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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Five years ago, and a Parade for Rufus

Freedom at last
After getting out of Midgar, you need to split your party into two groups. You get a new item called PHS, which is used through the menu, and can be used to change the party characters on the world map and on save points. You now need to pick two characters besides Cloud for your party. (I usually go for Tifa and Red XIII, but there's really no point in choosing them specifically - just go with your tastes. If you want funny comments from the ladies, pick Barret and Red XIII. =)

Barret tells to head northeast to the village called Kalm. Finding your way to that location is not really all that difficult. If you have trouble with directions, switch to overhead view and head up and right. You should see a few houses there, these represent Kalm. Got it?

Five years ago...
In Kalm, follow your friends to the inn's second floor. Cloud tells of the time when he went to Nibelheim with Sephiroth. This is the game's first story bit; you can't really play a lot in this section, though there's some interactivity.

First of all, Cloud talks with Sephiroth in the van, and then, they hit a really big dragon. The dragon just trashes poor little Cloud (who's a measly Level 1 youngster in this episode). Try hitting the dragon, it's pretty pointless though and you won't do much damage. Sephiroth will try to keep you alive with Life2 spells if the dragon kills you, but he won't do that more than a few times - don't worry, he'll restore you to full health afterwards, and you won't gain XP or AP from this fight anyway. He will eventually slash the dragon twice for a ludicruous amount of damage, killing it.

Then head to the town. You can talk to the people here; Be sure to visit Cloud's mom, and also check out Tifa's home - she isn't home right now, though. (This allows for a bit of comic relief, make sure to check the dresser...) While in Tifa's home, be sure to check the piano; you can play it, and if you pick the right choices, Cloud will play the Highwind theme melody: "Do-- Re Mi Ti-- La--... Do Re Mi So Fa Do Re Do--..." (Get used to hearing this a lot latter in the game.) Don't worry if you don't get this, it's just a hint for getting Tifa's limit break later in the game.

Head to the inn, talk with Sephiroth and the guys, and sleep.

In the morning, after a brief but very consequential photography session, Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, and two Shin-Ra soldiers head to the Nibelheim mountain. The rope bridge breaks. You need to head up the path. There are random monsters here, but these are absolutely weak against Sephiroth. (Do you need a reminder that you're supposed to track down and ultimately kill this guy?) Eventually you come into a Mako fountain, where you get a brief cutscene. Then, you find yourself in the reactor in the mountaintop. Do what Sephiroth says here, and you'll get a glimpse of the monsters Hojo is cooking here.

You'll find yourself then in Nibelheim again. Go talk to Sephiroth; In the Nibelheim manor, find the guy who is on the second floor and search the room - there's a hidden door leading to the cellar. Sephiroth is reading here.

In the morning, go talk to Sephiroth again. He's annoyed beyond belief. Logically, he wants to kill everybody. Help the folks as said.

Next up, there's still a confrontation with Sephiroth in the Nibelheim reactor. Help Tifa, go after Sephiroth. And that's the end of that story. Cloud's memory sure doesn't seem that good.

Chocobo Farm
Now, Kalm folks seem to hint that Sephiroth went south and over the mountains. Once you head south, you find that the only way through the mountains is through a cave beyond the swamp, and the swamp is guarded by this really nasty worm called Midgar Zolom who easily kills the party (it's level 26 with 4000HP, and its Beta attack - which is worth learning as an enemy skill though - is rather nasty). You can see the wyrm moving under the waters, but your footsteps attract it, and before you know, you're looking at Game Over screen. So what to do?

Head to the Chocobo Farm. First of all, talk to the chocobos in the front; choose "Wark", they dance for you, and you receive your first summon materia: Choco/Mog. In the barn, Choco Billy will firstly sell you a Chocobo Lure materia for 2000 gil, and tells you everything you need to know about catching and riding chocobos. You should also buy some Greens from him. Don't spend too much on them; you won't be needing them that much at this part of this game.

Head out, equip Chocobo Lure, and waltz around in the tracks. Feed greens to chocobos and bash the baddies. Now, you can ride across the swamp without getting eaten by Midgar Zolom. Note that the Chocobo only allows you to outrun the Midgar Zolom; if it catches you, you will lose your Chocobo and be forced to fight it.

It is possible to defeat and acquire Beta from The Midgar Zolom at this point, but it is tricky and requires some luck. If you would like to try, I highly advise you save first.

Prepare Pair elemental materia with fire in the armour slot of the same character that has enemy skill. Also equip a talisman to this character. This will cause beta to do about 700 hit points instead of 1100+.

The fight What you will want to do is cast bio until the Zolom is poisoned. Have one character designated to heal the chosen character learning Beta. Have the other characters defend. The Zolom had to be provoked to trigger Beta. He won't use it until he is under 1200 hp, but you are going to wait until the Zolom is about 250 hit points. When he gets to 250 hp attack him with any character to trigger Beta, and have the character designated to survive the attack use a hi-potion. If all goes well, the Zolom will die right after the attack from the position, and you will have acquired Beta.

You have to survive AND defeat the Zolom to learn it. He will often kick a character out of play. If this happens and he uses beta, it will say you have learned Beta, but if you fail to defeat him you will lose it.
 * Note*

Caves
Before entering the cave, you see one of these legendarily tough Midgar Zoloms staked on a tree. Sephiroth seems to be pretty tough, in case it wasn't obvious before. Now, you need to head through the caves; there are some items here on chests, and there's really only one way through aside that. You will also run into Turks; Reno is too bruised to show up, but you get to see Rude, Tseng and the newest member of the unit, Elena, who does not tell you that Sephiroth went toward Junon. Nope, you can't hear it from her! No way!

To Junon
Important: At this point, it isn't advisable to do anything really tricky in Junon - you should visit the shop to get some Tents, but not much else. At this phase, it's definitely important to head to the bush and kill tons of monsters, until each member of your party (not the dormant characters or anything) are around level 20. It doesn't hurt to have your materia grow as well; You'll soon benefit from level 2 spells (Fire2, Ice2, Bolt2, etc), though they aren't completely necessary. At least some of your characters should also preferrably have Level 2 Limit Breaks already, too. You can also make your time worth it and recruit Yuffie (see Optional characters. The best place to kill monsters at this time is the Mythril Mine (see also Training).

You can also visit Fort Condor at this time.

Priscilla's aquatic friends
Once in Junon, head down to the beach. Priscilla calls for her friend, Mr. Dolphin. Then she thinks you're with Shin-Ra, and kind of panics when a big monster shows up. Egh. And now she's drowning while you have to deal with this ugly thing.

After the monster is dead, it's time to breathe life to Priscilla. (Get ready for a lot of minigames that follow!) The controls will be explained. Exhale when the CPR meter is full. Repeat a few times until Priscilla is revived. Don't worry if this seems to take longer than it should; a slight mis-timed breath will cause you to start over, a rather annoying feature. Her father will take her home to rest, and you should take rest too in the rightmost house in Junon.

Infiltrating Shin-Ra, take 2: Uniforms are Not Suspicious
And then, after some disturbed dreams that probably make no sense to first-time player, you wake up, and seems like something funny is going on outside. Firstly, Priscilla is awake, and shows her gratitude by giving you the Shiva materia, a very nice ice-based summon. Now, music can be heard from above, which means that Rufus is having a parade in his own honor. And, looks like he's going to cross the ocean too. So what do we do? Get aboard the ship.

Secondly Priscilla helps you get up to the Junon proper. Your friends leave climbing electric towers to pros, which means Cloud is going to have to go alone. Barret takes your PHS too, because the following procedure is a wet one.

Priscilla calls Mr. Dolphin to jump. Follow the instructions once again. Try to find the proper for the jump, it's fairly easy. Just jump once and then jump again from where you landed. Once up, climb the ladder to the airfield.

On the airfield, head toward the screen, then head downward and use the yellow switch to make the elevator go down. Head to the building on the lower edge of the screen.

There's a save point in the corridor. The officer wants you get properly dressed, and now you need to head out for the parade. Follow the folks out and do as they say.

Note that while between the parade events, it's possible to sneak in some of the Upper Junon buildings, such as the weapon shop. If you have tons of cash, and you probably do if you went killing creatures before going to Junon, I definitely recommend you to pop in at least the weapon store to pick up good weapons like Hardedge, Grand Glove, etc...

Here comes the funniest minigames in the whole bunch (it's most amusing if you mess it up, actually). When the officer says "charge", run to the right edge of the screen, then walk to the position, and keep pacing on the rhythm. Be quick but nice, and the TV ratings don't get too much down. The Shin-Ra TV company, according to the Sources, mails this kind of stuff to thank you for your influence to the ratings:

After the parade, there's a brief scene with Heidegger and Rufus, and you need to train for the next event, a proper military gun salute. Just push the buttons the officer says. Note that in the training, the sequence is normal and straightforward; in the actual event, the commands are random. This should be simple enough after a few tries. (It's a lot more confusing in PC though.) Rufus' mood gauge determines what prize Heidegger will give to you:

And be sure to note how cute Red XIII is when he's peeking from behind the cargo, and rest assured he'll be cuter in the next scene =)

Head in the ship after you're done with the drill.


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/In Shin-Ra Uniform

It's difficult to stand on two feet...
Aboard the Shin-Ra ship, there's not that much things to discover. You won't run into any enemies at first. So, talk to every person in the ship. You'll note that the rest of the party has, indeed, managed to sneak in the ship properly disguised. Even Red XIII, who has slight problems standing on two feet - though it's not really the walking style that stands out, it's the tail. Yuffie, if she's in your party, wants Tranquilizers.

In the loading hold, there's a box with Ether and an All materia (if you can't get there, just leave it be for later...) On the deck, there's a Save Point. One of the sailors can sell you a revitalising drink for 250 gil (if you didn't heal up before going up in Junon, this is your chance, otherwise it's just wasting money); another will sell you Potions and Phoenix Downs.

After you've talked to everybody and, in sheer boredom, talked to them again, Aerith will ask about Barret's whereabouts. Find your way to the bridge where Barret is looking through the window to the captain's cabin.

And then comes an intruder alert. After a fit of confusion, it becomes apparent that they aren't looking for the heroes...

