I've been looking for a Guide to Final Fantasy VII for years sense the game came out. It is my all time most favorite game and now I finnaly have the complete guide. It's so insightful and Wonderful.

I bought this guide first of all as a Final Fantasy series fan and in second place to get all my game could provide. I just find the guide pretty complete, I got to know some summons I never watched before. Overall is a very useful resource if you have the game or just to have an item of FF series to collect.

Finally playing out FFVII to learn the original story. This walkthrough is a helpful guide through the complex world of Midgar, Shinra, Cloud and party, Chocobos and monsters. Loads of technical info help equip Materia and items, weapons and accessories properly.
The relatively low resolution of the Playstation game is a difficulty present generation gamers need help with (like me). It is sometimes hard to tell just what is going on when the charachters look like they are Lego people shooting pixels.
At times I found the walkthrough maps dense, too dark, and filled with letters and numbers not easy to relate to a legend.
The sequence of your wanderings is essential for a coherent story. This walkthrough pays close attention to this need and has allowed me to experience the memorable encounters and hi-res scenes recently recreated in Advent Children so well.
This walkthrough is already dog-eared and worn though I'm barely halfway through. I'm sure it will have served me well to the 'Final' boss.

This guide is great, it covers everything in the entire game. It even arrived 2 days earlier than expected!! Definitely worth the money.

My husband had this book with his game and used it alot. However...he forgot to put it up and our 2 yr old son got ahold of it and he had to get a new one!

really helps with the game when you get lost or if you want to find the hidden things.

it is an excellent guide, but sometimes is hard to understand and it does not have any directions on how to get where you need to go.

This book was a bit of a challenge. There are some times when it helps and a lot more when it doesn't. I would like to know when the Limits increase, how to learn more Enemy Skills, and about Chocobo breeding. This book doesn't cover these things. It gives you a walkthrough, the plot and some battle tips, but not much else that you can use. (As soon as I figure out how to change the stars, I'm putting it down to a 2-star rating.)

This strategy guide is good for people who don't want to miss parts of the storyline or the best items, etc., while still having to do everything yourself. However, for people like me who just wanted to be told exactly how to get everything in the game, it was dissappointing.

I think a lot of people over look the difference between a strategy guide and a walkthrough. If you want to be walked through the game step by step theres tons of free FAQ's on line. This guide is the same as every other official guide for a game. It's a GUIDE, its meant to help you along while you do most of the work. Thats what a guide is.

One thing I heard a lot of people complain about is that this book is full of spoilers. While that may be true, its your own fault if you let it spoil you. Don't want to be spoiled? Then don't read ahead of the part of the game you're in.

Another thing I heard a lot of complaints about is wrong info and typo's. While I haven't read through the entire book so far, I've yet to come across any wrong info. As far as typo's, I may have seen one or two but I wouldn't go as far as to say this book is "loaded" with them.

Yet another bad thing I've heard about this book are the maps. I think the maps are fine. The world map is the last page, makes it real easy to be able to flip to it while holding the page you're on. Also, the towns and areas are lettered and in the order that you have to visit them. For instance, Midgar is lettered "A" and the second town is "B" and so on. As for the maps of the towns and dungeons, I'll have to admit they sometimes get a little hard to read. But if they confuse you and you can't figure them out, you should consider going back to school. I think the game itself is some times confusing, when you're on a certain screen sometimes it isn't clear right away which way you need to go (where entrances and exits are) and the maps match that. I'm going to stop referring to them as maps because they're actually screen shots of the game itself.

This guide is perfect for some one who hasn't played through the game before. One thing I really liked about it was it gives you steal suggestions. For example, it suggests to steal a certain weapon outside of the first town instead of buying the weapon upgrade in the town. Not only do you save the money, but its a stronger weapon. Better yet, the weapon is available to buy in the next town so you saved on buying two items and had the stronger weapon all the while. Another example would be the guide suggesting to steal a certain armor while in a dungeon. Its stronger then what was currently available and better yet free.

I don't give the guide 5 starts because I feel it could have been better, but this isn't a bad guide at all. It could have had a better explanation of materia to beginners, and might have been a little weak in some other explanations. But all the info you need for anything is in the game itself. This is how an RPG works, you have to talk to every one. If you're upset that this guide doesn't hold you hand and tell you how to do everything step by step then I don't know what you're doing playing an RPG game. Half the fun of an RPG game is discovery.

If you're playing this game for the first time and you want something to help you when you get stuck, then this guide is for you. Its also nice to look over an area after you've completed it to see if you missed anything. I recommend it to anyone playing the game for the first time.

