We'll DM you a code for Dragon's Dogma 1, the turn-based RPG Thirsty Suitors on Steam, or a random Xbox game if you support MinnMax on Patreon before March 22nd. www.patreon.com/minnmax
1:46:25- Grant refusing to equip new weapons based ENTIRELY on physical attack stat, then having the audacity to complain about the battle system... S'like trying to dribble a basketball with your face, then saying basketball is a bad game because it hurts your face! 🙄
Surprised to see such a negative response to the minigames… maybe it’s just the Mario Party fan in me, but I love basically all the minigames, especially the shooting gallery and soccer ones. To me, wacky minigames are such a crucial part of the original game and the Final Fantasy series in general.
It definitely is and 95% of them are great, but after a while it does hurt the pacing of the main narrative if you try to do them all before moving on from chapters. Im speaking as someone who's beaten the game (no spoilers dont worry, and it by no means ruined the game overall for me) Tbh I recommend doing as much of it that feels natural, then going back to complete it either in later chapters or in Chapter Select after beating the game (its the same format as FF7 Remake)
Yeah I'm in the same camp, I've loved all of the mini games so far. Some have definitely been annoying to get the top score for but that difficulty pales in comparison to that of the original's mini games.
The shooting one and the precise requirements was kind of my line in the sand so far. I still dont have any time materia. 😢 Soccer minigame is kinda fun for 2-3 minutes though. Lol.
Benjamin! Aerith’s wards are crucial! Arcane Ward doubles spell use, Radiant ward increases the fire rate of her base attack and keeps spells from being interrupted. What’s more, her triangle ability warps her to the ward. So here’s what you do: pop both wards on top of one another. Then use Aerith’s Bodyguard Synergy ability (skill?) to pull teammates to her, tank some damage, and get the enemy focussed on them, away from the wards. Then, hit the warp and flank the enemy with double spell damage. It’s a bit of a hassle to set up but it’s super powerful and feels great to execute. Loved Aerith in Remake but the tweaks to her abilities here makes her an irreplaceable party member. PS. The elemental abilities are cool but yeah, they’re much weaker than spells AND they don’t give synergy points. Worth prioritising spells if you wanna get those big attacks in.
I've used her wards occasionally but didn't realise you could stack them on top of each other! That's really interesting. The few times I used them I did feel they were better than Remake. I agree on the elemental abilities vs spells except when it comes to Yuffie's elemental ninjutsu. Especially of you use doppelganger as you can then double the damage.
1:21:25- The fact Ben had zero clue how he was triggering Lvl 2 limits tells me he utterly ignores ability descriptions EVEN when selecting those said abilities IN COMBAT... 🤣
I'm loving these Deepest Dive discussions. These made me enjoy the game way more. Love the humor and the overall vibe between you guys. I'M A BIG FAN OK?!
To build up ATB for Aerith, you NEED to use Radiant Ward. Give Aerith First Strike materia so she has has enough ATB to set Radiant Ward at the start of combat. Then just attack from within the ward; it basically triples both damage output and ATB gain. You can also stack wards together, so you can put an Arcane and ATB ward within the Radiant Ward. Her triangle ability is Ward Shift which lets her teleport back to wards. This is crucial because she moves around the battlefield very slowly and has an incredibly poor dodge.
During the convo about the black robes, i couldn't stop thinking how funny it'd be if you all ditch the flannel and went full black robes the next time. :D Great work all round lads.
There is a reason Lord of the a rings movies and books are so long, gotta take your time and experience the journey. When I was trying to keep up I was getting frustrated but once I played at my own pace I started enjoying every bit living in this world, it’s a gift!
Oh Ben, if someone didn't mention it already, Arcane Ward was HUGE for endgame challenges in Remake and likely going to be here too. While standing in it, your spells go off twice. If you ever have to evade and leave the ward, you can ward shift back to it with triangle.
@Ross-Ross-Ross pretty much yeah. It's also good for luring monsters away from you and catapulting yourself back to out some space back between you. It works for all wards you place
To add to this too, you can have multiple wards active and can either stack them or separate them. I tend to prefer the former since having both the radiant ward and arcane ward up helps you not only generate ATB much faster with the improved standard attack, it also makes it so your dual cast is un-interruptable.
I know it's been said before, but this is such a great cast. And please have Ross on the MinnMax show sometime to talk more about his experiences with NES games!
Listening to the character design part and the way I understand it from reading discussions over the years Nomura became the main character designer on Vii and Amano mostly just became the logo designer. Any Amano art for the characters is just his take on what Nomura designed
@1:10:30 YES!!! I'm right there when Yuffie joins the party looks for the right spot!! I hadn't finished chapter 8 when the question was posted but I wanted to comment that same thing!
I was bummed I ran out of time to finish Chapter 4 and get into Chapters 5+ before the deadline to enter comments on this portion of the Deepest Dive. Still looking forward to the convo though. Truly the best, most thorough discussion about FF7 Rebirth on the internet!
