Chocobo Ranch, the Marshes, and the Mythril Mines

Final Fantasy VII Guide - Walkthrough

Chocobo Ranch, the Marshes, and the Mythril Mines

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|| Treasure:  | Choco/Mog Materia, Chocobo Lure Materia, Long Range Materia,  ||
||------------| Ether, Tent, Mind Source, Elixir, Hi-Potion.                  ||
|| Fort Condor|                                                               ||
|| Treasure:  | Magic Comb.                                                   ||
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Head east until you see a Ranch, this is THE Chocobo Ranch. Enter. Talk to the chocobo and answer 'Wark'. You'll get a little cute dance show that you'll probably only enjoy if you're a girl (no offense ladies!), but what this is really about is the Choco/Mog summon Materia you get! Head inside the house and talk to the man, who apparently calls himself Choco Bill. He has some information about the Marshes. You can also sleep here for 100 gil. Head outside and to the right to enter the stables. Talk to Choco Billy here. He'll give you all the information you need to catch a Chocobo..and because he's so nice, he'll sell you the Chocobo Lure Materia for 2000 gil only, an exclusive offer! Also buy a bunch of (cheap) greens. Exit the place and equip the chocobo lure on someone. Keep walking near the chocobo tracks and you'll soon get a battle with one. Feed it one of the greens and make sure it keeps eating while you kill off the other creatures. When the creatures are defeated, the chocobo is yours. It's also possible to do this without greens, it's just a little harder. Just don't ever attack the chocobo! Now, with the chocobo, you can easily outrun the Midgar Zolom and reach the Mythril Mines on the other side.

Note: You can also get to the other side of the Marshes by just walking in, then save, and load. Every time you load the Zolom will be located somewhere else, away from you, so you can walk a bit again, then save/load again. I suggest you do this on a special/different save game, to ensure safety..

You can also outrun the Zolom by yourself, if the Zolom is going to the far western part start running to the caves. It's possible to make it without him catching you, but it may take a few tries. Furthermore, the Zolom never really dies. They will just keep coming in the marshes.

(Perfect Game Note 7:)
If you get the L4 Suicide skill now it will save you alot of trouble later.

(Optional: Getting 3 extra Enemy Skills)
You don't have to do this, not at all. If you don't want to, skip ahead to the Mythril Mines. The first Enemy Skill you can get is L4 Suicide, which is gotten from the small mole-like creatures called Mu. They can be pretty uncommon. Be careful that not all your character's levels can be divided by four (L.12, 16, 20, etc), or you might get yourself killed, since the skill causes critical damage and Mini to everyone with a level dividable of 4. Note that it can take a very long time before they actually use the attack..
You can now also get the Enemy Skill Chocobuckle, but this one's harder to get.  Buy at least one Mimett Greens, and save your game. Get into a battle with a chocobo, and sense it to check if it's Level 16. If not, try and get another battle until it's Level 16. When it is, use the Mimett Green on it, and then the L4 Suicide skill. The Chocobo will counter with Chocobuckle.

Before you read on: Warning. This can frustrate you. It's absolutely not necessary to get this skill right now, and it'll probably leave no challenge for the rest of the game, so do this at your own risk. It's also extremely difficult to do it.

This video shows how to deal with the Midgar Zolom with a regular party, and even get the nasty Beta enemy skill from it. This video includes the set-up, and of course the fight itself.

The last Enemy Skill you can get is Beta.. from the Midgar Zolom. This is by far the hardest to get right now, and it takes alot of preparation and planning.

Strategy 1: Get Aeris into your party and give her an Enemy Skill Materia with ----------- Matra Magic. You may want to learn her 3-1 Limit Break, Planet Protector, which puts your party into the peerless status for a short while..  which is the same thing as invulnerability. In the Mythril Mines, you'll often come across enemy groups of 4-5 in one battle. Have Aeris wipe them out with Matra Magic. After approx 30 battles or-so, she should learn Planet Protector.

Save your game before attempting. During the battle with the Midgar Zolom, keep track of his HP. Don't make it fall below 1500. Use Graviballs (or poison) to whack his HP. When it's close to 1500, use Planet Protector with Aeris, and pummel away. It should cast Beta, and in the peerless status you will survive.  Just cast Beta back at him to end the battle.

Strategy 2: You MUST have the Elemental Materia. Unequip all materia and accessories, and check in the status screen which character has the highest HP and Spirit. Give that character the Talisman accessory and your best armor (should be the Carbon Bangle). Give that character the Elemental-Fire combination in the ARMOR. Also give it the Enemy Skill materia, and Steal Materia (for extra speed). Don't give it any other Materia as most of them will lower the HP. Of the two remaining characters, give the one with the highest Magic stat the Poison Materia and Choco/Mog. Give the last character at least the Restore Materia. Put all your characters in the back row. Your other two characters should also have the Carbon Bangle to increase some defense. Get into a random encounter and get all three character's their Limit Breaks up. Also give your characters Tranquilizers to put them into Sadness. While this will halve their Limit Break Bar Speed (which doesn't matter since you just filled them up), this also reduces the damage taken from many attacks by approx 30.86%.  That will definitely help. After saving your game, you're ready to fight.

