The day after yesterday.

 So, that was a real emotional ride, huh? Let’s hope today is a lot happier.

Switching disks is always an exciting event. I know I’m about to sound like an old man, but kids these days are really missing out on it. No good, goddamn, digital-only releases! Sure, it’s only official art, which you can see anywhere, but it feels special. Like a real accomplishment. Now that I’ve "ok boomered" myself, let's get on to the actual reason I’m here.

As I boot up disk 2 for the first time, Cloud remarks that he feels as though Sephiroth has gone north. Not sure how he feels that, but maybe we’ll find out. We then march and climb our way out of the Corel Valley Cave. It’s a quick trek where you find a few elemental defense gear and a magic plus materia I threw on Vincent. I don’t know my main party right now, but I’m running full Avalanche mode, so Vincent just makes the most sense. We exit the cave and run out to the world map again. On a side note, I love snow, always have, so this is my favorite part of the world map. We wander around there, killing mobs weak to fire, until we come across a city, strangely, named Icicle Inn. It's a small town filled with a lot of snow, but we see some surfers from Costa Del Sol who came here to snowboard. We find a weapons shop to upgrade a few characters. There’s also a small, abandoned house filled with computers and a camera. Looking into the recordings, we see they are between a man in a scientist coat and a woman who has a similar model to Ifalna, Aerith’s mom. She also has the same name...The recordings tell the tale of The Cetra and The Calamity. The Calamity is about a meteor/asteroid that fell from space and infected the Cetra with an unknown virus that devastated the populace. The Cetra tried to help the planet heal but were unable to, thanks in part to the virus. This virus was spread by a man who claimed to be benevolent but went from tribe to tribe and killed them all. This man was an emissary of someone named Jenova. So it confirms that Sephiroth isn’t an ancient, but the offspring of their killer. Kinda fitting, actually. Oddly enough, the virus is never brought up again. There's been no mention of the virus, and there will be no more mention of the virus. I'm either missing something or its the Geostigma Virus from Advent Children. We also don't know who this man is.

The second record is about Weapon, weapons created by the planet to protect itself from Jenova, who was eventually sealed (but not destroyed) by The Cetra.

The third record is split in two and is about Ifalna’s husband gushing over their new daughter, Aerith. The second part is their home being raided by Hojo and Shinra. A gunfight breaks out while Ifalna and Aerith escape. It is revealed that the man’s name is Gast. This house tells us about Aerith’s parents. Ifalna was somehow working for/under Professor Gast while he worked for Shinra. The two fell in love and conceived our white mage. Everything was ruined by Hojo and his lust of power, wanton destruction, and sketchy scientific methods. Poor Aerith’s entire life was filled with strife (no pun intended) and death. And to be mere miles away from learning about her birth... We should all try to be a fraction of as optimistic as she was. This entire section is optional, by the way.

As we leave the house and city through the north next, we are stopped by a kind man we mistreat, and the Turks randomly show up. Elena says she’ll get revenge for Tseng (is he dead?) and tries to punch us. We casually step aside, and she goes somersaulting down the mountain. Using a snowboard we borrowed off a willing child, we board down that same mountain and are introduced to my favorite mini-game in the game, Snowboarding.

Honestly, it’s not as good as I remember. We go down the long hill avoiding Snow Moogles, Snowballs, Igloos, and other assortments of things that should've killed us until we come to a ramp. We hit the ramp and, depending on our speed, launch ourselves into one of the various locations the dungeon named Great Glacier. There’s nothing too exciting here, but we do find the Alexander summon, the only way to do Holy damage in the game.

The next dungeon is called the North Crater. It’s a sheer cliff filled with caves we have to puzzle our way through. The cliff was made when The Jenova Asteroid struck the planet. We gain the two Blue Magic spells here, as I swamped out Barrett with Red at this point. I kill more mobs weak to fire, wonder why my tank has so low HP, beat up a two-headed dragon (after it kills me once), and reach the North Crater. Another short dungeon. It's filled with a lot, but pretty brief if you run away from all the fights.

It is here where we find all the black-cloaked figures we’ve seen throughout the game. They randomly die and kill themselves. After passing through round one of a giant whirlwind, the party comes together. Sephiroth shows up, says some convoluted thing, and drops another Jenova on us. She only utilizes fire attacks, so I put two fire immune characters in. GGEZ! We gain The Black Materia back, for reasons, and we give it to Barrett because we don’t want to risk giving it to Sephiroth as the main party goes forward. I’ve given it to Red in the past (because a canine can hold a rock), so I wonder what the order is.

After another, or two, whirlwind puzzles, we find Sephiroth, who discards a clone's body and takes the three into, what Cloud calls, an illusion. The illusion is the Nibelheim incident, however, Cloud is not present. He is replaced by a man with black hair. Tifa is iffy on agreeing with Cloud's memory. Eventually, our main character has another breakdown. Sephiroth calls him a puppet again, and informs Cloud that he was created by Hojo five years ago, made up of Tifa's memories and Jenova cells. He never existed and is just another clone, like all the other men in black cloaks. A Clone of Sephiroth. Not only that but a failed clone, not even given a number. Cloud has been following Sephiroth, not to kill him, but because that is what he was programmed to do. This reveals what Hojo meant in Costa del Sol, why Cloud surrendered the Black Materia, and why he felt that Sephiroth was calling him at the start of disk 2. The game cuts to “Tifa”, who shows up to get Barrett to go help Cloud, only to reveal it was a disguised Sephiroth all along.

We then cut to Rufus, Scarlet, and Hojo in a room made of materia walls. Rufus calls it the Promised Land, which Hojo scoffs at. Cloud and the gang teleport in, just in time to see Barrett walk in through the door. Cloud, ignoring Tifa’s calls, takes the Black Materia from Barrett and teleport up to a large crystal in the ceiling. The crystal drops down to reveal it is the true body of Sephiroth, lost in the Lifestream after the Nibelheim incident five years ago. Every time we’ve seen him, thus far, has been either a possessed clone or a Jenova cell effect. It's not really explained. If you’ve noticed, Sephiroth never actually does anything to this point. He doesn’t attack, show up without Jenova, or even appear in a physically possible way. It’s always flying or coming up through the floor. Although, he's also teleporting the party around right now, so maybe he can do stage magic?

After Cloud gives the Black Materia to his clone father, The Weapons wake up. Rufus invites the party onto the Highwind because he wants to question them. An FMV cutscene happens where the party sees the giant robot looking guys fly around the world, and Tifa collapses.

The next scene takes place just before the game starts. Tifa sees a barely conscious Cloud being tended to by a dog and the train attendant outside the train station in Midgar. Tifa talks to him, and he suddenly comes to life. He then gets information wrong and, as Tifa puts it, “All the things you didn't know that you should, And other things you shouldn't know that you did..." (copied from letao.is-a-geek.net).

We flash forward two weeks, from The Weapons incident, to discover Sephiroth has summoned Meteor, and the party is imprisoned by Shinra and about to be executed. Ya know, NBD. It’s here I called it a night with another character leaving my party. I thought this was going to be a short write-up tonight, but boy was I wrong. Wonder what my party will be tomorrow as I try to not get them killed.