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. Today we started off with us going through the act of actually falling and listening to the exchange that happened seemingly in clouds mind and with Eric as he falls kind of escaped through the church have a good time. Have a few minutes on the roof just to catch our breath and then we run off through kind of a junkyard.

Chris 0:43
Earth says Oh, that was the same rank as my first boyfriend. Her first

Haney 0:46
boyfriend had Maiko eyes because he was part of the soldier program. We kind of get the gesture that teeth has probably been taken as one of three girls chosen daily to visit the DOD. This kicks off a brilliant idea by aerith which is Hey, cloud. What if you look like a lady then you could get in? and clouds like no air? It’s like, Come on. Don’t you want to save Tifa Oh, the cheapest undercover Yeah. Oh, thank god yeah. Um, we get some exposition from Don cornea at this point about what’s happening. Basically we find out that Heidegger of Shinra has a plan to weaken the supports over sector seven, because they’ve discovered that the avalanche hideout is located somewhere in Sector seven, but they don’t know exactly where. So they figure Hey, well, we can support them the plate and just let the plate drop onto sector seven. The fuck? And now let’s press start.

Chris 2:00
Welcome to the first encounter podcast in audio experience coming out your ears.

Haney 2:07
This is now an ASMR podcast.

Chris 2:09
Was everyone doing out there?

Haney 2:10
Do you know what ASMR means?

Chris 2:12
No, I don’t mean either.

Haney 2:14
I know what it is like I’ve seen it and like listen to it. But I don’t actually know what it’s saying. I’ve never looked it

Chris 2:19
up. This is really good, by the way.

Haney 2:21
Yeah. So hey, what’s your drinking?

Chris 2:23
You give it to me.

Haney 2:25
I wasn’t looking at the label. This is the Fred red ale from upper pass beer company made right here in Vermont. This is described as an easy drinking red ale hopped with Centennial and shinnok Fred’s reds is brewed with a blend of darker malts that meet in the middle of the road to create perfect balance. Fun fact this was created in tribute to a late dairy farmer who was a very popular well known figure in Vermont. named Fred and this is his likeness on the cam

Chris 2:54
so jolly looking fella but why don’t we talk about some final fantasy?

Haney 3:01
What’s that?

The look on your face was so good that I spit on your face now Okay, so we play Final Fantasy today Yeah.

Chris 3:14
Last time previously we left where did we leave off last time it was

Haney 3:18
after we found out that they were going to drop the plate oh we’ve made it to the train review yep finger so

Chris 3:23
last time we talked to Don Cornell or our favorite sponsor this podcast. Special hero Special thanks to Don cornea.

Haney 3:33
Like Don horny

Chris 3:34
oh my god Shut the fuck

Haney 3:35
up. How much would you pay me to get a dime cornea tattoo

Chris 3:40
a whole lot.

Haney 3:44
I literally cannot bring myself to do that because he is an absolute scumbag. But holy shit like Alright, we’re gonna go off on a little tangent here real quick.

Chris 3:53
Take me away.

Haney 3:54
What would your first impression be if you walked up to someone Santa’s convention? You know like so a place where you’re expecting to see like a ton of nerdy tattoos like I don’t know like whenever I go to a convention I only see like master saris try forces you know, Pokeballs pika cheese as tattoos. Sure. Not that I can say much I’m fuckin hunter tattooed on my leg and the shy guy and I just got the holder tattoo as well. So, but back to my original tangent. What do you think of walking up to a person and just see no big old dog Cornejo tattooed right on their forearm like full colored it’s a good tattoo let’s just say it’s a really well

Chris 4:28
executed yeah a man I probably be

Haney 4:32
would you interact would you approach to ta cuz he might approach you he cuz you know what? You’re watching you’re wearing a T shirt you’ve got to Nova and you’re

Chris 4:41
assuming I don’t have this you know what I would probably do is I approach him and be like you know cool tattoo who’s who’s this guy? Oh, we can have him like explore you know described on cornea today. And then depending on how he goes around that that’s what would influence my reaction

Haney 4:55
that is hilarious because that’s one of my favorite things to do to like super people that I think are pieces of Like I’ve had people tell me like really offensive jokes before and I’ll just say oh I don’t I don’t get it can you like walk me through it and like if especially if it’s like a racist joke like oh it’s because any like, yeah okay um, I don’t that’s not funny and it’s really funny to watch people break that way so anyway Final Fantasy

Chris 5:16
Final Fantasy seven I was gonna ask you how you felt about this run through compared to the last one with Walmart get

