Ancient Forest

The Ancient Forest is a hidden location in Final Fantasy VII. It is a tropical forest located on plateau to the southeast of Cosmo Canyon.
The Ancient Forest is an entirely optional location, that does not appear in the main story or have obvious lore. In-game, the location is visited by the player under certain conditions and grants a number of rare items.
== Geography ==
The Ancient Forest is located on the western continent of the planet. It is situated on a plateau just to the southeast of Cosmo Canyon.
The forest is a tropical location with unique wildlife and flora. These include plant pods that carry insects and can launch humans, carnivorous plants that can eat humans, and worm-like plants that humans can jump onto and swing from. The forest is also populated by flies and frogs that one can use to progress by interacting with the plant pods.
The very end of the forest has a cave.
Ancient forest3.png|First area.
Ancient forest2.png|Treetops.
Ancient forest5.png|Cave.
== Gameplay ==
The Ancient Forest is an entirely optional dungeon. Because of where it is located, the player can only reach it using a green, black, or gold Chocobo, obtained from Chocobo breeding or by defeating Ultimate Weapon. The earliest one can breed Chocobos to reach the forest is "A Shocking Reunion", when the Highwind can be controlled by a party led by Tifa; however, the Gold Saucer is not yet available, meaning more options are available with Cloud as leader.
The dungeon is a puzzle involving the use of plant pods and the placement of frogs and flies to progress. It contains many rare items, including the Minerva Band (a powerful armor usable by Tifa or Yuffie), the Apocalypse for Cloud, the Slash-All Materia, and others. The enemies inside are rare enemies, but have high evasion, meaning using weapons with 255% accuracy helps: God's Hand for Tifa, and Long Barrel R and Sniper CR for Vincent.
== Behind the scenes ==
There is evidence the Ancient Forest may have been intended to be between the Sleeping Forest and Corel Valley at one point in development. Dummied dialogue for Bone Village, just before the Sleeping Forest, has a person give tutorials on how to navigate Ancient Forest. In the game's code, the field data lists fields in an order that mostly matches the order the player can discover them in, but places the Ancient Forest fields just after Sleeping Forest and before Corel Valley. Similarly, Corel Valley's first screen has a cave entrance and a vine leading up to it, but it is not possible to climb the vine and no exit for the cave, suggesting it could have been the Ancient Forest's final cave exit.
The dummied dialogue from Bone Village also provides names for the Ancient Forest's features. The names given are Pitcher Plants (which carry insects and launch the character), "Big Eaters" (not translated in the English version, the plants that shut and damage the player when ran over), and Inchworms (the pink bouncy rope-like things that can be jumped onto). A dialogue-option for Scent Balls (which neutralize Big Eaters) exists, but no dialogue for its explanation exists in the data.
Ancient Forest FF7 Art 6.jpg|Concept art of the traps.
Ancient Forest FF7 Art 1.jpg|Concept art of the second area.
Ancient Forest FF7 Art 3.jpg|Concept art of the third area.
Ancient Forest FF7 Art 2.jpg|Concept art of the treetops area.
Ancient Forest FF7 Art 4.jpg|Concept art of the third area.
Ancient Forest FF7 Art 5.jpg|Concept art of the fourth area.
== Musical themes ==
The background music for the Ancient Forest is "In Search of the Man in Black" . The first in-game appearance of this composition is in the Mythril Mine.
== Citations ==
ru:Древний лес
Category:Locations in Final Fantasy VII
Category:Forests