Battle Square



The Battle Square, also known as Battle Arena, or the Colosseum, is a location in the Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy VII. The Battle Square is a battle arena where the player selects a single character and fights in a gauntlet-style match, fighting eight enemies in a row for prizes.

The Battle Square becomes available after the player acquires the buggy. The player must participate the arena battles only once during the game, when Dio tells the party he'll give them the Keystone if Cloud agrees to "entertain" him. The player earns no BP from the battles, but if they win all eight battles, Dio awards the player with a Protect Vest and a Choco Feather.

If the player wins all eight battles at least once, a woman outside the Battle Square gives the player Sprint Shoes.

Starting a battle at the Battle Square earns the player the Battle Square achievement in the PC version re-release of Final Fantasy VII.

Rules
The player pays 10 GP to participate. The player must first select which party member to fight with, who is then sent into the arena. They fight a battle, after which they see how many Battle Points they have currently won, and are allowed to choose to continue or quit at this stage. If they continue on, a slot reel appears and spins, giving the player a certain handicap based on the result. The player continues fighting until they either quit, win all eight matches, or are defeated.

If the player loses, they receive a worthless consolation prize. If they quit or win, they receive Battle Points, or BP. BP can be exchanged for rare items (see below) at the Battle Square, including Cloud Strife's ultimate Limit Break, Omnislash. All BP is reset when the player leaves the Battle Square, so players should attempt to expend all points for prizes before exiting.

However the player enters the Battle Square, is how they leave the Battle Square. An example would be if one were to go in with a full Limit Break bar, one would leave the Battle Square with a full Limit Break bar, regardless of whether they used a Limit in the battle. As well as all status effects that one went into the Battle Square with would still be intact, such as Fury or Sadness. Because no Battle Results are shown even after winning all battles the player will not earn Experience Points or Ability Points from the battles, and the enemies killed in Battle Square do not count toward learning new Limit Breaks.

Because the player's status returns to moment they were in before entering Battle Square battles, the player cannot learn Enemy Skills from the monsters there; even if it appears the skill was learned, it will be gone from the Materia when the player is transported back to the field. Any used items, however, will be lost from the player's inventory, and the player is still able to morph opponents into items and steal from them.

Enemy Formations
The monsters in the Battle Square change depending on which point in the game the player is. There are two "pools" of enemies where the encounters are drawn at random, and the chances of ending with Group A or Group B are equal. The enemies in both pools include same enemies, and the enemies in the final rounds are always the same in both pools. Some of the enemies encountered in the Battle Square are highly rare and dangerous, including the Stilva, Malboro, Blue Dragon, Ghost Ship, and the Serpent.

All arena enemies have twice as many hit points as they normally do, and their Attack and Magic Attack receive a 25% boost, making them stronger than regular encounters.

Two enemies, the Ho-chu and Tonberry, are fought exclusively in the Battle Square. Both enemies were originally intended to be fought elsewhere, however, the formations cannot be fought by ordinary means in the final game. Ho-chu was planned to be an inescapable encounter in the Ancient Forest, and Tonberry an encounter in the Whirlwind Maze.

Battle Points and Prizes
The player always starts with 10 points and goes on to win more Battle Points for the second and successive matches, i.e. every time they take a handicap. The handicap decides the amount of points awarded and worse handicaps give better BP, but this is only noticeable for the final rounds. If the player wins all matches or if they choose to quit between battles they get to take away the BP they had accumulated during their battles; no points are awarded if the player is killed in battle. BP are awarded even if the player uses Escape magic or Smoke Bombs, but not if the player uses the Escape battle menu command.

The Battle Points can be redeemed for items at the terminals, but if at any time the player leaves the Battle Square, their Battle Points reset to zero. Multiples of other prizes may be purchased, but the player can never purchase more than one Omnislash and one W-Summon Materia.

Handicaps
player receives more BP the worse handicaps they have and the later the round they have fought to - if they receive the "All Materia is broken" handicap on the eighth fight they will surely win over 10,000 BP.

So while taking larger handicaps on purpose is risky, it can be rewarding. The player can slow the reels slightly by tapping. The results on the first reel determine the results on all subsequent reels, as getting all handicaps on the first reel the same will cause all subsequent reels to roll the same handicap, with a different handicap each time up until around match 6.

The seventh and eighth matches earn much more BP than the earlier ones; the amount awarded for taking handicaps is multiplied by successively higher numbers as the matches progress, with the last two being markedly higher.