Hearing you guys talk about the robed guys showing some sort of emotion… I don’t disagree, but I think that’s partly why they put the Broden quest so early in the game. He’s meant to be the proxy for the robed guys, because he’s in danger of becoming one. So the next time you see one gunned down or killed mercilessly, think of Broden
Seriously, for a deep dive they often overlook extremely obvious plot points. For example, saying Cloud is autistic is hilarious. Cloud suffers from PTSD and is basically a 16 yr old stuck in a 21 yr olds body.. he doesn’t have autism guys.. Also complaining about his personality, he doesn’t open up until major events later in the OG story.. I dunno why they keep complaining about this, when the story hasn’t reached that moment yet for Cloud.
Aerith gets very strong later once you give her all the ATB materia. First Strike + Chocoking Cape gives you 2 full bars to start. Cast Radiant Ward. ATB Boost back to 2. Arcane Ward. Spell. And you're cooking. She cant gain ATB fast again in Radiant Ward, and if AI moves her away from the wards you just hit Triangle and shes right back on them for another spell
I should have written in about this, but I tried to be clever in the Queen’s Blood tournament and it did not work out for me at all. I realized I could end my game against Red XIII in a perfect tie, so I went ahead and called the game there. Never done that in a match before; did you know that you ALWAYS LOSE a tie? I guess it was asking for too much when I wanted to see if there was a bespoke, alternate, sharing-the-crown type of cutscene with Red. Anyway, when I saw the cutscene was clearly treating the game as a loss for me (hilarious to see Red gloating about his skills given the circumstances, btw) I just reloaded a save. I had to replay two of the matches but it was worth it for the glory 😎😎
1:34:56 I don't know much about Yuffie, but I take it she's some kind of a child prodigy. Wutai sent her as the boss in a duo to infiltrate Midgar in Episode INTERmission, so she must be one of their best ninja. I too was reckoning with her ability to make clones of humans. It seems pretty similar to the Shadow Clone ninjustu in Naruto, except for that you are only able to clone yourself.
14:50 As someone who did largely decide to ignore Queen's Blood after a few games, I still really liked the sequence. You're starting deck and the boosters on the ship can get you through at least a few opponents, so it at least sort of feels like you're participating and all of the interactions are great. It also really helps that you get the Red sequence even if you don't win the tournament itself.
I get the complaint of the open world stuff, but at the end of the day it is optional. And as Ben said the reward is seeing more character interactions, so for me its totally worth doing and it didnt bother me one bit. For deepest dive you probably can't skip, but the complaint is for the average player, and it is extra content that you are not required to do. So for me its a nothing complaint.
"The reward is seeing more character interactions." Thats the problem. That's not true for a lot of it. A lot of it is lifeless checking of the same box over and over again. If they wrote in character dialogue from the party, instead of just Chadley talking at you, that would have improved it by orders of magnitude. Even if the story wouldn't progressing, you'd get character development. Instead it's just hours of nothing.
36:20 The talk about their level friendship is interesting because there's the literal affinity system in the game where you (as Cloud) are actually building your relationships with your party members.
For the boxing game, you punch the side that is turned towards you/closest to you. If the foot on your left is the front foot, punch the left side. If right, punch right.
SAME! I was so excited to see who the game thought I favored (cuz I feel like it’s Aerith), but instead I guess it was Red… Which, like, okay but I feel like I was robbed!!!!
2:01:20 It seems like Grant was looking for someone else who played ahead. I'm pretty sure the Gold Saucer Queen's Blood challenge he talked about before where you can win Sephiroth doesn't unlock until Chapter 9 when you can go back to the Gold Saucer after being acquitted by Dio. EDIT: Okay, he does say that he did that at 3:00:12. I was going to add the same about the Chocobo races.
Struggle bussing keeping up. Fell asleep halfway through the Twitch stream due to sheer exhaustion after work. Thank god we have this archive so we can watch the four [flannel] fiends!
1:04:20 Can't speak for everyone, but.... no. Not even a little bit. 2:11:39 That's the problem with introducing alternate timelines without setting some very strict boundaries. There are infinite versions of every character, so consequences have no meaning. If they kill one Sephiroth or one Aerith dies, there's always another. 2:50:07 I saw this happen on a stream, but most guides don't even mention it as a possibility. Theoretically if no one is above a certain affection level it happens.
It seems that the Weapon we saw in the Tifa scene was not one of the Weapons from the OG game. It makes it seem as if there's a whole species of creatures known as Weapons and THOSE were the little ones.
For limit breaks from OG being added, Cloud's new ranged attack seems to be Blade Beam/Climhazzard. I would guess one more at most gets added to this game. Have to save something for Part 3
Coming back to add to Ross's experience regarding the Chapter 8 "date" that never was for him. Someone on Reddit who 100% completed the game recently posted that if you have maxed affection with multiple characters, the game will have Cloud simply wake up and decide to go for a walk on his own. It will not play some of the cutscenes that it normally plays when you are accompanied by another character. Really weird choice on Square's part.
