Reviewing Monsters - Final Fantasy VII, Part 8

And after the whole sequence with the huge Sephiroth stuff in the Temple of the Ancients and the northern continent, I continued on with even more revelations, these ones involving Cloud and his origin story, as well as how it relates to Sephiroth! They really got us by giving only part of their origin story, let me tell you that. There are some parts of the localization that's worded a bit weirdly, but I do get the gist of things. The addition of Gojira 'Weapon' is a bit out of left field, but fits the theme of the game, I suppose. Lots of revelations and story beats, and unlike the Icicle Area, the 'Gaea Cliffs' actually function pretty well as a dungeon with moderately challenging enemies and puzzles without being frustratingly annoying like the Great Glacier sequence. 

Anyway, this review covers most of Gaea Cliffs and the Northern Crater, and the bit after the brief time-skip because after a lot of plot-intense stuff and permanent party changes, I finally get the world open to me again. 

Malboro

Hey it's the Malboro! I absolutely love this guy and, not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed he wasn't in FFXIII. Malboro is another one of the recurring enemies in the franchise, and while they try to talk about how it's a pun on "boro", the Japanese sound for an upset stomach, it's clearly just a reference to the cigarette brand. Why a cigarette-themed name is so consistently depicted as a giant tentacle monster with a giant mouth and a whole lot of eyes and tentacles and claws, though, we'll never know. Depictions of Malboros over the many, many Final Fantasy games have run the gamut of making them plant monsters, octopus monsters or just straight-up a different take on Beholders, but for the most part they tend to look the same. I do like just how many eyestalks this Malboro has, and he's even got a bunch of clawed fingers on the sides of his giant mouth! Creepy! The claws disappear in the Malboro's remake version (some classic FF monsters make cameos in the remake as bonus bosses) but he's even creepier there with the hi-def graphics!

Also, the Malboro is probably the first non-boss enemy to wipe out my entire party. See, the Malboro is known for one thing, and that's that they will cast practically every single debilitating effect in the game with their signature skill, "Bad Breath". It sounds pretty cheesy, of course, until you realize your entire party are now frogs that are confused and unable to even use recovery items while the Malboro calmly just spits out frozen blasts to kill your party slowly but surely. A very memorable monster for sure, if nothing else for my utter defeat at its tentacles.

Headbomber, Zolokalter & Evilhead

We'll get these two out of the way first they are 'repaint' enemies, and are the two weakest enemies in the region. Headbomber is a repaint of Pen Pen Skeeskee, and it certainly makes a whole lot more sense for this mutant penguin to show up in a snowy mountain instead of just some random canyon, huh? Headbomber's a pretty fun colouration, he looks like a total punk. Zolokalter (yeah, no idea about the name either) is a repaint of the Whole Eater enemy from waaaay back in the beginning of the game, which we encounter in Midgar. And... and it's still very cool looking! I absolutely love the way the colours work for this design, with the greens slowly giving way to neon radioactive green, the purple head, the green eyes around the maw... a very cool repaint for sure!

I completely forgot the game even had a regular bat enemy in 'Black Bat, but they get repainted as 'Evilheads' here. Unlike the other two, I don't have anything to say for it. 

Blue Dragon

Blue Dragons show up here and they breathe ice. Yep. Not much for me to say, they sure are dragons. These one isn't a boss like the Red Dragon, though, it's just a bunch of common encounters on a specific stretch of the dungeon. Not much to say here; doesn't help its case that I think that this dragon is the most boring out of FFVII's many many dragonesque enemies. 

Stilva

Look at that awesome concept artwork! The Silva is a repaint of the Materia Keeper, the dungeon boss in Mt. Nibel, and I absolutely love that, yeah, the creature designers clearly put a lot of thought into making these weird giant monsters, even ones that seem to be pretty much one-off weird enemies in a single area. A lot of what I praised about the Materia Keeper is the same here, I absolutely love the look of those hands and how this is one of the cooler crab-dragon-things I've seen in a while. And is its head meant to look like a goblin shark? And it's got a nasty tentacle-tipped tongue? Very cool. 

