Final Fantasy VII

David and Goliath Achievement Guide

Hello everyone, I'm d13sel and I'm the author of this guide to obtain the achievement "David and Goliath" for Final Fantasy VII on RetroAchievements. In the past I've done quite a bit of speedrunning and challenges in FF7 and learnt a lot of strategies and mechanics so I've decided to write this guide up to help people with obtaining this achievement in a manner that minimizes time investment and difficulty, so I hope this helps.

Acknowledgements

Firstly an acknowledgement should go to GarlandG for writing a low-level no materia guide which is available here. There are a few strategies which I used in it but it was mostly the experience routing that I used for it rather than doing the calculations myself.

Secondly, the wider Final Fantasy VII community and the speedrunning community for helping me to learn the more in-depth mechanics and code as to how this game works. I don't go into detail here, but some of the knowledge from here has helped me to write the strategy for this guide.

Preparation

Yes, I expect you to read this section.

While I want this challenge to be as easy as possible, beating the game at level 28 without grinding sources for 15 hours isn't exactly a walk in the park so I do need to cover some things. Also, I expect that you have finished FF7 before if you're doing this challenge and I won't be giving details on how to advance the story. If you want your hand held, hire an escort.

ATB

The ATB is the mechanism which determines how quickly you get your turn, as well as the enemies that you are fighting. When the ATB advances depends on what setting you have enabled, and this is relevant in a lot of areas in this challenge.

1. Active: The ATB will always be advancing regardless of whether you are in a menu or the animation that is occurring during the battle. This is set during some bosses, but most aren't. Rather it is used when encountering random enemies to ensure the fastest possible escape.
2. Recommended: Garbage, don't ever use it.
3. Wait: The easy difficulty setting of the game. During certain animations (mostly magical, summons and limit breaks) the ATB will freeze, more importantly though, it will also freeze when you are in a menu in the battle, such as magic or item. This can be abused and I'll cover it in more detail on the relevant boss fights.

Gil

Throughout most of this challenge, gil will be tight. Generally the earlier in the game it is, the tighter it will be. However as the game opens up (leaving Midgar, acquiring vehicles etc.) there are options for farming gil without killing enemies such as Steal materia. Just so you know though, Midgar is VERY tight and I wouldn't advise buying anything other than what I recommend in the guide.

Pincers

Yeah pincers suck, especially in disc 2 and will result in death a lot of the time. I'm basing most of these from my memory but I'll notify when you are at risk of a pincer encounter. When there is a risk of a pincer, setting the ATB back to Wait can improve your chances of surviving (a little).

The Actual Guide

Midgar

At the start of the game, go into the settings and set ATB to Active and camera to Fix (this just makes choosing targets a little easier during the run). Pick up the two potions from the guard on the ground, fight the scripted battle, name your characters and head straight to Guard Scorpion. There is a Phoenix Down on the way to GS before the elevator if you'd like to pick it up but it isn't necessary.

Guard Scorpion
HP	800
Difficulty	"Attack while its tail's up"/10
Party	Cloud, Barret
Survivor	Cloud

You should use a calculator to be safe for this fight. This fight is basically fought normally, have Cloud cast Bolt and Barret attack in the four rounds of turns you get before it raises its tail. Cast Bolt once with the tail raised to charge Cloud and Barrets limits. Have Barret use a limit once then lower the HP so that Cloud can kill it. Kill Barret off then execute GS with Cloud. Note: Cloud's max damage with Bolt is 98 Make like hay and bail out of the reactor and progress the story until you reach Sector 7, picking up another two potions on the way.

Progress through the story and go through the events in 7th Heaven bar. Once you've done that, head down to the weapon shop. Pick up the All materia and Ether on the upper floor where the tutorial characters reside, then go downstairs and do a shop. Sell your ethers and buy 21 grenades and customize their position to be first in your item menu. Now you have a choice, you can either learn some speed tech and skip about half an hour of the game by learning guard skip, or progress through the story normally, the skip progresses you all the way to Wall Market. If you don't do the skip, Air Buster is the only fight you take EXP from, and it goes to Barret.