Super weird, I was worried that my characters were all similar levels so I went back and did some extra side quests because of this, really glad I did now Especially having looked at my stats after completion and seeing how close the actual numbers were.
A tip for getting Aerith ATB faster is to have someone like Tifa/Yuffie who gains it quickly, and use magnify+haste. Also the free elemental abilities don’t give synergy pips, so I never use them. The auto ability materia uses the abilities you have set as shortcuts for each character, so Aerith will Radiant Ward and Arcane ward if set. Aerith doesn’t need a ward up for her “Ward shift” ability to work either. It’s just a little teleport unless you have a ward up, then the range is greatly increased.
Aerith triangle moves are to teleport to her wards so you don't have to run to them. her magic is crazy strong. so you want to give her some ATB boost. at the start of battle you place all your wards immediately and gain one ATB bar and go ham
@minnmax Interesting tidbit - Hamaguchi did an interview a while back asking a fan ( who was conducting the interview ) what they would think if they introduced weapons as summons to help fight the OG weapons. Maybe that fish thing is their tease of one. If that's the case I think it's an awesome inclusion as a precursor to part 3.
The amount of streams for this game vs price vs sequelitis vs exclusivity vs rant-reasons makes a lot of people watch it instead of buying it? Hope people experience it hands on, it's worth it. Flannel love, peace.
You want to give Aerith first strike and maybe atb charge so you can quickly set down her wards and set her up for success. Much easier to build ATB once she had Radiant Ward down.
They talk about why people think it's Red's voice in the additional spoilerchat at the end of the audio podcast version of the deepest dive and they like the general theory as to why people think its Red. I think here they forget that they discussed that in the spoiler chat and not the main podcast
Aerith always been my go to mage/healer. She builds atb very fast with synergy skills. Pair her with cloud, tifa or yuffie (ugh) and spam that synergy.
i will be back for that eat chicks comments.. anyway... i'm 134 hours in and i have so far 100% everything I can up to chapter 13. every minigame max. I am enjoying everything once I told myself it's ok to not rush through everything. just "seven" hours a day. take my time and soak in everything. the game is 10/10 for me so far. and im enjoying revisiting old chapters and laughing at all the crazy moments again. makes all the nights sleeping at 4am worth, and going to work at 8. for minigames, i really didn't think any of the games are tough. the rocket league game is easy once u remember u can lob the ball over all the obstacles Middle manager if you speak to him at the start of costa del sol, he is preparing for the arrival of Hojo. but they keep failing to inform him of the plans and he goes mad at the company for not informing him about change in plans when it's his job to make sure things run smoothly. then hojo caused the chaos at the beach and he went, screw this shit
Damn I knew I skipped a lot (I disliked a lot if the side content and prefer to mainline games, or as close to mainline them as I can when I first play through, but it shows how much difference in run time the side stuff takes because I rolled credits at roughly 94 hours
In regards Ben's question if Cloud has autism, as an autistic person, I do think he could be interpreted that way. He seems to struggle sonewhat with social cues, expressing emotions and can comes across quite blunt in his communication sometimes. I never considered it before and I think that's because a lot of the traits he exhibits could be put down to things from his past that we haven't seen yet but (mentioning something we find out in Rebirth in chapter 9 so spoiler warning, though if you’ve played the original it's in that too) we know he struggled to make friends as child, even though be wanted to be friends with Tifa which suggests he's always had some problems socialising. However, the character who exhibits the most autistic traits to me is actually Yuffie. It's common to have an intense, obssesive interest in one thing for autistic people, in her case materia. She seems to struggle to read social cues, both in Intermission and Rebirth she doesnt notice people's lack of interest in response to her intro speech. Autistic people often think literally and can struggle with metaphors or similar as a result, in Intermission when she's told that she 'reeks of trouble' she sniffs herself,and she doesn't realise Cloud is being sarcastic in Costa del Sol, as you mentioned. Autistic people also tend to have poor propioception which could explain why Yuffie can be quite clumsy at times. I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t see Yuffie that way (though I did a quick google and I'm not the only one with this interpretation), because she's not the stereotypical version of autism we usually get in the media but I definitely feel like Yuffie is more similar to a lot of the autistic people I know, including myself, than a lot of canon autistic characters we see. That said I dont think. either Cloud or Yuffie are intentionally autism-coded. I had actually intended to put this in the google doc next time round (well a shorter version to fit the character limit) but I have other things I want to mention in regards the upcoming chapters so I thought I'd drop it here instead. Since they only asked about Cloud I don't know if the guys would find this interesting but thought it was worth mentioning on the off chance they do.