Icicle

In a segment in the dungeon, you have to fight four icicles in a row, representing your characters sort of demolishing giant icicles to create pathways in the floors below. The Icicles themselves show up as monsters, and attack you with 'icicle fall' style attacks. The model is ridiculously simple even by this game's standards, though, and I honestly thought that they could've made it a lot more interesting by turning this into something like a D&D Piercer or Roper or something. 

Cuahl / Coeurl

This is a cool one! Turns out that the Coeurl is a fictional alien race from the works of A.E. van Vogt, described as an intelligent, cat-like creature with longer forelimbs and two tentacles sprouting out of its shoulders. It feeds on the 'id' of other creatures, and can survive in all environments. And the Coeurl is apparently the original inspiration for D&D's Displacer Beasts! FFVII's "Cuahl" (the Japanese katakana is basically consistent Coeurl, though) keeps a lot of the spirit of the original alien, although the tentacles have moved to the tip of its snout which does make it look pertty damn sinister. That's a pretty great intelligent-looking cat face too, isn't it? This is an interesting enemy too in that it won't attack until someone attacks it, and then it'll gain different attacking spells depending on what attack you hit it with. 

The fact that this is a creature based on an alien and found in the areas around the Northern Crater is also very, very appropriate!

Schizo / Twin Head

Yeahm, calling a two-headed creature "Schizo" after a mental disorder is definitely something that would not fly these days. As someone who knows a lot of people suffering from this condition, this is kind of unfortunate. Schizophrenia isn't even the accurate term for people with multiple personalities anwyay. The original Japanese name was a perfectly fine 'Twin Head', so... yeah, a product of its times, I suppose? Anyway, Twin Head here is a completely goofy-looking yet still pretty impressive dragon that really looks like something out of a tokusatsu show, and I say that not as an insult. Look at those chunky legs, those Godzilla chicken-arms, and the sheer bizarreness of what they did with the limited graphics. The concept is still simple -- two heads, two tails -- but they certainly did a great job at making the tails and heads look different. The tails are perhaps a bit simple; one's a long fin and the other is a spiky club, but the more serpentine, armoured right head looks like something you'd see in a normal 'hydra' style monster, while the other one looks so... different while honestly not being that much. It's that combination of horns and lips, I suppose. 

The Twin Head itself is a pretty fun battle, even if it doesn't quite have a gimmick like the previous half-and-half boss, Lost Number. It's just a tough boss that has access to a decent amount of powerful spells, and if you kill a head, it will 'explode' in a final blast that will damage your party. I didn't fall to this trick, but apparently a lot of people died because they spammed AoE attacks to hit both heads at once and when both heads died at once, the cumulative 'death' damage will kill your whole party. A fun boss. 

Gremlin

After getting through the Great Glacier and Gaea Cliffs, your party finally makes it into Northern Crater, where a lot more of revelations revolving the two main baddies Jenova and Sephiroth takes place. Minimal spoilers here, but basically in the distant past, the alien god-like entity Jenova crash-landed on the planet. Whatever happened in the past and whatever machinations that the villains have been doing, it all comes to a head in Northern Crater. The most common enemy here is... this guy! The gremlin! Yet another one that's a recurring enemy, Gremlins in the franchise run the gamut from being just generic devil-men or being copies from that 1984 movie that I've never watched. This one pretty much describes what I think when someone says 'gremlin', though. Shit-eating asshole grin, gangly limbs, long claws, and a furry body. I like just how weird the anatomy of this thing is, too. It's just a head covered with fur, then the long limbs sprout out of it. I'm not sure why this is the thing hanging around the Northern Crater instead of something more appropriate like the Grimguard or whatever... but then again, why not, right? 

