35
Absolutely lost.

Haney 6:37
What’s so funny? Nothing the fuck that’s why I don’t know

Chris 6:48
what it’s doing wonder how berets doing

Haney 6:51
Hey, Eric is an ancient and the real name of the ancients is cetera the ancients know where the promised land is. And the Shinra is searching for that Promised Land. I only heard stories about the promised land I don’t know if it really exists. Plan it’s gonna get sorry I forgot to read I was just like we can just leave and be I’m recruiting new members me to the cloud. And Eric, how about you? Never walks away. shits on the floor. I’m gonna die. What do you want? Very has a weird moment. It’s really weird. It’s really bizarre and like read 13 is just like I’m a dog. Please leave me alone. Like I just want to go like curl up and lick my sack for

Chris 7:29
the last person I want to be locked away

Haney 7:30
with Yeah. At that point, I think the last thing we can do is go to sleep. So we do and then cloud wakes up in middle of the night and the door is wide open to the cell. That’s all buckwild so

Chris 7:42
pretty sweet. Good deal right there. He’s

Haney 7:45
sweet. pp convenient. So you walk out of your cell you can’t open aerith or Barrett and read 13 cells and Tifa is asleep. So you start walking to the left to try to leave and there’s a guard that is just mauled on the ground just dead. Oh, what’s happened? people wake up.

Chris 8:05
Something’s wrong. Look outside.

Haney 8:09
I wonder what happened.

Chris 8:12
You should have the key on there read 13 something’s up Come with me.

Haney 8:18
How’d you get in? Why is the door open? Bark Bark? Wow, bow. The hell’s going on? No human could have done this. I want to know what condition His body is another like a cleanup back here so you guys go ahead don’t get caught by Shinra and you’re like, well, that’s fucked up and you go back to your room and you’re like Tifa Come look something’s fucked up. Tifa goes and looks like well that’s fucked up. Let’s go get aerith Barrett and read 13 so we go back Tifa gets Eric you get Baron read 13 and everyone’s like, well, that’s fucked up. And I think that 13 had an interesting line. I was like nothing human could do this. Yeah, which is wild because like what the fuck happened here? It’s also just like a little sprite of a corpse like laying face down. So there’s not like a lot of like violence or gore or anything and just like, I mean, it just looks like it’s dead. I’m pretty sure human kids do that. But like we get from dialogue context lives, we definitely get the feeling that this thing is dead and mauled. Something’s going down and we bail. So we walk out of the president room and to the specimen room, and we see just Geneva’s tank is blown open and there’s a trail of blood from the Novus tank all the way up to the stairs. Oh shit. Oh shit is that oh no Chris that’s a lot of blood into novas tank is open. Should Never specimen looks like it went up to the upper floor using that elevator for the specimens. Oh boy. Oh boy, Chris. Oh boy. It’s about to happen should I have saved Okay, so there’s just like this bloody drag market over here. That’s good. Looks like leads up. Oh god dammit that scared the shit out of me. I’m still on edge. What in the hell? You need to burn that thing? Piazza shower is it as you know

Chris 10:13
me. I love when they do the field music carry the battle.

Haney 10:18
Yeah, the unsettling thing about that is that this music is creepy as shit. The blood child just goes up through like four floors and it’s going up through the like, across rooms and up the staircases again, it’s real gross. It’s like very scary. There’s corpses everywhere like everyone from Geno’s floor up has been murdered.

Chris 10:39
The other really cool thing going on right now is the soundtrack has just completely changed Yes,

Haney 10:45
all of the bytes that we have. Have the story music still playing so that’s very interesting because we don’t hear like victory music and we don’t hear like regular fight music or anything like that. It’s the starting music, which is super ominous, super creepy, super creepy. And it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s gennova theme song, but I don’t know.

Chris 11:05
Also, all of the monsters that we encounter along the way have changed. They’re not Shinra security anymore.

