Final Fantasy VII/Gold Saucer

Overview
The gold saucer features a special currency known as GP you can win at the wonder square or the Chocobo Races. You can also exchange GP for Gil (the regular FF7 currency) from a man who stays outside the entrance tram. Regular tickets to the gold saucer cost 3000 Gil, and a lifetime pass costs 30,000 Gil. A lifetime pass can also be obtained for 300 GP at the Wonder Square.

You can get easy GP at the entrance to the Gold Saucer. Just take the cable-car as usual from Corel, when you get off look past the save point and you will see a small house with 3 lit windows. Sometimes there will be a man stood to the left of this house who will sell you GP at a rate of 1GP = 100 Gil, but you can only buy the GP in sets of 10 (at a cost of 1000 Gil), and you are limited to buying a maximum of 100GP (at a cost of 10,00 Gil) each time he appears. If you do not see him just keep entering the station and exiting to the entrance again until he appears.

Ghost Square
There's a hotel here, a shop, and a Turtle's Paradise poster for you to read. Your party stays here automatically during one part of the game, but you can stay whenever you like.

Round Square
You take a ride during the date sequence. Useless otherwise, but pretty.

Speed Square
Allows you to play a basic shoot-em up minigame where you shoot targets for points. You are placed in a roller coaster and must shoot all the enemies you see as you progress along the tracks. you're eligible for prizes if you score over 3000. And if you score over 5000 on disc one you will get Aerith's most damaging weapon, The parasol. And if you do the same on disc 2 you will get Cid's best weapon, The flayer.

Event Square
This place is deserted, except during the date when you have the chance to participate in a little play.

It's a mini-play, complete with kings, dragons, and princesses - oh my!

Wonder Square
Play tons of fabulous minigames for prizes, including the Motorcycle chase, Snowboarding and Submarine Hunt minigames. Other games include a basketball shooting game based around timing, a fortune game that gives you clues, a crane game playable for small prizes, and a rock-paper-scissors game that cheats and is virtually impossible to beat. If you play the Mog minigame, the first time you win it the guy standing nearby will give you 30 GP. When Mog makes a sound and jumps after feeding him a few Kupo nuts, it means he has enough of the Kupo nuts and he will be able to fly. You can also exchange some GP for prizes here, including two rare Materia.

Chocobo Square
You can either bet for your favorite chocobo jockeys here, or, if you have chocobos of your own, participate in the races.

For now, see Chocobo guide which covers the racing aspect to some extent. Betting is different.

After you win a couple of races (10? 15?) on the S class you'll receive the following items as a bonus from Ester: Sprint Shoes, Precious Watch, Cat's Bell, Chocobracelet, Counter Attack.

Battle Square
The Battle Square in the Golden Saucer is probably the most rewarding mini-games in FF7. After paying a 10GP registration fee (you can earn GP at Wonder Square and the Chocobo Races) you pick a single character and head of into the arena. There, you fight a gauntlet of up to 8 enemies with increasing difficulty levels. On top of this after each round, if you choose to carry on fighting, you are given a handicap (see handicaps chart) which can make what would normally be an easy battle into an impossible task. After you have completed 8 battles or if you choose to quit between rounds you will receive BP which can be exchanged for prizes, the more severe the handicaps you suffered then the more BP you earn. You will also gain a consolation prize, a "tissue". If, however, you die you will receive none of the BP you earned. Any changes to your HP, MP, Limit Meter, Status, etc. will not carry outside the battle arena, so even if you die you will appear outside with the exact same stats as you came in with. Similarly, you can gain no EXP, AP or Gil in the battle arena.

Prizes
To get prizes, you must exchange BP. The list of possible prizes (and cost) changes twice in the game - first after you finish Rocket Town and get Cid in your party, and then again after you get the Highwind (the airship).

Strategy
If you're going for the big prizes (Omnislash, W-Summon) it is almost universally accepted that you should wait until disc 2 and 3; when the prices are lower and until you're around level 60; so you stand a chance.

It is probably a good idea to do this with Cloud, simply because he will always be your strongest character. If you have them, equip him with Ultima Weapon and a Mystile, if not just find the strongest weapon and armour you have and equip that: don't worry about materia slots (the Ziedrich can be stolen early on from Rude in Gongaga and is a good choice for this). Also, try and get your limit meter up to about 4/5 of the way before you go in (it will then be at 4/5 every time you enter the arena). A ribbon is essential. This done, go to the Golden Saucer and get about 100 gp, I did my time in the battle arena immediately after breeding a golden chocobo and so had plenty of GP from racing, however it shouldn't be a problem to get enough GP in Wonder Square later on the game (when the Sub and Snowboard games are unlocked).

You're now ready to fight, remember that you will lose your BP if you leave Battle Square so this all has to be done in one go. Equip Cloud with as many Counter Attacks, HP Pluses and MP Pluses you have as well as an Enemy Skill with Big Guard and most importantly Slash All (see the materia section and enemy skill section for help with these). When you get inside the arena cast Big Guard straight away and start attacking. By the end you might get into trouble because of handicaps, a broken accessory or weapon can be a thorn in your side so if you find you just aren't doing enough damage raid your inventory for those items you've accumulated in the course of the game, or use Enemy Skill if it isn't broken by now. Heal any status effects you can with items. Use this strategy to build up 32 000 BP and purchase Omnislash. To maximise BP, try and get All Materia broken before the last round, this isn't as bad as it seems when you are mainly using physical attacks and items, Slash All will be disabled but that doesn't matter as there are no groups beyond about round 6.

