Current
Jokes on everyone I just look like a sad Travis Touchdown who has really really loud shits
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3 yrs ago
You status bar people sure are a contentious bunch
4
likes
3 yrs ago
Adding to that, unless you are exhibiting life threatening symptoms (unable to breathe, etc) go to a rapid test site in your area than going to the ER. Local ERs are swamped and overwhelmed here.
3
likes
3 yrs ago
As someone who has been stabbed in the past knives are not kinky
Sapporo, Japan Ishin Academy, Auditorium. April 7th
Joining the gathering students was supposed to be easy. Just join up, meet your class and enjoy the exciting springtime of your youth. Here Shun was, away from his father’s control, away from the known and in a totally new place. A grand place to make a great first impression, to learn how to become a hero. To spread his wings and fly. This cute upperclassman girl was there to help them and-
“You're the sweaty boy from the entrance.”
The color drained from Shun’s face. ”Wh-what? Sweaty?!” What had happened at the entrance? He’d been running, but then-he looked at her accusatory stare, her pointing finger, and his heart crashed through the ground, deep into the earth’s core. Did they think he was on the run? In trouble? A creep? Naturally sweaty!? ”Wait no I can explain-”
"If we're going to be in the same class, we should aim to get along and not go around insulting one another."
An angel had come to save him from this torment. To save the day and hopefully give him a chance to explain that he was not, in fact, a super sweaty guy. Or a guy with a sweaty quirk. Sure it made him sweaty if he overextended it’s use but…
”I uh, I just wanted to make sure I got to school on time. I had to make a detour before I made my way to school…”
“Oh, hey, guys! Don’t fight! Uh...”
The upperclassman girl also came to the rescue. As everyone began to converse and get their room assignments, the attention would naturally move to that and not to whether or not Shun was in fact, a sweaty boy or not. He breathed a deep sign of relief.
Okay okay okay RPG peoples, I need to rant about FF7R and this seems to be the place to do it. I mean, I doubt anyone gives two craps what some random dude that barely interacts outside of RPs thinks, but whatever. I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday pretty much playing the game nonstop, completing all possible sidequests, doing all but 2 battle reports, getting all "normal" summons outside of 1 secret summon, getting all but one of the weapons in the game, mastering all abilities and...a lot of stuff.
First off, please take everything I say with a grain of salt. And by that I mean, understand that it is practically impossible for me to talk about Final Fantasy 7 objectively. It was a game that I purchased on my own during a very messy family divorce. It was a game that I sunk so much of my time into as I was a voracious reader so a game that was practically a book was great for me. I spent months of my life playing that game. I would go on to play every numbered final fantasy game, spin-offs, you name it. I was a bonafide fanboy until XIII, and I have struggled to enjoy Final Fantasy release since. (I mean XIV is awesome now, I just have no one to play with and thus am stuck in that fucking stupid dragon dungeon halfway through the base game).
Let's get into it.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I liked it.
Yikes! Okay, let me explain myself. The game is gorgeous. The gameplay is excellent. A lot of the dialogue and characterization is great, and I love the expansion for Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. The avalanche dorks are a wonderful team of weirdos and I felt the time spent going into their backstories, why they like Cloud, why they hate Shinra; it's all purposeful and good. It's not fake padding.
BUT! There IS padding. Jesus, some parts are a SLOG because of the padding. Walk here, press triangle here, listen to boring exposition here. This isn't a perfect game people, and there are warts. But the warts are on a supermodel, and she has a great personality.
Where was I?
Oh yeah.
The gameplay.
You got a choice at the start: Classic Mode, Easy Mode and Normal Mode. Classic is "turned based" in a sense that the battles play out with AI and you decide what moves everyone does as their ATB bar fills up. Easy mode and Normal Mode give you control the team, you press square for an attack or hold square for a heavy attack. Circle is for dodge or parry once you get the material. Every character has a specific role: Cloud is an all rounder, he can deal damage, cast magic, and brood. Barret shoots gun, does small damage numbers, does okay casting and acts as a tank/support. And Tifa...oh my beautiful Tifa. DPS and Stagger increase abilities. She's able to do dastardly damage to enemies and it feels good. Oh yeah Aerith is there too. She's magic and support like always. (But now she's ranged!)
So as Fabricant said above me, STAGGER is here. You know, from XIII. The game that I hate a lot! Except here Stagger is good. It's fun. And the first time I did 9999 damage to an enemy made me clap my hands and say hell yeah.
