15 Terrifying Killer Animal Movies To Watch On Netflix, Prime Video, Shudder, And More

The threat in horror movies can come from many places, but there’s something about the natural world that is particularly frightening. Sure, there are many highly effective zombie, ghost, vampire, and werewolf movies. But it’s easy to take comfort in the fact these are all supernatural creatures, and we’re not likely to meet them in real life.

But this isn’t the case with animal attack movies, and for decades, filmmakers have used familiar animals to evoke fear in audiences. Sometimes these creatures are dangerous predators that we’d normally steer clear of at all costs, such as sharks, tigers, and bears. Other times, they are seemingly “innocent” animals that we see every day–dogs, cats, and birds–that for some reason want to kill us. Sure, these beasts might be rabid, genetically mutated, or interbred (these are horror movies after all), but ultimately they’re all animals that very much exist in the real world.

The two granddaddies of animal attack movies are, of course, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. These classics were made 12 years apart (in 1963 and 1975) and it’s hardly an exaggeration to say that every film about a killer animal that has been made since was influenced by them in some way. But there are plenty of other great examples, and many of them can be watched right now on streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Shudder. So here’s GameSpot’s guide to the best and scariest animal attack movies to stream–and after you’ve checked these out, we’ve also got guides to the best body horror, monster, alien, and cosmic horror movies to stream right now.

And speaking of things you should be watching, consider listening to GameSpot’s weekly TV series and movies-focused podcast, You Should Be Watching. With new episodes premiering every Wednesday, you can watch a video version of the podcast over on GameSpot Universe or listen to audio versions on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and Apple Podcasts.

Keep Your (Social) Distance and Email Someone a Gift Card, Instead

Easter is this weekend, and over the last few decades people went from hiding a few eggs and chocolates around the house and yard to what is essentially Christmas In Spring. Now people give actual gifts for the Easter holiday above and beyond just a few hollow-chocolate bunnies. However, things are dramatically different here in the year 2020, and a lot of the gift-exchanging is on hold due to responsible social distancing. What to do? If you know someone in need of a gift for any occasion right now, the best thing you can do is buy a virtual gift by way of a digitally-delivered gift card.

Best Gift Cards by Email

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With most online retailers completely swamped right now, and the majority of states under orders to close all “non-essential” businesses, sending someone an online gift card is a great choice for your gift-giving needs. For one, they don’t have to spend it right away, so they can hold off until things settle down again. Or not.

Another advantage to an emailed gift card opposed to a traditional, physical card, is it removes shipping from the equation entirely. Amazon isn’t alone in its warehouse woes, with many online businesses slowing down estimated shipping times due to massive demand. Sending someone a digital gift card ensures it arrives on time and doesn’t add to the shipping burdens currently in place. If the card is used for digital purchases, even better.

Whether you’re looking to give someone a little something for Easter, celebrate a birthday or other occasion, or just to be nice, definitely consider the convenience of a gift card right now.

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How To Catch A Flea In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

There are 80 bugs to catch in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but only a small handful of them have special conditions to show up. You can catch most of them flying and crawling about your island, around trees, on flowers, under rocks, and sometimes even swimming–in most cases, they’ll be out in the open for you to sneak up on with your net. But the flea is one of the most elusive. If you want to catch a flea, you have to get to know your neighbors.

How To Catch A Flea

The only way to catch a flea in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is off the head of a flea-infested villager. Talk to and check up on your neighbors every day–you should be doing this every day, anyway–until one of them complains about feeling itchy. Even before you talk to them, you might notice little black dots hopping around them.

An itchy villager in New Horizons means they have a flea problem.
An itchy villager in New Horizons means they have a flea problem.

All you need to do is pull out your net and hit their head with it. You might need to adjust the distance so you don’t accidentally pull them into conversation again, but no need to worry even if you do–the fleas aren’t going anywhere.

Villagers usually hate being hit with the net, but this time they’ll thank you for “lifting the curse.” And you’ve done it! You’ve caught a flea.

