Final Fantasy VII

Gold Saucer

Intro

When you first get to the Gold Saucer, there’s not a lot you’ll be able to do. You can get some lower-end gear, but you won’t really be able to get much until your second, or later, visit.

Eventually you’ll want to acquire the following here: Final Attack Materia, W-Summon Materia, , , , Cat’s Bell, Counter Attack Materia, , EXP Plus Materia, and Gil Plus Materia.

On your very first visit, right after you arrive at North Corel, you will probably only be able to get low-level items, plus one or more , , and . All of those come from the Wonder Square or Chocobo Races.

After you get the buggy, you can drive it back to North Corel and return to the Gold Saucer to participate in the Battle Arena. On that visit, you’ll be able to acquire one or more of each of the following: , Pre-Emptive Materia, Speed Plus Materia, and .

For starters, be sure to talk to the woman at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Battle Arena BEFORE you fight, then again AFTER you’ve fought a full round of eight battles and exchanged all your BP. When you talk to her the second time, she’ll give you the .

Anyway, to battle in the Battle Arena, you’ll need to first earn GP, or Gold Points. If you have an emulator, the easiest way to get these is from playing the basketball game in the arcade. You can turn 100 Gil into 300 GP in less than five minutes with that.

If you don’t have an emulator, you’ll probably need to race your own chocobos in the Chocobo Racing area, which you won’t be able to do until you have the Highwind. See the Chocobo Racing section for more info.

On your second visit, I recommend getting 50 GP+, then fighting in the arena. You can get 30 GP easily at the arena by playing the Mog game in the Wonder Square, in the second room on the far left. Talk to the guy there, then pay 100 Gil to play. When the game asks you if you want to feed ‘em, give him a nut, then wait three seconds. If he doesn’t squeak and strike a pose, feed him again. Repeat until the game is over, then talk to the guy there for 30 GP.

You can also get 1 GP per 100 Gil play with the arm wrestling thing, or you can try your luck with the somewhat frustrating basketball game. Again, if you’re playing on an emulator it’s much less annoying.

I just played 20 games of arm wrestling and the Mog game for 50 GP. If you are lucky enough to have a controller that has the turbo function, you can wrestle the actual wrestler as opposed to the sumo wrestler. This will allow you to get 2 GP per game at 100 Gil.

Once you’ve got 50 or 60 GP, head to the Battle Arena. The harder your battles, the more BP you earn. I used the square trick, see Battle Arena below, and was able to earn 2x , Pre-Emptive Materia, and 3x Speed Plus Materia on Disc 1.

Once you’ve beaten all eight battles in a round, you can get by leaving the arena and talking to the lady at the bottom of the stairs outside - but wait! Be sure to do that AFTER you’ve played all you want and traded everything in. Remember - you lose all that BP when you leave the building.

Chocobo Racing

Be sure to keep racing your chocobos after you have received all the S class chocobos you need. You can get some VERY cool stuff after you win these battles. It’s also the best way to get your GP up to a respectable level, ensuring that you can spend all you need at the Battle Arena.

Battle Arena

To fight in the Battle Arena, you need to have a decent supply of GP. I really recommend not doing this until you have completed the Chocobo Racing section of this walkthrough.

Equip Cloud with a , , see Chocobo Racing, and a , then head to the Gold Saucer.

Make sure to have Enemy Skill Materia and Counter Attack Materia equipped. You wouldn’t believe how useful Big Guard and White Wind are. Also, equip Slash-All Materia. If you have a double slot open, be sure to equip Added Effect Materia joined with Time Materia. You can sometimes slow/stop your enemies that way.

What you really need to master is the square button.

The biggest thing to know here is how to use the square button to stop the slots. While the square button is being held down, the slots will pause. As soon as you release square, press O. The NEXT event will be selected.

You want to watch what events happen in what order. For example, a given slot may be Level Down, Poison, and All Materia. By pausing on Level Down, then pressing O quickly, you’ll cause poison.

The harder your battle, the more BP you earn. That being said, you’re also more likely to die. If you’ve morphed a bunch of Strength Up items, see the Leveling Up section, you can beat these guys fairly easily, even while taking some VERY tough handicaps.

Final Attack Materia

See the Beating Weapons section to learn how to get Cloud’s . You have to defeat the easiest Weapon, the floating one, which I am able to accomplish with a single summon of Knights of the Round.

Once you have that, be sure to compete in the Battle Arena until you can get both and W-Summon Materia. Once you have them, keep competing. If you’ve got equipped, you should eventually be asked if you want to compete in a battle against the hardest enemies.

You’ll want to remember a few things. Number one, these battles are one-on-one against the strongest enemies. Well, the last battle is against a guy named Jamar Armor who is two enemies.

Don’t use Slash-All Materia. Use Double Cut Materia. Also, don’t use Cover Materia, but DO use Counter Attack Materia. Use Long Range attacks, Long Range Materia if necessary, and put your characters in the back.

I don’t usually do this until either I’ve used Morph Materia to get Cloud’s strength and defense maxed out, see the Leveling Up section, or I’m ready to fight Weapon. Suffice to say, my guys are usually pretty buff.