So that's gameplay. It's solid, but it's not for everyone. It's NOT an action game, so if you expect to do cool Devil May Cry level shit in this, you will hate it. If you want a classic FF7 turn-based style, you may not like this. It's a more grounded, adult Kingdom Hearts style. Because Nomura is directing this shit.
THE GRAPHICS
Graphics look AMAZING. Character models are incredible. When this game gets ported to PC in a year or so it's going to be a BEAST on hardware that can handle all of these textures. My PS4 standard old manbaby could not handle all of those textures. Mouths move weird, especially NPC mouths. Characters have weird modern haircuts. Doors don't load in textures all the time.
But the world is absolutely gorgeous.
LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. YOU GO HERE. IT LOOKS LIKE THIS. IT IS GORGEOUS.
The Music
The soundtrack is over 7 discs long. It is over 150 songs. The battle and boss themes are remixed multiple times, and you will never grow tired of hearing the same theme because the theme changes for different areas. It's amazing. This is the best videogame soundtrack since Nier Automata and I will wrassle anyone who says it sucks. There is music for everyone.
EVERYONE.
Sidequests
Sidequests are hit and miss. Mostly miss. It's go to area X, kill monster Y, get Materia/Weapon/Armor/Item. Sometimes plot developments are locked behind sidequests, like determining which sexy dress Tifa will wear. Or what sexy dress Aerith will wear.
Or what sexy dress Cloud will wear.
Sorry that last pic was from my twitter. I was very proud to look so good.
THE STORY
Oooh boy.
NON SPOILERS TAKE: The story follows the same path as the original FF7! Several key moments change, several places are changed around. Several characters have different events they do! There's a character with the same name as someone from Chrono Trigger! You go to new places! But ultimately, the game ends with you getting out of Midgar and fighting the Motor Ball.
And then things get weird.
I liked the story. Except when these weird ghosts appeared and started acting all weird and ghost-like. I needed Danny Phantom to help but that dude was busy being back in the mid 2000's. So I had to deal with them myself. I will say nothing more of them.
The story...makes some very brave but very dangerous decisions in the end. And since Tetsuya Nomura is directing it, and the guy that wrote the FFXIII games is helping write it...
I'm a little scared for the future. I want to see Yuffie be a dork. I want to walk in a parade in Junon. I want to visit Wutai. I want to see Cid and drink his GODDAMNED TEA. But things may not be the same because of implications at the end. And some events happened that really change the power gap and balance for the next game. And all I can do is speculate what will happen, what will change, and if this will be a good or bad thing.
OKAY SO YEAH SPOILERS IN THE HIDER BELOW.
WE OFF THE RESERVATION PEOPLE. BOY THE PRICE OF FREEDOM WAS NOT VERY STEEP. By defying the spooky ghosts, or as RedXIII calls them, whispers, who control the destiny of the world, the rest of the FF7 games are NO LONGER REMAKES, but WHATEVER THE FUCK NOMURA AND FRIENDS WANT THEM TO BE. We could ride chocobos with Reno and Rude. We could play cards with Palmer. We could brew our own Goddamned Tea and have Cid die of being only 32 and thus YOUNGER THAN BARRET. Sorry that part isn't really a spoiler it's just something weird I found out.
The final battle in the game is a 1 v 1 Cloud vs Sephiroth battle in the mind. It looks like the ending of FF7 Original, except it's a draw, and Sephiroth tells Cloud he now has 7 seconds to try and change someone's fate. Spoiler alert, in the OG PS1 game, the animation of Sephy stabbing our flower girl is exactly 7 seconds long.
Aerith may live. And I don't know how to feel about that.
Oh yeah and Zack's alive. In an alternate timeline.
That's right, by saying suck it to destiny, Zack now survives the fight outside Midgar in another timeline and carries Cloud with him. This is the ending video, showing his visage walk past the heroes as they move towards Kalm. Will Zack Kingdom Hearts himself into this timeline? Will Aerith survive Sephiroth? Will we see the Midgar Zolom and Chocobo Billy? Will I ever not be obsessed with this stupid ass game series?
FIND OUT NEXT TIME IN FINAL FANTASY 7 Z. I mean that's what they should name the next game. Why the hell not.
FINAL (Fantasy heehee) THOUGHTS
Final Score 8.7 out of 10. Great game. Great soundtrack. Weird ending.
Apologies for the ramble. I really did enjoy the game, and I will go back to play more on Hard Mode, because there are special things that only appear in that mode. Also the music is fucking incredible.