When To Catch A Flea

Fleas are available to catch all day, as long as villagers are out to catch them on, but they’re also seasonal, which means you can only catch them during certain times of the year. It’s April right now, so fleas are active in the Northern Hemisphere through November and in the Southern Hemisphere through May.

Find the list of months the flea is active in for both hemispheres below.

Northern Hemisphere

  • April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November

Southern Hemisphere

  • October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May

For a more comprehensive list of seasonal bugs, check out the new fish and bugs in April and which critters are going away at the end of the month.

What To Do With A Flea

Once you catch a flea, it will be registered in your Critterpedia like any other fish or bug you can catch in New Horizons.

A flea in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
A flea in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

From there, you can donate it to Blathers at the museum or sell it to Timmy and Tommy at Nook’s Cranny. You can also sell it to the special visitor Flick, who will buy bugs off of you for 150% their market value.

  • Nook’s Cranny price: 70 bells each
  • Flick price: 105 bells each

If you don’t want to sell any extra fleas, placing them as an item generates a unique display item that’s different from the standard tank that other bug displays have. If you have a spare one, try it out!

You’re not going to make a fortune off selling fleas–they’re mostly just a fun rare critter. For another rare bug that is worth quite a bit of bells, check out our guide on how to farm tarantulas.

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Final Fantasy 14 5.3 Patch Delayed Due to Coronavirus

The Final Fantasy 14 patch 5.3 update, which was planned for a mid-June release, has been delayed due to the recent state of emergency order in Japan. Director Naoki Yoshida says it’s unclear at this time whether the patch will be delayed a few weeks or a month.

In a blog post on the official Final Fantasy 14 website, Yoshida announced that because of the recent state of emergency developers have been ordered to work from home. This, in turn, has put the development timeline for the next big FF14 patch into question.

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Patch 5.3 was supposed to be the next major update in the Shadowbringers content cycle. While Square Enix didn’t officially reveal what would be a part of the update, many players were expecting the next chapter in the Alliance Raid cycle which is a collaboration with Nier: Automata and its director Yoko Taro.

In his message, Yoshida detailed exactly what has been delayed by the work from home order including, “Delayed delivery of graphical assets due to the lockdown of cities in East Asia, North America, and Europe. Delayed voice recording due to the lockdown of cities in Europe. Delayed to development tasks performed by Tokyo staff due to work-from-home/shelter-in-place limitations. Production and QA teams operating well below normal capacity due to work-from-home/shelter-in-place limitations.”

“We are terribly sorry for the disappointment this may cause our players, as we know you look forward to new patches. However, it is also important to prioritize the physical and mental health of our development team, without whom we would never be able to release the quality updates and features you expect from FFXIV[.]”

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Alongside the 5.3 patch delay, Yoshida says that players can expect longer than usual responses from the support desk, and a slowed implementation for bug fixes both as a result of the work-from-home orders.

This is the newest game delay as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic. Other major releases like The Last of Us Part 2 were also delayed because of the pandemic. Check out IGN’s Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers review for more coverage.

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Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. He mains a Monk on Final Fantasy 14.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Mini-Games Guide: All the Rewards You Get From Completing Them (So Far)

After years and years of waiting for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, did you think after all this time you’d have just as much fun playing a game of Darts as shutting down Shinra? Neither did we! If you’re wondering what to expect, or more specifically, are curious about the rewards you get from FF7’s various mini-games, then look no further! We’ve got all the info you need below.

Look to the Table of Contents to find the information you’re most curious about. We detail where each mini-game is, as well as offer some tips to ensure you nab those rewards in no time.

For more guides, check out our feature highlighting some essential tips to know as you play the game, as well as our guide on how to best spec your characters. You can also see everything we have in our full guide roundup, which also includes our walkthrough. Otherwise, you can read our FF7 Remake review.

