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There are two characters in Final Fantasy VII, Yuffie and Vincent.
After passing through the Mythril Mine, you'll see the first forest areas in the game. Just go into the forest and run around until you fight her. This right around Fort Condor and before you reach Junon. But you can still fight her in ANY forest in the game if she hasn't joined your party yet. If you defeat her (she's not hard) you'll get to talk to her. First and foremost, DO NOT SAVE THE GAME AT THE SAVE SPOT! She'll steal some of your money and you'll have to roam around and fight her again. If you want to get her to join, you'll have to talk to her and you need to say the right things, otherwise, she'll still steal some of your money. Yeah, you're gonna wish you had more opportunities to beat the crap out of her. Well, you CAN if you don't play it right. Sure it can be cathartic after she steals from you for the 10th time, but if you just want to get through the game with her as an ally, respond to her like so:
When she says she wants a rematch, respond with "Not interested.".
When she asks if you're afraid of her, tell her you're "...petrified."
When she says she's going to leave, say, "Wait a second."
When she asks if you want her to join you, say, "That's right."
When she asks if you want to know her name, say, "Let's hurry on."
She'll run after you and join your party, THEN you can rename her if you want without her stealing from you...well, at least THIS time.
Vincent's a bit trickier to get than Yuffie. You can find him in the basement of the Shinra Mansion, which is located in the town of Nibelheim. You'll get to Nibelheim after you defeat Gi Nanakatu in the Gi Cave, which is below Cosmo Canyon. You can't pass up Cosmo Canyon and go straight to Nibelheim. If you try, your buggy will break down. Here's a quick tip on defeating the enemies in the Gi Cave. The undead monsters are highly vulnerable to CURE spells. In fact, you can kill Gi Nanataku with a SINGLE X-Potion!!! Now that you've defeated the easiest boss in the game, let's go find Vincent.
First, when you reach Nibelheim, you're going to notice something strange. It isn't burned down. You'll sort of find out what happened later, but let's meet up with Sephiroth and get Vincent. First, I recommend that you save outside of town and heal up. And put your BEST characters in your party (Cloud, Aeris, and Tifa should do). The enemies in the mansion are TOUGH. Make sure you have a Peace Ring on one of your characters (You can get one by beating Fort Condor twice) because a certian enemy will confuse you. Make sure the character with the Peace Ring (Aeris recommended) has the Heal materia (with the Esuna spell available). And make sure each character has at least one summon materia. Now, let's enter the mansion.
When you enter, there's a room on the left with a little yellow note. It gives you some clues on how you can find the combination to the safe on the second floor. You can follow the clues if you want (#4 is tricky. There's no clue number 4, so just select the empty space where clue #4 should be and you'll have the forth number in the combination), but I'll just give you the combination:
Right 36, Left 10, Right 59, Right 97
The safe is on the second floor, in a room in the top left corner. Make sure you're healed up and ready for a fight because you're going to get one after you open the safe. To open the safe, just face it and press the circle button. You have a set amount of time to do it, so do it quickly, and don't pass up any number or it won't work. Once you do, you're going to fight a fairly tough boss. Just pelt him with everything you have. after you defeat him, you'll be able to pick up the Odin summon materia that flew out of the safe. Don't forget to walk up to the open safe and press the circle button to get the basement key. Otherwise, you'll have to come back up and get it and you DON'T want to have to do that. Next, go to the room all the way to the top right on the second floor (you should remember this room from Cloud'd story). Enter the basement through the panel in the wall. And make sure you equip Odin before going down there. You're going to need his help. If you're lucky, you won't have to fight Yin and Yang. These are the toughest non-boss enemies you've fought yet. If you have the Bolt Ring (from the guy in the cave that you get the Mythril from for Aeris' Level 4 Limit Break), have someone equip it. Yin and Yang blast you with Bolt spells. Use Odin on them then pelt them with everything you have. There are two rooms. One is on the far right and the other is facing you. The one facing you is locked and you need the basement key to open it. Once you enter that room, you'll see a coffin. Go up to the coffin and hit the circle button. Vincent will then awaken. Keep chatting with Vincent until he tells you to let him be. Then leave the room and continue back down the hall from where you came. He'll follow you and join the party. Then go to the room to the right where Sephiroth will throw the Destruct materia at you.
