Final Fantasy VII/Flight from Midgar

The Shin-Ra building is where you finally get to take someone to task for crushing Sector 7. You'll also pick up a new party member and after escaping, find your way out of Midgar to the overworld map where the rest of the game takes place.

59th floor
There isn't much to see here. Beat up the guards before they make much of a ruckus and grab their Level 60 Keycard. The robot guards are very susceptible to Lightning, but Ice works pretty well too. Give each party member 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
Time to sneak past guards. Head to the room on the left, open the door and head to the statue when the guards aren't looking (you can move to the first statue no matter what the guards are doing). 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 to let Barret and then Tifa know when it's safe to cross a gap. Remember, any time 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, so be careful.

If you get caught, 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
This is the employee lounge or general area. Luckily, the door is busted so you won't need a keycard to get to this floor. Once inside, talk to every person in the room. If you don't talk about Aeris, you get a the Level 62 Keycard for your trouble.

62nd floor
The Mayor will help you if you manage to solve his riddle. Look at each library room. Each room contains books on certain topics (read the signs on the doors). Each room has three 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 the Urban Planning library. When you find the out of place book, count to the indicated letter, ignoring spaces and punctuation and such, from the beginning. In the example, the fifth letter is "T." Arrange all four letters to form a word.

The Mayor will give you the Level 65 Keycard for guessing right eventually, and an Elemental materia if you guess right on the first try. You should equip Elemental+Lightning (in a weapon with linked slots) combination as it will make the character's weapon lightning-based. This gives you an attack bonus for mechanical creatures in the HQ

63rd floor
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.

Go right, then all the way up, then left until you hit a door. Open it. Go left until you hit a second door. Open the door south of this one. Get the item coupon in the room west of the door you just opened. From there, click to jump into the air ducts. Once inside, go up the central duct to another room containing a coupon. Exit this room, and open the door to the west to get to the last item coupon. Afterward, jump into the air ducts again and go back to the first 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, which should be equipped with Restore.

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
Floor 64 is the gym. There are only a couple things here:


 * The room on the far left contains a save point. It will also ask if you want to rest upon entering.


 * In the top left corner of the exercise room, there is a vending machine. It costs 250 gil and whatever should come out, doesn't. If you examine it again, you have the option to bang on it, do it. You will be rewarded when you return on Disc 2.


 * The locker room has a few items in it. To get them, just walk up to the following lockers and press [confirm].
 * First row, third locker from the right: Phoenix Down.
 * Second row, second locker from the right: Ether.
 * Third row, third locker from the left: there is a megaphone that you can't collect yet. This is Cait Sith's Ultimate Weapon, so be sure to get it when you return to Midgar on Disc 2.

65th floor
There's a big Midgar model in the middle, with chests scattered around the level containing the missing "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
As you get in, you note that the President, Heidegger, Scarlet, and other people are gathering in the big meeting room. Obviously, it's not really wise to barge in 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 and going to the floor above.

67th floor
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 the 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 go up.

A brief cutscene ensues, after which you must select who will take care of Aeris. The specimen, Red XIII, is added to your party and comes 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 Aeris, and Red XIII.

After beating HO512, grab the Enemy Skill Materia (it's where Aeris was being held), then run around the floor and steal Carbon Bangles from Moth Slashers (the blue chain saw looking things) and steal the Hardedge for Cloud from Solider: 3rd (the blue soldiers). These soldiers can give you a serious beating, but the Hardedge is worth it at this point in the game.

Captured
Time to get out, but just as you enter the elevator, Rude stops you. After a cutscene, you find yourself in prison. Kill time until you go to sleep. When you wake up, you find out that all hell has broken loose. Jenova is missing from the containment, a trail of blood leads upstairs, President Shin-Ra has a big sword on his back and Palmer is spooked because he saw Sephiroth come and kill the President.

Head outside where Rufus is waiting. He'll talk to you and you get time to set up for the two upcoming battles, which split your party.

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 with some Lightning materia and Restore as well. You definitely need to have good spells on both Red XIII and Aeris.

Enter the elevator, and the battles start. 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.

Balcony fight
You get to mess with Cloud's materia and equipment at this point too. Rufus and Cloud talk for a while, and then the fight begins.

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

Motorcycle chase
Now it's the time to show some surprising thinking. The crew gets in a car, Cloud gets a motorcycle. After you figure out the instructions and take time to organize your party, equipment and Materia, it's time to protect the car from the bad guys.

If you use a modern PC, the following subgame has can be pretty difficult to play on computers with lots of processor and graphics card power, as it has no frame limiter. In other words, it will run as fast as your computer can handle. What was manageable in the Pentium 166MHz era might not exactly be manageable on 4 GHz era. The same also goes for other subgames that you eventually find in this game. If you have any modern system, you should reallyfind the patches now.

There's really not that much to 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. Beat him and you're finally out of Midgar.