Emerald Weapon
Emerald and Ruby weapon constitute the two most challenging fights in Final Fantasy VII, and neither of them are required to complete the game. In fact, the rewards for completing either encounter are pretty lackluster, and in the case of Ruby weapon you will pretty much be required to earn the item Ruby weapon gives you before you can kill him anyway (A gold chocobo). Lets start with the easier of the two:
Emerald Weapon:
Emerald Weapons patrols the seas infront of Junon underwater. Most players first encounter Emerald Weapon by hitting him accidently or by touching him purely out of curiosity. The first time I played through my friend who was spectating decided to let me touch it without telling me what would happen just so he could laugh at me. "Same thing happened to me", he said.
The fight with Emerald Weapon is pretty standard, other than a timer in the corner of the screen, and other than the fact that he's one of the toughest enemies in the game. In order to remove the timer aspect of this fight you will need to obtain Underwater Materia (Click on the Materia link for information on obtaining it). Go in unprepared and you'll probably get your ass kicked in a few seconds flat. First lets take a look at his moves:
Foot Stamp: This attack hits everyone in the party for 8000-9000 damage and can only be used when all of Weapons eyes are closed.
Revenge Stamp: Similar to Foot Stamp but hits for much less damage.
Emerald Beam: This attack also hits everyone for a fraction of the characters health and can dispell Regen.
Emerald Shoot: Hits a single character for just over 9000 damage and can dispell nearly everything.
Aire Tam Storm: This move hits every character and hits them for 1111 damage for every piece of Materia the character has equipped. This moves requires a lot of planning and strategy to be used when it comes to equipping Materia. Side Note: Aire Tam is Materia spelled backwards.
Each eye can also cast Emerald Laser. One hits a player for damage while the other destroys the players MP (700MP total, ouch).
Preparation:
Obviously you're going to need to have your characters as high level as you can get them. They need to at least have 9999 health and hopefully while using minimal HP Plus Materia as you'll only be able to equip the most essential Materia. What you'll need to have is:
- Knights of the Round Materia (MASTERED): This is your primary attack against Emerald Weapon as its the highest damage Materia in the game. In order to obtain Knights of the Round you'll need to raise yourself a Gold Chocobo. Information on breeding one can be found by clicking here.
- Mime Materia (MASTERED): This Materia needs to be mastered to spawn another Mime Materia. You're going to need at least two! Mime Materia can be found in one of the caves as you raise your all-terrain Chocobo's. Click here for more information.
- W-Summon Materia: Allows you to cast two summons at the same time, which lets you double the amount of times you can cast Knights of the Round. W-Summon Materia can be earned in Battle Square with enough points. Click here for more information.
- Final Attack and Revive/Phoenix Materia: This is your safety net and allows your team to revive itself if they all happen to die, which is highly likely during this encounter. Final Attack is earned in the 'special battles' at Battle Square. Click here for more information.
- Underwater Materia: Information about obtaining this Materia can be found here. Equipping it will remove the timer from the battle and give you unlimited time to defeat Emerald Weapon.
- Half decent armor, such as a Mystile or Ziedrich.
- Enough MP Plus Materia and HP Plus Materia to get your magic points and health points to a reasonable level.
The Set-Up:
Make sure that none of your characters have more than 8 Materia equipped on a single person. Set up one character with a Restore and MegaAll Materia (Click on the Materia for information on getting one) or a regular All Materia if you're cheap! Give W-Summon Materia and Knights of the Round to one character and then give a Mime Materia to each of the other two characters in your team.
Strategy:
The basic strategy is to have one character use W-Summon to summon Knights of the Round twice and then have each of the other characters Mime the first character. It's a rather cheap, but incredibly effective strategy.
Just be sure to note that between summons it's completely pointless to cast things like Regen, Barrier, MBarrier, Shield or Resist. Emerald Weapons moves are capable of removing all of these.
And finally, make sure you don't have any of your character's Ultimate Weapons equipped! After you defeat Emerald Weapon he gives you 50,000 AP which is huge! The last thing you need is a weapon with no growth (for information about Materia growth click here), especially when this strategy doesn't make use of the weapon the character has equipped.
