Haney 0:00
This episode, the 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. Just one more thing. This week we’re tackling some explicit subject matter. While we are always an explicit podcast this week, we deal with Walmart and Don cornea, which includes themes of sexual violence and human trafficking. If you feel this episode may not suit you, feel free to skip and we Will have a less explicit recap on episode four. We hope it goes without saying but Chris and I under absolutely no circumstances condone these actions, they’re unfortunately part of the game that was made in a different time and in a different culture than our own. Additionally, if you or anyone you know has been affected by these topics, please reach out to the National Sexual Assault hotline at one 800 656 hope previously on first encounter, not a lot going on in the town outside of just like kind of, we can use this time to ramp up on items ramp up on weapons ramp up on metiria learn a little bit more about what’s going on in the slums get some exposition.

Chris 1:08
So we hopped aboard the train. Barrett kind of runs in scopes out the area scares a bunch of people out of the car,

Haney 1:14
getting real aggressive with a Shinra mid level employee. So obviously, there’s something with cloud, there’s a connection with cloud Miko, and Zephyr off that I’m just very excited to learn more about. At this point that Shannon is like, Listen, babes, I got dinner, I got split, and I’m going to fucking send my Voltron to murder you. At that point, the reactor blows as Tifa Barrett run off screen and the cloud starts falling. And now let’s press start. In the first podcast, I hate that full fucking

Chris 2:00
series where one man plays through one of the greatest games of all time blind, and another tries desperately to claim to their misspent youth with one of my you’re the not desperate one. I mean, you are but

Haney 2:11
yeah, holy shit. I’m so desperate.

Chris 2:14
Yeah. Hey,

Haney 2:15
how you doing? I’m

Chris 2:16
Chris. You’re handy.

Haney 2:17
I’m Chris. You’re handy. No, that’s not right. How you doing, Chris?

Chris 2:23
I’m good.

Haney 2:24
What you’re drinking there.

Chris 2:25
I’m drinking a lunch. Main beer. Very good. Would recommend.

Haney 2:29
I don’t think I’ve actually had this one yet. And I have not taken a sip yet. Because I was waiting for this because I want ketchup. Oh, wow. That’s so smooth. That’s delicious. Yeah. That’s actually fantastic. Yeah, that’s really that’s really good IPA? Is it mean beer company? beer company? Yeah.

Chris 2:43
I think they’re all IPAs. They have lunch, dinner.

Haney 2:47
I’ve had dinner. Really? Yeah, yes, like IPAs and rails. rails are good. Really. I had a really good red ale the other day off to find it and Sun Tzu? Yeah. So Final Fantasy.

Chris 3:00
Yeah. So Final Fantasy we got through some really important story.

Haney 3:04
God, today was an absolute fucking mess. I just want everyone to know that it was an absolute mess. I’m so unhappy with probably an hour and 15 minutes of the two hours of gameplay we had today.

Chris 3:18
I’d say more than that. Probably. Oh, God, it was a treat. But before so last episode, we left off with cloud falling from the reactor after the boss fight into Eretz. Church. Yeah. And from here we play until we run through wall market and confront Don Cornejo

Haney 3:39
and all that that encompasses. Yep. And we get through that

Chris 3:43
in save in the train graveyard. So Holy shit.

Haney 3:47
Yeah. I am so unhappy with so much today. But let’s start with the better stuff. So

Chris 3:53
you want to start right off the bat when you fall? Yeah.

Haney 3:56
So last time, we left off with us hanging by a cliff. And today we started off with us going through the the act of actually falling and listening to the exchange that happens seemingly in clouds mind and with aerith as he falls or is falling like it was kind of hard to tell because the screen is black. There’s a lot that happens in that scene. I’d love to get your take on it. Mike, I mean, I know everything that’s happening. So Oh shit. Yeah, you probably you probably find that out.

Chris 4:27
So when you follow the screen cuts to black and then you get some like dialog. That’s not attributed to anyone so you don’t know who clouds talking to or who is talking to

Haney 4:37
cloud. Oh shit. Who does who found me? You all right. Can you hear me? Yeah. Back then I got scraped. Nice, premium back. What about now? Can you get up? What do you mean by back then? What about now? Don’t worry about me worry about yourself. now. I’ll try and take it slow. What’s happening? Oh it moved little by little Hello Hello? Hey, who are you? Hello Hello? Oh Barbie girl. I assumed that it was Sephora that’s basically my answer for anytime I hear a funny voice in my head.

Chris 5:18
It was Voldemort.

Haney 5:21
Voldemort It is always Voldemort. Um so we fall we hear some odd dialogue it doesn’t make a ton of sense what the saying is like back then I only banged up my knees and classes like what your knees what and then you hear hello hello which I think is aerith actually budding into the memories slash voice it’s it’s hard to tell if it’s a memory or an active like speaking to someone there. My personal feelings is that it’s an active like exchange that’s happening like it. It seems like at times of extreme stress. Cloud makes a connection somehow. I’m going to say that Miko reacts with his biology under points of extreme stress and that allows him to open up a connection to Zephyr off. That is complete conjecture. I am just guessing but I think it’s pretty good guess

Chris 6:13
pretty interesting. Yeah. So you have those lines of dialogue and you wake up in the church across Eretz flowerbed

Haney 6:20
that I fall into flower girls church.