Please remember the difference between a guide and a walkthrough ;)

As much as I love this game, the guide was of no use to me.

9 times out of 10, an item was misplaced from one dungeon into another.

And the thing that really upset me was the Side-Quest tasks.
No where does it give an in depth description of the All American Creatures. Now I know that's part of the challenge is figuring out how to defeat them. But if Cassady's intentions were to put them into the guide in the first place, he should have at least gave more than what he wrote.

In addition, the Chocobo raising guide is bleaker than a rainy Sunday. Sure it tells you how to achieve the infamous Golden Chocobo. Though does it tell you to race 9 times to reach class S? Does it tell you the possible great prizes to be won for dominating races?

Another interesting thing is the amount of cool materia that is shown in the back, yet half of them aren't even expressed in the guide.

It's pretty sad that I had to go online to find out where to obtain some of them.

For those of you buying the guide, I'd advise against it. Invest ten dollars on bubble-gum.

For such a legendary game, I would have liked a meatier guide. The walkthrough is great, but that's pretty much all this book features. A quick overview of limit breaks is good, but the fly-by of the side quests leaves a lot to be desired. The bestiary is kind of goofy too. They've improved on these guides for the more recent games, but in comparison this one just seems kind of flimsy. It's a nice tool the first time around,especially because this game can get pretty difficult to master, but afterwards it isn't all that useful.

Excellent book, and arrived the next day like it was supposed to, I can't complain

Nothing about FFVII is necessarily hard enough to warrant a strategy guide, but there are so many side quests, extra items, hidden materia, stolen weapons/armor/accessories, and hours upon hours and gameplay that may or may not even affect the main quest that you are going to want this book. It is extremely comprehensive, well-written without being long-winded, and explanatory only when necessary. So far I have played through this game dozens of times, with and without this book nearby, and I have only ever missed one piece of materia, and it is in Great Glacier, where screenshots might as well be watercolor paintings of a polar bear in a snowstorm eating rice off of a paper plate.

This is one of the worst game guides I have read in my life...and I've read a few. I got it back in '97 when the game first came out and spoiled everything (even THE big event at the end of the first disc). I later got the guide from Versus Books and it blew this pathetic book out of the water. It spoiled nothing and had twice the amount of useful secrets (including materia combos). Don't waste your time (and money) with this joke. Thankfully, BRADYGames realized its idiocy, fixed it, and got it right for FFVIII's guide (which basically aped FFVII's Versus Books' guide's style). Then they ruined it again with that awful, useless FFIX guide. I guess money grubbers never learn. And guys, you're supposed to be reviewing the GUIDE, not the game...

I guess this is an okay guide if you just want to get the game over with, but why would you waste your time doing that? This guide misses out on so much. I've found items on my own that weren't even mentioned in the guide. The bestiary has no organization and it's still missing many monsters/enemies. You can tell that they tried to make it in the order that you'll encounter the enemies, but many of them can be found before and many of them aren't even listed at all. The weapons, items, and materials information at the end is not detailed enough. "Side Areas" lacks organizations and it isn't very helpful. Where is the help on Enemy Skills? On the walkthrough section, they don't even tell you the right buttons most of the time (not that you need it, though). The numbering/lettering system gets a little bit confusing. A lot of their "strategies" are based on the same party that they like to use. Not everyone likes to use Aeris, especially if they have played the game before. I could go on and on but I don't want to bore you. On a side note, the PC version (black and white, I can't find it anywhere anymore) by the same author was so much better. Everything that this guide lacked was in the PC version (except for color, but they made that up by having color maps and stuff in the back).

The service was great I recieved my package within a week, but when i opened it i noticed that the book was damaged due to the poor handling. I guess if your looking to just have the guide for reference then you won't have a problem but if you want it for keeps then you might want to order it with some bigger stuff so it doesn't get damaged on the way.

I own a strategy guide for every Final Fantasy game, and this one was sorely disappointing. I think the only guide that has been worse than this is the FF9 'PlayOnline' joke (that no longer exists online).

The strategy guide leaves out several key elements of the game (such as how to find Aeris' limit break BEFORE disc 2), how you can reach certain areas, where to find items, who to have in your party in certain areas, etc. The information was blatantly inaccurate or extremely confusing. Some of the maps are mislabeled and look more like a random assortment of screenshots than a coherent guide.

All in all, don't waste your money on this guide. You're better off buying the Brady version instead.

