Final Fantasy VII Community Playthrough

[Flintlock]

Now that the prelude is done, those who were new to the community playthrough should have just about caught up with those who were taking part the first time around. That means we can all carry on together!

The prelude seemed to work well at a pace of two chapters per week, so we'll stick with that. Here is a rough idea of how it will pan out, subject to change:

7. What the hell was that soldier doing?
8. We're gonna go play
9. The cries of the planet
10. Hold on to your drawers, an' don't piss in 'em
11. I still don't know what the hell's goin' on
12. Ultimate destructive magic
13. Beacause you are a puppet (end of disc one)
14. Over the snowy fields
15. Only a failure made it here
16. Quit slapping me, you old wench
17. Don't push your luck
18. I never even got to do my special victory dance
19. A little kid, sick and trembling in the middle of this huge universe
20. Hope may be inside (end of disc two)
21. Time's got a way of sneakin' up on ya
22. Northern Crater (end of disc three and the game)

This post will be updated with links to the chapters as they go up, usually every Monday and Friday.

Mog had the idea that different people could come up with the discussion topics for each chapter. I think that would be great. They could do the chapter descriptions, too, as I did in the prelude part. Let me know in this thread if you want to be responsible for any of the above chapters, and give at least a first and second choice, in case someone else wants to do the same one.

I'll be posting the first chapter later today. There will be a list of questions for you to answer, but don't feel obliged to answer all of them, and don't hesitate to go beyond them to discuss whatever you want. Don't worry if you fall behind, as there is no time limit for posting about previous chapters. One last thing: there is at least one new player taking part in this, so please use spoiler tags if you want to write about parts of the game we haven't reached yet.

[Flintlock]

Chapter 7: What the hell was that soldier doing?
23rd - 27th April 2012
Skype and stream: Tuesday the 24th of April, 19:00 UTC.

We pick up the story with Cloud wearing a Shinra uniform, as he used to do regularly. This time, though, he has been roped into taking part in President Rufus's welcoming ceremony, which involves a televised march and a formation send-off at the dock, where Rufus is boarding a ship for a new continent. Cloud and the others become stowaways, and their disguises seem to be working until an alarm is sounded. There's a warning of a strange character on board, but if it's not them, who is it?

Our target is outside Costa del Sol, after leaving the Cargo Ship. Forget my earlier advice, if you saw it: go walk around town, talk to everyone, buy some stuff. Buy the villa The exit can be found by passing under the bridge in the first screen after the dock.



Questions:

• How did you do in the marching task? In case anyone didn't know, the marching can be done much more easily by just tapping O rather than trying to do it according to the instructions. You can see it working in this video.
• There is a lot to explore in Junon. There are some familiar people to meet and some items to pick up, including a few useless ones. Did you go everywhere and get everything?
• What was your score and prize in the send-off?
• How did your fight with Jenova BIRTH go, and what was your strategy?
• This chapter contains a lot of memorable music, be it for good or bad reasons. There's Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony, It's Difficult To Stand On Two Feet, Isn't It?, Trail of Blood, and of course, J-E-N-O-V-A. Thoughts?

[Prince Lex]

Ummmm Flint, I don't recommend leaving the shopping and exploration til the next chapter if we're going to be leaving Costa Del Sol first. If you do that, you miss dialogue with the characters you don't have in your party, not to mention the scene with Hojo.

Just putting that out there.

[Obsidian Fire]

Do saves count? I'm grinding Giga Giants in the Crater in search of an Earth Mallet (8/64 chance of dropping) but it's before Cloud gives Sephrioth the Black Materia. I do have saves that go all the way back to Junon though. (Emulator = infinite memory cards.)

[Flintlock]

Prince Lex wrote:

Ummmm Flint, I don't recommend leaving the shopping and exploration til the next chapter if we're going to be leaving Costa Del Sol first. If you do that, you miss dialogue with the characters you don't have in your party, not to mention the scene with Hojo.

Just putting that out there.

