This section contains all the information to complete all the side-quests along with general hints and tips on how to complete those side-quests.

Contents:
1. Piano in Tifa's house
2. Safe in Nibelheim Mansion
3. Getting Vincent Valentine
4. Getting Yuffie Kisaragi
5. Battle Square
6. Breeding Chocobos
7. Defeating the Weapons
8. Key to Sector 5 (Midgar)
9. Turtles Paradise Flyers
10. All 7 Fever

1. Tifa's Piano (Nibelheim)
Go to Tifa's house in Nibelheim and go upstairs to find her piano during disk 2 or 3.  Play the piano and select the two bottom options so that you can't see what keys the buttons represent.  Then enter in this "tune":

X, S, T, L1+T, L1+S, X, S, T, L1+X, O, X, S, X

It's not necessary to have Tifa in your party, but you will get either three results: nothing, 1 gil, or Tifa's limit break manual for Final Heaven.  You can also play the tune using the directional pad:

D, L, U, L1+T, L1+S, D, L, U, L1+X, R, D, L, D

2. Safe in Nibelheim Mansion
When you first get to Nibelheim and go into the mansion, you may find a locked safe.  You can unlock it now, but I suggest to come back after getting the Tiny Bronco to make things a little easier.  There are hints about the mansion as to the combination, but here's the code:

Right (up) to 36, left (down) to 10, right (up) to 59, right (up) to 97

You do have a time limit, so make sure you move fast and confirm each number by pressing O.  You also don't want to overshoot a number or else it won't open.  Now once you get it open, a boss comes out for attack.
================================================================
BOSS: Lost Number - 7000HP - weakness: none - invulnerable to gravity
================================================================
If you are further in the game than Nibelheim (as I recommended), this guy will be no problem.  Just use physical attacks and concentrate on one side before attacking the other.  But just a word of warning: when you defeat one half, the other half becomes stronger.  If you are in for a challenge and have weak weapons or are at low levels, try to stick to level two attack spells, but keep away from Demi.  And as always, keep one character strictly for healing, using cure (with an All when necessary) every turn.  But if you feel you don't need to heal for a round, feel free to let him/her in on the attack.  As for its attacks, the Lost Number has two main ones, Bolt 2 that will cause about 400-500 HP damage to all or a physical attack on one character for about 2200 HP.
================================================================
Once Lost Number is defeated, you can collect on the bounty with three items.  The first is Cosmo Memory, which is Red XIII's level 4 limit break manual.  You'll also get the Odin summon materia and a key (see part 3).

3. Getting Vincent Valentine
In order to get Vincent, you need to get the key out of the safe in the Nibelheim Mansion (see part 2).  Once you have it, go down to the underground passage in the mansion.  Just before you enter the library, go up and find a hidden door to which your key will open!  Talk about Sephiroth and then ask him who he is.  After you name him, try to leave the room and he'll join you.  Unfortunately, Yuffie's not as easy to get to join you...

4. Getting Yuffie Kisaragi
Start of this mini-quest by going to any forest on the world map during disk 1 or 2.  Once in a while, you'll face a girl ninja (Yuffie) who's really not difficult to defeat.  Once you do, you'll end up on a little field with Yuffie on the ground and a save point on the back side of the area.  Don't touch the save point or Yuffie will steal some gil and flee.  Go talk to her and answer the replies as follows: Not interested.  Talk to her again for more replies: ...petrified, Wait a second!, ...That's right, ...Let's hurry on.  Once you get that straight, she'll "join" you for now.  If she happens to escape from you, don't worry, you can fight her again.  The next part of the quest is to head to Wutai, Yuffie's home town.

As you start going up the mountain path on the southern edge of the continent, Yuffie will steal somewhere around 50 of your materia and leave you to face a couple Shinra guards.  After you defeat them, continue on and into Wutai.  Once in the town, take a left and go up all the way until you see a pagoda in the background.  Go into the building on the right and talk to the sleeping man a few times to make Yuffie appear (and disappear).  Also check the building for hidden treasures before leaving.  Go back to the item shop and you will see that the girl in front of the treasure chest has moved, so you can claim that prize.  But instead of getting it (MP Absorb materia), Yuffie comes down to snatch it out of your hands.  Now go to the house on the lower-right hand corner of town and notice the folding panel in the background.  Go uncover Yuffie once again and she will make another escape.  Leave the house and check the jar outside the bar/restaurant in the left side of town.  Your party will set up a trap for Yuffie and she folds in and leads you to her house...Phew...