Go to my page on The Good Guys and click on each individual character. Instructions on how to find each character's Level 4 Limit Break and most powerful weapon are on the page for that character.
Let's answer that second question first. And there are three reasons: Knights of the Round, Mime, and Quadra Magic. Breeding Chocobos can also get you to the Ancient Forest early and the better Chocobos you have, the better they race. And the better they race, the better prizes you can win. You can also get the really terrible MP<-->HP materia. Wow.
You can start breeding Chocobos on Disc 2. This is best done after Cloud has rejoined the group because Gold Saucer will be closed while he's gone. Here's what you do.
Go to the Chocobo Stables and buy 6 stables to keep your lovely little birds in. Then, head north to the Icicle Region and find the Chocobo Sage's home (it's sorta between Icicle Lodge and Bone Villiage, within the mountains). Talk to the green Chocobo and he'll give you an Enemy Skill materia, then talk to the Sage. You'll find that his memory just isn't what it used to be, so you gotta jog it for him. he also sells the best greens in the game. Buy as many Slikis Greens as you can. They're expensive but by selling a Master All materia, you should be bale to buy quite a few. From time to time the Sage will give you a little advice on breeding Chocobos. He's too damn slow, so just read this. While you're in the Icicle Area, go find the Chocobo tracks there. Capture 4 Chocobos and send them back to the stables. If you find one that's accompanied by 2 rabbits, then you probably found the one you need.
Next, go fight in the area around Bone Village. you want to fight the red dragon-looking thing that takes forever to kill. I recommend having someone use Deathblow + Steal As Well on him. Hit him hard, while trying to steal his precious Carob nuts. You'll need at least two, so keep fighting until you get two Carob nuts. After you do that, go to a small island to the east. There's one with a moderately sized forest on it. Go around in that area and fight. If you're fighting goblins, then you're on the right track. Steal from them before killing them (use Steal, not Mug or Steal As Well + Deathblow...they die too easily). Make sure you steal at least 1 Zeio nut. You can also get the Goblin Punch Enemy Skill from the goblins. Now, go back to the Chocobo Farm and buy some Lasan Nuts.
Mountain and River Chocobos
You should have 4 Chocobos outside. You need to move them to your stables, so just talk to Choco Bill. Let any Chocobos go that aren't wonderful. Now, go to the Mideel area (the island far to the south where Cloud washed up) and capture some Chocobos there. Get 4 more. Return to the Chocobo Farm and put only the great Chocobos in your stables. Let the others go. Now, check to see if you have a Wonderful and a Great who are of the opposite sex. If you do, it's time to go to the races. But first, you need to feed them. Feed them both 30 Silkis greens, for maximum effectiveness. Next, go to Gold Saucer and race the two chocobos (see Chocobo Racing). Get them up to A Class at least, S Class if possible. Return to the Chocobo Farm. Now, the lovemaking may commence. Save the game outside, then go back in and tell Choco Billy you want to mate them and give them a Carob Nut. They'll make sweet love and produce one offspring. If the offspring is neither green or blue, reset the game and try again until you get a green or blue one. This is just trial and error. Repeat this process with the two original chocobos until you get a blue one and a green one of opposite sexes. This may take some time as you also have to go fly around and do stuff between matings because they can't mate again right away. Take some time to race your newborn blue and green chocobos. Make sure to feed 30 Silkis greens to both of them do they can race at their top performance. You can also get two of the hidden materia, Mime and Quadra Magic.
Mime: This has got to be one of the most useful materia in the entire game. It allows one character to mimic the actions of the last character that acted. And if a spell was cast, no magic is used up. You'll want to master this one quickly so you can have another one. You can get it if you get a Mountain Chocobo (the green one). Ride your green chocobo into the Highwind, go to the Wutai area and search for the cave on the eastern part of the island. Park the Highwind in a nearby grassy area and use the green chocobo to walk over the moutains and enter the cave. Mime awaits!