Table of Contents [hide]

Darts

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Location: Sector 7 Slums, Seventh Heaven

During Chapter 3, there’s a dartboard where you can throw darts in Seventh Heaven. You can find a scoreboard detailing people’s best scores. If you beat Wedge’s top score, he’ll give you a Luck Plus Materia before the end of Chapter 4. You also have the opportunity to earn the Materia by playing the mini-game at that point in the story. To get the top score, try to get as many bulls-eyes as you can by making sure to throw the dart right when the circle closes in on the center. Just watch for the inner circle timer, because if you wait too long, you’ll lose your chance for a swift throw.

Whack-a-Box

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Location: Sector 5 Slums, Kid’s Hangout

You may have the rest of the Sector 5 Slums fooled, but everyone knows you aren’t cool unless the kids think you’re cool. The only way to do that is to smash some boxes. If you’ve been following our other guides to find Moogle Medals, you should already know what you’re doing here! Some general tips are to make sure Cloud is using the Deadly Dodge Materia to smash multiple boxes at once and save your strong attacks like Braver for the big, 1500 point boxes!

Rewards: (Normal Mode)

  • Participation Prize – A Moogle Medal
  • 10,000 – Elixir
  • 20,000 – Crescent Moon Charm
  • 30,000 – Spectral Cogwheel

After beating the game, you’ll unlock Hard Mode. When you get back to the Kid’s Hangout, Cloud Strife should already have some of the strongest abilities in the game available to him. If you’re having a tough time, try to equip some Materia that grants you bonus ATB charges, focus on boxes that grant you more time, and again, only attack the big boxes with your strongest attacks.

Rewards (Hard Mode):

  • Participation Prize – A Moogle Medal
  • 10,000 – Elixir
  • 20,000 – Crescent Moon Charm
  • 30,000 – Transference Module

Squats

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Location: Wall Market, Training Gym

This isn’t your grandpa’s squat mini-game this time around! The FF7 Remake has considerably upped the ante in terms of difficulty. One tip we can offer is once you have the rhythm down, pay less attention to the exact timing of your presses, and more to your character’s animations. You’re granted more time than you think to time your button presses, so a couple of milliseconds lost are not worth risking breaking your whole cycle!

Rewards:

  • Trainee – 3 Mega Potions
  • Amateur – Orb of Luck-Up Materia
  • Pro – Champion Belt

Combat Coliseum

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Location: Wall Market, Coliseum

The Coliseum in the Wall Market has challenges for individual characters, two-person, and three-person teams of varying difficulty. They aren’t too tricky, so play smart, heal your party, and enjoy earning some bonus SP point items, new Limit Breaks for your party, and more! Once you unlock Hard Mode after beating the game, be sure to come back to take on some end-game challenges!

Events + Rewards (Normal Mode):

  • Cloud vs. Wild Animals – Legacy: Ascension
  • Aerith vs. Wild Animals – Legacy: Planet’s Protection
  • Two-Person Team vs. Slum Outlaws – Clarity Pendant
  • Barret vs. Wild Animals – Legacy: Catastrophe
  • Tifa vs. Wild Animals – Legacy: Dolphin Flurry
  • Cloud vs. Shinra Thugs – The Art of Swordplay Vol. II
  • Barret vs. Shinra Thugs – Sharpshooter’s Companion Vol. II
  • Tifa vs. Shinra Thugs – Way of the Fist Vol. II
  • Three-Person Team vs. Shinra Warriors – Tarot Cards
  • Two-Person Team vs. Team Payback – Moogle’s Amulet

Events + Rewards (Hard Mode) – Will update soon!

Shinra HQ Combat Simulator

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Location: Shinra HQ, 63rd Floor

Similar to the Coliseum, stop by the 63rd floor in the Shinra building to take on challenges only slightly more complicated than before. Seriously, you should have no trouble here! Scenarios are broken down for Cloud, Tifa, and Barret, as well as some that test your teamwork. Some end-game bosses away those who return here on hard mode!

