Final Fantasy VII - Part 12 Supplied by Keeks Continued from Issue 74 5. Junon Town Attacked ---------------------- When you come to, you'll find yourself incarcerated back in Junon Town. Without Cloud, you'll be taking control of Barett and Tifa for most of this section. As Tifa, talk to Barett. Rufus and Haidekka will show up. Now that you're in control of Barett, follow Tifa as the guards take her away (don't miss the Save Point), and prepare to execute her. Once Junon Town is attacked by the freed Weapon, one of the Shin- Ra officials knocks out Sukaaretto. It's turns out to be none other than Cait Sith, who helps Barett fight the two soldiers who are guarding him. xxxx LV: 34 HP: 1300 MP: 100 xxxx LV: 34 HP: 1300 MP: 100 Physical attacks will do the trick here, although you can control them if you want. If this battle gives you trouble, you need to gain some levels at some point in the game. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Notice how the guard will run away and disappear after the battle? I guess that glitch went unnoticed...anyway, examine the door in the lower right corner of the screen and use the controls or the OK button to make Barett try to pull it open. An FMV sequence follows in which the Sister Ray is readied and Junon Town prepares to engage the approaching Weapon. When it collides with the city, gas starts pumping into the chamber Tifa is trapped in. When you're in control of Barett, go and talk to Cait Sith. Then go out the door and when it closes, head right, then out the door. Outside, head down the road. If you got Yuffie, she'll be here masquerading as a newscaster; talk to her and continue to your left. Once the Weapon has risen out of the water, continue to the left until you arrive at the Airport. Then, run to the centre platform and examine the yellow box to be lifted to the upper level. From there, continue towards the airship by heading right. When you're in control of Tifa again, you have to pick up the key on the ground so you can free yourself from the gas chamber. Your controls are: Switch (s) Move right arm Cancel (x) Move feet Ok (0) Move left arm Menu (t) Move Tifa's head You'll need to press the buttons in this order: X, X, T, X+T, T+O, O. (Or, press X, X, T, X+T, T+S, S if you want to free her other hand instead...it makes no difference). Pressing them has the following effect: When you press X, Tifa will stretch out her legs. Pressing X a second time makes her drag the key towards her. Then press T to sit back in the chair. Then press T and X at the same time (you don't need to hold them, just press them), and she'll lift the key up with her feet and take hold of it with her teeth at the same time. After that, T+O together will make her free her arm using the key. Finally, press O so that she can grab the key and use it to release her other arm. Feel free to take your time doing this since waiting around won't do anything to you (Tifa's invincible! Mwa, ha ha!!) Examine the back of the room by the left side of the chair to shut off the gas, then examine the door. After the monster provides you with an exit, climb outside and work your way down the front of the tower (don't worry about the guards). When you reach the bottom, head toward the upper left corner of the screen (the cursor will appear to help you keep track of your location, but you can disable it if you want). In the next screen, make your way down to the front most cylinder of the cannon, then press up to go along the front of it and end up on the cannon barrel itself (this can be a little tricky). Just as you reach the edge of the cannon, Scarlet arrives. She'll start slapping you, so press the O button to slap back (go Tifa, go)! If you're fast enough, you'll slap her to the floor after 5-6 good hits. If she gets in more slaps, you get knocked over. Despite the outcome of the 'fight', Tifa will still be rescued by Barett in the Highwind. Once in the airship, head to the cockpit where you'll talk with Cid. When he finishes, talk to Red 13 and Cid again, then chat with the man piloting the airship. After that, go to the room marked 'Operations' and talk to the man there. He will let you assemble a new group with Tifa as the leader. From this point onward, you can return to this room and talk with the man to activate PHS, restore your HP and MP, or save your game. Now that you have a party, return to the cockpit and talk to the man again. Choose the top option, and you can control the Highwind! Notice that your other vehicles (the Gold Saucer vehicle and Cid's aeroplane) are gone for good. BTW, you enter the Highwind by pressing Ok when you're close to it (like other vehicles). To gain control of it again, just talk to the man at the wheel and pick the top option. At this point, you'll probably want to look around and go to various places. However, you can only land on _green, grassy_ ground, and nowhere else, which limits the areas you can explore (this doesn't include the canyon floor on the Northern Continent). There are two areas you can now reach with the Highwind. The first one is a cave with a sleeping man that's just beyond the mountain range near Midgar City (you can go here with the Buggy, but since you no longer have it, you'll have to use the Highwind). Also, there's a house to the right of Icicle Lodge, you can talk to the green Chocobo inside to get a free Enemy Skill Materia, and the purple geezer who lives here will sell you various chocobo foods. Finally, if you return to the Chocobo Farm, you'll find a purple materia (Chocobo Attract) near the edge of the now-empty Chocobo pen. From now on, you can breed Chocobos here. If you look, there's a lake near Junon now (I thought this didn't appear until Disc 3 *sheepish grin*) There's also a barrier surrounding the Crater, and of course, a huge meteor is hanging in the sky (the result of Sephiroth casting Meteor via the Black Materia). A lot of places now sell different items, among them Junon Town*, Condor Fort, Costa Del Sol, and Rocket Town, for example. There's also some new treasure to be found in Rocket Town: there's a chest with a Force Brace in the store that sells accessories, in the back of the adjoining room. And if you didn't get the Sword from the old man in Disc 1, you can get it now. * In very last area of Junon, there's a man standing out in the middle of the road. If you talk to him and choose the bottom option, nothing happens. But if you choose the top option, the Shin- Ra helicopter lands and you're given another choice. Pick the top option and you can ride it back to the first area of Junon Town! If you choose the bottom option, you'll be flown back out to the World Map. Finally, keep in mind that there are some things that Tifa can't do, like enter the Gold Saucer or play the piano in her house in Nivelheim. Ditto with Cid, who becomes the leader during the next section (keep reading). 