Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Infiltrating Shin-Ra HQ

59th floor: Guards! Guards!

There isn't much to see here. Beat up the guards before they make much of a rukus and grab their Keycard 60. The robot guards are very susceptible to Lightning but Ice works pretty well too; give each party character Lightning materia, hammer away with it, and you can kill each of the guards in one turn. If you don't have enough Lightning materia, at least equip one person with a Lightning + All combination so that you get a good spread on your first hit, then just Lightning/Ice/Assault Gun and you can still normally take the guards out in one turn.

60th floor: Metal Shinracrud Solid

Time to sneak past guards! Head to the room on the left. Open the door, head to the statue when the guards aren't looking (you can move to the first statue no matter what the guards are doing). Then, when the guards aren't looking, scoot across the gap between the pillars, one at a time, until you reach the middle and Cloud leaves your control. At this point, you use [OK] to let Barret and then Tifa know when it's safe to cross a gap. Remember, anytime the guards aren't standing still they aren't looking! Then, do the same process for the right side of the room, note that the distances are shorter and the guards run now. Be careful, Snake. I mean, Cloud.

If you get seen, the guards will attack from both sides. In that case, use Bolts or Bolt/Ice/Gun again. Luckily, if you absolutely don't manage to get through with five tries or so, the torrent of guards will eventually end... The team isn't very happy about this, but at least you tried!

61st floor: Bar of the Fools

This is the employee lounge or something. Luckily, the door is busted so you won't need a keycard to get to this floor. Once inside, talk to every people in the room. If you don't show yourself to be a complete idiot by talking about Aerith, you get a Keycard 62 for your trouble.

62nd floor: My Librarian, My Mayor

The Mayor will help you if you manage to solve his riddle.

So here goes, solution to the riddle: Look at each library room. Each room contains books on certain topics (read the signs on the doors). Each room has two shelves. Each shelf has two books, stored on the ends of the shelf. Your task is to find the book that doesn't belong in the room in question. (For example, "5 Reactor Construction Chart" that has somehow been filed to, say, urban planning library.) Then, count to the indicated letter, ignoring spaces and punctuation and such, from the beginning. Make note. (In the example, "T") Arrange all four letters to a word.

Mayor will give you Keycard 65 for guessing right eventually, and an Elemental materia if you guess right at the first try.

63rd floor: Warehouse of goodies

This floor is optional; if you want, you can leave this for CD2 when you return to Midgar. You can do this now to get some helpful stuff though.

Once you reach this floor, go to the door access computer below where you come in. It will give you the ability to open three doors on this floor. If you choose the top-most door you have access to, then the second door you pass to the south, you can get the coupon in one of the rooms. From there, jump into the air ducts and make your way to another room containing a coupon. Exit this room, and open the door to the left to get to the last coupon room. Afterwards, jump into the air ducts again and go back to the door access room again. Tell the computer you want to trade in your coupons, and you will be rewarded with a Star Pendant accessory that protects against Poison, a Four Slots armor that holds four individual materia, and an All materia.

If you make a mistake and open up the wrong doors, go back to the door access machine to reset the doors. Remember, once you turn in your coupons, the doors won't reset anymore!

64th floor: Not another gym?

You can rest and save here.

65th floor: Exhibition behind locked doors

There's a big Midgar model in the middle. One of the chests contains "Midgar parts". Insert the piece to the model in its appropriate place, and another chest will open. Repeat this until the last chest unlocks. It contains Keycard 66.

66th floor: Why is everybody talking of the bathroom?

As you get in, you note that President, Heidegger, Scarlet, and other people are gathering in the big meeting room. Obviously, it's not really wise to barge in. Most of the folks here seem to have some sort of bathroom obsession. So, head to the bathroom.

Use the ceiling grate to get to the ventilation shaft, which just happens to be above the meeting room. Cutscene ensues. Listen patiently.

As the meeting ends and you crawl back, you see Hojo leaving to the floor above.

67th floor: Mad science!

Here, you see Hojo adoring his new specimen, and he goes to the floor above using the elevator. While Tifa seems preoccupied with the cute specimen, Cloud gets freaked out by remains of Jenova, who seems to be locked up in the other container. Not much you can do about it - head north, save if you want, then up.

A brief cutscene ensues. Summary: Specimen up. Barret mad. Specimen pounce Hojo. Aerith safe. (Select who will take care of her.) The specimen (whom I shall henceforth call Red XIII, in honor of Hojo's insanity) has a name which you surely do get to pick. Red XIII is also armed with some free Materia.

Another specimen shows up, and you need to fight it. For this fight, your party has Cloud, whoever you didn't send away with Aerith, and Red XIII.

Sample: HO512

Lv: 19, HP: 1000, MP: 120, Weaknesses: -, Strong against: Bolt, Gravity, Absorbs: Poison

Don't pay attention to the HO512-opt flunkies, the boss will just revive them. Besides, they won't be able to hurt you too bad. HO512 will poison your party, so equip someone with the Star Pendant you found earlier. I would recommend Barret in your party since he's the only character with a long range weapon at this point. This fight is pretty easy. Just pound the guy into submission.