I didn't know that. I agree with you, but what do you suggest we make the chapter ending point? It will either be before Jenova or after everything in Costa del Sol. The first one results in the Cargo Ship being split up into two sections, the second results in a very long chapter now and a much shorter one next time.

Actually, is there a save point in the inn? It's definitely not there in disc three - I checked last night - but I did have a recollection of it being there before.

Obsidian Fire wrote:

Do saves count? I'm grinding Giga Giants in the Crater in search of an Earth Mallet (8/64 chance of dropping) but it's before Cloud gives Sephrioth the Black Materia. I do have saves that go all the way back to Junon though. (Emulator = infinite memory cards.)

You can join in with whichever save you want

[Minato Arisato]

(SPOILER)

• How did you do in the marching task? In case anyone didn't know, the marching can be done much more easily by just tapping O rather than trying to do it according to the instructions. You can see it working in this video.

I did okay after several tries. low thirties percent and it got me six potions, better then I usually score.

• There is a lot to explore in Junon. There are some familiar people to meet and some items to pick up, including a few useless ones. Did you go everywhere and get everything?

Yup.

• What was your score and prize in the send-off?

40 and it got me an HP Plus. Though it again took me several tries.

• How did your fight with Jenova BIRTH go, and what was your strategy?

Cloud: Beta Yuffie: Fire 2 (why I got Fire 2 way ahead of Bolt 2 and Ice 2 even though I've definitely been equipping those materia since the start of the game I don't know) Red XIII: Shiva. Worked out pretty well.

• This chapter contains a lot of memorable music, be it for good or bad reasons. There's Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony, It's Difficult To Stand On Two Feet, Isn't It?, Trail of Blood, and of course, J-E-N-O-V-A. Thoughts?

Rufus' music is as annoying as ever, but again, I got through Junon much quicker then usual so I didn't have to suffer it that long. Usually it goes on for hour and half and it gets really hard to remember life before Rufus' music starting playing. My PC wasn't rendering JENOVA theme properly which was a real shame.


After that I got to Costa Del Sol, talked to the team, talked to Hojo, talked to Aerith, eavesdropped on Johnny and Tifa and got out. Too broke to shop anyway.

[Flintlock]

The game I was playing previously for this community playthrough was done to practice things for the race - fat lot of good that did me. With the race over, I didn't really want to continue playing a save file which has already missed a lot of items. So I started again. Yes, really.

Because FFVII is very easy and because I have already got a highly complete disc three save, I decided to impose a challenge on myself. Well, two challenges really. The first is that I am only allowed to use the party leader in battles, the second is that I'm not allowed to escape any battles. These challenges usually get a long-winded acronym like LLNMIENA, so I'd better make one too. Party leader only, no escaping = PLONE.

I get to make up the rules, and here they are. In random battles, everyone except the party leader must kill themselves immediately. They are not allowed to do anything productive, such as attacking an enemy. They are not allowed to be alive at the end of the battle. If it is possible to get into a random battle before a boss battle, then that must be done, but if not, they must kill themselves at the start of the boss battle. That rule actually saved me from an impossible scenario - see below. The no escaping rule is self-explanatory.

Because I've started again, I'll give you a quick idea of how the first seven chapters panned out. I won't be answering all the questions again, just describing the boss battles.

Guard Scorpion - easy, I just used Bolt.

Air Buster - he is normally easy because he can only attack one character at a time, and because he has a weak side. When fighting with just one character, it's an endless stream of Big Bombers and Energy Balls, which are quite powerful, and his weak side is never exposed. The battle was very long, but I was glad to get a challenge from this usually pathetic boss. I pretty much repeated a cycle of two attacks and one cure, where the attacks were either bolt or Braver, until I ran low on MP, after which I switched to grenade-potion-Braver-potion.

Aps - easy, I just used fire.