Quadra Magic: Quadra Magic is explained better in the section on support materia. Ride your River Chocobo (the blue one) into the Highwind and head to the Mideel area. Park the Highwind on an island near Mideel and take the chocobo over the shallows from island to island (northeast) until you find a cave. Quadra Magic is in that cave.
The Mountain/River Chocobo
After you've raced your opposite sex blue and green chocobos to Class S, it's time for them to make sweet love. Save the game, feed 'em a Lasan Nut, and hope the offspring is black. This is a River/Mountain Chocobo. It can go over mountains, rivers, and shallows. Also hope that the offspring is the opposite sex of the Wonderful chocobo you caught earlier, because you're going to want to breed them, when junior is ready. Feed him 30 Silkis greens and race him to Class S then go get that horrible HP<-->MP materia from a cave north of North Corel. You probably don't have anything better to do now, anyway.
The Sea Chocobo
Now, you're going for the gold. When your black chocobo is ready, mate it with a yellow Wonderful Chocobo (you get them in then Icicle Region). Give them the Zeio Nut you got from those Goblins and hope you get a Gold Chocobo. Feed the Chocobo 30 Silkis greens so it race you to victory. Now, it's time to get the most powerful materia in the game, Knights of the Round!
Knights of the Round is located on an uncharted, round island in the northeast corner of the map. Take your gold chocobo northeast from the Chocobo Farm. It can cross the ocean, no problem. Keep going until you get to the round island. Remember, this island isn't marked on the map. Enter the cave and you have command of the 13 Knights of the Round. When you summon them, each of the 13 Knights will deal between 6000 and 9999 damage to each enemy, depending on the user's magic level. This is the key to defeating Ruby and Emerald Weapon. It can also wreck serious havoc on the bosses you have yet to face, Diamond Weapon, Ultimate Weapon, Proud Clod, Dr. Hojo, Jenova Synthesis, and the two forms of Sephiroth, himself.
The types of support materia are: All, Added Effect, Elemental, HP Absorb, MP Absorb, Added Steal, MP Turbo, Sneak Attack, Quadra Magic, Added Cut, Magic Counter, Command Counter, Final Attack
Some are more useful than others. The one you're going to have the most of is All, which allows you to either use the paired materia on all enemies or on all allies. Note that it only works for Magic materia. This is pretty self explanatory.
Elemental materia lets you pair it with any materia thaqt produces an elemental effect (Bolt, Ice, Fire, Earth, etc.). Not that it ALSO works with summon materia like Leviathan (Water), Choco/Mog (Wind), Typoon (Wind), Ifrit (Fire), Ramuh (Lightning), Shiva (Ice), Pheonix (Fire). It works differently if you put it on your weapon or your armor. On your weapon, it turns your weapon into an elemetnal weapon. For example, if you pair Fire with Elemental on Cloud's sword, his sword will deal fire-type damage. This can be advantageous against enemies that are weak to fire, but some enemies can absorb fire damage and gain HP back, so be careful. On your armor, you're protected against that element. For example, if you pair Ice with Elemental on Tifa's Carbon Bangle, she'll have protection from Ice. The amount of protection is depedent on the level of your Elemental materia. The highest level absorbs attacks of the appropriate elemental type.
Added effect lets you pair it with any materia that can produce a status condition on your enemies. The best materia to pair this with are Seal (sleep, mute), Transform (frog, small), Poison, Mystify (Conuse, Berserk). If you put this combination on your weapon, your weapon will possibly inflict that status condition on the enemy it hits. Try using this with Slash All to effect multiple enemies. Also, this becomes VERY useful when you get the summon materia Hades. Hades can inflict multiple status conditions on your opponents. Pairing it with Choco/Mog may also use Stop on some enemies. Hades is really the most useful, though.
