You can get Yuffie in your party during any disc. If you're in Disc 1 and are riding around in the Buggy, that will work, too. The two places that she appears most often are the forests beyond the Gold Saucer (in the Gongaga Area), and most forests in the Junon Area. After a few battles, you'll fight Yuffie (seems to be a 1 in 15 chance, if you ask me).

_________________________________________________________________________

BOSS TIPS: MEI NO NINJA LV: 37 HP: 1950 MP: 280

Just attack, really. The Summon Materia 'Titan' works well. Yuffie can do all kinds of cool attacks during this time, but not once she joins you! Yuffie's level, HP and MP vary depending on what level your characters are at.

_________________________________________________________________________

When the battle ends, you'll be in a plain with Yuffie lying nearby. There's also a Save Point here. However, if you touch the Save Point, then go to your menu screen to save, Yuffie escapes and steals 200 gil! Don't worry, you can meet her again. You'll have to talk to her several times to get her to join. As she and you converse, she'll ask you several questions, and you can reply in two ways. To get her to join, respond like this:

Bottom answer, Top answer, Bottom answer, Top answer, Bottom answer

Put another way, respond using the second reply, then the first reply, then the second reply... and so on. After that, you can name her, and she'll hook up with Cloud and the rest of the gang. Note that if you choose the top answer for the last question she asks, you can name her, but she'll steal 700 gil from you and run away. You'll have to repeat the whole process if you want to get her in your party.

The second 'optional' (or hidden) character in the game, Vincent can also join your party during any disc. You'll need the gold key from the safe in Nibelheim's Shinra Mansion (see below if you don't know how to open it). Go down to the pink cavern leading to Sephiroth's library (it's in the Shinra Mansion, the entrance is in the stone wall in the eastern wing).

Remember the door to the crypt you couldn't get through? You can now enter it. Stand at the foot of the purple coffin and hit O. The lid will fly off and Vincent will talk to you. Choose the bottom reply when he asks you a question. When the coffin closes, press O again. Choose the second (bottom) reply when Vincent poses another question, and you can name him. Then, try to leave the cavern and he'll join you. Vincent can join you from the first time you reach Nivelheim onwards (but not during Cloud's flashback).

What most people forget when trying to open the safe is that it's just like a real combination lock...so you have to go in more than one direction when inputting the numbers. Furthermore, unless you're fast enough, you'll run out of time if you try any other combination. The code is:

RIGHT TO 36, LEFT TO 10, RIGHT TO 59, RIGHT TO 97

This means that you hold right and scroll through the numbers, then hold left until you reach 10, then hold right for the last two numbers. Don't forget to press O to verify each entry. When the safe opens, a Summon Materia (Odin) pops out, and you are assaulted by a big goon (how'd he fit into that little safe?)

_________________________________________________________________________

BOSS TIPS: ROSUTONANBAA LV: 35 HP: 7000 MP: 300

This boss can be taken out just by attacking and using Limit Breaks. Magic spells (Fire, Cold, Lighting) that are at level 2 are also okay to use. Heal yourself and use Summon Materia (like 'Sumon Chocobo and Moogle', and you'll win in no time. Aside from physical attacks, all this guy can really do is use a Lightning 2 spell on you, but it only does 400-500 points of damage to one character, so it's nothing to worry about. Rarely, he does a double-fisted hammer punch to one character that averages 2200 points of damage, though, so pack in some Phoenix Downs before trying to tackle him. If you blow off his red half (the one that uses magic) his physical attacks become more aggressive, so keep your HP Plus. Likewise, if his purple half is destroyed first, the Lost Number will use more mid-level spells, like Quake 2, against your party. It is possible to kill this boss without either part of it dying (by stunning it using the 'Summon Chocobo and Moogle' spell).

_________________________________________________________________________

Not only do you get an item from the boss once you beat it (it's the manual for Red 13's Level 4 Limit Break, the Cosmo Memory), but there's also a gold key lying in the safe that you can grab (Chi x x no Key). Don't forget to take the Red Materia! Apparently, there's a paper in the lower room in the right wing of the mansion that hints at the correct combination for the safe, but someone like me can't read it :( Once you've read the paper, you can find hints throughout the house (by the piano, next to the chair in the bedroom, etc.) Refer to the Disc One Walkthrough for more information.

Did the code still not work? Remember, the safe's lock is LIKE A REAL COMBINATION LOCK. So, when you're turning to 36, you can either land on it or creep up to it, but you can't hit 37 and go back. This applies to the rest of the digits, too; you can't go farther than the number you want. If you do (i.e. you go to 09 when trying to get to 10), you'll have to start all over again.