Another trail of blood
Head back to the deck. This is the time to choose who will participate in the really friggin' huge fight that follows. Pick your two best-trained characters besides Cloud, give them the best weapons. (If a party member you don't want to use for this battle has all the materia, you can choose them, remove the materia and then talk to the any of the remaining party members to reorganize.) Save at the Save Point if you aren't feeling suicidally brave.

Belowdecks, if Yuffie was blocking your way, you can now pick up the All materia. The guard posted on the door will now no longer resist your small plan of going into the cargo hold proper. The cargo hold is also a good place to encounter enemies if you desperately need to level up your party in preparation for the next boss. If you're going to do that, just make sure you don't go anywhere near the soldier in red near the door.

You'll finally find Sephiroth, who doesn't seem to stick around, which leads you to fight something else entirely. Welcome to H.R. Giger's pleasant little daydream, this game's most recurring boss and also probably the toughest challenge in this game so far...

Jenova leaves a White Cape accessory. After the fight, you'll have to make sense of this Jenova's tentacle that seems to have been left behind. It's time to get out of the ship, but before you do, take everything in the room: Ifrit summon materia and Wind Slash weapon for Yuffie.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Costa del Sol, Corel, and the first visit to Gold Saucer

Costa del Sol
After you get out of the ship and head to Costa del Sol, Rufus shows up, makes it clear he doesn't like what Heidegger is doing, and disappears with a helicopter.

Welcome to the best holiday resort ever! There isn't really that much to do here, though you can pick up a bits and pieces of information and a few handy items, and stock up with various interesting items. This is a place where Yuffie sells materia, Barret seems to show he really liked the navy uniform, Red XIII has fun with a ball, and, whoa, to prove all geek stereotypes so right and so wrong, Hojo is lying on the beach surrounded by hot women and is still clothed in a lab coat. He seems to give you the idea that Sephiroth was seen in the town and fled to another direction.

In the basement of the big house, you can find free items: Motor Drive (weapon for Tifa), Fire Ring, and Power Source. The Fire Ring is a pretty neat accessory, so don't forget that! The locals also seem to suggest you should buy some Softs.

Corel Mountains
There's really only one way to follow after you leave Costa del Sol. Follow it. Once you reach mountains through the zig-zagging paths, you'll end up in a place where a man is resting. He seems to have seen Sephiroth. Press onward, and once you go over that top of the trail, you end up...

...in a big gigantic Mako reactor. Doesn't Shin-Ra leave any place untouched? Apparently not. You may think it's a good time to start exploring now and see where you can get, but I don't recommend that - this place is really dull at this point of the game and most of the monsters in this area will be pretty sweaty to kill. This same advice goes to all of the Corel areas. So, for now, head onward (the tracks leading down).

After this, you come to some place that looks more like a rollercoaster than a credible railroad bridge, but who am I to criticize Square's omniscient graphic designers? Too bad the railroad is in a really bad shape right now. The instructions on the screen will tell what to do. If you want to avoid falling, hit Circle (or the OK key for the PC version); if you fall, you can guide Cloud to either left or right by pushing that way and tapping Circle. There's two item bags you can collect: Wizard Staff (weapon for Aerith) on the left, Star Pendant on the right.

There's a save point along the rails, and on the top of one of the slopes, you can find a chest with a W Machine Gun (weapon for Barret). You can also find a Turbo Ether and a Transform materia.

At the rightmost part of the rollercoaster section, go down, and you'll see that the rest of your gang has found what seems like the only way forward, except that the bridge is up. Backtrack, head up, and go to the booth to switch down the bridge. You can climb to the top to take 10 Phoenix Downs from a bird's nest if you wish. When you head back to the lower bridge to follow your friends, you can take a detour on a railway going left. Follow it down and around the ledge. There will be a hidden cave where you can get a Tent, Mind Source, and a Power Source. And you can talk to a guy on a bulldozer. Then head back and follow your friends.

Then there's one last long bridge. Some Bombs seem to be stalking in this area, and these things have a really annoying habit of exploding on your eyes; dispatch them with Ice2 before they cause too much damage.

North Corel
North Corel doesn't have much to see right now either - aside of Barret getting really sad and all after getting yelled at by some of the locals.

There's shops. Don't use too much money here; one of the guys says that a mysterious guy, with tattoo number 1, and a really cool black cape, headed to Gold Saucer. And Gold Saucer is an amusement park, and amusement parks are damn expensive places. You need at least 3000 gil just to enter there! If you can afford it, you can buy a Force Stealer from North Corel - a nice double-materia-growth sword for Cloud.

If you are low on money, you can go right, which leads to the world map - you can't get much further out yet, though. Or, you can head left to get to North Corel ropeway station. Here, Barret will tell a little bit more of the destruction of Corel town before you get aboard the ropeway car.

Gold Saucer
Gold Saucer! Named so for the plates on which the staff will carry your cash away! The fabled home of Super Dunk! The place that advanced the technological know-how of millions of gamers by forcing them to finally find out how to mute their TV!

At this point, Gold Saucer is really not that fun and there's really not that much to do, but you've still got to pay for the entry. Go ahead, walk about. Get to know the place, you'll probably visit later. You've got to pick who you're going having fun with. Barret isn't around though, obviously irritated by the rampant commercialism and exhortations to participate in the throw-away culture that is in utter conflict with the green values close to his heart. Or maybe it's something more personal?

In Speed Square, you meet Dio, the owner of Gold Saucer. He babbles something about something called Black Materia, and how this tattooed cape guy wanted one. He hints that Battle Square rocks. Regrettably, you can't get there yet.

In Wonder Square, you'll meet another character who wants to join you: Cait Sith. He'll give you some weird fortunes first. (Some say Cait Sith is an useless character, but at least he comes with two cool Materias: Manipulate and an almost leveled-up Transform.)

In Battle Square, you see how this stout guard suddenly flumps down. He's been shot. Sephiroth isn't known for his gun skills. Oh dear, looks like everyone in Battle Square seems shot. Dio isn't very happy, it seems. You try to flee to the Battle Arena but Dio is more clever than that. As the judge, jury and executioner, he does a really quiet-like trial and sends you to the desert prison enjoying a life sentence. What a harsh guy.


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Desert Prison, Chocobo race, and a visit to Gongaga

The Desert Prison
The desert prison is a rough place, but mostly because there's enemies that either try to steal stuff from you or explode on your face. You start here with whoever you picked to be with you in Gold Saucer, and Cait Sith.

Head to the larger area below. A lot of people here seem to suggest that you can get back up if you win a Chocobo Race. Also, this Boss person seems to be in charge. You meet Mr. Coates in the bottom of the area, but it turns out he's just an underling. There's a savepoint here, as well as a bar on the bottom right corner where you can buy some supplies.

Barret, whom you misplaced temporarily, is in the bigger house on right side. Barret kills an eavesdropper behind a couch and then the rest of the folk come to hear about Barret and Dyne's story. In the end, you need to pick one character besides Barret to your group.

Head up. You can either wander around in the desert like a loon, where you can fight the sandworm (or is it the land worm?) enemy in the desert, but there isn't much point (you can get much better experience and AP elsewhere later on), and there is nothing you can really do here, so just follow the story.

When you reach an area with lots of broken down cars, walk around them a few times until you get into a battle with Death Claw. You can learn the enemy skill Laser from him. This is the only point in the game where you can learn it until disc 3, so use this opportunity while you have it. Now that you have the Manipulate materia, it should be a piece of cake. Just manipulate the Death Claw and have him cast it on whoever has enemy skill equipped. Also, you can learn Matra Magic (if you haven't already) from Death Machine in the general Corel Prison area.

At this point, you should equip Barret pretty well, because the Boss person - yep, Dyne, whom you heard about just a moment ago - is here. He seems to be quite bitter and wants to kill Barret. Barret will fight Dyne alone.

Then Dyne throws Barret a piece of jewelry and then, sadly enough, jumps off the cliff to his death.

Chocobo race
Now, Coates seem to be more eager to sign you up for a chocobo race, and a woman called Ester shows up and becomes your manager.

Ester gets you to the jockey room by elevator and explains how to control the chocobos. In the jockey room, there's Ramuh materia which you definitely should pick up.

 * Todo: PC equivalent?

As for the actual race, you may want to refer to the Chocobo section. A simple hint would be to hold down L1+L2+R1+R2 buttons, which makes chocobo racing a bit easier. Actually, there's very few things that can be messed up here; If you lose, you get to try again, and again, and again...

Once you win, Dio sends you a letter of congratulations, gives you a "buggy" that is your first "vehicle" in this "game", and hints that Sephiroth went to Gongaga.

Gongaga
Now that you have the "buggy" and the Manipulate materia, you can start learning some good enemy skills. Start by getting Aqualung from the Harpy monster. Harpy can be found by driving around in the desert area around the Gold Saucer. Just manipulate Harpy and make it cast Aqualung on your party to learn. Next, drive around the beach close to Gongaga until you run into the Beach Plugs to learn Big Guard. This is one of the most useful enemy skills in the game!

At this point, it's theoretically (and practically, if you're patient) possible to drive back to Costa del Sol, take a ship back to Junon, and then find a green-and-white bird called Zemzelett from the Junon area. You can Manipulate it to learn White Wind enemy skill, which is very useful. It's a long journey though, and it's not strictly necessary (I've finished the game twice without it...), you may want to wait until later for this.

After getting White Wind, you can head back inside Mythril Mine to get Flame Thrower from the Arkdragon if you missed it the first time or if you need it for your second Enemy Skill materia.

Then, you can battle Midgar Zolom and learn Beta, if you're really daring. He's still a very tough monster at this stage in the game, but Beta is a great skill to have as it causes heavy fire damage to all opponents. Make sure you have Big Guard before going into this battle (see the insert to the right for details).

To continue the game, head back to Gongaga--the big blown-up mako reactor to south, in middle of the woods. When you get in Gongaga, you hear Reno and Rude talking about... the ladies? Elena shows up, alerts the others, and there we go again - fighting Reno and Rude!

After the fight, head up to the reactor. When you get close, Scarlet and Tseng will show up in a helicopter, look into the reactor, babble something about Huge Materias, and leave. If you're guessing "Shin-Ra must be up to something", you're correct. Now, look into the hole where Scarlet looked into, and reach for the thing in the bottom to get the Titan materia. Two new summons in such a short while!

Now head down and follow the path to left - you should find a Deathblow command materia somewhere here too. Now to north, to the Gongaga Village.