Learn how to do guard skip here

After doing guard skip or completing story up to getting to Wall Market, proceed to the right into Wall Market. You'll be doing the dress sidequest in full getting the best items, there is a save point in Wall Market if you wish to save for safety. To do this,

1. After going to the dress shop proceed into the materia store and talk to the cashier to start his item search
2. Go into the restaurant, sit down and eat a while, when they ask for feedback, tell them it tastes good (2nd option) and receive the Coupon
3. Go into the item shop, talk to the cashier and exchange the Coupon for the Digestive
4. Go down to the inn and stay the night, at the vending machine, buy the most expensive product for 200 gil
5. Go back to the materia store and give the item to the cashier, you'll receive the Diamond Tiara
6. Head into the bar and go up to the toilet and talk to the girl in there twice, give her the Digestive and you'll receive the Sexy Cologne
7. Talk to the dressmaker, pick the 2nd dialogue option both times when he asks what type of dress you want (I can't remember what they say)
8. Head back to the dress shop, talk to the dressmaker again and you'll receive the Silk Dress
9. Go into the gym, you must get more (a tie isn't good enough) squats than the opponent to receive the Blonde Wig

You should now have all 4 items, and can proceed to Corneo, note that you won't be able to save before Aps if you enter the mansion so safety save now if you choose. Pick up the ether and hyper in the mansion before going into the Aps fight, and give Restore materia to Aerith and set ATB to Wait.

Aps
HP	1800
Difficulty	4/10
Party	Cloud, Tifa, Aerith
Survivor	Aerith

Again, you'll need a calculator for this fight. You'll need to do ~1660 damage before landing a killing blow with Aerith using a grenade to kill. Use grenades, Tifa and Cloud Limit Breaks and heal Aerith if she loses HP, remember to also count the self-inflicted damage to Aps from Tidal Wave which hits for ~180 when hitting his back and ~45 hitting his front. Not a difficult fight just don't lose count.

Don't bother with picking up the item to the left immediately after Aps, it's only a potion and isn't worth the extra encounter. Just heal Aerith, don't use up your Phoenix Downs here, set the ATB back to Active and head to the Train Graveyard, picking up Steal materia on the way. Don't worry about stealing ethers here unless you're already behind on gil for some reason, which are from Deenglows. Pick up the Hi-Potion and potions on the way through the graveyard.

Before talking to Barret, put Restore on Cloud and set the ATB back to Wait

Reno
HP	1000
Difficulty	2/10
Party	Cloud, Barret, Tifa
Survivor	Cloud

A super easy fight, he'll die to 8 grenades, but if Cloud gets a Braver, use it in place of a grenade. Reno always opens the fight with Pyramid, best case is actually on Cloud as he'll damage down T and B nice and quickly but you have to destroy the pyramid before they both die. If he pyramids T or B, then destroy it so Reno can target them with physicals. Reno's Pyramid move is every 1st, 4th, 7th... etc turn. Wait for Reno to kill off T and B and execute with grenade/Braver after 7 grenades are thrown. Cloud will receive a heal after the fight, keep B and T dead.

In Sector 5, pick up the Ether and Cover materia in Aerith's garden and go through the cutscene with Elmyra. In the sector 5 shop, sell the Assualt Gun and all your ethers and buy as many grenades as you can (should be ~50) BUT make sure you have at least 300 gil left over. Buy the batteries and proceed to...

Shinra Headquarters

In front of the entrance is a pretty good place to save, and now place Cloud in the back row. Take the stairs up to the 59th floor to avoid a bunch of fights (I've counted them, there are actually 59 flights of stairs...enjoy), pick up the Elixir on the way.

59th Floor

As you enter the 59th floor, you won't be getting a random encounter, however due to a bug in the game, after the fight with the three Red Guards, encounters become active on this floor and if you get an encounter, you won't be able to flee. In order to minimise the chance of getting an encounter, approach the guards as low as possible, and you should be able to engage the fight basically next to the bottom guard. The fight itself isn't difficult if Cloud is in the back row, just throw 2 grenades onto each enemy. If you followed the previous instructions, Cloud should be the only character alive.