Added Steal and Added Cut let you do something after you attack with the paired materia. You'll either attempt to steal something or get an extra hit. These two work great with Deathblow, the command materia that gives you either a critical hit or a miss. Deathblow + Added Cut has no downside since you'll hit normally with Added Cut anyway, but might also make a critical hit.
Quadra Magic attacks with the paired materia 4 times, but only takes MP off for the first casting. You can only used the paired spell once per battle for each level of Quadra Magic. A good tip for this is to pair it with Contain, which has four different powerful spells. Using it with W-Magic, will allow you to cast the same spell 8 times in one action, provided Quadra Magic is on at least level 2.
HP Absorb and MP Absorb aren't that great when paired with most materia by normal means. BUT you can do some nifty stuff with these. These are much better when you pair severl different support materia with the same spell. Yes, you can do this as long as you have enough copies of the materia you're pairing them with. For example, if you have 4 Fire materia and each one is on Fire3, you can pair Fire with Quadra Magic, HP Absorb, MP Absorb, and Added Cut. Then you'll cast Fire3 four times, gaining HP and MP back for each casting AND hitting an enemy with your weapon afterwards. Just note that all copies of the materia must be on the same level for it to work. If you have three Fire's on Fire3 and the other is on Fire2, then when you cast Fire3, it will only work for the ones on Fire3. However, if you cast Fire2, it'll work for all. HP Absorb is also to key to defeating the mighty Emerald Weapon and Ruby Weapon. If you pair them with Knights of The Round, your HP and MP will max out, since Knights of the Round has the tendency to deal about 100,000+ total points of damage to EACH enemy. You absorb 1/10 in HP and 1/100 in MP.
Final Attack is another key support materia for the weapon brothers. When the character using this dies, he casts the paired materia. Most of the time, that would suck, except when it's paired with Revive or Phoenix. Paired with Revive, the character will bring himself back to life. With Phoenix, he'll bring himself back to life AND any other dead party members. So, if everyone dies at the same time and one character has Final Attack paired with Phoenix, everyone will come back to life. And this WILL happen when fighting Emerald Weapon.
Magic Counter and Command Counter will let you counter (after an enemy attacks you) with the paired materia. Magic works for Magic and Summon materia while Command only works for Command materia. Just experiment. I haven't found these too terribly useful.
Sneak Attack sometimes has you cast the paired materia as soon as you enter a battle.
If you can somehow get one of your characters to have 7777 HP, then in the next battle, that character will go hof wild and continue to attack each enemy until all enemies are dead. Then your character goes down to 1 HP.
It's in Bone Village, which is on the northern continent. After you finist with the Temple of the Ancients, you'll be able to get the workers here to dig up stuff for you. Just set them up on the top ledge and show them where to dig. It's pretty easy, but it might take a few tries. And make sure to ask them to dig up the Lunar Harp. If you ask for good treasure, you can find some pretty neat stuff, like Cid's Mop weapon.
Take the right path and enter the first cave on the right. Spend the night in that little hut and a short event will occur. After the event, it'll be night time. You can only go down the crystal staircase at night. And be prepared for the most shocking and hard hitting event of the entire game once you get down there. That and be prepared to fight Jenova again.
There are four pieces of Huge Materia. You get them at Fort Condor, North Corel, Junon Underwater Reactor, and Rocket Town.
Fort Condor
This is the easiest one. Just return to Fort Condor after you get the Highwind and do another battle. Except, THIS TIME, don't waste your time setting up a strategy. Let the beasties get to the top of the mountain and fight the rather easy boss. Just don't defeat him until you've stolen the Imperial guard from him. It's one of the best pieces of armor in the game. You'll also get the Phoenix Summon materia.
North Corel Reactor
This one's a bit trickier. Go back to the North Corel Reactor with Cid in the lead. Hop on the mini train and try to catch the train with the materia on it. Just keep alternating the two levers back and forth as fast as you can until you catch up to the big train. You have 10 minutes to complete the entire scene, so don't dawdle. Once you get on the train, you'll fight an enemy or group of enemies on each car. They're not that easy, either. Just use summon spells, but try to use ones that don't take to long to execute. You can steal a Warrior Bangle from the last enemy, but you probaly shouldn't waste your time trying to get it. The Huge Materia is more important. After you defeat the last enemy, you'll have to stop the train. Move the levers up and down as fast you can and you'll stop it. When you return to North Corel, you can pick up the Ultima materia and Catastrophe, Barret's Level 4 Limit Break.