I also prefer a less dorky lineup when discussing games like the usual faces. None of this “oh yeah, I already mastered Queen’s Blood; it’s actually pretty easy; and I want the games to be super-long.”
I almost never used Yuffie in OG FF7. She's absolutely busted in this game and a blast to play. Girl Power team on the combat challenges is just hilariously broken
As someone with autism, I look at Cloud the same way I do look at Cyclops from X-Men (another character that people headcanon as autistic). I see it and if Nojima or someone came out and said he was canon autistic I would be happy, but I don’t expect it and won’t get my hopes up for it. I think the interesting wrinkle is that idk how Japan’s culture handles autism so they might not even look at Cloud as autistic.
58:35 im so surprised and happy this was brought up! I had this exact same thought process and thought of Harris Wittles and how he had a slight impact on this game in a tiny way when i heard that line. Or any time i hear that phrase tbh. Rip Twittles!
I may be missing something but that sephiroth card looks like one of the worst in the game. How often are you going to have a 3 peg space in the middle lane but your opponent has cards above and below it!? Personally I like to have my 3 peg cards (midgar dsormer /dio) in the first 2 columns. They buff like crazy.
I haven't tried it, but I assume you'd combine it with other cards that destroy cards, like the grenadier. And then combine it with cards that gain power when other cards are enfeebled or destroyed. Definitely not the worst in the game. Maybe I'll toy around with a deck just to try something new. Like everyone else on the podcast, I've just been sticking to cards that increase your own power. It's such an easy deck to build and win with, so I haven't had to try anything else.
So when is part 9-11 coming. I’ve been checking for two days now. Oh and I didn’t make the deadline for chapters 4-8 but I wanted to add in the original dyne says to Barret that he needs to bring Marlene to her mother so he’s gonna kill his daughter and nobody covered that.
We'll DM you a code for Dragon's Dogma 1, the turn-based RPG Thirsty Suitors on Steam, or a random Xbox game if you support MinnMax on Patreon before March 22nd. www.patreon.com/minnmax
Not getting the weapon abilities is unhinged
Pure madness
Had my flannel shirt at the ready waiting for this to drop!
Saaaame
1:46:25- Grant refusing to equip new weapons based ENTIRELY on physical attack stat, then having the audacity to complain about the battle system... S'like trying to dribble a basketball with your face, then saying basketball is a bad game because it hurts your face! 🙄
~1:30:00
Johnny was in Costa del Sol in OG FF7, he actually catches up with Tifa there, and where you learn him and Tifa had been friends for a while.
Surprised to see such a negative response to the minigames… maybe it’s just the Mario Party fan in me, but I love basically all the minigames, especially the shooting gallery and soccer ones. To me, wacky minigames are such a crucial part of the original game and the Final Fantasy series in general.
It definitely is and 95% of them are great, but after a while it does hurt the pacing of the main narrative if you try to do them all before moving on from chapters. Im speaking as someone who's beaten the game (no spoilers dont worry, and it by no means ruined the game overall for me)
Tbh I recommend doing as much of it that feels natural, then going back to complete it either in later chapters or in Chapter Select after beating the game (its the same format as FF7 Remake)
Yeah I'm in the same camp, I've loved all of the mini games so far. Some have definitely been annoying to get the top score for but that difficulty pales in comparison to that of the original's mini games.
Everything but gears&gambits was gold.
The shooting one and the precise requirements was kind of my line in the sand so far. I still dont have any time materia. 😢
Soccer minigame is kinda fun for 2-3 minutes though. Lol.
All well done, I agree! Got the impression they simply didn't learn the mechanics for some games, lol.
Benjamin! Aerith’s wards are crucial! Arcane Ward doubles spell use, Radiant ward increases the fire rate of her base attack and keeps spells from being interrupted. What’s more, her triangle ability warps her to the ward. So here’s what you do: pop both wards on top of one another. Then use Aerith’s Bodyguard Synergy ability (skill?) to pull teammates to her, tank some damage, and get the enemy focussed on them, away from the wards. Then, hit the warp and flank the enemy with double spell damage. It’s a bit of a hassle to set up but it’s super powerful and feels great to execute.
Loved Aerith in Remake but the tweaks to her abilities here makes her an irreplaceable party member.
PS. The elemental abilities are cool but yeah, they’re much weaker than spells AND they don’t give synergy points. Worth prioritising spells if you wanna get those big attacks in.
I've used her wards occasionally but didn't realise you could stack them on top of each other! That's really interesting. The few times I used them I did feel they were better than Remake.
I agree on the elemental abilities vs spells except when it comes to Yuffie's elemental ninjutsu. Especially of you use doppelganger as you can then double the damage.
I was today years old when I learn you could have 2 wards at one time.
the mom of the kid who was terrified of Red had the best line - “don’t worry honey, it can’t hurt you!”
It takes me days to watch these, so I'm a bit late, but I love listening to you guys discussing Rebirth! Looking forward to the next one!😄
Thanks so much, Sara!
