Fort Condor

Fort Condor (鷺の砦 Sagi no Toride) is a location in Final Fantasy VII. It is a huge fort, near Junon. A Condor, incubating its egg, sits on the top of the fort at all times, covering up the Mako Reactor on top. The player can play a strategic mini-game here. It can be visited anytime from after the party travels through the Mythril Mines until the end of the game, but is only an optional location. Fort Condor only needs to be visited once.

Story
The Shinra constantly try to storm the fort to get to the Mako Reactor. When they are on their mission to obtain the Huge Materia, the party, now under Cid's leadership, must protect the egg on top of the fort, in exchange for the Huge Materia. They do so, and after chasing defeating the Shinra's forces, the egg hatches. The people in charge of the protection of Fort Condor had the Huge Materia all the time and give it to Cid. It is the only Huge Materia that cannot be missed.

Strategy Game
The mini-game located at Fort Condor is a basic real-time strategy game. This mini-game is very similar to the new game Crystal Defenders, as the battlefield, combat, and other features are alike. After giving the man at the top of the Fort some amount of gil, he will allow to fight a battle against a wave of attacking forces from Shinra. To fight the enemies, the player must build units to fight the invaders. Every unit has HP, which must be depleted to destroy that unit. Once every enemy unit has been defeated, the battle is won and a prize is awarded. If they enemy reaches the top of the battlefield, the party has to fight a weak enemy called CMD.Grand Horn. If the player somehow loses this battle, there is no Game Over, only no prize is awarded. Even if the player defeats the Grand Horn, they will get a different prize then that which they would have won if they had beaten the Strategy Game normally. There are twelve battles in all, but only one is mandatory.

There are only twenty units that can be commanded at a time. To build a unit, the player must pay for them using the same gil from the rest of the game. Because just playing the game costs gil, the player will not be allowed to play the game unless they have at least 4,000 gil in their inventory. When the battle is won, the price for all surviving units will be refunded at half the building price.

Most units can perform only two actions: move and attack. Workers can place a bomb to explode when the enemy touches it. Friendly troops cannot be damaged by the bomb traps. Repairers can heal ally units for 10 HP per action. Stationary units can be dismantled to allow new units to replace them. Certain units hit enemies well for double damage, while hitting others for half. They in turn can be hurt by certain enemy unit for double damage, while being resistant to other units' attacks.

Units are selected by moving the cursor with the D-Pad and pressing. The game speed can be adjusted by pressing L1 and R1.

The final enemy unit to attack is the "Commander". Its strength and HP are naturally high, and takes half damage from all attacks. However, it is very slow, and can easily be defeated by Ranged units.

There are twelve battles that can be fought in Fort Condor. There are actually seventeen, however battles #10 - #14, and #16 cannot be accessed because they occur during times when the party cannot travel to Fort Condor. Several battles have no prize, so fighting them is pointless, and battle #17 gives the prize whether you let the enemy reach the top or not. Each battle can only be fought during specific times during the game. If the player moves forward in the storyline and not fight the battle, it is lost forever. Skipping a battle means that the player does not win the prize for the battle that they are currently fighting. Instead they get the prize for the battle they skipped. Prizes can be permanently lost this way. Battle #17 is the exception; its prizes will always be the same no matter how many battles the player fought.


 * Battle #1: Before fighting Bottomswell in Junon. The prize is a Magic Comb.


 * Battle #2: Before getting in the water in Junon with the Dolphin. The prize is a Peace Ring.


 * Battle #3: After getting in the water in Junon, but just before Cloud jumps. The prize is an Ether.


 * Battle #4: After getting the buggy, but before going to Cosmo Canyon. The prize is a Megalixir.


 * Battle #5: Before getting the Tiny Bronco. Due to a glitch, the game claims that the prize is five Potions, however none are ever awarded.


 * Battle #6: Before getting the Keystone. Due to a glitch, the game claims that the prize is another five Potions, however these too are never awarded.


 * Battle #7: After the date at Gold Saucer, but before going to the Temple of the Ancients. The prize is a Super Ball.


 * Battle #8: After the Temple of the Ancients, but before the end of the first disc. The prize is three Turbo Ethers.


 * Battle #9: Before entering the Whirlwind Maze. The prize is three Turbo Ethers.


 * Battles #10 - #14: Cannot be fought. Occurs while Tifa and Barret are captured in Junon.


 * Battle #15: After getting the Highwind, but before going to Mideel. There is no prize awarded, the message box is blank. If you are playing the PC version however, this is fixed, and Tifa is rewarded with three elixirs.


 * Battle #16: Cannot be fought. Occurs while visiting Cloud in Mideel.


 * Battle #17: After visiting Mideel. The prize is a Phoenix Materia and Huge Materia whether the player wins the traditional way of defeating all the enemy units, or if they just defeat the Grand Horn. If they do fight the Grand Horn, they also win an Imperial Guard, EXP, AP, and save gil from not buying units.

Items Found

 * Phoenix Materia
 * Huge Materia

Disc 1
{| border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" align="center" width="100%"
 * valign="top" width="50%"|

Item Shop

 * valign="top" width="50%"|

Materia Shop

 * }

Discs 2 and 3
{| border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" align="center" width="100%"
 * valign="top" width="50%"|

Item Shop

 * valign="top" width="50%"|

Materia Shop

 * }

Musical Themes
The background music of Fort Condor is "Open Your Heart" (心開けば Kokoro Akeba). Additionally, during the mini-game battles, the music that plays is the eponymous track "Fort Condor" (鷺の砦 Sagi no Toride).