The event, as unfortunate as it was, however spurred the GameFAQs community to take up this never-before-completed challenge yet again. One of the most respected posters on the FFVII GameFAQs board, songsengnim, has now on March 7th 2012 achieved this daunting task.
As he has documented his progress for a very long time, plus added that he has contributed to info and methodology for the Perfect Save File challenge in the past, there truly is no other member whom we could trust more to honestly have completed the challenge!

See GameFAQs Thread

After thousands and thousands of resets we finally have it confirmed that at least in this line of HP & MP progression songsengnim went through the charts provided in Absolute Steve’s guide work! A big round of applause for songsengnim!

For those who want a more in-depth explanation of the Natural Max HP/MP Challenge and its history, I now repost the same presentation from my now deleted Christmas post about the challenge.

Details of the “Natural Max HP/MP” Challenge

An in-depth guide to this challenge exists in Absolute Steve’s FFVII guide, but those who want a summary, aimed at non-perfectionists, can read the paragraphs below.

Anyone who has done multiple playthroughs of FFVII may have noticed that a playable character’s max HP and MP once on level 99, without any Materia added to change the values, is not the same when comparing both save files. The exact stat progressions when levelling up is far from a fixed affair in FFVII.

For those interested in achieving a “Perfect Save/Game File”, this is a huge problem because getting the maximum possible HP/MP becomes impossible. However, thanks to hacking efforts, the charts now exist which map the required HP & MP values a character must achieve. These tables can be found in Absolute Steve’s FFVII guide.
As there are no official definitions for a perfect “Disc 1″ save file, Aeris/Aerith is left out of the equation and no one has calculated the charts for her optimum stat growth (yet).

It is once a character reaches their “max safety level”, that players must keep track of the progression of these stats. For example, Cloud is in the safe zone up until level 64-65, but after this his HP and MP growth must be monitored if both are to reach their max values by the end.

The matter is not so simple though. Cloud’s theoretical natural max HP is 9511, while his theoretical natural max MP is 905. However, both HP and MP can’t achieve their max at the same time! The game will not allow it. So one must be sacrificed for the sake of the other. Members of the GameFAQ forums quickly agreed that MP would be sacrificed, as this value is increased anyway when magic Materia is equipped. As a result, Cloud’s final, natural max MP goes down to 902.

So what’s the big deal? Well, initially getting the right values may be easy and may require no more than a few resets, but after a certain point, if you are aiming for maxing out both HP and MP, we are talking a harsh probability of 1/64. So imagine these probabilities for two dozen or so levels for one character, then take into account all the eight characters in total, and on your table you have the task to reset the game literally thousands of times to get the best values.

So that summarises the challenge and why it is a subject of concern for those dreaming of having a Perfect Save File. But getting to this point that made the challenge possible was not an easy one. I know, even moreso because I once played a part in it…

History of the Natural Max HP/MP Challenge

In 1999, Terence Fergusson made his own website where he posted his various FFVII findings. Over the years, he continued hacking the game and published guides on GameFAQs. After many revisions, he re-uploaded the guides in 2009, in the form that we now know them:
- Battle Mechanics FAQ: Status Effects, Attack Types, Battle Speed etc.
- Date Mechanics Guide: Mapping instances when Love Points (or “Affection Values”) are changed and by how much.
- Enemy Mechanics FAQ: In-depth Enemy AI and Encounter data.
- Party Mechanics Guide: Mechanics of Level-Ups, Materia, Limit Breaks, Weapons and other equipment.

These monumental guides, all the result from serious hacking efforts, set the grounds for devicing ridiculous (but still working) strategies against enemies as well as an expanded exploitation and understanding of the game’s glitches. Many variations of low-level playthroughs, speed-run accomplishments and indeed the “Perfect Game” challenge, would not have been possible without these guides.