Well simply put, this strategy guide is just that, a guide. sometimes like others have said, it is grammatically incorrect, but we are all humans. for the most part, the guide offers coherent instructions and suggestions on everything in the game. the walkthrough is comprehensive and i have played this game more times than any one person can count, and the only item beside me when i played each time was the guide. most of the time, i didnt really need it after playing so many times, but even i would forget some things. this strategy guide is a must have for anyone who is struggling or justs wants a helping hand. if you are a smart gammer, this is the item you want.

I've played this game many times. The guide has always been just that, a guide. There are several misspellings, diagrams can become unclear and confusing, and there are many items that should be included that are not. It's been helpful in allowing me to fully complete the game. I would recommend it to anyone needed a helping hand.

the book was in great shape when it got here
it took a little longer coming in the mail but thats ok it was worth the wait.
will order from this place again
the book was like brand new IF you want books that look brand new this is the place to get them at if they have what you are looking for. I know I will be back to shop

I have been waiting for this to come for a week ('cause of brand new items) and was so exited, I played the game right after I got it.
I Hate the fact that I have to start the game over, because I missed so much stuff. Other than that... WOW!
And get it while you can.

There's usually this weird attitude with games where we need to beat it on our own sans cheat devices or strategy guides/FAQ's. Well when you're dealing with an RPG, it tends to help to have one. So one of the biggest RPG's ever has to have a strategy guide and the one for Final Fantasy VII is quite good although like others said some problems.

The book of course has a walkthrough of the game start to finish including tips about bosses, items you may have missed and things to look out for. It's good but you kind of wish there was a full boss blowout since it just mentions the strategy involved. What about recommended party level? The book tends to spoil a lot too such as the big one at the end of Disc I and one of the characters finding himself in Disc 2.

After the walkthrough is secrets and sidequests such as getting a Gold Chocobo, tips for the Battle Arena and getting everyone's Ultimate Weapons and Limit Breaks. An old magazine named EGM2(later renamed Expert Gamer) had a guide on the game and they explained the Gold Chocobo thing better than this did. Also a secret involving a library in Shinra Headquarters I'm reading and it's like "ok, what?"

There is some grammatical errors and such but it's usually nothing to get upset about. It's not like he says one item is somewhere but then you find something else. After those there is a beastality(not that kind) where it details all the enemies in the game. Afterwards is a map of the world.

It does help with the game if you're stuck but there will be times where the book spoils you or you're told something in a bit poor grammar but oh well.

This is by far the best Strategy Guide I own. Just about everything was covered in the book. Yes, it did have a few Gammatical errors but it was to the point. A few secrets I thought they could do better covering, such as chocobo breeding.

I love this guide book i did get confused thats only cuz i got excited and skiped over. I remember when i first played the game i couldn't do anything i was so confused so my granny got me the guide i was unconfused.I will now rate each part of the book.
Walkthroughs 5
Weapons,items,and materia list 5
Bestiry 5
Character guides at the front of the book 5
Secerets in the back 3
and Boss's 4 on some 5 on others
Secerts are probably the lowest because it's not to clear on how to get a gold chocobo nobody is.
and in case your still confused here it is
2 great chocobos rank A 1 male 1 female
mate (with carob nut) them until u get a blue and a green then relase them (greens are female blues are males)
they need to be rank A to it's very easy now with the green on long because the water won't effect him!
when they both rank A mate them (with carob nut)to get a black chocobo u can now get 2 materia caves 1 on watuia (can't spell it sorry) and 1 above corel
now got to icicle inn and catch for and send them to your stables u need a wonderful chocobo thats not the same gender as the black chocobo race the to rank A mate them (with zeio nut) and u have a gold chocobo can now get knights of the round!!!!
and if u wanna take it to the next level to get a chocobo not even mentioned in the game?!?! if u do remate your black and wonderful unti u get the oppostie gender of the other gold chocobo feed each 1 200 slykis or until it says no imporovement they have to be completly maxed out mate them (with zeio nut)
it may take a couple of tries but you will get a white chocobo
i think but i'm not sure but the guy that sells everything in mideel has a white chocobo anyway this chocobo can fly heal cross mountions and rivers heals you and submerges under water this is the ultimate chocobo!

Very good service, got it ready to ship in 2 hours and got here in less than 4 days w/ regular shipping. Just awsome dude...

