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Date |
: Jan 28th, 2002 |
| Genre |
: RPG |
| Developer |
: Squaresoft |
| Author |
: Jin-Ning Tioh |
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Additional Hints & Tips
Hint #1
Breed and race your Chocobos to gain new types and colors. Yellow Chocobos can beget blue, and Green Chocobos can ride over rivers and mountains. Blue and Green Chocobos can beget a Black Chocobo. A Black Chocobo and an S-Class Chocobo can beget a Gold Chocobo. With the Gold Chocobo, players can even traverse oceans to a previously inaccessible cave in the northwest of the world. There lies the Knights Of The Round Table Materia. This mind-blowingly powerful summon is capable of killing even Sephiroth in a single blow!
Hint #2
To use an Enemy Skill, you need an Enemy Skill Materia. With one equipped, go into a battle. If an enemy uses their particular skill on you, you'll spin around and a message will appear stating that you've learned it. You then have to win the battle. If you run away or lose the battle, you will not have learned it. Some enemies may not use their skills normally. In some cases, you must control them using the Manipulate Materia and then make them use their skill. Remember, you also can't have a fellow party member use a skill on you in order to learn it.
Hint #3
Every time you arrive at the Gold Saucer, there is a 1-in-60 chance that a man will be standing near the back of the screen, past the Save Point. If you go up and talk to him, he will sell you one GP for 100 gil. You can exchange up to 100 GP from him.
Hint #4
There are six Turtles' Paradise Flyers scattered across the world. You can take the flyers to Wutai and give them to the restaurant owner in return for one of every kind of Source item, and a Megalixir. The exact location of the six flyers are at :
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One's in Midgar City, in the second floor of the southeastern building north of Aeris' house. Look at the papers taped to the wall near the stairwell. |
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Another is in the Shinra Building, on the first floor, check out the board with papers on it near the elevators. You can only read this at the beginning of the game or when you raid Midgar during the 2nd Disc. |
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The next one is in the Gold Saucer. Go to the Ghost Square and enter the hotel. Read the sign that says 'SHOP' next to the shop entrance. |
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Two of them are in Cosmo Canyon. One is stapled to the left-hand wooden post on the Tigerlily Arms Shop. The other is the gold paper by the door on the second floor of the inn (the entrance is behind some hanging cloth near the bonfire). |
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The last one is in Wutai. It's on the bottom floor of Yuffie's house. It looks like a wall scroll hanging to the right of the doorway. You can't get to it unless you've finished Yuffie's quest, though. |
Hint #5
To get Yuffie Kisaragi to join your gang, travel to either the forests beyond the Gold Saucer, or to most of the forests in the Junon Area. After a few battles, you should run into a fight with Yuffie. She's easy to defeat and shouldn't pose too much of a problem. Once the battle has ended, you'll appear in a plain with Yuffie lying nearby. To get her to join your party, talk and respond to her like this :
Reply : Not interested.
Reply : ......petrified.
Reply : Wait a second!
Reply : ......That's right.
Reply : ......Let's hurry on.
If you try to use the Save Point nearby, or if you give a wrong answer, Yuffie will escape and steal some gil from you. This means that you have to re-find and re-fight her, then go through the same conversation again, if you want her to join up.
Hint #6
To get Vincent Valentine to join your gang, travel to the abandoned Shinra mansion at Nibelheim. Once there, head to the safe and turn the following combination in :
RIGHT TO 36, LEFT TO 10, RIGHT TO 59, RIGHT TO 97
When you open the safe, you'll be attacked by a monster, Lost Number. Once you finish tackling him, head for the pink cavern beneath the hidden spiral stairway, and open the northern door (The portal just before the library). To open the door, you'll need the gold key from the safe. Once inside, go to the purple coffin. To get him to join you, respond in the following manner :
Reply : Talk about Sephiroth.
Reply : Who are you?
Then, try to leave the pink cavern and he'll join you. Vincent cannot join you during Cloud's flashback, just so you know.
Historical Facts
Final Fantasy VII is a landmark title in many ways. Its production values were a step above any game ever created. Never before had anyone channeled so much money and effort into any one project. Its storyline was timeless, movie sequences were unparalleled not only in quality, but in sheer length - over 60 minutes throughout the game - seamlessly sewn into the scheme of things to give added effect to the more important moments, and its fantastic graphics gave it the huge mass-market appeal it enjoys today. The beautiful and brilliant landscapes composed by Tetsuya Nomura was but one of the factors which made the game feel so real - Real enough and fantasy-like at the same time to enthrall the player from beginning to end, captivated in their own fantasy world. No expense was spared; even backgrounds that were only to be used once were still rendered in exquisite detail.
The fully 3D world map was groundbreaking compared to its predecessors. Hills on the horizon would slowly come into focus as the character moved towards them in real-time. Such features, on top of dozens of little niceties as hearing the creak of the bridges as they were crossed, truly made fantasy become reality. As if this wasn't enough, some of Nobuo Uematsu's finest work is displayed in Final Fantasy VII. The music is beautifully orchestrated, from the beating drums of Cosmo Canyon to the oddly synthesized notes played at the Temple of the Ancients. No piece of music sounded out of place, instead each gave depth to its surroundings. However, the thing which makes or breaks a game is not the music or even the graphics, although they are also important in today's market. It is the core of the game, commonly referred to by the masses as gameplay. Before Final Fantasy VII the RPG was an unknown genre for most gamers in the west, beside the minority of hardcore players. In Japan, the game was already a phenomenon, with thousands of fans camping outside their local retail outlets waiting for Final Fantasy VII. For the rest of the world, Final Fantasy VII was something new. Level up your character and teach them new skills! Acquire new and powerful weapons to stand a greater chance of victory!
Many did not expect the driving story line : love, hate, honor, betrayal, friendship and war. Players enjoyed the realism, being in the position of the character, being responsible for their progress. You are in charge : you can even choose the personality of your character by being either rude or kind when given the option. True, this doesn't really have the ultimate effect on the ending, but you get a sense of being in control throughout. It wouldn't be too wrong in saying that a player could very easily get emotionally attached to a character, feeling for them throughout their victories, defeats and sufferings.
Final Fantasy VII may also have been the game which allowed Sony to achieve victory in the next-generation video game wars. Nintendo's Japanese success was most directly attributable to two series : Square's Final Fantasy and Enix's Dragon Quest. Soon after Square's switch to the Sony platform, Enix announced that the next Dragon Quest game would also be made available for the PlayStation. This punch delivered Nintendo such a crushing blow that they still haven't quite recovered from it yet. This also provided Sony with the clout they needed to become the system of choice for Japanese gamers.
In short, Final Fantasy VII revolutionized gaming forever. It brought the genre from the shores of Japan to the much needing shelves of the western world. It showed that there was more to games than mindless kicks and punches. It is truly epic and in 20 years time it will be "up there" with the classics such as Pac Man, Tetris, Mario and Mortal Kombat. Methods and scale of game production, levels of artistic excellence, marketing of key titles, even the evolution of entire genres and markets - It was one of the turning points in gaming history, changing many people's views on what a game should be forever and leaving almost no facet of the industry unaltered by its earth-shattering arrival...
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