Grandjackal's Final Fantasy 7 Playthrough!

[grandjackal]

Hello everyone, and I am excited to bring up my FF7 playlog! FF9 was tons of fun, but was a bit standard of an RPG. Incredibly solid, but 'm looking for a more unusual RPG. I tried to fancy my tastes with FF8, but found that it put all it's weirdness to waste and ended up being as braindead as everyone thought it was. So, that leaves me with FF7! Man it's been so long since I've played. I remember being in love with this game, but now that I play with new eyes, will it be as overrated as many say, or will I end up falling in love again? Let's find out!

Wait, what the hell is that sound? *Hears the main FF theme* Oh hey, haven't heard you in the past 2 games I played! Why were you absent? It's nice to just hear it again, I'm feeling bias already. Lets get to the main game.

Let's see, circle is confirm (shit, it was either cancel or menu in the last 2 games), and x is cancel (shit, that was confirm for both games!). So we open to a lovely cutscene showing off the lovely Midgar Building in scenic hellhole Midgar, where me and some crew jump off a train to kick some ass. Already liking the start, I'm right in the action. None of ths "Do a play or pass your fucking test" shit, like we're still in school or something. I start off by burying people! Man, no analog! This is gonna take a lot of getting used to. I run to the guard I just beat down and nab a couple potions off him before running into two soldiers. Cloud OHKOs them, so nothing too strategic yet.

Oh wait, there actually is! You see, in this game there is a thing about Limit Breaks. Thank godness they aren't as stupidly abusable as they are in FF8, AND getting higher level ones involves getting a specific amount of kills to someone. Cloud for his Blade Beam needs up to I believe 120 kills. This is a blessing and a curse. It's a curse when in a team, because that is some pretty greedy kills required. Blade Beam isn't even that great, certainly doesn't take precedence over something like Barret's Grenade Bomb. But it's also a blessing for 2 reasons. Cloud is always forced no matter what point of the game it is (ok there's one point, but we'll get to that), and B. There's plenty of times where he's actually going solo. When he's solo and you have a choice between forced engagements or not, take the engagements. Keep kills in mind on who they go to, it's actually pretty important.

So I move on to catch up with the group, and ask what the hell I'm doing here since I'm a SOLDIER (why's it capitalized?). Turns out I'm a former soldier named Cloud, now amercenary for hire now working for AVALANCHE, a terrorist group that aims to restore the planet's health by bombing the reactors of Midgar tokeep from sucking the lifeblood of Mako from out of it (Mako,for the 3 of you that don't know,is basically a huge fuel source in this game). Their leader is Mr. T. who insists I call him Barret for some reason, and makes it known he doesn't trust me as we head for north mako reactor no.1. You'll fight another forced encounter with a guard and some weird panther with a tentacle coming out the back of it's head. Quite a short road, and met with little resistance.

So now we're at the reactor...Can I mention I love this game's soundtrack? Barret joins my team cause he's sick of my cracker ass talking back talk. After the first two doorlocks, head to the right through a small little hallway to find a chest containing a Phoenix Down. Eeeeh, chests and exploration! How I missed you! So we hit a button to ride an elevator down, and Mr. T. comes out of my ass to give me another lecture about mako reactors. Cloud gives hm backtalk by saying he doesn't care long as he gets out alive and paid. Now obviously as I go through this reactor, I can't just shovel all the kills to Barret without killing my pace and time. However, due to the triangle button letting me be able to switch over to Barret if needed and some roboguards firing animations take a while, I can still give Barret a majority of the kills here. Jesse teaches me how to climb a ladder because apparently I'm that stupid, I climb down and nab a potion, and I keep climbing down until I find a savepoint. I pick up a Restore Materia (The thingy that gives me Cure), but I can't equip it yet since the game does not give me the option at the moment. I set them up the bomb, and OH SHI-

Boss: Guardian Scorpion

Squall lays down the law with Thunder (all mechanical units are weak to thunder), Barret shoots. Don't attack while it's tail's up. By the time you get it's tail up, going all out with thunder and limit breaks will not kill it. This thing is surprisingly durable for a first boss, but he's easy as hell. Feel free to attack once when it's tail is up to get a limit break off if you wish.

Cloud gets the kill with a Braver. 100 EXP and 10 AP are your reward, along with an Assault Rifle for Barret.

On your way out, remember to rescue Jesse before hightailing it out, seeing a big ol' boom where the reactor once was. So after that mission, we return back to home base n order to blow it to hell as to destroy all evidence we were even there and relocate. We're to meet up at Sector 8 train station. On the way there, I run into a flower girl. I should note that I don't give a fuck about the relationship stuff in the game, so I tell her to piss off. As I walk on, I find a Potion, and I run into an alleyway above some traintracks where guards assault me. I know it's faster to just get on the damn train, but I wants mah kills! Overall, this is an extra 8 kills, so so far I have about 17 kills on Cloud. More than a 10th of the way there already. So I jump on hte exact train the rest of the group is on (WHAT ARE THE ODDS!?! : D), and we return back to the hideout. However, I decide to save outside the sector 7 slums. Feeling a tad tired. Note to self, do not play too much Wolfenstein 3D on a tv for too long, else the primitive 3D will wrench your eyeballs from their sockets.

So, there's FF7's start everyone! I'm glad to be playing this again, and I'm already having more fun than FF8 ever would.

Cloud Lvl 8
Thunder lvl 1, Ice lvl 1
Buster Sword, Bronze Bangle

Barret Lvl 8
None
Assault Rifle, Bronze Bangle

[grandjackal]

So we arrive in town, Barret goes into a bar and shoots up the place like a madman. It's here we meet Tifa, of whom I'm not that big a fan of. Her personality is rather non-existent (she's your friend, that's pretty much where it stops), and her in-game performance is rather shallow. She's basically just mediocre everywhere, and only having a limit that is basically the first form of multi-hit for sngle units you get in the game. I will not be really giving a fuck about her. I'll be brief with story points, because I know you guys want me going straght to the game. We learn Barret is Marlene's adoptive father, I get payed, now to hit this piece of crap town like a bad case of the herpes. So, first place I visit is the materia store. I notice all it has is Fire, and it comes at the cost of 600 Gil. To give you an idea, that's more than 1/4 my wallet right now. I go to cancel out of the shop...Only to remember X is the fucking confirm button. I sell it back, but I'm sour over it (there really is no point in keeping it, I'm not dying for elements here, and I get a free one later. So pissed). Weapon store has Iron Bangles, and I buy 3 since they're straight upgrades. At this point I realize I should probably switch my materia around. I give Restore and Bolt to Tifa, because her damage output physically is never going to be good anyways, so might as well fix her up magic-wise. Go up to the second floor, nab an All materia and an Ether. I link All to Ice because that's the only way I can actually fit All in and have it function as it does. Unfortunately, we get caught by the ID check and we gotta bail out. When you're in the tunnel, head south for a prize of...Nothing. Apparently I was wrong, I could have sworn there was something down here. Well shit, guess I gotta turn back.