Of importance then to the Natural Max HP/MP challenge was the Party Mechanics Guide where Fergusson revealed how the stat-up systems worked. As an appendix to the guide he added charts for optimum HP or MP growth for each playable character (excluding Young Cloud and Sephiroth). I can recall, from back in 2008, reading on GameFAQs about players who had begun using these charts.

Trouble soon striked though when, after certain passes, those using the tables found it impossible to get the proper HP and MP value simultaneously for some levels. Fergusson figured out that a random number generator was keeping the two separate values from reaching max at the same time. The charts would have to be re-made to adjust to this previously undetected part of the HP/MP growth mechanics. As I previously described, the conclusion was that MP would be sacrificed so that HP could reach its maximum natural value. It is for this reason that we know Aeris’ theoretical max MP to be 994, but no one has calculated the lessened value when her natural max HP, 8816, is preferred.

For a while the project was in limbo. The charts for Cait Sith, Vincent & Cid had been discovered especially arduous to make, requiring extra programming skills, and the members with the know-how were too busy to contribute. Some could do the calculations by hand but did not have the knowledge to create the functions to automatically spew out the correct tables. Not to mention, the likelihood was still there that other characters might have erroneous charts, still.

It was then, in early 2009, that I contacted GameFAQ member “1whoistornapart”, a prominent figure in this project, and asked him to provide the new charts for me to test. He obliged and did his best to gain the additional coding knowledge required to print the correct HP/MP progression path.

The results were, sadly, not positive. On multiple occassions I found myself stuck, often having to ask for revisions. This also meant that on multiple occassions Absolute Steve updated his guide with the revisions, only to find after a while, as I continued resetting my PlayStation like a lunatic with OCD, that 1whoistornapart had overlooked details in his coding.

After more than two months of intensively testing the various iterations of the HP/MP progression tables, I threw in the towel. No hard feelings on 1whoistornapart though, as he made an honorable attempt at filling in for the GameFAQ members that had presently left the project, plus doing his best to help despite a busy personal schedule. I recommend people to watch his YouTube videos, such as his No-Damage run in “Castlevania : Bloodlines”.

Naturally I had lost the will to continue with this challenge or even keep myself updated on its developments, but fortunately there were others who kept on trying. Absolute Steve has listed that, back in November 2010, an edit was made to Yuffie’s Max Natural MP chart. Most recently, in June 2011, edits were made to Barret’s, Red XIII’s, and (again) Yuffie’s charts.

The rest you all know by now. Around Christmas last year a new GameFAQs member, HARSHREALM, lied about completing the challenge but fortunately this event spawned additional effort by the GameFAQs community to finally prove that the Max Natural HP/MP charts work. On March 7th 2012, long-time poster songsengnim finally did it and he has now made his mark in FFVII gaming history. Congratulations again, songsengnim!

Remember how I marveled at FFIV’s dungeon? I asked you to remember (or imagine) seeing it from the first time coming off the dungeons of Final Fantasies I-III. It was an impressive leap, it felt solid, it had some depth to it. The first three games almost felt like a board game. Impressive in their own rights, don’t misunderstand, but the SNES era games just added so much to the presentation.

Well as much as a leap as that was – remember or imagine, if you will, coming off the SNES Final Fantasies and coming across a final dungeon that looked like this:

I’ll give you a moment to pick yourselves up off the floor, because if you imagined/remembered properly, that’s exactly where you should be.

…

Ready? Okay.

Sephiroth, your mortal enemy for several reasons, cast his doomsday spell and holed up in the crater made by the asteroid that delivered his ‘mother’ 2000 years ago. Complete with an energy shield around the entrance, he intends to simply wait until the Meteor hits, inflicting the wound that will give him access to all the souls on the Planet. Shinra was kind enough to take down his barrier for you, so all that remains is to climb down to the depths of the planet and release the hold he has on humanity’s only hope.

As we all know, Final Fantasy VII represented a huge change for the series. Apart from the graphics, gone was the medieval high-fantasy setting; gone were the princesses and crystalline dungeons. How did this all translate to the endgame?