Cloud walks through this with NOTHING other than good weapons and his 9,999 HP. I didn’t use any magic or items. Then again, he’s level 99. When you beat all the enemies, you’ll receive your Final Attack Materia.

This may be a really cheap way to do it, but I went into this battle with an Omnislash limit break already ready to go. I also had Mime Materia. Yup, you guessed it: you can MIME your LIMIT BREAK over and over and over!

I just used it on the first battle and mimed it once for every battle after that. Well, the last battle required three or four mimes because I went down 55 levels during my handicapping.

Even better, each time you win, lose, or leave these battles, your HP, MP, and Limit Break gauges are restored, so you can do it over and over again!

For the hard battles, you’ll be fighting against the following enemies:

Sea Worm
Ochu, also known as Ho-chu
Unknown 3
Serpent
Wolfmeister
Behemoth
Maximum Kimaira
Proud Clod

Things I’ve won from battling these guys over and over: Final Attack Materia, Autograph, Combat Diary, Gambler.

Wonder Square

It’s worth your while to get GP to earn an EXP Plus Materia for 2,000 GP. Go ahead and compete in the chocobo races and you should earn enough. You may have to trade a really good item for few hundred, though.

I always trade out an and a . Mainly because I can morph certain enemies.

Anyway, here are the items and costs:

Item	Cost
	1 GP
	20 GP
	80 GP
	100 GP
	300 GP
	500 GP
Gil Plus Materia	1,000 GP. Not available on Disc 1.
EXP Plus Materia	2,000 GP. Not available on Disc 1.

Completing the Chocobo Racing S class, the EXP Plus Materia, and the Battle Arena W-Summon Materia quests took me four hours.

Battle Arena Enemy Guide

There are certain enemies in the Battle Arena that are harder than others. The guide below will help you get past some of the harder enemies.

First, let’s get something settled right away: never allow the slot to disable the following:

Command Materia
Accessory
Weapon
Item

Choose ANYTHING other than one of these. You need your Enemy Skill Materia.

You can safely allow the following slots: Summon Materia, Magic Materia, Support Materia, Level Down 5 and 10, and Any Status if you have the . Remember, the more powerful the thing you lose, the better your points awarded will be.

Enemy Notes:

Garuda and 2x Jayjujayme: these guys are not tough, but they CAN start you off a little limited. If you see this group appear in the first battle, be sure to hold off on casting Big Guard and/or Haste, as they will use the Silk skill to slow your guy.
Vlakorados: to get past this guy, I recommend Enemy Skill Bad Breath. This will poison him, so every time he does anything, it will hit him for thousands of points of damage. Also, Demi 3 from Gravity Materia should hit him for up to 9,999 HP each time, until you’ve whittled him down a bit. The Added Effect Materia junction with Time Materia should eventually hit him with slow and/or stop, which will make the battle even easier. 4x Magic Hammer will remove all his MP, BTW.
Ironite and 2x Wind Wing: this is a tough grouping because the two Wind Wing enemies will keep using White Wind on you. To help counter that, use Enemy Skill Magic Hammer on the Wind Wings to drain out their MP. This will keep them from countering with White Wind. They have 350 MP, so it can take some time to clean them out. If you’ve got a accessory equipped, then the Ironite will keep trying to cast Sleepel and failing, so you won’t lose much in the way of HP.
Serpent: this enemy has a LOT of HP and MP. The Viper Breath attack will do a great deal of damage. Your best bet is to use Enemy Skill Big Guard to cut his attacks in half. You can Steal/Mug a from him, but if your guy isn’t very strong, you’d probably better concentrate on killing him. Neither Enemy Skill Beta nor Trine appear to do much damage, but Bad Breath will go a long way toward slowing his attack down. It should hit him with at least poison and sleep, which gives you a chance to heal up and use Magic Hammer to divest him of any remaining MP. When he’s out of MP, all his “Venom Breath” attacks just fail with something like “Serpent’s skill Power is used up.”
Ho-chu: this enemy can hit you with some nasty status effects if he does a big pollen attack. He starts off the battle casting this. Be sure you’ve equipped the accessory and have not accidentally chosen the slot to break it.
Tonberry: this enemy can do MAJOR powerful attacks. If he gets off his Knife Attack, you’re dead. Hit him with Enemy Skill Bad Breath to put him to sleep, then use Enemy Skill Death Force on yourself to make your character immune. Every time he wakes up, hit him with Bad Breath again. Beta can hit him for a decent amount, and it’s better than Trine or Aqualung. If you are running low on MP, you can use Magic Hammer to grab some of his 350 MP.
Sea Worm: a will significantly reduce the effectiveness of his attacks. So will Enemy Skill Big Guard. I like to cast Big Guard, then use Magic Hammer to clear out all his MP. Then I mug him until I get the . After that, I just wail on him, unless my barrier runs out, in which case I cast Big Guard again.
Ghost Ship: throw a at him. If you can’t use items, cast Enemy Skill White Wind on him. If you can’t do either, pray you get a really good limit break before he throws you out of the battle.