Final Fantasy VII/Back to Midgar

More Wisdom from Bugenhagen
The point, as of now, is to go back to the Forgotten Capital with Bugenhagen.

In the Forgotten Capital, you find a lot of Ancients-related stuff - and when you head to the left city parts, you find some sort of round area with a lot of mysterious stuff in the center. Bugenhagen is very interested of it.

After some crypticism, he tells that the key to unlocking this place's mysteries can be found from where the sun doesn't... um... I think it's taken literally this time. Anyway, I think it's best at this point to just go looking for the key yourself; the whole scene here is quite anticlimatic if you just do it by the book. Actually, it's pretty flat either way, but at least you accomplish something.

Still want some direct clues? Submarine. Below sea. Northernmost continent. Secure bay. Hidden underwater cave under the continental shelf. Key to the Ancients.

As you return, Bugenhagen shows you some more of the amazing cutscene videos.

As you leave, Cait Sith calls. Apparently, Shin-Ra has moved the Junon cannon to Midgar. So that's what was missing from Junon.

Big thing's coming this way!
As you leave for Highwind, something BIG shows up. A gigantic big Weapon appears out of nowhere and heads toward Midgar!

Not a big deal. Just head to the shore, wait for the Weapon to get there, and...

Good grief! In the longish video that follows, the Northern Crater barrier gets shot. And looks like Shin-Ra is busy with their own troubles. Let's head to Northern Crater!

...oops! Darn! Looks like Hojo is finally going crazy. (Who would have guessed?) The next step is to parachute in Midgar and fry Hojo before he does something dumb.

...but before we get to that...
Note: This is your absolute last chance to do most of the stuff that needs to be done in Disc 2. This includes...


 * Wutai sidequests

It's also a good time to make sure you have done the following, though they can (and should, unless you're in a terrible pinch) be left to do in Disc 3 too:
 * Raised Chocobos and got the 4 hidden materia
 * Obtained Omnislash, W-Summon and Final Attack from the Battle Arena
 * Get the maximum limit breaks for all your characters

You can take on Ultimate Weapon now if you want to, however, note that if the thing flies over Midgar, you end up to Midgar instead of fighting the thing (so it's better to save each time before you start bumping it).

Commandos in Midgar
As you reach Midgar, the city is under martial law, so, to borrow an action movie cliché, "I guess we gonna have to jump!"

Cait Sith is telling where to go from here - You need to use the tunnels. The side street with the manhole has a save point.

After you go down, you end up in a really big room with lots of pipes and ladders. This place is somewhat confusing, but wandering around here shouldn't be too difficult - just remember that the only way to get to some places is through a platform, ventilation pipe or a ladder somewhere else. The treasure chests here are green. You can, among other things, pick up Aegis Armlet, 2 x Elixir, Megalixir, Starlight Phone (for Cait Sith), and Max Ray (for Barret).

There's a save point next to the duct that leads out. You end up in the tunnels. Now, I highly recommend going downward from here - eight intersections down is a really long way, but you can get some cool stuff, like Power, Guard, Mind and Magic sources, and most importantly, the unique W-Item materia at the very end of the tunnel with the save point. The only bad thing about the place is that there's tons of Shadow Maker enemies here - you can find Turbo Ethers from them, but the annoying thing about them is that they have really slow attacks, and they also make your party quite slow too! The journey down will take forever!

Once you go up from the rails section where you came through, the Turks will appear. If you did the Yuffie subquests, they give you the option to not to fight them.


 * Todo: Stats in the not so unlikely case it's unavoidable...

Up from there, there's two passages. The farthest up one leads back to the Shin-Ra building, and if you missed the Turtle's Paradise poster earlier, now it's the time to go read it - it's on the first floor lobby, on the farthest wall. You won't get another chance in the game! There's not much else to do in the building, except perhaps go pick up other things you missed earlier.

The second underground passage takes you to the Sister Ray. Well, it would, if Scarlet, mad about losing the Sister Ray, would try to restrain herself from coming up with some more weapon names. So here's Scarlet's and Heidegger's new toy...

Head up. There's two boxes here with Mystile and Elixir, and a savepoint. Then, up the ladder! If Barret is in your party, you can find the Missing Score here, which is Barret's best weapon - the box isn't here if he isn't in the party.

Up in the uppermost platform, we find this mad scientist, who, like any mad scientists, injects himself with "my beautiful creation, mwahahaha" and turns into a hideous monster.

The following boss fight is done in a single fight. This is going to be a long fight with tons of different creatures and Hojo's forms, so whatever you do, don't waste Knights of Round on his first form. (If you have Knights of Round, I suggest not using it at all - this is probably simple enough to do in any case - or saving it for the last of the three forms. Or you may waste it on the first form if you're really sure you can take the latter two without it...)

Hojo is dead, Scarlet and Heidegger are stuck in a wreck, Turks scattered, and Rufus presumably perished in the Weapon attack (I don't want to spoil things, but I say emphasis on presumably). Thus, Shin-Ra is no more. (But you can't really kill a corporation, at least without tons of paperwork, now can you?)

A longish cutscene follows - and that concludes the CD 2 of Final Fantasy VII. The adventure continues in CD 3, The Formerly Missing Non-Linear Game Experience, included with your copy of Final Fantasy VII.