While the mish mashing environments of the previous two dungeons are gone, the Northern Crater has some incredibly varied locales. From Lifestream waterfalls to skeletons of giant creatures and even a section with a camera angle reminiscent of a side-scroller, you certainly will not get bored from the scenery. I don’t mean to ramble about the attractiveness of the dungeon, I just want to emphasize that the good graphics were not the only reason it’s so easy on the eyes: its design is very imaginative.

Unfortunately, it also hits several snags as compared to its predecessors. Chief among these is difficulty – or lack thereof. Now, in fairness, if you head directly to the crater after popping in Disc 3, you are likely to be low to mid 50s in level. At this point the dungeon is reasonably tough. King Behemoths can deal heavy damage; dragons will as well with several attacks, gargoyles and Edward Scissorhands cosplayers will hit you with instant death. And as any Final Fantasy player worth his or her salt knows, the Master Tonberries will ruin your day.

Get the %&#$ away from me!!

However, if you undertake any sidequests at all, even very minor leveling or obtaining some ultimate weapons, you will rapidly eclipse the enemies here. They simply do not have the HP counts to stand up to Double Cuts from three ultimate weapons, or even just a party pushing level 65 and up. On top of that, there is no boss gauntlet. Well, not a true one at least. The rocks you have to hop from on your way to the final battle are subject to some powerful monsters (again, only if you came directly here; Go ignored and $200 uncollected), but they lack story relevance that past gauntlets have had.

Kefka’s Tower can still backhand a player across the face at level 80 if the player is not prepared, but overlevelled parties in FFVII can simply steamroll their way through the Northern Crater. This does little to help the dungeon’s already short length. The fact that it is shorter than the past couple would not be a huge deal as a standard playthrough of FFVII is longer than one in FFs V and VI by this point. What is puzzling are the dungeon’s efforts to shorten itself.

Halfway through, the path forks, and you must direct party members to different paths. Like Kefka’s Tower, right? Well, it is until you reach the part that you do not control your other party members. You just meet up with them at the bottom and they give you the items they found along the way. This means that, if you’re playing normally, you only see half the dungeon. This is really a shame because the areas are, as I’ve mentioned, very pretty and you should be able to see them. It was years before I even knew what the other half looked like (which happens to look awesome with the corkscrew and massive skeletons). Furthermore, as I said, the dungeon’s rather short. If you actually had to go through the whole thing, it would probably be a normal length. If, for example, there were no split, or even more reasonably, you just had to control all the groups, this would all be remedied. Even the difficulty would step up as you’d have to use the other characters.

Phew, anyway, to end on a positive note, I deliberately avoided talking about the music. And that is because the song here very nearly makes up for every single one of these misgivings. This song is awesome. In my opinion Final Fantasy VII does not, in fact, have the best overall soundtrack, but “Judgment Day” is the standard to which I hold all other endgame themes. I’ve mentioned liking a rousing score for my march to save the world, and Judgment Day actually doesn’t have that “go forth” quality I mentioned. However, if you could write “determination” in music, this is it. You are pissed at Sephiroth and this is the perfect song to mentally prepare you for the spanking you intend to hand him. Incidentally, ocremix has a fantastic version of this song that captures its feel and manages to make it even more awesome.
The more subdued areas have the Promised Land music, and your ‘final approach’ is heralded by the ever-badass JENOVA theme.

So they missed some major opportunities with the Northern Crater. And they are amplified by my recent journey through the previous ones. However, this dungeon nailed the atmosphere better than any other. Hell was an awesome place to charge through, and the Rift was disconcerting and spooky, but graphically and musically speaking, Final Fantasy VII’s final dungeon hits it out of the park.

With towers and holes and other dimensions, where could we possibly have left to go? Why through time, of course!

Thanks to our member Megas_Sephiroth for bringing this to our attention.

Source: Playstation EU Blog