Being one of if not the best rpg in history it has alot of secrets that this book does not mention.
I suggest going online as well as have the book.
Or if you have a copy of an old ff7 mag that came out the same time as the game it will make finding EVERYTHING much easier.

i own several guidebooks, most of them being FF guidebooks. This one is by far the worst i ever bought. the text is full of typos and grammar errors and much of the information is confusing because it is inaccurate. I had already beat FF7 several times and then i bought this guide to see if it would tell me anything more. Nope! It sucks. I tried to beat it following the guide and i was actually confused! And i'd already beat the game! That says something awful. The only thing that was even useful were the maps and the bestiary. I definitely would not reccommend spending money on this item.

It helped me out a lot when I was struggling!Has a map in the back if you don't know where to go. It guides you step by step through the whole game. Even shows and helps you complete side quests. This guide is a must have for someone who has FF7!

Reading this guide is a bit like reading a book. It tells you mostly everything and has a few too many pictures that give away good plot twists. However, its very informative and essential I think, to mastery of the game. A must have as long as you don't read ahead!!

Like all RPG's, if u don't have the strategy guide, it's very very hard & unlikely u will find everything in the game. So, the question is, will this help u find it all? That, of course, is a yes. That's the reason u buy a strategy guide, and it's worth buying. It's always good to have a few pieces of paper or a little note pad with this, since u might find some things they might have left out, or added strategy u prefer to use in the game. W/o a doubt, u will be glad u have this. If u don't have this guide, yes, u can still beat the game.

This book is wonderfully written and takes you step by step through the biggest RPG in video game history.

All Materia
All Characters and secret characters
All Weapons
All Armor
All Items
All Sidequests

And it is ALL step by step. A great guide to complete this great game.

This is a great book. It helps when you get stuck with a tough boss, it helps when you're doing side quests, and it helps when playing the game a second (or third) time. I used to think this was like cheating, but the book is good enough to go with the great game. There's even little things like, "How Cloud got his buster sword."

Maybe I'm biased because the game is so good, but it's worth it to have a guide for this game.

I will not claim to be a master of final fantasy VII, because I am not. Speaking as a person who has not mastered every materia or defeated ruby or emerald weapon. However, it is true that i have gone through FFVII a total of 15 times (thats a lot), and my best time is 14 hrs and 36 mins, so i have some good stratagies for beating this game. The first 3 times I beat final fantasy, I used this guide a lot, and after that I only referenced it for Chocobo breeding. Now there are a fer main things that this guide lacks that are essential to the game.

1: There is no section on how to level up your limit breaks
-for those who don't know, you use the first limit in a level ten times and then when you get the second you kill 80 enemies with anything ACCEPT SUMMONING SPELLS.
(NOTE: for vicent you just have to kill 60 enemies at each level, and for cait sith, i think you have to kill 120 enemies before you get slots.)
(Thanks to my cousins David and Ryan, without whom i would not know this)

2: Enemy readouts are totally unreliable. I went to reference monsters countless times only to discover inaccurate HP numbers, items dropped, items morphed, weaknesses, etc. While bosses were for the most part accurate, the guides to boss fights were hardly definitive (you can come up with much better stratagies on your own).

3: THIS BOOK IS FILLED TO THE MAX WITH SPOILERS. Being as I'm complaining about this I won't reveal anything, but trust me there are a lot of them.

4: Bone village treasure hunting is almost entirly ignored. (nuff said).

5: The Chocobo breeding section is mediocre, only facts not strategy.

You could find much better unofficial guides, or better yet online FAQ guides! So, don't waste your money.

Need I say more? This is the best guide out there for Final Fantasy 7, and is much more clearer and easier to read than most of the homemade walkthroughs that exist on the net. If you love the game and want more out of it, definatelt pick up this guide.

I really thoght this book was helpful everything is very reliable and correct. The book is also very affordable.

This is such a useful book for your game it has ,Game Basics,Character bios, Walkthroughs, Side areas, bestiary, Weapons and Armor, Accessories, Items, Materia, and a Worl map (of the game of coarse) It even tells you imformation on the bosses!!!!!!! If you have Final Fantasy VII and is having trouble getting past the levels this is the book for you!

Final Fantasy 7 is the best game ive ever played........ And this book help me defeat bosses, get hidden items, it told me where to go, where to get things, and the over all best way to get through final fantasy 7. Im now playing final fantasy 8 and I liked the strategy guide for 7 so much im planning to by the strategy guide for 8 ASAP!!!...