Reno - if two characters had started off dead, he would have used a Pyramid on Cloud on his third turn, giving me a Game Over. I definitely wasn't in the mood for power-levelling in the train graveyard to get Meteorain so I could kill him before his third turn, so it was just as well that Barret started the battle alive due to being out of the party up to that point. With one character dead, Reno's pyramid comes on the second turn. The first time it went to Cloud and I had to do a soft reset, but the second time it went to Barret. Cloud then freed Barret and threw as many grenades as possible at Reno before the next pyramid, which also went to Barret, fortunately. Reno then killed Barret, who had been attacking himself on every turn he wasn't imprisoned as per the rules, and Cloud was able to make Reno say "it's time".

Sample:H0512 - I had to heal more than in a normal battle, and it obviously took longer, but otherwise it was easy. I just threw lots of grenades.

Hundred Gunner and Heli Gunner - this was a challenge. The party leader going into this battle is, as I'm sure you all know, Aeris. In my case, a level 8 Aeris. I knew she wouldn't be able to survive the battle at that level, so I had to do a bit of levelling up. The 69th floor of the Shinra building is actually quite a decent place to level up a magic user like Aeris, because both Zenenes and Brain Pods use almost exclusively poison-based attacks, which can be easily nullified with the Star Pendant, and because they can both be killed with a single cure spell. Once she was level 10, I tried the battle. Hundred Gunner was very easy, but on my first try, Heli Gunner put me to sleep all the time and ended up killing me. I realised that I didn't need any more levels, though, so I tried again, this time with Sense materia so I could see Hundred Gunner's HP and make sure Aeris had both full HP and MP before Heli replaced him. That made things easier, and I managed to beat them at the second attempt. I just used lots of bolts and grenades, with cure and Healing Wind to recover.

Rufus - Dark Nation was despatched with a Braver before he even took a turn, after which I attacked Rufus five times with the Hardedge I had stolen from a Soldier:3rd to end the battle. Normally I would just use four grenades.

Motor Ball - Barret and Tifa were alive again at the start of the fight, annoyingly, meaning they had to be knocked out. Cloud just used a lot of bolt spells against the boss and healed once. Back row placement, the Talisman and elemental-fire in his armour made light work of Motor Ball's attacks.

Bottomswell - Similar to Reno, I was worried about a single Water Polo giving me a Gave Over, but I looked up his mechanics online and it turned out that he would only use that as a counter-attack after he has lost a certain amount of HP. So I just cast bio on him twice, when it stuck, and defended for the rest of the battle as the poison took care of him. The most boring fight with him I've ever had!

Jenova BIRTH - Blade Beams and grenades took care of her, along with frequent healing. Whenever Cloud's HP went below half, I lined up a cure spell, even though I didn't need it right away. It turned out to be prudent as, at one point, when Cloud was stopped, she used lots of lasers in a row to put him in critical HP, but he then healed himself as soon as the stop wore off. It took a long time to reduce her HP to zero with just one character.

I've had a lot of fun so far. It's always good to find something new to try in a game I've completed so many times already.

[Obsidian Fire]

• How did you do in the marching task? In case anyone didn't know, the marching can be done much more easily by just tapping O rather than trying to do it according to the instructions. You can see it working in this video.

Horrible, I did get the bomb.

• There is a lot to explore in Junon. There are some familiar people to meet and some items to pick up, including a few useless ones. Did you go everywhere and get everything?

Just about. One of the more interesting people is the guy who runs the Accessory Shop. He says he's a retired SOLDIER, which makes me wonder, "Why are you still alive?" I also like how the two Accessory Shops are competing with each other for customers and how the Weapon Shop owner says he messed up the last time he ordered and to come back later. Little lines like that add so much character to the game.

• What was your score and prize in the send-off?

I forget what my exact score was, but I know I kept retrying until I got Force Stealer.

• How did your fight with Jenova BIRTH go, and what was your strategy?

Piece of cake. The Shinra Betas I stole (from Marines, L4 Suicide does wonders) helped out a lot. Mostly used Beta, Shiva, Poison and Limit Breaks.

• This chapter contains a lot of memorable music, be it for good or bad reasons. There's Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony, It's Difficult To Stand On Two Feet, Isn't It?, Trail of Blood, and of course, J-E-N-O-V-A. Thoughts?

