Chapter 5: Dogged Pursuit

Story mode. Written for a first playthrough and kept free of spoilers — it will not tell you what happens here, only what the game is asking of you.

Cloud, Tifa and Barret are on their own for this one, and the chapter is mostly a long walk through disused rail tunnels. No side quests, no town, no one to talk to. What there is: ten chests, almost all of them through a door you could easily not open.

On the train

You are told to explore the train while it runs. Do — one car forward from where you start there is a Healing Materia on a seat. The ride does not stay quiet, and once you are off the train you cannot get back on.

The train ends in a timed fight. Ignore everything except the flying drones until they are down; Tifa is the best answer to the slimy things that come with them.

Into the tunnels

Once the three of you are together again, the first vending machine and a bench are on a raised platform, with a chest nearby before the tunnel bends. Buy a Lightning Materia here if nobody has one. You find one eventually, but only just before you need it most. Put Ice on someone as well.

From here, follow the dog graffiti. It is the route, and it is the game’s own joke. The rule for chests is simple: the main tunnel has almost none, and the side rooms have nearly all of them.

• The storage room on the right with the Shinra boxes.
• The stairs on the left, down a hallway full of rats, to the end.
• The room the next group of enemies walked out of.
• The upper level after the rats, before the stairs with the dog on them.
• After a group of large bugs in Section D, near the stairs.

The nest

Further down there is a fight with a much bigger bug and two of the regular ones. Ice works on all of them. The big one can pull your party in with a web, and the small ones poison you, so keep an antidote or Cleansing handy. Past the fight, next to the bench and vending machine, is another chest.

After Section E, the route goes left. Take the room on the right first.

The train yard

Soldiers with flamethrowers and missile launchers hold the yard. Hit the flamethrower troopers from behind; their fuel tanks do the rest.

The gate is locked, and the game sends you up the stairs beside it. Past the machine room, at the split, the room on the left has a Lightning Materia.

The locker room with the bench is the last stop before the boss. The vending machine there sells a music disc for 50 gil that nobody else stocks — buy it — and the bench is your last free heal. Rest.

The fight at the end

A big machine guards the yard. It is weak to lightning. Take out its legs first to knock it down, kill the small creatures it calls in quickly, and when it charges the rails with electricity, get off the rails. Hide behind the crates when the missiles come. The chapter ends after the fight, so spend your MP freely.

Game Notes

On paper Chapter 5 is the game’s least interesting chapter: a tunnel, a train yard, a fight. In practice it is a good one, because it is the first time the three-person party gets to work as a unit, and the encounters are built to make you use all three.

The chests are a lesson in this game’s level design. The main path is clean, the side doors are not, and everything worth having is behind a side door. If you have been rushing, this is the chapter that teaches you not to.

The dog graffiti is a nice touch, too: someone down here has a sense of humour.

How this page was made

Researched across 4 community walkthroughs and written from scratch — no source’s wording appears here.

How we decide what to print

Completionist mode. Full spoilers, in play order, with every permanent loss called out before you reach it. 1 entries below are marked where our sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

Spoilers from here.

The train to Sector 4 hits an unscheduled ID scan, the car is sealed, and Cloud, Tifa and Barret jump off and regroup in the Corkscrew Tunnel. Barret switches to plan E: follow the Stamp graffiti another Avalanche cell left on the walls, through the old rail yard, to a secret passage into the plate and on to Mako Reactor 5. No side quests, no Chadley, no town. Linear and one-way.

The deadlines

• Leaving the train closes the Healing Materia on it.
• The Crab Warden ends the chapter. Once that fight starts you cannot go back into the tunnels, so everything — including the Stamp disc, which only this chapter sells — has to be done first.

Nothing is lost for good; Chapter Select replays it all.

Everything, in order

All Aboard for Sector 4. Healing Materia on a seat one car forward from the start. Pick it up before the scan.

Separate Ways. A timed fight against security drones and Slug-Ray waves — about three minutes. Failing only changes how Cloud leaves the train; nothing is tied to it.

Looking for a Friend / Find Barret. Hi-Potion x2 on a raised platform on the right before the tunnel curves, beside the first vending machine and bench. That machine has Healing, Fire, Ice, Lightning and Deadly Dodge Materia plus the usual armor and accessories — no Cleansing, Poison or Barrier yet.

Find Stamp / The Nose Knows. Follow the graffiti.

• Elixir in the storage room on the right with the Shinra boxes.
• Star Pendant at the end of the Wererat hallway, up the stairs on the left.
• Ether in the room the next group of enemies came out of.
• Antidote x2 on the upper level after the Wererats, before the stairs with the Stamp graffiti.
• Hi-Potion x2 in Section D, after the Grashtrike group near the stairs.
• Grashtrike Queen with two Grashtrikes — ice.
• Phoenix Down x3 on the lower level past that fight, beside the vending machine and bench.

Check the Route. After Section E, the right-hand side room instead of the left route: Leather Bracer. Two guides call it a “Leather Bracelet”; one guide’s chest table for this chapter has the wrong quantities on several chests and is best ignored.

Train Yard Security. Sentry Launchers and Flametroopers. Sentry Launchers only stagger to non-elemental or lightning damage. Hit Flametroopers from behind to burst their tanks. The Shinra-box room here has no chest.

Stairway Detour. The gate is locked; climb the stairs beside it. Past the machine room, at the split, the room on the left: Lightning Materia. After the two flamethrower turrets, the locker room with a bench and vending machine. This machine sells 28. Stamp for 50 gil along with Hi-Potions, Ethers and Cleansing, Poison and Barrier Materia. Rest, buy the disc, and break every Shinra box you still want.

Secret Passageway. The Crab Warden. Then the lift down, and the chapter ends.

Bosses

Grashtrike Queen + 2 Grashtrikes. Weak to ice. The Queen webs the party and drags them in. The Grashtrikes poison and throw up a shield when low. Steal: Spiderweb from either kind.

Crab Warden. Weak to lightning. Steal: Molotov Cocktail. Beating it gives Tifa the Metal Knuckles.

• Phase one. Break the legs to topple it and expose the Generator.
• Phase two. It calls in Slug-Rays. Kill them fast.
• Phase three. The legs become invulnerable and two Auxiliary Weapons come out; destroy them to expose the core again. It electrifies the rails with Surge — stand off or between them — and fires missile barrages; use the crates as cover.
• The chapter ends after it, so spend MP freely.

Hard mode

One Manuscript, Hard only:

• Sharpshooter’s Companion Vol. V — the Crab Warden.

On Hard the Surge chains come faster. Elemental paired with Lightning on a weapon, Magnify with Healing, and Thundaga all help; Elemental paired with Fire on armor shrugs off the flamethrower.

Game Notes

This is the chapter the original game spent a few minutes on: the train, a jump, a tunnel. The Remake stretches it out into a proper dungeon and gives it a running joke in the Stamp graffiti, which is a smarter piece of world-building than it looks — a resistance cell leaving directions in the form of the company’s own cartoon dog.

It is also the first chapter built for Cloud, Tifa and Barret together from start to finish, and it shows. The Slug-Rays and Grashtrikes reward her stagger damage, the Crab Warden’s generator phases reward Barret, and Cloud is the one who has to step back and let them work.

How this page was made

Researched across 8 community walkthroughs and written from scratch — no source’s wording appears here. 1 is marked where sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

How we decide what to print