Rewards:

  • Cloud vs. SOLDIER Trainees – Cog Bangle
  • Barret vs. SOLDIER Trainees – Supreme Bracer
  • Tifa vs. SOLDIER Trainees – Rune Armlet
  • Two-Person Team vs. High Flyers – Gil Up Materia
  • Three-Person Team vs. Team Ragbag – EXP Up Materia

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Souls-Like RPG Hellpoint Has Been Delayed

Hellpoint, the sci-fi souls-like RPG, has been delayed due to COVID-19, moving the release date back to Q2 2020.

Taking the RPG elements of Dark Souls and the creepy sci-fi elements of Event Horizon, Hellpoint takes place in the aftermath of a massive quantic cataclysm. Play as a mysterious character and mold the story to your own will with decision making having a big effect on how the game progresses.

Cradle Games announced the delay on Twitter, saying that the COVID-19 pandemic was the reason behind the delay. Hellpoint was originally supposed to release on April 16, but due to issues from the events occurring around the world currently, the team is going to take a few more months to improve the quality of the game before release.

Hellpoint will release on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, OSX and Linux later this year.

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A Real Life GTA Online Car Seems To Have Popped Up In Better Call Saul

A real life GTA Online easter egg has been spotted in the latest episode of Better Call Saul, which is called “Bagman”. If you missed it don’t feel bad, it was only on screen for a few seconds and required some real GTA Online knowledge to even spot.

During the opening scene, The Cousins arrive at a Salamanca safehouse to pick up the $7 million bail money that Saul needs to get his Cartel client out of jail. The twins walk through the garage filled with luxury cars, one of which is the easter egg. The blue sports car with the white stripe down the front may seem familiar to GTA Online players, what with it being in most player’s garages right now.

The sports car is a real-life equivalent of the Bravado Banshee from GTA Online, which was a prize given away by Gamestop back in 2013. Since then it has had a variety of owners, before ending up in the hands of the Flat 12 Gallery car collectors and making its way onto the show.

The show creators of course weren’t aware of the significance of the car, they were probably just looking for some fancy cars to line up as part of the shot. It was only once the episode aired that fans started making the connection and pointed it out online.

In other GTA Online news, the limited time Alien Survival Series and Peyote plants from the Halloween 2019 event are back. Experience the strange existence of Aliens and those hallucinogenic plants for a short time in GTA Online.

Now Playing: Grand Theft Auto V Comes To Xbox Game Pass | GameSpot Live

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Netflix/WWE’s The Main Event Review: It’s Like Mike With Wrestlers

The partnership between WWE and Netflix is bringing some intriguing content to the streaming service in April. Already, The Big Show Show–a half-hour sitcom starring the wrestling giant–has premiered. Now, the first Netflix original film from WWE Studios is debuting.

The Main Event stars Seth Carr (Black Panther) as Leo Thompson, an eleven-year-old who finds a magical wrestling mask that gives him special powers and sets him on a journey to become a WWE Superstar. Imagine the 2002 family comedy Like Mike, but instead of old shoes and basketball players, it’s a smelly luchador mask and WWE wrestlers.

WWE Studios has a spotty record with its film releases, including a long list of straight-to-DVD movies and a few box office bombs. There are some bright spots, though. In 2019, Fighting with My Family told the real-life origin story of WWE superstar Paige and was a critical success.

Now, with The Main Event, WWE Studios has a family comedy available to stream on Netflix at a time when large audiences are staying home to do just that. The movie, which stars a very funny cast and more than a handful of WWE’s own wrestlers, is better than you might expect. Yes, the humor is childish and the story is emotional and full of heart in ways many of WWE’s older fans may not appreciate. Still, The Main Event succeeds in its mission to create an entertaining film that the whole family can watch.

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The story is incredibly simple and predictable. Leo, a smaller kid who often winds up the target of bullies, finds a magical mask, making him unnaturally strong and impervious to pain. He uses that mask to not only impress a girl he likes, but to sign up for a professional wrestling competition with a WWE NXT contract at stake. It should be noted that within the world of this movie, wrestling matches aren’t choreographed, scripted or pre-determined. They’re presented as actual athletic contests.