Haney 11:11
They’re all mutants that seem to have probably been Shinra experiments that have been led out by Genova and her escape. Her endless grows bloody Inkscape you’ll um, we finally make our way back up to the presidency after following the shell of blood. And when we walk into the present suite, we see President Chandra face down on his desk with a katana in his back. Oh boy. This bloody streak marks are so upsetting.

Chris 11:38
This is probably fine.

Haney 11:39
They’re all dead, aren’t they? Yeah. I don’t want to fight Genova. I don’t think I’m ready for this. Chris. Where are we? Why is there no blood? Oh, boy. Oh, no. That’s sorry. Oh, are we gonna meet him? Please? He’s dead. The head of Shinra is dead. Oh, fuck, then this sword must be sick. Jeff

Chris 12:05
Roth’s Sephiroth is

Haney 12:07
alive.

Chris 12:08
Looks like it. Only Sephora can use that sword.

Haney 12:11
Who cares? Who did it. This is the end of the Shinra we’re like, well, that’s fucked up. What do we do with that? You know, I just realized was missing from this interaction. You don’t know where Hojo is at this point.

Chris 12:23
It’s true. But you haven’t seen him?

Haney 12:26
Because he didn’t. We didn’t find him among the dead, which I would have assumed he would have been. We’re postulating about shinners death. And we see Palmer and he fucking makes a break for it. My favorite thing here is he just runs right past cloud and Barrett and without even like, a much effort cloud and Barrett just grabbed him and like, hug his arms. Like Where are you going? And he’s like, Don’t fucking kill me. He’s like, I’ll play whatever you want. And we’re like, all right, it’s time to get some answers. Hey, you going, buddy?

Chris 12:54
Please don’t give me what happened.

Haney 12:57
Separate off. Separate off game.

Chris 13:00
Did you see him? Did you see Sephiroth?

Haney 13:02
Yeah, I saw him with my own eyes.

Chris 13:05
You really saw him?

Haney 13:06
Oh, would I lie at a time like this? I heard his voice too. He said something about not letting us have the promised land to like my father.

Chris 13:15
It’s pretty good.

Haney 13:16
Then does that mean? The Promised Land really does exist? And that separates here to save it from Shinra? Oh, boy. I don’t think I don’t think that’s true. So he’s a good guy, then.

Chris 13:28
Save the promised land a good guy. No way. It’s not that simple. I know him. Stefan’s mission is different.

Haney 13:35
We’re like, Hey, who did this and he’s like, this is never off. It was separate. And this was really funny to me called hammers home the point like, Are you sure? Are you really sure. Did you see him? And Palmer’s like, yes, yes. Yes. I even heard him and I was like, Oh my God. I get it like we believe you.

Chris 13:52
He says, Yeah, I heard his voice. He said something about the promised land and not having Shinra take it.

Haney 13:57
That’s right. He said I can’t let Shinra take the promised land. Yeah. And that’s where Barrett’s

Chris 14:01
like, Oh, so Jeff Roth’s is totes cool, right? And clouds like,

Haney 14:06
Hey, I don’t think so Brown.

Chris 14:08
Yeah, if I know sepher off, it’s more complicated than that.

Haney 14:11
What is interesting because this is the first real instance we get of knowing Zephyr off. We know that cloud is familiar with the name that he thinks is a hero or he did think he was a hero at least. And we’ve also seen a flashback of Tifa with her father who has a katana in his back very much similar to this scene. And even that scene says the Shinra dot dot dot soldier dot dot dot off I hate them all. So let’s see if it’s also kind of on the fox app or off train

Chris 14:42
Yeah, and that’s when the helicopter comes down and plumber kind of rails out of their arms and and it’s

Haney 14:47
weird because at that point, sang jumps out of the helicopter and yells Hey, buggers,

Chris 14:53
and we’re all like classics.