Undersea Reactor
Go to Junon and take the elevator down. Find the area with the squad of soldiers and go in there. This is the underwater reactor. When you get just outside the reactor, fight until you run into a Ghost Ship. Have your third character (the one on the left) Morph the Ghost Ship. Go to the section on Ruby and Emerald Weapon to see why. Now, just go through the reactor, making sure to save along the way. You're going to fight a tough boss before you get on the submarine. Just bolt the hell out of him, but watch it if he picks up your characters. Once you get on the sub, you'll enter a sub battle. It's really easy. Just keep the red sub in your sights and pelt it with torpedos until it goes down. After this adventure, you'll get the sub to use. Now, you can submerge underwater, and here's something important. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES RUN INTO THE BIG ROBOT SWIMMING UNDERWATER. THIS IS EMERALD WEAPON. AT THIS POINT IN THE GAME HE WILL KICK YOUR ASS! Now that you know that, explore the underwater a bit. You should find: the key to the ancients, a downed Shinra airplane, a secret pool, and the sunken red submarine. Go to the red sub, and hit the circle button. You'll get the Huge Materia.
Rocket Town
Go to Rocket Town. Make sure Cid is with you. Go to the rocket, fight Rude and steal a Zeidrich from him, then get on the rocket. You'll go through an event that'll take out out of this world. The Huge Materia is aboard the rocket. You need to enter a code to get it out. Forget trying to figure it out. Here's the code: Circle, Square, X, X
On Disc 2, go to Bone Villiage and get the workers to search for Normal Treasure. It'll probably take a few trys, but you'll eventually get the key. Then you can return to Midgar.
The earliest time you can get there is on Disc 2 after Cloud rejoins the party. If you breed Chocobos (see Chocobo Breeding), you can get a Mountain Chocobo, which will let you go up the mountain east of Cosmo Canyon and enter the Ancient Forest. Otherwise, on Disc 3, defeat Ultimate Weapon (he's a piece of cake compared to Ruby and Emerald) and he'll make a crater where he lands (near Cosmo Canyon). Just walk up the crater to get to the Ancient Forest.
On the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII, you can fight these dogs in the pit when you're in Corel Prison. I've tried on the English version, but I don't think they're there. They were probably removed from the final version of the game. Anyway, if you happen to run across them, they give you about 40,000 Gil and lots of experience and AP. But they're hard to hit, so you should probably just poison them, go do something else, and come back to the game in a few hours.
Ah, the answer you've been waiting for, since I've been talking about them a lot. Well, let me give you a little background info. There are four weapons: Diamond, Ultimate, Emerald, and Ruby. You fight Diamond on Disc 2 just before going into Midagr to fight Hojo. He's not hard. Ultimate Weapon is flying around on Disc 3. Just chase him down and fight him until you defeat him. Again, he's not too hard. Emerald and Ruby weapons are the toughest enemies in the game. Sephiroth is the final boss. They're far tougher than he is. Now, you can only fight them on the English version of the game. Anyway, here's how to defeat these monsters:
First, there are some items that are essential for defeating them. You should have:
Materia: Underwater, Final Attack (at level 5), Phoenix (at level 5), Mime (at least 2), Knights of the Round (at level 4), W-Summon, HP Absorb, MP Absorb, Shield, HP Plus (enough to get all characters to 9999 HP)
Ribbon or Peace Ring
Not necessary but they help: Imperial Guard, Tough Ring, Mystile, Magic Plus Materia, Speed Plus Materia, Enemy Skill Materia (with Angel Whisper and Big Guard)
Second, don't even TRY fighting them unless you're on Disc 3 and your characters are at fairly high levels.