1:21:25- The fact Ben had zero clue how he was triggering Lvl 2 limits tells me he utterly ignores ability descriptions EVEN when selecting those said abilities IN COMBAT... 🤣
I'm loving these Deepest Dive discussions. These made me enjoy the game way more. Love the humor and the overall vibe between you guys. I'M A BIG FAN OK?!
That's okay! Thank you!
Finally finishing this game, and living the deepest dive!
Heck yeah, thanks for playing!
To build up ATB for Aerith, you NEED to use Radiant Ward. Give Aerith First Strike materia so she has has enough ATB to set Radiant Ward at the start of combat. Then just attack from within the ward; it basically triples both damage output and ATB gain. You can also stack wards together, so you can put an Arcane and ATB ward within the Radiant Ward. Her triangle ability is Ward Shift which lets her teleport back to wards. This is crucial because she moves around the battlefield very slowly and has an incredibly poor dodge.
I also find using her synergy skill helps build ATB? Have u tried that also?
She has a much faster dodge inside radiant ward as well paired wit ward shift I be vampin on fools
3:31:30. The rock band in the prison is actually the staff from the haunted hotel who sneak down to the prison to play, I'm pretty sure.
Playing Red on the cruise ship in Queens Blood is probably my favorite moment in the game so far, love that scene so much.
During the convo about the black robes, i couldn't stop thinking how funny it'd be if you all ditch the flannel and went full black robes the next time. :D
Great work all round lads.
Funny thing about using the umbrella in
Costa del sol. Zack did the same thing in crisis core
Yup, noticed that too. That was definitely a call back and why Cloud does a double-take at picking it up lol
Wanna say I’m loving this cast. Ross is an excellent addition with some great insight
There is a reason Lord of the a rings movies and books are so long, gotta take your time and experience the journey. When I was trying to keep up I was getting frustrated but once I played at my own pace I started enjoying every bit living in this world, it’s a gift!
ITS BEEN 2 WEEKS WHERE TF IS THE NEXT ONE
LOVE YOU GUYS
❤❤❤
The next one is coming up on April 1st, thanks for your patience!
Oh Ben, if someone didn't mention it already, Arcane Ward was HUGE for endgame challenges in Remake and likely going to be here too. While standing in it, your spells go off twice. If you ever have to evade and leave the ward, you can ward shift back to it with triangle.
I think this explains why it never works right for me. I always run back into it to cast spells when I should be shifting back with triangle, right?
@Ross-Ross-Ross pretty much yeah. It's also good for luring monsters away from you and catapulting yourself back to out some space back between you. It works for all wards you place
To add to this too, you can have multiple wards active and can either stack them or separate them. I tend to prefer the former since having both the radiant ward and arcane ward up helps you not only generate ATB much faster with the improved standard attack, it also makes it so your dual cast is un-interruptable.
Ward stacking is GOATED
You missed that the hiker in Mt Corel is the same character which is in og FF7 on the same spot.
This has been AWESOME to play along with. Hate being late, but getting to experience it all with you makes Rebirth even better
That's very kind, thank you!
This episode of the deepest dive was almost as much fun as playing the actual game. Thank you all for feeding my addiction for more ffvii content.
It's the return of the Flannel Four!
Flannel fantasy?
I know it's been said before, but this is such a great cast. And please have Ross on the MinnMax show sometime to talk more about his experiences with NES games!
That's very nice of you to say, thank you!
I too could watch Cloud and Barret check into a hotel for hours
Listening to the character design part and the way I understand it from reading discussions over the years Nomura became the main character designer on Vii and Amano mostly just became the logo designer.
Any Amano art for the characters is just his take on what Nomura designed
@1:10:30
YES!!! I'm right there when Yuffie joins the party looks for the right spot!! I hadn't finished chapter 8 when the question was posted but I wanted to comment that same thing!
I was bummed I ran out of time to finish Chapter 4 and get into Chapters 5+ before the deadline to enter comments on this portion of the Deepest Dive. Still looking forward to the convo though. Truly the best, most thorough discussion about FF7 Rebirth on the internet!
I'm glad you guys are enjoying it, I've affectionately nicknamed this the "Flannel Channel" can't wait for pt 3!
Hearing you guys talk about the robed guys showing some sort of emotion… I don’t disagree, but I think that’s partly why they put the Broden quest so early in the game. He’s meant to be the proxy for the robed guys, because he’s in danger of becoming one.
So the next time you see one gunned down or killed mercilessly, think of Broden
Seriously, for a deep dive they often overlook extremely obvious plot points. For example, saying Cloud is autistic is hilarious. Cloud suffers from PTSD and is basically a 16 yr old stuck in a 21 yr olds body.. he doesn’t have autism guys.. Also complaining about his personality, he doesn’t open up until major events later in the OG story.. I dunno why they keep complaining about this, when the story hasn’t reached that moment yet for Cloud.
