4240 Sample Asked About Game
Example Brand Map: Lara Croft - Tomb Raider Awareness and Play Rates
Current Awareness of Game
15% Country Awareness Rates
UK France German y Italy Spain
Not Aware of Aware but not Played Played Lara Croft - Tomb Raider

80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 100%

1265 Sample of Players 273 Sample Reviewing Game
Change in Awareness and Prompted Play Levels

Europe

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Average Game

Autumn 2003 Spring 2004 Autumn 2004 Spring 2005 Autumn 2005 Spring 2006
Aware of Lara Croft - Tomb Raider

Players Profile

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-35 10-14 15-19

Aware but not Played

Played Lara Croft - Tomb Raider
Link: Awareness by age/sex within country

Players Age and Sex

Hours of Game Playing per week
Mean Hours Played Players Average Game 10.6 12.4

20-24 25-29 30-35

0% 0% Nothing Under 30 31-75 Less than 1 1-4 hours 5-9 hours 10-14 hours 15-19 hours 20-24 hours 25 hours

Female

Country Play Rates
UK France Germany Italy Spain Europe
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Microsoft Xbox 360 Sony PlayStation 1
Game Platforms Actively Owned

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%

Gameboy Micro

Player Commitment

Version

Lara Croft - Tomb

Sony PSP

Lara Croft - Tomb Other

Played Lara Croft Tomb Raider Average GAME

Hardcore Casual

Game Boy Advance/GBA SP
Link: Play rates by age/sex within country
0% 10% 20% Played Lara Croft - Tomb Raider

30% 40% Average Game

Fanatics Dedicated Gamers Ultra Casual
Players' Experience of the Game

Sony PlayStation (1)

Percentage of Respondents

Mean Modal % excellent

Overall Enjoyment of Game
All 6.86 7.00 21% Male 6.83 7.00 25% Female 6.92 8.00 16% 100% 75% 50% 25%

Level of difficulty

Mean Difficulty
Casuals Dedicated Hardcore
Lara Croft - Tomb Raider Average Game
Average Game 5.1 5.0 5.0 5.0

Microsoft Xbox 360

5.7 6.3 8.1 6.0

Too easy

Nintendo Game Boy Advance/SP

Nintendo DS

0% 2 Player's Scores 9

All Games

Lara Croft - Tomb Raider

Too hard

About right

Enjoyment Ratings

Mean score Mode score % excellent
Spring 2004 Autumn 2004 Spring 2005 Autumn 2005 Spring 2006

7.0 7.1 6.7 7.0 7.1

17% 21% 17% 24% 21%

4 10-14

Enjoyment By Age

Enjoyment By HC Index

Enjoyment By Segment

Casual

Dedicated

HardCore

Gamer Segmentation
Segment Profile vs Market

Core Gamers

Played Lara Croft -
Segment Penetration vs Average Brand

Designers

Action Heroics

Funsters

20% 10% 0%
Discoverers Masters Action Heroics

Discoverers

Masters
Funsters Adrenalin Hunters Core Gamers

Average GAME

Adrenalin Hunters

Average all GAMERS Male

Sample Asked About Game Sample of Players Sample Reviewing Game

Hot List Ranking*

% played Spring 2004 3.4% 2.7% 2.9% 1.8% 1.5% Autumn 2004 Spring 2005 Autumn 2005 Spring 2006 Rank 17 13= 24= 43= 52=

Spring 2006

* unprompted mentions of games played most in last 3 months
Euros Spent in last 6 months
Mean Spend on Games Players Average Game 146 165
76-150 151-225 226-300 301-450 Over 450
Lara Croft - Tomb Raider (original) Lara Croft - Tomb Raider 2 Lara Croft - Tomb Raider 3 Other