Haney 5:21
the vibe is so much different like going from Walmart and Don Coronel and like all that like that elicited such a strong reaction from me that it was really hard for me to just suddenly pivot to like pure plotline story Yeah, um sugar fucking sucks you’re This is like the first read like we’ve seen like the Turks not being great and like should president Shinra was like oh like fuck you guys like fall off the cliff. He could have just been you know one person that was bad. Then we get into the scene of him with some of his governors talking about dropping the plate heiniger and Reeves and just not having remorse about committing a domestic terrorist act and then blaming it on avalanche oh god they just suck and like Ah, I’m gonna get I guess I felt stronger about this than I thought like oh now that we’re talking about digging up but yeah Shinra sucks. I have a feeling like Sephora is going to be that over the top evil when we get there I assume I don’t know but I assume he’s going to be that over the top comical you’re never going to meet someone like this kind of comical is probably not the right word. But you know like just just too much. Yeah, President Shinra he could be the fucking president of your company that you work for a super believable super good villain. Um, I wish I remembered more about Advent Children but I’m also glad I don’t remember more about Advent Children because I want to know more about the Turks in particular because they seem like they’re going to be the dirtiest of the dirty like task masters right like yeah, like I can thinking excellent. God dammit What’s his name?

Chris 6:53
Let’s just run with it

Haney 6:54
axle axle so axle is just but Reno, Reno Thank you Good god. I remember him not being like a true villain and adventure children. I’m just curious to see kind of like if they have a turnaround because they don’t seem unredeemable but like the way they’re described is like they come in some very gnarly tasks for chinar like thing so saying, you know, yeah, he’s kidnapping aerith he’s probably redeemable I don’t know that but he is I really want to learn more about the Turks Yeah, but I do think presidential is an absolute piece of shit I’m hoping that he something happens and like either he feels remorse or he just dies in the most brutal way possible I don’t feel like it’s going to be something like where we get to kill him is probably going to be suffering if he dies because I know like I do know vaguely that there’s like that stuff for us not really part of soldier anymore either are part of the Shinra organization and I feel like there’s kind of a dual villain MRI going on like against cloud like cloud and avalanches the good people still terrorists but you know they’re they’re doing things for the greater good, which you know, all that comes with. But I think there’s it’s like cloud versus Shinra and then it’s going to turn out to be Oh no, Shinra is not good, but separate lots of words somehow. Don’t really know why or how that would be. We’ll get there hopefully soon. It’s not going to be anytime soon.

Chris 8:15
We’ll get there.

Haney 8:16
We’ll get there with us.

Chris 8:18
Let’s start getting into the episode so we left off in the train graveyard. horrifying. Yeah, it’s real quick.

Haney 8:26
I want to stop and talk to you for a second about something Chris,

Chris 8:28
let’s get real.

Haney 8:29
Let’s wrap up.

Chris 8:30
Let’s wrap about this.

Haney 8:32
What do you think has to happen in a train yard for one train to be on top of two other trains in the manner that it is I think that’s just where

Chris 8:42
they dock

Haney 8:42
i i don’t know that you know much about trains and I don’t think that this is how chains work and what are those moles of mandibles they look like bunnies with? mandibles? Yeah,

Chris 8:58
I thought those were horns until I saw the serrations Yeah, that’s real awful. Oh, wow. What is that?

Haney 9:04
I don’t know. It’s even worse from the front.

Chris 9:06
That is a nightmare. It’s a mammal insect. mammal

Haney 9:10
insect is probably the worst thing you’ve ever said.

Chris 9:12
I’m sure it is not. So what happens is we get to the pillar there’s a couple of people at the base in berries up at the top of the pillar right chief asks earth to find Marlene and take her out of sector seven and teefin Cloud decide to go up the pillar and support air.

Unknown Speaker 9:29
We made it the pillars still standing. Wait,

Haney 9:32
here’s something above us. Like gunfire is the gunfire avalanche fighting back against guards or guards just shooting out the pillar?

Chris 9:39
Well, you recognize that guy up there now that’s buried at the top.

Unknown Speaker 9:46
Oh yeah, okay. Oh, because that’s what oh, is wedge Okay. Oh wedge. No.

Haney 9:55
I gotta go commits a murder. Is wedge dead.

Chris 9:58
Yeah, as As we know at this point, Wow, that’s

Haney 10:02
really upsetting.

Chris 10:02
Yeah, so why do we see him fall off the pillar?

Haney 10:06
I have more emotion than I expected. Like I’m kind of like tearing up a little bit right now. I hate you. I want you to know for making me play this game. It’s so good. I was like then dude. And then I think we continue up the pillar a little bit Jesse’s kind of like injured and I think she said something like cloud came like we need your help and everything like berets up at the top. I think we run into bigs at some point too, and they’re basically just the members, the known members of avalanche are there. So then we continue up. We get to the top of the play, embarrass this fucking kicking ass because bear is the man just machine gunning down Shinra soldiers and we decided to join in with him. And we see Reno helicopter again goddamnit Who’s that? Oh, Reno son of a bitch. I thought of terrorism I read knowing get in the way of Reno in the Turks. I want to see Reno’s actual design. Oh, he’s cool. We’re trying to steal shit from though because he probably has cool stuff to steal.