Get over 100 wins by fighting battles. To see how many wins you have, get in the Highwind or ride a Green, Blue, Black, or Gold Chocobo ever so slightly south and a little ways to the east of Midgar City, where you'll find a cave surrounded by mountains with a river nearby. Inside the cave is a sleeping fellow who (usually) tells you how many wins you've gotten so far. Not only do you need to have over 100 wins, but the last two digits have to be the same (100, 111, 255, 733, etc.)

When you have the correct number of victories, talk to the sleeping man. He'll toss and turn, then give you an item (Mythril). Next, go to the house on the penninsula near the Gold Saucer (you should recognize it since it's full of weapons inside). Talk to the man in the house, and when he gives you a choice, pick the top option. You'll lose the Mythril, but you now have the choice of opening the long wooden chest by the bed to get a Gold Armlet, or examining the metal lid on the upper floor at the end of the walkway to get the manual for Aeris's Level 4 Limit Break.

It's probable that you can do this with less than 100 wins, but I'm not certain of that. Someone want to verify it for me?

X, S, T, L1+T, L1+S, X, S, T, L1+X, O, X, S, X or*

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

* You can also use a combination of buttons and direction presses.

I'd like to stress that as far as I can determine, the result of playing the piano is random. Sometimes, nothing happens, other times, you'll find 1 gil, and other times, you'll find Tifa's Level 4 Limit Break Manual (keep reading). I'd also like to state that I've gotten her manual _without_ having Tifa in my party. I'm not sure how I did it, but I have a save file that proves it (see? see!) I thought I did it by playing the melody once, exiting out, playing it again, exiting out again, and then getting back on the piano and pressing L1+T.

But, the way that you're _supposed_ to do it is to stick Tifa in your party, go to the piano, play it once using the 'button only' method, and she'll eventually find a letter from her master, Zangan (the caped guy you saw during the first Nivelheim flashback). Tifa will get the Final Heaven Limit Break Manual after reading his letter.

First talk to the man standing by the doors back at Midgar City. He won't appear until after you've gotten the Highwind and rescued Cloud from Mideel Village. Talk to him, then return to the excavator's village on the Northern Continent. Chat with the man by the door and pick the first option, then the second or third option. While you could place diggers and hunt for the Key yourself, if you want to cheat, go over to the destroyed plane atop the dinosaur's skull. See the one excavtor near the bottom of the screen? Near him is a tiny piece of metal sticking outwards; position yourself underneath it and press up so that your character is looking forward, then dig.

You can use the Key to enter the locked gates near Area 7 and look around Midgar City. If you go into the church where you met Aeris, you can see her bending over the flowers; she'll flicker and disappear after a second. There's not a lot to do here, but if you go back to the Wall Market and go to the 'ITEM' building with the machine gun inside it, you can get Tifa's Ultimate Weapon by examining the computer before the gun fires upon you (you don't need Tifa to get the item). Also, remember the man in the gun shop that you bought the Battery from to reach the Shinra Building back in Disc 1? The man in the left side of the shop will sell you an accessory (Sneak Glove) for 129,000 gil this time around.

There are six of these flyers scattered throughout the world. You can find them in the following locations:

Flyer No. 1: Midgar City...the town next to Aeris' house. Go to the second floor of the southeastern building and look at the papers taped to the wall by the stairwell.

Flyer No. 2: Shinra HQ...on the first floor, check out the board with the papers on it near the elevators. The only time you can read this flyer is at the beginning of the game or when you raid Midgar in Disc 2.

Flyer No. 3: Gold Saucer...go to the Ghost Square and enter the hotel. Read the sign that says 'SHOP' next to the shop entrance.

Flyer No. 4: Cosmo Canyon...check the left wood post of the Tigerlily Arms Shop.

Flyer No. 5: Cosmo Canyon...the gold paper by the door on the second floor of the inn (the entrance is behind some hanging cloth near the bonfire).

Flyer No. 6: Utai...the bottom floor of Yuffie's house; it's the wall scroll to the right of the doorway. You can't get there unless you've done the sub-quest (refer to the 'Bonus Areas' section).

You don't have to find the flyers (they look like pieces of paper) in order. Whenever you have read all six of them, go to the restaurant in Wutai (the large building in the southwestern corner of town). Talk to the barkeep and you'll get a Power Source, Guard Source, Magic Source, Mind Source, Speed Source, Luck Source, and a Mega Elixir.

As easy as this trick sounds, it's harder to perform than you might think. One of your characters has to have a current HP of 7777 (or a maximum and a current HP of 7777...I'm not sure yet). This can be done by getting injured, equipping materia, or raising levels. When that particular character enters a battle, the message 'Ooru 7 Fiibaa' (All 7 Fever) will appear. It will show up every time the 'fevered' character attacks, too.