So I decided to use All-Ice on a team, and it just flat out annihilates enemies. I underestimate the power of All. Basically just nabbed Cloud 4 kills. All is very good for funneling kills to the characters you want getting them. For example, I do not give a shit about Tifa, but it's very easy enough considering enemy attack animations to justify just giving the kills right to Barret and Cloud. Not that Tifa really cares. All she has to care about is getting the limits for Sommersault to help make use of the multi-hit early (and lowering her durability helps this, so you're even more for the cause of giving her materia). We go down an air shaft,grab an Ether, climb down some ladders. You'll be met with a path that is the closest path and the furthest path (the furthest path has Wedge standing around). Both paths lead to the same area with Jesse, but the closest one is the one closest to an Ether and hte way forward. Next area has Jesse, a Tent in clear view, and a save point. I don't think I'll be needing the tent for now, so I just move on and save the tent for a rainy day. Take the ladder up, and through the schute you'll make it to Reactor 5. Take the slide down and take a familiar path, since all reactors seem to be built rather similarly. Even has a save point in the same location. So, set up the bomb and leave after Squall has a flashback. Once you get to the entrance area, you'll get an Ether, hit a switch, and there will be a savepoint just before the actual exit. Glad I saved that Tent.

We get to meet the president of Shinra, and he's kind of a dick as expected. He also bothers to sick a new kind of robot at us. Asshole, coming all the way out here just to call me a cracker.

Boss: Airbuster

This is the best the weapons department could think of? How lame. Anyways, the dumb thing gets sandwiched between your team, so be sure to exploit that to the fullest. Also, remember to bomb it with thunder magic, as it's weak to it. It can build your limits pretty quick, so be sure to bust them out if you get them. Pretty easy fight really.

FINISH HIM! *Braver* Fatality

180 EXP, 16 AP and a Titan Bangle is your reward.

Damn thing explodes, Cloud falls into a church, I meet Aeris, another character I don't give a flying fuck about (despite how they try to make her important to the story). As we run from Reno, I prefer to help Aeris avoid fighting, because IMO it's a waste of time. Healing Wind is all I need from her. She sucks at combat anyways. As a note, the hedgehog pies here are weak to ice, so again I'm glad I gave Ice-All to Cloud, keheheh. Problem is, I don't quite remember the right process. I believe it's upper or lower left barrel, then upper right barrel, then lower right barrel. She can run from the last soldier though. I give Aeris Lightning and Restore after equipping her with the Titan Bangle (I want to equip her with something else, but to hell with it, I'm not getting my ass kicked too hard). I buy 2 Titan Bangles (Ok, guess I don't mind Aeris having the bangle, since I can just get more), and I sell junk.

Aeris's house has an Ether and the everuseful Cover materia! Cover Materia is of great use, because it helps get someone their secondary limit break quicker for the level of limit break they're at. Tifa would appreciate this surprisingly. Barret doesn't give a shit about Catastrophe (Ungermax shoots more shots,generally does more damage, or hte difference is negligeable, getting Omnislash is too big a pain to be worth it, Aeris doesn't care).

Break time!

[Life]

Galuf's death was 10 times more meaningful than this, and yet Aeris's death is the one everyone remembers. Why? Aeris was just some random flower girl who lived in a run down church that the "hero" happened to have a crush on. "We went on a date, now the world's over with her dead". That is, if that event actually happened that way.

Then we have Galuf, who's not only been with the group for the start of this crazy adventure, not only traveled to another different friggin' planet with, not only saved the group from a sorcerer so powerful (despite how stupid easy his fortress was to break into and escape from) that he could merge 2 worlds together AND open up AND manipulate The Void to his discresion, but he saves the group from dying directly from the hands of said sorcerer, sacrificing himself in the process. He was so dead that the group even TRIED to revive him, and nothing would work.

Galuf also had that uhh, what's the word I'm looking for, a personality. He was a king, yet only really by name as the guy preferred going out on an adventure that warrented going for (such as riding a meteor to...Whatever the first world of FF5 was called, the Dawn Warrior thing, etc.), knowing to answer the call when duty calls, and even despite memory loss knew he had a great responsibility to uphold for many reasons. Goofy guy in his own right, he was well-humored and easy to get along with. Let's look at Aeris. Innocent...Uhhh...Comes from nowhere...Barely has anything actually tying her to the plot, until a plot point drops a bomb on us that makes her suddenly very important...Hero seems to like her a lot, despite not having much reason to actually be attracted to her since she doesn't seem to do much, and there being reason to prefer others/be a bit disturbed by her (having Cloud cross dress to rescue Tifa, despite A. Tifa actually was able to help herself as she says when you rescue her, if you weren't the one chosen it's more apparent since she just bursts into Don's room, and B. It's not like Cloud couldn't have just burst in with Aeris's aid, since even alone Cloud was able to take on...Every single one of them. There's also the fact he's not only known Tifa basically forever, but Tifa even looks out for the guy (even going so far as to restore sense in his head during that weird...mako part), while Aeris is just...A giggling smile of innocence he happens to run into. We can't even say Cloud went the shallow route and went with Aeris for looks, cause let's face it Tifa's smokin').

I would have preferred if Aeris was not in the game. What have we lost? Spoilers because the bit is long, AND perhaps covers points later in the game not yet shown by the player.

-What reason would they have had to go up the Shinra Tower?

What, is the president having part of the upper disk crushing their long had home not enough? I'm sure Barret would have been pissed as hell, thinking screw bombing hte rest of the reactors and go straight for the president.

-What about the Zack plot point?

Zack had bearing on the plot? He was just some dude Cloud thought was himself, the end. Without Aeris, all we miss was Aeris having a hissy-fit when Cloud confronted her about it.

-How would they have understood what was going on in the Temple of the Ancients?

Well, Sephy did say Cloud had Jenova Cells in him, which seem like a completely bullshit plot point just introduced for simplicity (much like Blood Contracts). IF they perhaps hinted that Cloud had some strange connection witht he Ancients themselves (such as through bits of Jenova in him), he could have perhaps "heard voices".

-Hurrdurr, what about the hero's love interest?

Well, it could be basically whoever aside from Red, Cait, Cid or Vincent, but why not Tifa? There's like...No reason it shouldn't be, if there has to be a "default" one.

-What about the Holy Materia

Ahh yes, the entire reason Aeris is even in this game. That's a toughie, because...Holy is important. Perhaps they'd have to find it, where materia is naturally made (like in Mt. Nibel). It would be used differently, since at first they'd have no idea on how to use it, since like how it was with Aeris using it, it would be useless. As they try to find how to use it, all hell breaks loose as they know, they finally learn how when Tia and Cloud go into the lifestream, and to do that they must go to the heart of the planet where all mako originates. Thus, where the final battle takes place, where Sephiroth is planning to absorb all the mako as it "heals the planet's wounds".