Chris 6:24
This is a church in the sector five slums. So this

Haney 6:27
church I remember vaguely from Avenue children. I think they they have a flashback to it. I won’t point anything. You see.

Unknown Speaker 6:33
You see it a couple times. Yeah, it appears the roof and the flowerbed must

Haney 6:37
have broken your fault. You’re lucky flowerbed. Is this yours? Oh no, I fell on her fucking flowers. Sorry about that. I’m cool as hell. Okay, so she like just grows flowers in the church. The st grass and flowers grow in Midgar but for some reason they have no trouble blooming here. Yeah, it’s all kind of bad about that just fucking crushing her flowers.

Chris 6:58
Yeah, it’s kind of all she has seemingly.

Haney 7:01
She has a very nice mom and a very nice house on the coast that we saw. Yeah, but her employment is selling flowers on the street. That is very true. So from there, we get a little bit of fun dialogue back and forth with aerith my understanding of arith from the limited bit and avid children she’s I don’t I don’t remember her in Kingdom Hearts. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t in it. I just don’t remember her. Um, my kind of understanding was that she would be a goody goody Yeah, just like kind of like perfect and doesn’t you know like, isn’t very fun. Similar to like, if you played Skies of Arcadia. There’s two girls that follow follow along with you and for some reason Their names are escaping me right now. But there’s a I think her name is she has red hair. And she’s like your childhood friend. And then you find a woman who has like silver hair names like Fiona fee or something. It’s been a long time since I played that game. But you know, your childhood friend. It’s actually very similar now that I’m thinking about it to the kind of context of this game too. But your childhood friend kind of has you know, a little bit of fire some passion. She’s very fun. She’s very brash and outspoken and then the girl you pick up who’s obviously supposed to be your like, love interest, like the game intense is very like perfect, like, overly perfect to the point where it’s like, she’s boring. Um, that was the impression I assumed of aerith but it’s got a little flirty, she got fun. She was making jokes.

Chris 8:27
She’s mischievous. Yeah,

Haney 8:29
yeah, I think that’s a really good way to put it. I really liked her little line about like, Oh, I can pay you in a date. Like perfect. I love it. That’s awesome. I prefer Tifa from a romance aspect for cloud but I think it’s really funny that she’s just like oh throw this out there and see what happens I thought that was good. And then we get my favorite member of organization 13 Axl coming. So finding remember the actual name which is Rino Believe it or not, not actual I really need to look up what actual looks like in Kingdom Hearts because I swear it looks very similar to definitely no, yeah, it’s probably just like long. Yes, red hair, but same face syndrome.

Chris 9:09
They both have an attitude. Yeah.

Haney 9:11
So Rena comes in with a couple of Shinra soldiers and is obviously trying to quote unquote recruit Arif, the soldier. Judging from the hairstyle, I think it’s the guy that I think is named Axel that I know is not actually named Axel from adventure

Chris 9:26
actual just walked into the church or memorized

Haney 9:29
organization Thirteen’s all of those Yes, Reno that’s his name. Yeah, holy shit. There you go. One I’m taking out Reno has like stupid friends too, right? Or is that just adding children to like to do sir always with him?

Chris 9:43
Rio’s got another guy who he works with. When Reno comes in, and cloud approaches them, he gets this flash. He’s like,

Haney 9:51
I know you. What?

Chris 9:53
Oh, yeah, I know you did.

Haney 9:55
What happened there. So the screen just flashed white and said, I know you across And then clouds that oh yeah I know you yeah it seems like there’s an inner voice talking to him it’s like yes you do know him it’s XYZ and it’s it’s interesting because like he’ll try to play someone like like Reno and then suddenly something clicks for cloud like it’s not just like the inner voice like I have an inner voice when I see someone familiar to it’s like come on you know that person from something like connected joke oh right that’s who they are. Yeah, for cloud it’s like you know them searching through database

Chris 10:27
and then it like clicks Yeah, like Oh, yeah, yeah. so and so?

Haney 10:30
Yeah, it’s like someone is feeding him information. He might not actually have known that person ever really? And it seems like maybe some severe gaslighting going on. Yeah, but yeah, so Reno and his goons kind of sent us on a chase through the church

Chris 10:45
Earth recruits cloud as a bodyguard she’s like right you get me out of here you do everything right you’re a handyman clouds like whatever Yeah sure. So they run off together and Reno is like the earth this way No, no I’m good bro.

Haney 11:01
Good All right, hold them off right make sure they don’t get through the ancient the ancient is getting away yeah good just get shot think they don’t look they’ve never said so I’ve heard that Eric died that’s just that that was it. He also called her the ancient at one point which was very interesting but then we learned she has a mom so it was like like my first thing when I hear ancient is like oh she’s like a timeless being or something like she’s definitely not just I don’t know I assume like 20 year old kid but then we meet her mom and like well maybe she’s not an agent maybe maybe it’s something else so I’m sure we’ll get there you get

Chris 11:38
separated from Aaron she falls down

Haney 11:41
you’re up in rafters and she like falls off the rafters down onto like the floor sharply so like you’re stuck up in the rafters the guards are approaching her from the floor and you’re basically just running around on the rafters trying to push barrels out onto the guards down below.

Chris 11:56
A lot a minute. We’re gonna figure this out there’s a barrel I can just push it over then it does absolutely nothing.