Chris 11:09
But so a helicopter kind of flies by and Reno hops off it. And he runs in sense of vomit the

Haney 11:15
pillar. Yeah, the weak point we presumed. And he says something along the lines that don’t fuck up with the bomb, because as soon as you try to tamper with it, it’s gonna go kick his ass. Like the blue piece of shit. He is. Yeah. I remember one thing from when we played that that stuck out to me was you say, Hey, remember why you asked why you would need to attack yourself. That’s why Yeah, like literally that triangle is why Yeah. Um, so that was fun. That wasn’t that hard of a boss battle? No, it was it was fine. Like, I think I managed my way through it fairly well, and I’m not good at video games. So there’s that. Um, so after we defeat Rino, he kind of runs down the pillar. Yeah. And that’s when saying a helicopter flipped up to the platform. And he’s like, hey, fuckers.

Chris 11:59
That’s so saying.

Haney 12:00
So saying, Hey, I don’t actually remember what he said. But it’s something along the lines of Hey, look, here’s anything Gary up in here. saying he shows up with an unfortunate prisoner. Saying, that’s right. You’ll have a hard time disarming that one elbow second, some stupid jerk touches it. Burn cloud. Only a Shinra exec can set up for disarm the emergency plate release system. Shut your home.

Chris 12:42
I agree with klasik Barrett. I agree with Barrett.

Haney 12:45
That’s up there though. Yeah, you might just make me enjoy a special guest. Oh, you know each other. How nice. You can see each other one last time. You should thank me. He’s kind of glugs a little bit about us. And he calls her the last Angel on the last remaining he the last remaining ancient. last remaining ancient. One of that. There’s more of that good, good exposition, sweet,

Chris 13:11
sweet exposition

Haney 13:13
taken us a long time. And now I can finally report this to the President. So she’s the last ancient, which means that they’ve captured all the other agents or killed them. Or she’s the last of a line of age. So

Chris 13:26
we hear a shout so she say yep,

Haney 13:30
she’s safe, presumably about Marlene, which is really good to hear. Because it’s the only time I have felt that maybe Marlene is actually safe. And that’s when there’s an actual like war going on.

Chris 13:44
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 Barrett

Unknown Speaker 13:55
and his zip lines is down. Oh shit. Set the plate once that plate says coming down it’ll be too late. We gotta hurry. What’s up Barry? suffer anyway. Great What are you doing? Yo we can use this wire to get out of underwriting Barrett.

Haney 14:18
My favorite thing that’s ever happened yeah.

Chris 14:24
Oh fuck. Oh my god. Yep. Holy God.

Haney 14:47
I’m not gonna lie. I just assumed everything would be okay and we stopped the plate from falling.

Chris 14:53
dropped you off in the playground,

Haney 14:57
but it’s destroyed now that the plate actually did fall off. After seven the playground that we initially were having a semi romantic and very good moment with air athon a couple of episodes ago is now completely demolished very different kind of vibe like before it was very safe and comfortable. Like it’s very symbolic to me to have a place that’s so innocent like a playground like it just symbolizes childhood to suddenly be shattered because it just means like this is an end to like the nice part like now this is more this is evil This is bad shit happening. Not that it wasn’t before like I mean they describe everything as the slums like everyone’s down on their luck but like it seemed at least this place was safe and now even this like safe place is destroyed and has been besmirched by by Shinra

Chris 15:47
This is also kind of the first instance we’ll get to this a little more but that cloud kind of pivots from like I’m hired for a job whatever I’ll make some money and tell about these guys because you’ve asked me to to I’m in this now

Haney 16:00
Yeah, he definitely seems to be pissed off that aerith either as a friend or a romantic interest is taken regardless you know it doesn’t really matter like why you love someone if they’re fucked with you want to defend them you want to help like I get that like doesn’t matter if it’s my wife or my friends or whatever like I just if someone gets messed with I would want to help out to as much as I can so I really like seeing that side of cloud that more human aspect I think we talked about that human aspect a little bit later as well. Yeah. And so we have a little bit of a conversation with Barrett bear is obviously extremely distraught shit I sorry I’m just very shocked I have like no fucking Yeah, I have no commentary nothing witty to say I’m just very upset right now. I actually want to distraction Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 16:53
Oh, shit, bear. Really?

Haney 16:55
No.

Unknown Speaker 16:58
No, everyone got out right? Oh my god. No.

Haney 17:03
At this point, Jesse Biggs wedge Marlene are presumably dead as well as the unfortunate residents of sector seven which is absolutely terrible because they already had a fucking terrible life because of Shinra

Chris 17:14
Yeah, during the cutscene there you can see people like running around panicking you get a shot of a cameraman who’s kind of talking on the news as

Haney 17:23
I forgot about that. Yeah. Shinra sucks. Yeah,

Chris 17:26
they’re not great.