I have effectively found a way around including Aeris in, and we have lost little. Man I have a lot of time on my hands.

Does this look familiar?

EDIT: Doesn't her 3-1 Limit give you Peerless? I'm not suggesting that we train her only to completely lose her but yeah...

Edited January 10, 2011 by Life Admiral

[grandjackal]

Yes I remember it, and I stick by the notions. I also see no reason to bother getting her freaking 3-1 of all things, because so far I've learned that defensive play is always worse than offensive. Healing isn't too required if the enemy's too busy being dead after all.I might not even use her over Tifa, because I'll appreciate Sommersault giving me early multi-hit over a glorified Cure-All, just for the sake of invincibility that I will never ever ever ever ever need, and at best will have it for like 3 seconds before...THAT happens.

Sorry for the long time away, decided to break a tad from RPGs to play some other games I wanted to get back in touch with (Oh Wolfenstein 3D, how I missed you). However, I am feeling the RPG vibe again, so here we go! We stop by Aeris's house, try to sneak out, and kick ass all the way to Sector 6. Hellhouses are annoying, ust because they take so long to kill. There we see Tifa being carted off by a chocobo carriage to Don Cornio's. Now I will actually only go bare minimum requirement to get into Don's, since I actually want to fight his lackeys. You might think it's a waste of time, but I'd say getting all the extra shit is an even bigger waste of time, and doesn't get me kills towards Blade Beam either. While I'm here though, I pick up 3 Hypers. Why? Well, because of Fury! Fury is a "status ailment" in this game, and while it does do some harmful things such as lower defense and accuracy, it increases power and more importantly builds up limit meter faster. This means getting the second limit of a set is all the easier, but once you've got it, there's not much point in staying in Fury. I buy some tranqs to go with it. I also buy Mythril Armlets (Making buying those Titan Bangle purchases completely worthless...rrrr!! Why d I always get burned like that!?), and a Metal Knuckle for Tifa (Fuck the Mythril Rod, doesn't exactly make Aeris an offensive juggernaut). While at Cornball's, feel freeto pick up an Ether and a Hyper behind Don's bed (More Hyper, the better). But, in the brief time Tifa's on my team, I equip her with her new stuff and I try to reconfigure the materia, opting to just stay with what I got. I want Cloud to have Ice-All for fighting the punks, and I give Tifa the Cover materia since Sommersault's gonna matter more for her than her lvl 2 stuff. Also, another perk of fighting the punks is that there's a phoenix down in there. So after Cloud is all like I AM A MAN *Punch* and rescues Aeris from the dungeon, we confront Cornholio. Cornfucker, however, gets the drop on us...By dropping us in the sewers with his pet Aps. Well fuck, that's actually kinda sick that he would do that to people. Rape AND feeding people to some monster in the sewers. Gonna kill that asshole one day...

Boss: Aps

Saving a limit break from the punks should help in dealing with this dumb thing. It's so stupid it has an attack that hits him n the back while doing meager damage to us. Pathetic, and not really worth mentioning. Funny thing is though that due to Sewer Tsunami, I was constantly worried about who would get the kill, since I had no idea how much health it had, and it turns out it had a lot more than I thought x.x Killed itself, so no one got the kill because I was being far too conservative.

Down in the sewers, you'll find a potion and a Steal materia. I give Steal to Tifa. We manage to get out of the sewers and into the train graveyard. I find this place annoying because it's very...Odd. Nothings exactly obvious, and it's basically entirely hidden (though predictable) paths. Inside hte first train, go out and search the barrel for a Hi Potion. Then, climb atop the train, grab the Potion on the way forward, climb down a steel rail and search another barrel for an Echo Screen. The way forward is basically littered with Potions I suppose, so ust follow the trail. In the portion where you can drive the train to find another Potion (should be the fourth), and a barrel containing Ether. There's one last Hi Potion before you leave.

We arrive however to see Avalanche already throwing down at the support beam for hte plate above sector 7. Wedge plummets off to his death (They ask if he's alright after falling like 20 stories), and we decide to charge up there cause we don't want to get crushed. Make sure to equip Lightning to All, and I decide to wait until Barret shows up to give him a dose of Hyper. Cloud doesn't really give a damn, and Tifa's already like 4 up towards Sommersault. Hmm...Actually, feel free to ust dip your guys into Fury. Can't really hurt to have more limits more often. Talk to Barret, and get ready for a boss fight.

Boss: Reno

Reno is annoying because of Pyramid. You can attack it to get rid of it, but it's still annoying. With Fury building up limits pretty easy, you could probably start this fight off with at least 1 limit to throw at him, so do so. Luckily, he's got nothing to steal so this battle won't take ages and many repeats.

Cloud gets the kill, unleashed 2 Bravers and 2 Beat Rushes to give you an idea on how good Fury is. 22 AP, 500 Gil and 1 Ether is our reward.

Cloud gained Cross Slash! Tifa gained Sommersault!

So the plate falls, and Sector 7 along with a good majority of it's inhabitants are crushed. So yeah, it's about to be some serious payback time. Before continuing on to Aeris's House, go back to the playground for the Sense materia. Sense and Scan are like my best friend in these games, because I'm always antsy about how much HP stuff has, and essentially how much time I have to steal shit. Probably even more helpful in this game where you actually want to give kills to people. Now that I have three people on my team, I opt to give Tifa Ice-All in order to do a nuke, then Barret/Cloud eat what kills she gummed down.

I decide to save after the scenes at Aeris's House, and before tackling the fucking awesome Shinra Tower.

[grandjackal]

So, in a hope to sort of spark up some debate (Because Life suggested it, and not only am I a sellout, I hope I encourage Narga to crunch more numbers since that's his favorite hobby), decided to do a tidbit of analysis of the characters. However, I will opt to do them slowly rather than every post. We'll start this one with our hero Cloud.