Each time I look through this guide, I see more problems. Okay, first of all, I haven't seen the one from VERSUS BOOKS, but I've heard its in the same format, only organized. Anyway, this guide is okay. You won't really need this guide, the game is easy enough to master without it. The only thing you would really need this for, is to get the special Chocobos. The secrets? What secrets? It tells you all the side quests and how to get the two hidden characters, but what "secrets" are there? They don't tell you how to get the "Final Attack" materia. It says you get it from a chocobo race, but that isn't true. You get it after entering a special battle in the battle arena. The Bestiary is all screwed up. They don't tell you all the attacks, and not always what to steal. They don't give you an enemy skills list, and so they do not tell you all the enemy skills. What's worse? Okay, I don't mind the plot being spoiled and all, but I do like to expeirience the plot for myself, and with this guide I couldn't do that. They told every thing that was going to happen, and had a ton of screenshots showing it all. They give off a bunch of HUGE spoilers.

Okay, the walkthrough isn't very well organized, and so I took more time reading the walkthrough then playing the game trying to find what I needed to know. I'm not one to use a guide a lot, and I wanted to master this game the first time I went through. Luckily all I have left is the Ruby Weapon. But this guide left me figuring out all the side quests by myself.

Well, there are a ton of good points. The boss strategies are nice, but its better to use your own. (as I've mentioned millions of times!) They tell you things like to cast barrier and stuff like that. The walkthrough covers the whole game. The bestiary has most of the enemies, but not all of them. But the enemies it does have, it tells you their weaknesses and what they're strong against. But I hate looking for all the color codes and symbols just to figure it out.

Overall this was a good guide, but you really don't need it much. Most of this stuff you can figure out on your own.

Hi, FFVII fans. This book is extremely recomendded on defeating Shinra inc. With wonderful strategies and full color maps, this guide is a must have for fans. Caution: If your parents don't like Cloud on the cover or animei, tell your friends to buy this guide for you. Some exceptions to include: most of the beginnings of strategies say "Cast haste, Regen," which isn't a bad thing, but other say to "Plummel with powerful spells". Overall, I havn't found spelling errors, but his a great guide.

This guide is good. It walks you through the game, tells descriptions of the bosses, and tells you what to do if you need help. Sure there are mistakes, like spelling and Items, but thats life. You can't help that. It helps you as much as it can without doing it for you. You can't beat that. Brady Games knows final fantasy 7, and this guide shows nothing less. Brady Games has done it again, creating a perfect guide.

I think personaly that FF7 FF8 and The Legend Of Dragoon are the best games I ever played in FF7 there is the golden scaucer in FF8 you can play cards and in legend of dragoon there is a small carnival and all of them are so fun! These games are a big hit and if you have not played one of these I urge you to play them NOW!

all i can say is. final fantasy is the best game i've ever played.. along with ff8. and that i CANNOT think of a betta game!! so, since the cover of tha book is of ff7.. than it gets my thumbs up!! ::::))))

Making a good strategy guide for a very complex RPG is very hard to do. I'd say that this book definately has some screw-ups, but it is also very helpful when you are really stuck. If you want help without buying this guide, I'd go online and get help because a lot of people would say this guide isn't worth it and I can't blame them.

The boss strategies are relativley good. It may be a Narrative walkthrough but still its an RPG guide, it could have been organized. Next is, the bestiary is a bit confusing to read. I can't keep looking at the legend to find out what all of these f***ing symbols mean. I'm sorry but this guide has some errors. But it really helps when your stuck, and has a good walkthrough. It kinda lets on to the ending though with that ending coment. You should use this guide as you go through the game or get it afterwards.

This book is very controversial. It has a good walkthrough, but the enemy listing is very unreliable, ex. The Master Tonberry can be morphed into a ribbon- it says it doesnt morph, and I think a ribbon is the best acc. there is. If you purchase this book, buy it the same time you buy the game-don't buy it very far into the 2nd disc- it quickly becomes useless. I gave it a 4 because it has a good walkthrough and a good listing of the materia,items,weapons-and the chocobo guide is quite descriptive. But this game is easily beatable without it. (I would know)

this book was highly educational to the highly sophisticated mind of an american veiwer. final fantasy 7 was an exelent game and still is an exelent game. The book itself pfoved to be a major help to myself and my comprades as we stayed up for six days straight playing this wounderfully educational super dooper gaming experience.

With descriptions to the whereabouts to all the materia, including Knights of the Round, and all the Ultimate Weapons, Level Four Limit Breaks, and hints to defeating all the bosses, this could quite possibly be the best Guide to Final Fantasy VII you could buy. It does need a little more detail on some of the side areas, and there are a couple of things that i have found that they don't explain, but not many. Still, this is the best for your money.

i hated it

When I read this book, it helped me with everything I needed to know. I started my game over just to get all the stuff that I had missed!! The book is very exciting and you'll want to read it.