Complete set of perfect FFVII saves

It doesn't take much effort to find Final Fantasy VII saves, created by other players, available to download. There are 51 of them on GameFAQs, for example. Some of them may claim to be "perfect", which usually means that every meaningful statistic is maxed out on disc three. But there is not, as far as I'm aware (and please correct me if I'm wrong on this, because it would save me a lot of time and effort), a complete set of perfect saves from every point in the game. In other words, there's a gap in the market, and who better to fill that gap than The Lifestream?

I have, for some time, wanted to create a decent set of Final Fantasy VII saves, made at different points of the game, so that I could jump in at any point I feel like. I've never got around to doing so, though, partly because I've never tried to get a perfect game, and I am never satisfied if I load up an old game and see things that could have been done better.

With perfection in mind, however, this endeavour would be much bigger than just saving in 15 separate slots over the course of the game. I'm thinking about saving in a separate slot after every single PPV (plot progression value) change, whenever that is possible. Often it won't be, of course, but there's nothing that can be done about that. In addition, I would get every missable item, complete every time-limited side-quest, and so on. Once ready, we'd have the ultimate reference for the PSX version of the game; it would be a piece of cake to jump in at any point and check something out. Thanks to the wonder of emulators, I won't even need hundreds of memory cards.

This will take a long time to complete, as you might imagine, so I'd want to put together a watertight plan before getting started. It would be a nightmare to reach the third disc and then realise I'd neglected to steal a unique item in the Train Graveyard, for example. This is where you come in. If I try this on my own, I will make mistakes, but with our collective knowledge of the game, which is probably enough to rival any other forum on the internet, we can avoid them.*


I'll come up with an initial list of objectives and share it here later, at which point, I'd be very glad for any input. With some aspects of the game, it will not be possible to objectively determine what is "perfect", so there will be room for discussion. I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, Shademp, I think you probably have the most to offer. Do you have a full list of PPV values/triggers hidden away somewhere? That would be a fantastic place for me to start.

Yes, this is a fairly crazy idea. But there's no hurry, is there?

* Until a new discovery is made about the game in five years' time. It could still happen!

Flint it would probably be easier (and make no difference in the long term) just to save at every save point you see (after anything has happened, like picking something up, having a conversation save at the next available save point) rather than going by plot progression values, because there are a ridiculous amount of those (I'm pretty sure it's over 300) and from what I can see looking through both Makou Reactor and Black Chocobo, the save file keeps a list of some that are completely inane and missable.

For example, there's a check for Triggering the Game Over at the countdown timeout in the first reactor - which isn't what you want obviously - a check for talking to Wedge twice on the train to the 2nd reactor mission, a check for talking to the train man 3 times etc. The list goes on, and in my own perfect game two or three years ago there are a few I hadn't triggered.

EDIT: Instead, you should just set out a strategy so your first segment would be something like:

OPENING

Pick up 2 potions from soldiers
Save at first save point
Pick up restore materia
Save again (maybe)
Unstick Jessie
Pick up items
Speak to Aerith
Fight all soldiers
etc

Leave out the inane stuff that you know you have to do to actually progress the story and focus on the other stuff you need like rare steals, getting everything as early as possible etc.

Also, are you going to try for the character's best possible level up stats?

I started to do some GM/PPV analysis here. It is way away from completion, and not entirely understandable to a regular person (or technically even me: it's just got pointers that I can make guesses about, or use to re-find them in the data), but eventually I would have then made a word-explanation of the triggers.

If no one else has anything like this I may continue working on it, although I still imagine it will take a long time to finish.

Prince Lex said:

[..]because there are a ridiculous amount of those (I'm pretty sure it's over 300) and from what I can see looking through both Makou Reactor and Black Chocobo, the save file keeps a list of some that are completely inane and missable.[..]

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? They are other variables, not plot progression value.