Cloud Strife

Cloud is basically a stat god, running a tie for best Str and Mag. However, most of his other stats tend to be above average or merely average. Due to how magical materia works, this means he cannot have best of both worlds, though he's capable of them. However, it does mean he is versatile to whatever the team you have needs. Need a healer? Cloud can do it. Need a physical bastard? Cloud's easily capable. Need an All-caster to lay down nukes to funnel kilsl to the rest of your team so they can rush for their limits? He can do it. But whichever role he takes, he will have the weakness of it, such as meh durability or lacking in magical prowess (of which is GREAT in this game). Generally you don't want him attempting both, since you have 3 members and you need to spare what offense you can since you aren't as well manned as you would be in most other FF games. I'll go more into durability when I get to Barret, since mostly the reason Cloud can't do both is because of the fact he has a melee weapon forcing him into the front row. As for his limit breaks, they're ok. Braver is your usual "hit something really damn hard" lvl 1 limit, while his Cross Slash is probably more versatile thanks to the Paralysis it grants, giving you ample time to do something like stealing a Hardedge off a soldier in the Shinra Tower. However, the reason I say his other ones are merely ok is due to the fact he has a numerous amount of kills he needs to get his lvl 2 and 3 limits and in comparison to other limits like Barret's. For example in comparison to Barret, Cloud needs 120 kills to get his lvl 2 limits as opposed to the 80 Barret needs for his. Then, compare Blade Beam toGrenade Bomb. Blade Beam hits a single target really hard, and then does whimpy residual damage to whatever other enemies are in the fight. Barret's Grenade Bomb is basically a strong nuke most likely able to wipe out enemies. While Cloud's doesn't steal all the kills for himself, it's still not as decisive AND it's not like Barret getting to Ungermax faster is bad.

Cloud's major benefit when it comes to his limits though is that he is in no rush at all. 120 kills for each is a lot, but he's forced nearly all game while the rest of the team is not.He's got no problem standing back and letting others nab their limtis earlier (mainly because their limits are likely more effective than his), and he can just sit back and wait until everyone else is ready before he starts powering up for Meteorain. Meteorain is basically the reason why he doesn't care about Omnislash, because multi-hit is still multi-hit, and Omnislash is too big a pain in the ass to get. He doesn't really care to get Omnislash, and not caring about your lvl 4 limit is a good thing imo. Then finally, there's his ultimate weapon, the Ultima Weapon. It requires his health be at full health to do full damage. This is annoying, since it means his damage will fluctuate constantly, AND you have to go through the annoying task of killing Ultima Weapon in the first place, which is time consuming for a weapon that most likely will not pay for hte time it took to get. Cloud doesn't really care though with his power, and is probably happy enough with Ragnarok.

Treat Cloud like he's a super duper Red Mage, as that's basically what SOLDIERs are supposed to be.

Anyways,on with the game. I return to sector 6, see kids playing around near a cable that leads up to the upper plate, but first I stop by the weapon shop to grab some Batteries. The materia shop sells Cover, but 1000 Gil a pop is ragingly pricey, and while it could be worth it I decide on not doing so. One of the batteries unlocks a chest containing an Ether. We finally reach the upper plate, showing helicoptors flying about with search lights and a dark sky. Pretty tight security, but what would I expect? So yeah...Finally arrived...

Shinra Tower

You got two options here. You can either bust in, or take the stairs. For how long hte stairs take, I actually venture that busting intakes the same amount of time, and has the exception of different rewards. Taking the stairs nets an Elixer. Nice, but unecessary. Busting in gives me EXP, AP, Gil and Kills for my Limits. So yeah, front door it is. You'll constantly be at assault of Grunts, so be sure to have Lightning equipped to All on Tifa before you go in to lay down some serious weakness nuking. In fact, Lightning-All is great in general to have here, because a vast majority of the enemies here are mechanical.There's alsoa Turtle's Paradise flier to be found here. However, seems I completely forgot about a flier in sector 5, so my chance to get Turtle's Paradise is pretty much boned.

Eventually during the elevator ride will stop at floor 59, and after a fight with 2 mech grunts, you'll be at the stable floors of floor 60 and above. Floor 60 involves some sneaking past guards via hiding behind statues (they can't hear you?). If you get spotted, you gotta fight 2 mech grunts when they got you sandwiched. This is an annoying fight, so don't get into it. Floor 61 is merely knowing who to talk to, and it's the guy in hte lower left corner of hte room. Give him the silent treatment and he'll think you're hte repairmen, giving you the access card to floor 62. Floor 62 has a riddle from the mayor, because he ultimately does nothing and is insanely bored. Answer right on hte first guess, you get some fancy prizes, but if you merely guess right he gives you a keycard. The key to the answer is that you need to find which book in each room doesn't belong in their respective division, then you count how many letters forward it gives you. The letter that is is part of the password. My password was Best, and for it I get Keycard 65 allowing me access all the way to that floor, along with an Elemental Materia. Use this more for Defensive purposes than Offensive, because most of the time, using actual Magic is stronger. It'll come in handy in a bit.

Floor 63 has an interesting puzzle. Basically there are a bunch of doors, and you can only open 3 of them, and there are 3 prizes about the place you need to get. Take the north wall and pass through the door blocking your way, keep going till you hit a second door, but open the south door just next to it instead to gain access to one of the rooms containing a coupon. Take the air duct up and take the turn up at the fork for another coupon, then head out the door and open the last door for the last coupon. Go back in the ducts and take the path you didn't take, and use Coupon Change as your option in the computer. It'll give you a Star Pendant (Immune to Poison status), Four Slots (A good equip for materia you don't plan on linking and has great magic defense. Will come in handy for a couple magical bosses coming up, so give it to the person you won't have Elemental-Fire equipped to their armor, Not now though, the physical defense is basically a shitty Bronze Bangle, only use for early magic fights), and All Materia (NICE!!). I equip All to Cloud's Ice. Don't worry about offensive materia on Barret, his magic offense sucks and generally a double nuke will weaken enemies enough to make them easy for kills. Floor 64 has a place to rest and a save point, so if you're like me and very liberal with your magic, you might want to rest and restore MP (Fury's not as important, considering I just got Cross Slash and Sommersault, gave Barret Cover to help him get Mindblow). The locker room has a Phoenix Down and an Ether. Later in the game, Cait Sith's ultimate is here, but considering he's mainly magical and HP Shout requires him to be at full health constantly, this is generally even shitter than the Ultima Weapon, so don't bother.

Floor 65 doesn't have a puzzle, but it's annoying.since enemies show up. The idea here is to find the unlocked chest with the piece of midgar model, take it to the model in the center of the room to unlock another chest, then repeat untl it gives you the next keycard. Luckily, the chests open in a clockwise fashion, starting with the Upper left room. If you happen to run into 2nd Class SOLDIERS, STEAL! For the love of god, steal! They are packing the upgrade for Cloud known as Hard Edge, and Cloud loves him some weapon upgrades. However, it is not imperitive you get it now, as the encounter rate for them is very low. Floor 66 has a meeting you have to spy on, and you do so via the toilet vent (ewwww, no wonder the place reeks up here). You'll see them havin a meeting on general douchebaggery before they head to...The offices they don't have? Most of them must do work at home. Only one that seems to be half-decent is that Rufus feller. Then Hojo shows up and is generally just a creepy bastard who suggests breeding a captive for the sake of studying the ancients through generations to see anything unusual about them over the gap of time (the way he puts it though, it sounds like he's saying it will take 120 years for the research of Aeris will take, so it sounds kinda weird. I'm chalking it up to a bit of translation fail). Follow the weirdo upstairs to floor 67, and this is where our climb halts. There are enemies still around here as a note. If you happen to run into a Motor Ball, steal from them too. Takes a bit of trying, but you'll get a nice Carbon Bangle. This is a sweet 9 Def and 6 Mag Def over the Mythril Armlet, and gives you an additional materia slot for the hell of it. I give it to Cloud, he'll prefer it. Hojo takes some time to admire a rare specimen, and heads for hte upper floor. We take the time to look into some weird dome, and HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?! Well, meet enova, a horridly mutated growth of ancient cells grown back into this hideous thing that has an eyeball growing off his chest, and is missing a head. I'll be honest, when I was a kid first playing this, that shit kept me up at night. Cloud has a sort of flashback shock from seeing it, shocked to see that not only is it here, it's still alive. Indeed, having no head is sort of a problem, so this thing is pretty crazy.