Haney 12:04
Okay, so if I said hold on a minute I could crush that guy. Got it? Yeah All right, this is a technical cast my favorite. I would love to get your opinion on how I handled the chase the decrepit church cuz oh boy it was rough.

Chris 12:22
I mean you push down two barrels out of the like five that are up there yep, yeah, I’ve never done that successfully because a each barrel has one side you can push it from right like that doesn’t make any sense right? And also because of the like field of depth I guess like it’s really difficult to say where one barrel is going to land if even if you do push it

Haney 12:44
Yeah, I think it’s just the difficulty of being like one of the first 3d games that is like this I’ve noticed that the depth perception is very funky in some areas and like I get lost a lot and my depth perception is not good anyway. But yeah, so we kind of escaped through the church have a good time. Have a few minutes on the on the roof just to catch our breath and then we run off through kind of a junkyard I knew he was gonna be like I thought you were cut out to be in flow here. God such a wise oh here’s terrible chuckle I kind of gives a hearty gift Ah, hey cloud Were you ever in soldier I used to be how’d you guess? Your eyes they have a strange glow Okay, we’re getting more into the size that’s the side of those who have been fused with makeup so not only exposed to you but infused with a mark of soldier but how do you know about that? Oh she totally knows that for up

Chris 13:40
on the roof you kind of get the first more in depth instance that cloud has make allies and what that means yes

Unknown Speaker 13:47
so

Haney 13:47
prior to this I’ve I was thinking that mayco eyes was something that is just like some sort of like trauma like you can tell in someone’s eyes when they’ve like seen some shit right? Like I can’t at least soldier is Yeah, but then it’s like no your eyes glow because like you have an actual like condition and we learn that you’re infused with Maiko I think at this point. As a soldier which was interesting, I’m very different than what I was expecting and it kind of fits with all the other like little snippets we’ve had of Shinra like doing like experiments on people’s corpses they’ve threatened to do presentation rather and to do that to us. And like it just definitely seems like Shinra goes too far and a lot of areas Oh, you know one thing we forgot to mention is we do find out why Rena is pursuing aerith which is she says they think that she’s soldier material

Chris 14:36
club kind of goes into like, who the Turks are what they do, right?

Haney 14:40
They just seem like kind of like a paramilitary arm that do like super skee ball stuff. The

Chris 14:45
dirty word,

Haney 14:45
the real dirty work. Yeah. Which honestly from what I remember of Reno from the Advent Children, yeah, that makes sense. So we get through the graveyard, the junkyard rather and kind of come into the, I guess sector five kind of village Like the slum where everyone lives, it seemed pretty similar to sector seven just a little bit bigger. Oh, this place looks fantastic.

Chris 15:10
There’s a sword on that couch.

Haney 15:12
Uh, yeah, the sword on the couch is fine. But do you see the two fucking handguns on the desk and

Chris 15:16
the chain smoking child? Sony Astra

Haney 15:19
has to next up myth guy, myth guy. Hey, passengers, get it on the guy. Please ring. People were weird there though. There are definitely not great. Not a ton of stuff happened to there. The one thing that really stuck out to me was just the guy in the pipe. What’s your story? That guy in the pipe is a weird one. No matter what you ask him. He’ll answers. Or Ah, you know, let’s go on this pipe and talk to him guy. This guy is sick. He passed that nearby and someone must have helped them here. So he’s not weird. He’s just dying. Can we cure him? Hey, that man has a tattoo. I think it’s the number two. That’s That’s it. I can’t like give him a potion or anything. From there, we found Eric’s house which was lovely. I love how you just kind of go out of this awful slum. And then you’re like, exposed to Eric’s house, which is beautiful.

Chris 16:17
There’s a waterfall behind it.

Haney 16:18
Yeah, there’s a rainbow. There wasn’t actually but I can easily see one.

Chris 16:22
This is aritz theme. Do you think

Haney 16:26
this is very similar to a tune? In Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time The lon lon ranch thing?

Chris 16:33
Oh, yeah. Okay, I can see it.

Haney 16:35
To me that song has always been deeply sad. And I get the same vibe from Harris that it’s just Yeah, like things could be better. This is her firefield

Chris 16:52
nice garden.

Haney 16:53
We’re gonna go rob some stuff. inside her house we meet erysimum Elmira I believe her name was not to be confused with Elvira Queen of the deck No. Now seems like a very lovely woman. She obviously just concerned about her daughter says like hey like you got followed again like you get that like Eretz not really hiding anything from Omar Elmira definitely knows like I hope my daughter doesn’t get kidnapped but boy she might

Chris 17:22
Elmira notices immediately they are from soldier yeah same same way aerith noses you have make allies they go soldier eyes. You say I gotta get to seventh heaven the bar and seven and Harrison’s like oh, I’ll take you there

Haney 17:36
and you’re just like what the fuck? Like I just went through all the trouble to bring you home Seriously?