% currently playing

33% 19% 16% 16%
Lara Croft - Tomb Raider 6 (Angel of Darkness) 15%

Executed by

Platform Most Used to Play Game

Average All Games

How Game is Played by Method of Play

Alone offline

With friends offline

Alone online

With friends online

Square chose Eidos of the publisher for their PC ports. At the time Eidos has successfully handled the conversion and release of Core's widely popular "Tomb Raider" game from the PSX to PC. Having experience in marketing and distributing PSX to PC conversions, the company seemed to be the right choice. In the beginning, however, the PC port suffered many problems. When the contract programmers received the FF7 source code from Square, it was a horrible state of atrophy. When work started on the port, it was soon discovered that they had received an earlier, buggy version of the program. Work had to stop while Square accumulated a later version. It was also discovered that the people and equipment used to create the backgrounds for FF7, were now being used for FF8 and FF9. There was no way to re-render the backgrounds and the port team was forced to use the original low color/low resolution PSX dependencies. The movies faired worse. Squaresoft never rendered high resolution versions of the movies. The movie format was incompatible with Microsoft's DirectX system, so it was decided to convert the compressed PSX movies to one more native to a PC platform. This caused disastrous results. The movies were now a copy of a copy of a low resolution render. Square also refused to have anything added. It was to be a straight port of the PSX version with the same exact interface. Concessions were only made to text input. The game could run in a "high resolution" mode of 640x480, which isn't really a lot in terms of PC resolution. It was also limited to 15 bit color. More problems arose. The PSX had the ability to use different color depths on the screen at the same time. Many graphical effects depended on this ability. Many PC graphic cards did not have the ability to use color look up tables when placed into high color modes. This caused the game to go into a low resolution software renderer if this functionality wasn't available. FF7 was also designed for 15 bit graphics. This caused noticeable color banding on a PC screen. The sound architecture is also wildly different and suffered as well. The PC port was released June of 1998. It was late, buggy, and not very well ported. The game initially was incompatible with Cyrix and AMD CPUs, to which Eidos technical support simply refused to support at first. Many people with high-end graphic cards found themselves forced into a software renderer due to a lack of a color lookup system. Movies played upside down, or crashed the system all together, as it used a 3rd party renderer. The only solution Eidos came up with was to offer a save game past the crash point, destroying hours of work by the user. Many sound cards were not designed for MIDI playback and the software player used too much in the way of resources, slowing the whole system. The initial keyboard configuration was grossly unintuitive, using only the numeric keypad. Many laptops without one couldn't even use the game as you had to use the number pad to access the configuration menu. and the box was ugly. Eidos was dropped when Final Fantasy 8 for the PC was released. Where are they now? The PC port is now out of print and does not run on the Windows NT type kernels due to some farflung misallocated pointers. Many now play FF7 via PSX emulation. With this way of playing the game, graphic modes higher than 1024x768 resolution, 32 bit color, and texture filtering, can all be used. The PSX version is also stable and for the most part, bug free. The engine has continued to be built upon. It has also been used in other non-Final Fantasy games such as "Parasite Eve", which was the first to support full body textures before FF8. The PC port is still supported by a small band of users. Unofficial patches have also been released with varying degrees of success. Not bad for a little engine that could.

Section 9 Materia data format This contains the Materia data. Each record is 20 bytes long. Offset Length Description 0x00 0x08 0x09 0x0C 0x0D 8 bytes Level-up AP limits 1 byte 1 byte Equip Effect Element 0x00 0x08 0x0A 0x0C 0x12 0x16 0x19 0x20 0x21 0x25 0x30 Unknown Master Command: All commands are available Master Magic: All spells are available Master Summon: All summons are available Command: Command at offset 0x0E to 0x12 is available, depending on AP level Command: Commands at offset 0x0E to 0x12 become available as you level up. Magic: Spells 0x0E to 0x11 become available as you level up Booster%: 0x0E is boosted by offset 0x0F to 0x13 depending on AP level Unknown Unknown Unknown 3 bytes Status Bitmask 1 Byte Materia Type Multiples of 100 (4x WORD) [See table below]
Offset Length 0x33 0x35 0x3B 0x57 0x0E 0x0F 0x10 0x11 0x12 0xbyte 1 byte 1 byte 1 byte 1 byte 1 byte Materia attributes Materia attributes Materia attributes Materia attributes Materia attributes Materia attributes
Description W-Command: Command at 0x0E is added to the battle menu Unknown Summon: Spell at 0x0E can be used from offset 0x0F to 0x13 times depending on AP level Enemy Skill:Enables command 'Enemy Skill' [See Above] [See Above] [See Above] [See Above] [See Above] [See Above]
Equip Effects Byte STR VIT MAG MDEF MAXHP MAXMP LUCK DEX 0x00 0x01 0x02 0x06 0x07 0x08 0x0A 0x0B -01 0x0C 0x0D 0x0E 0x0F 0x10 +01 +01 +01 +02 +04 +08 +01 +02 +04 +08 -02% -02% -05% -10% -10% -10% +02% +02% +05% +10% +15% +20% -02 -04 -01 -04 +01 +01 -01 +02 +02 +04 +01 +02 -05% -10% +05% +10%
2.1 The KERNEL2.BIN Archive. On the PC version there exists a secondary kernel archive called KERNEL2.BIN.This archive contains only sections 10-27 (Text data) of KERNEL.BIN. The data was ungzipped from the original archive, concatenated together, and then LZSed into a single archive with a 4 byte header giving the length of the file. See the section on BIN types and LZS compression later in this document for more information.

IV. Low Level Libraries

1. PC to PSX comparison The files and data formats used in the PSX version of FF7 and it's PC port are conceptually the same thing, and accomplish the same tasks. That being said, they both have wildly different formats. Both of which were derived from a third original format that is also somewhat different that the first two. The original PSX FF7 was created in part using Sony's Psy-Q development library. This library uses common formats that are "native" to the PSX. Often times a toolkit was used to convert common development- based formats, such as a TGA bitmap or a palleted GIF file, to something a little more suited to Psy-Q, which would be a TIM file. During the porting process to the PC, some of the original artwork, (and artists for that matter), were no longer available. This resulted in the port team having to use the Psy-Q versions of many files, which were ill suited for the PC architecture. In our example, the TIM file was converted to a TEX file, which would be manipulated in the PC's video memory a little more efficiently. Sometimes the original artwork was available, such as the pictures of the characters within the menu, or the original MIDI files. Most often times it was not. To make things a little more confusing, both systems also archive their data files in different ways, making the extraction and rendering of each file a bit of a bear. For the most part the data within each file is the same thing, just a little switched around. This manual will cover the more generic files first, and then common files used in each module. 1.1 DATA ARCHIVES To save space, quicken access time, and to obfuscate the file structure a little, most of the data files are stored in some kind of archive format. The archives remove such useful items as subdirectories and logical data placement. There is no real "native" format these are based on. 1.1.1 BIN archive data format The BIN format comes as two different types. They both have the same extension, so one must open the file to see which format is which. They are best described as BIN Types and Bin-GZIP types BIN Types These are uncompressed archives. The header consists of a 4 byte header that gives the length of the file without the header and then the data beyond that. BIN-GZIP Types Unless otherwise noted, these have a 6 byte header. After this are many gziped sections concatenated together. Offset Length Description 0xbytes Length of gzipped sections 0xbytes Unknown 0xbytes File number 0x0006 varies varies [0x1F8B080000000000..] - Gzip header bytes Length of gzipped sections