If you’re asking yourself why WWE would allow a child to compete in wrestling matches against adults or how Leo’s parents don’t figure out what’s happening or why more people’s minds aren’t blown upon learning magic is real, you’re already thinking about this movie too hard. The Main Event is a fantasy story, filled with plenty of things that would not make sense in reality. After all, while Smackdown star Otis does a lot of silly things in the ring, he’s never finished off an opponent with a massive fart. In this movie, though, passing gas on your opponent is fair game and should provide some laughs for younger viewers.

Otis is one of a number of WWE superstars who appear throughout the film, some as their normal wrestling characters, while others take on new roles. Those you’ll recognize include The Miz, Kofi Kingston, Corey Graves, Sheamus, and Renee Young–who shines as she takes on a distinctly more morbid tone than her normal WWE commentating. She’s convinced someone’s going to die during the competition, and her fascination disturbs Graves in one of the movie’s funniest exchanges.

The standout among the WWE cast, though, is NXT wrestler Keith Lee. In the film, he plays Smooth Operator, one of Leo’s opponents in the competition. The Main Event gives Lee far more dialogue than he’s ever had on WWE TV, and it allows him to steal the show, whether he’s giving Leo a pep talk or singing his way through wrestling promos–Did you know Keith Lee has the voice of an angel? You do now.

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As for the non-wrestling cast, Carr and his fellow young castmates play their roles well. Carr, in particular, is very believable as a WWE superfan who’s living his dream come true. The adults, meanwhile, bring plenty of comedy to the table. Adam Pally (Happy Endings) and Tichina Arnold (The Neighborhood) play Leo’s dad and grandma, respectively, while Ken Marino (Black Monday) plays the loudmouth manager of Leo’s biggest threat in the competition.

While it’s set against the backdrop of WWE, The Main Event is ultimately the story of Leo looking for his own self-confidence, with or without a mask. It’s a silly, family-friendly coming of age story that doesn’t attempt to redefine the genre. Honestly, this is a story you’ve seen before, and a lot of the humor might be too juvenile for many older WWE fans. However, it’s a relatable story, even with all of the pomp that comes with professional wrestling. And given that you might need movies to distract the kids in your life right now, it’s arriving at the right time.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Walkthrough Chapter 5: Dogged Pursuit (Spoiler-Free)

Keep working your way through Final Fantasy 7 Remake with our spoiler-free walkthrough, taking you back up to the plate with Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge to execute a new mission. Chapter 4 puts Cloud on a motorcycle, recalling one of the more intense minigames of the original, and includes a couple of tough boss fights that will test both your driving skills and your swordplay. We’ve got everything you need to know to get through the mission below.

Chapter 5: Dogged Pursuit Walkthrough

You’ll start the chapter aboard the train. Check in with Tifa and then head to Barret’s train car. Look for a Healing Materia in the car after the scene.

Don't forget to grab the Healing Materia from Barret's train car after the scene with him.
Don’t forget to grab the Healing Materia from Barret’s train car after the scene with him.

Of course, battle isn’t far off. Shinra drones called Slug Bots will accost you next. They’re weak against Thunder magic, and Tifa’s combos are good at staggering them.

After you jump from the train, use the bench and vending machine on the platform on the left side to get any gear you might need and to heal up. Further in, check the right side of the tunnel for a platform where you can smash some Shinra crates, and open a chest that contains two hi-potions.

After you get back to Barret, make a right before heading towards the objective into a storage room containing a chest with an elixir.

Follow the tracks until your first group of Slug Bots. Kill them, then look to the south side of the tracks for a staircase up to an elevated area. Follow the stairs to the back of the area, where you’ll fight some Wererats and find a chest that contains a Star Pendant.

Check the side tunnels and rooms for treasure chests with armor, accessories, and weapons.
Check the side tunnels and rooms for treasure chests with armor, accessories, and weapons.

Keep going until you fight a group of Slug bots and Guard Dogs, with an Elite Grenadier. Look for nearby Shinra crates between the tracks; smash them for a Moogle Medal.

