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 it 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,

Chris 0:21
what happens is we get to the pillar and berries up at the top of the pillar right teef asks earth to find Marlene and take her out of sector seven and Tifa and cloud decide to go up the pillar and support there

Haney 0:34
we get to the top of the play embarrassed is fucking kicking ass because bear thumbin just machine gunning down Shinra soldiers

Chris 0:42
so a helicopter kind of flies by and Reno hops off it and he runs in sets of vomit the

Haney 0:48
pillar Yeah, the weak point.

Chris 0:51
The pillar starts exploding. They’re kind of running around and be like, what do we do? What do we do? And Barrett finds like a wire that he detaches from the pillar and you’ll climb up the top

Haney 1:01
Barrett and he zip lines down.

Chris 1:05
drops you off in the playground,

Haney 1:08
but it’s destroyed now the play actually did fall on sector seven. Walk into Elmira, his house. And she’s like oh, it’s about Eric that’s an it’s like yeah, we got bad news. And she’s like, I know she was taken from here.

Chris 1:21
Barry says you’re going after aerith aren’t you? And you’re like yeah,

Haney 1:24
he’s like I want to come I’m gonna help like this is you know, we’re all in this together now. Tifa also says something to the effect of you’re going after aerith like I’m coming with you.

Chris 1:35
So we get to the upper plate we see the Shinra building and and

Haney 1:38
you get a choice. You can either fucking bust in or you can find another way. Tifa seems to be more of a fan of sneaking quietly and now let’s press start.

podcast. God, I hate It’s so fucking much. Cool. There’s beer all over my thinking pop screen now.

Chris 2:09
I don’t know what you expected. Hey, man,

Haney 2:14
Hey, how’s it going, pal?

Chris 2:15
Good. Good. Everyone out there. Welcome back to the hit sequel to the popular Final Fantasy Crisis Core video game. Final Fantasy seven.

Haney 2:23
I just learned while we’re playing last week when we did our remote session, which Will be coming out your ear holes two weeks from two weeks before this episode. Well, that Crisis Core is a game that exists. What a weird way to get to that sentence. No. Okay, that’s what I did. I’m okay with who I am as a person. Cool. Excellent. Um, so Chris, let’s, before we get too far into this, we cracked open a cold beverage here. Can you tell the listeners what you’re drinking?

Chris 2:54
Drinking phase four quarters IPA?

Haney 2:57
How’s that for you?

Chris 2:58
It’s really good

Haney 3:00
for hoarders is awesome. My wife and I went to the Burlington brew fest which is down in the downtown area of Burlington Vermont and this one caught our eye because it had some very cool symbology on it so like everything was like kind of witchy some like a moon symbology grabbed two drinks for them grab phase which is the one we’re drinking. And then we grabbed another one Janice j A and us the the god named after the God and both were phenomenal. So we’ve been big fans ever since. And then recently we discovered that they’ve been canning and all of their canner is fucking beautiful so this one is a matte black can with the phases of the moon and silver in a spiral a lot of their other ones have like sky or star imagery so there’s one that has like an aurora borealis painted across it there’s one that has just like a really pretty like purple like bruised kind of sunset look real cool. Anyway Final Fantasy

Chris 3:53
holy shit we have so much to talk about this is probably going to be my favorite talk through to date just because of all the content that we pass through

Haney 4:03
so many contents. Hopefully Chris took way better notes because everything that happened was you say oh much

Chris 4:09
you say better notes like

Haney 4:10
you took any I mean better? no better than nothing. What I meant was better than you usually take your fucking playboy.

Chris 4:18
Well tell me Does this look better than I usually take kinda Yeah.