/INIT/WINDOW.BIN /DATA/KERNEL/WINDOW.BIN

II. Menu Initialization

Menu has the incredible honor of being initialized right after the kernel. It is also the only module that keeps permanent data in VRAM for other modules to access. In the case of the PSX version, the graphics are loaded out of /INIT/WINDOW.BIN. This is a BIN-GZIP archive described in the Kernel section of this document. WINDOW.BIN has the following format. Offset Length Description Header [0x4827208200]

0xbytes

0xbytes Static Menu textures 0xbytes Font texture 0x332e 163 bytes Unknown
After initialization, the first Menu module ran is "Begin" The following is a picture of "Begin" in VRAM. Things to note is the font and static menu textures from /INIT/WINNDOW.BIN are highlighted in the lower right hand corner.

WINDOW.BIN

The following is an expanded picture of the textures from the PC version. The PSX version only differs in texture size and the way the buttons are displayed.
To better see what each section is, here is an annotated version with the more obvious textures labeled
This is never banked out, however small parts are overwritten and cashed for a while when Battle is loaded, but are overwritten again when menu is loaded. The large blank spot under the menu text is for the Japanese characters that were removed in the non-Japanese version of the game. This spot is unused in these versions.

III. Menu Modules

The 13 Modules are displayed like the following. 1 Begin This is the begin menu.
This is a screen form the "save" module. Begin initializes the menu system and calls save to load a game or to start the game.
2 Party Here is the party menu.
This is the menu you see when you manually enter the menu system. Things to note is the empty box in the lower screen shows what location you are in. Debug rooms have no name most of the time. 3 Item Item is the following.
4 Magic This is the magic menu module
Both magic and summon are accessed in the same module.
5 Eqip The Eqip module is a little strange.
Equip and Materia are in the same module. 6 Stat This is the status menu
7 Change This is the change module.
Also known as "Order", this is the simplest and smallest of all the menu modules, it just changes the order of the party, it uses the party screen as a background.

8 Limit The Limit menu

ports. The PC version has the MNU files internal to the executable and only have external resources. These are kept within the MENU_US.LGP file. The PC version has textures in two different sizes to support the two resolutions the game runs in. The following is a table of the menu resources and where they are located in both the PC and PSX version. Picture Description Low Resolution PC Filename Cloud Avatar Barret Avatar Tifa Avatar Aerith Avatar Red XII Avatar Yuffie Avatar Cait Sith Avatar Vincent Avatar Cid Avatar Young Cloud Avatar Sephiroth Avatar Chocobo Avatar CLOUD_L.TEX BARRE_L.TEX TIFA_L.TEX EARITH_L.TEX RED_L.TEX YUFI_L.TEX KETC_L.TEX BINS_L.TEX CIDO_L.TEX PCLOUD_L.TEX High Resolution PC Filename CLOUD.TEX BARRE.TEX TIFA.TEX EARITH.TEX RED.TEX YUFI.TEX KETC.TEX BINS.TEX CIDO.TEX PCLOUD.TEX PSX Location(in / MENU unless noted) CLOUD.TIM BARRE.TIM TIFA.TIM EARITH.TIM RED.TIM YUFI.TIM KETC.TIM BINS.TIM CIDO.TIM PCLOUD.TIM TIM Offset N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