He kept stewing, but did his best to swallow up that anger as much as he could. He’d been stupid and brash-arguing with the man in charge meant questions, meant distrust and that meant he’d either be riding the train back into warmer wastelands or he’d be buried somewhere under six feet of snow soon. "He's a real treat." The sudden interruption by another voice made Alan flinch a bit. Apart from one other companion who’d served with him on multiple missions, Alan hadn’t spent much time in the company of others that wanted to talk. Kill, drink, smoke and fuck, those were the usual predilictations of waster pilots."You got a name?"
The questions continued. “Yeah. Name’s Alan Fouren. I’m a pilot from the wastes. Dead Springs; the city that everyone loves to use an example on why it’s so hard to go indie.” Go indie and wind up with charred corpses. Go indie and die. A nice message from the Corporate Lords who were of course, completely innocent in the tragedy. “Little place north of the Atlanta Megacity. Fairbanks territory. So who are you? You’ve got an accent that I can’t really place.”
Sapporo, Japan Ishin Academy, Auditorium. April 7th
He’d seen the Dean of Students before in a magazine when he was still in middle school. The Frozen Hero, Snowman. He’d been around in the era before All Might, and was known for his serious attitude and commitment to protecting the weak. The fact that someone who had been around before the era of All Might and had been a professional hero was exciting! His attitude was...different than the heroes he’d seen on TV.
He could feel the pressure filling the room for all the first-year students. There were expectations being laid upon them already, something he had never dealt with. He was the son of a traveling saleswoman and a mechanic for goodness sake! How was he going to survive in a world of heroes-a world that before his school trip to Tokyo that previous year, he’d never even given a second thought to. He’d just acted, without thought, and after speaking with his teachers realized that he enjoyed helping people.
Was that enough to be a hero?
“Hello! Hey! If you’re assigned to Class 1A, you’re with me!” The sound of the upperclassman girl grabbed Shun’s attention as the others began to move out.
Shun looked to Nadeshiko and to Kana, grasping the bag that held the pineapple. “Class 1A? That’s the class i’m in!” He stood up, ready to make his way towards the slowly gathering group of classmates. Who would he be taking these classes with? Would they be friendly?
Sapporo, Japan Ishin Academy, Auditorium. April 7th
They weren’t making fun of him. That in itself was really lucky! Shun grinned as both girls introduced themselves. This was great! His big high school debut, and he was actually talking to people that weren’t weirded out by him! His years in middle school back in Nago City were never horrible, but they were uneventful. Working on cars with his father never left much for after school activities, and his grades were never anything special. Middle of the pack, in the background, always seen as the mechanic boy.
Well, until their field trip to Tokyo for their middle school field trip.
"I'm Nadeshiko."
“Higamura Kana. It's nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Nadeshiko, and you Kana! I’m Shun! Tanaka Shun!” He beamed widely at both girls, amazed that he’d actually carried on real conversations with three people in under an hour. This was a new record!
Sapporo, Japan Ishin Academy, Auditorium. April 7th
Both girls seemed to notice what was in his bag. That wasn’t a problem, of course. He wasn’t going to cut open a pineapple and eat it in the midst of a school function. No, the purpose of the pineapple wasn’t for himself, but instead as a welcoming gift.
“Is…that a pineapple…?”
”Yes, it is!” Shun chuckled sheepishly, clutching the bag.
"I'm not sure there are assigned seats for this event... or that we're supposed to bring snacks."
“Oh, it’s not for eating. Well-I mean, not for me to eat. It’s a gift. A sort of...welcoming gift.” His face flushed crimson with slight embarrassment, looking downward and clutching the bag a little tighter.
“That’s just what we do! Pineapples are supposed to be given by the hosts. But since Nago is the biggest place in Japan that produces our pineapples, when we go on trips, I think it’s great if we bring the hospitality to them! Those words-one of the phew things he actually remembered from his mother, still resonated with him. Even when she traveled to work, his grandmother would also make them buy pineapples to bring to new friends. And after she passed, they continued. At least he and his grandmother. His father lost any love for hospitality after she passed away.
“It’s a family tradition.” Great. He was the class weirdo.
“Do you just see snow and scrap here? I think while you were busy looting corpses out beyond the trenches of Mississippi you lost the onus of what we are supposed to be doing out here in this world we have inherited.”
