The repeating boss glitch is a glitch in Final Fantasy VII that allows the player to fight bosses twice. Emerald and Ruby Weapon are excluded, as are the battles with Ultimate Weapon on the world map. It is possible to trigger the glitch on Diamond Weapon because a field screen loads when the player initiates battle, even though the encounter appears to take place on the world map.
This trick can be useful since it allows the player to get the battle spoils twice. While almost all battle spoils can be duplicated regularly with the (extended) W-Item duplication trick, there are two exceptions:
- Cosmo Memory (Red XIII's L4 Limit Break manual). Dropped by Lost Number. The player can get one extra copy of this item.
- All Creation (Yuffie's L4 Limit Break manual). Dropped by Godo. The player can get 99 copies of this item by winning the first battle and losing the second, repeating until the player has All Creation maxed out.
The player might want to duplicate the battle spoils of other bosses as well:
- Guard Scorpion
- Air Buster
- Aps
- Turks:Reno (Sector 7 Slums)
- H0512, Sample:H0512-opt x3
- Hundred Gunner / Heli Gunner
- Motor Ball
- Bottomswell
- Jenova∙BIRTH
- Dyne
- Turks:Reno (Gongaga), Turks:Rude (Gongaga)
- Gi Nattak, Soul Fire x2
- Lost Number
- Materia Keeper
- Palmer
- Rapps
- Gorkii
- Shake
- Chekhov
- Staniv
- Godo
- Red Dragon
- Demons Gate
- Jenova∙LIFE
- Schizo (Left), Schizo (Right)
- Jenova∙DEATH
- Ultimate Weapon (Mideel - storyline)
- CMD.Grand Horn (Fort Condor - storyline)
- Carry Armor, Right Arm (Carry Armor), Left Arm (Carry Armor)
- Turks:Reno (Gelnika), Turks:Rude (Gelnika)
- Diamond Weapon
- Turks:Reno (Midgar Underground), Turks:Rude (Midgar Underground), Turks:Elena
- Proud Clod, Jamar Armor
- Hojo / Helletic Hojo, Left Arm (Helletic Hojo), Right Arm (Helletic Hojo) / Lifeform-Hojo N
The glitch builds on another glitch, namely the "skip a random battle by opening the menu exactly when the game wanted to give the player a random battle", skipping the battle.
If the player saves their game and enters any field map by a fixed route, they will get a random encounter at some point. If the player reloads this save game and walks down the exact route, the player will notice (especially after a few reloads) that the battle occurs at the exact same spot. This is because the random battle system is only semi-random. If done correctly, the battle will be skipped. The player will know it was skipped because when the player proceeds through the field, the battle will not occur on that very spot.
It is possible that the game's music will goof up during the second battle, and freezes might also occur.
After skipping a random battle, when the player initiates a battle with a boss, they will fight it twice instead of just once, the second battle initiating immediately after the first if the player wins.