People here will sell you stuff you've not seen before (for example, Mystify and Time materias, which are probably useful at some phase, and a Fury Ring), and talk about an explosion years ago. You also run into a few old people who want to know about some SOLDIER called Zack. Tifa and Aeris, if either or both of them are in your party, will react to this for some reason. Hmm... something is obviously afoot... Go to the Inn in the far left corner where you can find a chest containing an X-Potion. In the Mayor's home in the far right corner, you can get a White M-Phone, which is a weapon for Cait Sith.

After you've stocked up and all that, it's time to head down and left, to the world map, and head west. Where else would Sephiroth have gone?


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Cosmo Canyon and Red XIII's family matters

Cosmo Canyon
There's very few pathways to take from Gongaga next: The only real way lies east, over the river, and to a mysterious place that tends to live in eternal twilight. (Not quite as cool at that as Tenebrae in Ultima VIII, but it has just a little bit better music. Not much though.) Here's the thing - you can't much miss this place. The game throws some really big hints toward you that checking out Cosmo Canyon would be a good idea. Among other things, if you drive past the town in the "buggy", the "buggy" will "break down" and "explode" and things, leaving you at the mercy of the local mechanic.

Red XIII, who appears to be called Nanaki here, joyously goes to see his grandfather. Who, in fact, turns out to be a 130-year-old man called Bugenhagen. This place is full of mysteries.

There isn't a whole lot to do in Cosmo Canyon right now. You can visit the Shildra Inn (which has one of those Turtle's Paradise posters) and pick up an Elixir after staying there. Or you can shop for weapons. There's also another Turtle's Paradise poster in the town.

Once done, climb all the way up to the topmost building, where Red XIII is talking with Bugenhagen. Red XIII wants Bugenhagen to show you his contraption, and for that, you need to hunt down two party members. Your party is scattered throughout the city; Barret, Yuffie, and Cait Sith are in the rooms in the mountainside, Tifa and Aerith are in the bar at the inn.

Once your party is selected, head back up. Bugenhagen will show you his holographic planetarium, and lecture you some of the basics of this... very thoughtful... typical... Japanese RPG... cliché... backstory. Basically, Mako-sucking technology is evil and the lifeforce in every living being is really cool. (In case you missed it, this is going to be one of the Central Themes of the game, so you'd better pay attention! Not that it's too hard to comprehend or anything!)

After this, everyone will retreat to the Cosmo Candle, the big bonfire in the lower plateau. You need to talk to everyone here. (Barret wants to rebuild AVALANCHE, Aerith thinks of how alone she is, and Tifa seems strangely lost in thought, thinking of the past again...) Last, you need to talk to Red XIII, who seems to be pretty mad, because he thinks his father was a wimp. Bugenhagen seems to disagree.

Cave of the Gi
You probably noticed a steel door that was closed down and some kid was wondering what kept it in place. Yes, a masterfully careful dash of Magical Superglue of Foreshadowing. Anyway, your party will now consist of Cloud, Red XIII and one character of your choice. Equip them well. Materia them well. Bugenhagen will follow you from a distance - too bad we won't see him in battles.

After the door, there's a long descent down, then a big room full of little caves. Each of the caves has a rock. If you hit one, you either get a bunch of not too happy Gi Spectors (sic - should be "specters", I'm not sure what ol' Warren thinks of this game), or the other cave opens up. The one you need to hit is the one nearest the wall up there, but don't worry too much about the battles either if your characters are at proper level. The worst trick the monsters in this area have in sleeve is the Death Penalty attack, which really isn't all that frightening unless you attack really really slowly. (You'll probably learn the enemy skill here. It's a pretty useless enemy skill.)

The next few areas up are a little bit of a maze. The chests contain some Stuff. After the door to lowermost area, you can head left and down to get to the ledge on the first floor - you can pick up Added Effect materia there. However, do NOT run on the brown stuff; you won't be able to stop, and if you hit the wall, you will get seriously injured. Not too bad, just heal up.

Head up the right side of the room and circle back to find the Black M-Phone for Cait Sith in the first chest you see in the room, you'll pass through a tunnel. As you head back up, go through another tunnel on the right to get an Ether in the other chest. In the next area you'll find five passageways, the first and the fifth one are connected, the fourth one leads to an X-Potion, the third one is a dead end, and the second one leads you through. After going through the second passage, head to the southwest and look for a secret passage in the tunnels to reach the chest with a Fairy Ring.

You should keep in the middle of the rooms and head up. A few times, you'll end up to some spider webs; walk in them and you need to fight Stingers. Keep your healing spells handy when fighting those; their Sting bomb attack tends to be really nasty. Before you head into the next room, look for a passage on the left to reach a chest with a Turbo Ether.

Eventually, you'll end up in a big cave with a nasty-looking rock face that... wait a moment... it's not a rock face, it's Gin Attack! Gi Nattak!

After the fight, pick up a Gravity materia from the floor. Happy ending to this little drama: Red XIII finds out that his father wasn't that much of a wimp, really. Awwww.

Time to leave Cosmo Canyon. Buggy gets repaired if it broke down. Red XIII will follow you, and now has a Seraph Comb weapon which you can equip as it's not really that bad. Onward, again!


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Nibelheim, Rocket Town and Tiny Bronco

If you haven't used Aerith a lot, this would be a perfect time to put her in your party for a while, otherwise in you're going to be in a world of hurt slightly later in the game when you have to have her aboard and she's a level-twenty weakling. So let her stick around until she's around level 27-30.

Nibelheim
After Cosmo Canyon, there's very few directions you can take. Ummm grrrmrr... north! Head north until you come to yet another town.

Which turns out to be Nibelheim. Wait a second? Wasn't Nibelheim burned by Sephiroth?

You can go to various houses here. You'll find out a few things:

 * There's a few people hanging around, but they think it's highly annoying that you ask about the Nibelheim fire.
 * Most of the other places are full of black-hooded, tattooed guys who mumble something about "the Reunion". They give you some items too.

If you want some experience and gold (and don't we all?), it'd be a perfect time to do Vincent subquest here - head to the Shin-Ra Manor for that.

If you go to the basement of Shin-Ra manor, you'll find Sephiroth... ye gods... Sephiroth was right there! He tosses a Destruct materia at you and disappears, telling you to go north - where you were going anyway, right? So scary guy! So obvious!

Nibel mountains
The Nibel mountains path is not very twisty. You can climb the mountains to grab a Rune Blade for Cloud (a nice four-slot double-growth blade), and Plus Barrette for Red XIII (a nice four-slot double-growth pin).

After the path, there's a rope bridge going up. Now you get to go through a fun little maze to find lots of items and various materia. After the rope bridge, you'll notice five chutes. Start by taking the chute that is second to the right. Pick up the Powersoul (a weapon for Tifa) and then jump off to the lowest level. Steering clear of the monster, take the exit in the right corner of the screen. Jump down and go into the cave below. Go towards the top end of the tunnel, then cut back to reach the farthest cave on the left. Move through the hidden tunnel to get the chest containing an Elixir. Head back to the far end of the cave and go through it to get to the next room where there's a fountain. On the left side of the fountain, you can pick up an Elemental materia. Then, proceed into the next room. Loop to the end then come back to the right to get the Sniper CR, a weapon for Vincent. Go into the next room and take the lower left path to get to the where the reactor is. On the right side of the reactor is a door that will take you back to where you started (the room with the chutes). Climb to ladder to get back to the chutes. This time, take the second chute to the left. This will take you to a chest containing the All materia. That's about it for the stuff in this area.

Down on the bottom of the big area at the top of the mountain is a save point. Too bad the only exit forward is blocked by a really nasty-looking monster. Meh.

(What's funny is that I always remember that this boss is in this game, but I never quite remember where. A boss you really remember, but never can quite place.)

It was called a Materia Keeper, and the Materia it kept is called Counter materia, and by all means, you should pick it up as it's kind of handy.

Rocket town
Some twisty passages later, you find yourself on the world map again, heading north... north... north! And here your options kind of run out again. Eep. Wait, there's a rocket sticking out in the middle of the plains? Could that be just a decoration, or a gigantic big clue on where to head next?

Upon entering the city, you will find yourself in a courtyard. The first guy you meet says Sephiroth hasn't been seen here. But... but... this is a big clue town? Yes! Everyone's talking of someone called Captain. To the immediate right is an inn (100 gil a night). The building on the immediate left is a weapon shop. You can buy a Shotgun for Vincent, some gold armlets, etc. The house in the upper left corner doesn't contain anything. Across the courtyard in the upper-left-middle is an Item shop were you can buy Barrier and Exit materia.

Outside of the Item shop, there's an old guy. Talk to him a couple of times and you'll find out that he wants to rest his aging eyes on that big rocket, and will give Cloud Yushiyuki for his troubles. (A kind of a lame sword, but so is the Nail Bat on the first glance.)

In the middle house there is a Drill Arm (weapon for Barret). You can walk through this house and find a nice-looking airplane called Tiny Bronco on the backyard of one of the houses. A woman called Shera will tell that the plane is in fact owned by this Captain guy, who, as the multitude of hints have pointed out by now, is in the Rocket.

After hearing so %#@&ng much about this Captain, you'll %$#@*ng find him from this #$@%*ng rocket. The Captain, as it turns out, is a new character - Cid, who %&*@#ng swears a lot. He tells you of the Shin-Ra Space Program. And no, he won't give you the %#@&ng airplane. (For the sake of convenience, the rest of the document is kind of censored.)

Prepare for the most shocking and tear-inducing part of the game. Head back to the house where Shera is. Cid wants you to have tea. Shera makes it, and tells why Cid swears so much, specifically, she tells of the sad state of the space program. Awww. I hate to see space exploration have such setbacks.

Then, Shin-Ra executives arrive to the town. Palmer barges in Shera's house. You probably remember Palmer from the Shin-Ra building, but luckily, he's too obsessed with lard to remember you right now. Head out, and you find out that no, Rufus hasn't shown up to restart the space program, just wants to grab Cid's airplane. Shera hints you that Palmer is trying to steal the plane and it would be prudent to stop him.