Haney 17:27
real bad. Um, one of the things we haven’t got to yet but was part of the plan was to pin this on avalanche. I’m really not looking forward to that. I Oh, I hate it so much, just like ah,

Chris 17:38
Barrett’s freaking out he’s the point of it all like what am I doing this for? Essentially see

Haney 17:43
if I kind of just kind of grabs his attention. She’s like, wait, wait, like Erin said she’s okay. Like that was her last word. She must have been talking about Marlene like, there’s still hope. Yeah.

Chris 17:52
So after Barrett kind of calms down a little bit. gif is like is this our fault? And Barrett’s like hell no, it’s Shinra like this is all shinners doing and I’m not going to stop fighting in Are you with a cloud and cloud doesn’t really say anything and kind of wanders off biocell right. And he gets this flash in a voice in his head again saying in my blood courses the blood of the ancients I’m the rightful heir to the planet

Haney 18:16
it’s got to be Sephora oh shit in my veins courses the blood of the ancients I am one of the rightful heirs to this planet that’s got to be Safir off that’s a bad cuz he just said Sephora. But also that’s got to be Sephora.

Chris 18:36
It’s very Sephiroth of him. of the very

Haney 18:39
little I know about Sephora just screams he had that entitlement. Scream Sephora.

Chris 18:45
It was triggered by the ancient Yeah, title that Ray was called out

Haney 18:50
on that flash. Sephora has always been this character that’s fascinated me even though I didn’t interact The Final Fantasies aside from adventures and Kingdom Hearts. I mean he’s badass and those things anyway like he’s I’ve never heard anyone complain actually about him in Adventureland and Kingdom Hearts because it seems like he was pretty on brand for, for what he is. I don’t remember him being actually a major part of Advent Children until the very end like he was obviously the focus but not actually physically in it. Right, which is very interesting, because playing the game up to this point, he’s been the focus in terms of storyline, but he’s not in it yet. Like he’s not there. He’s not present. We haven’t seen him. I you know, if I didn’t know what he looked like from this game coming out 23 whatever years ago, I wouldn’t know what he looked like, I wouldn’t know anything about him. Aside from that he was a hero who puts the soldier program as well. So like all of these little pieces, I just I hook onto them so hard because it’s so exciting to like, get that exposition about Safra Roth and learn more about what he is like this blood of the ancients like flowing through my veins like I’m the heir to the planet kind of shit like that just reeks of the kind of like entitlement that a main villain has and The overarching feel of that statement I am the heir to the planet is so much different than like president Shinra is definitely like a character motivated purely by greed. He’s a very stereotypical, like, bad guy in a movie kind of like I’m the CEO I’m president. Have you seen the lego movie? I feel like we’ve talked about this before I still haven’t seen it really needs to watch it. The villain is a guy named president business. It’s silly right? But like you totally get what the guy’s about right? Yeah, he’s that kind of guy that like very stereotypical thing. He doesn’t have the same entitlement to a planet that a real villain has right? He has an entitlement to money he has an entitlement to people’s lives. It’s not the same thing like president Shinra isn’t going to be the kind of guy who’s like the ancient blood through my blood I am the heir to this planet. He’s the guy who’s gonna be like yeah, I’m gonna drop a plate on you and steal all your money is because I suck so that that is that gives you a lot in a very little bit like a little section you get a lot of information that I like, okay, whoever is talking like he really sucks Yeah, deep sucks.

Chris 21:00
He had some issues. Yes.

Haney 21:04
Someone’s gonna be listening to this. I mean, like several issues now. Whoever’s listening to this and is very amused by me reach out. Say hi, I want to talk to you.

Chris 21:15
Yeah, so we get this little flash we regain

Haney 21:19
control. And at that point, it kind of did some stuff on wall market, not a big deal, grab some material, grabs new equipment, and then made our way down to Omar’s house. Hopefully my aliens here with mama Earth. Oh, Myra? cloud, wasn’t it? Oh, she’s gonna be so upset about Earth, doesn’t it? Sorry, the Shinra however,

Chris 21:40
I won’t be cloud. What’s that? I want to be cleared up Elmira.

Unknown Speaker 21:44
Alright. I know they took her from here. They were here. That’s what aerith wanted. Why? Shinra que son

Chris 21:51
of a bitch. She says why chinar after Arif

Haney 21:56
turns away. Aaron is an ancient, the sole survivor, would you say? We’ve talked about

Chris 22:05
lenses encouraging me.

Haney 22:08
We walk into Elmira his house. And she’s like, Oh, it’s about Eric. That’s the man. It’s like Yeah, we got bad news. And she’s like, I know she was taken from here. She basically says she bargained herself for Marley and safety. She was like don’t hurt Marley and take me and said

Chris 22:23
and establishing aerith is pretty good character. real fucking good.

