tenshinoakuma: (headshot country)
megaTEN ([personal profile] tenshinoakuma) wrote2011-07-21 04:02 pm

/smacks self!!

I AM SO UNFOCUSED it's not funny. I can't even properly procrastinate, what is this madness? Stuff seems to be having difficulty downloading and installing, which is quite troublesome. I guess I'll just have to get everything else that can be done in the meantime.

I kind of get the feeling that perhaps the main reason I didn't enjoy Crisis Core as much as some of the other games I was playing around the time was because I played it in such a short span of time, so all the things that irritate me stand out more because I was playing in such prolonged stretches of time.

I've been trying to write some FF7 fanfic, with quite a bit of difficulty. Aside from that fact I can't really focus on writing, it's been so. long since I finished FF7 and my recollections of everyone are so hazy. It's very rare that I know how everything is supposed to go in a fanfic, but that's sort of what's happened here. Now, I just have to find the right words to unravel them with... though I worry that the characters may not be quite within their character, or that I accidentally exclude a character from the story (when they really should have a place in it) without meaning to, as I did with Dreamless.





When Cloud doesn’t return home like he said he would, Tifa starts the routine of punching in the numbers to his PHS, knowing he won’t pick up. She expects to hear the dialling tone before she’s directed to leave a voice mail. It’s a routine she’s long been used to, in the times where Cloud would stay away for weeks at a time. It’s a set of motions she hasn’t needed to perform in a long time, and she silently worries Cloud’s slipping back into his old ways.

But what Tifa doesn’t expect to hear is an automated voice telling her, “Sorry, the number you have dialled could not be connected.”

She’s still numbly staring at the phone in her hand when Denzel stumbles in, sleepily rubbing his eyes. “Tifa,” he begins softly, a yawn threatening to swallow the rest of his words, “is Cloud gonna be home tonight?”

She doesn’t know. She tells herself that Cloud must have accidentally broken his PHS during his delivery; he can be surprisingly clumsy at times. She doesn’t want to think of the million other reasons she can’t connect.

Tifa turns and gives Denzel a small smile, putting the phone back in its receiver. “What are you doing up so late? Go back to bed.” When he gets that stubborn look in his face (the boy can be like Cloud, in some regards), she puts her hands on her hips and says sternly, “Go on.”

And she ushers him back to his room. She can see his meagre attempts to protest become squashed under his own sleepiness. After she’s tucked Denzel in bed, she takes her own advice and heads to her own for sleep, ready to compose in her head a lightly berating lecture for when Cloud returns.

Dawn comes.

Still no Cloud.

[identity profile] sinnatious.livejournal.com 2011-07-21 09:53 am (UTC)(link)
Sorry to hear you didn't like Crisis Core that much, though I can definitely see why parts would grate on you if you marathon'd it. Random encounter battles, and some rather visually un-interesting dungeons... and the missions could get super-repetitive too. I guess that never bothered me because I was lucky to get the chance to play more than an hour or two at a pop.

Fic! Don't think you have much to worry about, this is really good. ;____; Now I feel like a monster.

[identity profile] tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com 2011-07-21 10:11 am (UTC)(link)
I managed to avoid a good portion of random encounters, but I think it was primarily the things I had no control over that grated most rather than the repetitive things (since I deal with repetitive things by switching games). So, basically the CUTSCENE attacks that are unavoidable and the fact I keep getting DMW results that are less than helpful (healing when I'm past full health, damaging results when the enemy has like 100HP left), forcing me to watch a cutscene as I get healed/deal damage |D I don't like to spend time in games on things that don't benefit me, so this kind of stuff happening frequently is grating for me.

Well, that's what happens when you set up the logistics of time travel the way you did ! It's aaaaaaaaaaaaall your fault. But if I do this right, your soul won't be crushed at the end, so it's not all bad 8)

[identity profile] sinnatious.livejournal.com 2011-07-21 10:17 am (UTC)(link)
Ahhhh, yes, the DMV. That bugged me for a while too, although eventually I figured out how to influence it a bit. Also I'm pretty sure you could change the settings or skip those cutscenes after the first time? (Maybe I'm inventing feature wishlists in my memory as though they actually existed).

Does not necessarily mind having my soul crushed. :P Looking forward to seeing what you do with it!

[identity profile] tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com 2011-07-21 10:24 am (UTC)(link)
You can skip the cutscenes that appear while the DMW is spinning (e.g. Cloud saving Zack's ass in Modeoheim), but you can't skip the animation for non-summon attacks, which is where my restlessness comes in.

How do you influence the DMW? The only way I know is through some of the materia you can purchase that increases the chance of certain DMW results * A* I mostly want to know for my replay, where I go back and actually go and do those missions I skipped xD

Huhuhu, I hope I deliver, then :3

[identity profile] sinnatious.livejournal.com 2011-07-21 11:07 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, I mostly used the materia to boost, and levelled those up (the probability increases the higher the level). My typical strategy was to use Lucky Stars for Cissnei, because she'll set your DMW meter to 'Heavenly' and even if that means she'll turn up half the time, the frequency is so crazy it's as good as good as improving everyone's appearances, and then you mind the 'useless' ones a lot less. (But even getting Aeris at full health isn't such a bad thing because she gives you invincibility for a while too.) And then you get all those handy number combos too which are so useful. I always made sure to have one high cost MP materia and one high cost AP materia, then spam the hell out of either of them whenever AP0 or MP0 activated. \o/

Speaking of DMW, did you wind up activating Octoslash while fighting Sephiroth? Meets your every strike. It was kind of frustrating and kind of awesome.

....This is kind of making me want to play the game again. :| I never did finish those last couple of missions...

[identity profile] tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com 2011-07-21 11:20 am (UTC)(link)
(Oh, I didn't know Aeris did invincibility too :O Never noticed.) I got suuuuuuuper lazy about my materia since materia levelling seemed kind of random in Crisis Core. I had a Cura materia that remained at level 1 for about 1/2 the game, before levelling up twice in 2 battles @__@ So in the end, I only had Cura, Firaga, Thundaga, Libra and Elemental with... +240% HP |D Most of my damage came from Critical normal attacks, so I didn't carry any AP materia xD

LMFAO no, I never got Octoslash while fighting Sephiroth hahaha wow, that's a really cool addition.

Gaming conversations always make you want to play games, no lie :>b