Haney 14:55
classics saying I’m so now at that point. who recognizes them as like oh fuck I forgot about him the Barrett Barrett yeah off fuck fuck I forgot about Rufus. Yeah. And we’re like, oh, do tell who you forgot that he’s like, Vice President Rufus dot, dot dot. I guess he’s president now because of shinners dad or something like

Chris 15:16
that. Yeah. shinners son.

Haney 15:17
Yeah. So Seth was actually here, by the way, Just who are you?

Chris 15:22
I’m cloud ex soldier. First Class.

Haney 15:25
I’m from avalanche, me to a flower girl from the slums. I love era. Research specimen. work crew. I think Aaron or read Thirteen’s are my favorite responses because like the classic trio like you know, Tifa Baron and cloud are just like so ready to rumble and like so proud of who they are. And then Eris just like, I’m basically homeless, and rent Thirteen’s. Like, I was just here. Like, I don’t want to be here. I

Chris 16:00
don’t I don’t know these guys. I’m not with them.

Haney 16:04
Well, I’m Rufus, the president of Shinra, Inc. You’re only present because you’re old man, dad. Correct. I’ll let you hear my inauguration speech. We’ll see the guy in the wheelchair and I’ve been children. Yep. Silver haired to me.

Chris 16:16
I think it was more white in the it’s very orange right here. Yeah, it’s supposed to be like blonde.

Haney 16:22
Okay. father tried to control the world with money and that worked for him. The people believed that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra get your pay if terrorist attack to the Shema army Will help you look perfect on the outside. But I do things differently. I’ll control the world with fear. It’s too much to do it like my old man. Oh, Rufus isn’t a good guy. I thought he might be better. A little fear Will control the mind of the common people. There’s no reason to waste getting money on them. Oh, and he’s a shithead cool. He likes to make speeches, just like his father.

Chris 16:56
Get aerith out of the building.

Haney 16:58
What are we leader? Oh, Jesus Christ. Wait, leader.

Chris 17:03
Barry. This is a real crisis for the planet.

Haney 17:06
No, I’m gonna throw up.

Chris 17:08
I thought that’s where you’re going. Oh, explain later. I’ll explain later, Barry, this is a real crisis for the planet.

Haney 17:21
Follow the hell is that supposed to mean?

Chris 17:25
I’ll explain later. Just take my word for it now. I’ll go after I take care of him. Alright, cloud riff is is like, cool, whatever. Yeah,

Haney 17:34
okay, fine. This is fine. And one thing he says is he’s talking about his father’s presidency. And he’s like, my father ruled with power and money, right? Yeah, he’s like power and money only goes so far. I’m gonna rule and I was like, Oh, cool. He’s gonna be a good guy. And then he says, I’m gonna rule mid Gar with fear and I was like, Ah, fuck this dude. Got it. Word. This guy sucks.

Chris 17:57
So after Rufus kind of chats them all up, close, like very unique to take everything Get out of here. It’s a real crisis for the planet. Yeah, it’s what he calls it. And at this point, read 13 Earth Tifa Barrett they’ll run off

Haney 18:12
and we swap to the other party. So you don’t can see what’s going on with cloud Rufus? you kind of go downstairs from one floor down air it

Chris 18:21
says shit Wait, I forgot to tell cloud something and if it’s like you, you get to hear all the way for him. Yeah,

Haney 18:28
um, so Tifa stays behind so your party is Barrett Arif and red 13 you get in the elevator you start going down and that triggers a boss fight so a lot different from the whole market you know how you get in fights and elevators Oh, this is fun. This is a boss fight.

Chris 18:47
Oh, there are so many magic he’s fine right 1370 magic Whoa,

Haney 18:54
what why don’t they have any they had magic before?

Chris 18:57
So here’s the thing with that this is ranged so you’re not going to be able to hit it with read 13 Earth can cast spells Barrett can shoot it read 13 you’ll have to throw items that you shouldn’t have you don’t have any grenades

Haney 19:12
That’s absurd. No, I I remember saying I’m not a grenade boy, like Granada’s I’m not a Grenada. Remember that? Yeah. First call. Scott. Sure,

Chris 19:23
you can defend Sure.

