Crisis Core November 13

     I finally got back to Crisis Core: FFVII last Friday a little after 9:30pm.  I used my recorder, but I didn't want to record while I was playing.  I put the portable unit in sleep mode because, y'know, battery power.  Plus, if I was recording the audio during gameplay, I'd forget to stop recording and I'd run out of room on the mini-casette.  I can be sooooo into this game ;) ...
    Where do I begin?  The last time I played this game was on October 17th--and that was just a session for Zack to level up.  I also realized that Zack's next mission might be that fateful one in Niebelheim (did I spell that right? Oh, it's Nibelheim... ^.^;;), which of course is Cloud's hometown.  So when I did get back to the game Friday night, I warmed up (refreshed my memory for the controls) with a side mission, one that involved finding remnants of Genesis on this boat.  The final enemies for this mission were two degrading Genesis, uh, guys.  I got a chance to use my newly fused materia the Dark Blizzara, which not only poisoned one of the Genesis bosses, it stuned him as well.  Plus, I (I mean, Zack) got a Lucky Star from Cissnei and the rest of the batttle went smoothly afterwards. 
     (SPOILERS!! Probably...)  So then, Zack talked to Kunsel to let him know he's ready to go on the mission with [gasp!] Sephiroth.  And then, JOY!!!!!  Zack met Cloud again!!  Oh, how wonderful this reunion is!  They will be on the mission together, those buddies  :)    Anyway, in Nibelheim, Zack met this boy who knows about the seven wonders of Nibelheim and tells Zack to look for the red drinking water.  "Is it blood?" the boy asks.  It turned out that there was a red materia in the water, which actually is the Phoenix summon materia.  Sweet!  Then I allowed Zack to talk to Sephiroth (who told him to get plenty of rest...awww, he cares [for now]!)  Cloud was standing right by Zack so I made Zack talk to him.  Squeeaaalll!  Then I explored the town for a short while.
      Unfortunately I will have to skip a lot that happened in the game and say right away that I stopped playing at 10:30pm (an approximate hour and a half).  I meant to do some more exploring when I had Zack talk to Sephiroth when he was looking out the window at the "familiar landscape."  But then ten minutes of cinematics played, which was very nice...but I felt like I didn't do enough exploring in Nibelheim yet.  I did a soft reset and loaded an earlier file, and I ended up at the first save point in Shinra Manor.
     So, I don't mind having to see those scenes again (there is so much revelation within those ten minutes).  I recognize much of it because I played the original Final Fantasy VII.  But of course, Crisis Core: FFVII is the true, complete story of how things happened before the events of the original game.  There is plenty to recall and reflect upon at this point, so I will have to save my feelings about them for another post.  Stay tuned.