PCEFI_L.TEX CHOCO_L.TEX

PCEFI.TEX CHOCO.TEX N/A CLOUD.TEX
PCEFI.TIM CHOCO.TIM KALI.TIM NAMEMENU.MNU

N/A N/A N/A 0x1E7C

Placeholder N/A Avatar Cloud Avatar CLOUD_L.TEX
Picture Description Low Resolution PC Filename Barret Avatar Tifa Avatar Aerith Avatar Red XII Avatar Yuffie Avatar Cait Sith Avatar Vincent Avatar Cid Avatar Chocobo Avatar BARRE_L.TEX TIFA_L.TEX EARITH_L.TEX RED_L.TEX YUFI_L.TEX KETC_L.TEX BINS_L.TEX CIDO_L.TEX CHOCO_L.TEX
High Resolution PC Filename BARRE.TEX TIFA.TEX EARITH.TEX RED.TEX YUFI.TEX KETC.TEX BINS.TEX CIDO.TEX CHOCO.TEX N/A
PSX Location(in / MENU unless noted) NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU NAMEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU
TIM Offset 0x29A0 0x34C4 0x3FE8 0x4B0C 0x5630 0x6154 0x6C78 0x779C 0x82C0 0x4EDC
Load screen BUSTER.TEX background Save Icon 1 Save Icon 2 Save Icon 3 Save Icon 4 Save Icon 5 Save Icon 6 Save Icon 7 Save Icon 8 Save Icon 9 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU
0xF4F4 0xF502 0xF8F8 0xFCEE 0x100E4 0x104DA 0x108D0 0x10CC6 0x110BC 0x114B2 0x118A8 0x11C9E 0x12094
Save Icon 10 N/A Save Icon 11 N/A Save Icon 12 N/A Save Icon 13 N/A
Picture Description Low Resolution PC Filename Save Icon 14 N/A Save Icon 15 N/A Coin command Window Dressings ZENI.TEX
High Resolution PC Filename N/A N/A ZENI_H.TEX
PSX Location(in / MENU unless noted) SAVEMENU.MNU SAVEMENU.MNU ITEMMENU.MNU
TIM Offset 0x1248A 0x12880 0x3890
BTL_WIN_H.TEX BTL_WIN_A_H.TEX BTL_WIN_B_H.TEX BTL_WIN_C_H.TEX BTL_WIN_D_H.TEX BTL_WIN_L.TEX BTL_WIN_A_L.TEX BTL_WIN_B_L.TEX BTL_WIN_C_L.TEX BTL_WIN_D_L.TEX

0x0C 6 bytes

0x1C 4 bytes
How to get vectors for the axis: Vectors are stored right at the beginning of section 2. typedef struct { S16 x; S16 y; S16 z; } vector3s; You will load first vector for axis x (from offset 0 to 5), for axis y(6 to 11) and axis z (12-17). These values are in fixed point with multiply constant 4096. Length of vectors x,y and z is always 4096 (first vecsize is for x, then y and last z), thats make out multiplication constant. These vectors are also always ortognormal, as you can see in ORTO 1-2 (1=x,2-y,3=z) ORTO U-Vis scalar product of U and V. As you can see, very near zero (first value is without division of multi constant). Now you have three vectors, but they are not looking in correct direction, you have to change some signs. For each vector change sign of y and z values. Now these vectors should point in correct direction, same as in ff7. I am now suppose that you have vectors for axises loaded, each component of each vector was divided by 4096 (don't forget to store it in float) and you changed signs for component y and z. After vectors is one S16 number (from offset 18 to 19), same as z component of vector for z axis. Now you want to have position of center of the camera matrix. Get three S32 numbers for position of center (x from 20 to 23, y from 24-27 and z from 28-31). These number are not position of center in worlds pace, but they are position of center of camera space, defined in space, where position of center is in 0,0,0 and axis for vectors are the ones you read, but have opposite signs. You get center of camera matrix like this:

// // // tx ty tz

vx,vy,vz are axis you read, divided, y,z signs changed (tx,ty,tz) is position of camera matrix in world space ox,oy,oz are S32 numbers you read from offset 20 to 31 = -(ox*vx.x + oy*vy.x + oz*vz.x); = -(ox*vx.y + oy*vy.y + oz*vz.y); = -(ox*vx.z + oy*vy.z + oz*vz.z);
After this is just blank U32 number, seems always zero and last, but not least the zoom (36-37) (don't know whether Signed or Unsigned). The bigger resize number is, the bigger is the model and walkmesh.

Section 4 Pallette (Terrence) The following is an overview of the palette data Section 4 Palette Format Offset Size Description 0x00 0x02 0x04 0x05 0xbytes 2 bytes 1 byte 4 byes 1 byte Length (Repeat of previous length header) Unknown Unknown (often blank) Number of colors in palette Unknown (often blank) Palette data

0x0A varies

After the first length indicator comes another integer, also indicating length. Useless, but it's there. Then there's one more integer; unknown purpose. Then one byte; unknown (blank often). Then a word; number of colors in the palette plus one. No idea why. You can work numcolors out from the section length, but FF7 stores it anyway; why add one? Dunno. One more byte; unknown (blank often). Then the actual palette data. Each palette entry is a 16-bit color. This is unusual - normally palettes store as high quality data as possible, usually 24/32 bit. However since FF7 only ever runs in 16 bit I guess there isn't much point storing any other kind of data. Actually, the data is 15-bit (5-bit Red, 5-bit Green, 5-bit Blue, and 1 mask bit). Palette Data Red Green Blue Mask m r r r r r g g g g g b b b b b
That's it for the palette! Only other thing you need to know is, palettes generally contain a number of colors that's a multiple of 256. This is because the palette is split up into 256-color 'pages' internally. So the first color is page 0/color 0. Color 256 is page 1/color 0. Color 628 is page 2/color 116. You'll see why in the background section. Section 5 Walkmesh (Kero) Every every offset is here relative, 00 is at the start of section 5 (after lenght indicator) Section 5 of field files is stored walkmesh. Walkmesh is mesh of polygons on which is character moving, it is telling engine for example how height it is and thanks to that PC can, for example, cross bridge with real feeling that in the middle he is on higher place than on both sides. It has very simple structure.
Header --------Startofs 0x00 Lenght 0x04 Walkmesh doesn't have header, it as only one 4 bytes long unsigned int, called NoS (Number of sectors) Sector pool -------------Startofs 0x04 Lenght NoS*24 typedef struct { short x,z,y,res; // short is 2 bytes long integer } vertex_3s; // 3 short typedef struct { vertex_3d v[3]; } sect_t; In sector pool are sectors, in fact just triangles and its position. For each sector you have three vertex_3s. Just store them. It seems that res and z are very often same, but not always, I don't know why. It seems that all polygons are clockwise. I didnt check it, but it is probably in order to know wheather point is in triangle. If you give it in other direction, point will be detected outside if it is inside and vice versa. Nothing difficult Access pool -----------Startofs 0x04 + NoS*24 Lenght NoS*6 typedef { short acces1,acces2,acces3; } In access pool you have id of poly, you should go into if you cross line. acces1 is for line from vertex 0 to 1 acces2 is for line from vertex 1 to 2 acces3 is for line from vertex 2 to 0 If acces1/2/3 is FFFF then you are not allowed to cross this line. Acces pool and sector pool are same size (NoT), so you will just use same index for both pools. If access don't translate you, it just says, you should be here, if you are not, then there is a problem. If you design polymesh where you cross line and access tells you that you should be in poly 12, but you are god know where then FF7 stops.