Emerald Weapon
I recommend defeating Emerald Weapon first, even though he's the hardest of the two. Beating him will make defeating Ruby that much easier. Now, make sure that at least one character is equiped with the following materia: Underwater, Final Attack + Phoenix, Knights of the Round + HP Absorb, W-Summon, Mime. I recommend Cloud. If you have enough Mimes, give one to each character. I also recommend that at least one person has Enemy Skills (w/ Big Guard) and that you enter the battle with everyone ready to do their limit breaks.
You can find the Underwater materia by morphing a Ghost Ship, which is just outside the Underwater Reactor. You'll get the Guide Book. Take the book to Kalm and give to the old man in the building on the right. He's upstairs. He'll give you the Underwater Materia. Usually, you have a 20-minute time limit to defeat Emeral Weapon. If a character is equipped with Underwater, the time limit is gone. And trust me, it's going to take 20 minutes or more to defeat it. I actually defeated it the second time within the 20-minute limit with only a few seconds to spare! To play it safe, use the Underwater materia.
Now, take the sub underwater and run into the big robot think swimming around down there. That's him. And be prepared for a REALLY tough fight. He starts off doing about 7,000 points of damage to a single character. You're best bet is to QUICKLY have someone cast Big Guard, which will speed everyone up and protect them...a bit. Now, have Cloud cast Knights of the Round, twice (with W-Summon). Have the next character Mime it and so on. Don't ever actually USE your limit breaks. You tend to get your turn to attack faster when the limit gauges are filled up. Notice that each character will go to full life after they cast Knights of the Round. If you do this quick enough, you can destory all his little jewel beams before he sucks your magic away. Continue this process until he does the Air Tam attack. When he does this, PREPARE TO DIE. He deals 9999 points of damage to everyone. Don't worry, though. That's what Final Attack is for. If you need to, give Cloud a Turbo Ether to replenish his Magic. Then have him start the Knights of the Round chain again, having each character Mime it. If you don't have enough mimes to do around, just focus on the characters that can Mime and ignore the others. The second Knights onslaught should kill it. It takes about 10-12 castings of Knights to defeat this monster. He has 1,000,000 HP, after all!
Ruby Weapon
Now that you've defeated Emerald Weapon, you can claim your prizes. And these will prove VERY useful against Ruby Weapon. Go back to Kalm, where the guy gave you the Underwater Materia. In exchange for the item that Emerald Weapon gave you, you get one of each MASTER MATERIA! Each master materia contains all of the spells of that type, except for Command. Master Command gives you a bunch of the basic ones, but not stuff like Slash All, Double Cut, or W-Summon. Now, save the game and head on over to the Gold Saucer area. You'll see a little red tentacle sticking out of the desert. Before approaching it, you need to get ready. Equip Cloud with: Master Command, Master Summon + MP Absorb, Master Magic, Knights of the Round + HP Absorb, W-Summon, and either a Ribbon or Peace Ring, Enemy Skill (w/ Big Guard and Angel Whisper), Final Attack + Revive. Ruby Weapon sometimes tries to confuse you, so having something to protect against that is a good idea. It doesn't matter what your other characters have because they're not going to participate in the battle. Save the game and fly the Highwind over to the tentacle. Ruby Weapon will then pop out of the sand. The first thing he does is hit someone for about 7,000 damage just like Emerald. But the similarities stop there. If he hits anyone but Cloud, don't worry. If he hits Cloud, heal him ASAP. Use Angel Whisper (the Enemy Skill) to do that. Now, as soon as you can, have someone cast Shield on Cloud. And just wait for him to suck the other two characters out of battle. It's been my experience that he never sucks Cloud out, just the other two. If he actually does throw Cloud out, just reset and start the battle over. It's gonna be Cloud and Ruby Weapon, mano-a-mano. Only thing is, you can't do jack to him at this point. Cloud's weapon is useless against it. It'll deal NO damage. And Knights won't do anything to it, either. You need to wait until he sticks his tentacles in the sand behind you, healing Cloud to full HP with Angel Whisper or Elixers after every strike (his favorites include casting Comet and Ultima). At THIS POINT, you need to act quickly. Cast Knights of the Round twice with W-Summon. Aim the first one at the tentacles and the second at Ruby himself. You'll have to target both seperately because this battle works as if you were attacked from both sides. You have to take out the tentacles fast because they drain your Magic. Once you get the Knights going, you'll be filled to full HP AND Magic (due to pairing Knights with both MP and HP Absorb). Now, just sit back and keep Miming Knights. He never does an atack strong enough to kill you and each casting of Knights fills your HP up. If he ever DOES kill you, you've got your safeguard, Final Attack + Revive. But remember, if that happens, you'll have to rescast Knights because you'll Mime the revive. If he ever puts his tentacles back into the sand, you'll have to recast Knights to target them and the body again because if you don't destroy them, they'll suck your magic away and you won't have the 210 MP that Knights requires to cast ONCE. He's still easier than Emerald, but it helps to have two Knights so you can both MP and HP absorb. And itll take forever to master Knights on your own, so your best bet is to get the Master Summon by defeating Emerald.