Anyways, head towards the elevator and nab the Poison materia. Have this equipped to that Elemental materia you got earlier onto the armor of who you plan to have in the fight upstairs. Surprisingly I choose Tifa (There's a reason I choose her over Barret, trust me), giving the Star Pendant to Cloud. Take the elevator up to see that apparently Hojo planned to have the specimen from earlier (a red wolf creature who's tailtip appears to be on fire) with Aeris..........This guy's a biology scientist, right? He should know that's not gonna work...Ahh, I get it,Hoo's just another corrupt punk of Shinra using his position as head scientist of the ever-so-linient Shinra to conduct "experiments" to fulfill sick fantasies he may have. That's rather vomit-inducing, Hojo. Barret don't take this jibbajabba and just shoots at the containment tank to break the damn thing open, the red wolf pouncing at Hojo, attempting to rip his throat out, a feeling we can all agree with. In another sense though, I can see why the red wolf is mad. After all, we say how sick it is to fuck animals, but think about it. You think the red wolf is any more thrilled that it's being forced to have sex with things not it's species either? Amusing little anecdote there I suppose.

Oh shit, something wicked this way comes! I choose Tifa for the power nuking.

Boss: Creepy Sample

This thing sits in the back behind a row of 3 bugs it summons, and throws Bio at you (Told you to have Star Pendent and Elemental-Poison equipped!). Luckily, this weird red wolf thing otherwise known as Red XIII joined your team, and has Fire-All as well! Remember how you got that new All materia and I told you to equip it to Cloud's Ice? Yeah, you have 3 All nukes, so bomb the hell out of him. Now you have 3 guys ready to bolt in close range on him, and I even happened to have Tifa ready with a limit break (Already have Sommersault, no reason to waste it on a basic enemy). Crosh Slash can Paralyze the Specimen too. This fight is all too easy. You might actually want to have Cloud Cross Slash him first so you can then proceed to power nuke the minions and then go to town on him. If he wakes up, he's gotta waste a turn not attacking you in order to Necromagic the things back. If they get back up, just bomb him with magic. Only the actual boss needs to die.

Cloud gets the kill, and we get 300 EXP, 30 AP, 250 Gil and a Talisman for this fight.

It drops an Enemy Skill materia, and we take a bit of time to get aquainted with Red XIII. I now get to choose my team, but I won't keep it for too long. The advantages of bringing who with you for the moment, if there are any actual enemies to fight.

Cloud-Forced anyways

Barret-Time to get kills, work for Mindblow (Though I guess it's not really that important, but why not? He wants the kills anyways)

Tifa-None really. She's not getting kills over others, and is generally meh all around. She's already got Sommersault anyways, and in a sec she'll just straight up vanish.

Aeris-Power mage for a power nuke. Not bad, but it's not like I'm troubled for nuking power.

Red XIII-Time to build up at least some form of limit break. Quicker to Lunatic High, the better.

Tifa's pretty much as good as you need her early on, so don't opt for her because she's basically already set. I wouldn't field Aeris either simply because there's no real benefit to. So, my team is decided on Cloud, Barret and Red XIII. Give Lightning-All to Cloud, Ice-All to Barret (not a big deal to let him keep at least 1), and give Poison-Elemental to RedXIII. With the new Sense and Enemy Skill, I give the old Sense to Cloud along with the Enemy Skill (Score for the Carbon Bangle's extra slot! Not a bad thing because higher AP materia tends to sell for a lot, so it's best to build a lot of AP on spare materia for the Gil). Take the south way out to find 2 Potions on a ramp, and 2 more on the way out. Talk to the employee first though to get a keycard to the floor above, which you need.

Yaaay, encounter with another Moterball AND 2nd Class Soldiers! Spare Carbon Bangle AND a Hard Edge! Hard Edge as a note is damn near double the attack power Cloud currently has. This will come in handy verrrry soon. I give Red XIII the extra Carbon since the extra magic power is making him a bit weak defensively, and Barret has absolutely 0 problem surviving. As a note, you might be just about ready to have Cloud have a Limit Break. Save it for a boss fight coming up for him. Go down and take the 66th elevator, only to be apprehended by a Turk named Rude. He informs you that it might be a good idea to take us to the floor up...Oh shit. We get captured, taken up to the president (why did he want to see us? Just for his monologue about the promised land?), and then we get sent to jail without collecting 200 Gil. We eavesdrop a bit before going to sleep, only waking up to see the place turned into a bloodbath while we were snoozing. Damned disgruntled employees must have shot the place up. How embaressing that a bunch of bombers like us got the jump on the place with magic and a dude who has a freaking gatling cannon for a hand did less than the mess of whoever did this. There's so much blood there's a freaking trail of it leading upstairs...And it let Jenova free. Clearly disgruntled, no one in their right mind would free that damned thing. Glad they were kind enough to let us free at least. Unfortunately, the game decides I'm better off forced with Tifa and Aeris. Dammit...Luckily, the Hard Edge gave me enough slots to slip Cover and Sense onto Cloud while Aeris is basically bare minimum.

Gonna break here.

[Life]

So, in a hope to sort of spark up some debate (Because Life suggested it, and not only am I a sellout, I hope I encourage Narga to crunch more numbers since that's his favorite hobby), decided to do a tidbit of analysis of the characters. However, I will opt to do them slowly rather than every post. We'll start this one with our hero Cloud.