1.4 President Shinra white - Tifa's gas chamber event. white boogen(key) - Event where the music box projects an image. white boogen(nokey) - Event before Bugenhagen examines the music box. before - The same as above, but with environment flags set after - After 'music box' event has been finished with proper flags white 2 - The same as above, but without the environment flags Junonn in2 - Music box 'projection' scene. 1.5 Shinra Employee Para - Parachute event. 66F - Board meeting on the 66th floor. 67F () - 67F when Hojo enters the room (Hold for 'captured' event.) 68F - Just before boss fight with HO512. 68F2 - Event where Red XIII first appears. 70F - Launches a submenu plate down meeting - Heidegger and Reeve talk to P.Shinra about the Sector 7 pillar sabotage plan. caught - scene where the team are introduced to President Shinra by Rude. dead president - Arrival in P.Shinra's office only to find him dead. app rufaus - Rufus arrives outside in his helicopter. after heli - scene just before Rufus boss battle. elevetr - Scene where the turks capture everyone in the lift. () - cancels 1.6 Barret (No menu, JUMPMAP to Final dungeon.) 1.7 Red XIII: 7 pillar - Sector 7 pillar battle event. Kolneo under - Event under Don Corneo's mansion, in the sewer. high way - Event after Motor Ball boss 5 out - Event where party leaves Midgar for the first time. airport ( gelnica) - Outside Highwind at Junon airport (Hold for the Gelnika airport scene). after fire sephiros - Event after Sephiroth walks through the fire. jairo sky - Crashing Tiny Bronco event. jairo sea - Event where Tiny Bronco has landed in the sea. junon cannon - Event where weapon is attacking Junon/ Barret escapes. junon medical - Event after Tifa's Flashback in Junon while being held prisoner. () - cancel
1.8 Jessie Cancel - cancel Aerith - Adds Aerith to the character pool Tifa - Adds Tifa to the character pool Barret - Adds Barret to the character pool Red - Adds Red XIII to the character pool cid - Adds Cid to the character pool (blank) - Adds Cait Sith to the character pool Yuffie Adds Cait Sith to the character pool Sephiroth - Adds a Sephiroth'ed Vincent to the character pool Cloud Lock - Keeps cloud as party leader Change members - Loads a menu requiring to make a party of three. 2. Kyounen's Room () This is Kyounen's room.
2.1 Priscilla all members - add all members to the character pool quit - quits without Yuffie - removes Yuffie from the character pool without Vince - removes Vincent from the character pool without Ballet - removes Barret from the character pool without Tifa - removes Tifa from the character pool without Erith - removes Aerith from the character pool without Red - removes Red XIII from the character pool without Cid - removes Cid from the character pool without Ketcy - removes Cait Sith from the character pool
2.2 Barret "Who do you want in the Party? Tifa - Places Tifa in the active party Ballet - Places Barret in the active party Red - Places Red XII in the active party Cid - Places Cid in the active party Yufi - Places Yuffie in the active party Ketcy - Places Cait Sith in the active party Vince - Places Vincent in the active party Put Cid on point - Removes all characters and places Cid as the party leader Forget it - quits 2.3 Tifa Going to North Corel. It doesn't matter whether or not Ballet is in this event. Barret of North Corel - North entrance to Corel town. ropeway - Gold Saucer ropeway entrance (Corel side). North Corel - Event if you fail to stop the runaway train. Quit - quits. 2.4 Nurse These set various event flags within the game. Palmer - Flags Palmer battle has finished. Highwind - Gives you the Highwind. Materia mission - Flags that the Corel-based Matera mission has been done. Cloud's revival - Flags Cloud has been rescued from the Lifestream. Rocket launch - Huge materia rocket ready to launch. Sister Ray - Going to stop the Sister Ray. Train Success - Flags the train was stopped Train Failure - Flags the train was not stopped Train Last - Doesn't touch the train flags Quit - Takes you to North Corel with no location information.[STUCK] 2.5 Aerith "Snowboard Game" (Plays the Story-version snowboard game) 2.6 Cid I'm sickle.xxxx. I mean Icicle inn.ok bad joke." (Icicle inn just before snowboard event)