First, breed a Gold Chocobo (see Chocobo Breeding). They're the best when it comes to racing. Of course, you'll need to race it's parents and such, too. The weaker Chocobos can usually get up to Class A, Class S if you're lucky. the Black and Gold Chocobos can reach Class S fairly easily. You'll want Class A or Class S Chocobos (Class S recommended) to breed better Chocobos. If you're using a Yellow Chocobo race the short course. It's easier, especially with the stamina refill cheat (hold R1 + R2 while running at top speed with the square button). When you start racing the other Chocobos, race tthe long course. The Mountain Chocobo (Green) can pass over the mountain area easier and the River Chocobo (Blue) can pass through the water area easier. You'll leave the other Chocobos behind. The River/Mountain Chocobo (Black) can pass through both unhindered, as can the super-fast Gold Chocobo. That's all there really is to it. You can win lots of neat stuff and get lots of GP.
Claw Machine: Random. You could get a potion or 1 GP or whatever. It's not worth it.
Arm Wrestling: Just hit the button as hard as you can. A rapid fire controller works well here.
Super Dunk: This one requires a little more strategy, but it's easy. Just hold the button until the ball reaches it's highest peak, then quickly let go. It takes a little practice, but it's not hard. If you get 10 in a row, you get a chance to double your GP. Miss, and you win 1 GP.
Mog House: This game is so amazingly simple, an idiot could do it. You gotta feed Mog to get him to fly. Just give him nuts until he hiccups. It usually takes 5 on the first time, and 3 on the seond time. If you win (which really doesn't take a lot), turn to the girl behind you and she'll give you 30 GP. This only happens once, so don't waste your time playing Mog House again.
Fortune Teller: A waste of time and gil. Don't bother with it.
G-bike: Juse use the same strategies you did when riding the bike at the beginning of the game. Don't let the enemy bikes hit the truck. Ram the red bikes and slash at the yellow bikes. If you do it right, you should get around 8,000 -10,000 points, which can get you a fair amount of GP.
Snowboarding: I'm from New Orleans, LA. It snows here as often as the Saints win a game. I don't know jack about snowboarding and I don't do well in this game. Just skip it. There are better games to get GP, though this one can be fun if you like bumping into things. You can't play this until after you get past Ice Gate Glacier.
Submarine: You can't play this until you've done the submarine hunt in the game. I consider this the easiest and best source other than Chocobo racing to get GP. Just move your sub around and fire at the enemies. Use the R2 button to get a good scan of the area, then go back to your regular view. yes, the levels get harder, but not much. If you beat any level, you get 20 GP every time. The first time you win each level, you win a mediocre prize.
There are three items in Wonder Square at are hidden by quesntion marks and they cost 500, 1000, and 2000 GP respectively. Don't bother with the 500 GP. It's just a stupid Chocobo breeding nut and it isn't evern one of the important ones. The other two, however, are pretty cool materia, thought they're pretty expensive. I say use the GP you get from Chocobo Racing to get them. The 1000 GP one is Gil Plus, which increases the amount of Gil you get from each battle and the 2000 GP one is EXP Plus, which increases the amount of experience the character equipped with it gets after a battle.