Alright. So last episode, before the bonus episode, last full episode, we left off climbing up to one of the top plates in hitting up Shinra headquarters. And we save right before we decided to either bust into the building and the front entrance or sneak around the backside. So that’s where we began the episode and we played through the Shinra building up to the point where you save just outside mudguards. Hey guys, sorry about that. Due to the length of this episode. We actually had to split it into two apart so we are going to be playing up to the point where we end up in prison anyway back to the show

Haney 5:08
so we needed to find a back entrance because as we were getting into it Chris was like yeah you really can just storm the front entrance I’m not going to tell you what happens but you can start the front entrance or you can find the back way and I was like well I don’t want to start the front entrance because that’s probably going to be a pain in the ass like mini dungeon class they’re trying to escape prison there’s a lot of stairs that there and Tifa just bolted up and now clouds chasing after them oh my god Are they really gonna make me do this? My thumb hurts already. You don’t even know oh my god. And I just catch up so let me keep going. Oh, this is so stupid. I hate this. Oh my god Chris No, no, I don’t know why with hell we got to climb

Chris 5:55
because we don’t want to start commotion until we’ve saved aerith if that’s possible

Haney 6:01
Why is there Why are you just laughing?

Chris 6:04
Knock it off you’re giving me the creeps

Haney 6:06
I love there’s so much he’s probably my favorite characters so far. The fucking stairs the the never ending Super Mario 64 staircase Oh my god, this is still happening. I’m going around so many stairs. How much further do stairs go on? Why don’t you ask them? It’s not one of them endless steroids or something? Is it? Of course not. Right couldn’t be that. Obviously it was annoying just to spiral around but we did get a lot of really good conversation in there. Particularly between Barrett and cloud. I think the thing that stuck out to me the most between Barrett and cloud in there was bear it’s kind of like hey, you know I think I’ve had you all wrong this whole time like you’re actually a really good guy and I think you’re trying to do the right thing and I just I was wrong about you and he just like straight up health club. Like, I thought you were a piece of shit. I take it back. I think you’re a pretty cool guy.

Chris 6:58
And you also get the interaction between Barry and Tifa Yeah, it’s like riffing back and forth

Haney 7:03
on him man I’ve had I’ve been going back I love Barrett so much take just as long to go down as it did to come back up parrot.dot.oh my god these staircases Come on, pull it together. Yeah, well I know as I’m only flesh and blood set for this arm of mine dumps me like IMAX wallet or something. What about me? I’m human too. But we made it through the staircase, which was fine. I guess. The dialogue was good. My thumb got tired after a while but we come out on 458 and we find a keycard to the 60th floor which gives us access to the 59th floor and the 16th floor

Chris 7:41
well you run out of the staircase and there’s some guards there who attack you you beat them up and they drop a keycard

Haney 7:46
sorry it was so beneath me it’s even notice that I had a fight that I plumbed forgot about it. I’m assuming I’m supposed to go have this interaction. Yeah. Oh no Chris Rana fight how it affected in this dungeon. Oh boy. What are those mighty grumps? I don’t remember if cross slasher braver is stronger. So we get the keycard to the 16th floor. I believe it’s the 16th floor. First floor I can take the elevator in my own floor 59 Okay, just testing Yeah,

Chris 8:23
still here. 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.

Haney 8:40
This was very reminiscent of in like awkward enough time or majority’s mask when you have to sneak past the guards and they whistle like in certain areas like Hey, what are you doing here and they’ll just like throw you out

Chris 8:52
it’s like that but if you got to kill the guards after they found you

Haney 8:55
did that perfectly on the first way through Chris was super impressed. I just went right across Not a single issue. Blue guards run around. clad you go ahead and signals safe to move on. Stay in the shadows. Those guards turn around move. Oh so do I have to dodge them?

Chris 9:14
We’re getting to fight you’re just sneaking across.

Haney 9:17
Oh boy. If I hide behind these statues, does that. Keep me hidden?

Chris 9:21
When they’re walking? They won’t notice you move.

Haney 9:25
Hey, what do you think you’re doing? Okay, fine. It was it was three times, but it’s still pretty good. I think I did actually pretty well. This is a really cool mechanic. I’ve never had to do anything like this before.

