Monday Night Motivation

The beginning of each month is always difficult because that is when I've got to reconcile all the accounts. Going through this process each month really makes me consider dropping and abandoning everything in order to live out the rest of my life in a van in the desert of Nevada. Sometimes a man needs a little motivation. Last month, I threw up a link to the scene in Metal Gear Solid 4 where Solid Snake is crawling through the microwave hallway.

Tonight, I'm going to link to the ending scene in Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core. For anyone who played the original Final Fantasy 7, you know that Zack is dead by the time the events of Final Fantasy 7 starts. In Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core, you get to play as Zack during the few years leading up to the events of Final Fantasy 7. This is cool because you get to revisit the flashbacks from the first game. You get to see when Zack first meets Cloud Strife. You get to see when Zack meets Areis Gainsborough. You get to see when Zack and Cloud confront Sephiroth in the old reactor. Lastly, you get to see Zack and Cloud escape from the mansion and confront the Shinra Soldiers.

The further that you play the game, you kind of wonder how far the plot will go and the more progress that you make, you come to the realization that you may end up fighting the Shinra Soldiers that eventually kill you.

But Crisis Core takes the original scene and dramatizes it like no other. In the original game, Zack gets hunted down by 3 soldiers and shot with a rifle. In Crisis Core, you are confronted with a giant mountain of Shinra Soldiers. Hundreds of Shinra Soldiers have guns pointed at Zack and then Zack goes in charging with his Buster Sword.

Link of the cutscene here.

You take control of Zack but you know it is futile. Zack has to die in this battle otherwise a time paradox would be created. So Zack just takes his Buster Sword and just starts slugging away at Shinra Soldiers. Oh, by the way, did I forget to mention there are three helicopter shooting missiles at you? Because that part is kind of important. I want to say it is a Mil-24 but I'm probably wrong.

During the fight, scenes from Zack's history flash. Inevitably, your HP drops to one and a cut-scene plays where the 3 soldiers gun Zack down.

The game ends with Cloud Strife coming out of his coma, seeing Zack fade away, and Cloud takes the Buster Sword and leaves for Midgar take Zack's personality and memories as his own.

I never played Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core but I had to watch the let's play to experience the story. The final scene is one of the most moving scenes from any video game I can remember. Every now and then, I'll re watch it for some extra motivation.