Cloud Strife

Cloud is basically a stat god, running a tie for best Str and Mag. However, most of his other stats tend to be above average or merely average. Due to how magical materia works, this means he cannot have best of both worlds, though he's capable of them. However, it does mean he is versatile to whatever the team you have needs. Need a healer? Cloud can do it. Need a physical bastard? Cloud's easily capable. Need an All-caster to lay down nukes to funnel kilsl to the rest of your team so they can rush for their limits? He can do it. But whichever role he takes, he will have the weakness of it, such as meh durability or lacking in magical prowess (of which is GREAT in this game). Generally you don't want him attempting both, since you have 3 members and you need to spare what offense you can since you aren't as well manned as you would be in most other FF games. I'll go more into durability when I get to Barret, since mostly the reason Cloud can't do both is because of the fact he has a melee weapon forcing him into the front row. As for his limit breaks, they're ok. Braver is your usual "hit something really damn hard" lvl 1 limit, while his Cross Slash is probably more versatile thanks to the Paralysis it grants, giving you ample time to do something like stealing a Hardedge off a soldier in the Shinra Tower. However, the reason I say his other ones are merely ok is due to the fact he has a numerous amount of kills he needs to get his lvl 2 and 3 limits and in comparison to other limits like Barret's. For example in comparison to Barret, Cloud needs 120 kills to get his lvl 2 limits as opposed to the 80 Barret needs for his. Then, compare Blade Beam toGrenade Bomb. Blade Beam hits a single target really hard, and then does whimpy residual damage to whatever other enemies are in the fight. Barret's Grenade Bomb is basically a strong nuke most likely able to wipe out enemies. While Cloud's doesn't steal all the kills for himself, it's still not as decisive AND it's not like Barret getting to Ungermax faster is bad.

Cloud's major benefit when it comes to his limits though is that he is in no rush at all. 120 kills for each is a lot, but he's forced nearly all game while the rest of the team is not.He's got no problem standing back and letting others nab their limtis earlier (mainly because their limits are likely more effective than his), and he can just sit back and wait until everyone else is ready before he starts powering up for Meteorain. Meteorain is basically the reason why he doesn't care about Omnislash, because multi-hit is still multi-hit, and Omnislash is too big a pain in the ass to get. He doesn't really care to get Omnislash, and not caring about your lvl 4 limit is a good thing imo. Then finally, there's his ultimate weapon, the Ultima Weapon. It requires his health be at full health to do full damage. This is annoying, since it means his damage will fluctuate constantly, AND you have to go through the annoying task of killing Ultima Weapon in the first place, which is time consuming for a weapon that most likely will not pay for hte time it took to get. Cloud doesn't really care though with his power, and is probably happy enough with Ragnarok.

Treat Cloud like he's a super duper Red Mage, as that's basically what SOLDIERs are supposed to be.

You fucking sellout. ;-)

Ok, I'm not going to pretend like I know FF7 because... well, I don't. But there are some things that I want to comment on.

To me, Matra Magic is the move for forcing early limits (does really good party damage and you can get it as early as... well, leaving Midgar). This means that Cloud won't be holding the first E. Skill Materia that you get which is a shame really since the guy makes a good mage too.

I also stick Long Range and Cover into his slots. Yeah Cover could be on someone better but since Cloud gains a level lead on most of your guys, he'll have more HP and also benefits from Long Range.

I also find it funny that you consider Ultima WEAPON a pain while my Ultima Weapon goes down to a 10 year old girl (I routinely bring Relm to the FC since I like Relm a lot).

Aside from that, Cloud is the first version of Squall. You're either Cloud or you're not as good as him. Cloud's not like Squall when it comes to demolishing enemies but he's pretty damn close.

[Narga_Rocks]

So, in a hope to sort of spark up some debate (Because Life suggested it, and not only am I a sellout, I hope I encourage Narga to crunch more numbers since that's his favorite hobby), decided to do a tidbit of analysis of the characters. However, I will opt to do them slowly rather than every post. We'll start this one with our hero Cloud.

Not likely. Never played ff7 so not much to talk about.

[grandjackal]

To me, Matra Magic is the move for forcing early limits (does really good party damage and you can get it as early as... well, leaving Midgar). This means that Cloud won't be holding the first E. Skill Materia that you get which is a shame really since the guy makes a good mage too.

Matra Magic is indeed good, and it's going straight to Barret for Grenade Bomb, because Blade Beam is just a gimp version of it. Then, might go straight to Red XIII for Stardust Ray. Fuck, why bother with Tifa when you can get Stardust Ray along with stats that aren't meh?

I also stick Long Range and Cover into his slots. Yeah Cover could be on someone better but since Cloud gains a level lead on most of your guys, he'll have more HP and also benefits from Long Range.

You are using Cover wrong. Covers a great way to build limit breaks for someone who wants something in the next slot. In fact, soon as I can, giving Cover to Red XIII. Lunatic High is so tasty for boss fights.

I also find it funny that you consider Ultima WEAPON a pain while my Ultima Weapon goes down to a 10 year old girl (I routinely bring Relm to the FC since I like Relm a lot).

Well, my Ultima weapon is more like your Doom Gaze, if Doom Gaze weren't in a game of UltimaxEconomizer.

Aside from that, Cloud is the first version of Squall. You're either Cloud or you're not as good as him. Cloud's not like Squall when it comes to demolishing enemies but he's pretty damn close.

What? ....What? No, you're not even close to correct. Squall is the most ridiculous thing to ever come out of a final fantasy game. Cloud doesn't even approach his level of insanity, and FF7's team doesn't even come close to approaching how badly imbalanced the FF8 team is. Early on, he's just another "nuke shit with all spell" character, of which is basically how you go through earlygame to feed kills en masse while killing quickly. Even when considering, he's not even close to the best cantidate for said kills (That would be Barret, cause the closer he gets to Grenade Bomb and Ungermax, the better. Even THEN, I wouldn't quite call him the best because I would like Stardust Ray. All things considered, Cloud has an actual weakness in that his limit breaks kinda suck). FF8, only Zell can challenge the throne Squall has, and even with the whole team considered it is basically "If you aren't Squall, Irvine or Zell, your names are then Magic Storage Shed #1, 2 and 3". Cloud even needs to be built up to Meteorain, while Squall is just the king of rock forever.

All things said, if Cloud didn't actually have above average stats all around and forced, he'd be pretty meh. Even considering, wouldn't consider him best on the team (that would be Barret).

[Life]

Well, my Ultima weapon is more like your Doom Gaze, if Doom Gaze weren't in a game of UltimaxEconomizer.

Speaking of which, that bastard drops Bahamut and costs me 0 steps. GUESS WHAT I NEED TO DO BEFORE GOING TO KEFKA'S TOWER!

All things said, if Cloud didn't actually have above average stats all around and forced, he'd be pretty meh. Even considering, wouldn't consider him best on the team (that would be Barret).

Barret? Best? What the fuck is this shit?

Clearly I know nothing of FF7.

Edited January 14, 2011 by King Russell Hantz

[grandjackal]

Barret? Best? What the fuck is this shit?

Clearly I know nothing of FF7.