60th Floor

You need to be able to get through the floor without being caught, and apparently some people struggle with this so I'll give some tips.

1. Cloud runs faster than B or T so be prepared for that
2. The first set of guards only walk so it is easier to cross between pillars
3. The distance between the pillars and the middle section is further than pillar to pillar, so don't try to cross when a guard is watching it, wait until that gap is unmanned
4. For the second section going from first pillar to second pillar, it's better to wait for both guards to run to the left rather than when they cross over each other as one guard runs earlier than the other, for the middle section to first pillar and second to third pillar gaps, you can just wait until the gap is unmanned.

Floors 61 - 68

Obtain the keycard and head to floor 62.

You need to obtain the Elemental materia for my route, so you need to "guess" Domino's password, so saving before this is probably a good idea. However it is possible to determine the password without save scumming. Go into the upper right library and inspect the middle bookshelf on the left side. That book informs you which password Domino has selected, all you need to know is the first word of the book title.

New = MAKO Results = KING Economic = BEST Breakdown = BOMB

Floors 63 and 64 have a save point, and the coupon to item exchange, but they aren't necessary. Obtain them only if you want to. Then complete the diorama on the 65th floor, progress the story on 66th and proceed to 67th. Make sure Cloud is healed on this floor as this is the first floor which has Soldier: 3rd Class enemies and they can hurt. Pick up the Poison Materia, set the ATB to Wait and save your game here before fighting Sample H0512. In the cutscene tell Barret to take care of Aerith at which point you'll enter the fight.

Sample: H0512
HP	1000
Difficulty	3/10
Party	Cloud, Tifa, Red
Survivor	Cloud

Similar to Reno, Sample has 1000 HP. On the first turns have Cloud throw grenades and Red cast Fire ONLY on Sample (press R1 to change between all enemies or single enemy). Red then goes to throwing grenades as well. A calculator might be a good idea here but he should be dead on the 7th grenade, Braver can be used instead of a grenade here as well to get closer towards the Cross-Slash limit. Wait until Red's dead (baby) before executing Sample. There is no need to attack the little minions.

You can switch out Tifa and Red for Barret and Aerith to survive random encounters. Then you absoluletely MUST pick up the Enemy Skill materia after the Sample fight. Proceed to the elevator on floor 66 and stay the night at el casa de Shinra.

Escaping Midgar

With the new party being Cloud, Tifa and Aerith, keep Cloud in the back row and Aerith should also be in the back row and head up to floor 70. When asked, remove Cloud and Tifa's materia. Set Restore and Star Pendant onto Aerith and you can have Barret and Red in the front row for speedy deaths, or back row for safety, your choice.

Hundred Gunner & Heli-Gunner
HP	1600 & 1000
Difficulty	3/10
Party	Aerith, Barret, Red
Survivor	Aerith

For Hundred Gunner, throw 12 grenades and he dies, absolute pushover. Heli-Gunner requires slightly more care though. He'll die to 8 grenades/limits. Throw 7 grenades to push him into second phase and be one more grenade from death whilst you wait for the Gunner to kill off B and R. Whilst Heli is in second phase he won't put characters to sleep or poison them. Grenades can be substituted for limits but take note they can critical on the rare chance if you're using them on Heli-Gunner, don't end the fight too early.

Remove the party's materia again and equip Restore onto Cloud, it isn't necessary for the Rufus fight but you must heal after it.

Rufus

4 grenades, dead. Don't target Dark Nation. Rufus can lol.

HEAL after the fight as you can get random encounters on the 69th floor. Do a save before talking to Tifa but you wait until the minigame start to do the menu preparation for Motorball.

This menu has a few more steps than the previous so here's a list.

1. Set the party to Cloud, Aerith, Tifa
2. Equip: Aerith equips the Mythril Armour
3. Materia: For Aerith put Restore onto the weapon slot, Fire + Elemental in the armour
4. Materia: Put Lightning and Ice on Cloud's Buster Sword
5. Order: Have Cloud and Tifa in the back row, Aerith in the front (rows are reversed in this fight as it is a back attack)
6. Config: Set the ATB to Active
7. Config: If it isn't already, set the cursor to "Memory"

Motorball
HP	2600
Difficulty	5/10
Party	Cloud, Aerith, Tifa
Survivor	Aerith

This fight is a bit more complicated, and having a calculator handy is pretty much necessary, remember you can pause in battles. I'll break this fight up into two steps.

