Final Fantasy 7

[hivedragon]

In a party of three which includes Cloud what two other characters (limited to: Barret, Tifa, Red13, Yuffie, Cait Sith, Cid & Vincent) would you pick and why?

Also what are the best places to earn experience points through random battles at what levels?

[Eakin]

You can pretty much fully customize any character's stats and skills with materia right? I don't remember it mattering much who you took.

That said I THINK I used Cid and Red back when I beat the game.

And the best place to level is probably the most recent dungeon you have access to. I don't think there are any metal-slime type monsters in that game that break the typical RPG XP curve

[hivedragon]

Thanks for confirming what I suspected about the lack of statistical differences between the characters.

Edit: Is there any reason to get Yuffie & Vincent?

What are the best places to level up after you gain the airship?

[ryzouken]

I used Tifa and Red XIII. IIRC, Red was my dedicated thief character because his relevant stealing stats were higher when I picked him up. Both Tifa and Red became dedicated mages, weighed down with all kinds of magic and summon materia, while Cloud was set up to be a cover/counter machine.

But it's been awhile since I played.

For leveling, do so in the crater.

There's a subquest or three with Yuffie that's annoying but worthwhile IIRC. (Wutai and then climbing the Pagoda in Wutai)

[Eakin]

I think Yuffie and Vincent open up side quests.

I don't remember the plot of the game very well, but wherever the plot of the game is telling you to go, go there and fight things.

How long before this thread turns into an argument over whether FF7 is the greatest game ever or terribly overrated?

[Seerow]

My team was Yuffie and Cid. Both had strong multi-hit limit breaks, without being annoying like Tifa's (I hate the slots).


But customizing via materia is definitely more important than characters. The stats between characters is slightly different, but the various +stat items can all be farmed to max out stats, so the only real difference is their weapons and their limit breaks. (Yuffie has another advantage here: Her ultimate weapon lets you deal full damage when using the transform materia, rather than 10% damage. This makes farming said stat sources infinitely easier. I think Vincent's last weapon has a similar property, except in his case the damage is always equal to how many enemies he's killed, which means you need to grind out 9999 kills for him to deal max damage)

[Starwulf]

I think Yuffie and Vincent open up side quests.

I don't remember the plot of the game very well, but wherever the plot of the game is telling you to go, go there and fight things.

How long before this thread turns into an argument over whether FF7 is the greatest game ever or terribly overrated?

both, neither, Kefka pwns Sephiroth!

lmao.

[littlebottom]

genuine advice as to the party of 3, it depends on only a few things, one, whos limits do you like, two, using aerith and barret early on can help when barret has to 1 man and when aerith cannot leave your party during the pyramid, making these sections of the game much much easier.

that said, the best physical party you can possibly make is cloud, vincent, and the third is arguable, but barret usually takes it.

the reason for this is A: cloud cant be removed anyway, B: Barret becomes more powerful the higher amount of AP the total sum of all materia equiped on him have. and C: Vincent becomes more powerful every time he gets a killing blow on an enemy, so this makes vincent (if used from as soon as possible as often as possible) by far the most powerful character without grinding for the stat upgrade potions.

as for grinding easy AP (only pheasable later on) the forest around the town that sinks into the lifestream, cus the monsters there come in 3s and 4s and each carry a decent sum of AP that with a double or triple on is a lot of AP considering how easy and quick they are to kill.

FF7Fanboy here...:smallredface: ive no idea how much you already know of the game so ive specifically tried to avoid as much info as i can, but im guessing its not your first play through.

I hope you find this useful. but if it really boils down, use whatever ones you want. I originally used to take cloud barret and red 13, (when i was like 7 myself) but now my standard team is cloud barret aerith, then swap barret for vincent as soon as possible after his 1 man section, and then back in for aerith later on.

[dgnslyr]

Personally, I went with Cid and Red XIII, because both of them have ultimate weapons that are the easiest to power up. It's not hard to avoid using magic when most damage spells are pretty weak anyways. Barret's Missing Score is a bit gimmicky and dependent on how hard you grind, Vincent's requires you use him a lot, Tifa's is even gimmickier, and Cait Sith is Cait Sith. I don't think Yuffie's even has a special damage booster system.

The point of finding Yuffie and Vincent is to have Yuffie and Vincent join your party. That's reason enough to find them. Also sidequests and some extra dialogue.

