Struggle for the Huge Materia

Struggle for the Huge Materia is the twenty-ninth chapter of Final Fantasy VII, and the third chapter of the third act, "Turmoil". After Tifa Lockhart and the party found Cloud Strife in Mideel, Tifa chose to watch over Cloud during his recovery. While the rest of the party were unclear on how to proceed, Cait Sith allowed them to eavesdrop on a Shinra Electric Power Company meeting which revealed their plans to use the Huge Materia to ram into Meteor. Barret Wallace ceded leadership to Cid Highwind, who led them to fight to take the Huge Materia from Shinra.
== Walkthrough ==
Cid becomes party leader at the start of the quest. Cid has the same options world map options and sidequests available to him as Tifa did during "A Shocking Reunion"; the player can complete them now if they wish to complete them with Cid as party leader. Like Tifa, Cid has unique dialogue in some quests.
There are two locations where objectives where Huge Materia are obtained, and the player can finish them in any order. The player's performance will determine if they can obtain the Huge Materia; if they fail to, Huge Materia can be reacquired once in "Toward the Sea of Stars" (although only one Huge Materia can be obtained in that quest), before being permanently lost. However, it is still ideal to secure the Huge Materia earlier.
Once both are complete, the next quest, "Searching for the You of That Day", begins.
=== Fort Condor (yellow Huge Materia) ===
The Fort Condor portion of the quest requires the player to travel to Fort Condor. Regardless of previous progress with the Fort Condor minigame, Shinra will make a final push against Fort Condor to reach the reactor.
The player must begin the Fort Condor strategy minigame. If the minigame is failed, the player faces CMD.Grand Horn as a boss. Defeating CMD.Grand Horn counts as a win even if the minigame was failed. It may be worthwhile to intentionally lose the minigame to fight the boss, as it drops the unique Imperial Guard armor. CMD.Grand Horn is a trivially easy boss to defeat.
Victory means the Phoenix Materia and the yellow Huge Materia are obtained. Defeat means being ejected from Fort Condor and never being able to return.
=== North Corel (green Huge Materia) ===
The result of this quest decides the state and items available at North Corel. An Ultima Materia is up for grabs; this grants one of the most powerful spells in the game, making it extremely worthwhile.
The quest is started once the party approach the reactor on Mt. Corel. The sidequest ends with the party in North Corel, so traveling from Mt. Corel is the quicker route. Alternatively, if the player has a Chocobo that can travel over mountains, one can park the Highwind outside North Corel and then travel over the mountain and depart from the Chocobo at the entrance to Mt. Corel and enter through there. After the quest they can then exit North Corel to the Highwind and pick up their Chocobo.
Upon reaching the Corel Reactor entrance, a battle against two Shinra soldiers starts (a pair of Attack Squad enemies), then the Coal Train with five cars exits the reactor. Cid then enters the reactor and exits with a train with a single car. While on the pursuing train, a ten minute timer is given and instruction to alternate levers to catch up with the train is given. The pursuing train is moved through alternating button presses of [Directional button Up] and [Menu] (or and in the PlayStation version). The longer it takes to press the buttons the more times the player will have to press them as the pursued train gets further away.
Should the timer expire before the party catching up with the train, the Huge Materia is lost. The Ultima Materia in North Corel is then unavailable, but can be obtained from the boy if the party reclaim this Huge Materia upon the Shinra No. 26.
When the player has caught up with the Coal Train, the party will jump onto the cars of the train holding the Huge Materia. On each of the four cars the player will encounter a battle (Gas Ducter, Gas Ducter x2, Wolfmeister, and then Eagle Gun). The time continues to run down in these battles, meaning they should be complete as quickly as possible. Lightning-elemental attacks are effective against the enemies, and Summon Materia should be avoided due to time constraints. Once the player has approached the other side of the screen they get to the engine, where they encounter the engineer, a single Attack Squad enemy.
After defeating the engineer, the player must attempt to slow down the train. The player is then told to input buttons to move both levers up and then down. Whatever buttons are pressed, the train will speed up, but still come to a stop if the levers were pulled down correctly. Depending on outcome:
* If the player gets past this point with time left, then they will successfully stop the train and get the green Huge Materia. In the following scenes, the player will be given the Ultima Materia.
* If the player runs out of time at any point after boarding the Huge Materia train they will crash into North Corel; the player loses out on the Huge Materia, the Ultima Materia has to be bought for 50,000 gil, and North Corel's General Store becomes unavailable.
Regardless of outcome, thereafter, Catastrophe item becomes available from a standing woman in the Rundown Hut in North Corel.
== Citations ==
Category:Chapters in Final Fantasy VII