Well, it's not quite over just yet.  Follow her downstairs and when she tells you to push the switch on the far side of the room, a cage falls on you, letting her escape again!  Push the switch again to free them and go up the stairs and out the door.  Head back to the pagoda area and notice the open door on the left.  Ring the bell and head on in.  Who else do you run into but Don Corneo!  Take care of his goons and leave the building (don't forget the treasure!).  Head to the mountain path in the back of town and follow the path until you have the don cornered.  Just when you think he's done for, he calls out his little friend.
================================================================
BOSS: Rapps - 6000 HP - weakness: none
================================================================
Physical attacks should be more than enough with Cloud and Red XIII in your party (along with Barret or Tifa).  Heal when necessary and use high level magic if you want to.
================================================================
Corneo will fall from the statue and Yuffie will be freed to now permanently join your party.

But that's still not the end for Yuffie.  If you head into the pagoda, you will have the opportunity to face five consecutive bosses to get the Leviathan materia.  Don't forget to heal yourself after each battle.
1st floor:
================================================================
BOSS: Gorki - 3000 HP - weakness: wind - immune to earth and gravity
================================================================
Begin by hasting yourself and use physical attacks to easily down this monster.  If things get tough, use Cure or Regen to help yourself out and summon materia, but not Titan.
================================================================

2nd floor:
================================================================
BOSS: Shake - 4000 HP - weakness: none - immune to gravity
================================================================
Use the same technique as Gorki and cure yourself when needed.  You can also use attack magic and summons, but avoid using Demi.
================================================================

3rd floor:
================================================================
BOSS: Chekhov - 5000 HP - weakness: none - immune to gravity
================================================================
Once again, use the same techniques as before and you should have no problems.  Chekhov also has the ability to absorb your HP, so make sure you keep your HP up.
================================================================

4th floor:
================================================================
BOSS: Staniv - 6000 HP - weakness: none - immune to gravity
================================================================
Same thing, just another beefed up boss of the previous floor.
================================================================

5th floor:
================================================================
BOSS: Godo - 10000 HP - weakness: none
================================================================
This one's an actual challenge compared to the last four battles.  Once again, keep hasted and cast it again whenever it runs out.  He also can absorb from you, so Regen is another big help.  And if that's not bad enough, he can cure himself for about 1200 HP at a time, so that 10,000 HP gets to be a lot more as he uses it quite often. If you're at a lower level or your attack isn't that high, use high level magic and/or summons to try to end the battle as soon as possible.  Otherwise this battle is going to take a long time.  If you are pretty strong, physical attacks should be able to take care of it.  And if all else fails, you can wait for Godo to use up all 1000 of his MP so that he won't be able to cure any more.  But of course that takes the longest amount of time.  As long as you can stay alive, he should eventually fall.
================================================================

Woohoo!  You're finally done with the Yuffie side-quest.

5. Battle Square Arena
Here are some general tips when fighting in the Battle Square.
If you want to buy things with Battle Points (BP), you need to earn them all without leaving the area.  It costs 10 GP to enter a battle, so you'll need to get some either at the wonder or chocobo squares.  You will get the opportunity to fight in eight consecutive battles with one character against increasingly difficult enemies.  You get the option to take your BP and run after each battle, but if you continue and win, you can earn many more BP.  The only catch is that after every battle, a slot starts with 3 (usually) bad status effects and one must be selected before continuing.  If you die, you are returned to the booth with your previous HP/MP.  As for what you load on your character (usually Cloud), give him a Ribbon, HP/MP Pluses for 9999HP/999MP, Time materia, and a Restore materia.  Here are all the slot changes:

Lucky 7's - gives no status effect
Full Cure - completely recovers all HP
Poison - poison status effect (nullified by Ribbon)
Mini - mini status effect (nullified by Ribbon)
Toad - toad status effect (nullified by Ribbon)
Boot - cuts speed in half (use Haste to reverse effect)
Sword - Weapon is broken and strength is cut to base stat
Ring - Accessory is broken and its use is lost (Ribbon loses effect)
Armor - Armor is broken and vitality is cut to base stat
Pouch Bag - disables the Item command
HPMP - cuts maximum HP/MP in half
MP - cuts maximum MP in half
MP Zero - maximum MP drops to 0
Materia (color) - materia of that color can no longer be used
All materia - all materia can no longer be used
Lv. Down - decreases level stats by 5 or 10

If you have good hand-eye coordination, you can pick which of the three slots show up.  If accessory isn't broken, try to get a status effect.  Try not to get all materia broken unless it's the last battle and you have enough HP to last.  If you lose magic materia, make sure you don't lose the Item command for healing (X-Potions are very helpful, can be found around Wutai).  Another helpful hint is that if you get MP Zero or the green materia, try to get the other one if it shows up so there's really no effect.  The half-HP/MP is also a good source of BP and 4999HP/499MP is still pretty easy to complete with.  But avoiding status effects isn't going to get you a lot of BP.  If you take some tough effects early on and you complete all eight, you'll get thousands of more BP.  So the risk is up to you.  And BTW, the higher levels you are at, the tougher the enemies are in the battles.