Then, the airplane gets moving. Palmer ducks around, runs away, and gets flattened by a truck. Eep. That's got to hurt. The party hops aboard, the plane gets going, and you grab Cid aboard. Too bad Shin-Ra troops manage to damage the plane and it crash-lands. At least you can use it now to cross some waterways - but you need to wait a lot longer until you get a real airship...


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Gold Saucer Dream Date

The sky's the limit, but the airplane is busted
Did you notice something? The game didn't throw you a Really Big Clue on how to proceed. Your next goal is to find your way to the Temple of the Ancients. Of course, you don't know where it is, or if you happen to find your way there, you'll eventually notice that you can't get in!

But the Tiny Bronco will be your first really big thing that makes the game a bit less linear. Now you can, and should, explore stuff! Time to head to the firm land again. Just about every random NPC you find will babble something about Sephiroth's whereabouts anyway.

So, here's some things that you might want to do:

 * You can do Wutai sidequests. I recommend to have at least average party level 32 to do the first quest - and have Yuffie at that same level if you also intend to do the second Wutai quest. Personally, my characters are usually barely tough enough to do the first Wutai quest, and I normally don't keep Yuffie in party so she's behind the rest, so I usually do the first Wutai quest.
 * You can try your luck at Fort Condor. This is not necessary though, and you gain no real benefits from this.
 * If you didn't do this earlier, grab two fairly essential enemy skills: Go to Junon and find a Zemzelett, manipulate it to get the White Wind. Remember that scary snake guarding the swamps near the chocobo farm? It's a level 23 creature, so it should be pretty simple to bash by now, and if you don't just insta-kill it or something, it may teach you Beta enemy skill.
 * If you want to learn or see Aerith's Level 4 limit break, this is about your only chance. See Aerith's limit breaks for more details.

 * Todo: What else to do?

Hints, hints, hints...
You may, for example, end up in Bone Village (a village on the northern continent, a big dinosaur skeleton sticking out of the woods). The guys working there have seen Sephiroth looking for the "Keystone", except that apparently some rich guy has it.

The guy at the weapon shop on the peninsula south of Golden Saucer and east of Gongaga was the previous owner - and he tells that the stone was sold to Dio, owner of the Gold Saucer.

Oh yes, that guy.

Annoying Carnival Music, take 2
Onward to Gold Saucer! Dio was the Manly Man and logically keeps all of this stuff in the only location you didn't scour throughoutly on your first visit to Gold Saucer - the Battle Square.

You'll find out, of course, that Dio has a showroom - wow, free entry, too - full of really weird things. Really big alarm clocks, genuine klein bottles presumably for sale (inquire within!), and this Keystone thing.

Dio shows up, and won't let Cloud to borrow it unless he fights on the arena. Basically, this is one-on-one fighting against all sorts of weird critters, with random handicap between the fights. (See also the Battle Square guide, though you won't need the guide much in this fight - after all, there's only one possible prize this time.) The goal here is to survive at least one fight. Just keep thwacking monsters as long as you can stand up. If you get wiped out in the first fight, Dio will let you try again.

After a successful fight, Dio gives you the stone. Hooray! Time to start looking for the temple! ... except it turns out the cable car is busted.

Luckily, Cait Sith knows the hotel owner. There's a brief cutscene where Cloud and the rest try to recap exactly what you're trying to accomplish next and what strange mystical things we've learned of the Cetra.

Dream date!
Prepare for the moment most people had been waiting for. ("Ooh, you can date party members! This is so much cooler than Ocarina of Time!" Meh...)

In the middle of the night, one of your party members shows up.

Which party member, well, that depends a lot on who you've been treating best over the game. If you've constantly worried about Aerith, she shows up, if Tifa, she shows up. With a little bit of trickery, it's possible Yuffie or Barret will show up - both reportedly have amusing dialogue in the following scenes. I always seem to get Tifa. (...yeah, I dump the flower girl and go for the old friend...)

Now, it's time for a little bit of romantic and silly fun. The first stop is the Event Square - here, you'll end up acting in a play. It really doesn't matter what dialogue choices you make - just pick the ones that seem like good ideas at the time.

Next up is Round Square. If you didn't try this before, here's the big point: you can make Cloud look in different directions with the keypad. That's all. Your companion will tell a lot of interesting things here.

...and then, the... Cait Sith station? What's Cait Sith doing with the Keystone?! After him!

After a little bit of chasing him around the place, a few things become apparent: He just handed the Keystone to the Turks and he has Marlene as a hostage. Not good at all!

After a bit of dialogue, you end up back in your hotel room. Be sure to check the wardrobe for an elixir.


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Temple of the Ancients

Sound of jungle drums and fly-swatting
So it's time to head out of the park and to the Temple of the Ancients. Your team consists now of Cloud, Aerith, and one more lucky winner.

It's seriously recommended to be around levels 35 to 40 at this point. I also recommend finding Big Guard enemy skill if you don't know it yet.

A good spot to train at this moment would be the island with the Temple of the Ancients itself. You can't miss it, once you get going with Tiny Bronco - go southeast of Gold Saucer and follow the island chains. The only annoying thing is that the island is inhabited by Slaps, who are... mosquitos. They cause the party to get poisoned, saddened, and berserkified, and cause just about as much damage as normal mosquitos in general. If you see them, drop the controller and come back in two hours. Once you've done that a few times, equip Tifa with Peace Ring and Odin materia. Or maybe Ifrit if you want to save your anger for the upcoming bosses.

Also stock up on Tents, Elixirs, and stuff like that. (There's no need for Tents inside the temple, but they're very useful if you're training up.)

The Temple
Aerith will have a fit once you reach the temple, which is quite understandable because her ancestors are around. A black-caped guy comes out and collapses. Eep...

Sephiroth is somewhere in the temple and at the entrance, you find out he has tickled Tseng with his sword. Tseng gives the Keystone to his (as we learn) old friend Aerith. With the help of the Keystone, you get in the temple.

The courtyard will look complicated, but it's really not - there's one correct path to go, and the temple guardian - an old man in a blue robe - will show you the way. Basically, use stairs and the vines and doorways and such. You can pick up Trident, Rocket Punch (Barret's dull weapon), Luck Plus materia, and Silver Rifle. There's one chest you can't get to right now, and one doorway you can't access.

At the end, you reach a door that leads to a single corridor with big stone wheels rolling through it. The wheels have a gap in them; the idea is obviously to run to the center of the corridor right where the gap happens to be, then run to the next wheel's gap, and so on. You'll get flattened if you fail, but don't sweat it.

In the end of the corridor, the stones somehow disappear, and Aerith and the Ancients will lead you to the pool and show you a vision about what happened a bit earlier. Grab the Morph materia from the ground - it's highly useful. Continue along the corridor, and the guardian waits there, giving you the option to restore HP and MP for free, or save the game.

Time Guardian
Press on and you find yourself in the Time Guardian's room - the Obligatory Clock Face Puzzle. (These are just as big in Japan as chessboard traps are in West.) You must use the clock hands to cross. The instructions on controlling the time are shown, they should be simple enough.

If you get knocked down from the hands, you end up in a small room where small dragons attack you. In that room there's a chest with the Nail Bat. The door leads back out.

Here's what happens in the various rooms.

 * Todo: the other rooms? This only has the notable ones. =)

Mural hall
Once you head through the six o'clock door, you find yourself in a room with a lot of caves and locked double door.

The idea is to catch the temple guardian. You need to memorize where each passage seems to lead, and try to get yourself into the same corridor with the temple guardian. Or, you can cheat and just go in the same corridor each time - you're bound to collide sooner or later. The guardian, once again, gives you option to heal up or save. At the lower level of the maze is a gold chest containing Tifa's Work Glove. Don't forget to pick it up before moving on.

Once you head through the double doors, you find yourself in the mural hall. Sephiroth shows up, talks about his true plans, and makes Cloud seriously freak out too. Then, Sephiroth disappears. Time to reflect on the whole Sephrioth/Black Materia/etc thing here.

And eep... just as you get yourself lulled to safety of Long Cutscene with Nice Music, there's time to fight a creature. A big creature.

You get a Dragon Armlet, a really nice armor, and after the fight, you see Bahamut materia floating right in front of you. A big summon materia. Grab it!

Now, go back to the end of the mural hall. There's a model floating about. Shake it. Eep. Cait Sith calls you and offers to grab it while you run outside.

Heroic deeds for nothing
Head out, and the guardian is still here. Heal up and save. This would also be a good time to make sure Aeris doesn't have any unique armor equipped on her. Feel free to give her tons of good materia and an accessory, though. That is obviously needed here.

Now, the Time Guardian room has locked so that the only way is through the 12 o'clock door, which leads out of the place.

But if you're wondering why this wikibook took so long to write - well, suffice to say that I hate this following boss. I hate it. I hate hate hate hate hate...

(I actually beat this boss on the first try when I'm playing the game as I'm writing the guide, but the point is, this boss is scary. It flattens the unprepared. Be wary.) Phew! If you beat that - congratulations, that was the hardest mandatory boss in the game! Seriously! But there'll be a lot more bosses ahead that will probably inspire you to swear a little bit more loudly...

Next comes a long cutscene where you first see Cait Sith get flattened, you get a hard-earned Black Materia, and... um... see Sephiroth take it. Or, rather, Cloud giving it to him.

Cloud freaks out, Cait Sith no. 2 shows up, Cloud faints, Aerith shows up in his dream, and as Cloud wakes from the nightmares (not for the first, or last, time in this game), Aerith... has... went... to... Forgotten Capital... in actuality... too. What a silly thoughtless flower girl!


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Sleeping Forest and the Forgotten Capital

Aerith has gone to the Forgotten Capital. She has left you her accessory (if any) and all Materia.

Excavations at Bone Village
Now, your path leads to the northernmost continent. The Bone Village is a place marked by big dinosaur bones sticking out of the forests there.

Here we find a lot of archeologists. They say Aerith has gone this way and, incidentally, so has Sephiroth. They also tell you can't get through the Sleeping Forest without the Lunar Harp.

The archeologists are willing to help for a little bit of money, specifically, 500 gil. Ask them to dig for the Lunar Harp, then set up each of the archeologists to their place. (Further hints: The Lunar Harp is somewhere on the top plateau in the Bone Village. It's not terrifyingly difficult to find, just ask them to dig for Lunar Harp and determine its location.) Once all five have been set up, each archeologist will turn to face the place where they think the item seems to be. Move Cloud to the point where their lines of sight meet, then hit the button. After the digs, you can then retrieve the item from the box on the front of the tent.