Anyone can form a team to nuke shit early on in order to funnel kills to someone, and Barret's got Grenade Bomb which wipes teams out for free, and gets him closer to Ungermax of which is the easiest multi-hit limit in the game so he's the best early cantidate for those kills. High strength, great weapons, can sit in the back and basically never die. His only downside is his magic sucks (and really, how many magic-focused characters do you need when you only need so much magic to be the finishing nuke in a random encounter?), and his final weapon basically works against him (High AP needs to be slammed into it, which in turn most likely reduces his Str AND makes him suddenly the magic-heavy character, both of which he does not want).Cloud can have good attack and magic go hand in hand, but he's qorse off durably without Long Range (though he's a great cantidate for it), but at the end of the day he's got shitty limits and generally trying to decide if he wants to be physical or magically specialized, since he can't be masterful at both. This sounds like it wouldn't be a bad thing, but then consider that it's basically what you want out of your other 2 members to be dedicated so they can do those jobs without decisiveness on top of having non-ass limits, and he's just sort of stuck being the third wheel. Luckily, he's forced.

Basically if I had to make a tier list, it would look like this.

Top Tier

Barret

High Tier

Cloud

Red XIII

Mid Tier

Tifa

Yuffie

Cid (Availability's the reason why really, but if you can manage to get his limits in record time, he's a great guy to have for lategame since as the game moves forward, magic starts to matter less and less)

Low Tier

Cait Sith

Vincent

[Dark Sage]

It's too bad Cloud is like, Wendy and Sophia level bad in Final Fantasy Tactics though. Here he's good but in that game...oh man.

[grandjackal]

Moving on

I head up the elevator and follow the trail of blood, leading me up to the president's office. I have Aeris for most of the battles that exist in this small trip to blat things with a nuke first, followed by one from Tifa, than finally one from Cloud, having Aeris steal if things don't die to that. Long as Aeris doesn't get kills, I'm dandy. Since someone died and made him president, Rufus shows up to claim his father's seat as the head of Midgar, claming that he will lead with fear rather than with power. Not that anyone's paying attention to him, most of my team is getting the fuck out.

You have the option of removing Tifa's materia before taking the elevator. Do so, it's about to get narsty, and she's not doing anything in particular with them. Team is Barret, Aeris and Red XIII. I equip Fire-Elemental for the hell of it, give Aeris Lightning-All and Bio (ust want to boost her magic as I can), give Barret Cover, Steal, Frire-Elemental (pointless at the moment, but it gets AP on them), and Red XIII gets everything else but EnemySkill (know skills to learn, no reason to have it on). Make sure everyone's in the back row, no reason for anyone to take front in this upcoming fight. Hmm..Actually, I give Aeris Cure-All, and give Thunder and Bio to Red to power him up. He'll have more magic due to more slots.

Boss: 100 Gunner and HeliGunner

HP: 1500 first form, 1000 the second

Red's Bolt does 142 damage, so be sure to spam it, most damaging thing you got. Aeris just sits back and heals while Barret and Red do everything. 200 damage a turn basically, and you should kill it before it even manages to charge it's cannons in it's final form before Heligunner. Heligunner is annoying, but he can't really beat you. Worst you'll deal with is Firing Line posoning and causing sleep (which case, Aeris's weaksauce attack helps wake right up).

250 Exp, 25 AP, 200 Gil and a Mythril Armlet are your rewards.

So we return to Cloud, of whom is about to face off against Rufus. Have Bio at least, and power Cloud up with magic, it'll hurt more than the physical vs these two. In fact, link it with All. Face off with the big boss.

Boss: Rufus and Dark Nation

Start off by casting Bio on them both. Bio on Dark Nation right after will kill, then just spam on Rufus. Easy battle. He's got nothing to steal, so don't let up. He's even so kind as to charge up a limit break for you in an upcoming boss fight.

310 Exp, 42 AP (Nice!), 620 Gil, a Protect Vest and a Guard Source are your prizes. Man, dude was like a pinata and tons of candy came out!

After beating him, I equip Cloud in the Protect Vest, and rearrange materia. I give Steal back to Barret, let Cloud have whatever materia I had hanging around in order to AP level along with Cure/All, and I give Red XIII Cover and the rest of the magic materia.

So after that, Cloud decides we're all badass and we escape via motorcycle and truck through a damn window, taking the highway the fuck out of here while swordfighting soldiers in a motor gang war! But then we hit the end of the road, and a big goddamn thing is blocking hte way back...Well crap.

Boss: Motor Ball

First off, hit R1 and L1 so you don't take unecessary damage from the back attack, and unleash the two limit breaks you are bound to have while Red blasts with Bolt. Then, just have Cloud and Barret attack, Cloud laying downa Cure-All when you need it. Fire/Elemental on your armor helps protect from his many fire attacks, including the nuke he has called Rolling Fire (up to 270 damage to the team, OUCH). Use Braver instead of Cross Slash as a note, it hits harder and Motor Ball can't be paralyzed. Should be about 350 or so damage from Cloud, 170 from Barret's Big Shot, and 270 from RedXIII's superpowered Lightning. 5 turns man.

440 EXP, 45 AP, 350 Gil and a Star Pendant are our reward.

Mindblow Aquired!

So here we leave Midgar, ready for the wonderful world waiting outside the gloomy walls. Small entry, but I think I'll break here.

Team

Cloud Lvl 14

Hardedge, Carbon Bangle, Protect Vest

Sense, Elemental, Sense, All/Lightning

Braver, Cross Slash

Barret Lvl 13

Assault Rifle, Carbon Bangle, Star Pendant

Enemy Skill, All/Fire (Will give these to Cloud when I get Matra Magic)

Big Shot, Mindblow

RedXIII Lvl 13

Mythril Clip, Carbon Bangle, Talisman

Steal, Restore, Cover, Ice/All, Fire

Sled Fang

Edited January 18, 2011 by Amaterasu

[Rodykitty]

Barret in top tier sounds about right.

Cloud can have good attack and magic go hand in hand, but he's qorse off durably without Long Range (though he's a great cantidate for it), but at the end of the day he's got shitty limits

His early limits aren't that great, but Meteorain does massive damage considering that you don't have to do any side quests to obtain it.

After beating him, I equip Squall in the Protect Vest, and rearrange materia. I give Steal back to Barret, let Cloud have whatever materia I had hanging around in order to AP level along with Cure/All, and I give Red XIII Cover and the rest of the magic materia.

Tell me how you really feel.

[grandjackal]

Barret in top tier sounds about right.

Anything involving Mr. T. is top tier.

His early limits aren't that great, but Meteorain does massive damage considering that you don't have to do any side quests to obtain it.

Well yeah, I gave him credit for that. Just saying most of his other limits aren't too overly impressive.

Tell me how you really feel.

D'OH! *Edits*

[Aquilae]

Why Vincent below Cait Sith, and Tifa above Yuffie? I'm just curious, as I used these two in my first playthrough and they were pretty decent. I don't think the strength of characters matters that much though, FFVII is too easy XD

[Rodykitty]

Not so much FF7 being so easy as much as the stat differences between characters isn't very profound.