Here's what you can trade in BP for:

If you get up to 65,000 BP, go talk to Dio and he will let you in on a special boss battle.  Everything works the same as the regular battle, but the enemies are all bosses and is much more difficult.  The only good thing is that the bosses are the same each time, so you can figure out what to do against them.  For this one, it doesn't matter how many BP you get, but if you successfully defeat all eight, you will get the almighty Final Attack materia.  If you're shooting for the W-Summon and get 65,000, make sure you talk to Dio before buying the W-Summon or you'll have to get all 65,000 BP all over again.

6. Breeding Chocobos
Before you go off breeding for the gold chocobo, make sure you have the Highwind, 260,000 gil, a lot of time, and a lot of patience.  Start by going to the chocobo farm and buying six stables at 10000 gil each from the man in the house.  Next, go to a medium-sized forested island north of the northeastern tip of the eastern continent.  Walk around the forest and you should find some goblins.  Steal 1 Zeio Nut from them.  Now go find the Chocobo Master's house on the northern continent.  It's a little shack completely surrounded by mountains.  Stop inside and buy 40 Sylkis Greens at 5000 gil a pop (ouch!).  Go outside and walk around the grassy area to find some monsters that look like red dinosaurs on two feet.  Steal 3 Carob Nuts from them.  They have a lot of HP, so it might be better if you just run after each battle.  OK, now you're ready to start catching chocobos.

Make sure you have the chocobo lure materia attached, and go to the tracks southeast of the Gold Saucer.  Catch two chocobos there (by killing the enemies before the chocobo runs away, you can also use greens on the chocobo to make it stay longer, but don't use Sylkis Greens).  Dismount from each and send them to the stables.  Catch two more from the tracks just west of Mideel and send them to the stables.  Before you return to the farm, make sure you save.  The genders aren't determined until you enter the farm, so if they're not the right genders, you can reset and try again.  You should end up with one running chocobo, one walking chocobo, and two bad chocobos.  You can discard the bad ones, but make sure the running one is a female and the walking one is a male.  Once the genders are correct, save again.  Now use a Carob Nut to breed the two and you want the newborn to be a green chocobo (remember the gender!).  Retry if it's not a green one.  Now you can either wait for the two chocobos when they can breed again, or do this process over again to get a female running chocobo and a male walking chocobo.  Either way, mate those two and you should end up with a blue chocobo.  Make sure it's the opposite gender of the green chocobo.  If not, reset and try again.

Begin the next step by feeding the two new chocobos 10 Sylkis Greens each.  The next thing you have to do is get them up to an "A" class.  To do this, go to the Gold Saucer and the Chocobo Square.  Race your two chocobos and win 6 times with each to get them up to A.  When you're done with that, save.  Breed the green and blue chocobos with your last Carob Nut and you should end up with a black chocobo.  Now you have to go to the southwestern part of the north continent to find the chocobo tracks there.  Catch four this time, and save before returning to the farm.  Hopefully one is a dashing chocobo with the opposite gender as the black chocobo.  If there are no dashing ones, you'll have to return to the tracks and try again (there will be no dashing chocobos when they appear with the wolves).  If it's just the wrong gender, reset and re-enter the farm until you get it right.  Now feed the black and dashing chocobos 10 Sylkis Greens each and race both up to the A rank.  After that, save again and breed the two using your Zeio Nut.  You should now end up with the illustrious gold chocobo!

7. Defeating the Weapons
============
Ultimate Weapon
============
Starting off with the easy one here...  You can find him on disk 3 hovering over one of the lakes; just crash into him with the Highwind to initiate the fight.  Once you defeat him (he runs away), he'll start flying around.  Just chase him down and crash into him until he fights.  He'll probably run a couple more times and when you don't see him flying around any more, go near Cosmo Canyon to find him resting near the Frog Forest.  There are two ways to defeat the Ultimate Weapon - the easy way and the hard way.  The easy way is to just use Knights of the Round.  If you use it the first time you meet him, he should go straight to his spot by Cosmo Canyon without having to fight him 4 or 5 times.  As for the hard way, begin the battle by casting Haste, Regen, and Wall on everybody.  Then just use strong physical attacks and strong magic and summons.  Ultimate Weapon has about 100,000 HP and you get Cloud's ultimate weapon from him, aptly named Ultimate Weapon.