Chris 17:41
And now Myra? She says oh it’s late. Why don’t you run ups dares and make the bed and you can go in the morning and after aerith runs off to my bed. Elmira says can you please like leave and not take care

Haney 17:53
yeah can you just like not be a piece of shit and leave my daughter behind? Yeah, and honestly fair

Chris 18:00
so you go to bed upstairs and

Haney 18:03
we have no trouble absolutely getting out 100% of the time no trouble at all first try yeah absolutely just ran right past her and no issue

Chris 18:15
you’re not being very sneaky

Haney 18:17
put muster fall asleep we can have a big sneak it’s gonna make me do this forever. This is

Chris 18:25
why this is gonna be an extended episode

Haney 18:27
so can’t get caught this time be badly quiet. I’m trying to escape

fucking it It took me like what three or four tries it was bad I didn’t understand that you were supposed to sneak and I’d like the first time he just bolted past her room and she’s like a cloud it’s late you should be asleep

Chris 18:59
and then she stays up and waits for you to try again like this psycho she is

Haney 19:02
absolutely insane. The game she plays with everyone she learns back to her sneak past her bedroom and the entire time it’s an overhead view so you can see yourself in one room and then within the room right next door sneak past you get out and then you go through the only road that gets to sector six. But when you get there, although it’s there,

Chris 19:28
which shows the earth is just fucking with you.

Haney 19:31
Yeah, like she knows what she knows exactly. You’re in her doll house. Oh, what? You’re upright gnarly asshole. Oh shit. Okay, NASA go I knew it’d be dangerous Are you done? You have to go through the slum and sector six to get this cheapest seventh heaven. Is that the name of the bar? The seventh heaven. Yeah, that’s fuckin tight. Name, your name in Sector seven. That’s great. I’ll take you there. Come on. Okay. So she basically stops us She’s like listen, like you’re not getting away without me. Come on. I’ll take you home. Yep, she starts leading us through sector six which is basically the broken down Highway level from Halo or Halo two I can’t remember which fucking nerd needed. We are running a podcast about Final Fantasy seven.

Chris 20:18
Yeah, but Final Fantasy seven is cool.

Haney 20:21
Yeah, okay. Um, I mean it’s cool i like it. But anyway, so we got through this kind of road and not really much happened on the road. It was just kind of uh, do you

Chris 20:33
want to talk about any of your encounters?

Haney 20:35
Was that where I got my first that’s where you

Chris 20:37
found the house?

Haney 20:38
Yeah, hell house. The house

Chris 20:42
sure looks like one doesn’t

Haney 20:44
What? The house has

Chris 20:48
crowds dead pizza was your first kayo

Haney 20:51
Phoenix downtown well you know what’s bad for houses? choir

Chris 21:00
oh my god this might be for your first case no. Fuck death count number one

Haney 21:12
never seen the game over screen so I died today. First death first death first party wipe. So we ended up encountering two two I think random encounters the first one was these horrible monsters that were called the whole leaders or something that leaves worms with teeth? Yeah, you know how worms have teeth? The second one was absolutely the house from invaders and when guard isn’t it and yeah, I died explode you real bad house bad bad house done killed me. Yeah, you

Chris 21:47
know not to let people get so low unhealthy. Yeah.

Haney 21:49
Now I’ve gotten the opposite way that I feel like I over heal.

Chris 21:53
Yeah. So we move the death count up to one. We reset run through sector six.

Haney 21:59
We get to the playground and F like oh, it’s still here. she climbs up on top of a little jungle gym has a slide on it. And she’s like, so sad. She’s like cloud come up. And obviously we do. Oh no, this is like a decrepit old playground. Oh, this is so sad. Holy shit. I want to go off the slide. No, I

Chris 22:17
want to go down it.

Haney 22:19
I can’t believe it’s still here. She couldn’t get on the slide. That’s what she had. If she gets to go on the slide and I do.

Chris 22:25
One client sits down next stairs and they start talking I asked him what rank he was.

Haney 22:31
So aerith and I are discussing me being a former soldier. I was what was that? What just happened buddy? A white flash to click through it though. I was first class. Just the same as him. Yo, I knew it. There’s definitely a connection between me and Sephora. The same askew? Oh, nothing. Oh, no, my first boyfriend. Oh, no. So the screen flashes white this time and it’s just cloudsim dot dot dot first class. So that’s a rank. Yep. soldier has ranks. Yeah, except first class. Like you have to be something first class. I’m

Chris 23:09
pretty sure like first class. Oh, that makes sense. Okay. aerith says, Oh, that was the same rank as my first boyfriend. Her first boyfriend had

Haney 23:17
Maiko eyes because he was part of the soldier program and clouds like, Oh, hey, what’s his name? I probably know him. It’s just like, that doesn’t matter moving on. Which I absolutely believe that her boyfriend is one of two names that I know. Obviously Safra is one name I know, seemingly like it makes sense that Safra would be her boyfriend. The other is a character that I know exists. But I don’t think is actually in this game, named Zack, who I think was the leader of soldier when the cloud was like a cadet in it. I don’t know that for a fact. But that was my other guess. I don’t know how old earth is in comparison to cloud. And I assume Zach was like in his 40s Probably not. But I mean, yeah, I’m not

Chris 23:58
gonna touch that.

Haney 24:01
Because the age difference, either. Yes. Yes. But yeah, so my best guess is that her first boyfriend that she’s very much not wanting to talk about as either staff or authors Zack, which makes me think then that it’s probably not Zach, because I assumed Zach was the leader of soldier. This Will say, I have no ideas x even in this game.

Chris 24:23
So aerith and cloud are having a chat and a gate opens up and we

Haney 24:28
see a fucking Carnival cart. I’m curious what the fuck is that?

