Temple of the Ancients - FF7 Walkthrough
The Temple of the Ancients is the most confusing, difficult and longest dungeon we have had to complete yet. You'll find this dungeon on an island southeast of the Gold Saucer, it's the large pyramid looking thing in the middle of the forested area. If you're struggling to locate it use my screen shot above.
Keep in mind that as soon as you complete this dungeon Aeris's best Limit Break Great Gospel will be permanently inaccessible to you. If you have any interest in completing that quest do so now before it is too late.
Inside of the actual dungeon part of Temple of the Ancients the first room you come to has a ton of staircases and appears to be extremely confusing. For this first part of the dungeon you're going to want to chase the purple guy. The path you have to follow is pretty linear and along the way you'll find a Trident as well as a Mind Source.
When you pass the sealed room that you can't enter and you see the purple guy climbing the vines - you will want to follow him into the room he goes into. This area is pictured below and it serves as an item shop as well as an Inn for you inside of the dungeon. So far here are the three treasures we've passed:
Trident (Cid Weapon)
Mind Source
Silver Rifle (Vincent Weapon)
After you're finished everything you need in the Inn/Item Store exit the room and go back down the vines. This time you're going to want to go underneath the small little opening next to the vines and collect the Turbo Ether that's here. In my screen shot above, this is the same area where you see the red arrow pointing down and Cloud standing.
Much like the previous route we took, this is a pretty linear path and in addition to the Turbo Ether we just found you're going to find the Rocket Punch item which is a weapon for Barret. When you see another purple guy, you're going to want to ignore him and continue in the same direction you see my blue arrow in the screen shot below. This will take you to the Luck Plus Materia. Once you have this in your hand then you can go into the room the purple guy went into.
Turbo Ether
Rocket Punch
Luck Plus Materia
In this room will be the first real pain in the ass puzzle of this dungeon, there will be rocks rolling down a walkway and you will have to hide in a gap underneath each of them as you navigate your way up the walkway. Every 2nd or 3rd rock you're going to have to take a few steps back otherwise you will get crushed and pushed back further.
For anyone that needs help with the timing for this puzzle or would like to see it done, I have included a video below of me completing it without any issues. You can actually wait to grab the Morph Materia you see by the purple fountain until after you've completed the puzzle - Aeris brings the group back here for a scene before you can move forward.
The next room is what we're going to call the clock room. There are 12 different routes you can go in this room, each corresponds to a number on the face of a clock. Along the bottom portion of the room you'll find all of the treasures, hours 4 - 8 are loaded!
Below I have created a succinct list of all the treasures you can find on which hour. The rest of the routes are either dead ends or they lead to monsters. In addition to the treasures mentioned below you can also find a Nail Bat weapon for Cloud - it has no Materia slots but very high attack power. The Nail Bat is found by letting yourself get knocked off the clock face by the seconds hand that spins around the room on its own.
IIII: Princess Guard (Aeris Ultimate Weapon)
V: Ribbon (Accessory)
VI: Forward through dungeon
VII: Trumpet Shell for Cait Sith
VIII: Megalixir
If you choose to get the Nail Bat item, you're going to have a long run back to the clock face as you'll have to go through the room with all the stairwells again. Remember that sealed door earlier in the dungeon? That's where you'll find yourself after falling down this hole.
When you're finally ready to proceed go through door VI to find yourself in a room with yet another puzzle. This is what I call the door puzzle. Before we begin the puzzle you'll want to collect the treasure chest in the bottom left of the screen. You can jump down to the lower floors over on the left hand side of the area. Inside the chest is a weapon for Tifa, Work Glove.
The guy we have to catch has a set route every single time, he goes into the door in the upper left corner and comes out in the same location that you see a red arrow in my screen shot above. You can reset this puzzle as many times as you want by exiting the room and entering it again, he will always come out where the red arrow is.
With that information you can catch him by entering the door where the red arrow is immediately after entering this room. The blue arrow is the door he always goes into after coming out of the red door. If you need to reset this puzzle just go into the bottom right door, that takes you up to door 1.
In this next room there's going to be a boss fight against a Red Dragon. Hopefully you aren't abusing Fire Materia or relying on Fire damage heavily because it'll heal this boss. For this reason I recommend you don't use Vincent for this encounter - more specifically his first Limit Break.
This is a missable item - grab it now or lose it forever!!
After the boss fight is over go to the right and inspect the podium with the hologram Temple of the Ancients for another scene. Try to take the Black Materia then start exiting the temple. In the room after the clock room you'll find the final boss of the dungeon, Demon's Gate. This will be by far the hardest boss you've faced up until this point in the game.
If your characters have 1500 HP or less you may need to level up a bit more before you challenge this boss - also the Big Guard Enemy Skill makes a giant difference if you have it. For those of you who haven't already seen it, I would recommend reading my Materia Combinations Guide.
Once you defeat the boss you won't regain control of Cloud again until you wake up back in Gongaga Village. There's quite a bit of story between here and there for you to read.
Technically our next stop in the story is Bone Village. It's on the northern continent and you'll have to use the Tiny Bronco to reach it... However it's recommended you complete some Side Quests before heading up there. If you haven't already done the Wutai Side Quest you'll want to do that now. If you finished the Wutai Side Quest but not the Wutai Pagoda Side Quest, then you'll want to do that now.
Continue to Bone Village Walkthrough
Return to Gold Saucer (2) Walkthrough