 * Todo: What else to dig from here?

Sleeping Forest
There isn't a great deal of stuff to do in the sleeping forest. On the first screen, the Kjata materia is floating through the branches. Grab it.

On the second screen, there's a box containing Water Ring. This is also a great place to train if you want tons of AP.

After the next screen, you make a brief jaunt to the world map, after which you find yourself in...

The Forgotten Capital
There's not much to do here - and you don't need to explore this place much right now, you'll return here later too. You can find some things here though. Most notably, you can find another Enemy Skill materia on the right side of the town, somewhere in the house with beds.

You need to sleep in this house and in the middle of the night, Cloud wakes up and tells where Aerith is. Specifically, in that prominently placed big house in the middle. Head there. On the top of the spiral, you'll find a Comet materia.

You can't cry underwater
Head down. After a long stairway, you reach a savepoint and a platform where Aerith seems to be praying.

Now, if you're thinking the whole scene is too calm, it's true. If you think Sephiroth just might be ready to leap from the shadows, I'd say you have a good eye for spotting obviousities. So, this is your chance to get ready for a boss fight. Give some character (Tifa, in my case) an Edincoat (or anything like that that holds tons of materia) with tons of summon spells, Heal and Life, and an (this is important) the Water Ring you found earlier.

Cloud heads up alone and then proceeds to almost slice Aerith in half, no matter what you're trying to do with your controller. (Patience! He's not really a genuine psychopath - you'll soon learn what's really going on!) And then Sephiroth comes and...

...okay, since this is one of the most famous scenes in history of CRPGs, I don't think this is a spoiler. Sephiroth kills Aerith. Dead. I won't tell how this scene goes, so you might find the scene interesting despite of this widely-known fact.

Sephiroth tells a lot of rather odd details on his plans, and Cloud is clearly not ready to take this in this situation. So, it's time to fight yet another weird part of the creature Sephiroth calls his mother.

Afterwards, you learn, through Jenova's thick accent, that Cloud is a puppet. And exactly what that means.

This concludes the first CD. Hunt for the madman Sephiroth continues on Final Fantasy VII CD 2: The Further Adventures of Tifa and C#&%d - Lightning-Materia Boogaloo, included with your copy of Final Fantasy VII. Specifically, you'll then head into the cold. But now, it's time to save and have a deep breath and things like that.


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Into the cold

 * Todo: This module could use some more meat, not sure exactly what but it seems a bit hasty...

Toward the north
The second CD continues from the Forgotten Capital. Head forward, and you see Cloud's weird mind projection (or whatever) of Sephiroth heading to right path.

The next screen should be fairly straightforward, head up the conch-like thing. The chest, if you're able to reach it through the ground, contains a Viper Halberd. The screen after that should likewise be fairly simple; you can climb up and down the vertical shafts. The chests contain Bolt Armlet, HypnoCrown and a Megalixir. On the bottom of the very long ladder, you'll find a Magic Plus materia. Head up that ladder, and out through the next cave (that also has a chest containing a Power Source).

Now you're back on the world map. The idea is to head as far west as you can, and toward north - you're practically going a little bit northwest. Press on until you find a city.

Icicle Inn
This place seems to be the northernmost point of the civilization. To get further north, you need two items. Talk to the folks in the big house, and you'll find out how to get the Glacier Map - it's actually hanging on the wall, and you can just grab them, though the owner thinks you're a bit bold for taking it before getting his permission. Then, as you find out, there's no way to get further anyway - but as you investigate things, you'll find out that the kid in one of the houses has broken his leg and will let you take his snowboard. Stock up on items if you want and check the north west house for a few videos talking about Ilfana, Aeris's mother.

Then Elena and some Shin-Ra soldiers show up. This is a little bit of a comedic cutscene: Use the controller as indicated, move left out of the way to dodge. Either Elena manages to punch you in the nose, or she misses by a mile and goes down the hill.

Great Glacier
The next point is to snowboard down the hill, in one of the most blatant cases of "guess if this minigame gets unlocked for normal play at some point?"... yes, it will be unlocked in Gold Saucer after this.

Talk to the man to find out how to snowboard; hopefully, this guide will one day contain some tips in the Snowboarding section. Then just head down the hill; there's a curious amount of tricks to do around here. It doesn't really matter what route you go, you just end up at a different part of the glacier.

Now, it's time to navigate around the glacier. Press Square (Switch in the PC version) to check the map. Your objective is to identify where you are (it should be easy - look for landmarks in your current location that looks a bit like the ones in the map) and head toward the red checkmark. You can refer to (someday available) Great Glacier section.

Anyway, either you reach the foot of the mountains eventually, or you slump down and freeze to near death. Either way, you find yourself at the base camp on the foot of the mountain; if you freeze, the climber guy has found you and nursed you to health.

From the climber guy's house, if you head south you'll reach a large snow field where you have to place markers to keep following a straight path through the snow. If you head south directly there will be a cave with an All Materia inside it. Head all the way south by following your markers in a straight line, until you reach a new area, you'll reach some hot springs. Go to the bottom left to touch it, then head back to the field and go directly east to reach a cave where a snow lady lives. If you touched the hot springs, you'll be able to fight her and win the Alexander summon materia. Head back north or get lost again if you like.

Climbing the cliff
The climber will explain how to climb the cliffs and how to keep your body temperature up. (Ultima VII this game is not—one might guess a place like Icicle Inn would sell warm clothing, but no, our brave heroes want to go to the mountain in a T-shirt...)

You can take various paths that lead up up and away. One of the hidden caves on the cliff face has a Ribbon, and since this is the only time you'll be on the cliff, I suggest you grab it since these are very useful and very rare.

Caves
The two caves aren't much to write home about - they do have some annoying monsters in them, like the Stilvas (who do teach you interesting enemy skills, like Trine and especially Magic Breath, which is a really cool enemy skill). On the cliff proper, you'll run into Malboros, which teach Bad Breath enemy skill - though I sure hope you have either a White Cape or did pick the Ribbon from earlier, or the temple, because this enemy skill has some annoying properties (like sleep+toad+annoyance). In the first cave, the idea is to find your way to a big rock, then push it down, and follow it; In the second cave, the idea is to find your way out, then to the "balcony" above the room, and knock down the huge icicles (this can be done in a single turn by casting Fire3 at them).

Third cave
The third cave has first a save point. And, a cave where a black-robed guy seems to be dying. And a big monster shows up. Uh...

After this humongous boss fight, which turns out to be the hardest one in this section, it's time to head out and to the top of the cliff. A nice view over the Northern Crater.

Black robes torn by the whirlwind
Go down the cliff. If – for some extremely unlikely reason – Tifa isn't in your party, she shows up and insist on going with you. In the first room, there's a nice shiny red orb – Neo Bahamut materia. You'll see the Shin-Ra approaching from the skies, too. Eek. Better hurry.

There's two screens where you need to cross the chasm – as the instructions say, time to cross the chasms when the wind is quiet. Otherwise, you get knocked back and you need to fight some weak enemies.

A lot of black robes after, you meet up with Sephiroth again... who's killing the black-robed guys. What the heck? Well, no time to reflect on bizarre things now, time to fight our old enemy again!

Now, things start to make a little bit more sense. Have Cloud give the Black Materia to either Barret or Red XIII (others will refuse to take it, and you can't give it to a party member either). There's a save point here.

Head up after you've saved. There's a loooooooong cutscene that follows, and even if things started to make sense a bit earlier, I guarantee the whole game gets really confusing now. Pay attention, and remember that it all will make sense later.


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/A tricky situation in Junon base

Wait, now this gets complicated
As noted in the previous chapter, there's a long, long, long cutscene here. Since the walkthrough doesn't focus on plot discussion, I don't think it's needed to go over it here. You find out a lot of interesting things, such as that the Black Materia is actually blue, and not at all pyramidlike like previously.

The point is, Cloud isn't with you anymore. He fell to the gigantic lifestream explosion in the Northern Crater.

But I'd like to introduce you to yet another JRPG cliché, called Dekar's Rule: "If you don't actually see a character die (or are explicitly told so by somebody who did), they're not dead." So quit worrying about Cloud.

Execution on all channels at three o'clock!
For some time henceforth, you're mainly controlling Tifa. Cloud's materia and accessory have been miraculously returned to your inventory. Note that if your third party member wasn't Barret, the materia that was on whoever was your third character at the time isn't available for you; you'll run into a few of the other characters soon enough, but at most, you need to wait until you get out of this predicament you'll find yourself now....

Tifa wakes up after being knocked out for seven days. Barret shows her what's happening outside: The Meteor is coming from the skies. Eek.

Rufus and Heidegger show up and clap you in irons. They have decided to cheer up the populace with a televised public execution.

For a brief while, you're controlling Barret. Follow Tifa and the soldiers downstairs, there's a save point here too. You'll end up in the press room. Scarlet throws Tifa in the gas chamber and the guards lock her there. (Oh wow! Look! The guard dropped a key! I've got an addition to that cliché list: "If the characters are condemned to some death trap, and NPC drops a key, well, just do one plus one, okay?")

And just as Scarlet, that sadistic executioner, wants to see Tifa squirm and beg for mercy, the base gets attacked by one of the Weapons released from the crater in that previous big cutscene. The thing, incidentally, is called Sapphire Weapon - though the name isn't mentioned anywhere in the game.

Also, it turns out one of the reporters was Cait Sith in disguise. Here's some silly-scented chloroform, Scarlet! Take that and that and that, soldiers! Barret can't obviously get the gas chamber door open, so Cait Sith suggests opening it from elsewhere, so Barret and Cait Sith join up. Equip the characters as you see fit.

As you go out, you find out that Scarlet woke up and locked the door from inside. Eep. Cait Sith gets a great idea, but won't tell you what it is - head right down to the airfield. Outside, if Yuffie is with your party, she's here - talk to her and she's back in the fray. Press on. Head to the upper level on the airfield, and go right, where the big airship is waiting. Well, I wonder what will happen now? I really do?

Meanwhile, in the gas chamber, Tifa shows us some amazing escape artist skills. Basically, follow the on-screen instructions to

 * 1) slide down, and pull the key closer
 * 2) pick up the key with feet
 * 3) take the key in the mouth
 * 4) use the key in mouth to the manacles in hand to unlock them.