PPV is V[2][0], two-bytes long, and is the variables used to know how far along in the story a player is. Rather than having a million separate flags, this one value is used for most storyline events. But not all, I think there are a number of occasions where other flags are used for mandatory events, and then obviously things like Wutai don't effect the PPV so you might want to consider making saves during that too.

And the value excedes 2000 I think, but there are skips between each one, and I think there's like a skip of 400 at one point.

Thanks for the useful input straight off the bat. I'd still love to look at a full list of PPV values, if such a list exists. As I said, it would be a good starting point, if nothing else.

As for the level up stats, I wouldn't bother with any of the stats that can be improved with sources, but I'm mulling over whether to go for the maximum HP/MP. The important thing to note about this game, if it goes ahead, is that I won't actually bother to max everything out at the end. I just want to create a set of save files in which it is still possible to make it perfect from each save. So, in order to reduce the stress of checking the HP/MP increases at each level up, I'd minimise the number of levels that my characters gain. That would involve escaping from almost all random battles, of course, which some players may deem imperfect, but that's where opinion comes in: I think a value of 65535 escapes is just as perfect (and can roll over to 0 afterwards). There's a lot to think about

What about maxing out items? Because you know those Gigas Armlets will make you want to kill yourself . I don't think it takes too long to steal 98 actually, but it is a pain nonetheless. And if you're maxing HP/MP that probably makes it more difficult.

Again, if you're maxing HP/MP bosses might become a bit of an issue when you're jumping up multiple levels from escaping random battles :/

Oh yes, I hadn't thought of that. Even with a single character alive and only two or three level ups, the chance of it working out would be minute.

This whole project needs more thought, but that's what this thread is for

I do not see the use of a PPV list in this context. Just save at every possible point and you will have what you want.
Those who aim for a Perfect Save often diverge in their opinion of the following: Should you keep Coupon A/B/C or use them to check in for items on that Shinra HQ floor? This can be tough choice for many. Do you keep those key items for a complete collection, or trade them in so you've technically gotten every "treasure"?

Another choice happens with the Bikini Briefs (take a bath with Mukki to get these) and the Lingerie (collide with Cloud's subconsciousness). Neither actually increase your stats for the meeting with Don Corneo. Most likely this is just an oversight in the design. So which do you choose for a perfect save?

Natural Max HP/MP is a bitch. We're talking months and months of resetting the game (probably years, if you want to have a life) and for what? So you can have one version of perfect saves for one version of the game. I assume that these game saves would only be for the English NTSC release.

The best compromise here would be to not go with Natural Max HP/MP and instead refer to cheat devices or save editors if they want to change a character's HP & MP to the highest natural values. Same goes for the Key Item conundrum; refer the downloader to devices with which they can change the key item setup to whatever suits them best.

OK, I guess you're right about the PPVs. Looking at Jbedford128's list (thanks for that, by the way, I was using a computer at work which doesn't highlight links on TLS very well and I missed it), they are a lot more trivial than I imagined. I mean, I knew there would be hundreds of them, but it seems like many of them are just things like "enable control" when entering a new area. I'm more concerned in things like missable, one-time or multiple choice dialogue.

I looked at our old article about the max HP/MP challenge being completed and noticed that each character has a safe zone, so I looked it up on Absolute Steve's FAQ. The maximum safe levels, below which each character's HP and MP gains do not need to be monitored, are:

Cloud Max Safety Lvl: 66
Barret Max Safety Lvl: 54
Tifa Max Safety Lvl: 55
Aeris Max Safety Lvl: 50
Red XIII Max Safety Lvl: 59
Yuffie Max Safety Lvl: 53
Cait Sith Max Safety Lvl: 51
Vincent Max Safety Lvl: 39
Cid Max Safety Lvl: 45

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That solves the problem for me in one go: I'll just make sure none of my characters go above their safety levels.

I suppose you don't really have to worry about it much then, you could probably get away with not escaping random battles and just using the most direct routes. Vincent could theoretically put a spanner in the works, but I doubt you'll be above level 39 when you get him. Might want to kill him off to keep him lower than the rest though, that way you're not so restricted level wise.