Strategy
It is highly recommended the player come equipped with their character's strongest weapon and a powerful armor, and a Ribbon. The Ribbon prevents negative Status Effects, giving the player a handful of "safe" handicaps, as Mini, Frog, and Poison will not affect them if they come up on the reel. The player can also pair an Added Effect Materia with a Hades Materia to protect against many status effects. The status effect Resist doesn't protect against statuses gained from the handicap reels, which can lead to a rather serious handicap, as once applied, the Resist status will prevent the player from removing the status with normal Esuna spells and healing items.

The player can make use of a Enemy Skill Materia with Big Guard and Magic Hammer learned. HP Plus and MP Plus Materia are also useful, as is a high-leveled Restore Materia. If the player's Materia breaks, or they lose all their MP due to a handicap, they should have several useful items to compensate.

In Battle Arena the battles won't reward the player with EXP, AP or item drops, so it is good to prioritize defense against the number of Materia slots when choosing armor. E.g. the Gigas Armlet (stolen from Gigas) and Adaman Bangle (stolen from Adamantaimai) are good armors for Battle Square because of high defense, despite having few Materia slots. It might also be useful to place the fighter in the back row to take less damage and use the Long Reach Materia (or a character with a long range weapon). The player can easily replenish MP with the Magic Hammer enemy skill.

Buffs carry on to consecutive battles, so if the player casts Haste or Big Guard in the first battle, the relative statuses will carry through the entire match. Regen is a useful way to keep HP up without having to repeatedly heal. Even if Haste and Regen carry on to consecutive battles, countdown status effects like Death-sentence and Slow-numb do not.

If the player comes up against a Tonberry, one can easily become invulnerable by casting Death Force from the Enemy Skill Materia, which makes Tonberry's Instant Death move miss.

If the player ends up breaking their weapon, they can use Goblin Punch from the Enemy Skill Materia to bypass the effect, although it will do only 75% of the normal attack and the player must be wary of not getting the All Break handicap, at least not in the early stages.

Since the handicap timing that earns the most BP is at the seventh and eighth matches, and the handicap types that earn the most BP are "Magic Materia Breaks" and "All Materia Breaks", the highest BP combination cannot be won with Escape magic, only Smoke Bombs.

A sensible strategy to being successful in the Gold Saucer is to go in with a full LIMIT gauge and the Mime command. The player can mimic their Limit Break through every round so long as the Command Materia does not break and a Counter is not set-up on the character's Materia.

It should be noted that after obtaining the Highwind in Part 2, there is a quarter chance of facing the Ghost Ship enemy in the final round who can use the Goannai ability. Should he use it before being dispatched, the player will be ejected from battle.

Since the exhibition match for Dio's amusement gains no BP, there is no downside to using Escape magic for the entire eight matches, assuming the player can avoid hitting the handicaps that would disable it, or has Smoke Bomb backup. This gains not only the Keystone key item, but the Protect Vest and Choco Feather accessories.

Special Match
If the player has bought Omnislash and W-Summon, had Cloud learn Omnislash (checked by counting the number of Omnislash items in the player's inventory), and they have acquired Cloud's Ultima Weapon, they can enter a special match only Cloud can participate in. The special match is harder than the normal battles, and the prize is the Final Attack Materia. This can be won only once.

If the player participates and wins multiple special battles they will win worthless trophy items, such as books written by Dio, Dio's autograph and the Masamune Blade (not actually a weapon, just a trophy item). After winning the special battles for ten times the prize will be a Ribbon, but there are easier ways to obtain one at this point.

The enemy line-up is as follows:

Final Fantasy VII Demo
The Battle Square has appeared in a demo version of the PC port of Final Fantasy VII. The player must battle monsters as Cloud in order to win the demo. The enemies fought on the rounds is an assortment of the same enemies that are fought in the full game after obtaining Highwind.

Musical Themes
Like in the rest of the Gold Saucer, the eponymous theme "Gold Saucer" (ゴールドソーサー) plays in the Battle Square.

Trivia

 * In the arena of the Battle Square, a phrase is written on the circle surrounding the arena: "The brave do not fear the grave".
 * A commonly referenced mistranslation is used in the Battle Square. When the player is prompted whether or not they want to continue, they are given the options "Off course!" and "No, way!". This was corrected for the PC version to "Of course!" and "No way!".
 * The consolation prize "Tissue" has no value in the game. The only conceivable reason the Tissue exists is to keep track of how many times one has participated in the Battle Arena.