They can’t help they’re a bit dopey
Aerith gets very strong later once you give her all the ATB materia. First Strike + Chocoking Cape gives you 2 full bars to start. Cast Radiant Ward. ATB Boost back to 2. Arcane Ward. Spell. And you're cooking. She cant gain ATB fast again in Radiant Ward, and if AI moves her away from the wards you just hit Triangle and shes right back on them for another spell
Been waiting for this all week.
I should have written in about this, but I tried to be clever in the Queen’s Blood tournament and it did not work out for me at all. I realized I could end my game against Red XIII in a perfect tie, so I went ahead and called the game there. Never done that in a match before; did you know that you ALWAYS LOSE a tie? I guess it was asking for too much when I wanted to see if there was a bespoke, alternate, sharing-the-crown type of cutscene with Red. Anyway, when I saw the cutscene was clearly treating the game as a loss for me (hilarious to see Red gloating about his skills given the circumstances, btw) I just reloaded a save. I had to replay two of the matches but it was worth it for the glory 😎😎
Just reached Chapter 8. Loving listening along! Pure bliss. Hoping I can join the Patreon subscribers soon...
Right on, pleasure to have you playing along!
Can't wait to listen through all three rebirth discussions in a row, and I can't wait to do it for the fourth video.
Epic discussion
1:34:56 I don't know much about Yuffie, but I take it she's some kind of a child prodigy. Wutai sent her as the boss in a duo to infiltrate Midgar in Episode INTERmission, so she must be one of their best ninja. I too was reckoning with her ability to make clones of humans. It seems pretty similar to the Shadow Clone ninjustu in Naruto, except for that you are only able to clone yourself.
14:50 As someone who did largely decide to ignore Queen's Blood after a few games, I still really liked the sequence. You're starting deck and the boosters on the ship can get you through at least a few opponents, so it at least sort of feels like you're participating and all of the interactions are great. It also really helps that you get the Red sequence even if you don't win the tournament itself.
Do u still play Red or is it just the cutscene sequence?
@@tarutso You still play him. It was contextualized as an "Exhibition Match" for me, though I'm not sure if that's the case if you win the tournament.
@@andrewkos5560 Yeah, it's still an exhibition match
I get the complaint of the open world stuff, but at the end of the day it is optional. And as Ben said the reward is seeing more character interactions, so for me its totally worth doing and it didnt bother me one bit. For deepest dive you probably can't skip, but the complaint is for the average player, and it is extra content that you are not required to do. So for me its a nothing complaint.
when it doesn't have content, people complain too. you can't please everyone
"The reward is seeing more character interactions."
Thats the problem. That's not true for a lot of it. A lot of it is lifeless checking of the same box over and over again.
If they wrote in character dialogue from the party, instead of just Chadley talking at you, that would have improved it by orders of magnitude.
Even if the story wouldn't progressing, you'd get character development. Instead it's just hours of nothing.
Pretty stoked for this. Glad it's Saturday!
36:20 The talk about their level friendship is interesting because there's the literal affinity system in the game where you (as Cloud) are actually building your relationships with your party members.
For the boxing game, you punch the side that is turned towards you/closest to you. If the foot on your left is the front foot, punch the left side. If right, punch right.
Ascension is just Climbhazard but better.
Why can no one remember that the second time you go to the Golden Saucer in the original thats when the date happens
Presumably after you go to the snow covered mountains in the next part you will unlock the snowboarding in the gold saucer like the original game
I didn't get a date at the gold saucer....
Feels awful, doesn't it?
SAME! I was so excited to see who the game thought I favored (cuz I feel like it’s Aerith), but instead I guess it was Red… Which, like, okay but I feel like I was robbed!!!!
@@redomagnus4762 I ended up with Red lmao in chapter 12
2:01:20 It seems like Grant was looking for someone else who played ahead. I'm pretty sure the Gold Saucer Queen's Blood challenge he talked about before where you can win Sephiroth doesn't unlock until Chapter 9 when you can go back to the Gold Saucer after being acquitted by Dio.
EDIT: Okay, he does say that he did that at 3:00:12. I was going to add the same about the Chocobo races.
final fantasy 7 rebirth with the flannel fantasy four!
Awesome discussion. Didnt feel like 4 hours!
Struggle bussing keeping up. Fell asleep halfway through the Twitch stream due to sheer exhaustion after work. Thank god we have this archive so we can watch the four [flannel] fiends!
There seems to be some confusion about the date, but if you remember the actual date happened later on in the OG.
Ronnie is so great
Top QB score. 62-0. I destroy my own cards. Midgardsormr FTW.
Great show y'all had me bustin up 😂😂
These FF7R videos have been so great. I've been laughing so hard the whole time.
1:04:20 Can't speak for everyone, but.... no. Not even a little bit.