Haney 22:27
Just basically saying like, don’t take the kid take me which is fucking. I know. It’s done a lot. It’s always good, though. Yeah, if you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for a child, you’re fucking a Okay, that’s awesome.

Chris 22:40
Most it’s a bad child.

Haney 22:42
Yeah. As I say, like, Are there bad children when I remember all of the children I’ve ever met? And I’m like, Yeah, sure. Sure isn’t stinkers. Um, my niece and nephew are fantastic. And they always are. They are very accurate. Um, so we get a bit of x out of it. We get a dump of exposition from Elmira. It must have been 15 years ago, looks up into the distance during the war. My husband was sent to the front. Oh shit, so we’re paying it up. Now

Chris 23:12
let’s the elevator animation.

Haney 23:15
One day I went to the station because I got a letter saying he was coming home on leave. So this is pretty incredible. I didn’t realize that Elmira wouldn’t be her real mom. I wasn’t even thinking about that. My husband never came back. Oh, no. I went to the station every day, then one day. So okay, my assumption was wrong. I was assuming that the father was going to bring Earth back from the front. That’s aerith and what looks like a mother dying. Her last words were Please take care of somewhere safe. My husband never came back. I had no child. I was lonely. So I decided to take her home with me. One day, she sees a dying woman who looks exactly like an older aerith kind of dying outside of a train platform. There was some weirdness there like no one seemed to care. But also like from what I’ve seen of this place, like yeah, that’s on brand. At that point on Mars, like, Hey, I was I was lonely. My husband was gone. I didn’t have kids my own. I just I didn’t know what else to do. So I took her and she says that she and aerith became very close quickly. And aerith seemed to have an uncanny knack for kind of understanding people’s feelings and like being able to sense things. I really like areas, I keep going up a lot. Like every time we play this game a little bit more. She just like keep scaling. She told me how she escaped from some kind of research laboratory and that her mother had already returned to the planet. I didn’t know what she meant. I asked if she meant a star in the sky. But she said it was this planet. She was a mysterious child in many ways. And then shortly after that sang shows up at the house and is trying to basically bargain with Eric to come back with him. Oh, so this is saying again, right? We want you to return air to us. We’ve been searching for her for a long time. Now never here if you’re a very special child. You’re Have a special blood. Your real mother was an ancient the ancients Will lead us to a land of supreme happiness. And we’ll be able to bring happiness to all those in the slums. That is why Shinra would like Eretz cooperation does not want to go back to the lab she doesn’t want to be part of the Shinra she doesn’t want to be controlled by them. She just wants to be like a normal little girl. It seems like this is where I’d like to talk a little bit about ancients. I think that’s the appropriate spot. So I was thinking that ancients were like a spiritual thing like more of a like, like not human. I think they might be more like an actual like an ancient race of people that had descendants and then they’re like, kind of separate from humanity. So like, from the same tree Yeah, like the different branches on the same trunk kind of thing. So like that aerith looks and is similar to the human but is not the human and she’s the last literally just the last leaf on the branch on the trunk kind of thing of this tree. So she is cut from the same cloth as humans, but not quite human. That’s my my kind of guess what an ancient is. Don’t obviously don’t tell me if I’m right or wrong. But yeah, I think that’s kind of how I feel about angels now. Yeah. How do you feel about that about me feeling

Chris 26:13
it’s,

Haney 26:14
you literally can’t say

Chris 26:17
I can’t find fault with it.

Haney 26:20
Um, at that point, we kind of start leaving the flashbacks to Eric’s childhood and learn that Marlene is in fact safe. And asleep upstairs.

Chris 26:31
Elmira has this moment where she talks about and she’s like how can you believe this girl herself? What kind of father are you

Haney 26:38
What’s also like Yeah, same but like I have to get bears position he’s cuz he defends himself and I think he did a good job saying like, I love Marlene and that’s why I won’t give up despite like it’s for her like I’m not fighting for me. I’m fighting for the planet, which is for her future on the world could you ever leave a child alone like that? Oh, she I mean No, I 100% agree with IRA if you reference this podcast you’ll understand that I don’t believe that they should allow Marlene to you know, run a bar in a terrorist organization in the slums. My apologies. I’m not take I do like seeing this more human side of Barrett though. This is like the first time he’s been something other than just an angry angry guy. Yeah, like yeah, like kind of just mad at the world. He’s like, a dad. You got to understand something. I don’t got any answers I want to do with my lane, but I got a fight. Fuck Barrett. Don’t break my heart. If I don’t planets gonna die. Don’t go breaking my heart. The planets gonna die. Barrett runs upstairs. We talked to Tifa and Elmira very briefly, and they’re obviously both feeling like absolute shit. So he ran upstairs. And Marlene says something to the effect. It can’t run, she said, but she said something that basically made me chuckle Oh, yeah.

Chris 28:02
She says, Eric talks about Yo, I think she likes you.