I never really felt FFVII was hard enough to warrant grinding, because if you kill every encounter you run into, you should be more than strong enough to wipe out any boss. Nobody grinds without necessity, so which boss are you having trouble with? Sometimes a better strategy is even more useful than extra levels. I don't remember levels counting for a whole lot in FFVII anyways.

[littlebottom]

I don't remember levels counting for a whole lot in FFVII anyways.

mostly true, if you follow the story at a normal pace doing the odd bit of side stuff as you get to it, you should be able to beat every boss as you get to it.

BUT when you start trying to do speed runs, my god does levels count:smalltongue: admittedly what counts more is knowing what you can cut out and where you can get certain materia as soon as possible (Such as barrier so you can take on tough bosses below the correct level)

i have mainly 2 bosses (that are nessisary to fight) that i find difficult in a speed run, demon gate, and dockloader. dockloader, just cus he nicks random characters, and if you dont blow his face off as fast as possible you wont have any characters left and you automatically lose. more annoying that difficult. and demon gate cus he is a significant jump in difficulty, and i find really hard to beat if you dont level aerith a little, simply because his one move does about 1000 damage to everyone and you only have about 1000 to 1200 life at that point in a speed run, (hence my previous mention of barrier materia :smalltongue:)

[NOhara24]

Thanks for confirming what I suspected about the lack of statistical differences between the characters.



Not true. The obvious physical strikers in the party (namely cloud) do much better when not loaded down with materia. Look at their stats screens and watch them change when loaded down with materia. Cid, Cloud and Barrett hit much harder when not loaded down with a bunch of summon/magic materia. I always used Aeris/Tifa as the "full caster" type when I played through it.

[Seerow]

I never really felt FFVII was hard enough to warrant grinding, because if you kill every encounter you run into, you should be more than strong enough to wipe out any boss. Nobody grinds without necessity, so which boss are you having trouble with? Sometimes a better strategy is even more useful than extra levels. I don't remember levels counting for a whole lot in FFVII anyways.


While this is true, I still spent a huge amount of time grinding at the end game, gathering up tons of mastered materia. I think my main file has like 4 sets of Master ____ Materia, about 16 mastered counter attack materia, a 4-5 sets of Blue Counter and Morph, plus assorted other random stuff.

[Hyudra]

The reasons to use one character over another are:
Stats while leveling - this smooths as you hit the very late game though.
Limit Breaks - Red XIII's haste and such are good early game, but his late game limits kind of suck.
Ultimate weapons - this gets glossed over a lot, but different ultimate weapons have different bonuses to them:
Cloud's gains attack power as his HP rises.
Barret's Missing Score has attack power proportional to the total AP of materia equipped to the gun.
Tifa's Premium Heart gets bonus attack power every time she misses an attack with a limit break.
Aeris' Princess Guard gains bonus attack power for every other ally that's knocked out.
Red XIII's Limited Moon gains bonus attack power as Red's MP rises. Same for Cid and Cait Sith.
Yuffie's Conformer deals full damage with the Morph materia.
Vincent's Death Penalty gains attack power as it kills enemies.

[dgnslyr]

Cait Sith's ultimate weapon, HP Shout, runs off his current HP, just like Cloud's. He's still a terrible endgame pick because he's Cait Sith.

Other than that, your list looks correct.

[Hyudra]

Yeah, don't/didn't ever use him, so I was going by memory some 1.5 decades distant.

[Neftren]

Personally, my first playthrough was Cloud/Vincent/Yuffie. Vincent is without a doubt, the strongest ranged attacker in the game once you pick up Death Penalty, glitch or no glitch. Even without it, he hits quite hard. The only tradeoff with Vincent is that his limit breaks are somewhat annoying. Galian Beast was quite frankly, a waste of time for me.

With regards to Yuffie. She's also ranged, allowing you to put Yuffie and Vincent in the back row (and Cloud too, with the right materia), and has great stats for casting if you decide to neglect farming the stat bonus items. Also, keep in mind that Yuffie is the only other character with a limit break that heals, and becomes the only character with a healing limit break past that part which shall not be named for blasphemy.


Personally, I'd recommend just picking whoever you want to play with. The game isn't especially difficult if you pick up some levels here and there. With that in mind though, let's consider some of the other characters.


Tifa is actually an incredibly strong pick that's often neglected to a materia-stick role. Her limit break hits multiple times (which can definitely stack up late game, though outclassed by some others at that point). She's also pretty tough.