It's possible to reach the final battles with no character at a level higher than 28, so there is some room to play with. But it won't be a lowest level game, because I will be fighting extra battles to get item drops and completing every missable sidequest. Which brings me on to a question, actually:

Can Vincent's final weapon and limit break be obtained if Lucrecia's cave is not visited on disc two? It may well be misinformation, but I've heard that it must be visited at least once before going to Midgar. On my first playthrough, I didn't go there until disc three, and I don't think I got them. The cave was just empty. I could be remembering that incorrectly, though.

If it is possible to recruit Vincent on disc three and still get Chaos and Death Penalty, then I will have to consider that as an option, because the aim is to leave unmissable sidequests until disc three. Maybe someone wants to make a video of summoning KOTR against Lost Number, for example.

Yuffie is a different story because the Wutai sidequest is missable.

Flintlock said:

Can Vincent's final weapon and limit break be obtained if Lucrecia's cave is not visited on disc two? It may well be misinformation, but I've heard that it must be visited at least once before going to Midgar. On my first playthrough, I didn't go there until disc three, and I don't think I got them. The cave was just empty. I could be remembering that incorrectly, though.

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I've thoroughly checked how the events in that field works, using Makou Reactor. There is no check which should make Lucrecia unavailable. As soon as you get the submarine, the PPV has advanced enough to make the Lucrecia scene available. The only other check the game makes is if the flashback scenes triggered there have already happened. Plus of course you need to have Vincent in your party, or else Lucrecia won't be there.

You must simply have forgotten to add Vincent to your party. As for Death Penalty and Chaos, those are only acquired after meeting Lucrecia and entering at least 10 random battles afterwards. After this, those two items are available.

Flintlock said:

[...]they are a lot more trivial than I imagined. I mean, I knew there would be hundreds of them, but it seems like many of them are just things like "enable control" when entering a new area. I'm more concerned in things like missable, one-time or multiple choice dialogue.

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Well, not really. The table isn't really that clear. Basically the purpose of the column that says "Enable control" is to describe what happens in the script/s when the PPV changes. And therefore it always ends with enabling control or changing map. Also I don't note dialogue in that column for the mostpart-- the PPV usually changes after scenes but dialogue is often scattered so I just didn't bother to note it down (yet).

For a better look at how PPV works I'll just outline the changes in No.1 Reactor. The PPV changes half-way through scripts, but for the purpose of ease-of-use, I note the moment you can control the character again.

-00 - New game (if you save before it becomes 1, when you load that save it will show the opening FMV again)
-01 - After guards are kicked, first time controlling Cloud
-06 - After the guards that charge at Cloud are killed
-07 - After Cloud looks up at reactor
-08 - This will be enabled before you even get control back after 07. This is used to tell the game "I've seen the characters run through Sector 1".
-11 - When Barret joins Cloud
-12 - Bottom of elevator
-13 - Enter big room with staircase. This is used to tell the game "I've seen Jessie run through this room".
-14 - Talk to Jessie about jumping and ladders
-15 - Picked up Restore Materia
-27 - Guard Scorpion defeat, timer appears
-33 - Reactor explodes (by the time you get control back PPV will be 36).

So PPV does seem over the top, slightly arbitrary, and difficult. The way I would likely do that is make a save every time new screen, but in no way do I suggest you do that. After making a save after every save point I discovered that when running investigations regarding Cave of the Gi, the save point was way behind (especially since i saved when first getting to Cosmo Canyon, and then not after any of the scenes).

But these save files aren't exactly designed for someone investigating the game who could do with save anywhere, so at every save point should be fine.

Shademp said:

Natural Max HP/MP is a bitch. We're talking months and months of resetting the game (probably years, if you want to have a life) and for what? So you can have one version of perfect saves for one version of the game. I assume that these game saves would only be for the English NTSC release.

