Final Fantasy VII has its fair share of little bugs and cheats, and here are a couple
i When racing Chocobos, hold your Pageup, Pagedown, Camera and Target buttons at the same time.
Your Chocoboσs stamina will slowly build up again!
i Find the W-Item materia (found in the Shinra tunnels upon your return to Midgar at the end of Disc two). Pick an item you want more of and use it on someone. Now select the same item again, but instead of using it, hit CANCEL. You see that you have an extra one of that item. Repeat as necessary!
Put characters with ranged weapons on the back row, as they can dish out as much punishment from there but only take half damage. Give everyone a Restore/All materia combination ╤ this means that anyone can cure the whole party if necessary. Also try to provide everyone with at least one offensive spell.
If youσre facing several different types of enemy, take
out the more vicious ones first.
If there are two rows, knock out the front one first.
Never run away. Complete every battle to gain experience points, otherwise youσll be seriously underpowered come boss time.
i To learn the second Limit Break of a level, the character must use their first Limit Break of that level a certain number of times. This number diminishes with each Limit Level.
i To go up a Limit Level, the character must kill a particular number of enemies.
i The best way to force new Limit Breaks is to give the character you want to learn a Cover materia (so they take more damage), stick them on the front row and give them a Hyper potion to put them into Fury mode. Their Limit gauge will build at double the speed so you can use the techniques more.
i To learn the Level 4 Limit Breaks, characters must use their Extreme Limit Break Manuals (having found them first). The characters and their Extreme Limits are as follows:
Cloud
Omnislash
See the Gold Saucer section below.
Aeris
Great Gospel
In Highwind or on a Chocobo, find a cave south of Midgar. In there is a sleeping man. If the number of battles youσve had ends in two identical digits (eg 266, 133) heσll wake up and give you the item Mythril. Take this to the lonely Weapons Shop on the Central Continent and give it to the bloke. Open the safe upstairs for the manual.
Barret
Catastrophe
Found in Corel Village after youσve saved it from the train. Go into a tent in the top right of the village and talk to the woman. Sheσll give you the manual in memory of her husband.
Yuffie
All Creation
Complete her subquest.
Cait Sith
Doesnσt have one.
Vincent
Chaos
See The Hidden Characters panel overleaf.
Red XIII
Cosmo Memory
Obtained when you defeat Lost Number when trying to get Vincent.
Tifa
Final Heaven
Make sure Tifa is in your party and has her Level 3 Breaks. Go to Nibelheim. Play the piano in Tifaσs house and tap out the Highwind theme by using these key combinations: CANCEL, SWITCH, MENU, PAGEUP+MENU, PAGEUP+SWITCH, CANCEL, SWITCH, MENU, PAGEUP+CANCEL, OK, CANCEL, SWITCH, CANCEL. Tifa will find the manual in her sheet music.
Cid
Highwind
Found in the sunken plane. Use the submarine to find it ╤ dive and explore until you locate the wreckage.
Natural Materias are Γone
of a kindσ materias. You
can spawn new copies by mastering the originals, though ╤ get enough ability points and a new materia
is born
Hereσs a run-down of the Natural Materia types:
Quadra Magic enables you to cast a paired spell four times. That includes Summon spells (except Knights Of The Round). This materia can be found in a cave on the southern continent, only accessible by Chocobo.
HP -> MP enables you to swap your maximum hit points with your maximum magic points. This is found in a cave north of Corel, across a river and in a little desert area.
Mime materia enables anyone to repeat the previous action at no cost to their magic points. Mime is found in a cave on the Western Continent.
Knights Of The Round is the ultimate Summon spell. Thirteen knights hit all enemies for between 5000 and 9999 points of damage each. To find the materia, take a Gold Chocobo over the sea as far northeast as you can go on the map. Youσll find a round island with a cave on it. The materiaσs in here.
Vincent Valentine
Getting Vincent is tricky ╤ heσs hidden in the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim. Go to the Mansion, and into the alcove in the bottom-left of the first room, and read the note on the floor. Now, you can either try and solve the clues yourself (each clue points to something in the Mansion which has a number written on it) or take the easy way out ╤ the combination to the safe upstairs is: right to 36, left to 10, right to 59, right to 97. The safe will open andÉ Oh no! A boss!
Lost Number is one evil bastard. One half of him does magic and the other does devastating physical attacks. The Γmagicσ side is vulnerable to physical attacks, and vice versa. We recommend you take out the physical side ╤ if you donσt, his special move Lost Blow will knock your party flat. So magic away until he throws off his butch side and proceeds to blat you with magic. Keep battering away and heσll be history.
Beating Lost Number gets you the Summon Odin materia and the key to the basement. Go to the cellar and walk into the wall at the top left of the passageway in the overhead view section. In there youσll meet Vincent in his coffin. Tell
him about Sephiroth, ask who he is, then leave. Heσll join you.
Vincent is cool. His ranged weapons can cause hefty damage but his Limit Breaks are a bit of a double-edged sword. Yes, he does turn into demons and horror movie stars, but he also goes Berserk, at which time you have no control over him whatsoever. This is good in normal battles, but bad in boss fights.