2:11:39 That's the problem with introducing alternate timelines without setting some very strict boundaries. There are infinite versions of every character, so consequences have no meaning. If they kill one Sephiroth or one Aerith dies, there's always another.
2:50:07 I saw this happen on a stream, but most guides don't even mention it as a possibility. Theoretically if no one is above a certain affection level it happens.
It seems that the Weapon we saw in the Tifa scene was not one of the Weapons from the OG game. It makes it seem as if there's a whole species of creatures known as Weapons and THOSE were the little ones.
It is amazing how much Ben loves the most mundane stuff because it’s ff7.
For limit breaks from OG being added, Cloud's new ranged attack seems to be Blade Beam/Climhazzard.
I would guess one more at most gets added to this game. Have to save something for Part 3
Cloud gives off massive Ace vibes in this game.
Coming back to add to Ross's experience regarding the Chapter 8 "date" that never was for him. Someone on Reddit who 100% completed the game recently posted that if you have maxed affection with multiple characters, the game will have Cloud simply wake up and decide to go for a walk on his own. It will not play some of the cutscenes that it normally plays when you are accompanied by another character. Really weird choice on Square's part.
So I should have been negging a bunch of my party members all this time?!
Super weird, I was worried that my characters were all similar levels so I went back and did some extra side quests because of this, really glad I did now Especially having looked at my stats after completion and seeing how close the actual numbers were.
I think they explained another reason why they didn’t kill Hojo. It’s because it would have consequences for the innocent people of Costa del Sol.
A tip for getting Aerith ATB faster is to have someone like Tifa/Yuffie who gains it quickly, and use magnify+haste. Also the free elemental abilities don’t give synergy pips, so I never use them. The auto ability materia uses the abilities you have set as shortcuts for each character, so Aerith will Radiant Ward and Arcane ward if set. Aerith doesn’t need a ward up for her “Ward shift” ability to work either. It’s just a little teleport unless you have a ward up, then the range is greatly increased.
This is true, but Radiant Ward is the true game-changer for Aerith getting ATB
Aerith triangle moves are to teleport to her wards so you don't have to run to them. her magic is crazy strong. so you want to give her some ATB boost. at the start of battle you place all your wards immediately and gain one ATB bar and go ham
@minnmax
Interesting tidbit -
Hamaguchi did an interview a while back asking a fan ( who was conducting the interview ) what they would think if they introduced weapons as summons to help fight the OG weapons.
Maybe that fish thing is their tease of one. If that's the case I think it's an awesome inclusion as a precursor to part 3.
4 full hours of friends talking about ffvii makes me very happy
Reno is on "vacation" because his VA passed away. I don't know if we'll see his character return.
I won't mention any details but he's in the game.
Yes and no. He was on vacation in this portion of the original, too. For this segment of the game they already focus more on Rude, Elena, and Tseng.
Ben, your Sephiroth impression is cracking me up 😂
The amount of streams for this game vs price vs sequelitis vs exclusivity vs rant-reasons makes a lot of people watch it instead of buying it? Hope people experience it hands on, it's worth it. Flannel love, peace.
I’m surprised nobody brought up that the Cloud Jr. reveal (landing on Barrett’s head) was a clear homage to FF XIII!
You want to give Aerith first strike and maybe atb charge so you can quickly set down her wards and set her up for success. Much easier to build ATB once she had Radiant Ward down.
Didnt the crew say last time that people were being too literal with Red's voice in Aerith's room in Under Junon? What changed? Just curious
They talk about why people think it's Red's voice in the additional spoilerchat at the end of the audio podcast version of the deepest dive and they like the general theory as to why people think its Red. I think here they forget that they discussed that in the spoiler chat and not the main podcast
The mini games are awesome 👏🏼 you don’t care about getting top score
I’m here for the flannel fest!
YEAAA BOY!!!
Aerith always been my go to mage/healer. She builds atb very fast with synergy skills. Pair her with cloud, tifa or yuffie (ugh) and spam that synergy.
i will be back for that eat chicks comments.. anyway... i'm 134 hours in and i have so far 100% everything I can up to chapter 13. every minigame max. I am enjoying everything once I told myself it's ok to not rush through everything. just "seven" hours a day. take my time and soak in everything. the game is 10/10 for me so far. and im enjoying revisiting old chapters and laughing at all the crazy moments again. makes all the nights sleeping at 4am worth, and going to work at 8.
for minigames, i really didn't think any of the games are tough. the rocket league game is easy once u remember u can lob the ball over all the obstacles
Middle manager if you speak to him at the start of costa del sol, he is preparing for the arrival of Hojo. but they keep failing to inform him of the plans and he goes mad at the company for not informing him about change in plans when it's his job to make sure things run smoothly. then hojo caused the chaos at the beach and he went, screw this shit
Damn I knew I skipped a lot (I disliked a lot if the side content and prefer to mainline games, or as close to mainline them as I can when I first play through, but it shows how much difference in run time the side stuff takes because I rolled credits at roughly 94 hours
In regards Ben's question if Cloud has autism, as an autistic person, I do think he could be interpreted that way. He seems to struggle sonewhat with social cues, expressing emotions and can comes across quite blunt in his communication sometimes. I never considered it before and I think that's because a lot of the traits he exhibits could be put down to things from his past that we haven't seen yet but (mentioning something we find out in Rebirth in chapter 9 so spoiler warning, though if you’ve played the original it's in that too) we know he struggled to make friends as child, even though be wanted to be friends with Tifa which suggests he's always had some problems socialising.