Haney 19:26
Give me ball. I find a use for that gravy ball.

Chris 19:30
What happens is you get in the elevator and you’re going down and this other elevator across from you pulls down and it’s just got this basically finds a tank, straight up tank and just blasts out the glass separating the two elevators.

Haney 19:44
This is a dope bossfight it would have been way more dope if I didn’t if I wasn’t super under prepared for this.

Chris 19:49
Yeah, when Tifa split you got the option to like, hey, do you want to rearrange things? And we’re like now we’re cool.

Haney 19:55
I was like, No, I’m fine. I don’t need this. The fight is a It’s interesting because I beat the tank and I was like oh fuckin Chris I did so good and he just looks at the screen he goes, yep, I look back and there’s just like now a bird helicopter. Bird copter, bird copter comes and bird tank copter comes down and it’s like, no. So the fight continues. Same deal. It’s range so you have to just keep hitting I kept hitting with items. Read 13 luckily got a lot of limit breaks. I don’t know how that just worked out. Luckily that he was Yeah, he didn’t get his ass beat. I got read 13 from the break fantastic.

Chris 20:32
Critics bill that’s a break in the pocket right there. My boy.

Haney 20:38
My, my, my dad always set a limit break in the pockets or two in the bush. So we beat that and on beating that, they leave the elevator and it switches back to cloud and suddenly you’re in combat, like it was very fast. You get the option to like make changes to your materia equipment, all that stuff. So I think we did a couple of things. I changed up class material a little bit.

Chris 21:00
I could give you some brothers brotherly advice. I couldn’t give you some tips, but I’m gonna let you just play the game.

Haney 21:08
I’m good. I just don’t think i don’t think i think this is gonna be a one on one fight. But I’ll do fire off just in case. Fire all the store. And then we’ll see what that does. That seems a little more balanced. Why do you want to fight me?

Chris 21:24
You want the promised land and Sephiroth?

Haney 21:26
That’s right. Did you know that Sephiroth is an ancient

Chris 21:30
whatever. I can’t let either you or Sephiroth have the promised land.

Haney 21:34
Let’s see. I guess we won’t be allies. Do you mean Yeah. Oh good. He has a technical cat. I had the shotgun dope. dope. He’s actually really

Chris 21:48
cool. Also, he’s crazy.

Haney 21:51
I’m sure this barrier Okay, I got to kill the cat first. Alrighty, so the encounter was fucking hard. I did well but like the the cat and Rufus hit hard. I got into a pattern of healing. Basically, he’ll attack Limit Break. He’ll attack Limit Break.

Chris 22:10
Praise pure. potion is not going to be enough.

Haney 22:15
Just for my brother, brother. Oh, boy. Yeah. Oh boy. I can tentacle cats and shit.

Chris 22:23
Typical cats up in my snatch. What bush? You want from me?

Haney 22:29
None of that gave you two options. I’ve tried. I’ve tried one thing and I’m all out of options. It was a really hard fight though. Like it was there was a couple times I was like, hey, but we did get through it. And you know, the kind of last straw is he was just going that’s enough for today. Yeah. And he like pushes his hair back like a cool guy. He’s

Chris 22:52
like, Come on kids. He fucking jumps off the building grabs onto the helicopter flies off. It’s

Haney 22:57
like, all right, buddy. Also,

Chris 23:00
he’s cackling maniacally the whole fight. like fucking I know. You’re not gonna beat me.

Haney 23:04
He’s really strong. I can’t wait to face him again. It’s gonna be very interesting. I have a feeling he’s gonna be a reoccurring. bossfight like several times over. Yeah.