I really like J-E-N-O-V-A and It's Difficult To Stand On Two Feet is funny because that's one of RedXIII's lines. Trail of Blood is creepy and Rufus' Welcoming Cereomony... most annoying song in the game.

[Kuroto]

Quess what.

How did you do in the marching task? In case anyone didn't know, the marching can be done much more easily by just tapping O rather than trying to do it according to the instructions. You can see it working in this video.

Badly, really badly... ^^'

There is a lot to explore in Junon. There are some familiar people to meet and some items to pick up, including a few useless ones. Did you go everywhere and get everything?

It's hard to answer these questions, when you don't know where everything is. So I can only say, that I probably did.

What was your score and prize in the send-off?

My score was something like 30%. I kept turning the wrong way, so that ruined it for me really. I got HP UP materia, if I remember right.

How did your fight with Jenova BIRTH go, and what was your strategy?

The fight went surprisingly well. I still keep expecting that the boss fights are much more difficult than they are. I don't really have any strategies, but I can tell you that I fought with Cloud, Tifa and Red XII.

This chapter contains a lot of memorable music, be it for good or bad reasons. There's Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony, It's Difficult To Stand On Two Feet, Isn't It?, Trail of Blood, and of course, J-E-N-O-V-A. Thoughts?

Rufus's Welcoming Ceremony is fun for the first 5-10min maybe, but after that it starts to get a bit irritating. x) It's Difficult to Stand on Two Feet, is not that different from the other music in the game in my opinion. But it's quite funny I have to admit.

TRAIL OF BLOOD! That music is one of the best I've heard in the game and the most effective too. I love it. It's like instant shivers through my spine. And you know Sephiroth is around and something bad's going to happen.

And J-E-N-O-V-A. The best boss music so far. Loved it too. A nice change to the usual boss music.


I have lots of work this weekend, but hopefully I have time to play throught the next chapter.

[Flintlock]

Sorry this is a day late. I was busy having fun in IRC last night!

Chapter 8: We're gonna go play
27th - 30th April 2012
Skype and stream: Sunday the 29th of April, 19:00 UTC.

Having arrived on a new continent, Cloud and the others are left chasing rumours and reports of Sephiroth. They head west from Costa del Sol, passing through Mt. Corel, which was once Barret's home. He doesn't exactly receive a warm welcome, though. A trip to the Gold Saucer amusement park results in a new member of the team - whether you want him or not - but it doesn't end with fun and games. Is there another man with a gun on his arm?

Our target is outside the Gold Saucer, once you've got the Buggy. Picture below. Note: our next chapter will include some things which can be done with the new vehicle, including learning a number of Enemy Skills. You're welcome to do them now, but that will make the next chapter quite short.



Questions:

• Did you get everything in Mt. Corel, including the items below the railway tracks, in the hidden cave, and from the bird's nest? Did you steal any items, like Right Arms? The location is also good for levelling / learning limit breaks, so did you make use of it for that?
• What did you do in the Gold Saucer before advancing the story at the Battle Square? And how did you do on the games you tried?
• How did you get on in prison? It's not a nice place to be if you're a new player. You can get items stolen from you, you can get into some difficult battles, and you can get lost in the desert.
• The boss fight can also take you by surprise if you're underlevelled and not prepared for it. I don't imagine it would give you much trouble if know it's coming though. How did you do?
• What did you make of the Chocobo race? Did you win first time? And did you "cheat"?

[Sprites]

YAY I'll be joining in tomorrow

QUESTION: How the hell do you cheat the chocobo race!?

[Tifa Lockhart]

Will play more later, but finally got caught up a bit lol

Chapter 7 questions

How did you do in the marching task? In case anyone didn't know, the marching can be done much more easily by just tapping O rather than trying to do it according to the instructions. You can see it working in this video.

I did okay I think, I got 5 Ethers and I think that's the second best prize so.. not complaining.

There is a lot to explore in Junon. There are some familiar people to meet and some items to pick up, including a few useless ones. Did you go everywhere and get everything?