Ironite

The other common enemy is one of the weirder-looking drgaons! Look at this guy. Ironite (sometimes translated as "Aeronite" in subsequent Final Fantasy games) looks like a dragon at a glance, but its body is so flat. It's like some sort of underwater reptile or something, and it sort of gives me the vibe of some sort of particularly long-legged tortoise. Or sort of like a bat. I love just how weirdly slope-like the wings look, which look almost dome-like. The face with the upward-pointing tusks also look pretty unique, but the weirdest thing, I feel, are the giant grasshopper-like legs that jut out of the Ironite's rear end. Overall, a lot more memorable than the pst two or three dragon models we've had for sure!

Dragon Rider

What? Dragon Riders? Who are these people? The design is simple but cool, and the dragon model looks distinct enough from all the other dragons in the game and I really like its somewhat bird-helmet-looking head design. I also like the weird glaive-scythe thing that the rider itself wields. And unlike a lot of the enemies in the area, the Dragon Rider is also sufficiently threatening without being annoying. But I keep wondering who these guys are. A clan of people who somehow live in the Northern Crater? Minions of Sephiroth/Jenova who are actually capable of battle instead of just shuffling around in black robes? Are they Shinra agents; does Shinra have a dragon-riding air force somewhere in their budget? Survivors of the Ancient race? Tall gremlins? I accept a lot of the monsters in this game, but I really want to know what the deal is with these guys. 

Sculpture

Also, these guys exist. In between the dragons and gremlins and whatnot, you just have giant slabs of concrete mounted on golden legs with two fiery torches jutting up from its top. It attacks by bashing you, or summoning some kanji and casting fire spells. Nothing about this is explained, but then so is the case for a lot of Final Fantasy monsters. A very cool enemy, but one that I kinda felt could've been a bit more thematic in the Temple of the Ancients or the Forgotten City. Still, not complaining, this was a bizarre and fun one. 

Killbin

Speaking of utterly bizarre motherfuckers, we've got the Killbin here. Its Japanese name translates to something like "Kyurubinuyu", which apparently is an anagram of 'Rubik's Cube'? The way Killbin works is actually somewhat similar to the Two-Face coin enemy from the Gold Saucer area; or the Jokers from the overworld around there. Killbin has six faces, and it will roll itself and do one of six things randomly... although it's skewed a lot towards the Killbin. Five of the six things will harm you with damage or effects, and its 'cure' spell will only ever get rolled if your own characters' HP is low. Again, no real idea why these things hang out in the Northern Crater, but with all the Jenova nonsense going on, perhaps the question I should be asking is 'why not'. A bit too gimmicky for my tastes, but certainly a fun, different enemy. 

Wind Wing & Grenade

This area's got its own repaint enemies too. Wind Wing over there is the 'needle-nosed' dragon model we first saw as Deenglows. The Northern Crater's main environmental puzzle are this utterly annoying giant wind-walls, and if you screw up while trying to pass them these Wind Wings show up to attack you. Wind dragons, it's kind of cool I guess. 

Grenade's just a gray-coloured version of the Bomb. I don't actually think I fought more than one of these guys. 

Gigas

The rare enemy that I never found out about is Gigas over here, who's like some sort of giant muscleman. An ogre? A genie? Well, I guess this is what Vincent's Frankenstein "Death Gigas" form looks like when it's alive. They show up a lot in the series, usually with that vaguely djnni-like topknot and face markings, but otherwise they're honestly kind of boring. 

Jenova DEATH

I felt like this one was way more of a threat than Jenova LIFE, but hey, have the third Jenova repaint. I really have nothing much to say here, I really kinda wished they diversified the three Jenovas a bit more. I do like the dark, metallic green and maroon colour here, but all Jenova Death ends up being is basically a particularly tough fire-themed boss fight that I utterly slaughtered after unloading all my summon materia on her. The actual boss fight is actually my favourite out of the three different Jenovas I've met so far, but they are so samey that I find it hard to really care. 

Anyway, Jenova Death is kind of a distraction anyway. A lot of huge things happen in the Northern Crater as your group, Shinra, Sephiroth and Jenova all collide. Also, the Weapons, ancient slumbering protectors of the planet, wake up because they felt like the planet is threatened. Also, a meteor is summoned and threatens to blow up the planet. Also, Cloud has a lot of revelations about his past and true nature. Also, your main character swaps for the duration. Also, there's a time-skip. Shit hit the fan in disc two, is all I'm saying. 