Then use the console on left to shut down the gas.

How to get out? Well, the Sapphire Weapon wants to really roast the Junon base, and gashes a big hole in the wall - coincidentally, right where the gas chamber was. Get out, climb down the wall...

...go forth and, um, you have no other place to go besides the big gun barrel.

Scarlet, the slap-o-phile, shows up, and tries to slap Tifa. Tifa isn't handcuffed now, of course. In this scene, one of the defining scenes of the Final Fantasy series, two ladies—one evil corporate executive with ambition to build various devices to kill people in interesting ways, and one with a heart of gold and a noble cause to fight tirelessly on and on without reward—engage in an epic cheek-slapping contest atop the barrel of a gigantic cannon over the naval harbor of Junon, with the late afternoon sun painting the scene with soft orange tones, the only sounds being the crash of the waves, cry of the seagulls, and the slaps of the combatants—both committed, for different reasons, to take this fight as far as it has to go. (This scene is pure genius, I tell you.)

Okay, so eventually, Scarlet yields and notes that Tifa has nowhere to go but to jump down to her death. But luckily, the airship Highwind shows up. Barret tosses down a rope and Tifa leaps aboard. Yay! Crisis averted!


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/A journey through cloudless skies

Where the wind takes us
Now it's time to get used to the various facilities of the Highwind, find out how all of the stuff there works, and talk to the folks aboard about the plans on what to do next. There's a whole lot of stuff to do at this hour.

 * Todo: Okay, really, what to do here before going to see Cloud?

What you can do at this time: Train your fellows, explore stuff, and go to some places you couldn't previously.

It's actually easier to tell what you can not do. For starters, Gold Saucer is closed—Dio is on the door, saying he's not sure if it pays to keep it running. So, you can go catching chocobos, but you can't race them right now.

Another thing is that if you get the bright idea of going to the Gaea's Cliff and back where Sephiroth is sitting, well, you can scrap that idea as well - the guy who takes responsibility of that little sledding track there won't let you go down the hill.

Also note that Highwind cannot land on forests, mountains or snow. You can reach places like the Round Island (an uncharted island on the top northeast corner of the world map), but you can't land on that.

My sources say we head to the last unexplored town
Okay, a lot of people, including Bugenhagen if you visited Cosmo Canyon (and why not, he's a wise guy who has guided you before), seem to suggest that there's an island to the south with springs of Lifestream. Well, look at that! If you happened to open the menu near Temple of the Ancients, you probably wondered what the heck "Mideel Area" is. A town near the Temple of the Ancients? Yep! Just east of it, actually.

Mideel is a nice small quiet town, with a cute dog that seems to like Tifa. And then Tifa hears someone talking of some familiar thing. Eep!

So, you've found Cloud. Cloud is not being very healthy at the time. Tifa will stay at his side (and automatically gives you back her materia and accessory).

Other things you can do in Mideel: You can visit the shops and buy some really nice gear, and fine accessories. Also, there's a small white chocobo there: Feed him some greens, and scratch behind his ears (you remember what Choco Bill said back in the farm, right?) He'll give you a Contain materia, which is a spell materia that has some unusual properties. If you check the back of the weapon shop you'll find a locked door, go outside down the path to the left and search to find a rusty key, and try to use it in the lock, only it will break off. Be honest when the man asked you what happened, and you'll get a Curse Ring. You can also go inside one of the houses to find an Elixir, only for once the man inside will complain, just be honest again and you'll get to keep it.

Big plans from Gya ha ha and Kya ha ha
Aboard the Highwind, Cait Sith lets you hear of Shin-Ra's new plans. Apparently, they're gathering Huge Materia from various regions (as you probably remember from Gongaga reactor, if you went there). They're going to use that to blow up the Meteor. For some reason or other, the characters obviously want the world dead, not leave the comet-busting to professionals, and stop Shin-Ra's new illustrious plan...

You can do the following two sections actually in either order.

The Flying Materia Train!
Cid heads the party now! Head back to Corel Reactor - in case you forgot, back to North Corel, up, over the big hangbridge, follow the tracks. You really want to save the game at the save point here! If you fail here and not save, it isn't completely disastrous, but very annoying!

As you reach the door of the reactor, two soldiers stop you. They're not very tough.

After you defeat them, the materia train comes from the reactor. Cid heads in and you follow the train on another train.

You have 10 minutes to stop the materia train. Basically, follow your on-screen instructions. First, you need to alternate between Up and Triangle. Keep doing that in good rhythm and sooner or later, you reach the other train and jump in.

In each car, you have to fight a creature or maybe even two. I've noted that summons work great here, but take too frigging long - enemy skills like Beta, Trine and Magic Breath rule here. You need to fight five times in total, then you get to the engine. You need to dispose of the soldier who runs the train.

Then comes the critical part. As Cid says, you need to push the things the same way. Try Up + Triangle, twice. Oooops! The speed is only getting faster! Okay, Down + Cross, twice? Great! It's slowing down! No, it isn't! Aaargh! ...and the train stops just in time.

(Alternatively, you can push first Down + Cross twice, then Up + Triangle twice.)

If you manage to stop the train, a kid will give you Ultima materia (An elite spell) and you can find the Catastrophe (Barret's lv4 limit break manual) from a woman in one of the huts. If you fail, you can still buy the Ultima materia from the kid, it just costs a lot. If you fail to reach the materia train at all, you won't even get that!

El Condor Splode
The second Huge Materia is at the Fort Condor. Instructions for beating that minigame are in a separate article.

This time is a little bit different: The condor will die in a giant fireball and the egg hatches. After the battle, head through the door to the top of the reactor, and you see the newly hatched bird - and a tempting red orb, the Phoenix materia.

Then talk to the folks at the fort, especially the warboss' father who sits by the table downstairs. He'll give you the materia.

Return to Mideel
As you return to Mideel, things seem to be a bit more tumultuous than before. The ground starts shaking all of sudden, and it seems the Lifestream is very, very upset. And suddenly, a big dragonlike thingy appears out of blue and you need to fight it.

Cloud's self-discovery
In the following cutscene, everyone dies. Well, at least the town gets blown into smithereens - luckily no one was hurt and everyone's still around after this. But Tifa and Cloud drop into the Lifestream.

What follows is a... really... really... really long cutscene. It's time for Tifa to finally help Cloud to get grips of what he really is. You'll find out a lot of cool stuff about what really happened in Nibelheim, for instance. Whippeth out ye olde popcorne and cola. However, you do need to run around and talk to the various Clouds as Tifa.

After a bit of rest, it's time for Cloud to get back to leading the crew. No use getting off the train, indeed!


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Huge Materias

What then?
Now would be a good time to spend an afternoon getting yourself a Golden Chocobo. This is the first ocassion to get one, and it's fun to have a reasonably well grown Knights of Round materia arould in the giant big end battles. =)

Basically, do whatever you want - and once you're bored, go to Junon.

They all lived in a Red Submarine
In Junon, head up to the airport. Wow, did you notice something seems to be gone from the city? Can't quite put your finger on it yet.

The basic idea of this section - as revealed to you, the idea is to head to the Underwater Reactor - is quite simple. You go down the tunnel that begins from the upper level; head the way you went to the cargo ship, until you come to the narrow tunnel to the left where Shin-Ra soldiers are doing drills. They head to the tunnels. Fight your way through (none of the enemies here are very tough), go through the seafloor tunnel, take elevator up, fight more Soldiers, and stop Reno from loading the Huge Materia to a submarine. (Oh, by the way, in the seafloor tunnel you can Morph the Ghost Ship enemies to Guide Books, items the trader in Kalm wants. Trade them for Underwater materia, which can be handy when fighting the Emerald Weapon.)

Of course, there's a little snag in our perfect plan: Reno gets the thing packed to the sub, leaves in a hurry to his next appointment, and leaves the party to fight the single most frustrating boss in the game. (I don't say I hate it as much as Demon's Gate though, as that boss merely inspires me to have emotional rage; this boss inspires throughoutly cold methodical hatred.)

Carry Armor leaves God's Hand, a nice weapon for Tifa. After the fight, you get the bright idea to get into the other sub. In the submarine bay, be sure to check every box: Battle Trumpet (for Cait Sith), Scimitar (a weapon for Cid that has triple materia growth rate!) and Leviathan Scales key item, which will douse the flames of Wutai cave.

In the other sub, you first need to fight your way in. There's a save point in the entryway. In the command cabin, you have the option to either fight the commander and two soldiers, but who has the heart to fight Cloud's old (if brief) friends? So, you can take them hostage.

Das Boot: Edward Scissorhands' Cut—a submarine movie in 0:00:10
This Wikibook will undoubtedly one day have a complete guide to submarines (never guessed there would be yet another unlockable minigame, right? No? Aww.) but for now, here's a brief tutorial: Directional buttons control where the thing is going, like an airplane. Triangle increases speed, Cross slows down. Square fires a torpedo, and it will hit more surely if you have a lock-on. R1 for sonar view, R2 to change views.

The reason I'm not going to explain it too well is that either you're a complete newbie, and will nevertheless master this simple task in no time at all and destroy the red submarine in good time, or you're a veteran, and destroy the red sub in ten seconds flat - just speed after the red sub, get a lock-on, and torpedo away.

If you fail - well, you did save in the sub entryway, right? If not, it's not that bad, you just missed the Huge Materia. If you succeeded, the thing stays safe in the bottom of the ocean until you grab it, no need to hurry though.

You get orders to return to Junon. Once you do, all you see is an airplane going to...

...Rocket town! Darn! Looks like they're carrying out their meteor-smashing plans!

Blasting off and wasting lard
As you reach the Rocket Town, you find out Shin-Ra is fussing all over the rocket. As you head there, the soldiers spot you and attack you. Fight them off.

If Cid isn't in your party, he comes along now, obviously eager to defend his beloved rocket. (Rearrange your stuff here if needed.)

Climb up. Rude and a few soldiers are responsible for this Huge Materia shipment - time to knock them all down!

In the rocket, there's one more baddie to beat. Enter the cockpit. Cutscene follows: Cid's workers leave the rocket to Cid, and then we hear that Palmer is launching the rocket. Eep.