Chris 24:33
What is that?

Haney 24:35
Is that a joke about?

Unknown Speaker 24:36
Yes,

Haney 24:36
that’s a check. Well,

Unknown Speaker 24:37
it’s like Yeah.

Haney 24:38
Hey, back there. Tifa was that Tifa?

Unknown Speaker 24:43
Yeah, no, Steve on the back.

Haney 24:44
Background like heartless Tifa. Or she got pain she looked. How long have I been gone? Like a day, right? And now TIF is in the circus. So this is my first time seeing the truck about in the game. Yeah, it was horrifying.

Chris 24:56
They’re real good. They’re real. A real chunk of time event.

Haney 24:59
I hate that I hate everything about what you just said.

Chris 25:03
We’re gonna breed them and we’re gonna write them.

Haney 25:05
We seem Tifa on the back dressed up as Chun Li from Street Fighter. Right? Like, yeah, I got the,

Chris 25:14
it’s just like a short dress.

Haney 25:15
I think it is, but like somebody is the best.

Chris 25:17
She’s basically foot Tifa

Haney 25:24
everyone’s like, is that Tifa? Well, I think aritz like who’s that in class? Like Tifa? Yeah, so Eric actually just bolts off the playground starts running after Tifa and she’s like, Come on, let’s go find out what’s going on and cause like, hey, wait, maybe we should be smart and not rushed into this there says Fuck that.

Unknown Speaker 25:42
Yeah. clubface palms runs after runs after and then we get into a wall market.

Chris 25:48
Yeah.

Haney 25:49
Wall market.

Chris 25:50
Yeah. Wall

Haney 25:52
markets.

Chris 25:53
You want to talk about that?

Haney 25:55
was the worst fucking thing I have ever experienced in a video game

Chris 26:01
and what what?

Haney 26:01
It was disgusting. It was absolutely just lewd and pervy and so full of horrible. I don’t want to go shopping in that place. Hey, boy, you should got a good look at heifer. Take her to the dance place and you’ll make a mint. Oh, so there’s so much bad in this place. Yeah, I mean talk about Walmart get Walmart get had I mean, what was the teddy bear? The honeybee in the honeybee in welcoming even unpopulated dweebs like you may meet their destiny here. You’re looking for a girlfriend to you know, girl and Tifa you’re pretty fast as a newest girl. Oh boy. Unfortunately, she’s having an interview right now, here at the honey bee in. it’s customary for all the new girls to be taken to Don carnales Mansion. Oh, now, Don cornea is a famous dilettante. Now he wants to settle down and is in the market for a bride. The honeybee in is a private club only members can go and she grows. The honeybee in there’s deeds standing outside of it just like Oh, you got a pretty girl with you. Why don’t you take her over? dhankar naos place Yep, so for me as a prude American, this this is an audio medium you can’t make faces like that. I’m myself as the prude wonderful gentleman I am was horrified by this place.

Chris 27:31
Never have I encountered such depravity.

Haney 27:35
But honestly, this was the most depravity I’ve ever encountered in a game that wasn’t explicitly a pornography game. Pornography games we kind of get the jest that TIF has probably been taken as one of three girls chosen daily to visit the dawn and one of them becomes his wife. Chris has told me on several occasions before that he aspires to be Don coin as I

Chris 28:00
average I’m gonna cut so you you go through wallmark it’s very CD you find your way to dawn coordinator who’s mentoring who you learn is essentially a slumlord. Yeah,

Haney 28:13
he just kind of seems to control the red light district. This actually calls back to someone we met earlier, just like a pedestrian who was like oh, have you ever been to wall market that places shit? Like I love that place. Like now I’m like the fuck is wrong with that guy? Who goes up to someone in the streets like Hey, have you ever been to the seedy part of town? Yeah, we Wander Wander our way up to the mansion and find out that we can’t gain entry. Well aerith could gain entry because she’s a woman but they won’t like cloud and because no dudes allowed the mansion of Don Cornell the most powerful man and Walmart Good luck the Don’s not in some men oh my god what? So don’t let me get you around here again. This is so bad. Why you got to keep one with you. She just runs away. Hey, this looks like the Don’s mansion. I’ll go take a look. I’ll tell Tifa about you know don’t go oh my god. Fucking eight. Eric do not go in there. Do you know what kind of place this is? What am I supposed to do? You want to go in with me? Oh, now? What? This is it, isn’t it? It would be Oh no. Well, being a man that’d be pretty hard because sighs my bus in there. It’ll be cause too much commotion. I just can’t let you go in alone. Oh, man. First, we need to find out a tifus All right. What’s the funnier side? Why don’t you dress up like a girl. It’s the only way. This kicks off a brilliant idea by aerith which is Hey, cloud. What if you looked like a lady then you could get in and clouds like no airs. Like, come on. Don’t you want to save Tifa and the cloud is like God damn it. I guess I do. So we need To go find a dress

Chris 30:02
Yeah, we go to the clothing store. And a girl at the counter says My father is in a slump.