Haney 28:06
Yeah, they’re just like, Oh, yeah, I hope so. The options were like, I hope so. And like, Oh, I don’t know about that or something I chose I hope so. Because like, I wasn’t the newer romantically I was like, why fucking she better like me. I’m about to go on storm, a power company to savers so we better be friends. But I think that might have tipped my relationship balance towards

Chris 28:26
Marlene responds. Which just selecting Marlene is the best just the best wingman I was literally about

Haney 28:35
to say the exact same sentence he said my lane is pure wing man. 101. Um, yeah, yeah, she’s

Chris 28:42
fun.

Haney 28:44
What happened next?

Chris 28:45
Well, Barry says you’re going after aerith aren’t you? And you’re like yeah. Oh, right.

Haney 28:49
This was I actually did want to touch on this point a little bit because he’s like, I want to come I’m gonna help like this is you know, we’re all in this together now. And this was like a little bit of a bro moment between cloud and Barrett like, not like showing a ton of emotion. But both of the it’s no longer a transaction. Like their interactions are not transactions anymore. Like their interactions are those people who are united for the same cause. Right. So like, I think this is going to be a big turning point in clouds relationship with avalanche and it’s no longer it’s no longer a I’m paying you to do I’m paying you to do this thing and cause like, Oh, yeah, I don’t fucking care about the planet. I don’t care about Shinra I don’t care about avalanche. I just care about getting paid.

Chris 29:32
The cloud story.

Haney 29:36
I’m gonna throw up. Um, I did like this level human relationship connection that Barrett and cloud have because it actually feels like their relationship is advancing and growing, which is cool. And like this is the first time that bear in cloud really have an interaction without one of them being kind of shitty to the other. Yeah, we run downstairs at that point and you’re kind of forced to run out the door to trigger the next thing you leave

Chris 29:58
Marlene with

Haney 30:00
Elmira thank god someone’s finally taking care of my man.

Chris 30:05
For real

Haney 30:05
This is dangerous now You better go somewhere else. Elmira is just a fucking waystation for lost children this point how do we get to the Shinra building? There ain’t no train that goes up there anymore Tifa is also something to the effect of you’re going after aerith like I’m coming with you Oh let’s head to Walmart and maybe we can find somebody to help us out he’s

Chris 30:26
like yeah it’s my favorite place yeah

Haney 30:28
that’s exactly what I said yeah, I’m gonna say Chris is gonna cut in some audio here but I know you’re gonna Deccan not so you know me don’t want to go wall market so I did happen to know so you need Don cornea so we decided we need to get a Walmart kit which is which is super cool. We got to Walmart get and so I did actually take a side of me like I want to go see if I can kill the dog because like last time I saw this Bucher, he threw me into the sewer and tried to rape some of my friends sell like fuck this guy.

Chris 31:06
Let’s go kill him. Found catch tied up left him.

Haney 31:10
Yeah, so he was in the BDSM sex dungeon. And then No, I don’t want to tie that to BDSM because BDSM is an admirable practice if you’re into it, found him in the dungeon found him in the sex dungeon. And he was like help me like I was just following the dawn’s orders. I had a brief breakaway with Chris where I was like hey, like should we help him like do I get anything if I help him? Chris refused to answer so I was like fuck him he’s not worth it anyway, I still want to kill them if given the chance I just really want to reiterate that point. like fuck that guy. Fuck everyone who works with the dogs fuck the dog he’s garbage um I then went to the right of the palace corneas like mansion man kind of thing

Chris 31:52
as you’re running by some kids are like hey check this out and they kind of run off the side path

Haney 31:57
the kids were like hey look at this wire like you can climb up it and like there’s a little kid like at the bottom and he’s like it’s too high like I don’t want to climb it and that’s your signal that like oh you should climb this

Chris 32:08
bear it’s like hey, we can go up this date to the upper plate.

Haney 32:12
Chris did help me a little bit at the section as like you’re gonna want to go back to the item shop real fast Yeah.

Chris 32:18
Hey, you’re going up the plate

Haney 32:22
is always something you just found I repaired him

Chris 32:25
like can’t You can’t keep if we need easier for people to follow if there’s different voices for different people right

Haney 32:34
now I just want you to do otherwise.

Chris 32:36
Why do I need batteries to climb up to the plate

Haney 32:39
up to the other guy? How about 100 gilfer each

Chris 32:44
other all right I’ll take them I think you’re full of it all right don’t take them I think you’re full all right i’ll take

Haney 32:53
just so we went grab some batteries from one of the people at the weapon shop and made our way back up to the wire climbed the wire that was a headache it was fine up until the swinging part you’ll really didn’t like the swinging part looks like the only way to jump onto that bar

Chris 33:18
should make you to fight jump before it comes to close us okay to jump which could be anybody who fucking knows. Jump too soon.