Step 1: Most of the damage is in this phase. Cloud must go first and cast Bolt, Aerith and Tifa will throw grenades. Do this until Cloud has queued his 5th Bolt cast then STOP, and wait for a few things to happen. After Cloud casts his 5th Bolt, Motorball will do an animation changing stance.

Step 2: During the animation of Motorball changing form, queue Aerith to Cure herself and Cloud to cast Bolt but Tifa will do nothing. From here Motorball's next turn will be Twin Burner and will probably kill either Cloud or Tifa. Depending on the amount of HP remaining he might need one or two grenades to kill. Wait until Aerith is the last character standing, then execute with a grenade.

Kalm to Cargo Ship

You don't need to change party here, save on the WM, put Aerith back into the back row, complete the Kalm section and collect all the items in the town. No shops are necessary. The party stays as Cloud, Aerith, Tifa

Zolom Skip

In order to save 2000 gil, we're going to skip Zolom in one of two ways. There's the speed tech way which looks impressive so you can impress your friends, if you happen to have any, or you can just save scum over the marsh until you reach the other side. To learn Zolom skip, clich here

Save before entering Mythril Cave as there is a nasty pincer inside the cave which will probably kill you if you get it. Pick up the Long Range materia and the items in the cave and head to Junon after that. Don't recruit Yuffie, we get her much later in the challenge. Before entering Junon, you need to have Cloud and Tifa dead, or close to it (less than 40 HP)

Before reaching Junon, save your game then you need to do a shop. Sell the Star Pendant and Talisman and buy enough grenades so that you have 35 total. Swap Aerith's Fire materia for Poison and set the ATB to Active if it happens to be on Wait.

Bottomswell
HP	2500
Difficulty	1/10
Party	Cloud, Aerith, Tifa
Survivor	Aerith

This fight is cheesed. Have Aerith cast Bio until Bottomswell is inflicted with poison, then sit and wait until it dies, casting Cure when necessary. Keep in mind that Bottomswell can critical his physical attacks so be safe with HP amounts.

When you reach Upper Junon, you'll have an opportunity to save before the marching minigame. Use it, because even if you know how to do this bad RNG can screw you here, although it's rare. You want to score preferably 51% or higher in the marching game to earn 5000 gil, getting 41 - 50% is acceptable if you're having trouble though because it turns out to be 4500 gil instead. If you don't know how to do this, follow these steps.

1. Hold down and run and it'll guarantee that you will enter the formation.
2. When the lead officer shouts out a number, press AND release circle, your score will increase
3. Repeat step 2 whilst walking to the left

After the marching game you need to go into the tutorial hall and pick up the 2nd Enemy Skill materia, head next door into the item shop and buy 2 Hypers and 11 Tranquilizers. Proceed to the DDR minigame and get 100 or higher for Rufus' approval to get the Force Stealer, this is not optional so save beforehand if you aren't confident. Board and progress to forming your party on the Cargo ship.

1. Set the party to Cloud, Tifa, Aerith
2. Item, use a Hyper on Cloud
3. Item, use two Tranqs on Tifa and Aerith
4. Equip, Cloud with Force Stealer and Power Wrist (Aerith should still have Star Pendant and Mythril Armour)
5. Materia, Aerith should have Restore
6. You can ATB in either Active or Wait, Active is probably better to get three turns for each Jenova turn but either should be fine Save before fighting Jenova

Jenova-BIRTH
HP	4000
Difficulty	5/10
Party	Cloud, Aerith, Tifa
Survivor	Aerith

You need to track damage as you fight. Use Braver as it becomes available, as well as Tifa's limit. You will do most of your damage by throwing grenades though. Use Healing Wind as the party drops in HP but as Jenova goes below 1000 HP you can ease off of healing, unless it's Aerith that's low then just use Cure. When you finish the fight pick up Ifrit materia and the Wind-Slash on the upper level. That concludes the first continent.

