This is it, Space Monkies. The final page. After what feels like an eternity of Walkthrough writing (and it has been almost three and a half months) I, BlueHighwind have one more page to write before it all ends. And you only have a few more battles to fight before you can declare yourself a Pokemon ↑Materia Master. Now we fight!
Battle Square[]
Gold Saucer can be a nightmare sometimes. We have to go to the Battle Square to (finally) score Cloud's ultimate Limit Break. However, first we need GP, and lots of it. I'd say that a good 500 to 600 GP is required. But getting that stuff is often as hard as pulling teeth. There's a man who sometimes appears outside the entrance who sells GP in exchange for 100 Gil. Its going to cost you upwards to 50000 gil or more to feel safe. But I swear to God, this way is far less stressful then dealing with the God-awful minigames in the Wonder Square. Most are ghosts of minigames past, but others are completely broken (3D Battler is totally impossible to be done by a human, if you beat the fifth guy, give me a ring), and some are just plain boring as Hell (Mog House). The prizes in that place are all pretty forgettable.
So once you have the GP, its time to go to the Battle Square. This place gives what are some of the finest items in the game. But before we speak of the spoils, we must talk of the journey. One of your characters has to enter the battle matches, where they'll fight eight rounds of enemies, some of which are truly powerful. However, none of them are anything Cloud with his Ultima Weapon can't handle. Send him in with his Ultima Weapon and the Slash-All Materia to slaughter groups in a single swing. You'll want to give him the best of the best armor: the Mystile and a Ribbon. Along with that, take Cure for healing and a few HP Pluses to boost his HP to 9999. Enemy Skill is required for anything. And just in case, take Knights of the Round to defeat any foe you're having difficulty with (that will probably be the Tonberry, the evil little brother of the Master Tonberry). Along the way, you'll get hit with handicaps like no items, broken Materia, broken equipment (if you get broken weapon you're fucked), half HP, half MP, etc. These can be really bad, but if you're equipped with a Ribbon the status effects will do exactly nothing. If you're lucky, you'll only get the Lucky 7, which does nothing, or Cure which actually heals you. Once you complete a battle, the game will ask you if you want to continue. Select "Off [sic] course!!" to continue and have a good laugh over the utter failure of this game's localization.
For every round you win, you get more BP. Win all eight and you'll get a huge amount, sometimes over 10000. The amount you win is based upon how badly the handicaps fucked you. The best I've ever gotten is 16000 BP in a single run. Now, here's where things get tricky. You can't leave the Battle Square at any time while you're accumulating BP. If you do, all of it is lost. Then you have to get it all back again. Not fun. I almost broke my TV. So that means in order to get Cloud's Omnislash, you have to keep on playing for a very long run. It costs 32000 BP in disc 2 or 3, but it costs 65000 BP on Disc 1. But that's totally worth it, because Omnislash is the second strongest attack in the entire game. This ridiculous attack hits 15 times, and if you have the Ultima Weapon, that will deal enough damage to rival Knights of the Round. Hell, it might deal more if you're on a high level. For 64000 BP you can buy the W-Summon Materia, which allows you to Summon things twice. Not really that great, since Quadra Magic lets you Summon them four times. However, we will need it for one WEAPON, so don't sneeze at it.
If you've taken care of the Ultimate WEAPON, there is one more challenge that awaits you here: the Special Match. In this row of eight battles, Cloud must fight eight strong foes in a one-on-one match. Most of them can be defeated with an easy 2X Cut with the Ultima Weapon. This can be pretty difficult, but its not much harder than the normal Battle Square game. At the end, you fight the Cloud Prod, back from the dead. This can be seriously tricky, since all you have is Cloud. I say it "can" be tricky, but that's only for people who forgot about Knights of the Round. Sprinkle down some of that, and the game is over. For winning, you get the Final Attack Materia. When equipped to a character, it won't act until that character dies. Then it will use whatever Materia is linked to it. Phoenix is definitely the best choice.
And that it that. We're now finished with the Battle Square and Gold Saucer forever, I might add. Good thing too, because that background theme was getting a little annoying. Oh shit! Its stuck in my head now!