Chris 9:37
I’ve really I hate this. It’s a nightmare.

Haney 9:40
Oh, it’s absolutely nightmarish, but it’s very fun. Oh god no.

Chris 9:46
Wait for the guards to turn then press OK to signal your friend.

Haney 9:52
The fuck do I have to go all the way to the beginning? No.

Chris 9:55
Hey there. What do you think you’re doing a

Haney 9:58
biscuit. So we’ve made it across the 59th floor to the staircase to go up to the 16th floor I believe from there I just pop out of here before I go upstairs Yeah, cuz that guy I don’t remember seeing your face before you knew here. Say you’re cute let me teach you some things. Why is everyone still offensive?

Chris 10:18
What that stupid look off your face I was only going to teach you how to get to the next floor. 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. For example, keycard 60 only takes you to the 16th floor keycard 65 only takes you to the 65th floor. It’s a security system worthy of Shinra

Haney 10:45
Okay, so I found the key card 60 down below. So then it was mayor diamond annex. Yeah, there’s this library that has, you know, four sections, urban development, space program, military, and science. Each of those has several bookshelves in it and each bookshelf has roughly two kind of files you can look at that just have a static quote that doesn’t change. We kind of look through those real quick and then we went and talked to the mayor’s assistant mayor’s assistant was like, Oh, hey, like the mayor is just sitting in his office. Why don’t you go have a like a chat with him. This is the midcard mayor’s office Mayor Domino is in his office.

Chris 11:22
So if there’s any one thing I know about you, Henny 20 years that we’ve spent knowing each other it’s that you like riddles. I do love puzzles Will buckle in baby because we’re going for a ride

Haney 11:39
actually I’m married name only the city and everything in it is really run by Shinra Inc. My only real job is watching ever Shinra documents me the mayor a librarian Oh, you want to get upstairs? I’ll tell you why. If you can guess the password I’ll give you my key. Get it on the first try and I’ve been throwing a special item.

Chris 11:56
So what’s the password? Best King Forbes bomb Maiko? Whoa, Joe.

Haney 12:02
So we go in and the mayor is like, Oh yeah, Hey, what’s up all I’ll let you go up to the floor and give you a key card and a special item if you can guess the password on the first try. So at this point, we kind of walked around the library for a while didn’t understand anything I gave up went over to the the assistant paid him 500 gil to tell me something that Chris had already kind of hinted at, which was the library is the key to the password. kind of figure out this riddle. So I paid the 500 gil. Oh, what do you said? He said, the hints are hidden in these fucking libraries.

Chris 12:37
I can. No, we’re gonna get there. All right, buddy. You can pay me for another hint. If you want.

Haney 12:46
data on experimental animals living near mid guy. big thumbs up. That’d be like read 13 it’s an experimental animal. Remember that from the movie? Well, I remember that it was an animal like a talk. And that was weird as shit. Finally, Chris had to help because it was getting painful. And I didn’t want to guess because I wanted special items. But he was just like, dude, there’s a wrong file in every room. Now figure it out. So from there, we’re able to suss out that every wrong file had a number in it and if you counted that number in on the quote in the file, this is so fucking obtuse. I hate this puzzle. It’s so dumb. 1-234-567-8910 1112 1314 1516 17 so k i n i think we have it,

Chris 13:37
it could be king. It might be it could still be Maiko. But still, we still could be Maiko leaning toward Kim.

Haney 13:43
Yeah, how many guys fell with an eye?

Chris 13:45
There’s anything I’ve learned in middle school. It’s the alphabet. Yeah, it’s

Haney 13:49
King All right. Fine. Tight, tight tight tight tight tight tight. Oh this is garbage. I hated that. I hated that so much I’m so done with this. Give me your Give me my stuff. last item.

Chris 14:00
Enjoy your potion.