============
Emerald Weapon
============
You can find Emmy underwater on disk 3 by using the sub.  He's usually hangin' out by a crater on the south part of the sea or above the sunken Gelnika airplane.  The key to defeating Emmy easily is your materia.  Here's what they should look like (you can pick your own characters, these are just the group I usually use):

Cloud
Knights of the Round=HP Absorb, Mime, W-Summon, HP Plus, MP Plus, Underwater

Tifa
Final Attack=Phoenix, Mime, HP Plus, MP Plus, All=Time

Red XIII
Mime, All=Time, HP Plus, MP Plus

(the "=" means the two materia around them should be linked)
Your levels should be somewhere around 75 or above, did I mention he has about 1,000,000 HP?  Note that you'll have to master two Mime materia along with having mastered HP/MP Pluses for everyone so that they all have 9999HP/999MP.  Your KOTR should be at level 4, and definitely no lower than 3.  Final Attack and Phoenix should be at level 3, and no lower than 2.  You don't absolutely need the Underwater materia (I've beaten him without it), it does help by getting rid of the 20-minute timer. You can get it by stealing a Guidebook from a Ghost Ship in the Underwater reactor and giving it to the traveler in Kalm.

Now for the battle.  If Red or Tifa get to go first, haste everybody, then have Cloud start KOTR (skipping the other person if need be).  If Cloud goes first, W-Summon KOTR twice.  Have everybody mime it until Emmy retaliates and kills everybody.  By now, he should hopefully have only about 300,000 HP.  The Final Attack and Phoenix will kick in and revive everyone to full health.  Then go through the process you went through at the beginning of the battle and have Cloud W-Summon KOTR twice again.  This is assuming you have KOTR at level 4.  If it's only level 3, bring along another summon like Bahamut ZERO for the W-Summon.  Mime that over again until Emmy croaks.  You will get the Earth Harp, 50000 Exp, 50000 AP, and 50000 gil for your efforts.  Trade the Earth Harp to the Kalm traveler and you'll receive the Master Magic, Summon, and Command materia.

==========
Ruby Weapon
==========
Ruby hangs around the desert by the Gold Saucer and again has 1,000,000 HP.  Contrary to many beliefs, Ruby is actually easier than Emmy.  It doesn't matter if you beat Emmy or Ruby first, and the strat is basically the same.  Begin by going into a battle (not with Ruby) and killing, yes killing, the other two members besides Cloud.  Now make sure he's at full health as well before battle.  Here's the materia he should have (and in addition, HP/MP Pluses to get Cloud up to 9999HP/999MP):

Knights of the Round=HP Absorb, Master Summon=MP Absorb, Mime, W-Summon

If you don't have Master Summon, replace it with Hades.  Ruby will start off by shooting off two tentacles behind you. W-Summon Hades on the main body and KOTR on the tentacles.  Hades will only do about 150-200 HP damage, but will temporarily stop Ruby.  Keep miming until the battle is over, yes it's that simple.  I've defeated him this way at level 52, and even that was a breeze.  You'll get the Desert Rose which you can trade to the Kalm traveler for a gold chocobo.

8. Key to Sector 5 (Returning to Midgar)
After rescuing Cloud from Mideel, head back to Midgar and talk to the man outside the door who seems to have lost his key to get back into Midgar.  Then head up to Bone Village and select either of the two options (other than the Lunar Harp) when asking the man to dig for treasure.  The location of the key is right where the man is digging at the bottom of the screen when you first walk in.  There is a little piece of metal sticking out by the plane and guess what that is?  It's the key to Sector 5!  The only real reason to return to Midgar would be to get the Premium Heart for Tifa which is in Wall Market in the abandoned item shop (the one where a machine gun tries to shoot you when you go to the computer screen).  Just press O at the computer screen to get it.

9. Turtles Paradise Flyers
There are six flyers around the world that will, if you read them all, allow you to get some valuable items.  You don't have to read them in any order, just as long as you read them all.
1. (Midgar) In the town near Aeris's house, go to the 2nd floor of the building in the lower-right and look among some papers on the wall near the staircase.
2. (Midgar) In the Shinra Building on the 1st floor, there's a bulletin board with the flyer on it near the elevators.  Note that you can only find this one at the beginning of the game or during the Midgar invasion on disk 2.
3. (Gold Saucer) Read the "Shop" sign next to the shop at Ghost Square.
4. (Cosmo Canyon) Read the paper to the left of the Tigerlily Arms Shop.
5. (Cosmo Canyon) The paper is near the door of the second floor of the inn.
6. (Wutai) It's to the right of the doorway on the bottom floor of Yuffie's house (must have completed Yuffie's mini-quest, see part 4)

Once you've read all six, talk to the bartender in Wutai and he'll give you a Mind Source, Power Source, Magic Source, Speed Source, Guard Source, Luck Source, and Megalixir.

10. All 7 Fever
Here's a little trick that'll do tons of damage.  If you can get your character's HP to be 7777 (much easier said than done-I've never seen it myself), that character will be berserked and attack constantly doing 7777 HP damage each turn.  The only downside is that he/she is reduced to 1 HP after the battle.  As for reaching that exact level of HP, try playing around with HP Pluses and other materia to try and get that mark.  Or if you get a current number of HP with 77 at the end and your max is above 7777, use potions to get him/her up to 7777.