Cait Sith I believe actually has the best magic statistic in the game if I remember correctly. Sadly, his limit break is so irregular, and sometimes lethal... so I tended to avoid using him.

Barret is a reliable pick early game, but I tended to leave him behind once I picked up Vincent. Big Shot is still an awesome ability though, as are his later limit breaks. You also have to spend some time using Barret in preparation for his fight under the Gold Saucer, but that's a spoiler, so I won't continue.

I dunno. I strongly disliked Red XIII (hereby referred to as Nanaki). I just used him for my caster when nobody else was around. I don't really have comments for him though.

The last character is uhh, Cid. Cid is probably who I would have brought along if I didn't have Vincent. His final limit break is (probably) the best in the game, he hits hard, and the list goes on. Plus he's totally epic.

[dgnslyr]

Cid is a strong pick because he's Cid Highwind. I brought Nanaki along because his ultimate weapon works the same way, so it'd be unfair to leave him out. Really, barring corner-cases like speedruns or low-level games or other self-imposed restrictions, base stats and limit breaks make a small difference compared to, say, available equipment and materia. Besides, it's not a particularly hard game on a normal playthrough, so go ahead and bring whoever you'd like.

[Calemyr]

I haven't played it for a long time, but I remember not noticing a lot of real difference between people. Oh, their limits and weapons seperated them somewhat, but not really enough to mean much. For the most part my party was just focused on who was the most emotionally invested in current events. Barring that, I tended to use Tifa and Vincent, because (in my head, at least) Vincent shared Cloud's interest in Sephiroth and Tifa had an obvious interest in Cloud.

[polity4life]

I remember when this was out a walkthrough had done an analysis on which characters were the best. The variables were stats gained upon leveling, physical and spell damage, and damage output of limit breaks. The ranks were X out of 4 with increments of .5. It wasn't terribly robust but it gave some idea as to who was quantifiably better than someone else.

The analysis set Cloud as the benchmark with a rating of 4 out of 4. According to this analysis, his stats always ended up the best, he was among the best physical damage dealers, one of the best casters, and had outstanding limit break damage.

Now, I only remember looking up the two other guys I rolled around with: Cid and Red.

Red was a 3.5 and only his limit breaks held him back. In terms of game stats, physical damage, and casting damage, he most closely mirrored Cloud than anyone else, or so I was told. Frankly I liked him because during early playthroughs when I didn't grind, he typically stayed up more than anyone else. Don't know why.

Cid was a 2.5. The low damage output of Highwind and terrible casting held him back according to that analysis.

Why didn't I use anyone else?

Yuffie never interested me and anytime I tried to play with her, even upon first obtaining her and giving her the extra few levels over my party average, she just didn't perform as well as other options. I likely wasn't using her properly or giving her a fair chance.

Vincent was fun but losing control of him is tough, especially if you're in a boss fight while underpowered (which is what caused me to dump my first ever play through and restart as I couldn't beat a certain boss). I'm sure it's nice if you have enough casting/item support to offset losing the option of having Vincent take care of himself.

As for Barrett, I just couldn't up his damage output enough. No matter what I did, he just couldn't keep up with Cid or Red. Again, I must have misused him. Also, being railroaded into using him early on just turned me off. In all fairness, it turns me off in nearly every game when I HAVE to use a character for a length of time. If given the option, I would have taken Cloud out of the party just for the novelty of it.

Tifa I used on and off if I wasn't using Cid. This was more of six of one or half dozen of another; sometimes I liked having her around and sometimes I didn't. She did cast better than him though and had a far deeper mana pool.

Cait Sith...if given the opportunity, I would have told Reeve to keep version 2.0 and that the party will do just fine without it around.

But in all honesty, with enough grinding, party selection doesn't matter. After I got wise to how RPGs worked, as I didn't play many before, I felt best to never leave Disc 1 unless all of my characters were at least level 60. That way, the challenges that obviously didn't scale were simple and I could jsut enjoy the story.

[MonarchAnarch]

Cait Sith all the way. Cait is great for anyone's party. Not a number cruncher? Cait breaks up the monotony of the same ol same ol. For the number crunchers, have fun with that slot machine and dice rolls! :P

[Cespenar]

For the most part my party was just focused on who was the most emotionally invested in current events.

Yeah, I pretty much do this in FF7 and all the other RPGs as well.