Once in space, you can go fetch the rocket by using the ladders to right. The combination lock needs button key presses; If you get it wrong, you have three minutes to get it right, listen to Cid's ideas. The correct combination is [OK], [Switch] , [Cancel] , [Cancel] (on Playstation, Circle, Square, Cross, Cross).

To get to the escape pod, go left. There's a cutscene involving Shera, who shows up and leads you to the pod.

The rocket will hit the Meteor, and won't cause much damage to it at all, not even if you leave the Huge Materia in the rocket.

What then?
Red XIII has the bright idea that we should go to ask Bugenhagen what to do next - and that would be prudent. However, at this point, the immediate danger is gone; you can explore a bit if you want.

For example:

 * Take the submarine and visit the sunken Gelnika (near Costa del Sol).
 * Grab the sunken Huge Materia too (you should be able to find the red submarine on the ocean floor somewhere around the Junon area, if you killed it straight off the bat it will be due west of The Temple of the Ancients - just move your sub close to it and you should pick it up automatically). This, of course, assuming you managed to stop the red submarine!
 * If you have the Guide Book, Visit Kalm to exchange it to Underwater materia - even if you probably are way too weak to face Emerald Weapon right now...

If you were victorious in all materia tricks, it would be a good time to see that Bugenhagen has all of your Huge Materias. Leave them to his care when you visit Cosmo Canyon and ask the old man what to do next!


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Weapon Raid at Midgar and Requiem for Shin-Ra

More Wisdom from Bugenhagen
The point, as of now, is to go back to the Forgotten Capital with Bugenhagen.

In the Forgotten Capital, you find a lot of Ancients-related stuff - and when you head to the left city parts, you find some sort of round area with a lot of mysterious stuff in the center. Bugenhagen is very interested of it.

After some crypticism, he tells that the key to unlocking this place's mysteries can be found from where the sun doesn't... um... I think it's taken literally this time. Anyway, I think it's best at this point to just go looking for the key yourself; the whole scene here is quite anti-climatic if you just do it by the book. Actually, it's pretty flat either way, but at least you accomplish something.

Still want some direct clues? Submarine. Below sea. Northernmost continent. Secure bay. Hidden underwater cave under the continental shelf. Key to the Ancients.

As you return, Bugenhagen shows you some more of the amazing cutscene videos.

As you leave, Cait Sith calls. Apparently, Shin-Ra has moved the Junon cannon to Midgar. So that's what was missing from Junon.

Big thing's coming this way!
As you leave for Highwind, something big shows up. A gigantic big Weapon appears out of nowhere and heads toward Midgar!

Not a big deal. Just head to the shore, wait for the Weapon to get there, and...

Good grief! In the longish video that follows, the Northern Crater barrier gets shot. And looks like Shin-Ra is busy with their own troubles. Let's head to Northern Crater!

...oops! Darn! Looks like Hojo is finally going crazy. (Who would have guessed?) The next step is to parachute in Midgar and fry Hojo before he does something dumb.

...but before we get to that...
Note: This is your absolute last chance to do most of the stuff that needs to be done in Disc 2. This includes...

 * Wutai sidequests

It's also a good time to make sure you have done the following, though they can (and should, unless you're in a terrible pinch) be left to do in Disc 3 too:
 * Raised Chocobos and got the 4 hidden materia
 * Obtained Omnislash, W-Summon and Final Attack from the Battle Arena
 * Get the maximum limit breaks for all your characters

You can take on Ultimate Weapon now if you want to, however, note that if the thing flies over Midgar, you end up to Midgar instead of fighting the thing (so it's better to save each time before you start bumping it).

Commandos in Midgar
As you reach Midgar, the city is under martial law, so, to borrow an action movie cliche, "I guess we gonna have to jump!"

Cait Sith is telling where to go from here - You need to use the tunnels. The side street with the manhole has a save point.

After you go down, you end up in a really big room with lots of pipes and ladders. This place is somewhat confusing, but wandering around here shouldn't be too difficult - just remember that the only way to get to some places is through a platform, ventilation pipe or a ladder somewhere else. The treasure chests here are green. You can, among other things, pick up Aegis Armlet, Starlight Phone (for Cait Sith, I think?), and Max Ray (for Barret), and some more items too (TODO!)

There's a save point next to the duct that leads out. You end up in the tunnels. Now, I highly recommend going downward from here - eight intersections down is a really long way, but you can get some cool stuff, like Power, Guard, Mind and Magic sources, and most importantly, the unique W-Item materia at the very end of the tunnel with the save point. The only bad thing about the place is that there's tons of Shadow Maker enemies here - you can find Turbo Ethers from them, but the annoying thing about them is that they have really slow attacks, and they also make your party quite slow too! The journey down will take forever!

Once you go up from the rails section where you came through, the Turks will appear. If you did the Yuffie subquests, they give you the option to not to fight them.

 * Todo: Stats in the not so unlikely case it's unavoidable...

Up from there, there's two passages. The farthest up one leads back to the Shin-Ra building, and if you missed the Turtle's Paradise poster earlier, now it's the time to go read it - it's on the first floor lobby, on the farthest wall. You won't get another chance in the game! There's not much else to do in the building, except perhaps go pick up other things you missed earlier.

The second underground passage takes you to the Sister Ray. Well, it would, if Scarlet, mad about losing the Sister Ray, would try to restrain herself from coming up with some more weapon names. So here's Scarlet's and Heidegger's new toy...

Head up. There's two boxes here with Mystile and Elixir, and a savepoint. Then, up the ladder! If Barret is in your party, you can find the Missing Score here, which is Barret's best weapon - the box isn't here if he isn't in the party.

Up in the uppermost platform, we find this mad scientist, who, like any mad scientists, injects himself with "my beautiful creation, mwahahaha" and turns into a hideous monster.

The following boss fight is done in a single fight. This is going to be a long fight with tons of different creatures and Hojo's forms, so whatever you do, don't waste Knights of Round on his first form. (If you have Knights of Round, I suggest not using it at all - this is probably simple enough to do in any case - or saving it for the last of the three forms. Or you may waste it on the first form if you're really sure you can take the latter two without it...)

Hojo is dead, Scarlet and Heidegger are stuck in a wreck, Turks scattered, and Rufus presumably perished in the Weapon attack (I don't want to spoil things, but I say emphasis on presumably). Thus, Shin-Ra is no more. (But you can't really kill a corporation, at least without tons of paperwork, now can you?)

A longish cutscene follows - and that concludes the CD 2 of Final Fantasy VII. The adventure continues in CD 3, The Formerly Missing Non-Linear Game Experience, included with your copy of Final Fantasy VII.


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Descent into the Northern Crater

Now we're free
Basically the thing is now this: You may think you have a CD's worth of stuff to do. Not really - you have basically unlimited access to most of the areas you've been to before. Now, the game has turned quite non-linear. There's no real point in giving you any hint on where specifically to go.

Now, basically, you don't need to head down the Northern Crater right away. In fact, it could be dangerous if you do; some versions of the game apparently have a bug that prevent you from returning if you go down the crater. The Crater has a lot of really really bad baddies though. It's better to stock up really good before going there.

Basically, you're left with a quite a few of things you can and should do before going about. You can now collect various things that you can pick up at just about any time.

Here's other cool stuff that gets unlocked at this point:

 * You can go to Cosmo Canyon with Red XIII in your party. Say bye-bye to Bugenhagen and get Red XIII's ultimate weapon.
 * More?

And most of all, you should level the hell up. I've beaten the last bosses by heading down the crater with my party around level 68. You can try to get your levels even higher if you want to make the end fights ridiculously simple. I recommend heading to the Mideel island and beating tons of the monsters.

The Northern Crater
And so it begins...

A few recommendations for fighting through the Northern Crater: You may want to equip someone with a safety bit to avoid the possibility of a level 4 death spell wiping out your entire party, or else make sure your party member's levels are staggered. Ribbons are useful for all the spells which cause sadness.

The path to the friends
When you "land" into the crater, you find yourself sliding down hill. You'll end up in a chasm with spirally ledges going down. The cave leads back to Highwind. The first chest contains Save crystal - you can use that to deploy a save point anywhere in the Northern Crater. (At least until we indicate otherwise - you can't use it in the very last leg of the journey). The other chest contains Guard Source.

The next area has chests containing Power, Magic, Guard and Mind Sources. Hit [OK] to climb the ledges where it's possible. Also note that at the topmost platform, half behind a stalagtite or something, you see something glittery. Climb to the top-left ledge and check it out - it's a HP Absorb materia.

Then there's rooms where you can hop down and up ledges, and one room that connects the cave entrances. The cave has a couple of chests that hold some interesting items, of which I have little clue. (Todo!) On the ledgey room, there's a Mind Source.

Splitting can be beneficial
In the next room, you reunite with the rest of the gang. Here, you can basically send some of your friends through the left and right path.

Make sure you try all the forks along the path to pick up the chests, there are some useful items, including a W-Magic materia, Counter materia, Shield materia, and Magic counter materia. When you reach the point where your party splits up, you can send your party members down different paths to get most items. The left then down path is the one which will allow you to return to the top. The left then up path is a great one to use your save crystal on to create a save point - it contains the best experience building place in the game. Simply use elixirs on the magic pots and kill them and you'll net thousands of experience and AP points.

 * Todo: What's really on the different paths?

When you reunite with your party and they give you the items they found, only proceed if you're ready to face Sephiroth, and head back and save anyway, this is the point of no return. (If you edited save game to get Aerith back to your party, she'll be disappearing for good now...)


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Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Finale

So here, our friends reunite. It's time to go finally kicking some goth-bishōnen butt. At the top of the stairway leading to the center of the planet, there's still one more chance to first grab all of the cool trinket the other folks have collected, get your gear in order, and pick your team as you plunge down to...

The stairs
The stairway consists of fights with some really annoying enemies. Basically, if you start mysteriously seeing "Game over" screens, it's more often thanks to these massively annoying guardians. They come in a couple of different varieties: floating eyes (Allemagne), big knights with bigger swords (Iron Man), and skeletal dragons (Dragon Zombie). (In D&D terms: Eyeballs, Level 65 Munchkins and Ancient Dracolichs). Eyes are easy, knights kill you dead, skeletal dragons die when you as much as sneeze at them, but have the nasty habit of killing you dead with Pandora's Box (Be sure you have your Enemy Skill materia equipped if you haven't aquired this Enemy Skill yet!). When fighting Iron Men and Dragon Zombies, it's best to treat each fight with equal seriousness as if it were a boss fight; start the fight with Big Guard and throw some big summons at it. You remembered to bring tons of Ether, right? Just kill the baddies, then afterwards Cure yourself and pump yourself full of Ether.