Chris 23:11
He makes it at least 11 children, you know,

Haney 23:14
I mean, yeah, that’s very true. Although he’s in a wheelchair, and I’ve been children so we’ll see how the last fight Gov. But I feel like he had a sickness more than anything else. I don’t think it was an injury. But it’s been so long. Yeah, I guess we’ll see. We’ll see when we get added and children. That’s gonna be a blast. We’re gonna need a lot of booze for that. Please. Um, he says cloud, join up with Tifa and then start going downstairs.

Chris 23:37
Classic move of mine. Beat Rufus die to the random encounters on the way back

Haney 23:42
nice. tight. So now I have to go meet up with everyone. Yeah, classic Christmas just died immediately. That’s me. Billy. At that point, it switches back to you. The other party

Chris 23:57
has run to the entrance exit of the shinier building and berets. Like hey, I’ll clear the path starts blast, you know, yeah. He runs out the side you hear gunshots and he runs back and he’s like, No, actually we’re surrounded.

Haney 24:13
Just gonna run right back here. Yeah, no. Shit we’re surrounded by I was alone this won’t be a thing but I got a reputation to protect you thereafter. It’s me. Don’t get out while you can. Yeah, well, that ain’t happen. You got caught up in this ever Marley and now it’s my turn to help you. Okay, play times over jackasses. Thank you, Mr. Barrett. You call him Mr. Barrett. That doesn’t sound right. Well then. If you are to talking my I suggest that we think of a way to get up here. Oh yeah, you’re cold man. Just like someone else here and yeah, now. Did you say something? Now the thing so what are we going to do?

Chris 24:50
Oh, everyone has so much personality. Barrett,

Haney 24:53
those teeth. Everyone over here. What’s up? He’s coming. Hurry, hurry. There. It’s best point. As his fatherhood I think, and his love for Marlene and that really just drove home the point of how much he loves Marlene, it’s like, I am willing to do literally anything for the woman who saved Marlene. Yeah, it’s really good. It’s really good.

Chris 25:12
So at that point Tifa runs down the stairs and they’re like, Hey, where’s cloud? And she’s like, Hey, we got to get out of the way he’s coming Don’t worry, he’ll

Haney 25:21
be here.

Chris 25:22
We gotta go Yo, and at that point, so they are all run off to the side,

Haney 25:27
or have them run off to the side. It transitions to a cutscene and I’m like, oh, cutscene this. This has been a while so you see the four of them running through the hallway, and then like blinks to staircases, and you see a motorcycle? Oh, come on. Oh, come on. A

Chris 25:45
cool guy

Haney 25:47
riding a fucking motorcycle down the stairs. We didn’t even get that. So stupid. Roll out. Oh, that’s fucking cool. Oh, god damn it. I like that. So many questions Where the fuck did the motorcycle come from? Wow, does he know how to drive it apparently. And he drives well enough to drive it down a narrow staircase. 60 flights. It’s incredible. He blazes down and you see Tifa jump into

Chris 26:24
the truck. They jump into the truck. It takes off club meets up with them. They kind of had this moment where they look at each other and they’re like, yeah, we’re doing we’re doing this Yeah, they drive to the window straight through the window. They burst out of the window of shinar building onto the highway just fucking take off.

Haney 26:41
so dumb. So good. I might watch that again later. Just that clip on YouTube. The mini game is you get like Hey, your cloud you’re gonna be on the motorcycle. Help protect your friends in the truck from Shinra guards who are going to be rushing you on other motorcycles you drive down this highway and you have to kind of keep pace with the truck and with the motorcycles from Shinra and kind of push them into guardrails knock them over a hit them just keep them away from the truck and it goes on way too long like just seem yeah this this mini game was probably like three four minutes which is forever when it’s like that break neck control the bike but the directional buttons and save your friends in the truck from the sugar prison troops okay attack on right switches hack on left Oh god. Foreign parties start game goodbye

Chris 27:29
it’s been a pleasure. There are so many fun little well, funds a strong word. There’s so many little mini games that are very unique. Yeah, that just break up the traditional gameplay.