Yep I picked up all the items lying around. I didn't talk to everyone/do everything though. Only thing I bought was Revive materia and I think one other.

What was your score and prize in the send-off?

90. I always go for 90 when I want the HP Plus materia.

How did your fight with Jenova BIRTH go, and what was your strategy?

Fine, no strategy needed really. XD I basically spammed attack and Yuffie's/Barret's second limit levels. Didn't take too long. And they were in the back row (with Cloud equipped with Long Range) so attacks didn't hurt them much.

This chapter contains a lot of memorable music, be it for good or bad reasons. There's Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony, It's Difficult To Stand On Two Feet, Isn't It?, Trail of Blood, and of course, J-E-N-O-V-A. Thoughts?

I love them all really. But J-E-N-O-V-A of course is amazing. Trail of Blood always creeps me out lol. The other two are good too I like them a lot. Guess I just like Jenova's a little better <_<

[Flintlock]

Ling Xiaoyu wrote:

QUESTION: How the hell do you cheat the chocobo race!?

I thought everyone knew this? (SPOILER) Hold R1+R2 to give your Chocobo infinite stamina. It's not technically a cheat, as it's part of the game, which is why I put it in inverted commas. I suspect it's something the game developers put in for testing purposes and then forgot to take out.

[Sprites]

ohhh ok yeah I knew that I just never thought it was "cheating"

[Fangu]

My summaries... a little shortened

Chapter 5

The first Enemy Skill of the game is available here, namely Matra Magic (from Custom Sweepers in the grey land around Midgar). Did you bother to get it?

Yes - and I loveitloveitloveit!

The flashback. Love it or hate it? Although it has a reputation amongst experienced players for being one of the most boring parts of the game, it doesn't take very long if you know how to run through it. On the other hand, if you want to explore everything, it can take forever.

I remember the first time I played the flashback, I loved how you fight with Sephy and he's like... WHAM 3500 damage. It's like... this is the guy you're gonna fight in the end. He's baaaad.


Chapter 6

How did you get across the marshes? There are plenty of options: catch and ride a Chocobo, use the saving trick, time your run perfectly, or beat Midgar Zolom in a battle (make sure to save first!). If you chose to fight, did you learn the enemy skill Beta?

No, not a chance X) I have to admit I did try, but I gave up quite easily. I managed to run across without the save trick.

There are two screens in the Mythril Mines which are completely optional, but which contain some useful items and large groups of enemies, which makes them perfect for learning limit breaks and levelling up at the same time. The Flame Thrower enemy skill is also available there. Did you make use of them at all?

I went for all of the items in the screens.
I learned Flame Thrower.

Did you visit Fort Condor? If so, did you do the first battle?

No I didn't.

Did you encounter the Mystery Ninja? And did you get her to join your party? The forests where you can meet her are also great places for levelling/learning limit breaks, by the way.

I did encounter her on the second try, and I "adopted" her

Did you have any trouble with Bottomswell? What characters did you fight it with?

Cloud, Barret and Aerith. It was fairly straight forward, using elemental magic and Matra Magic and healing.


Chapter 7

There is a lot to explore in Junon. There are some familiar people to meet and some items to pick up, including a few useless ones. Did you go everywhere and get everything?

I did go everywhere and I met the Turks <3

What was your score and prize in the send-off?

100, Force Stealer.

How did your fight with Jenova BIRTH go, and what was your strategy?

Jenova was really easy. I had 2 limit at the start of the battle, so I just used Aerith for healing, Cloud used Attack and Matra Magic and Barret used Attack and assorted spells - and I think he had Cover but I can't remember.

This chapter contains a lot of memorable music, be it for good or bad reasons. There's Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony, It's Difficult To Stand On Two Feet, Isn't It?, Trail of Blood, and of course, J-E-N-O-V-A. Thoughts?

I LOVE the march. It's one of my favorite tunes from FFVII. I don't know why - maybe it's the optimistic tune to it that makes it sorta funny. Jenova is another great track.