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Saves are compatible between versions. I've used a PC2012 release on PC1998, and I also constructed a virtual memory card for ePSXe with the save data to work on PAL PS1. Either that or it didn't work so I used Black Chocobo-- in any case, Black Chocobo can convert save files.

Shademp said:

[...]As soon as you get the submarine, the PPV has advanced enough to make the Lucrecia scene available.[...]

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I haven't checked recently, but I am fairly certain Lucrecia's scene becomes available as soon as Cloud comes back. So you can get there earlier with the right chocobo (they are available by this point, right?).

JBedford128 said:

Saves are compatible between versions. I've used a PC2012 release on PC1998, and I also constructed a virtual memory card for ePSXe with the save data to work on PAL PS1. Either that or it didn't work so I used Black Chocobo-- in any case, Black Chocobo can convert save files.

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That's awesome. I had no idea they were convertible.

JBedford128 said:

I haven't checked recently, but I am fairly certain Lucrecia's scene becomes available as soon as Cloud comes back. So you can get there earlier with the right chocobo (they are available by this point, right?).

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You are correct. When Cloud returns, PPV=1199. The condition for the Lucrecia scene is that PPV=1197 or higher.

I suppose saving at every save point would be good enough. The world map is a different issue, but I suppose I could save before entering each location and after leaving each location. And there are many field save points that can be visited in an arbitrary order within their locations (e.g. in Cosmo Canyon, should you go straight to the save point upon arrival or visit the other shops, the Shildra Inn etc first), but I'll just have to use judgement in that case and over-save rather than under-save.

So I guess it's not going to be strictly perfect in the way I originally imagined it, but it will be a lot more manageable. And more fun. So I'm not disappointed

Another perfect save note: Whatever you do, don't ask the old inn keeper in Nibelheim (flashback via Kalm) about the situation of the town. If you do, a flag is triggered which will prevent the Aerith ghost from appearing in the church. This effect was most surely unintentional by the designer(s).

To me, it is important that the option to see the ghost is always there.

There was a program written a long time ago to convert PC - ePSXe compatible saves, and various memory card tools allow PAL - NTSC conversion. I once managed to convert a PC save to play on my PAL discs on PS3, but it was no mean feat. Convert to ePSXe style, then convert to PAL (the default is NTSC), then to .mem, then create keys or some shit for the PS3 version.

I'm tempted to play the PAL Disc version again, because the music and sound effects are a tiny bit different due to the slower speed.

Alright, here's an initial list of objectives. It is significantly incomplete, but feel free to point out any glaring oversights and I'll edit them in.

Open every missable chest / collect every missable item

Acquire the maximum amount of all missable items *
- includes chests/bags/"loose" items, purchases, drops and steals
- I don't have any qualms with using the W-Item trick, so one item will suffice in many cases
- at least one non-mastered copy of each materia
- all key items (I'd rather keep the Coupons than exchange them)
- "best" items where a choice has to be made
- use the boss duplication glitch to obtain more copies of unique items (I've never done it before, but if I'm going to use the W-Item glitch, then I should use this too)

Leave all non-missable sidequests, optional bosses etc. untouched

Complete all missable sidequests (as late as possible)
- Fort Condor as many times as possible
- Speed Square on disc one to get the Umbrella
- view every Crystal Fortune (not sure about the value of this)
- Wutai sidequest **
- fight the Turks on the Gelnika

Keep all characters below their maximum safety level *
- lowest is Vincent at 39, but because he doesn't need to be obtained until disc three, the average party level must stay below 36

Obtain every limit break for every character *

Zero escapes *

* These four goals conflict with one another somewhat. Example: I will have to raise money to buy 99 Iron Bangles in Sector 7, which can only be done by fighting at that part of the game. That will give me EXP, raising the levels of my own characters as well as those who join later, including Aeris. She'll then need to kill lots of enemies to get her 2-1 and 3-1 limit breaks, making the situation even worse. And if I go for zero escapes on top of that, it might be impossible to keep every character under their safety level. I'll need to investigate it.