SOLDIER:2nd & Roulette Cannon

After that super-duper long campaign to the icy north continent and all the revelations that happened, your party members are scattered. Tifa and Barret are scheduled for execution, and the other party members plan a jailbreak. During the jailbreak (which coincides with some pretty awesome cutscenes involving the Weapons) you get to fight more SOLDIERs. We fought SOLDIER:3rd during the original raid on Shinra Headquarters, and this is their bigger brothers, the second-class SOLDIERs. If you'll remember, Cloud Strife is First-Class, as he constantly reminds the rest of the cast, so while it's a boring repaint enemy it's still neat to see these guys. 

It's been a while since we've seen a Shinra turret. This one looks like a giant revolver, because of course it does. Despite its name, I don't think there's anything particulaly roulette-y about it, it just shoots bullets at your party. 

Anyway, that's about it for the huge, long scripted segment of the storyline, and after that you get most of your entire party on a god damn airship, the Highwind, and you get full access to the world and the many many sidequests within it! Being the sort of player that I am, I will complete all of the sidequests and side-areas before progressing with the Cloud-related storyline. So yeah, stick around as I re-explore the world of FFVII!

_______________________________________________

Two 'extra' reviews this time. One is a summon, and the other is the Sapphire Weapon, the giant monster that mostly makes an appearance in cutscenes. 

Neo-Bahamut

Located in the Northern Crater is this guy's materia, Neo Bahamut. Which is apparently a red version of Bahamut. Is this why regular Bahamut looks like such a regular dragon? Because we're getting a huge Digimon-Gundam version of it later on? Neo Bahamut is pretty cool, although mostly that's kind of because of how I didn't expect this. The wing shapes and those two extra-chunky front wings, two forward-pointing shoulder-spikes and the horn-antennae are all pretty neat! I don't tend to have a whole ton to say about these sort of designs, personally, but I can appreciate this one for sure. Especially the sheer power that its Giga Flare attack has and just how over-the-top the animation is. If you are too lazy to youtube it, Neo Bahamut basically lifts up an entire chunk of the earth with your enemy on it up to the heavens, before he descends and unleashes Giga Flare on the enemy. 

Sapphire Weapon

Simply called 'the Weapon' at this segment of the game -- although we clearly see multiple Weapons rise up from Northern Crater and fly off. Heck, the one that rises first isn't even this guy, it's the Ultimate Weapon, the big daddy of these monsters. The Sapphire Weapon isn't even fought, it's just a subject of a series of very badass cutscenes. No, seriously, go watch those. They're badass. And since this guy isn't going to be fought like the other weapons, let me talk about him now.

The buildup to the Weapon's real showcase, as it slowly rises up of where it's frozen in ice, all the information we get about how these guys are the creations of the planet as 'antibodies' against threats against it... and later on as it wades through the ocean like... like, well, all the best Godzilla movies, tanking all of Shinra's military might... I love just how bizarrely fish-like it looks. Sure, later on we get to see its real face, which is a pretty snarly kaiju face, but I love how for the most part it looks like some sort of bizarre giant lobster-shark fusion as it swims through the ocean. I particularly love the shot when it first rises out of the ocean before it reveals its conventional-looking face, the sight of the upper half of that face terminating in a massive chitinous chest is pretty damn badass. Even looking at this thing in its full form makes it clear that despite having arms and a head and whatnot, it's not humanoid in any shape or form. It's honestly sort of like some of the good Godzilla movies where you think it's some sort of giant eel or crocodile until it rises up to its full height. Except instead of being a fat nuclear T-rex, Sapphire Weapon is this glorious, monstrous spiky behemoth from the deep. Honestly, I love everything that goes on with this guy, and I love how until its head slides out of where it's recessed, the whole thing looks like a giant eel that terminates in a mass of coral spikes or something.