Once you have Omnislash the Battle Square is easy. Spend any leftover BP on small items and head outside the Golden Saucer, build up your limit meter until you are ready to use Omnislash and then return to Battle Square. This time, all you need is Enemy Skill and Mime, fill whatever space you have left with HP and MP Pluses. Whatever you do, don't equip Counter Attack. In the first battle, cast Big Guard on yourself and then use Omnislash. From then on you can just keep miming Omnislash and wiping everyone out. Hopefully, you have 9999 HP so you should never need to heal, if you do, hold out until the last minute and use an X-Potion - you'll have to use normal attacks after that. Omnislash, at full power, will kill all the enemies in the Battle Arena in one go, if, however, you're weapon gets broken multiple times the damaged can be severely reduced, just keep at it though. You can easily build up enough BP this way to buy W-Summon and anything else you want.

Handicaps
After each round a wheel will spin and when it stops you get a handicap (as in you loose an ability or stat). It is important to understand that the amount of BP you gain from a round depends on what handicaps you get. The worse the handicap you get, the more points, and the later on you get the handicap the more it is worth. It may seem like it is a good thing to get the "No Handicap", however it means you will get less points for the fight.

The points you get for any hanicap in the first six rounds are fairly trivial (all are under 500 points, and most are under 100), so for these you want to get the least damaging handicaps that you can. Even the 7th round handicaps aren't worth that much compared to the 8th round ones (2000 points maximum, most are under 1200). Your best bet is to have very few handicaps for the first seven rounds (though losing items or summons won't kill you if you're properly prepared), and then for the last round loose your green materia (~9500 points). If you are properly healed up (and leveled up) you can beat the 8th round with only your weapon; a limit break if you time it correctly. Losing all materia in the 8th round is only worth 10000 points, so it isn't really worth it and at no point is it worth it to have your weapon break.

Equipment breaks - The associated piece of equipment is disabled and cannot be restored until after the fight
 * No Item
 * No Weapon - your strength alone determines your attack power - at level 99 Cloud will do about 300 damage; fortunately Omnislash still does non-trivial damage
 * No Armor - your vitality alone determines damage - this is surprisingly not that bad, especially if you can still heal
 * No Accessory - kiss your ribbon goodbye

No Materia - the associated color materia(s) are disabled. The loss of red and blue aren't that bad usually, and the loss of green or yellow means having to rely on more basic attacks and using alternative skills for healing but is generally survivable. The loss of purple can be devastating as it means your HP Plus, MP Plus, and Counter Attack.
 * No Red
 * No Yellow
 * No Blue
 * No Green
 * No Purple
 * No Materia (all five are broken)

Halvers - cuts your maximum HP and/or MP, so you can't restore it afterwards. HP and MP plus materias can help alivite the impact of these
 * 1/2 HP&MP
 * 1/2 HP
 * 1/2 MP

Misc. damage - these affect your HP & MP, but not the maximum so you can restore yourself
 * 0 MP - drops your MP to zero, so use an ether to restore a little bit and then use Magic Hammer to drain your enemy's MP (if you can go a few rounds without being slaughtered)
 * x30 Time - loss of HP is based on in-game timer

Level drops - loose the associated stats (but not MP or HP), you won't really notice the difference unless you get these handicaps three or four times
 * Down 5 Levels
 * Down 10 Levels

Status aliments - casts the specific aliment on you - can be blocked with a ribbon
 * Frog
 * Mini
 * Poison
 * 1/2 Speed (same as slow)

Beneficial - the good news is that nothing bad happens to you, the bad news is that nothing good happens to you BP
 * Lucky 7 (no penalty)
 * Cure (full cure)

A Dame to Kill For
The woman outside the Battle Square says she likes Fighters, but not those who are all talk. To prove her otherwise go into the arena and do a full gauntlet of eight enemies. If you talk to the woman again, she will give you the Sprint Shoes accessory.

Special Battle
If you have Omnislash, W-Summon and Ultima Weapon the woman at the counter will offer Cloud a place in a special battle. This isn't any harder than a normal Battle Square gauntlet using my Omnislash technique mentioned earlier. Once you win this battle you will receive the extremely handy "Final Attack" materia.


 * Round 1: Sea Worm LV 22, HP 18000, MP 200
 * Round 2: Ho-Chu LV 39, HP 8600, MP 290
 * Round 3: Unknown LV 52, HP 15000, MP 150
 * Round 4: Serpent LV 40, HP 28000, MP 290
 * Round 5: Wolfmeister LV 43, HP 20000, MP 200
 * Round 6: Behemoth LV 45, HP 14000, MP 400
 * Round 7: Maximum Kimaira LV 49, HP 8000, MP 350
 * Round 8: Proud Clod LV 53/52, HP 60000/20000, MP: 320/300