I could give on no escapes without too much hesitation. As I mentioned before, zero isn't the only number of escapes that can be considered perfect (Absolute Steve mentions four figures: 0, 2222, 9999 and 65535).

I could also forget about getting 99 Iron Bangles (etc.) and just go for the minimum equipment necessary to allow each character to equip it, with one extra for the inventory, à la the FFIX E2PG challenge. But that would be a clearly visible loss, unlike Aeris's limit breaks, which would be hidden for most of the game.

I would not want to abandon Aeris's limit breaks, however. Technically, I could leave her with only Healing Wind right up until my final save before Demon's Gate (so long as Great Gospel was in the inventory) and teach her the rest in the Mural Room, but the monsters available to fight at that point would probably give too much EXP to keep the possibility of max HP/MP intact, so it would be better to have her kill the monsters that give the lowest amount of EXP possible (Hedgehog Pies in the church roof, maybe?)

** I'll probably get Yuffie just before going to Midgar on disc two, as that's the latest point that the Wutai sidequest can be taken on. That will allow downloaders to pick up the save file when Tifa is the party leader and recruit her at that point of the game, for example. Boobs! It did occur to me, however, that I will forego the chance of a date with Yuffie by doing that, but I don't know how anyone could objectively argue that the Yuffie date is the best possible outcome, so I'll live with that.

I would use matra magic (or get beta early as I did from the Midgar Zolom) in that tiny back-room of the mythril mines to boost Aerith's limits while minimising EXP gain, that should be fine (they appear in groups of 4 or 5 every time and don't give a high amount of EXP). I did this to get everyone's level 3 limits as early as possible on my last playthrough, but if you're just doing it with Aerith it should be fine.

Even better - kill everyone else and just do that part with solely Aerith, that way no other characters gain EXP.

Also, you can get 99 Iron Bangles using the extended W-Item glitch (making the glitch work on greyed-out items). This works for all missable weapons and armour . So it looks like it's going to be even less grindey than we thought.

In fact, I'm tempted to do this myself now.

Prince Lex said:

Even better - kill everyone else and just do that part with solely Aerith, that way no other characters gain EXP.

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Reserve characters would gain 1/2 EXP, while Aeris's level increases would affect the levels of every character that joined after her.

Also, you can get 99 Iron Bangles using the extended W-Item glitch (making the glitch work on greyed-out items). This works for all missable weapons and armour . So it looks like it's going to be even less grindey than we thought.

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Which version of the extended W-Item glitch would you use for that? I know that weapons can be duplicated with the Throw version, and that the Morph version allows any item that can be obtained through Morph to be duplicated, but neither of those applies to armour. The Steal version might work, but it's entirely luck-based, and I wouldn't want to rely on it.

In fact, I'm tempted to do this myself now.

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Maybe we should collaborate? That way we could split up some of the more tedious tasks.

1.3 Earning Experience

Once a character is classed as a member of your party, they will gain
experience under the following circumstances:

Inside party, not flagged as Dead: XP
Inside party, flagged as Dead: 0
Outside party: [XP/2]
where XP is the total XP count of the monsters killed.


As noted, XP is not divided among the party members, so you are not penalised
on the size of your party.

On top of that, if a party member leaves your entire party such that they can
no longer be chosen in the PHS menu, then they will gain no XP until they
rejoin at a later date. There are a number of story-related events where
this will occur, but usually they're short enough that there's no great loss.

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That's from Terence's Party Mechanics Guide on GameFAQs. But what about before you get PHS? For example, if I choose to level Aeris up on her own in the Shinra Building when she is the party leader, with Barret and Red XIII dead, would Tifa and Cloud get any EXP? Or if I choose to level her up after she first meets Cloud, would Barret and Tifa get any EXP? I'm guessing not, in both cases, but the way that guide is worded doesn't make it clear.

Flintlock said:

For example, if I choose to level Aeris up on her own in the Shinra Building when she is the party leader, with Barret and Red XIII dead, would Tifa and Cloud get any EXP?

