The Beginning of the End (Disc 3) - FF7 Walkthrough
We're finally at the last dungeon of Final Fantasy 7, the Northern Crater. There are some treasures for you to gather inside Northern Crater which I recommend you do relatively soon; also you should also become accustomed to the layout of this dungeon as there are many good leveling locations inside here.
The purpose of this page is to cover all of the remaining side quests that are available prior to reaching the point of no return inside the Northern Crater and fighting Sephiroth. On this page I am also going to give you recommendations on how to improve your characters outside of getting them their Ultimate Weapons.
As you may have already guessed, everything on this page is optional, if you just want to beat the game then skip ahead to the next page in the walkthrough. For those of you who want to make the most of your FF7 experience, keep on reading!
First thing you're going to want to do is grab some Double Materia growth weapons and armor. You're going to want to use this equipment while we do all of the easy side quests that are mentioned below.. It'll make things harder but it'll save us a lot of time leveling Materia later.
To get started you'll want to head to Junon to buy some Double Materia growth weapons. The weapon shop in Junon closer to the docks is the one that sells these weapons... Use my screenshots for some better guidance if needed. Keep in mind you may already have a copy of each of these weapons if you've been thorough collecting treasures throughout the game.
After you've purchased what you need in Junon you'll want to zip over to Bone Village where you'll be able to purchase Rune Armlets, Double Materia growth armor! These are sold by the vendor sitting in the doorway just left of where we enter (shown in the screenshot below).
With the Double Materia growth equipment out of the way, the next thing you need to know is what Materia is even worth grinding! Below I have compiled a quick list of Materia that you can basically never go wrong with leveling up. I'd recommend you go for at least 1 Master Command Materia and 1 Master Magic Materia as they'll make fighting Emerald and Ruby Weapon much easier.
Any character that doesn't get the Master Command Materia will want a Double Cut Materia. I'd recommend putting All + Restore on every character unless they have a Master Magic Materia or a Mega All Materia. HP and MP absorb you can pair with whatever attacks you find yourself commonly using.... If you pair them with a Master Command Materia then you can make even your basic melee attacks heal or restore MP.
If you'd like to learn more about different Materia Combinations I recommend you follow the link provided and read that guide. That's a compilation of many hours of research and testing of the best Materia combinations.
Important Materia to Grind:
Double Cut
HP Absorb
MP Absorb
Added Effect
All
Restore
Counter Attack
Luck Plus
Speed Plus
Master Magic Materia
Master Command Materia
Now with all of that out of the way, let's take a look at all of the available side quests for us to do. Since most of these quests will have us fighting enemies much weaker than us, it doesn't matter that we're using weaker weapons and armor. This will also save us a little bit of time later with grinding.
Let's start with all of the previously available side quests - these are also the easier side quests that don't require you to be in good gear.
Previously Available Side Quests:
Chocobo Sage's House (Enemy Skill Materia)
Key to Sector 5/Return to Midgar (Premium Heart & Sneak Gloves)
Wutai Side Quest
Wutai Pagoda Side Quest
Chocobo Breeding Side Quest
- The Ancient Forest (Requires Green Chocobo right now)
- The Materia Caves (Requires Green/Blue/Black/Gold Chocobos)
Lucrecia's Cave & Vincent's Ultimate Weapon/Level 4 Limit Break
There are a few more side quests available too that I have not yet mentioned in this guide, they include the Ruby and Emerald Weapon enemies as well as Cloud's Ultimate Weapon. You're definitely going to want to do Ultimate Weapon now but Ruby and Emerald Weapon will most likely be too difficult for you right now. Plus you don't want to challenge them while still using you weaker gear!
I'll bring these guys up again later in the guide as they're basically the "end game" content of Final Fantasy 7. Before moving onto the Northern Crater there's one last thing you should spend an hour doing and that's Source Farming. I'll give you a warning though, doing this can "break" your characters in the sense that you'll make them so overpowered nothing can stand a chance against you.
Newly Available Side Quests:
Ultimate Weapon (Cloud's Ultimate Weapon)
The Kalm Traveler
- Ruby Weapon
- Emerald Weapon
Source Farming at the Sunken Gelnika
The only place in the game that you can farm an unlimited amount of sources is on the Sunken Gelnika. Inside this dungeon you'll find Yuffie's Ultimate Weapon the Conformer which is essential for what we're about to do here too. For a much more detailed write up for Sunken Gelnika Source Farming follow the link provided.
I spent about an hour and a half at the Sunken Gelnika farming sources and I took a screenshot of how many I got in total (below). I didn't use the W-Item trick that allows you to infinitely duplicate the Speed or Luck sources as I didn't want to make my game so easy it provided no challenge at all.
After using all of the above Power Sources on Cloud, he went from dealing 1500 damage a hit (on average) to 2200 damage a hit. This gives you an example of how useful the sources are and how much you should expect to get out of an hour or two of farming.
Hour and a half of source grinding.
Keep in mind that when your characters hit level 99 their stats are usually all around 100. However your stats actually max out at 255 - that means when you're at max level your stats are under half of their total. This should help you understand how badly you could break the game if you raised them all to 255.
It's up to you how far you want to take Source Farming but I strongly recommend you stop after an hour or two otherwise you're going to remove all challenge from the game and very quickly get bored. Now the last thing you need to do before tackling the Emerald and Ruby Weapons is raid the Northern Crater dungeon for all of the loot!
The whole first 3/4 of Northern Crater is packed with loot and you can go inside and collect it all without facing the boss or reaching the point of no return. I strongly recommend you do that for some of the rare Materia as well as to discover the best grinding location in the entire game.
After you raid the Northern Crater you'll probably want to grind at the Swamp Location inside for awhile, after which you'll be ready to fight Ruby and Emerald Weapon. That's really all for this final preparations part of the guide, you're now ready to swap out your Double Materia growth gear for some Ultimate Weapons and go show Sephiroth whose been spending more time grinding.
The Kalm Traveler
- Ruby Weapon
- Emerald Weapon
Continue to Northern Crater (Part 1) Walkthrough
Return to Midgar Raid (Disc 2) Walkthrough