Haney 33:25
Okay, all right. I’m gonna Now

Chris 33:29
jump too soon. should make it if I jump before it comes too close. us okay to jump. Jump too soon.

Haney 33:37
I fucking hate swing swings bad. So if I jump too soon, that means it wasn’t close enough

Chris 33:42
jump too soon.

Haney 33:45
bucking hate this. And finally we make it to kind of the top area and as we climb over, we get a back view of clouds staring up at Shinra Corporation. This is essentially the cover of course in this view, you also see baring teeth as well. But it’s very similar aesthetically to just that that iconic image of the the silent protagonist of cloud reaching kind of for his Buster Sword while staring up at gender Corp. Which is very cool because it kind of just like, made everything feel very cyclical. I love when the marketing materials for something are included in the thing. It just makes it feel very intentional. I love intention in games, movies, books. I just love when someone gives enough of a shit to be like, this is what we’re gonna do. And this is why

Chris 34:33
so we get to the upper plate we see the Shinra building and bear it’s like, well, it’s a Boston

Haney 34:38
and 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. baroness’s like let’s fucking murder as many people as we can. Shit cool. cutscene so this is Shinra right?

Chris 34:54
Yeah, this is the Shinra building.

Haney 34:56
That must be the helicopter that saying earthern I can only assume Yeah. Big Well, hello cocksucker got them? Yeah. You ought to know this building? Well,

Chris 35:07
not really. No, I think about it. This is the first time I’ve ever been to the headquarters.

Haney 35:11
I heard about this place before, every floor above the 60 at the special and not easy to get to, even for employees must be where they took care of security. It’s pretty light right now. All right, let’s go. Wait a second, you’re not thinking of just going right to the main entrance? Are you? We totally look like I’m gonna kick some Shinra. But and that’s not going to work. We’ve got to find another way. Like it was the only one has any idea what’s going on? Hey, cloud, what should we do?

Chris 35:39
Let’s bust on in. Let’s sneak in quietly. Let’s bust on. Let’s sneak in quietly. Let’s, let’s, let’s bust Let’s negin quietly

Haney 35:52
Not gonna lie, definitely on Barrett side. But for the sake of this game, I knew that if we busted in, we probably are gonna have a bad time. I figured we get arrested or like have to like figure our way out of a prison cell that was just like an extra. Like, if you choose this, this is what’s going to happen kind of like dungeon penalty. I played a couple games where that’s happened where it’s like, yeah, you can do this, but you’re gonna get arrested, thrown in jail. And then you have to fight your way out or figure your way out. And it’s just an unnecessary headache. So I was like, Alright, let’s, let’s just go up. So I chose the option to sneak in quietly, we saved the game. And that’s where we figured it out.

Chris 36:29
That’s where we ended today. I did want to ask you something. So we’ve gotten up to this point, you’ve had exposure to suffer outside of Final Fantasy seven, like you’ve seen it. You’ve seen Advent Children, he’s kind of a figure who you kind of get a little bit of personality from outside of this game. If you didn’t have any exposure to Sephiroth outside of this game, what would you be thinking right now,

Haney 36:51
I don’t think I would have had any connection that Sephora author is probably the voice in your head, I kind of doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on like that voice is separate. And it’s very apparent just because of what I’m the unfortunate bits. I do know about Final Fantasy seven lore. At this point, I would think that Sephiroth is a fucking hero, and we’re trying to like find him to join forces probably like, I would almost maybe think that he was even leader of avalanche, it wouldn’t surprise me if Safra had been the person running the show. I think I would have firmly believe that Shinra and the chinar organization were the true villains of the piece. And they might be still in a in a degree but I know that ultimately it’s going to be Safra that we have to fight defeat drum. I wanted to ask you a couple of things. So we are now little ways into this game. I’ve had a lot of feelings. How are you feeling? I know you wanted this to happen for so long. Yeah, how I decided to deal Oh, Chris, check in on how you’re enjoying playing the game, how you’re enjoying my reactions and how, like how you’re feeling about this whole thing,

Chris 37:55
I’m feeling real good. The further we get, the more anticipation I get for the next thing, what you’re going to be encountering a Yeah, I’m just in, the more you’re enjoying it, the more I’m like, he’s gonna like this. So that’s really exciting. I’ve always wanted to create something, or do something creatively and produce something and put it out in the world. So that’s another side of this. That’s really awesome.

