Northern Crater is actually the best grinding spot in the game. What you want to do is go all the way down (take multiple trips back and forth if you have to) and then use your save point at the bottom near the core where your party meets up again and it's quiet. DO NOT USE YOUR SAVE POINT AT THE AREA WHERE YOUR PARTY SPLITS, DUE TO A BUG YOU WILL LOSE EVERYONE YOU SEND OFF PERMANENTLY AND NEVER BE ABLE TO LEAVE THE NORTHERN CRATER. Then backtrack to the wet marshy area where Reunion plays. There are a few enemies of note there, since it's endgame territory:
- Movers: the best ones in my opinion. They drop a shitload of money and a shitload of AP — 2400 AP and 90,000 gil (they appear in groups of three, at 800 apiece), which can be bumped up to 7200 AP with a triple materia growth weapon. No EXP at all, unfortunately, but if you're like me and don't want to wind up overlevelled while you're trying to get your materia matered they're pretty much perfect.
- Magic Pots: 8000 EXP and 1000 AP. Forgot how much money. They appear in either ones or twos and apart from occasionally stealing your shit they're mostly non-hostile. Mind you, you can only exploit them if you have an Elixir, which you can steal from
- Master Tonberries: 6000 EXP, not a ton of AP compared to the other two. The legend we feared. Will fuck your shit up if you don't know what you're doing. Can be Morphed into a Ribbon, the best Accessory in the game. Don't attack more than twice per turn or they'll instakill you with Everyone's Grudge, and make sure you cast Death Force on your party or they'll instakill you by taking out your kneecaps and jamming a butcher knife in your eye, because that is how Tonberries do. Or just steal his shit and run.
But if you don't feel like triggering the endgame that early, there's the Sunken Gelnika. Has enemies that can all be Morphed into Sources, which will permanently boost your stats, as well as a pretty good sword for Cloud and Yuffie's Ultimate Weapon, the Conformer, which does normal damage when using Morph. Also has the Hades materia, which you will never use ever because status effects are worthless in this game outside of Ruby Weapon, and some of the best designed monsters in the franchise since everything on that aircraft is the result of just giving Hojo some disposable people and a pair of scissors and telling him to go nuts. They all give a decent amount of EXP and AP, but the thing you're definitely gonna want are the sources.
The first room contains a bunch of squid things that you might have remembered Hojo spawning during his boss fight, which can be Morphed into Speed and Luck sources. The fucked up kite ribcage Unknown can be morphed into a magic source. The Unknown that is mostly teeth and eyes and its back half is like a gall bladder or something can be morphed into Strength, the Unknown that is fingers with mouths at the end with eyes in the mouths with fingers coming out of the eyes can be morphed into Guard, the Sea Serpents that are just kind of there can be morphed into Spirit, and you can steal pretty good armour from them all that was previously only available once on disc 2.
Also the Turks are there as a boss fight. Unless you already told them to piss off on Disc 2, in which case I don't think they will be.
Oh also Rude has the Ziedrich in case you missed it before, which halves damage of nearly every single element in the game at the cost of having no materia slots. The Mythril/Mystile is still better.
edited 30th Jan '16 12:53:07 AM by WonderSquid
Go back in. Gotta get the sources.
How many people do you suppose this used to be? do you think they're still sentient?
Cloud got off pretty easy if you ask me.
I'm finally getting my Star Wars RPG off the ground.
With real flesh and blood people.
Let's see you nerds compete with that.
What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?Professor Gast did, remember? Jenova's discovery and the ideas for the Soldier Project were originally mostly his work, with Hojo being his partner.
Dads in general are kind of shitty assholes in the VII-verse. Gast, Hojo, President Shinra, Seto (kinda), Whatever Schmuck Knocked Up Ms. Strife, Mayor Lockhart, Godo.
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how is your internet better than mine
haha just kidding i don't have friends
Wait it was the President that started cutting his funding after Cloud wound up a vegetable and Zack wound up a corpse shortly thereafter. That's why Heidegger and Scarlet started making all those robots.
edited 30th Jan '16 2:03:19 AM by WonderSquid
gaster is like uboa if he was actually creepy
you know when you don't actually see him
in which case he just goes "OH FUCK DONT SCARE ME LIKE THAT"
i kinda feel like playing undertale just to kill all those damn characters tumblrinas obssess over
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."so did the undertale designers really rip off pay homage to uboa
because the resemblance is uncanny
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."

Third. I'm supposed to be in the Northern Crater but I'm putting that off.
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