Before you leave this spot, check the door on the north side of the tracks. You’ll find a locker room inside with a treasure chest; open it to get a bottle of ether.

Grab two antidotes out of the chest at the end of the walkway after climbing the stairs by the Stamp graffiti.

Ahead, you’ll enter a Grashtrike nest. These guys are vicious melee fighters that use a Barrier on themselves when their health gets low. They’ll also poison you with their tail attacks, so try to watch them for indications that the attack is coming so you can get clear. Use Ice magic to stagger them, and be sure to guard to reduce the damage you take and give yourself some room to breathe.

After your first fight with a Grashtrike, look in the corner on the right, beneath the stairs, for a chest with two hi-potions. Another two Grashtrikes are ahead.

Down the stairs, you’ll fight more Grashtrikes and a Queen Grashtrike. Deal with the smaller ones first, then focus on the queen. Use Barret’s ranged attacks and magic, especially Ice, for big damage. When you’ve got her pressured, get in with Cloud and Tifa and pummel the queen to stagger it. Watch out for the Royal Webbing attack, which will slow you down and make it easier for the queen to attack you, but if you’re hitting it hard with sustained attacks, you should take it out easily.

The Queen Grashtrikes are intimidating but hit them with Ice and you can stagger them quickly.

As you leave, smash the crates on the left side of the path ahead then use the bench in the right corner to heal up. There’s also a chest here that has three phoenix downs. You can also buy Poison Materia from the vending machine.

Take the stairs up at the next Stamp painting. When you come back down, you’ll face a new Flametrooper enemy. These guys are weak to Fire spells, and if you hit them in the back, you can make their flamethrower tanks explode. In general, stay away from them, as their flamethrowers inflict major damage. Try to get a Fire or Fira spell charged up and use that to knock the Flametrooper out quickly.

The train tunnel splits up ahead after a cutscene. You need the southern fork to advance, but check on the north side for another side locker room. The treasure chest contains a Leather Bracer.

At the gate to the railyard, you’ll face two Sentry Guns and two Flametroopers. The guns are tough to damage with anything other than Thunder magic, so keep your distance from the flamethrowers and try to knock them out quickly. Thunder will stagger the guns, allowing you to knock them out before they can hit you with multiple volleys of missiles. Mop up the Flametroopers with Fire magic after that.

You’ll bypass the gate by taking the stairs to the left, which will take you into some hallways that lead to the railyard. When you come to a set of stairs, pass them to go through a door at the end of the hallway to find a locker. Inside is a vending machine where you can buy the Stamp Music Disc. You can also grab a Lightning Materia on the ground between the lockers, and use the bench to heal up.

The next room contains two Elite Security Officers. Block their melee attacks to interrupt them more easily; they’re weak to Fire magic as well. Smash the crates on the west side of the room before you leave. You’ll take a ladder down to train tracks next.

Boss Fight: Crab Warden

Crippling the legs of the Crab Warden is key to beating it.

The Crab Warden has a bunch of different targets on its body, and to put it down for good, you need to cripple each of its legs in turn. It’s weak to Lightning magic, so make sure you have some Lightning Materia equipped ahead of time–the more, the better, but definitely give an orb to Barret, since he can stand back from the battle and support the melee fighters with spells.

The Crab Warden likes to electrify the train tracks, so make sure your party isn’t standing on them when it starts to kick out arcs. It’ll do this every once in a while, so keep an eye out for Crab Warden readying the attack, and get yourself clear. Once the electricity dissipates, have Cloud and Tifa focus melee attacks on the Crab Warden’s legs, while commanding whoever you’ve assigned Lightning Materia to bolster their attacks with Lightning spells. Attacking the Crab Warden’s legs from the side and back from the back can be very useful since most of its guns are in the front, but be careful of its EMP blast area attack, which will hit you for big damage if you’re standing too close. Repeat this cycle of attacks and defense until you destroy a leg to Stagger the crab; use that opportunity to deal massive damage with your ATB abilities.