Haney 14:03
God I love the sound of that King president Shinra sucks I shouldn’t be Kingdom mid guard. Dude I’m voting for Mayor Domino Hell yeah, they’re

Chris 14:11
Domino 2021 Hey,

Haney 14:13
I got keycard 65 Yeah, boy. You never thought you’d get it on your first try. It just goes to show you can’t judge a book by its cover. Oh well promises a promise. Take this to a go up there and make him really suffer. Dude, Mayor Domino is tight. Yeah, he’s a shit. Holy shit. What a cool dude.

Chris 14:30
So this puzzle randomizes every playthrough that’s going to be a different answer each time.

Haney 14:35
Let me just bomb it a little bit here. Anyway, the puzzle was dumb. I guess long story short, figured out that the fucking password was king went back given the password. And he was like Shinra is an asshole or like yeah, okay, we Yeah, we’re with you, bro. And then he’s like, I’m gonna let you buy because like fuction wrote basically he’s like, why don’t you go out there and cause all sorts of trouble for him. And I was just like, hell yeah, man. Damn. No Let’s go

Chris 15:01
Mary Domino should be part of the party 100% 100% Railgun

Haney 15:06
the next floor that we remember is a gym floor these are probably out of order doesn’t really matter Let me tell you the important ones are in order Yeah, so the gym floor happened and there’s at some point we just saved and found a couple items and some lockers oh god Am I really doing this?

Chris 15:22
I mean I guess you are sure it looks like your brother brother. Why are you fucking kidding me?

Haney 15:34
Chris I got one Phoenix down which means that there could be other items You’re the one who was

Chris 15:40
doing it without taking steps you’re just checking the same one over and over

Haney 15:45
I received an ether I’ll have you brother

Chris 15:49
you’re just closed standing there fucking opening the same door and shutting it over

Haney 15:56
let me What is this a megaphone hang on to this won’t do any good fun it just fun that literally just fun Don’t worry about it. So there’s a key item there handy Remember that? I was at the gym? Yeah, okay cool. This guy in a suit doing fucking chest press?

Chris 16:17
Excuse me those are clearly flies.

Haney 16:19
Oh, God God they are flies. There was a megaphone in one of the lockers and I want to keep track of that. And I’m putting it in this I’m asking Chris not to cut this part because when I go back and listen to the podcast episodes, I want to keep reminding myself there’s a couple things I’ve taken note of I want to keep track of Johnny I want to keep track of the sick guy with a two tattoo and the two in Sector five and I want to keep track of this megaphone Now I know that this is going to come in I just might even all be the same side quests but this is all definitely side quest shit that I want to keep track of

Chris 16:51
if you get Johnny and M guide together with the megaphone.

Haney 16:55
Watch out Voltron that’s how you get the last metiria Yeah, tweet at us listeners remind Henny next up we I think the next important for we hit is the specimen for the door room Oh the doors right so there’s we get to a floor where there’s like fucked up playing little maze that someone’s set up that’s just a bunch of doors and a computer that’s like thinking you have three tries to get through the doors he’s been verifying keycard level be employed verified you’re meant to open doors on the floor up to three times. Warning do not enter the air conditioning ducts that are very dangerous. So definitely going to need to enter the air conditioning ducts. Can I

Chris 17:38
turn you can turn it just a little weird.

Haney 17:43
Please kill me

Chris 17:47
in the cloud never left events again

Haney 17:49
kill the baby. took a couple tries it wasn’t that bad though. I think four tries and we got it out of this. Alright, and then what else do

Chris 17:58
I mean? celestron

Haney 18:00
bucked up Alright, so it can’t be this because 123 and then you’re blocked from that one. Yeah, then you’re stuck in that I can do 123 get in there and then I’m in the air ducts so I can get in there and then drop into this room from the air duct as well.

Chris 18:17
But then you won’t be able to get to the third room over there. I haven’t thought of this before but I’m going to assume from this point on that it’s Mary Domino doing all these floors.