After beating HO512, run around the floor and steal Carbon Bangles from "Moth Slashers" (the blue chain saw looking things) and steal the Hardedge for Cloud from "Soldier: 3rd" (the blue soldiers, who can give you a serious beating, but the Hardedge is worth it at this point in the game).

Escape from the Shinra Building

Time to get out! But just as you enter the elevator, this bald guy, whom you will henceforth know as Rude, stops you. Seems that he and the Shin-ra security folks have captured you and the rest of the team.

Some cutscenery later - where you get to meet President Shinra in person - you find yourself in prison. Kill time.

As you wake up, we find out a few alarming things: Jenova is missing from the containment. Tail of blood leads up. President Shinra has a big honkin' sword on his back. Palmer spooked because he saw Sephiroth come and kill the President.

Rufus waits you outside. Talk forth.

Basically, there's now two battles to deal with. You get careful options and time to prepare the battles if you play your cards right.

The Elevator fight

The first battle is done by Aeris, Barret and Red XIII. You get to remove Cloud's and Tifa's materia first. Re-equip. I recommend a good dose of Lightning materia (hey, we're still in Shinra building!) and Restore as well. You definitely need to have good spells on both Red XIII and Aerith.

Enter the elevator, and boom... Well, let's just say, this is one of those battles that make skeptics love this game. A battle in the freaking elevator. The following two bosses will be fought immediately after each other, so you don't get any chance to rest or change equipment between them.

Hundred Gunner

Lv: 18, HP: 1600, MP: 0, Weaknesses: Lightning, Strong against: Gravity, Absorbs: -

Pound Hundred Gunner with everything you have. The quicker you get rid of him, the better as his attacks get stronger as the fight goes on. This is a long-range fight; physical attacks from anyone besides Barret are thus likely to fail. Equip Barret with the Elemental-Lightning combo in his weapon and use standard attacks and have Aerith and Red XIII launch spell after spell (helps to have more than one bolt materia). Red XIII's limit breaks are long-range attacks, so take advantage of them.

Heli Gunner

Lv: 19, HP: 1000, MP: 0, Weaknesses: Lightning, Wind, Strong against: Earth, Absorbs: -

Less HP, but does more damage and attacks more often. Use same strategy as you did for Hundred Gunner, just watch your hit points.

Balcony fight

You get to mess with Cloud's materia and equipment at this point too. Rufus and Cloud talk and talk and talk. And then the time for talks is over.

Rufus

Lv: 21, HP: 500, MP: 0, Weaknesses: -, Strong against: Gravity, Absorbs: -

Rufus is accompanied by a creature known as Dark Nation (lv 18, hp 140, mp 80), who will spend its first four turns putting up a Barrier and MBarrier on Rufus and itself. If you can kill the hound before his second turn, it'll make your life a whole lot easier, but even if you just whack Rufus, you should win pretty easily. One good strategy is to set up Cloud's weapon with a elemental-poison combo that way you have a chance of poisoning Rufus, but both magic and physical attacks work just fine. Few people with any sense of preparation have problems with this fight.

Now, head downstairs. You can save at the savepoint - just remember to do it before you talk to Tifa.

Crazy Motorcycle Chase

And then it's the time to show some surprising thinking. The crew gets in a car, Cloud gets a motorcycle. Time to slam some baddies after you figure out the instructions. Note that this is the chance to rearrange your party for the coming fight and get the materia up correctly.

Also note that if you use PC, I strongly suggest drinking 10 litres of coffee - I cannot recommend illegal/controlled stimulating substances. The following game is was manageable on my P166 with Voodoo1, pretty hellish to play on a Pentium III 600MHz with a GeForce 4; I sure wouldn't want to try this on my Athlon XP 3000+ with the same graphics card! I have heard that there are some unofficial fixes to make this game a bit less... mentally straining. Playstation version is really smooth.

There's really not that much into this game - you can ram the bikes against the railings, or slash them with your sword. Either way, get rid of them before they damage the passengers or cloud too much. Eventually, you end up getting tailed by something really big...

Motor Ball

Lv: 19, HP: 2600, MP: 120, Weaknesses: Lightning, Strong against: Gravity, Fire, Absorbs: -

Damn! Do these bosses ever end? In fact, this is the last one in this escape attempt. The only hard thing about the fight is that the motorcyclists might have managed to inflict some damage on the party members. Another thing is that this fight starts as a back attack - tap shoulder buttons to momentarily run away as soon as the fight starts to make your party face right way. Apart of that, hammering the thing with Bolts should work wonders. You barely need the healing.

Time to adore the view and try to get down. You're finally out of Midgar.

On to...Five years ago, and a Parade for Rufus

Final Fantasy VII Walkthrough
Disc 1 Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | Disc 2 Part 1 2 3 4 5 | Disc 3 Part 1 2