Watch out for the Crab's proclivity to electrify the floor in front of and around it, and then to charge up the entire set of train tracks.

The Crab Warden will add additional attacks as it takes more and more damage, eventually opening two big missile launchers on its sides. These are tough to dodge, so get ready to guard to mitigate the damage, and keep pouring out the Lightning in the meantime. The missiles are a significant threat, so focus on the launchers to destroy them, while also forcing the Crab Warden to expose its pilot generator. At that point, you should be free to lay into the exposed weak point with everything you’ve got to finish the boss off in short order.

Follow the path to the elevator to end the chapter.

Now Playing: Final Fantasy VII Remake Video Review

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Season 7, Episode 8 Review

Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Season 7, Episode 8. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here’s our review for Season 7, Episode 7.

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Has there even been a Clone Wars story arc that’s seesawed in quality as much as this one? Ahsoka’s return hasn’t exactly been the runaway storytelling success fans were probably hoping for. But the good news, at least, is that this arc does end on a relatively strong note, with a lot of direct setup to the epic finale that is the Siege of Mandalore. Even so, “Together Again” raises the question of why the series needed so much room to get from there to here.

Unsurprisingly, you could easily skip from Episode 6 to Episode 8 without missing a beat. Last week’s circular narrative ensured that Ahsoka and the Martez sisters ended exactly where they began, with only small bits of character development and a Mandalorian cameo to create any sense of plot progression at all. That’s not an issue this week, as all three characters are given much more to do and more room to grow.

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The decision to split them up and send the Martez sisters on their own mission definitely helps. It allows Trace and Rafa an opportunity to stand on their own feet rather than just playing off of Ahsoka. Their ill-advised return to Kessel also adds a welcome dose of slapstick humor to the conflict. Along the way, Rafa is given a little more depth. As her insistence on rescuing Ahsoka proves, she’s not necessarily the polar opposite of her sister she was made out to be in previous episodes. While in some ways I was hoping for a more dramatic ideological standoff between the two before the end, at least there’s a sense that both siblings have been changed by their encounter with Ahsoka. And given the open-ended way their story wraps up here, there’s a definite sense there are more Ahsoka/Trace/Rafa stories to be told somewhere down the road.

Poorly paced though this arc has been, it does ultimately provide a satisfying look at Ahsoka’s uncertain place in the galaxy post-Jedi Order. This episode in particular is great about forcing Ahsoka to confront the Jedi’s checkered legacy and tendency of screwing over the little people in the interest of the greater good. There’s a huge gap to fill in between the Season 5 finale and the era of Star Wars Rebels. And while obviously this final season can only do so much to chronicle that journey, it’s doing its part. It’s important to point out how crucial Ashley Eckstein is to that process. She’s done a great job of finding that uneasy middle ground in her vocal performance. Ahsoka sounds tangibly more weary and jaded than she was in earlier seasons, but she hasn’t developed that sense of confidence and purpose that comes with age.

This episode manages to connect some other major dots in the course of 22 minutes. Not just in terms of setting the stage for the Siege of Mandalore, but also to one of the great unresolved plot threads of the Disney Star Wars era. This episode establishes a really neat link to Solo: A Star Wars Story with the reveal that Maul is the power behind the Pyke Syndicate. Not the most surprising reveal, mind you, but a welcome one nonetheless. Maul’s reference to Crimson Dawn is a fun bit of connective tissue to the Original Trilogy era. And I like to think this is the show’s ways of telling viewers that, yes, we will get some closure to that loose end from Solo. Maybe not right away, and not in the form of the direct Solo sequel Lucasfilm may have been planning back in 2018, but eventually.

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This episode does suffer from its own pacing issues, mainly because it’s left to cover way too much ground in the wake of the sluggish buildup in previous chapters.It would have been nice to see the farewell between Ahsoka and the Martez sisters given more breathing room before Bo-Katan and her crew show up to hijack the spotlight. But even so, “Together Again” provides a strong finish to a story arc that had been anything but strong.