Haney 18:28
I would love to think that at some point in time Mary Davina deactivated the elevator between the floor below this and the floor above it so that everyone had to get off the floor below it. Fuck their way through his maze and then get on the elevator on the next floor.

Chris 18:42
Just these shinar employees

Haney 18:45
can you imagine president this floor stuff is after the air ducks. Oh fuck he’s dead now. Anyway,

Chris 18:54
spoilers. Christ. Order. Order.

Haney 19:01
Chaos. Oh, holy shit. There’s so much to talk about there. What was after the Dora

Chris 19:07
the puzzle of Midgar Oh,

Haney 19:10
that was so dumb. Oh, is that a mini map of Midgar?

Chris 19:15
Heck yeah, boy.

Haney 19:16
That’s cool. Yeah, it’s fine. Such a douche locked. locked. locked. blocks. locked. Oh, yes. Saw caterpillars. That’s terrible. Southern pillars buzz. I lost it next bus bus boys bus boys, roughly.

Chris 19:44
So there’s a middle room with a giant replica of mittagong. Yeah, it’s missing a bunch of pieces from each of its segments

Haney 19:51
and all around it are smaller rooms that have locked trunks in them except one that has mid guard puzzle piece. Basically number one in it. You grab money. Got a 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 Am I gonna have to do this every fucking oh my god sounds like something opened up this was fun for a second now I’m already over it now. I mean that’s fine. Oh they just throw those fucking sub x in here to be like a little bit more cheap Oh is that a pig Jeannie?

Chris 20:26
robot pig Genie with a

Haney 20:29
cure on it. so dumb. The worst part about this room though is it’s the first room that has random encounters in it. So you can blow by this puzzle in like 20 seconds if it wasn’t for random encounters, but you know why they’re there. Oh, I get why they’re there. It doesn’t make it any less frustrating that they’re there. No, it’s but that was a floor. Fuck that floor. What’s next? conference room? right? Correct. So there’s a couple of offices as well as a bathroom and a large conference room on this floor. It’s just me I just the conference rooms now. There’s some sort of stench coming from somewhere. Sorry. I pooped. What’s your problem? Hey, when your bathrooms Do you ever hear whispers coming from somewhere?

Chris 21:12
Fucking Moaning Myrtle won’t stand her side. But

Haney 21:15
I’m assuming that these are references to bits you can find them the game but good god,

Chris 21:19
that was a reference to Harry Potter. Oh,

Haney 21:21
no. I heard I heard Moaning Myrtle I was talking about his references.

Chris 21:24
I wasn’t okay, pay more attention to me.

Haney 21:27
Oh, now this game I’m trying to play. A couple of people started talking about how the smell how when you’re in the conference room. You can smell something bad.

Chris 21:36
You can smell the toilet on that floor. Yeah, just anywhere. Yeah,

Haney 21:40
because executive suite y’all know how it is right? So we walk over to the toilet and we’re like, let’s see what’s going on here. You walk into the sun and you have three options flush climb up nevermind Those are things you know that’s that’s exactly how a toilet should work. Same with my toilet. I mean, yeah, I flush I climb up or I never mind. So I didn’t flush cuz I never flush. But I did climb up. 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.

Chris 22:18
You could have flushed it first. Now Now if you slip, I leave my

Haney 22:23
dukey in there. Oh shit. So now I can listen in on the fuckin Oh boy. I’m so wet.

Chris 22:29
We have the damage estimates for sector seven. considering those factories we already set up in all the investments the damage is estimated at approximately 10 billion Gil oh good

Haney 22:39
God, but so much money. The estimated cost to rebuild sector seven is

Chris 22:45
we’re not rebuilding what we’re leaving sector seven as it is and restarting the Neo Midgar plan. Then the ancients the promised land Will soon be ours. Want you to raise the mayco rates 15% in every area.