However, the character who exhibits the most autistic traits to me is actually Yuffie. It's common to have an intense, obssesive interest in one thing for autistic people, in her case materia. She seems to struggle to read social cues, both in Intermission and Rebirth she doesnt notice people's lack of interest in response to her intro speech. Autistic people often think literally and can struggle with metaphors or similar as a result, in Intermission when she's told that she 'reeks of trouble' she sniffs herself,and she doesn't realise Cloud is being sarcastic in Costa del Sol, as you mentioned. Autistic people also tend to have poor propioception which could explain why Yuffie can be quite clumsy at times.
I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t see Yuffie that way (though I did a quick google and I'm not the only one with this interpretation), because she's not the stereotypical version of autism we usually get in the media but I definitely feel like Yuffie is more similar to a lot of the autistic people I know, including myself, than a lot of canon autistic characters we see. That said I dont think. either Cloud or Yuffie are intentionally autism-coded.
I had actually intended to put this in the google doc next time round (well a shorter version to fit the character limit) but I have other things I want to mention in regards the upcoming chapters so I thought I'd drop it here instead.
Since they only asked about Cloud I don't know if the guys would find this interesting but thought it was worth mentioning on the off chance they do.
Great comment, thanks for the insight!
@@Ross-Ross-Ross Thanks for taking the time to read it and respond!
I also prefer a less dorky lineup when discussing games like the usual faces. None of this “oh yeah, I already mastered Queen’s Blood; it’s actually pretty easy; and I want the games to be super-long.”
The Gold Saucer is actually gold at night, it glows! Lol
I almost never used Yuffie in OG FF7. She's absolutely busted in this game and a blast to play. Girl Power team on the combat challenges is just hilariously broken
As someone with autism, I look at Cloud the same way I do look at Cyclops from X-Men (another character that people headcanon as autistic). I see it and if Nojima or someone came out and said he was canon autistic I would be happy, but I don’t expect it and won’t get my hopes up for it.
I think the interesting wrinkle is that idk how Japan’s culture handles autism so they might not even look at Cloud as autistic.
Thanks for chiming in on this!
Red XIII at the Queens Blood tournament... That definitely threw me off 😅
27:43 Agreed 200% on the sit ups challenge. That was the most annoying thing ever.
58:35 im so surprised and happy this was brought up! I had this exact same thought process and thought of Harris Wittles and how he had a slight impact on this game in a tiny way when i heard that line. Or any time i hear that phrase tbh. Rip Twittles!
I may be missing something but that sephiroth card looks like one of the worst in the game. How often are you going to have a 3 peg space in the middle lane but your opponent has cards above and below it!?
Personally I like to have my 3 peg cards (midgar dsormer /dio) in the first 2 columns. They buff like crazy.
it's a bad card. i dropped it after a few rounds noticing the up and down red box is not happening often enough
I haven't tried it, but I assume you'd combine it with other cards that destroy cards, like the grenadier. And then combine it with cards that gain power when other cards are enfeebled or destroyed.
Definitely not the worst in the game.
Maybe I'll toy around with a deck just to try something new. Like everyone else on the podcast, I've just been sticking to cards that increase your own power. It's such an easy deck to build and win with, so I haven't had to try anything else.
I liked most of the mini games
So when is part 9-11 coming. I’ve been checking for two days now. Oh and I didn’t make the deadline for chapters 4-8 but I wanted to add in the original dyne says to Barret that he needs to bring Marlene to her mother so he’s gonna kill his daughter and nobody covered that.
We bumped the schedule back a bit, so Chapters 9-11 will be up on April 2nd.
ROCHE ROCHE ROCHE ROCHE
I also didnt have a date at the gold saucer
Guys, it's just cook. Niklas cook 😂
Haha, noted!
Do you guys know about loadouts? Appare tly you can save teams and loadouts do you don't have to exchange all your items and materis around so much
I knew you could save teams but not materia configurations! Good to know when I literally have one chapter left. 😂
1:30:46
FLANELS FLANELS FLANELS
Would love a ff7 book club one of episode when part 3 gets announced or something
Shoutout to plaid flannel shirts!
I don’t even remember the Genova fight lol
The mini games are excellent. Some of them could be their own game most of them are completely optional.