5.10 Sailor (crew) This is a jump to the sub base and related minigames. Some sanity checking is done in the way of adding characters for you, but the JUMPMAPs have no location data here too. "Submarine" (Cancels and leads to party screen) SubmarineDock - Red Submarine in dock SIAW. BridgRed - Bridge of red submarine SIAW. BridgeBlue - Bridge of Blue Submarine. SubmarineRed - Scene just before 'Bridgered' SubmarineBlue - Scene just before 'Bridgeblue' Escape - Escape from submarine dock (if you failed to get a sub) Minigame0 - Submarine game at various difficulties. Minigame1 Minigame2 Minigame3 Minigame4 5.11 Wizard (ket) Temple of the ancients events. "Temple of the Ancients" - (quits and leads to party screen) Temple - Leads to The entrance to the temple - after it's been destroyed. After Collapse - Almost the same as 'temple' Altar - At the Alter where you put the keystone. Alter2 - Keystone placement scene (leading to maze). Temple of The Ancients - Maze section Shop Of The Ancients - Shop of the ancients. The Rock - Rolling rocks trap scene. The Hole Of the Time - Giant Clock Scene Tirano - Battle with monster at the bottom of the clockface. Treasure - Treasure room. you can't open the chest or leave. Chase - Wizard chase sequence. Leaving takes you to boss battle scene. Next Page - Leads to second page of locations: "Temple of the Ancients 2" - Leads to a nice picture of a wall. [STUCK] Mateo - Leave and then re-enter for 'Cloud's mind' scene. Sephiros - Sephiroth explains his evil scheme Hole1 - A blocked tunnel in the temple of the ancients in the clock [STUCK] Hole2 - Another tunnel in the temple. [STUCK] Boss - Scene after you have killed 'Demon's Gate' boss. Mateo2 - Same as 'Mateo' option. Cancel - Cancels. 5.12 Costa Del Sol Barmaid (cos) This girl also is in a very small animation loop "Costa Del Sol" - Cancels Town - Costa Del Sol at early part of the game Beach - Beach of Costa Del Sol Harbor - Harbor scene Debug - Rufus arrives at Costa Del Sol
5.13 Sephiroth (mtcrl) Tests a small animation loop as well. "Mt. Corel" Mountain Road - Start of pathway up Mt. Corel. (Cancel) - Cancels Vally - Mt. Corel railway bridge (leading to 'Rollercoaster' section). Up&Down - Scene where you fall off the railway track and can climb up to get some items. River - Bridge over the Corel river (the bridge is already lowered). Hole - Secret Miner's cavern under Mt. Corel. PiyoPuyo - Secret Birdsnest scene. Bridge - Rope bridge from North Corel. Railway - 'Rollercoaster' railway section. Ballet's Memory - Barret flashback sequence of him and Dyne watching North Corel burn. Cancel - Cancels

8.4 Tifa (next to Cloud's mother) (san) 6Bangai - (Sector 6) Love love - Aerith visit to playground. 7ban dokan - (Number 7's Explosion) - Recovery after pillar collapse scene. matte matte - (Wait! Wait) Scene after Sector 7 pillar crash. checkyou kouen - (Children's park) - On the way to wall Market. yameta - (stop) - cancel
8.5 Aerith (Jumping ) (koutai) Party? un - (yea) - change party. This is a party picker without the use of the party selection screen, which was being developed by another event programmer. It asks three times for characters, and places them in a active slot. It's smart enough to not have two of one character in the active slots. uun - (nah) - cancel
8.6 Turks Vincent (waving) (boku) This is the various states of the chocobo farm. bokujou - (farm) ie no naka (R1 de mage) - (inside the house, R1 for further) -Talking to chocobo Bill about Sephiroth (Hold R1 for the menu that you get later on in the game where you can ask for stalls, advice, etc). soto(R1 de mage) - (outside , R1 for further) - Chocobo ranch at the at start of the game (Hold R1 for the later version where you can actually ride Chocobos, etc). bobou(R1 de mage) - (barn, R1 for further) - Chocobo barn, initial version (R1 for later version). (Blank Space) - Lucrecia/Sephiroth flashback. This does not leave the debug room in an active state so you will find your PC changed to Lucrecia and not able to move. sittitai - (I want to know) - Slaughtered Midgar Zolom scene. Yame - stop - Cancel.
8.7 Tifa (pointing) (tift) Chokobo ijiri (Meddling with Chocobos) ST Check - Stats check. Choose the chocobo to check. Chocobos in stables only. This will open a sub window and give you the data. TSP: Maximum Stamina TS: Current Stamina SPP: Maximum Speed SP: Current Speed ST: Unknown AC: Acceleration T: Intelligence (out of 100). LOY: Loyalty. How well the Chocobo behaves (100 is best). CHR: Unknown CHCT: Unknown SEX: (0 Male, 1 Female) COL: (Colour) 0 Normal 1 Green 2 Blue 3 Black 6 Gold CL: Number of times Chocobo has been ridden in a race R: unknown Tukamaeta - Controls the types of Chocobo in the paddock outside the Chocobo farm. The sub menu appears 4 times, once for every empty space in the paddock. Use Vincent's options to visit the farm (hold R1). owari - quit. A - Wonderful Chocobo B - Great Chocobo C - Good Chocobo D - So-so Chocobo E - Average Chocobo F - Not bad Chocobo G - Not very good. H - "I really can't recommend this one." Yasai to mi ippai - Gives you all the different types of Chocobo food (nuts as well as greens). Magego Bokujou - Go to Chocobo farm [Cam does not pan down] Yaoya - Buy Chocobo Greens. Yame - Cancel.