Haney 38:21
It’s really awesome that it’s been really cool to I mean, I know where we’re in our infancy. So just, I don’t mind breaking the kind of the fourth wall or whatever. So like, you know, at the point of this recording, we just released our first two episodes or not even we released episode zero Episode One last week, and we’ve had really positive feedback, you know it, it’s small numbers, we understand that but it’s so much bigger than we anticipated we would be at and we’re so much further into this kind of creative endeavor that I think both of us than we thought we would actually really get with it. And it’s just been aside from playing a really awesome game with my best friend. This has been really cool to just like, have people be like, Hey, you, this is fun. Like, at first it was like my mom and my brothers and my sister. And I was like, yeah, that’s cool. And then, you know, it was coworker. And then it was like coworkers friend, you know, and then it’s like, wow, this is like, these are people who don’t owe me anything. who are who are beholden and they say, to be fair, though, like, Nadia, I know you’re listening. She’s not beholden to say, you’d love me. Um, I really have been enjoying kind of putting ourselves out there was terrifying at first, but it’s been it’s been really cool. My wife says I just kind of light up like a little, little Christmas tree every time I see let you know, we’ve gotten another listener, things like that. It’s been really cool for me as well. Yeah. In terms of the game though. What’s it like watching someone who’s never played the game bar? Kind of bumblefuck like,

Chris 39:51
it’s really good. Um,

Haney 39:53
it’s a frustrating at all. No, no, no, no,

Chris 39:56
it really isn’t. I really enjoy hearing all Your theories?

Haney 40:01
Yeah, I bet those are fucking hilarious. Yeah, they’re really good.

Chris 40:05
And because I don’t know, 90% of the rest of the world who enjoys RPGs at this point has been exposed to it. I’ve never been in this position hearing somebody who doesn’t have any context go through, right. So really cool.

Haney 40:17
I’m learning more and more to that when I like I know when we did episode zero, the recording, I was kind of joking about how like, Oh, yeah, I know everything about this game. Yeah, and but like, to a degree, I thought I didn’t know way more than I know. And not just like the minutia. Like I didn’t really know, like, what Don cornea was, for instance, and, you know, I, I keep learning so much more lore, that’s actually really good. You know, like, I assumed I was gonna like this game, because there’s a reason so many people like it, and so many people talk about it, and why it’s being remade and why that remake has been anticipated. And I’ve been really enjoying learning it and experience and especially experiencing it with you, because things that you like, I understand more. Now,

Chris 40:57
you know what the best part of this is to was that the game doesn’t stop opening up the entire time you play all 70 hours, it’s going to just be layers.

Haney 41:04
Yeah, it’s it’s like, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface at where we’re at. And you know, like, I don’t know, I don’t have a frame of reference for how far and we are. But I know the original game was three discs. And I feel like we’re maybe not even a quarter of the way into the first disc. And so I have no frame of reference of like, when it’s going to when the beginning, middle and end is and it just feels like there’s constantly more to learning constantly more to do after we finish, you know, the first run through of this game for the podcast. I’m excited to go back and try the 100% of the Game and Watch Advent Children and maybe play that prequel that I didn’t know existed. Right crash. Yeah. And do

Chris 41:40
get to the remake.

Haney 41:42
Oh, yeah. But the remake, we just, we just had the demo drop. For what last week? Yeah, it did watch the YouTube video of someone doing the gameplay against the guard scorpion. Bear. It’s hilarious. I love that he’s so over the top. It’s so good, though. Like, it’s really good. I’m very excited to see kind of where we keep going with this. Yeah. With that. Chris, do you have any final thoughts for the day?

Chris 42:04
You know, if anyone’s listening, if you’ve made it this far, I’d really be interested in hearing who you think Kenny is going to bring on a date. When we get to that point,

Haney 42:14
I would love to know what that means.

Chris 42:16
Yeah, so maybe tweet us leave a comment on the Facebook page.

Haney 42:19
Even on our website, there’s a contact form that goes directly into our email. So yeah, drop drop Chris a note. He’s probably going to be the one reading all those just in case. There’s some spotlights that slip through. But yeah, so this note and let us know who I’m gonna end up dating. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for listening to first encounter this build potion production. If you want to learn more about the show, or get in contact with us. You can find us online at www dot sfil potion calm. There, you

Unknown Speaker 42:48
can find links to our social media, listen to more episodes and read a little bit more about us as well as get in touch.

Haney 42:53
Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Hey, guys, this is usually the part where I tell you where we’re playing to. Unfortunately, this is as far as we’ve gotten. We’re currently stuck at Shinra headquarters because of the Coronavirus due to this virus that’s currently you guys know what’s going on. You’ve all heard it. Chris and I are maintaining social distance we’re not hanging out, we’re not recording. And part of what makes this podcast really special for us is the act of actually hanging out together while we record. And we decided that we just didn’t want to kind of step on the integrity of how that that dynamic usually plays out. And so we’ve chosen to instead have a special episode for next, for the week after next. So we’re going to get together record a little bit through a you know, zoom or Google or something like that. Just discussing what’s coming up for the podcast, maybe what we want to do in the future and some other fun tidbits. So we’ll hope you join us. We really hope we’re gonna only have to do one or two of these before that, you know we can maybe see each other again, but you know, it is what it is. So we thank you all for sticking by with us and we’ll we’ll see you next time.