Haney 27:43
This is fucking bizarre This is bonkers. Yeah.

Chris 27:47
This must have just destroyed people’s minds when they played it. I 97

Haney 27:51
I would I would cry. Like I would cry and scream witchcraft. Oh don’t make me do it from a different angle please I’m gonna fuck him.

Chris 27:58
No, I know this is a nightmare.

Haney 28:02
Oh god this is nauseating dude. Eventually it gets to the point where you kind of reach the end of the highway and you get like a pulled up drawbridge and traverse isn’t the word but you know the the like highway bridges that like go up and down but doesn’t really matter you kind of have like the the motorcycle on the truck kind of whip around and do that cool like Mad Max like you know 180 turn and you see a fuckin like big Shinra tank monster rolling down the highway right at you and it’s like away I’m gonna fucking murder you. Oh boy. Who’s that?

Chris 28:40
Who is this clown?

Haney 28:42
Who’s that? What’s his name? Please? Please Chris I can only take so many

Chris 28:47
screens to full lunch breaks Not too shabby I’m pretty

Haney 28:51
into it steam is so good It’s so good. I don’t want to fight this guy though. him named motor ball coming limit brakes gonna motor Baltic

Chris 29:07
Don’t talk to

Haney 29:08
me that it’s funny because we didn’t actually say anything gross but it just sounds off don’t

Chris 29:12
call the motorboat

Haney 29:14
we were in good shape got through it really quickly. And when when this defeated we kind of realized that no one is there. Not like no one else is coming and it’s kind of like well, now what? And we kind of as a group decide. probably time to leave mid guard which is wild. Mo What do we do now?

Chris 29:34
Sephiroth is live I have to settle the score.

Haney 29:37
What’s the score? Will that save the planet? Seems so then I’m going I’ll go to their things I need to know

Chris 29:44
about the ancients

Haney 29:46
many things I guess it’s goodbye mid guard. Oh, we’re leaving med Gar Oh shit. Fucking goodbye mid Gar switches over to a little like cut ish scene of You climbing down like a crane cable out of basically the edge of Midgar and you land in what looks like kinda like a desert floor. Don’t really know what yeah, this is like kind of crack yellow dirt. I’m going back to my hometown. I’ll go with you as far as that. I guess this is the start of our journey.

Chris 30:17
It’s dangerous. You sure you want to go? Huh?

Haney 30:20
But you know, it should be all right if you keep your promise we told Eric’s mom to go somewhere safe so Marlene should be safe to Yeah, she should be she said she didn’t want to stay in Midgar anymore maybe it’s for the best I didn’t know we could just like leave and go you know what this is the first time I’ve ever left mid guy. Really? Are you worried? A little No, maybe a lot but I have a bodyguard right? So good then let’s go Baron says I’m in like okay we can’t like all stay together there’s a town like heading north I think it is called calm with a K is like whatever happens to me that calm you got to figure out who’s going where so we talked to we got to choose a leader Yeah, yeah, we got to choose a leader to bear it’s like obviously it should be me read 13 says nothing because it’s like I don’t care. And then aerith like Evan seems like it should probably be

Chris 31:16
cloud opposite he was like Are you sure?

Haney 31:19
We need a leader for our journey course that can only be me.

Chris 31:23
You think so?

Haney 31:24
I think it should be cloud ready prepared to blow up all right. Go to a town called calm if something happens we’ll meet up their sides we can’t all be strolling around out there it’s too dangerous let’s split into two parties please make a party of three cannot really make

Chris 31:43
you get to start choosing your party

Haney 31:46
and oh my take the ladies cuz I think Barrett and read 13 need to work on their chemistry I thought you did that

Chris 31:58
this he said that regardless now if you keep in your party

Haney 32:03
later at calm on the world map access the menu anytime it’s like Save to save your game