6. Where's Cloud/North Corel Express ------------------------------------ Get in the Highwind and fly to the Southern Continent. Look around until you spot a forest with a small village nearby. Land in the grass, and enter the village, Mideel. Look around, and be sure to do some shopping; the items here are expensive, but well worth your money. When you're done, go to the weapon shop and examine the door in the back of the room. You will try to knock on it. Go outside and climb up the stairs, then walk along the floorboards behind the house where you can buy accessories. You should hear a sound. If you press OK to examine the floor, you'll receive a message. Return to the weapon shop and examine the door in the back again. When an option appears, select the top choice. You'll mess around with the door. When the shopkeeper asks what's going on, pick the bottom option, and he'll give you the Cursed Ring accessory. (If you want to see your character act funny, pick the top option instead--works better with Tifa than with anyone else, IMO. Of course, you'll have to reset and try again if you want the Cursed Ring.) When you try to explore the north end of the town, Tifa automatically goes over to the cat in the middle of the screen. While playing with it she hears that a strange man has been brought to the hospital--inside is none other than Cloud, who survived the blast of energy back at the Crater. However, he's nothing more than a vegetable now. Tifa insists on staying by his side. Back at the Highwind, Cait Sith reveals that the Shin-Ra are hunting for the four Huge Materia, which they plan to use in order to destroy the Meteor before it crashes into the Earth. Barett gets distressed when he learns that the Shin-Ra plan to destroy North Corel in order to get the Huge Materia, then Cid declares himself the new party leader! Despite his dorky running style, Cid makes a good front man. Once you're able to control him, go to the Operations room and make a new team. Before you go anywhere else, land and return to Mideel. You can now check out the house in the middle of the town, where an old man sits petting his cat. There's a large green item on the man's bed (an Elixir). If you try to leave, the cat turns out to be a ferocious dog! When an option appears, pick the top one to admit that you took the Elixir. However, the man will let you keep it. On the other hand, if you pick the bottom option, Cid will feign innocence, until the old man tells him that he took his Elixir. Either way, you still get the item. There's nothing else to do here (at least for now, anyways), so leave the town behind and board the Highwind (notice how Cid mentions the Condor Fort). At this point in the game, two of the four Huge Materia sub- quests are available to you: you can either get the Huge Materia in North Corel, or get the one at Condor Fort. The choice is yours. If you want the one in North Corel first, keep reading. If you'd rather pick up the one at Condor Fort first, skip to section 7 below. Remember, you DON'T have to succeed at Huge Materia Quests; in fact, you can lose all four and still proceed with the game (if you decide to do this, just ignore any mention of Huge Materia for the remainder of the walktru). Ready to go? The next thing you have to do is stop a train from smashing into the town of North Corel. You can pilot the Highwind to two places; North Corel, and then work your way back through the old train tracks to the Mako furnace, or you can land at the nearby cave-like entrance that leads to the furnace and take the train from there. Either way, you'll still have to do a bit of walking, so it's up to you (check out sections 14 + 15 on disk 1 if you don't remember what I'm talking about). Anyway, once you reach the furnace, head to the centre and you'll be attacked by some Shin-Ra guards (easy to defeat). After you do them in, a train will leave the furnace. What you have to do is catch up with it before it rams into North Corel. The next scene finds you and your companions on a train trying to catch up to the Shin-Ra train. Remember the digit-damaging fun you had back at the Frozen Mountain? Well, this time, it's worse. You have to press Up and the Menu button in a steady, yet _extremely_ fast motion to make Cid pull the levers of the train so that you can catch up to the Shinra train. Even worse, there's a time limit--you have to reach the train, board it, kill the enemies on board, and stop it all within 10 minutes. If you practice, you should be able to catch up to the train in about 23-30 seconds, but remember that you'll need about 4 minutes, at best, to beat the enemies on board, so work quickly. You fight monsters each time you leap to a new train car, (five battles in all) and while they're relatively easy to win, they do take up your time. If you have learned it by now, Remove can be used in the first two battles for a quick win. If you're low on time, don't use Summon Materia because the counter still decreases during the casting (which usually takes some time). Assuming you get to the locomotive with time remaining, wait for the conversation between Cid and your other characters to stop. You can now do the following; press up + Menu to slow the train, or down + Cancel to speed it up. Once Cid grabs the controls, press: Up + Menu, Down + Cancel, Down + Cancel or: Down + Cancel, Down + Cancel, Down + cancel You can't enter either command while your buddies are talking to you, so skip through the conversations when they occur. The train will speed up, but will slow just as it reaches the town, if you've done it correctly. If you stop the train in time, you get a Key Item (the Huge Materia), and a little boy gives you a green materia (Ultima). The next morning, go to the house below the inn and a lady in a hat will give you Barett's Level 4 Limit Break Manual. If you messed up, then the train runs straight through North Corel. You don't get the Huge Materia, and if you want the Ultima materia, you'll have to buy it from the same kid for 50,000 gil. However, you can still get the manual from the lady in the hat and spend some free time at the inn ;P. So, it's really in your best interest to save the town. More next issue - o -