Haney 22:58
rate hike, rate hike tralala and please include our space program in the budget to Palmer is the head of the space program I see. Alright, so this is Heidegger. reef? President Shinra Palmer. Yep. And then there’s a woman here that we haven’t heard from yet either. Scarlet. I’m assuming

Chris 23:15
Raven, Scarlet Will divide the extra income from the rate increase.

Haney 23:19
Sir, if you raise the rates, the people Will lose confidence. It’ll be alright.

Chris 23:23
The ignorant citizens Will lose confidence they’ll trust shinar even more.

Haney 23:29
After all, we’re the ones who save sector seven from avalanche.

Unknown Speaker 23:33
That dirty expletive

Haney 23:39
was this bad boy? Whoa, Joe,

Chris 23:41
how’s the girl

Haney 23:42
as a specimen, she is inferior to her mother. I’m still in the process of comparing her to her mother. 1000 but for now, the difference is 18%

Chris 23:52
How long Will the research take?

Haney 23:55
Probably 120 years it’s probably impossible to finish in our lifetime or in the lifetime of the specimen to for that matter. That’s where we’re thinking of breeding her Oh god.

Chris 24:08
So we got president Shinra we got Scarlet Scott

Haney 24:12
to his left to her left would be Reeves. prosom Reeves is Heidegger and then to Heidegger’s left is Palmer so Reeves is making a case for rebuilding sector seven he’s like to rebuild it Will need X amount of this this this and this insurance is just like we’re not rebuilding sector seven and reverses Like what? and Sharon has like let me clarify for you. We are not rebuilding sector. Seven and Reeves is like a K Why? And she 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 factor of seven if we’re trying to make me a mid Gar. So now that they have the specimen, we I think aerith is the specimen that he’s talking about Hojo comes in talks a little bit about aerith. And Hojo gives a little bit of data about how in order for them to like, segment out the genetics that they need from her, it’s gonna take 120 years, but she’s obviously not going to live that long. So they need to breed her, which is fucking gross, dude. Shannon is basically just like, whatever Give me the promised land like I need the promised land. What about the promised land? And Whoa, guys, like, I’ll get you. I’ll get you the promised land. I need to get back to my specimens now and leaves without ever sitting down.

Chris 25:34
That concludes our meeting. Meeting. Something stinks.

Haney 25:39
Oh, they can smell the toilet from the conference room. They’re talking about aerith. Right?

Chris 25:45
They’re talking about aerith. Right.

Haney 25:48
There. We’re talking about Eric Right there. We’re

Chris 25:51
talking about aerith right.

Haney 25:53
Hey, Brad, were you talking about talking about areas right? Probably. Let’s follow along.

Chris 26:04
We have fun What a

Haney 26:05
treat. So if I have flushed first would they would she?

Chris 26:10
Also I’ve never flushed though so

Haney 26:13
are we still talking about the game or?

Chris 26:15
Yeah, sure, man. Yeah, man. Yeah, whatever. We hop out of the vent, and we see Hojo

Haney 26:22
walk going up the stairs? Yeah, he’s going up to 469 I think Yeah, point or it’s no it’s lower than that. It doesn’t really matter. Yeah.

Chris 26:30
So we see him we hide around the corner and then we kind of trail him figure out where he’s going.

Haney 26:35
He goes up to what is very clearly his lab. Oh, Joe. Joe Joe. Joe fucking awful. Let’s see the specimen. Whoa, Joe asked me for his Yes. Tell me this area right here is the specimen. That’s what I thought. Whoa, oh, what? Does that read 13 hides hair sticking out from behind this box.

Chris 27:02
There’s this today’s specimen.

