My brother and I took turns playing through version 14 a few months ago. We loved every minute of it, it is just fantastic. The difficulty is just where I would want it to be. We played right up to Safer Sephiroth... but then we quit.
It wasn't because Sephiroth was beating us outright. (I'm sure we could have beaten him at our level). He was beating us with the tedium of watching his damn supernova sequence over, and over, and over. And over. Yes, it's cool the first few times you see it... but we never beat him, just because we got so sick of it stopping the fight to do the animation. Now I wouldn't bring it up, but for these reasons:
- We are fairly hardcore old-school gamers who LOVED the increased difficulty of the rest of the game... so for us to be so irritated to simply quit playing is a very bad thing.
- There is a known method to replace the super long American version of supernova with the shorter Japanese version, even on the NTSC disc.
However, I don't have the technical skills to apply the change myself. I would do it in a heartbeat.
Here is a link to the information I have on it: Sephiroth's Original Supernova (Japanese version) restored
Maybe someone with more experience can make heads or tails of the post, if interested? The Japanese supernova is very short (not as cool looking by any means, but after watching the American version countless times I'd still prefer it). In fact, the Japanese supernova may make Sephiroth more challenging, as it does direct damage instead of proportional (e.g. it can kill you outright).
So possibly more challenge, definitely less tedium. Sounds like a no-brainer to me, if I could just figure out how to do it.
Alternately, as one member of the gamefaqs forum suggested, if Sephiroth could do the American version only the first time, then the Japanese version every time after that... it would be ideal. Or if he did the American supernova a very small percentage of the time, and the Japanese version more often, but perhaps with a different attack name? Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. I understand if no one wants to take this on, just a suggestion.
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