The Battle Module

Battle Overview Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius. Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem consuetudium lectorum. Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.
The Final Fantasy 7 Battle Mechanics by Terence Fergusson. This document is entirely my work, and was written and is owned by me, Terence Fergusson. All copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged where not specifically mentioned. If you wish to reproduce this document AS IS, you may do so without having to ask for my permission, providing that the entire document including this copyright notice is left intact, and preferably in ASCII text format. VERSION HISTORY v0.8 : 23/03/02 : Original Release - Not accompanied by sister guides FOREWORD These guides have been a long time in the making. It started with a webpage. Just a small private one that I created early in April 1999. It was more practice than anything else, and I put up most of my findings about the game at that time. Most of it was incorrect, but I had some basics down. I changed to pure text format soon after when I realized that a webpage was very difficult to update with the number of tables such a Mechanics document requires. Pure text is also a lot easier to simply add stuff to. Updates can be made in seconds. But this was still a private thing. It's been private for years, in fact. But that's not to say it wasn't added to or the information wasn't utilized. During this time, I've met many people who share the same fascination that I have with this subject. We've helped each other too; some of the information included here is due to information that was pointed out to me in the memory dumps. I've learned from it, I've progressed. And the guide grew. Recently, it's become more and more apparent that this kind of information is not only useful, but also in demand. True, it doesn't help the average player, whose only concern is to get from A to B without too much trouble and just having fun along the way. but to others, it's fun to learn how the game works, and exactly what makes the monsters they fight tick. As such, I have finally managed to complete this to my satisfaction. It may not be finished yet, and I may not ever find the time to update it so that it is complete. but at least it is whole. And this is it. NOTE (23/03/0003): This isn't a finished product. It may never be a finished product. As it stands, only this guide of the three planned is being released. Please do not e-mail asking on the progress of the other two; the Battle Mechanics guide is being released now as something to work on. The other two will follow when they're structurally complete, and not before.

4. STATUSES There are 31 major Statuses in the game, although a few of them are not shown on the Status screen and are sometimes transparent to the user. The statuses available are thus: Death Haste Barrier Near-death Sleep Slow MBarrier Stop Dual Poison Frog Sadness Small Fury Confusion Silence Regen Peerless
Slow-numb Petrify Lucky Girl Imprisoned

Reflect Shield

Death-sentence Manipulate Berserk

Paralysed Darkness

Death Force Resist
Of those, Death Force, Resist and Lucky Girl are nearly transparent to the player, and a few of the others (like Imprisoned) are completely invisible save for their effect. Several are not listed on the Status screen; these are: Dual, Death Force, Resist, Lucky Girl and Imprisoned.
What follows is a breakdown of the statuses visual effects and gameplay attributes. 4.1 Status Attributes Death The ultimate offensive Status Attribute. If you're successfully hit with it, you are immediately reduced to 0 HP. Death is also the state of having 0 HP. You can protect from it, fortunately. That is, you can protect yourself from 'Sudden Death', which is any attack that causes you to instantly die, regardless of how much HP you have or how much damage the attack actually caused. However, if you are reduced to 0 HP by taking too much damage. well, you can't protect against that at all. Visuals Character lies down Effects: Duration Character flagged as 'Dead' Removes all Statuses except for 'Frog' and 'Small' Until cured
Protected by Petrify', 'Peerless', 'Resist', Safety Bit, Destruct+Added Effect, Odin+Added Effect, Death Force Cured by Life, Life2, Phoenix Down, Angel Whisper, Phoenix
Near-Death When your character is heavily wounded, but still able to fight, they are classed as Near-death. They kneel down and their HP indicator turns yellow to notify of this. Otherwise, this Status Attribute means nothing else; it occurs only when your HP is 25% or less of your current Max HP, and you are not yet dead. Visuals Character kneels Effects: Duration Cured by None Until cured Anything that serves to boost your HP above 25% of Max HP
Protected by Anything that prevents HP loss
Sleep This nasty affliction is one of four temporary 'Can't Act' Status Attributes in FF7. Once under this Status, the character is asleep, and cannot fight normally. However, Sleep is easily reversed; any Physical hit is enough to wake up a sleeping character. Visuals Character kneels/has Zzz above head Effects: Duration Cured by Character cannot Act 26 units Any Physical Hit, Esuna, Remedy, White Wind, Angel Whisper
Protected by Petrify', 'Peerless', 'Resist', Ribbon, Headband, Seal+Added Effect, Hades+Added Effect
Poison Any character inflicted with this Status will continually take Poison Elemental damage throughout the battle. It won't be purged naturally until the battle ends. Visuals Effects: Character kneels/flashes Green Character takes [1/32 of Max HP] of Physical Poison Elemental damage every 2.5 units of time (ignores Def, Barrier and is NRV) Until end of battle Note: The Status Attribute Poison is different from the Element Poison. But, if you Void or Absorb Poison Elemental, any attack that does Poison damage will no longer inflict the Poison Attribute. However, you will still be vulnerable to things like Bad Breath, which causes various Status Attributes without causing damage. The reverse also has effects; being Immune to the Status Attribute Poison will mean that you are also considered Immune to the element.

