Final Fantasy VII/Flight from Midgar

59th floor: Guards! Guards!
There isn't much to see here. Beat up the guards before they make much of noise and grab their Keycard 60. The robot guards obey Lighting pretty well; give each party character Lightning materia, hammer away with it, and you can kill each of the guards in one turn.

60th floor: Metal Shinracrud Solid
Time to sneak past guards! Head to the room on left. Open the door, head to the statue whe when the guards aren't looking, and likewise minding where the guards are looking go past the gap to next statue, ultimately to the middle section. Then, use OK to signal Barret and Tifa when the guards aren't looking, and they'll run. Then, do the same process for the right side of the room, note that the distances are shorter and the guards run now. Be careful, Snake. I mean, Cloud.

If you get seen, the guards will attack from both sides. In that case, use Bolts 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: Bar of the Fools
This is the employee lounge or something. Luckily, the door is busted so you won't need a keycard to get to this floor. Once inside, talk to every people in the room. If you don't show yourself to be a complete idiot by talking about Aerith, you get a Keycard 62 for your trouble.

62nd floor: My Librarian, My Mayor
The Mayor will help you if you manage to solve his riddle.

So here goes, solution to the riddle: Look at each library room. Each shelf has two books. Find the book that doesn't belong in the room in question. (For example, "5 Reactor Construction Chart".) Then, count to the indicated letter, ignoring spaces and punctuation and such, from the beginning. Make note. (In the example, "T") Arrange all four letters to a word.

Mayor will give you Keycard 65 for guessing right eventually, and an Elemental materia if you guess right at the first try.

63rd floor: Warehouse of goodies
This floor is optional; if you want, you can leave this for CD2 when you return to Midgar. You can do this now to get some helpful stuff though.

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. If you choose the top-most door you have access to, then the second door you pass to the south, you can get the coupon in one of the rooms. From there, jump into the air ducts and make your way to another room containing a coupon. Exit this room, and open the door to the left to get to the last coupon room. Afterwards, jump into the air ducts again and go back to the door access 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.

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: Not another gym?
You can rest and save here.

65th floor: Exhibition behind locked doors
There's a big Midgar model in the middle. One of the chests contains "Midgar parts". Insert the piece to the model, and another chest will open. Continue this until the last chest unlocks. It should have Keycard 66.

66th floor: Why is everybody talking of the bathroom?
As you get in, you note that President, Heidegger, Scarlet, and other people are gathering in the big meeting room. Obviously, it's not really wise to barge in. Most of the folks here seem to have some sort of bathroom obsession. 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.

Later, you see Hojo leaving to the floor above.

67th floor: Mad science!
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 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 up.

A brief cutscene ensues. Summary: Specimen up. Barret mad. Specimen pounce Hojo. Aerith safe. (Select who will take care of her.) The specimen (whom I shall henceforth call Red XIII, in honor of Hojo's insanity) has a name which you surely do get to pick. Red XIII is also 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 Aerith, and Red XIII.

Escape from the Shinra Building
Time to get out! But just as you enter the elevator, this bald guy, whom you will henceforth know as Rude, stops you. And captures you and the rest of the team.

Some cutscenery later, you find yourself in prison. Kill time.

As you wake up, we find out a few alarming things: Jenova is missing from the containment. Tail of blood leads up. President Shinra with a big honkin' sword on his back. Palmer spooked because he saw Sephiroth come and kill the President.

Rufus waits you outside. Talk forth.

Basically, there's now two battles to deal with. You get careful options and time to prepare the battles if you play your cards right.

The 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. I recommend a good dose of Lightning materia (hey, we're still in Shinra building!) and Restore as well. You definitely need to have good spells on both Red XIII and Aerith.

Enter the elevator, and boom... Well, let's just say, this is one of those battles that make skeptics love this game. A battle in the freaking elevator.

And as that boss falls, another tries to take over, but is likewise just as doomed...

Balcony fight
You get to mess with Cloud's materia and equipment at this point too. Rufus and Cloud talk and talk and talk. And then the time for talks is over.

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

Crazy Motorcycle Chase
And then it's the time to show some surprising thinking. The crew gets in a car, Cloud gets a motorcycle. Time to slam some baddies after you figure out the instructions. Note that this is the chance to rearrange your party for the coming fight and get the materia up correctly.

Also note that if you use PC, I strongly suggest drinking 10 litres of coffee - I cannot recommend illegal/controlled stimulating substances. The following game is was manageable on my P166 with Voodoo1, pretty hellish to play on a Pentium III 600MHz with a GeForce 4; I sure wouldn't want to try this on my Athlon XP 3000+ with the same graphics card! I have heard that there are some unofficial fixes to make this game a bit less... mentally straining. Playstation version is really smooth.

There's really not that much into 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...

Time to adore the view and try to get down. You're finally out of Midgar.