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In the scenario when the game shifts to Aeris at the first floor of Shinra HQ, there are no random battles so EXP can not be gained there. I tested out different cases though.

Right before you ascend to the top floor to find the dead President Shinra, my party members were Cloud, Aeris and Tifa. At this point you have no PHS. I then checked their EXP values, then the EXP values of Barret and Red XIII when they entered my party (which is just when I'm about to enter the elevator for two boss battles).

I then re-loaded the save, did a battle with my Cloud|Aeris|Tifa party, and later checked the EXP values of Barret and Red XIII. Their EXP had increased, with 1/2 of what had been received in battle, just as though they had been placed in the PHS.

So in this particular case, the members not in your party gained experience.

However, naturally, a character that is unavailable will not gain EXP no matter what. If you cheat back Aeris into your party at any point after her death, she will have the same EXP value as when you received the spoils from Demon Gate. Cloud does not gain any EXP during his absence on disc 2. EDIT: Also confirmed that Tifa doesn't gain any experience either, when she becomes unavailable.

Or if I choose to level her up after she first meets Cloud, would Barret and Tifa get any EXP? I'm guessing not, in both cases, but the way that guide is worded doesn't make it clear.

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I tested this out just now to make sure and I confirmed that Barret and Tifa DO gain EXP while Cloud is with Aeris. The same effect as before is in place: They gain half the EXP that the main party get from battles.

Shademp said:

In the scenario when the game shifts to Aeris at the first floor of Shinra HQ, there are no random battles so EXP can not be gained there.

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That is not true; I levelled her up when she was the party leader in the community playthrough last year. Or did you test that today as well? If so, what's going on?

Shademp said:

I tested out different cases though...

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Thanks, Shad, you're the best! You didn't need to - I would have done so myself, but just thought I'd ask in case anyone knew the answer. Still, I really appreciate it

Shademp said:

However, naturally, a character that is unavailable will not gain EXP no matter what. If you cheat back Aeris into your party at any point after her death, she will have the same EXP value as when you received the spoils from Demon Gate. Cloud does not gain any EXP during his absence on disc 2. EDIT: Also confirmed that Tifa doesn't gain any experience either, when she becomes unavailable.

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Are those the only three situations when a character is unavailable? How about when the party splits at the Northern Crater? Or when Cloud wakes up and is controllable in Junon, while the other party members wait for him near Priscilla's staircase (as he can leave the town and fight on the world map)? Again, you don't need to go testing these cases out if you don't know the answer, unless you really want to

Flintlock said:

That is not true; I levelled her up when she was the party leader in the community playthrough last year. Or did you test that today as well? If so, what's going on?

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Because we are speaking of two different moments in the game.

Immediately after getting the Aeris|Barret|RedXIII party, before going into the elevator, random battles are available. This must be where you levelled up. Resumes testing... EDIT: I just now confirmed that while Aeris' party gains EXP, so does Cloud. The "1/2 EXP" effect is still in motion. The same is true for Tifa.


However, random battles are not available when the perspective shifts back to Aeris a second time, when you can roam the first, second and third floors of Shinra HQ.

Aha, it hadn't occurred to me that we were talking about separate parts of the game

Flintlock said:

Are those the only three situations when a character is unavailable? How about when the party splits at the Northern Crater?

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Do you mean the moment when you decide which one goes Right, Left-Down or Left-Right?

There is actually a real possibility that at this point, many characters might not receive any EXP at all. I'm finding many instances of "Character X not available". But I'm new to researching these mechanics and we can't be sure until the game is tested.

Flintlock said:

Or when Cloud wakes up and is controllable in Junon, while the other party members wait for him near Priscilla's staircase (as he can leave the town and fight on the world map)? Again, you don't need to go testing these cases out if you don't know the answer, unless you really want to

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I tested this out just now and everyone does, indeed, receive 1/2 EXP. There is no action in the code which makes a character unavailable. The PHS is deactivated, but that does not change which character gets EXP.