Final Fantasy VII/Mako Reactor no. 1

The adventure begins
Welcome to the world of Final Fantasy VII! The introduction doesn't waste much time here&mdash;you get right into the action. At the very beginning, you're controlling an ex-SOLDIER, now employed by AVALANCHE, who gets to try out this newfangled combat interface right on. The first few MPs are not too difficult to deal with: just hit them with regular attacks. The manual gives a lot of interesting tidbits on how to fight, obviously, but it isn't very difficult: choose "Attack" and then the bad guy, and after a few hits the enemy dies. Since you can't use any materia for now, you can just hold the OK button and the game will automatically select attack and the nearest target. After you've defeated the guards, there is a brief introduction to the game; walk up to the fallen guards and hit [OK] (psx: C on PS, Enter on PC) to examine the bodies of the two guards, to scavenge a potion from each [There's a glitch here: you can get 2 potions from one soldier if you press OK on the same soldier twice]. As it looks kind of silly to see our intrepid spiky-haired protagonist walking everywhere when the rest of the eco-terrorists seem to be on run, you may also want to learn how to run while moving: keep [Cancel] (psx: X on PS, Ins on PC) pressed. Learn that, as it makes this purported "100-hour RPG" to be completable in mere 45 hours of play time! ...okay, maybe there's more to it.

Turn right, then left, following Biggs. Notice that if you hit select during battle, you can see the name of the enemies that you're attacking. Go through the door to the bridge, then turn right with the others.

Now you're in the reactor. Talk to Barret, and he joins your party. Talk to Biggs, then Jessie. Once you're in the elevator, go in front of the triangle shaped buttons, and press [OK].

Follow Jessie out of the elevator, and down the long stairwell on the side. You need to go all the way down until you're on solid ground. If you lose track, press Assist (SELECT) to get a cursor above your head.

You'll see a shiny blue object in the area with the golden metal poles. Pick it up, it's a Potion, then continue on down the ladders. Jessie will stay put.

Keep going over a large pipe and you'll see the first save point after a moment. Continue down the long bridge pathway.

Pick up the Restore materia, then check your party's HP and use a tent if it is REALLY low, as you will have your first boss fight in a couple seconds, then go to the gold-colored wheel. Cloud gets a weird vision (I promise this will make sense later)

(Notice the similarity of tactics with the first boss in FF6...)

The boss leaves an Assault Gun, which Barret can use, and is better than his default weapon so equip it. The time bomb is set, and you now have 10 minutes to go back the same way you came.

Along the way, you'll run into Jessie whose foot seems to be stuck. Talk to her and help her to get loose again. If you missed her and get back to the rest of the gang, you still probably have plenty of time to get back and there again. Once you're out, the reactor blows up.

Going to Sector 7? The train just left.
After you escape, you and the rest of the AVALANCHE split up. There isn't much to see here, but you actually do get to meet Aeris for the first time. You don't know her, but she's going to be a really important character later on. You can buy flowers from her if you want to. There is a potion lying on the ground just before the south exit in this area.

When you finally head towards the train station, you get surrounded by soldiers, who, as the beginning of the adventure has shown, are quite trivial to defeat. You can actually choose to avoid fighting them, but since they're easy to defeat and you could garner a few items and Exp, it's probably best to fight them. Eventually, the torrent of clowns ends, and you leap from the bridge to the roof of the passing train, conveniently right on the correct car too.

There isn't terribly much to do aboard the train, just talk to the AVALANCHE members as you see fit. Jessie will show you a computer diagram of the railway system. After you get back to the station, head left, where you find, among other things, a save point. The Sector 7 slums are further to the left.


 * 1) For the sake of clarity, in this guide we're using the default character names for the U.S. version.