Game Diaries – Final Fantasy VII New Threat Arrange Episode XVII

If you don’t know what my Diaries are, please go here. Spoilers ahoy!

Otherwise, let’s go!

You don’t have to beat all 8 fights in the Battle Square to get the Keystone for the next location, but I really wanted whatever bonus prize Dio would give. Not much to see since it’s all old enemies beefed up a bit. It took me three tries. The first time I fell to Dual since my HP had been cut in half several times. Second time, the penalties were even worse. Finally got to the eighth round, a fight against Aps again. Luckily, I still had my Limit, and Meteorain took out almost all of its HP.

Okay, Gold Saucer date. I knew I could select my date, so I was going to choose–

WHAT, CID?!?!?! Heck, yeah!

🙁

I was so sad that I just let the game choose. And the winner was… Tifa!

I also got a weapon for her when the scene started. I wanted her to get a weapon upgrade anyway, but this was a nice bonus. Really makes this an important decision instead of just a “whatever, I can watch ’em all on YouTube” moment.

Of course, I messed up the play. How can you not?

Skipping ahead to the Temple of the Ancients. Mostly the same until the clock room.

For simplicity’s sake, I put the three Mini-Bosses in one video, only showing me winning.

Part 1:

This is the monster you fight when you fall off the puzzle. Wow, pretty unique looking monster here. This fight is repeatable, as I accidentally fell off later. You can see “Fire level rising…”, and in the second time around, I got “Ice level rising…” Not sure what they mean, but he went down pretty fast. Must be able to either finish him off fast or have Death protection.

Part 2:

HOLY CRAP, LOOK AT THAT BETA DAMAGE.

It took me several tries to get through this fight, as a couple of unfortunate Frog Songs put my characters to sleep when I needed them most. Since I had an extra Fire Materia from Red XIII, everyone put Elemental-Fire in their armor to help reduce the damage.

Part 3:

STAHP. JUST STAHP. STAHP IT!! Stahp plz????

Geez, these things don’t let up! And I hadn’t saved yet, so I ended up having to do the Jemnezy fight all over again!!

These lumps of eyes are just brutal. Their attack isn’t a Magic element, so no way to easily reduce that damage. Couldn’t even try much because these things just spam their attacks. Finally found the answer though: Gravity. Just about the first enemy I’ve tried that it’s worked on.

Plus, with all the deaths, I kept forgetting which rooms I went into even though I wanted to go in order. At least thanks to that Hydrangea monster now, I have Fire, Ice, and Bolt Rings.

Moving on to the Dragon after meeting with Sephiroth:

HOLY CRAP! THIS IS BAD! WHAAAAAAAA—?!?!

Really unique fight here. You have to let our dear old friend take the brunt of the attacks. Looking back, I didn’t think it would drag on so long, but I should have recasted Haste on Cloud/Aerith and applied Barrier on X-ATM. Got a little too close for comfort there it seems. I also figured it was worth a shot to try Morphing him since Tifa is so fast anyway. So glad I have Esuna now, but now that I have more Materia slots, it’s time to get it on my other Heal Materia.

Of course, one more Boss before the exit!

Not much to say here. His attacks were pretty tame, and he wasn’t spamming status effects like most other Bosses. Picked up a nice new Earth Elemental Enemy Skill.

Still haven’t got Trine though. Did I miss it, or is it still to come? Hmmm…

Anyway, the monsters-in-a-box were worse than the Bosses, 100%. Definitely wasn’t worth fighting 8-eyes for a Megalixir (and the Elixir that was dropped from the fight). Plus I was having a bad day on the reels today. Best advice: save often in the temples. Even if you have a good setup, a bad RNG can get you a Game Over if you get spammed by that flash, Frog Song, or Beta.

KO KOunter: 41