Haney 27:04
Yes, we’re starting right away, raise it to the upper level. We see Hojo kind of talking to an assistant about the specimen, the specimen being read 13 and then we see read 13 kind of be shot up issue and Hojo goes up to the next floor teeth embera are talking and I don’t think it doesn’t matter what they’re saying really, but cloud kind of turns to this, this tank and then he just says dot dot dot Genova dot dot dot and my fucking alarm bells went wild because I know this name I don’t remember why I know this name, but I know this name and I know Chris has a fucking tattoo of it on his arm. But I don’t know what the connection is to any of this but I know that Genova is kind of the central point of the plot of Final Fantasy seven. What’s cloud doing? Genova I know that name What the actual fuck is that? Does that a titty Jenna was not good. I don’t think I should be near Genova. Oh no. I’d be strong Genova suffer offs, so they brought it here seperates What did you see it see what smoothing still alive where’s it fucking head this whole thing stupid Let’s keep going. Can I not look at it again. Let me look it’s no more credits I can’t I know why. You get a vision as you look into the tank that’s kind of obscured by a heartbeat so every time you hear this heartbeat noise the vision kind of like blurred a little bit or like pulses and you see a woman’s chest that has had this woman in quote unquote Yeah, it’s it’s it seems to be a film female form and then cloud loses his fucking mind. So you hear that high pitch whine again, that always signifies that cloud is having a real bad time to him. And he drops down to his knees grabs his head and he says something like Genova sefer ops apostrophe F which stuck out to me so separate off something so he’s like losing his mind Barrett and Tifa run over like oh my god are you okay? What’s going on? What’s wrong? and clouds like look in the tank Barrett looks in the tank and it’s like Where the fuck is its head?

Chris 29:36
This is all stupid.

Haney 29:38
Stupid. bug is a tad My guess would be that Genova is an ancient at this point. Because they I think they need a live specimen, which is why they’re looking at aerith and I don’t know that to Nova is still alive. So I think that Genova might be an like an old specimen of ancient that is like being preserved for study but they need aerith to like kind of complete that study.

Chris 30:03
So you think Earth Engine over like,

Haney 30:06
I can see them being related. Okay, yeah. And I feel like they’ve mentioned Sephiroth is an ancient in this I think later on Rufus as a Sephiroth might be related to Genova as well. And this is one of those things where I’m remembering Advent Children and I literally remember so little that movie, but I remember three dudes looking for mother could be Genova if they were also agents, that’s just something I remember. And that separates Apostrophe S could be like oh, Genova. sepher Ox mother, and like, that’s what cloud remembers. But it’s really interesting because cloud doesn’t seem to have a clear memory of anything to do with Sephora. It’s all shrouded very shrouded Yeah. So we kind of have to leave this this tank at this point to go up to the next level. Oh, shit area. Area. That’s your name? Where are you?

Chris 31:02
We’re taking aerith back outside. I should have noticed earlier. Yeah.

Haney 31:07
Are you going to kill me? I don’t think you should. The equipment here is extremely delicate with without me who could operate it. Bringing this specimen to just gonna block aerith in a room with read 13 and

Chris 31:21
see what happens. Have you ever silenced before bro?

Haney 31:24
I have both definitely read 13 right. I was just being stupid. Oh god, he’s actually just locking aerith in a room with red 13 and see what’s happening cloud help me see Hojo in front of a larger tank with aerith in it. And he’s raising red 13 into the tank and he’s like, let’s see what happens he’s basically saying like, both of these species are almost extinct. Let’s just throw them into a fucking tank together and see what happens. I’m gonna save them both and I was like, that seems like a really good way for one of them.

Chris 31:55
That’s how you reproduce species. Uh, yeah, for sure separate species.

Haney 32:00
So they go in read 13 kind of starts growling and looking like he’s gonna fight aerith and then you run out with Barrett bears like fuck this. I’m going to shoot this thing. He starts shooting that then there’s a big flap so you can see what’s going on in the tank while he’s shooting. When the flash clears, you see aerith on the ground and then the door opens and red 13 comes out and just starts a mauling fucking Hojo which is tight if I didn’t help Oh, these animals Will disappear.

Chris 32:28
Animal That’s terrible. aerith is a human being you’re gonna pay very can’t do anything.

Haney 32:35
All right, step back. Stop.

