Don't attack when the tail is up

[Ayen]

How many of you attacked when the tail was up? Either out of a derp moment or because you already had an attack locked in and the boss lifted its tail before it can go through?

I think this only happened once with me during one of my first playthroughs, but I'm not sure if it was me or my brother. Because I remember seeing the laser attack at least. I'm pretty good with waiting so it's seldom an issue. I just defend, defend, defend until the tail is back down.

Discuss.

[Wolf Kanno]

Since it's a redo of the Ymir fight from VI, I didn't fall for the bad translation issue.

[Ayen]

There was a translation issue?

[Wolf Kanno]

Yes, Barret actually tells you to attack while the tail is up.

[Ayen]

I thought Cloud was the one talking and it's followed with the counter from the laser which I took to mean don't attack. For obvious reasons.

[VeloZer0]

I remember telling my little brother that he was being told to attack when the tail was up. Then he got a game over. That still amuses me to this day.

But no, I never fell for it. It was increadibly obvious that it was some sort of trap. That said, I have seen if I could beat the fight by attacking anyways and tanking the damage (you can).

[Forsaken Lover]

It's kinda intuitive to know what he means. He says attack while the tail is up but then he says it will counterattack. So....you realize what you have to do.

[The Man]

I may have fallen for it the first time I played the game. While Barret tells you it will counterattack if you attack while the tail is up, he only tells you this after the line "Attack while it's [sic] tail's up!", after which it's entirely feasible for a player to have input an attack command. Since it's been years since the first time I played through, though, I can't remember for sure.

[Ayen]

I may have fallen for it the first time I played the game. While Barret tells you it will counterattack if you attack while the tail is up, he only tells you this after the line "Attack while it's [sic] tail's up!", after which it's entirely feasible for a player to have input an attack command. Since it's been years since the first time I played through, though, I can't remember for sure.

He also says "watch out" before the attack line. But I can see how someone could miss that the first playthrough since it's the first scene that has conversations during a battle.

[Jessweeee♪]

Yeah I totally attacked it. After I've been wailing on it already he's like "attack while it's tail's up it'll counter with it's laser" so I'm like "well ok I guess that means I better kill it faster because it's getting ready for a huge counterattack." In my defense I was like nine years old.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I yelled at Barret not to tell me what I can and can't do and then attacked it.

[Ayen]

Yeah I totally attacked it. After I've been wailing on it already he's like "attack while it's tail's up it'll counter with it's laser" so I'm like "well ok I guess that means I better kill it faster because it's getting ready for a huge counterattack." In my defense I was like nine years old.

Final Fantasy VII: Teaching children how to read one poor translation at a time.

I yelled at Barret not to tell me what I can and can't do and then attacked it.

That's the right attitude to have. Damn Barret, you ain't the boss of me! *gets owned by robot* This proves nothing!

[Skyblade]

The lines are (as I remember):

"Watch out!"
"Attack while it's tail's up"
"it'll counterattack with its laser."

The worst part was, if you're playing this with default settings, the battle speech is slow as molasses, so you lose any flow that the dialogue may have. Then the realization that it was a warning wouldn't hit until afterward.

If you actually act like a sane person and immediately switch battle text speed to the maximum upon starting a new game (because we can actually read faster than four words per minute, Square), the dialogue flows better, and you are much less likely to fall into the trap.

So "yay" for OCD forcing me to always check and tweak settings whenever I start a new game?

[Jiro]

Yeah, I got suckered by the text. Probably more than once. I also decided that I would attack it anyway to speed up the Limit Breaks a few times. Now I just wait patiently 'cause I don't want to waste that Phoenix Down.

[MJN SEIFER]

This was how I died the first time, as I took it to mean that you had to to attack when the tail was up, to prevent it from countering. If they had said "If you attack when it's tails up, it will counter with it's lazer" rather than "Attack when it's tails up, it's gonna counter with it's lazer" I would have gotten the message, and like Skyblade says the default battle messages are slow, so it's easy to attack before the dialogue is finished.

Also, this was my first Final Fantasy, so I didn't know that there was a tradtion of not being allowed to attack the first boss at a certain moment since FFIV.