Can You Beat Final Fantasy 7 with Lightning Materia Damage only? Part 1/3
2Game audio only. Written commentary in description and comments. The run is referred to as the "Bolt Run" from now on in the text. This playthrough is compiled together from separate segments with save screens edited out. The segments always ended in a save screen so it was natural to leave these out during editing. The last save had a time of 28 hours and 9 minutes, and thus the whole run was completed in under 30 hours. The game was played on PlayStation Classic Mini, mainly for curiosity reasons. As some may know, this is not the best version and it can be a bit laggy at times. However, being European this was the only official North American original version release I had in hand and I hadn't played this version before.
The text commentary (partly in comments) obviously contains spoilers. Time stamps for the boss fights can be found in the comments.
Background and rules of the Bolt Run:
Since Cloud has Lightning Materia since the beginning of the game, I wondered if it would be possible to beat the whole game by only using that Materia. As a casual Final Fantasy VII player I wasn't quite sure if this was an impossible task so I didn't set all the rules in stone from the start of the game. For example, I didn't know from the start if one could beat the game without using ethers in battle, so I withdrew from using them and as it turned out, they weren't needed during battle. I did check beforehand, that the bosses could be beaten with lightning damage.
Here are the rules:
The source of the damage inflicted on the enemies must be from the Lightning Materia and nothing else. As long as only Lightning Materia damage is inflicted, namely from Bolt, Bolt 2 and Bolt 3, the usage of independent (pink) and support (blue) Materia is allowed. Therefore, for example All Materia usage is allowed but Counter Attack is not, since the damage would come from the physical attack.
If physical attack is inflicted on an enemy due to berserk, the run must be loaded from the last save, unless the player can escape from the battle and receives no awards from the fight.
Only actions allowed during battle are casting Bolt, Bolt 2 or Bolt 3 or escaping the battle. Player can also stay put and change the player to be commanded with the triangle button.
Player may only equip the Lightning Materia or permitted independent and support Materias. Therefore, stat changes from other Materias may not be utilized. Extra Materia has to be removed from the new characters and is to be sold before the Wutai segment.
Items can be used freely from the menu outside of battle.
All equipment may be used freely as long as other rules apply.
Commonly known glitches and tricks may be used as long as other rules apply.
Player must change the limit level to the highest level obtained to minimize the effect of fast speed after filling the limit bar. Otherwise, limit bars don't have to be controlled. If the player misses the point when new limit is obtained (may happen when there are lots of materia level ups), the level must be changed when noticed that the new limit has been acquired, but this doesn't cause a reset due to the small impact of the matter.
(Note: Since this was my first time doing the Bolt Run and didn't know if Trine would be essential at all, Trine is collected for two Enemy Skill Materias in this run, but is not used. Similarly, I carried Ramuh around but never used it. By that time I didn't know if it would be a "Lighting Materia damage run" or "Lightning damage run". These had little impact in the run. During Wutai segment, Yuffie steals 48 Materias and these two Enemy Skills and Ramuh were in that lot. The same effect during the Materia theft would have been achieved by buying, for example, three extra HP Plus or MP Plus Materias, which quite ironically I probably should have done at that point anyway.)
The Materia used in the run:
Lightning, All, Elemental, HP Absorb, MP Absorb, MP Turbo, Quadra Magic, Magic Counter, Cover, HP Plus, MP Plus, Magic Plus, Luck Plus
See comments for written commentary for each part! Have fun with this challenge run and thank you for watching!
Links:
Part 1: • Can You Beat Final Fantasy 7 with Lig...
Part 2: • Part 2/3 - Can You Beat Final Fantasy...
Part 3: • Part 3/3 - Can You Beat Final Fantasy...
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