WEAPON[]
Before you even think of taking on the Superbosses, we first have a lot of training to do. This will not be fun. In fact, the training required is such an arduous haul of Mastered Materia and other nonsense that I've only beaten these once. And that's the last time I'll ever do it. MASTER Knights of the Round, W-Summon, Quadra Magic, Hades, Final Attack, Phoenix, and several HP Plus and MP Plus Materias. Doing all that is enough pain to make you start to slam your head into the wall; physical pain helps divert the suffering in your soul. Knights of the Round alone takes half a million AP to MASTER.
Times like this makes me happy that I'm only writing about these acts in a Walkthrough. I'd beat FFVIII before I do this all over again. Once is enough for me, thanks. Beating Yiazmat is nothing compared to this.
Now for the actual battles! The easier of the two, Ruby WEAPON, is waiting in the desert below Gold Saucer. Fly your Airship around until you bump into a red thing. The monster will then jump out of the ground and attack.
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Strategy: No, I did not accidently add in another 0 in there. That's the actual HP. But that's not the worst part... well, yeah it is, but there are bad things other than that. Ruby has taken a page from everybody's favorite snake, Midgar Zolom, and holds the power to knock characters out of the battle. So that means in order to win, you can only use a single character - Cloud. The other two characters have to die (which means that taking Cait Sith with you may not be such a terrible idea). If only one character is alive, Ruby can't kick anybody out of the battle. Now this creature has some impossible attacks. Truly these things are true pieces of horror. So you have to kill him quickly. "Knights of the Round" is the clear move here, but Ruby counters it with "Ultima" which will end the game right there. So, you have to Paralyze him with Hades. W-Summon Knights of the Round and Hades+Quadra Magic But Summon Hades First To Paralyze Ruby First. That should lay down such a level of status effects that you'll be able to Mime your last attack over and over again until you win. If you die, have Final Attack bring you back with "Life 2". You don't want Phoenix because that will revive the other party members. So, you'll be fighting this one for awhile because Knights of the Round takes so damn long to load up, but eventually you'll come out on top. Don't be fearful if this takes a couple tries. Or even a dozen tries. These aren't easy bosses. | ||||||||||||||||||
For winning that incredible fight, you get a Desert Rose. You can trade it for a Gold Chocobo with a man in Kalm, but what's the point? We already have one, and a better one I might add due to its great ancestry. Save (as if I need to remind you) then move on.
The next Superboss is the Emerald Weapon and it is even more difficult then that last boss. If you haven't gotten the Guide Book from the Junon Underwater Reactor like I told you to, get it now. You can trade the item in for a Underwater Materia from that same guy in Kalm. It serves only a single purpose in a single battle. Which we will now take care of right now:
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Strategy: Seven figure HP!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Emerald lets you use all three party members, but there's two twists now. For one, you have a twenty minute time limit. Under any other circumstance, twenty minutes would be enough to defeat any foe, but remember, Knights of the Round takes forever to fire out. I wouldn't risk it. Also, this boss has an unbelievable attack called "Aire Tam Storm" that instantly kills you no matter what you do. The only way to avoid it is to use less then 9 Materia in your party (it hits for 1111 per Materia). That's a serious handicap. Its just easier to let it kill you and have Final Attack bring you back with Phoenix (Fun Fact Aire Tam Storm Is Actually Materia spelled Backwards) Your three characters will be playing three roles tonight. One if your Summoner. He or she will launch out Knights of the Round + HP Absorb. Then your point man (Cloud) will Mime this over and over again until the big green monster has fallen (damn Yankees!). Your third character should just hold the Underwater Materia. Emerald and its eyes will take care of the other two characters quickly, leaving only the point man. Knights of the Round deals enough damage for him to stay alive thanks to HP Absorb. Only "Aire Tam Storm" should be able to defeat your point man. That's when Phoenix flies in and saves your team. Now you can restart the process again until you finally end Emerald's life. You'll need lots of luck for this battle. Sometimes the enemy will just overwhelm your point man even with the healing powers of the ultimate Summon. Things just sometimes go wrong, what can I say? But eventually, if you believe in your heart of hearts, you shall prevail. | ||||||||||||||||||
When you win, say this: "AWWWW, YEAH!! I FUCKING BEAT EMERALD WEAPON!!! IN YOUR FUCKING FACE, WORLD!!! WHOSE THE MAN? WHOSE THE MAN? I AM!! FUCK Y'ALL! NUMBAH 1 IS RIGHT HERE!!!" Kiss your girlfriend, or boyfriend. Call your parents. Go run around with your pepped-up energy and start punching people for no reason. Live it up. This is one of the greatest moments of your entire life. When you have a child, you will think back to this time and say "man, this is great and all, but beating Emerald WEAPON was far more badass." And it will be true.