[DiscipleofBob]

Yeah, the character choice in FF7 didn't matter as much except for what equipment you had available and what limit breaks they had. Sure, the numbers said the stats were different, but by the time you're actually at the end of the game, there's just too many ways to destroy everything in the game but Ruby and Emerald that you pretty much have to handicap yourself to get a real challenge.

Barret, Vincent, and to a lesser extent Yuffie, all have long-range weapons, though that really only matters for a handful of boss battles. Barret has Mind Blow for when you're fighting an annoying caster, but you're not likely to keep him on level 1 Limit Breaks so that's situational at best. Vincent's Limit Breaks are just annoying since you lose control of him.

Yes, you have to play the slots with Tifa's Limit Break, but it's kind of worth it to be able to use all of them at once.

Red XIII and Cid were always kind of meh to me. Not bad, but no real strong advantages over using the other.

Cait Sith is... yeah...

If Aeris didn't die (OMG SPOILERS) she'd probably be the best character in the game just by virtue of her broken limit breaks. Complete recovery and invincibility? Okay. Free Limit Breaks for the other two characters? Yeah, I'll take me some of that.

I usually ended up using a combination of Barret, Tifa, and/or Yuffie. The former two because they're both strong, reliable characters who I've been used to using, and the latter because everyone else kept saying how much they hated Yuffie and how useless she was, and she was always my favorite of the FF7 girls.

But yeah, in FF7, the only real difference between characters are the equipment availability, limit breaks, and who you want available at what point in the game for plot purposes.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Edit: Is there any reason to get Yuffie & Vincent?

Because Yuffie's awesome. Vincent's kind of annoying to use, but he hits like a freight train.

To answer the initial question, I generally switched between Barret, Tifa, Cid, and Yuffie for most of the game, settling on Barret and Tifa for the "main" party in the final boss fight, when I played.

[Tengu_temp]

Yuffie, Vincent and Cid are my favorite characters in this game - not because of any statistical bonuses, but because they're the coolest. I wish I could make a party out of them.

I cycled between using everyone, though. It's not like this game is difficult in any way, you only need to grind XP if you want to do some sidequests right at the end. Before that, just go with the plot.

[Anteros]

You may as well pick up the optional characters even if you're not using them. If I remember right, it only takes a few minutes to grab each, and they add dialogue and side quests to the story.

[Mixt]

Make sure to get Ribbons for everyone.

Seriously.

The Final Boss will mess you up otherwise.
Supernova, deals 15/16'ths of your HP in damage and has a chance to inflict every status effect in the game.
Not protected against status effects? Sucks to be you [Game Over screen]

Happened to me a LOT the first time i played through the game.
I think it took me like 40 tries to beat him simply because i kept getting butchered by massive damage and status effects (7000+ damage per attack? Really? Wait crap confuse! My party members are killing each other!...Game Over)

And then he automatically drops everyone's HP to 1 (DAMN YOU HEARTLESS ANGEL!), while they are poisoned (Game Over again)

I had some really bad luck when fighting him.

That, and i apparantly became a victim of the messed up scaling he's got, because the Sephiroth i fought apparantly had much higher stats than he does for most people (Something about a number of variables within the game that makes him harder if certain conditions are met)
Probably helps that i didn't do very many side quests the first time around.

That was like 10 years ago now, and i still remember the horror of being brutally slaughtered time and time again by what is essentially a massively powerful psychic ghost/Eldritch Horror hybrid that decided to manifest itself in the form of a friggin Seraphim and make the background of the battle appear as if you are fighting in heaven.

To this day, Sephiroth still scares me because of that experience.

[Seerow]

Make sure to get Ribbons for everyone.


Worth noting: You can get extra ribbons by morphing master tonberries in the last dungeon. Also, if you really want a different accessory, a Add Effect-Hades on your armor accomplishes nearly the same thing.

[Tirian]

Yeah, the character choice in FF7 didn't matter as much except for what equipment you had available and what limit breaks they had.

There's another important difference, which is that everyone's ultimate weapon had a hidden bonus based on a different stat. For instance, Cloud's was based on how many HP he had and Vincent's on the number of kills he's done. The immensely important one is that Yuffie's is more powerful based on the level of your opponent. She can one-hit morph those annoying mutants in the crashed sub, which is really important if you're into farming. (And if you're not into farming, why are you playing FF7? :smalltongue:)