During this time, the person affected by the 'All 7 Fever' will make one _normal_ attack against each enemy when their Time Bar is filled, even if you have materia such as Slice Everybody or Mega All equipped. However, assuming they don't miss, that person will always strike for 7777 damage, even if an enemy has special defenses. Furthermore, that person behaves as if he/she was berzerked (i.e. you can't select commands for them since they will do nothing but attack), and can take no other action (even if you're wearing a Counter Attack materia). They can still lose HP or be affected by enemy abilties/magic/ etc.

There are two major drawbacks to this trick; your current HP drops to 1 point after the battle (it can be healed by normal means), and you can't repeat the trick unless you have 7777 HP exactly. Since I think your maximum HP has to be 7777 too, this means that you can't repeat that trick once you raise a level, since you will gain HP and it will affect the amount of HP a materia is adding/taking away from your 'real' total. This means that the only way to permanently keep this trick is to get really good at using materia orbs to customize your character's life, or by killing that character before the end of the battle so that they don't gain experience ^_^;

All you FF7 owners out there should try this! Go to any point in the game with an FMV sequence (such as starting a new game--the part where Cloud runs up to the Makoro furnace). Open your PSX and put in another disc. When you continue playing (the game won't crash) the FMV sequence will be replaced with one from the disc! (Using the last example, put in Disc 3 and you'll see the sequence with the stone pillars rising from the center of the last level; it's the same bit you see after killing Jenova Synthesis before fighting Sephiroth for the last time.)

What's really weird is that you can keep playing the game with another disc in your system! I beat the whole first part of the game and the CD would load up the various levels! I don't know for sure, but I guess that means that the ENTIRE game is written on each disc (barring the FMV, obviously)! If you want to verify this, try starting up a save file from disc 3 and replace it with, say, the first disc. You can do the submarine/snowboard sequences, or go to any place you couldn't go to in the first disc--and all the data loads up!

Going back to the trick, though, you can try this anywhere, and you usually get cool results. For instance, near the end of Disc 2, the Weapon monster rises up from the sea and attacks Midgar City--and gets decapitated by the Mako Cannon. I switched to the first disc before viewing the FMV and saw parts of the intro, and some parts from the FMV during/after Aeris's death! If you're fast, try switching the discs during the opening FMV when you start a new game; with Disc 2 inserted, it showed some more FMV of Aeris (this is when you return with Buugen Haagen to the Ancient City).

Even stranger is the fact that you can still see text/graphics over the FMV in some cases, such as Cloud and the Avalanche member running offscreen just after the furnace explodes near the start of the first disc, or Cid talking to Cloud on his phone during the part where the Weapon attacks Midgar City (of course, this is over the FMV from the disc you've chosen). And as I mentioned before, you can play normally after the FMV is over, even with the other disc in your PSX!

In earlier versions of this FAQ, I said that there was 'hidden' FMV of a silver car rotating around. Several people e-mailed me and informed me that you can normally view this in the Shinra HQ during Disc One. What's interesting, though, is that when I saw this FMV by using the trick above, I had switched Disc One with Disc Three (at the FMV with the bridge collapsing in Cloud's flashback). This means that it's on at least two of the three discs. Why it's there is another story. Also, the scene with the planets in Buugen Haagen's observatory (which is only in Disc 1) will also be partially displayed if you switch it with Disc 2 or 3.

Interestingly enough, you will instantly flee a battle if at least one character is petrified, stopped, or paralyzed while in the 'running' pose. So as long as you are not fighting a boss or have been ambushed (see the Running section for more detail), you can always escape simply by letting the enemy do one of the above attacks to you, or by doing it to yourself (via Spell Materia)! This is also useful if all your members are paralyzed, stopped, or whatever, and your last character is about to suffer a similar fate. Simply try to run away (even if you can't), and you'll escape the moment you are hit by the attack. The only exception to this trick is that if you are petrified and your other teammates are dead or petrified, then you will always lose. This doesn't work on boss battles, by the way.

Head due south from Cosmo Canyon in the Highwind, then go a little to the west. You'll see an island that's part dirt, part grass, with a smaller grassy island nearby. This isle doesn't appear on the Map, but if you land the Highwind on the grassy plain and run around in the dirt long enough, you can fight Sabotenders (better known as Cactrots; those little cactus guys from FF3)! You can't get Rename Cards from them or anything like that, but it's kinda fun fighting them. Actually, the name of this island is 'Cactus Island' so it makes sense to find them here.

To get to the second isle, head for the two islands near to each other on the northeastern edge of the map. Then go north (and a little more to the east), and you'll come across an oval-shaped island surrounded by mountains. There's a cave entrance here, but you can't land there in the Highwind. For more about the island, refer to the Bonus Areas part in section 6. The name of this place is 'Round Island'.