[grandjackal]

Why Vincent below Cait Sith, and Tifa above Yuffie? I'm just curious, as I used these two in my first playthrough and they were pretty decent. I don't think the strength of characters matters that much though, FFVII is too easy XD

1. What FE3 Player said.

2. Tifa's above Yuffie due to early contributions, forced portions, and the fact her limit is already basically good while Yuffie has to work her way to some of her multi-hit stuff. If we were to bust stats out though, Yuffie's just statistc crap, and generally a crappier version of Tifa who's advantage is basically she can sit in the back row due to ranged weapon. Really, only reason Yuffie's not in bottom with Sith and Vincent is because of her limits actually being at least good.

3. Reason Vincent's below Sith is due to how limits work, and the way HIS works. To get higher level limits, you need kills on a character, when they get a certain amount of kills, they get the next level of limits. When Vincent activates his limit, he not only becomes berserk, but his limits have nuke abilities which means more often than not, he will suck away kills from others. Normally not a bad thing, but the problem is losing control of a character and by no means being dependent on Vincent to do a nuke when he feels like it (since anyone else like Barret's Grenade Bomb just nukes when you want to, and that's the end of it)means his limits are ass. Cait Sith's limit is also ass, but on the other hand he doesn't lose control for the rest of the fight so he can still do stuff like revive or heal afterwards. Statistically, Vincent and Cait are identical outside of Vincent being able to take the back row since he has a gun, but their physical offense is assy anyways so that's not a real consolation prize outside of physical durability. Then there's their final weapons. Cait's HP-Max weapon is kinda meh, but it beats Vincent's piece of shit Death Penalty. Death Penalty requires Vincent have a lot of kills to power it up, and without a lot of kills on him, this thing starts off being incredibly weak, and even if you funnel a lot of kills into him over hte course of the game, it doesn't really bolster the power that much (1 increased damage per kill. Not weapon power, just the damage). Furthermore, Cait does not have any limits to build (Slot sucks), so if we're forced to use him, he's not hurt by the fact that he requires no kills. Cait can at least be used as a transition between his arrival and getting Cid (which point you just swap Cait with Cid).

So Vincent's below Cait because Cait has a couple redeeming qualities, while Vincent just sucks at everything but being a powerful mage (you know, cause we're short on magic users in FF7...?). Even then, his magic power ties with Cait's, so he just has nothing to call an advantage on the mechanical cat.

Yes, FF7's easy, but there's still differences between characters, even if they are rather minor differences.

[grandjackal]

Sorry about the long time since last post. Symphony of the Night was longer than I thought.

Anyways, we last left off outside of Midgar. Around this area are some robots known as Custom Sweepers. Not only can you learn Matra Magic off them, you can can steal an Atomic Scissors off them, which is an excellent equip for Barret. He doesn't mind being in the front row, he's tough stuff. Damn near doubles hs attack, and gives him 2 extra materia slots. Not that he really cares about that, but whatever. Anyways ,we wanna head northeast to Kalm, not a long trek.

Kalm

After so long, I mean FF9 didn't have THAT much of it, and FF8 had absolutely 0 of it...TuT Oh hooray, I get to say it again!

TIME TO RAID!!

House nearest to the inn has an Ether in the closet, the next house has uhh...Another Ether. Yeesh, these guys are getting high as a motherfucker. House next to that has a winding staircase that leads to a Peacemaker. I am going to keep this, despite the fact it belongs to Vincent, just to see whatever stat differences it may make. While we're here, nab the Guard Source, an item that permanently boosts a stat. Can be nice I guess. That's not too big a raid, but better than nothing. Ethers are always nice. Anyways, as for the stores, I buy a Hyper for Red XIII so I can get Lunatic High all the quicker after I sell all my old junk. The materia store has nothing special (Earth is useless, Heal's unecessary), and the weapon store is vastly out of date outside of a Mythril Claw if you're using Tifa (of which I'm not). I will not fill in on the story Cloud tells during the stay in Kalm, but I like how the game plays the story out. Lol, Cloud getting his lvl 1 ass beat while Sephiroth god modes. All I can say is visit Tifa's house, and be sure to play the piano (Just a Little). That's quite important. Also, I find it weird that Sephiroth flips out almost on cue when they first arrive at the reactor. You'd think they'd save that bit for the second visit.

Head east after that until you hit the choco ranch. Wark at the chocobos, watch them dance for the Choco/Mog materia! Costs 2000 Gil to buy the Chocobo Lure annoyingly enough, but after this segment you are free to just sell it right off, cause it's absolutely pointless from there on. I have a thought in thinking I should just sell the Four Slots right now. It's only good for magic bosses, and if you have a lot of materia you don't wish to link. I might give it to Red XIII when we hit the next major boss fight. So I catch a chocobo, and I ride over the swamp into the Mythril Caves (Yes, I'm skipping Beta).

Mythril Caves

Go to the right and climb some vnes to get the Long Range materia. This lets me sit Cloud in the back, free and able to do whatever he wants while Barret beasts out in hte front row. I would like to note that Barret and Cloud are just about reaching their magic offense with their physical attack, so just make a note of that for later when you find out you don't need to spam magic on single targets. If you happen to find a Flying Dragon here, don't end the battle until it get Flamethrower. While we're over here, let's get the Ether and Tent. I should also mention that Matra Magic rapes things pretty hard, so I'm glad I picked it up. Makes things significantly easier when funneling kills to Barret. Go back to the original area, and head for the lower right for a Mind Source. After that, head left, meet up with the turks and head for the door in hte back for an Elixer (Tasty!) and a Hi-Potion (Semi-Yummy). Go back, head left to leave.

I save right outside Fort Condor for a break. It should be noted that it is now ridiculously easy to get kills onto one guy on your team right now, but I should also note it's still probably gonna take a while before I reap the benefits. From start to finish of this post, the battles in total probably landed me about 15 kills on Barret. While he's certainly close to 80 kills by now, I probably won't be getting Grenade Bomb until the path to Corel most likely, though I wasn't precise on giving all kills to Barret the whole time, ust making sure they didn't go to auxilery characters like Tifa, Aeris or Red.

Magic is so hilariously powerful early on that the magic stat simply doesn't matter. You have so much nuclear power versus the enemy HP that any team should be able to wipe out a team of enemies (aside from Loco Weed who for some reason have ridiculously high magic defense) in one go. This trend may or may not continue, but at this point I am doubting it will be that big an issue. On the other hand, magic is so damn super duper powerful early on, it in a weird way negates physical advantages outside of mopping up because you should just be nuking. I'm starting to see this game is a tad easy so far, like to the point of not being able to lose. I think I will ust impose a bit of challenge on myself and only rest up when I'm low on MP in order to save money on using tents only when I need to, and not spending cash at every in (you have a LOT of MP for when you start vs how much spells cost).