Haney 30:09
We go to the bar that she said that he would be at. And we noticed the sole guy in there drinking alone at the bar, and we’re like, well, that’s probably him. excuse this. Are you the father of the girl at the clothing store? I own the clothes shop, but I ain’t daddy. Yeah, don’t say that. Make me some clothes off cloud. I don’t make men’s clothes. I’m not feeling making anything right now. Can you wait over there for a second? I’ll try and talk to him. When you go over there and have something to drink. You never miss a deal. I said that just once you’d like to dress up like girl. That’s why I wanted to keep dress for him. So we head back to his to his establishment. He’s been working on the dress and we try it on. But Eretz like is still missing something. We talked to the shop owner again.

Chris 30:53
The shop owners like I got a friend you can talk to who you can get away from.

Haney 30:58
And he’s like, he’s at the gym. Yeah. Are you hanging out when you want to look cute in a wig? He’s the one who wants to be cute. Cute. Right? And about the wig? Yeah, but it’ll cost ya. The only way you’re gonna get cuter is if you can eat Big bro. Let’s do squats. Yes. We somehow get into the idea that in order to win the wig, we have a squat contest

Chris 31:26
so the initial problem with squatting in this case was that your buttons are all fucked up.

Haney 31:31
My buttons are super fucked up so I am using a weird ass third party mapping tool to map a ps4 controller to steam on my computer and I have them set up in the way I’m used to them now which is not right at all. Yeah, so we spent the entire tutorial learning which button was which. Which switch to squat was canceled again up, push okay to go back to the ready position. Switch cancel. Okay. switches. Big bros wig is mine. Am I competing with other beautiful people in the gym for a third one of those wigs managed to bang out 12 squats but my opponent got 16 This gave you a little bit of an interesting little thing you’ve never seen before.

Chris 32:17
I’ve never done so bad that the other squatter beat me.

Haney 32:21
So when the other squatter beat me, I still got a wig. However, he pulled it out of what I assume was his squat and pants. Say it that way. Speedo, newmarch squat and PANTS, PANTS, and he hands it to me and one of his friends smacks him across the gym as it’s like That’s disgusting. That’s no place to keep a wig. Well, I guess it’ll be okay if you disinfect it first which gross and unnecessary which we don’t do also Yeah, we did not do that. I don’t remember practicing disinfectant from the item shop. Eretz suggest getting back to the dress shop to try everything on all together. Which we did. But then aerith gets jealous. She’s like, I want to dress too. So she picks a dress up off the rack. Cute little red number never sorry. She puts that on and we decide it’s time for sexy Ms. Cloud and Arif to make their way over to Don Cornell’s palace so that we can be part of the crew the bride crew we get let right in because apparently holy crap your friends have to Yeah, to be fair cloud yeah gorgeous. Ladies coming through oh this is disgusting.

Unknown Speaker 33:41
Oh and he does have fun music

Haney 33:42
though. Super like Dragon’s Den login area. Haley Hey ladies. I’ll go and let the done know you’re here. Wait around don’t wander. Okay, you can wander now. Now’s a chance let’s wander. We so we make it in talk to the concierge I guess the the main guy at the desk Yeah, dress boy khaki. I think it was gonna catch catch, right? Catch is like Hey, don’t wander anywhere ladies. I’m gonna go let the dog know you’re here. To which we were like hell no, we’re gonna wander.

Chris 34:18
I never thought How weird is that the basement starts on the second floor.

Haney 34:22
That is very fucking weird. The architecture and Final Fantasy is just a mess.

Chris 34:27
Or inspired.

Haney 34:30
HTTPS sex palace dungeon. Speaking of sex dolls dungeon at this point we discovered there’s three rooms the first room is closed just as close dot dot dot which is upsetting in and of itself net given what this place is. The middle door I just assumed was the dawn so I skipped right past it. I’m assuming you we wouldn’t have been able to go in anyway one for the third door which was the entrance to the dungeon please basement. So I opened the door and go in So dungeon

Chris 35:00
to the basement we just walked into dawn

Haney 35:05
that’s a dungeon dungeon basement. We’re walking into a second. This Oh, it’s getting so much worse. Oh good lord. That’s a BDSM sex dungeon.

Chris 35:16
This just looks like your basement.

Haney 35:17
I mean yeah, but I know what’s in my basement Tifa Nice to meet you I’m here with clouds told me a lot about you. Don’t worry we just met It’s nothing. What do you mean don’t worry about what no don’t misunderstand cloud and I grew up together nothing more for cloud having to stand that listen to both of us calling nothing. Red Cloud cloud beautiful look at me.

Chris 35:40
I’m fine like you?

Haney 35:42
This place is awful. Chris I don’t know to explain what you’re doing in a place like this. Yeah, I’m playing my ears just gonna walk away from this nightmare. Why What happened? got back from sector five Maria reactor we saw a weird man barely caught him to squeeze some info out of them. That’s when the Don’s name popped up. Oh, the tifus undercover. Yeah. Oh, thank God. Yeah. See you on the story straight from carnales mouth. I’m trying to think of the most the thing I was most upset about in this sex dungeon. I think it was the tooth puller that made me upset that is not sexy. That is just dentistry gone wrong. There’s also a table with fucking clamps on it and I liked spreader. There’s just so much awful BDSM like trope crap that’s in there that is just awful. But

Chris 36:32
not that we hold BDSM against anyone who does partake in such an activity.

Haney 36:37
That’s why I said trope because it’s like, it’s like 50 Shades of Grey BDSM which is the perfect example of healthy Yeah,

Chris 36:45
that’s BDSM relation that’s

Haney 36:47
exactly or a healthy relationship at all. You know how you order food for your girlfriend? That was the weirdest thing to me about that book. Honestly.