Immediately go to Items and use any Graviballs you have. The first does a whopping of 1000, the second 750. Don't select a Limit Break before both Graviballs have been thrown. Limit Breaks are done first otherwise. Graviball is basically Demi, and causes ¼ of the creature's current HP. If you don't have Graviballs, use your Limit Breaks right away. Keep track of the Zolom's HP! It starts with 4000. When it drops under 1500, it will counter attack with Beta right away, so you must make sure that the character holding the Enemy Skill is absolutely fully healed at that time. After the Limit Breaks, keep on casting Bio and use the Choco/Mog Summon, but be careful: Don't attack it anymore with the character holding the Enemy Skill when the Zolom falls (almost) under 2000 HP, or they might get blown out of battle. Poison it when it's got near, but still over 1500 HP, and wait until it gets damaged over and over again. This way, it can't counter with Beta. When it's got about 200 life left(keep track of the HP yourself!), attack it. It will counter with Beta and die right after it due to poison damage.  Oh, and don't think this is easy; Again, it's not. It's in fact extremely hard. When you're done, don't forget to adjust your party again (front/back row, Materia etc).
(End of Optional part)

Now for the Mythril Mines. When you get near, you'll get to see another Midgar Zolom..and I think you might enjoy the scene if you did the optional part..  Enter the cave. Head to the right part. Ark Dragons can be found here which use Flame Thrower, yet another Enemy Skill. This one's easy though.. don't trust me anymore after all the previous..? Anyway, you can climb the vines on the left wall to reach the Long Range Materia. it's very useful, so equip it on someone.  The one who has it equipped can always attack from long ranges, doing the same damage, and can even attack high floating enemies. Put that character in the back. It's useless for Barret though (unless he has a non-long range weapon, like the Atomic Scissors!). Climb the stone steps and grab the Ether on the right and a Tent from the chest. Go back to the first area.

In this area, you can steal a Grand Glove from Madouge (the guys swinging a ball above their head). This is by far the best weapon for Tifa at this point of the game. Head down, and to the lower right, grab the Mind Source from the chest.
Now head all the way to the left to enter a new area, and watch the scene. After the scene, head up first. Here, grab an Elixir from the chest, and a Hi- Potion a bit more up. Go back, and exit the cave by the left.
Now you can go straight to Junon, or you can check out Fort Condor, and get Yuffie, a new (optional) character. If you don't want to for some reason, skip ahead to Junon.

(Perfect Game Note 8:)
From now on, Fort Condor Battle notes will be placed in the walkthrough too, so you won't miss any. On another note, win them all. Losing one means losing a treasure sooner or later. If you want a 100% Treasure Perfect Game, win ALL battles, (except the very last one, but that's a different story). If you don't care about 100% Treasure, but just want to go for all (max) items, lose the first three battles so you can get a Vagyrisk Claw from Cmd. Grand Horn Every time. You will fight him when you lose. Either way, Battle 1 can be done now.  The prize is a Magic Comb.

Fort Condor is the blue place with the huge golden bird on top, visible when you exit the Mythril Mines. Go ahead and enter. Answer that you'll help them. Go inside and climb your way up. Talk to the old man sitting at the table and hear him out. Help them. You can sleep below for free, and buy items at the shops above. They sell.. crap basically. Go to the left part and climb up. Here, talk to the guy who will explain you just about everything about the Fort Condor Battles. It's like a small strategy game. You can also fund them, but that's not necessary. When you're ready, say so.

You can win any Fort Condor battle really quickly and easy. All you have to do is place 1 soldier (as low as possible) before beginning the battle, then start the battle. Move the battle speed up to the max by pressing R1, and place a soldier below the other one. There's a red 'laser' line that will tell you where you can place your soldiers. It's basically your territory. Every time you place a soldier near that line, the line will drop again. Repeat until you're basically at the enemies below, and place a bunch of other soldiers to quickly kill them off, and secure both ways. You won't have to fight any other enemies if you're fast enough, and you'll have won the battle. Of course, if you want to play 'fair', you can also just make a real army. The more the better, really.  The prize for this first battle is a Magic Comb, a weapon for Red XIII, with DOUBLE materia growth, and alot of attack power! Basically, a great weapon. Put materia in it that you want to have leveled up quicker.

A mysterious ninja? The fight isn't all that hard, but who is she? Read more about her in the paragraphs to follow...

When you're done, go back to the World Map and head West/Northwest. If you want to get Yuffie, walk around a long time in the forests here, until you come to battle a Mystery Ninja. Beat her, and go though the dialog like this: NEVER enter the menu, and NEVER use the save point. Talk to her and answer:
“Not Interested”
“......petrified”
“Wait a second!”
“......That's right”
“......Let's hurry on”

Now you'll name her (Yuffie) and she'll be part of your party! Forever! Not sure if you're going to like her personality though ..heh. ;) If you make a mistake or enter the Menu, Yuffie will steal a sum of money from you, and vanish.

Yuffie comes with the Throw Materia, that allows you to throw stuff at enemies to cause damage (and later throw money). You can give it to someone else if you like, or start using Yuffie(she's also a long range character, which gives her a pretty big advantage over others). Put her in the back row. You can steal a Boomerang from the Formula (purple/pink birds) enemy. It's a good weapon for Yuffie.

Now head all the way to the west until you reach something that looks like a large cannon. That's Junon, which may be difficult to see when you need to find it the first time around. Enter.