Chris 32:09
and that is where we’re ending this episode. Oh

Haney 32:11
so good. Three things stuck out to me the most upon completing this Where the fuck is sefer off he left his sword and someone again second time we’ve seen him leave his sword and someone Where did he go? Did he take Genova? digenova take him like how did that whole thing play out? And also Where the fuck is her head? something stupid so dumb. Um, so that’s the questions you know i i do agree this was a very emotional turning point in the game like this is definitely like where you’re like cloud and bear have become friends at this point. Like you have a dedicated party like you’re getting like you have a purpose you have a mission like you have so much that needs to be done. You have the way to have Midgar and the world on your shoulders at this point. But like also there’s so many questions left to answer like still What the fuck is going on with cloud like Why does he go crazy when he’s next to these certain things? Like why can you hear voices in his head? What is Sephora doing what is Genova? Like what are the ancients like in relation to them like there’s just so many questions that need to be answered still so as excited as I was to like leave men guy and get to this point I’m so excited to keep to explore the world beyond mid guard because mid Guard has been this this kind of safe haven for like eight hours now right of the game so like it’s just it’s it’s everything’s different now. Like this is the point this is the moment like the bad guy has revealed himself like you like as cloud you like, this is the first time when you know that Sephora is the villain, you know that President general was never going to be the real villain like now there’s a new president, right? And he’s real scary. What happened to Hojo? Like there’s so much happening here. Did it wouldn’t honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Safra took Hojo and Genova with him. Like your mind now.

Chris 34:06
There’s, there’s so much and we can’t really go in too deep. But you mentioned bear and cloud kind of being bros at this point. It says so much to me, at this point that Barrett’s like, all pass leadership on to you like this is bigger than me. I know. It’s not just my fight anymore.

Haney 34:23
Barrett’s growth as a character has been my favorite so much because it’s been like such a limited amount of like for like three days like in in game time. Yep. But it’s so important to see Barrett like transition from just this guy who’s the head of an activist group to this is bigger than me This is bigger than my plan. Like he’s like, this is I know this is but he’s also justified now. Right? Like, yeah,

Chris 34:45
he was right all along. It’s for the plan. Yeah,

Haney 34:48
he was doing everything that he needed to be doing. It’s so

Chris 34:51
yeah, it’s perfect. Yeah. Do you know that Sephora is the main villain? No.

Haney 34:56
I mean, I feel like it feels like it’s a toss up between him And Rufus I feel like they’re maybe co been co opted for a while I doubt they’re going to get together because it’s quite clear that Sephora doesn’t approve of Shinra Corporation so yeah they’re going to I have a feeling like for a long time for a long while there’s probably gonna be a three way power struggle between our group avalanche you know we’re whatever we are now but like that’s my kind of amalgamation of harem is what I like to call very good the Shinra Corporation as it stands now kind of this is like Shinra to point out now

Chris 35:29
never go started seeing the next generation of shinar

Haney 35:31
yeah and then suffer often if Sephiroth has currently is puts up rothen Genova and whatever else follows Sephora we don’t really know that part yet which is gonna be pretty cool to find out if he’s an alone actor or not.

Chris 35:45
Oh my god. Yeah, so good. So so fucking good.

Haney 35:49
But with that, Chris Yeah, that’s

Chris 35:50
the end of this episode. But this is where everything opens up.

Haney 35:54
So excited.

Chris 35:55
I’m so pumped because the other thing is at this point, I know what you know about the game. It’s I can say for almost 100% certainty. It’s all new from here. Yeah, you have no

Haney 36:07
idea. Everything that we I’ve seen is in relation to Midgar. So good. Well, Chris, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to see you again in person listeners. Thank you so much for listening. It’s really good to be back here back playing again. And with that, we’ll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to the first encounter podcast. If you enjoy the show, it would help us out a lot if you just shared it with one other Final Fantasy seven level you now. If you want to subscribe follow us on social media again touch check us out on spill potion calm. Next time my first encounter Will play through the entirety of the flashbacks of nibble, Han and end up where we save income. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time.