Alan clenched his fist, and fought the urge to roll his eyes as Graham rambled on about the inheritance they were beholden to. The world they inherited was full of monsters, both human and beast. It was full of war, of violence, of liars and cheats. And this fucking asshole, this cocksucking Company Soldier was going to lecture them on what they should be doing out there. Had he ever crawled through burning detritus, holding a parent’s charred limb in their hand? Had they ever listened to children die over the radio? Screaming, crying for their mothers?
Calm down. He needed to be here. There was a purpose for him at this place, this far away in the wastes. Graham and New Anchorage was an opportunity. It was a chance to finally get what he truly wanted. “Alright then,” Alan broke the silence of Graham’s cold words. “Why don’t we get the grand tour started then?”
Sapporo, Japan Ishin Academy, Auditorium. April 7th
Shun smiled and nodded as Seo sat next to a pretty girl. He chuckled to himself seeing the first person he met try and talk up a popular looking girl. Gutsy. A lot gutsier than me! He was in no hurry to try and find a seat near the front and decided the closer seats near the back were probably the best to find. He did his best balancing his bag, the paper sack, and his own self as he did his best to stay out of everyone else’s way.
“Excuse me. Sorry! Pardon me!” Shun scooted his way to a free seat near the back. He looked at a quiet, sullen girl sitting near the back, and a pink gooey girl fiddling with her suitcase nearby as well. "Is this seat taken?” He asked both girls, nervous that he was stealing a seat. He shifted the paper bag again in his arm, doing his best to balance it. "I got a little nervous seeing so many new people I didn’t grab a seat when I had the chance!”
Sapporo, Japan Ishin Academy, Front Gate. April 7th
Wow, this guy liked to write! Shun did his best to keep up with Seo’s scribblings, nodding intently until the boy suddenly got embarrassed and apologized. Still, Shun did his best to keep up with the boy and answer him in kind.
~I'm a first-year as well, so maybe we'll be in the same class? Excited to start classes?~
“That would be awesome!” Shun beamed.“And yeah! I’m a little nervous, but it’s the first day of our big hero careers!” He laughed and looked at the movement of the students that Seo had noticed as well. He wondered who would all be in his class and if he would make a lot of friends. Back in middle school, he had a handful of friends, but his father’s work always kept him busy. Hoji and Soryu were probably busy at a local school back in Okinawa, with the warm sun beating down on them, the sound of insects always filling the air. He thought back to when he was accepted into the hero course, and what his father had said…
Okinawa, Japan Tanaka Racing Company Garage. 10 Months Ag0
"Don't talk about her!" Renji Tanaka's voice was loud and gruff as he pushed himself out from under the large automobile he was working under. "Especially not while I'm working! Now hand me that wrench-" he said, pointing to the tool shelf in the Tanaka garage. The Tanaka Garage was probably the best garage for race cars in all of Osaka, and Renji Tanaka, his father, and even his grandfather had made it such. In his mind, the entire Tanaka Clan would run the business, from father to son until the end of time. Until Shun came up with that letter.
"My aptitude scores put me toward the hero track. They say that I have power very similar to another hero, dad. Why won't you tell me about mom's quirk?"
"She didn't have a quirk as I said. She didn't have a quirk, she got sick when you were little and died. So drop it!" Renji was already up, walking towards his son, yanking the wrench out of his hand. "And the hero track? Don't make me laugh. You're going to work here with your younger brother. That's your track in life son. Not getting yourself killed as a hero for people who don't even care about you.
Shun's eyes closed tightly as his father went back to working on the car, using his quirk to stretch his limbs around and into the engine of the car.
~Sorry, I forgot how to sign excited, so made the sign for forget instead.~
The tapping of the board shook Shun back to reality and made him realize the gap that was between the two boys. He’d never even thought about the luxury of speech. “No, no I'm sorry.” He bowed in deference. “I can’t do or read JSL. And I know it’s probably faster to do that.” He thought for a moment and then piped up again. “How about this: could you teach me some sign language? That way you won’t have to constantly write on your board for me!”
~Anyway, where are you from? I came all the way from Tokyo, so I get the feeling of getting a bit lost.~
“Me? I’m from Okinawa. I guess that’s pretty obvious that I’m not from around here!” He beamed. He was heavily tanned, but still had the facial features of a Japanese boy.
“Hey! You students! Stop standing around the gate and head to the auditorium if you have nothing better to do!” A brash voice came from near the gates, where a tall, bearded man was ranting at several older classmen. He shot any student who locked eyes with him a terrifying death glare.
“Uh oh. I guess we’d better head to the auditorium before we wind up getting yelled at too…”
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