Cloud's Blade Beam - something I didn't know

[The Skillster]

Yes, even after 10 or so years of FF7 I found something interesting.
I was a Geas Cliff fighting a pack of 4 ZoloKalter's (Toxic Barfing Worm things) and hit one with Cloud's Level 2 Limit Break - Blade Beam.
As you know it hits it's intended target and cannons off and hits all other enemies.
What I didn't know was this - enemies who are programmed to counter-attack counter the attacker (in this case the enemies hit back with Toxic Barf), and the remaining ZoloKalter's were either attacking me, and the ZoloKalter who was hit by the original Blade Beam.

Can anyone explain this?

[auxili160]

Makes sense. I guess blade beam is programmed to make the enemy who is hit first to attack other enemies with the branching beams. Basically, sometimes the enemy will notice that it's YOUR blade beam blasts that is hitting them, and sometimes they will think "dude, my buddy is shooting beams at me after he got attacked by that blonde haired chap."
It may be a slight bug, but I think it is kinda neat. lol

[gjoerulv]

Hmmm... Since they were either attacking you or the targeted enemy 'bug' is the 1st thing popping up in my mind. If they were only attacking the targeted enemy it could make sense though. The game could make that enemy the user of the 2nd beams.

[Cyberman]

I think it may be a bit more simple minded than any of that.
First FF7 is written in C++.
It's OOP therefore every entity is an object.
Second it depends on how they implemented blade beam.  My guess is that:
first The enemy is attacking you, there is a certain chance of them counter attacking being attacked.
Second blade beam creates new blade beam objects, to do so it makes the critter hit first the attacker for each other enemy in the field.

So they counter attack the critter hit however not all the attacks on you (the initiator) may have been counter attacks (IE one from the other critters that weren't initially hit may have been a normal attack) however they were counter attacking the critter where the beam was split (because the program works by recursively making the first one hit the attacker and shooting new beams).

Cyb

[Akari]

First FF7 is written in C++.

FFVII was written in C.

[gjoerulv]

Yes, it sounds like what cyb wrote. And that's partly what I meant. But if the counter attack was on both you and the enemy, it smells bug. I believe the enemy becomes the target though, after the beam splits. 'Cause the AI prob sets the target to self's last attacker, and the objects are prob created after the 1st enemy gets damaged.

[Aali]

First FF7 is written in C++.

FFVII was written in C.

PC version is in C++, are you refering to the PSX version?

[halkun]

The PSX version was also in c++. It was ported to the PC.

[Akari]

The PSX version was also in c++. It was ported to the PC.

I didn't see any classes, virtual functions or any of that kind when disassembling. Only structures and functions. It's C and nothing more. Maybe they use c++ to work with direct x in pc but on psx it's pure C.