A Golden Shiny Wire of Hope

Final Fantasy VII Playthrough
Playtime: 03:05-04:28

"In my veins courses the blood of the Ancients. I am one of the rightful heirs to this planet!"

I played through the pillar section, climbed the wire, and worked my way up to floor 64 of the Shinra building. Ran into another addition to the bizarre enemies list for this game (see the previous post) in the form of the enemy called "Sword Dance", which roams the halls of the Shinra building and appears to be a giant floating fish type creature. I believe they're the first enemy of the game to put my characters in Fury status--the status effect that there's no reason to ever get rid of. Fury increases the rate that your limit bar fills up, supposedly at the cost of weapon accuracy, but any sort of decline that actually exists really isn't noticeable at all. Throughout the game you get Tranquilizer items that take you out of fury, but there's no really why anyone would ever want to. I really don't think they tested that thoroughly enough if it was supposed to have any sort of real determent to your characters such that it would possibly outweigh the benefit of more limit breaks.

On the 62nd floor you meet the mayor, a very minor character, but an amusing one. I love the idea that Shinra has so completely taken over Midgar that they've literally stuffed the mayor into a tiny room in the library and he spends all day making up odd little riddles. They really go to great lengths establishing Shinra as being completely, cartoonishly evil throughout the game. I guessed The Mayor's password right on the first try in the little minigame where you have to find the misplaced books in the library and get a letter for the password from their titles. That got me an Elemental materia. Not all that useful to me right now, but I can start leveling it up. I also picked up all three item coupons on floor 63, although I screwed it up a couple of times to begin with. That got me a Star Pendant (immunity to poison), Four Slots (armor), and an All materia. You can never have too much All materia.

Up next I fight to the top of Shinra tower, meet Red XIII--the favorite of furries "anthros" everywhere, and get the first glimpse of Jenova as the game's plot starts to shift from an anti-giant corporation, death to tyrants sort of thing, towards something much more operatic and heavy on fantasy. That, and the bizarre Road Rash-like driving minigame.