Western Continent

Costa Del Sol to Corel

In Costa Del Sol, pick up the Power Source, Fire Ring and Motordrive in the basement and sleep at the inn in town. Head to the railway that takes you into Junon with a Steal materia equipped on Aerith, and tranq Aerith. If you happen to get a Bomb encounter on the screen after the Mako Reactor, you can try to steal a Right Arm, but don't force it here, there is a better section later. Progress through the rest of the tracks, saving at the save point and picking up items and equipment on the way, including the Wizard Staff and Star Pendant in the falling set piece. As you cross the final bridge set ATB to Wait and be prepared to be pincered by the big white birds. If you do, grenade the solo one and attempt to escape.

If you didn't get a Right Arm earlier, when you reach Corel, head outside and save your game, and reset the emulator. Head back onto the bridge screen and the first fight will be a Bomb. Steal with Aerith until you get a Right Arm. You only need one for now but we'll be coming back here later. Remove all the accessories from party members and at the weapon shop in Corel, follow the instructions below.

SELL Motor Drive Assault Gun Wizard Staff Wind Slash Protect Vest Star Pendant (both of them) White Cape

BUY 20x Molotovs

BUT Make sure you still have 3000 gil left over so you can enter Gold Saucer.

Head into Gold Saucer and follow the story until you reach Desert Prison, technically it doesn't matter who you take with you as no EXP is earned in this section but I recommend sticking with Aerith.

Desert Prison

IMPORTANT As soon as you enter Desert Prison, equip the Power Wrist onto Cloud and the Fire Ring onto Aerith. There are enemies here that can steal your equipment if it is unequipped so don't forget to do this, then immediately book it to the save point. If something is stolen, and molotov may kill the Bandit, but the only thing that may be lost that is particularly useful is the Right Arm. If you do lose the Right Arm, there is a backup strat.

Keep Aerith in the party after meeting Barret and head to Dyne, set the ATB to Wait and heal Barret before entering the final screen. See below for the alternative strat.

Dyne
HP	1200
Difficulty	1/10 or 2/10
Party	Barret
Survivor	Barret

If you have the Right Arm, use it here. It'll kill in one hit and if Barret is at full HP, he can't die.

If you don't have/lost the Right Arm, enter this fight with Barret in Sadness and use Molotovs to kill.

Dyne will start attacking you twice after two mollies for ~50 damage each, and they can crit, so if you want to be super safe, use a Hi-Pot between the 3rd and 4th molotov. There is also a 50% chance Dyne will do a Final Attack when you throw the 4th molotov, so take that damage into account.

ZOOM ZOOM Chocobo race.

Cosmo Canyon

When you arrive, there is an elixir on the second floor of the bar on the couch, which can be used for the upcoming boss if you had to use the one you got on the Shinra HQ stairs. Otherwise, advance the story until you head into the Cosmo dungeon. The party you're taking is Cloud, Red and Aerith.

In the first area, just break the rock that activates the door and advance to the next screen. On the next screen, don't bother with picking up the Added Effect materia or any items, just do the following preparation.

Aerith needs Restore materia, Fire Ring equipped and to be in Sadness, the other two don't need anything in particular equipped BUT Cloud should be in Fury. Now advance and fight both of the baby spiders.

In this order, do the following turns

Cloud - Molotov

Red - Molotov

Aerith - Molotov

Cloud - Molotov

Red - Molotov

Cloud - Braver

Stinger should counter the last two molotovs with it's heavy attack, which will give Cloud his limit if he doesn't have it already. One more molotov from Aerith will kill it, so wait for Cloud and Red to die then throw it. Cure Aerith if needed. After the first Stinger fight, Phoenix Down Cloud and Red, put Cloud back into Fury and heal with Aerith's cure and repeat the same strategy. After the second Stinger, don't bother with healing anyone and go into the boss fight.

Gi Nattak
HP	I don't even know lol
Difficulty	1/10
Party	Cloud, Red, Aerith
Survivor	Aerith

Throw an elixir onto Gi Nattak.