To find out some of Vincentσs back story, take the submarine or a Chocobo to the pool and the waterfall in the middle of the Central Continent. Walk behind the waterfall on Disc one or two for an oh-so-revealing surpriseÉ Return again on Disc three to get Vincentσs best weapon and his Level 4 Limit Break manual.
Yuffie Kisaragi
Double-crossing, back-stabbing little bitch Yuffie is another hidden character. To get her, you need to have a number of fights in any of the forests on the World Map. Eventually you meet an enemy called Mystery Ninja. Beat her and you can talk to her. When she wants another fight, tell her youσre
πnot interestedα. Talk to her again and use these responses: πPetrifiedÉα; πWait a second!α; πÉThatσs rightα; and πLetσs hurry onα. Sheσll join you.
When youσre a higher level character, go to Wutai on the far Western Continent. Yuffie buggers off with most of your materia and you need to chase the little tart around Wutai. She turns up in several places: her fatherσs house near the Pagoda, the doddering old manσs house on the far right, the materia store, and inside the pot outside the bar. When you catch her, you go back to her house. She locks two of your party in a cage ╤ pull the lever to release them.
Then go to the big gate near the Pagoda. Itσs open ╤
ring the bell. A secret passage opens and you find YuffieÉ accompanied by Don Corneo. Agree to co-operate with
the Turks, and search the big statue for Don, Yuffie and Elena. When you find them, you have to fight an easy boss
╤ without materia. Make sure youσre in possession of plenty of Potions and the like, as it can do some nasty damage if it feels that way inclined.
Save Yuffie and Elena and you get your materia back ╤ but in a messed-up order. Sort it out, put Yuffie in your party and go to the Pagoda. Beat up everyone all the way up the Pagoda until you reach Godo at the top. If you get shrunk and donσt have a Transform spell handy, simply batter Godo with magic attacks and Summons. The other fighters can all be beaten with physical attacks and low-level magic.
Yuffieσs a useful fighter. She uses ranged weapons so can be placed on the back row, no problem. Her Limit Breaks are a mixture of defensive and offensive, so theyσre a useful addition to your party.
Different colours of chocobo have different abilities. Hereσs a summary of what each can do:
YELLOW No special abilities
BLUE Can run over shallow water
GREEN Can run over mountains
BLACK Combines skills of blue and green chocobos
GOLD Can go anywhere
There are five types of chocobo to catch, and theyσre all yellow. If you want different colours, you have to breed them. The types are crap, average, walking, running and dashing. Crap and average ones can be caught on any of the tracks. Walking ones can be caught near Gold Saucer. Running ones can be caught on the South Continent near Mideel. Dashing ones can be caught on the Northern Continent.
Buy some chocobo stables at the farm. Chocobo Bill will explain everything. Catch a walking chocobo and a running chocobo ╤ of different sexes, obviously. Now fly over the Northern Continent until you see an isolated house with a little patch of grass around it. Land and visit the chocobo sage, then wait outside on the grass until you have to fight a red dragon. Steal from it until you get a carob nut. Take this back to the stables and save! Breed the chocobo with the nut. If you donσt get a blue or a green chocobo, reload and try again. If you constantly fail, feed them loads and loads of greens (the sage sells the best greens in the world) and race them at Gold Saucer. Win six races with each to make them Class A chocobos. Now save and try breeding them again.
Assuming that worked right, save and repeat the process until you get a chocobo of the other colour (green if you got blue already, or vice versa). Also make sure your blue and green chocobos are of different sexes! Now go and get another carob nut and loads of sylkis greens from the chocobo Sage. Feed the greens to your blue and your green and race them until theyσre both Class A. Save and breed them. If you donσt get a black one, reload and try again.
Finally, to get the elusive gold chocobo, go to Goblin Island (the island furthest to the north-east on the map display). Steal a zeio nut from the goblins there. Go and catch a dashing chocobo of the opposite sex to your black one. Save and make them shag. You should soon have a gold chocobo! This can be used to find all the Natural Materias in the world.
Invest in a Gold Ticket as soon as you can afford it. There are loads of things worth doing at Gold Saucer
CHOCOBO RACING
See chocobo panel above.
BATTLE SQUARe
Equip your best character with any protection you can (preferably a ribbon if youσve got one ╤ these protect against all abnormal status) and keep fighting.
Get as many points as you can. Get enough points and you get Cloudσs Level 4 Limit manual and a materia called W-Summon which enables you to cast
two Summon spells in one turn. Pull this off and try again ╤ this time you fight bosses. Beat this and you get Final Attack materia ╤ pair this with
a spell and, as that character croaks, the spell is cast. The ideal thing
to pair with this is Revive ╤ that way, as the character swoons theyσre immediately revived.
THE SUB-GAMES
Any sub-games that youσve already played in the game (motorcycle, snowboard and submarine) can be replayed at any time in Gold Saucer. The better you do, the more GP (Gold Saucer currency) you can win.
Full tactics for the sub-games will be given next issue.