Yes you can. Simply sell a Master All materia (trust me, this is the first materia you'll master and you'll have a lot). And that's not such a bad thing since you get 1.4 million Gil from it. Then go to the entrance of Gold Saucer. Behind the save point, a little guy might show up back in the corner. if he's there, talk to him (he's really small and hard to see) and he'll sell you GP at the rate of 1 GP per 100 Gil, up to 100 GP. Then he'll disappear and he MIGHT come back. Maybe it depends on how many Master All's you sold.
Once, again, this is New Orleans and the last amusment park that was here closed down over a decade ago. So, I don't know much about roller coasters. In any case, just practice. There are suppposed to be some cheats, but they're hard to do. Supposedly, if you shoot the propeller of the big zeppelin, your score will go nuts and you'll wind up with 30,000 points. I haven't done it, yet and I've tried several times. Anyway, if you get 3000 points, you get an absolutely useless prize (like a Midgar Sweeper or a model of Sephirith's Masamune). If you get 5,000+ points, you get a special prize. On Disc 1, it's Aeris' Umbrella weapon. On Disc 2 and 3, it's Cid's Flayer weapon. I never got either.
This is one of the most productive games in Gold Saucer. But it's best done AFTER you get the Ribbon in the Temple of the Ancients. Otherwise, the status ailments will fry you. Use Cloud, have a Ribbon equipped and whack away. Things that help are Mystile, Slash All, Deathblow, Enemy Skills (especially Big Guard), Summons (Knights of the Round works wonders), Ultima Weapon, Regen, Speed Plus, HP Plus. Cast Regen and Big Guard as early as possible. The Haste from Big Guard will never leave you unless a monster slows you down. If you have Knights of the Round and Mime, use that. You want to kill things as quickly as possible. Just have a backup plan in case you lose your materia when you're handicapped. The Ultima Weapon can deal massive amounts of damage if your HP max is high. The Speed Plus materia, which you can win here, is very useful in doing attacks quicker and dodging attacks. The best things you can win are Speed Plus, Omnislash, and W-Summon.
After you get the Omnislash and W-Summon from the Battle Arena, you aren't done yet. You've got moe more battle left to do and this is the toughest one yet. Have Cloud enter the arena with the Ultima Sword, Ominislash, and W-Summon all eqipped. Then you will go to the special battle, where you'll fight 8 set enemies, the last of which is....PROUD CLOD!!! Defeat them all and the Final Attack materia is yours. Play the special duel again (you can do it now without equipping W-summon, which you don't need but I still recommend the Ultima Sword) and you can win lots of really useless crap like Dio's Autograph and Dio's Diary.
Just a few things. There are some Gold Saucer areas I didn't talke about. That's mainly becuase they're not important. Anyway, here's some info about them.
Ghost House: This is basically an inn. You can buy normal items (for gil) and rest there (for 5GP). There's one event in Disc 1 where you're forced to stay here, so you'll get to see it no matter what.
Event Square: They put on a little show. There's never anything going on until Cloud goes on his date in Disc 1. Now who he goes on a date with is dependent on the choices you make when talking to Aeris, Tifa, Yuffi, and....Barret. You will most likely go on the date with Aeris, though if you don't use her enough in battle, you'll go with Tifa. It's harder to get Yuffie or Barret. If you want to, be as mean as you can to Aeris and Tifa and NEVER use them in battle. This isn't recommended, though, because they're both good characters. And if you're equally mean to poor little Yuffi (not like she deserves it or anything), you'll go out with good old Barret...a night on the town with a....buddy. Oh yeah. Cloud and his date will participate in the event, so make some choices and the story could have a good or bad ending. It really doesn't matter to the game itself, though.
Round Square: I think this was just show the FF7 artists could show off. If you do this, you'll get a little tour of Gold Saucer from a gondola. Make sure and look out the window so you can see the pretty graphics. You'll automatically do this during the date.