Chris 36:55
You read the book,

Haney 36:56
I read all three. And I’ve seen the movies.

Chris 37:00
We’re gonna move right past this. Otherwise we’re gonna be here for a

Haney 37:04
look for our sister companion podcast. Nope. 50 shades of hands. So teeth and clap just immediately goes into the corner and he’s like, Eric, do you deal with this? I’m just gonna hide aerith and teeth. I have a little exchange here. It’s like Hey, I know cloud and Tifa is obviously like, You’re the girl I saw with cloud in the playground. Oh, no. And then like aerith is like Oh, it’s nothing he’s nothing like Don’t worry, we just met and then he was like, oh worry about what he’s just a childhood friend. And then Aaron’s has the fucking killer line of class and just sit there and listen to his boat say he’s bucking nothing. Good exchange was a really good exchange. Actually,

Chris 37:46
I enjoyed the interactions between Tifa and aerith quite a bit.

Haney 37:49
Yeah, so far, it’s been pretty good. I like that it’s not like openly hostile or anything stupid like that. It’s they’re, they’re very funny. And they seem to click well together. At that point, cloud kind of comes clean. After a little bit of exposition about how Tifa ended up here. Basically, she’s just on a mission to infiltrate the dawn’s palace and find out some more information from the dawn and we have a an understanding that since the dawn always has three women he chooses from I hated that sentence as it came out of my mouth and there’s three of us it’s perfect. So we head upstairs to good old fashioned Don corneas place for the dawn oh this is disgusting. It’s so gross. Now let’s see which girl should have choose this one what about this little cutie so Chris when you told me that all you aspire to be in life is done coordinator

Chris 38:53
you’re making it awful difficult for me to edit this.

Haney 38:55
My choice for tonight is two things about what just happened. The fucking drum roll before while he was choosing which woman to take

Chris 39:11
so you know it’s fun.

Haney 39:14
And to why Tifa why sweet Tifa

Chris 39:18
so that’s actually random. Really? Yeah, you can get chosen or if you’re not it’s random between this Yeah, and I’m going to show you how to get chosen.

Haney 39:26
Oh no. Just for all of you listening in case Chris can edit those out. He has never once expressed to me that he wanted to beat down Cornell

Chris 39:35
you don’t need to defend me.

Haney 39:37
That’s fine. So we go on to Don corneas love room. gagging a little bit. So he he goes through and he’s like, oh, which one to choose which one to choose. Tifa got chosen, unluckily. And at this point, it got worse. And I think Chris his exact words to me were you know how it’s been bad to this point. And I was like, Yeah, he’s like, it’s gonna get worse. Worse yeah

Chris 40:00
this is pretty much the grossest point of the game.

Haney 40:03
I’m so glad he said that because I don’t want to play anymore yeah, I’m Don Cornejo kind of leads Tifa away while saying to his other like lieutenants in the room The rest are yours. To which we get led off into some side chamber and like eight dudes just come at me. Oh, I don’t want them to take real good care of me. is all thanks to the big boss Duncan Nia Three cheers for the dawn Hello ladies. Are we all ready? No.

Chris 40:35
Oh no, you’re in control by the way

Haney 40:38
what do you fucking Creek whoa slow down what’s my hurry? No, no. Oh, the zombie walk they do tours is disgusting. Tom Namie got ants in my pants and wanna do a dance got to take a chance and maybe find romance Christ I’m gonna fucking kill one of them I’m gonna kill all of them they don’t fucking deserve to live Hey, you’re in pretty good shape look at your tight little bud it’s more like my god this is awful. Your is this in the glove? Oh, I’m here, baby. This is fucking gross. Hell yeah clad. I ain’t interested in a bunch of scrubs like you. Oh my God just like your roses dress Sailor Moon like spin around. A man goddamnit don’t think you’ll get our skin and beat the fuck out of him. Good to god i’m going to fucking kill them. Yeah, please do. I am on my own with like eight dudes. aerith is not with me talk to him a whole bunch run around. I think I stole some of their shit. I think I got to Phoenix down and either beat the shit out of them. But I beat the fucking shit out of them. They’re all terrible, and I really hope I killed them. run out of the room and start approaching the sex dungeon run down to see one of the lieutenant’s I believe this was Kotch chasing around the table to saying Come on. Maybe I’m ready. And then Eric starts running up the stairs towards us turns around and says I’m sorry, and it fucking pushes him down the stairs. So aerith is awesome. Save yourself didn’t need no man to save her. run into carnales love room again and go into the back and discover that Tifa really doesn’t need help. She’s just leading him exactly where she wants him. We get a little cutscene This is probably my favorite part of this whole thing as we’re grilling Don Cornejo he’s one of the characters cloud aerith and Tifa all take turns threatening Don carnales penis, which is fucking awesome. Shop it off a man find out where the man with a gun was. But that’s what I was ordered to do. What are you taking orders from? parrot all rip it off? Is it up? And this is the point of the podcast where Eric just gained about kulani points. Yeah. It’s amazing. I love the animation that goes along with them of all them putting their leg up on the bed. Kind of like doing the thinker pose and just mean like, I’ll cut it off. I’ll smash it. I’ll chop it off. Yeah, so good. So so good. I loved it was my favorite thing. 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 xop Fuck yeah, we kind of just threatened the hell out of Don cranio. And then he says, Why

Chris 43:37
would I give up this information? Yeah. He says, Is it because I have nothing to lose? Because I have no clue or because I’m sure I’ll win.