The hideous thing is coming right at us!
At the bottom of the stairs, you find yourself looking at a gigantic big... mass of... something... Mother Brain? No, something quite more unexplainable than that.

Art thou goth enough?
After the fight, you end up to the actual center of the planet. Well, it is rather hard to say where you are at the moment, but the good thing is, Holy is close by. As is Sephiroth.

For the following fight, you will get to split your party into one, two or three groups, depending on how well you got here.

 * Todo: How is the number of groups determined? I always get two groups!

Fight in the heavens
Bizarro Sephiroth falls down! I know that was a strange fight. What on earth was that thing? But there's no time for extraneous explanations! No time for transitions! Time to tackle something symbolic. And the music is pretty good. "In taberna quando sumus / non curamus quid sit humus / SEPHIROTH!" ... wait, no, it wasn't like that. Some other part of Carmina Burana, anyway.

The end?
After the bad guy has been blown to the ionosphere, it's time to go home. Or not so for Cloud, who weirds up, goes spirit-journeying and ends up fighting...

The end.
Sephiroth is destroyed – in a rather unexplained way. It is quite difficult to tell for sure, though, what really happened at the end. If the end seems weird, just read megabytes of fan analysis and speculation and it all starts to make sense. Kind of.

Holy tries to destroy the Meteor. Lifestream tries to stop all. Everything goes white.

And, after some typographically offensive end credits (boring Arial - is this what they call end credits these days?), Red XIII returns to Midgar after 500 years.

title: Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Finale


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Final Fantasy VII/Optional characters

This section covers how to get the two optional characters to join. Getting both of them is highly recommended: Yuffie's sidequest gives you some interesting materia, and Vincent is a devastating fighter with all-around long-range weapons and amazing limit breaks, and getting him gives you also some interesting items and materia.

Yuffie
You will run into Yuffie randomly in the woods. The earliest opportunity to get Yuffie is before going to the Junon for the first time, the woods are to the east and to the south of the town. You can also run into Yuffie on the central continent, south of Corel Desert / Gongaga area, southeast of Cosmo Canyon.

Yuffie will first appear as a "Mystery Ninja". Her stats are different depending on the party level, but should never be too hard to defeat.

After the fight, you find yourself on an empty clearing, talking to Yuffie, who wants to fight again. DO NOT open the menu or Yuffie will steal your gil - subsequently, do not use the save point as this is just a ruse to get you to open the menu. Keep talking to her and she will join you. You need to pick the correct dialogue choices basically on instinct and trial and error, and if you fail, do not worry, just find the Mystery Ninja again in the woods and you'll get to try again.

If you don't want to guess, the correct dialogue choices are 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st and then the 2nd dialogue choice. (The actual lines are different depending on who leads the party. For Cloud, they're "Not interested", "...Petrified", "Wait a second!", "...That's right", and "...Let's hurry on". As a side note, in case you haven't noticed this, Yuffie calls Cloud a "spikey-headed jerk", Tifa "boobs" and Cid a "bow-legged old man".)

Vincent
You can find Vincent any time you are in Nibelheim (in present time, that is - not during the Cloud's flashback early in the game, of course). On the lobby desk of the Shin-Ra Manor, there's a book that has hints on finding out the correct combination of the safe upstairs.

First hint says "Lid of the box with most oxygen". There's a box in the greenhouse, open it, and then use it again to examine the lid.

Second hint says "Behind the Ivory's short of tea and ray". This is probably the most frustrating riddle to figure out (especially since piano keys are no longer made of ivory and we rather prefer to call the notes 'ti' and 're' anyway). Examine the surroundings of the piano.

Third hint is probably the easiest, as it tells exactly what to do: Find the creaking floor on the second floor, on the right side, near the chair, then go "left five steps, up nine steps, left two steps, and up six steps". Note that this refers to actual walk animations rather than d-pad presses or anything to that tune, so quit running for a while and count the paces. You will end up in the short hallway on the second floor. Examine the surroundings there to find the hint.

The fourth hint is given right in the book, but the entry itself is invisible; simply move the pointer to the 4th slot to learn the last move directly.

If you don't want to chase the hints, here's the code right away: right 36, left 10, right 59, right 97. When opening the safe, stop on those numbers exactly and hit the button. If you slip, you need to start over. The safe door should open with a little bit of practice. But the following fight needs no practice, just a coherent strategy...

The boss will leave behind a lot of interesting things: Cosmo Memory (the manual for Red XIII's Level 4 limit break), The Odin summon materia, and - lastly - the key to the basement!

Now head to the cellars where you visited during Cloud's flashback. With the key, you'll be able to open the door north in the room that led to the library door. Open the coffin in the middle and Vincent awakens. Talk to him about Sephiroth. He will doze off again, so open the coffin again. Ask "Who are you?" Then, there's nothing more to do, so head back out towards the stairs up. Vincent will stop you, and will then follow you.

title: Final Fantasy VII/Optional characters


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Final Fantasy VII/Wutai sidequests

Wutai sidequests are entirely optional, but are highly recommended because there's a whole lot of fun to be had with all of the new materia and items. Also, while the first quest takes an evening to accomplish, at least it saves you from the trouble of doing one more boss fight later.

Both sidequests need Yuffie to be in your party, preferrably trained somewhat up also. For instructions on how to get her, see Optional characters module.

Hey! Give me back my marbles!
The first of the subquests can be done any time between getting the Tiny Bronco on disc 1 and before going to Midgar to stop Hojo in Disc 2.

Once you get into the Wutai area for the first time, Yuffie stops you. And then suddenly, bad guys appear out of nowhere. A fight ensues, but...

...you no longer seem to have any of your materia around! What follows is some really, really challenging melee without much of any magic.

So, let's follow Yuffie northward. If you came by Tiny Bronco, this means a long foot trek, and the mountains are very treacherous. If you see any birds, run. They've got worse weapons than just guano, namely, high-level bolt magic.

Eventually, you'll reach Wutai Town. When you enter, you see Yuffie running. Visit the houses there, including Turtle's Paradise, the fine restaurant... resort... thing. You'll meet the Turks, on vacation.

But where's Yuffie? Take a time to peek around, there's a lot of good hiding places, interesting places, like this funny old guy in the house to the far right, and shop that has an inviting box. Let's open the box... Oo! an MP Absorb materia! ...which Yuffie naturally steals right away!

Hopefully you're now a bit more familiar with the town's layout, so keep looking for Yuffie's hideout. Wait a moment... wasn't the screen in the old man's house folded? When you try to restore that part of order to the world, it takes a few seconds for Yuffie to realize she's in the plain view. Unsurprisingly, she then flees.

Now, as you head out, you have probably learned to pay attention to the smallest details that might give some clue as to what to do. Outside, there's a great big vase outside of the Turtle's Paradise. The other characters in your team, brightly enough, decide to close off all other exits while the leader smokes Yuffie out of the pot. She has nowhere to run and seems really sorry.

After a brief cutscene, you're in Yuffie's house. She tells you to pull a lever. If you suspect trap and pull the other one, you get trapped. If you tell what she said, you fall into her trap. The bottom line is, you're trapped.

Now head out, and go far, far to the left, toward the pagoda in the distance. Yuffie's obscure hint of "steel" probably reminds you of the big iron bell on the left. Ring the bell to reveal a door. You'll now note that Yuffie, and Elena of the Turks, has been taken by Don Corneo's men.

Find your way up and out. You need to fight Shin-Ra soldiers, but they manage to delay you while the kidnappers escape. Get out, and you manage to strike a truce with Reno and Rude.

So now starts yet another search operation. It's highly recommended you heal up properly, and purchase a lot of Bolt Plumes or Fire Veils from the store (10-20 of them should do). It should be recommended that for the upcoming boss fight, you arrange your Item menu like this: Bolt Plume (or Fire Veil), Phoenix Down, Hi-Potion, X-Potion.

Once you're healed up at the savepoint and have tons of helpful items, head to the Da-Chao, mountain of statues. There's a lot of stuff to see here, and you can find the Dragoon Lance for Cid in a cave. (You can return here on Disc 2 or 3 if you have Leviathan Scale to get more interesting stuff!)

After a while of searching, you'll find Corneo, Yuffie, and Elena. Corneo doesn't really like his love games interrupted, and is still mad for you destroying the Aps in the sewers, so here comes the retribution: Rapps.

After the fight, you see the Turks doing the justice their own way. Bye bye, Don Corneo. Yuffie returns the materia to you, and even admits that it's too hard for the lazy programmers to remember locations of various items, so you should now spend a good while fixing up the order of your materia. The MP Absorb you found from the city is yours as well.

Climbing the Pagoda
This section will walk you through the series of one on one boss fights with Wutai, against the Five Secred Gods in the Pagoda. You should be able to manage most of the victories without training Yuffie at all, unless her level is terribly low.

Each Sacred God exhibits different characteristics, and will become progressively more difficult. You should take a moment to learn Yuffie and equip her with the proper gear, and materia between each victory. You will also need to restore any hit points, magic points and any hangover status effects gained from previous battles.

(The only out of the way ability you may want is the L4 Suicide enemy skill, you can get it from "Mu" which looks like a squirel. Mu can be found near the Chocobo Ranch).

He'll give you an X-potion for winning. Restore Yuffie's HP and MP.

You'll gain a Turbo Ether for winning. Restore Yuffie's HP, MP and cure any hangover status effects, then head to the next floor.

You'll receive an Ice Ring for winning. Restore Yuffie's HP and MP and head to the next floor.

You'll get an Elixir from him after winning. Restore Yuffie's HP, MP and any hangover status effects, and head to the next floor.

Godo is a worthy opponent, if your levels are low, he may still overtake you. Come back later, gather some of the items I mentioned, or build up Yuffie and try again.

You'll gain the power of the Watergod for winning, the Levianthan summon. As well as Yuffie's Extreme limit break "All Creation." You'll also get a emotional scene with Godo, and the respect of Wutai.

title: Final Fantasy VII/Wutai sidequests