Chris 32:39
Classic Barrett.

Haney 32:41
What do you do? Oh, my precious specimens. leans in because he’s interested.

Chris 32:49
Now’s our chance to get air is read 13

Haney 32:51
eating Hojo at that point, as Oh, just like raw, bleeding out, read their tins, like turns around and starts talking to you and he’s like, I’m very prim and proper. I imagine that he has a British accent. To talk Cheerio pap

Chris 33:11
cloud runs into the enclosure to check on earth and while he’s in there it starts lighting up again. Right and oh Joe’s like this specimen is much more ferocious.

Unknown Speaker 33:23
Oh good ticks.

Chris 33:24
My favorite animal they’re all great music

Haney 33:28
is really good.

Chris 33:30
Yeah. Boss Music Man. So when they’re green they’re poisoned. Yep.

Haney 33:36
Okay. Random Encounter or is this a boss?

Chris 33:41
Is this his boss music I said it’s boss music when you said this is good music Oh how did you finish those puzzles we got through

Haney 33:50
this monstrosity here that’s the actual boss The thing I haven’t attacked at all so then we ended up beating the boss that was not that bad I can tell you’re concentrating when you’re not talking sorry No no, this is actually a way harder fight than I thought it was going to be. Now read 13 is really addressing this at this point. And he’s like Hey, sorry about that. Like I was just acting to distract koja like I’m a cool dude to like I just want to not be here. Yeah, like Yeah, same at that point. You guys make the plan to like figure out how to get out of here. Everyone’s gonna go downstairs and meet on for 60 seconds but split up into two parties because five people moving through this place is too suspicious. So we think first take control of cloud read 13 and

Chris 34:38
earth yeah the rest of them just Peace out. Yeah, like find the exit on your own. Yeah, so you go downstairs your meeting at the elevator you’ve run into the elevator club smashes that button. As you as you do our like button subscribe, rate us on iTunes. five star review. Oh Good stuff so clode hits elevator button and new character that you haven’t seen walks in it’s got sunglasses he’s a Turk

Haney 35:08
yeah so while we’re out there crude is like hey, hit the up button for me and clouds like ah shit is this a trap Turks buck and then sayings like hey do you enjoy your time here that must have been a blast it’s like la scout we’re going upstairs fuckin saying classic thing we ride the elevator up and we’re kind of pushed into shinners office in there we noticed that we see Barrett but no era so they got aerith again yeah good god

Chris 35:41
she’s the last surviving ancient Don’t you know they called themselves the cetera and lived 1000s of years ago. Oh, this is that good. Good exposition Chris. Now they’re just a forgotten page in history. Okay, so they

Haney 35:53
are slightly different from humans but like still kinda cetera that girl is the survivor of the cetera

Chris 36:00
cetera or the ancients Will show us the way to the promised land. I’m expecting a lot out of her.

Haney 36:06
The Promised Land. Isn’t that just a legend?

Chris 36:09
Even so it is far too appealing not to pursue. It’s been said that the promised land is very fertile. Sam just like me.

Haney 36:20
I hate that we went there.

Chris 36:21
If the land is fertile, then there’s got to be Maiko. Oh, wait, that was barren? Yeah. No, there’s got to be makeup. ViSalus know. Exactly. That is where new Omidyar Will be built. shinners new glory.

Haney 36:34
Buck. Quit dreaming.

Chris 36:38
Oh, really? Don’t you know these days, all it takes for your dreams to come true is money and power of God. So if you want to sponsor us on Patreon, you can find us

Haney 36:49
we don’t have a Patreon.

Chris 36:53
Shintaro is basically like aerith 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 37:06
Yeah, and we talked about it more in jail, which is where we go next. 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 lover you know, if you want to subscribe, follow us on social media again. Check us out on spill potion calm.

Chris 37:26
Next time on first encounter we’re going to be playing up to the point where we saved the game right outside the city of Midgar. Thanks for listening.