Haney 43:45
Yeah, and I don’t know if the choice matters, but I said, because I’m sure you’re gonna win. And he goes, yes. And he hits a button. We fall through a trapdoor. Yep. As you fall through the trap door, we get a cutscene into Shinra headquarters. One thing that I didn’t know here was that up to this point, we’ve entirely been in the slums. The only nice place we’ve seen has been aerith, which is still part of the slums, but like chinar headquarters is like new fancy like machine does really nice. And we get a little bit of play between high degree of Shinra president Shinra and what’s the other guy’s name Reeves. That’s the president. Yeah. Oh, boy. How are the preparations going? Yeah, smoothly very smoothly. I send the text of this president are really really going to do this simply destroy a group with only a few numbers. It’s problem reef you want out now but as head of the Urban Development Department have been involved in the building and running and Midgar that’s why the flesh your personal problems with the rest of your crap.

Chris 44:42
Great line.

Haney 44:42
Yeah. Really good. mayor’s against us. Anyway, Mayor. He just sits in his building all day feeding his face still call that a mayor. Yeah, I had a feeling that Shinra basically ran everything. Come on, Reeve you’re tired. Why don’t you go take a couple of days off and go somewhere. Well, let’s try sector seven and report The analysts did it then we’ll send in the rescue operation care Shinra think this is perfect I hate this

Chris 45:06
he’s a

Haney 45:07
whole section sucks so bad you get the you basically get the impression not even the impression you find out that Shinra runs everything and that they are going to be unchecked and no one’s going to stop them you figure out that President Jenner’s plan is to pin the plate falling on avalanche and then have Shinra come in with their rescue troops and save you know whoever’s left to save so that they’ll be viewed as the heroes and they can pay avalanche in a bad light absolute fucking monsters that cutscene ends so cloud era and Tifa fall into the sewer underneath sector six and like we got to get back to sector seven and save everyone’s like stop this from happening. So we have a little bit of a boss by just with a big creature that was down there let’s see what we got here. What is the Christ is that the same as x? What is that thing? Is the boss fight or is that just a thing?

Chris 46:03
This is boss music whatever you hear this I hate this thing.

Haney 46:07
sewer tsunami sounds like the worst thing

Chris 46:11
sounds like nah

Haney 46:19
that’s awful kind of like the rank oranges yeah you just like pull the button just like thrown down yeah without the rancor keeper crying after we kill it My favorite part of Star Wars is a toy yeah that’s 3.5 millimeter toy It was amazing that’s thoughtful of them to

Unknown Speaker 46:36
make toys

Haney 46:36
if it’s really good his name on the box was brand car keeper oh we we managed to get through the sewer after beating the rank or didn’t have too much going on there and we emerged in the train graveyard right yeah, at this point we kind of just like Eric you can go back like you don’t have to be part of this and she’s like yeah fuck that I’m in now like let’s go I was like Eric No seriously like the plates gonna fall you should probably go back like this is your problem like you could be vine but at the same time like she’d probably have to like go back to the sewer and the back through like the slums and back through the fucking carnales Palace. So

Chris 47:15
at least follow you the same direction through the like,

Haney 47:18
Oh no, we said bye. And now we’re going the same way. But yeah, we kind of wrapped it up there. Yeah, Chris, how you feeling about today’s playthrough

Chris 47:28
I’m glad we got through this section.

Haney 47:30
Yeah, I’m not gonna lie. I was a little I knew the cross dressing thing was gonna happen and I was a little concerned about how they were going to handle it because it can be problematic and I was especially for that time when this came out, right? I was like, oh, are they gonna make like just a joke out of this? Like, are they gonna like be like, pretty insensitive? Like if it was the 90s like everyone was a piece of shit in the 90s pretty sure, but um, that actually didn’t wasn’t that bad. I think it might have also been though because everything else was so horrible around it that I was just like, yeah, now I guess this is fine. Whatever. Like, let me out of here. This is fucking terrible.

Chris 48:05
There’s a lot of gross shit.

Haney 48:07
It was really gross. I just I can’t really recap how gross A lot of it was, but it was gross that being It was fun.

Chris 48:17
We’re gonna play through Walmart again. I’m going to show you how to get into the honeybee in and how to get chosen by the dawn.

Haney 48:22
I don’t want to be chosen by him. It’s helped me to cast. Thank you so much for listening to Cornell.

Chris 48:31
Next time,

Haney 48:32
next time, I’m corny. Oh Cass. Thank you so much for listening to first encounter us 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 spil potion comm there you 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. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Next time on first encounter, we’re going to be picking up right where we left off here and playing up to the point where we’re going to break into Shinra headquarters to rescue Eris, it’s going to be a real good time. Also, if you wouldn’t mind navigate over to our website, spill potion comm and click on the Support tab. There you can find a link to a survey that we’re using to just kind of make the show a little bit better and figure out what we need to do to keep growing. We really appreciate any feedback you can give us and we look forward to hearing from you. Thanks so much and we’ll see you next time.