Protected by 'Petrify', 'Peerless', 'Resist', Ribbon, Jem Ring
Darkness A nuisance at best, Darkness simply reduces your attack accuracy, causing you to miss more often. It's easily cured, however, and it has little tactical use. Visuals Character kneels/flashes Black Effects: Duration Cured by Character Accuracy% reduced Until end of battle Esuna, Remedy, White Wind, Angel Whisper, Eye drop
Protected by 'Petrify', 'Peerless', 'Resist', Ribbon, Silver Glasses, Fairy Ring
Dual This extremely rare Status only turns up during one battle; that with Bottomswell. Whenever Bottomswell uses Waterpolo at you, both Imprisoned and Dual are placed on you. Dual is dangerous however; it acts like a reverse Regen. HP is drained over time, requiring swift attention. Visuals None Effects: Duration Cured by Character steadily loses approximately 1/32 of their Max HP over each unit of time ??? Killing Waterpolo

Protected by ???

Death Force A useful status, which allows you to temporarily give yourself protection from Death until the end of the battle. Its usefulness stems from the fact that very few enemies actually use the Death Status. Recognize them, and you can possibly spare an Accessory slot or a few Materia slots and just rely on Death Force for protection when you need it. Of course, the disadvantage is that the immunity is temporary; if that character gets hit by DeSpell or White Wind or gets killed, then they will lose the immunity immediately. Visuals None Effects: Duration Cured by Immune 'Death' Until end of battle DeSpell, White Wind
Resist You are never given any indication of when you have Resist, but its effects are quickly apparent; any Status change is prevented by the power of Resist. Unfortunately, that can also mean, for example, if you have Frog and then Resist is placed on you, you cannot then cure Frog without removing Resist first. Its best use is to trap enemies with certain Status Attributes so that they can't heal themselves. As a secondary use, it can be used as a temporary defense against nasty Statuses, but it's expensive, and not easy to remove. Visuals None Effects: Duration Cured by Immune to all Status Attributes Until end of battle DeSpell, White Wind

Protected by None

Porov Nut

Basic Stats Max Dash 70/256 chance of the *first* Parent's Max Dash increased by 1/15th Maximum of 6000 186/256 chance of average of Parent's Max Dash Dash Average of Parents' Dash Max Run 50/256 chance of the *first* Parent's Max Run increased by 1/15th Maximum of 6000 25/256 chance of the *first* Parent's Max Run decreased by 1/20th Minimum of 1 181/256 chance of average of Parent's Max Run Run Stamina Average of Parents' Run 50/256 chance of the *first* Parent's Stamina increased by 1/20th Maximum of 9999 206/256 chance of average of Parent's Stamina - If Max Run got the 50/256 chance of a 1/15th increase and Max Run is greater than or equal to Max Dash, subtract 100 from it until it is lower than Max Dash - If Run is greater than or equal to Max Run, subtract 100 from it until it is lower than Max Run Extra Stats Accel Co-Op Int RT Count Races Won Gender Average of Parents' Accel 0 Average of Parents' Int 50% chance of Male or Female
Color/Rating: - If mating a Green and Blue Chocobo together, there is a 25% chance of a Black Chocobo - If that fails or you're not using a Green and Blue, then it's 50% chance of the father's color and 50% chance of the mother's color
- In all cases, the baby's Rating has a 50% chance of being equal to the father's, and 50% chance of being equal to the mother's

Carob Nut

Basic Stats Max Dash See below Dash Average of Parent's Dash Max Run 30/256 chance of highest of Parents' Max Run increased by1/10th Maximum of 6000 55/256 chance of highest of Parents' Max Run decreased by 1/20th Minimum of 1 161/256 chance of average of Parents' Max Run Run Stamina Average of Parent's Run 50/256 chance of highest of Parents' Stamina increased by1/20th Maximum of 9999 216/256 chance of average of Parents' Stamina - If a Black Chocobo was born (see below for what causes this) and the average of the Parents' Max Dash is less than 4000, then the following 'bonuses' will be applied: 7/16 Max Dash is set to 4000 4/16 Max Dash is set to 4200 1/16 Max Dash is set to 4300 1/16 Max Dash is set to 4400 2/16 Max Dash is set to 4500 1/16 Max Dash is set to 4800 After this bonus, the Max Dash is further modified: x = [Rnd(0.255) / 5] 50% chance that Max Dash is increased by 'x' otherwise, Max Dash is decreased by 'x' Otherwise (if the baby is not a Black Chocobo or the average Max Dash was greater or equal to 4000): 60/256 The baby's Max Dash will be set to the highest of the Parents' Max Dash increased by 1/10th Maximum of 6000
196/256 The baby's Max Dash will be set to the average of the Parents' Max Dash
- If the Chocobo's Max Run is greater or equal to its Max Dash, then Max Run is reduced by 100 repeatedly until it is lower than Max Dash. - Finally, if the baby Chocobo's Run is greater or equal to its Max Run, the Run value is reduced by 100 repeatedly until it is lower than Max Run. Extra Stats Accel Co-Op Int RT Count Races Won Gender Average of Parents' Accel 0 Average of Parents' Int 50% chance of Male or Female