For winning, you get the Earth Harp. You can trade for some Master Materia with the man in Kalm. However, you'll never need them for anything.
What's left? Nothing. This is it! You have completed everything in Final Fantasy VII that is worth doing!
Thoughts on the Compilation[]
Ten years after FFVII ended, Square began to release sequels to this, their most perfect of games. Sadly, none of them will ever be Walkthroughed by me, because by and large they suck. I'll tell you why you should never watch, play, or care about any of these things:
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is the direct movie sequel, taking place two years after FFVII. A good storyteller knows how to take previously established characters from they were last time and bring them forward. In Advent Children, they did none of this. Cloud, who had largely healed himself of his insanity by the end of FFVII, now is back to his old broody ways. Why? Because the plot demands it, that's why! This entire movie is an utter waste of time, rehashing the same old things again for no real point. Sephiroth comes back, then gets killed again. By the end of it, nothing has changed. But that would be forgivable if the dialogue wasn't so atrocious in places ("There's nothing I don't cherish!"). The new realistic style looks good but I'll always miss the old cartoony form. Actually, the only good thing about this movie is the final Cloud v. Sephiroth scene. Which you can find on Youtube without spending a cent.
After Advent Children came Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-, which is truly the worst game I've ever played. Some games are terrible due to lack of care, but this game suffers from too much care. Vincent is quiet, bitter, and unlikable for most of the game. All the new characters are cheap cliches, which would not be too bad if the game didn't spend so much time on them! Look Square, I know you tried hard with Shelke, but nobody cares. Enough with these guys. By the way, that whole sexual vibe I was getting between Vincent and nine-year-old girl is not cool, man. Not cool. The FPS system is pretty bad, with a camera that never works for you. I'm not really the "shooter" type, but I could have forgiven it. But you never get to play the darn thing. Every two minutes there's a cutscene. Its just intolerable. Vincent is 10 times as badass in the movies then he is when you control him, as if they want to add insult to injury. Right before the Final Battle against the big monster, you get greeted by a half-hour long cutscene, much of it is the same old thing we've been hearing for hours now. And like all the games I'll list, the once freeworld exploration of the Planet has been replaced by a system of levels. Once you leave Kalm, you can never go back. How can a series go backwards like this? This is the nadir of the Final Fantasy series. Never again!
That leads me to the prequels. Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- takes back to the good ol' days with Zack Fair working with Shinra. I thought this game had promise since you were working with for an evil empire. But throughout it all, Zack does not do a single morally ambiguous thing. Shinra is evil! Working for them, makes you evil! The issue is hamfistedly ignored. The battle system works mostly by luck since the Digital Mind Wave does most of the work for you. You get a Limit Break every thirty seconds with this game. The times when its actually fun to play is when the DMW forgets about you and leaves you to your own wits. Wow, its almost like I'm "playing" the game, and not acting as a stand-in for a computer system. There is no camera control of any kind, so Zack attacks whatever enemy he's looking at. This will often make him fly half-way across the Planet away from what you want him to attack. Again, I have to say that none of the new characters were any good. Genesis gets a special place of hate in my heart for constantly saying the same things over and over again.
The only other game is Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-. But its a mobile game, and was never released outside of Japan. It gets an automatic score of 0 thanks to the fact that I can never play it.
So in the end, FFVII's series has turned out as badly as the sequels to Star Fox 64. Or even the prequels to Star Wars. Yeah, its that bad. I say avoid them all, and hope that instead of another disappointing sequel, we finally get that PS3 remake the world has been waiting for.
Sorry to end on such a bummer, Space Monkies. This is BlueHighwind, signing off!
- HASTA LA BYE BYE!!!