Junon and Under Junon

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.

This is the first stretch of the game with real one-shot moments in it. Not items — performances. Two of them, both scored, both giving you exactly one attempt, and both handing out a much better prize for doing well.

Save before each.

The boss on the beach hovers

It floats. Most of your physical attacks are going to be swinging at air.

If you picked up the Long Range Materia in the mine, this is the fight it was put there for — stick it on your sword user and they hit properly again. Failing that, use magic, and use whoever fights at range naturally.

It also grabs one of your party in a bubble that drains them. You break the bubble by attacking the bubble, not the boss. People lose party members here while dutifully hitting the wrong target.

Search the barracks properly

Once you are up in Junon and free to wander, there is a block of buildings on the first street with something on almost every floor — including an Enemy Skill Materia sitting on the ground.

There are only four of those in the entire game. Each one is another character who can carry the whole skill collection. Do not walk past it.

The parade

You march in a line and a percentage rating ticks along at the top. Better rating, better prize, and the top band is a solid pile of gil.

Two things nobody tells you:

• Run straight down toward the camera to reach the back line. Following the soldiers around the long way is slower and you arrive out of position.
• Alignment is what scores, not rhythm. Stay in a straight line with the soldiers and press when the prompt appears. One guide reckons the prompt only appears at all when you are properly lined up.

The send-off

Later, a second performance — the officer calls out moves and you copy them. Ten points each, thirty for the finish, hundred maximum.

Two traps: turns themselves score nothing, and if you are facing the wrong way a correct button press counts for zero. Also, the practice run uses a fixed order and the real one is random, so do not memorise the sequence.

The top prize is a sword with double Materia growth, which is worth far more than its damage number for a long time.

Before you board

The ship leaves and that is that. Buy what you want, take what you can see, and grab a Tranquilizer if you have someone prone to seasickness — it comes up.

Game Notes

Junon is where FF7 stops being a game about a city and starts being a game about a world, and it marks the transition by making you march in a parade for a man you are trying to kill.

That is the joke and it is a good one. You spend Midgar blowing up Shinra infrastructure, and then you spend Junon in a Shinra uniform, in formation, being scored on television for how well you please the people you came here to stop. Nobody comments on it. There is no dialogue beat where a character points out the irony. The game just puts you in the costume and starts counting.

And underneath, the same thing the Turks scenes keep doing: these are not monsters you are fighting. They are an employer. They have a parade. They have a viewer rating, and they care about it.

Completionist mode. Full spoilers, in play order, with every permanent loss called out before you reach it. 4 entries below are marked where our sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

Spoilers from here.

Bottomswell

2,500 HP, and it hovers — which is the fight’s whole design. Physical attacks from the front row are largely wasted, and this is what the Long Range Materia in the Mythril Mine was placed there for.

Settled from the game’s own tables, because three guides describe it three different ways: it takes double damage from Wind, nullifies Earth, and halves Gravity. Sources variously call the Earth interaction nullify, absorb and resist. It is nullify.

Waterpolo traps a party member in a draining bubble. You break it by targeting the bubble, not the boss. Its death throes hit the whole party for around a hundred, so do not finish it on fumes.

Power Wrist is a guaranteed 100% drop, not a steal — one guide lists it as stealable, and the game gives Bottomswell no steal entry at all, so a turn spent on Steal in this fight is a turn thrown away. The accessory is +10 Strength and nothing else. The fight pays 550 exp, 52 AP and 1,000 gil.

Priscilla, and the way up

The CPR sequence: fill the gauge toward its maximum of ten, exhale, repeat about five times. Overfilling wastes the breath.

Two sources call it unloseable and a third says mistimed breaths restart it. Nobody documents a real failure state — no game over, no lost reward — so the worst case is doing it twice. Sources also disagree on which button it uses, which is almost certainly a version difference neither of them flags.

She gives you Shiva and the Whistle. Both are automatic.

The dolphin jump takes two goes, and the trick is counterintuitive: do not move Cloud between them. Stand still and blow the whistle twice — he and the dolphin realign themselves and the second jump connects. Moving is what makes people fail it repeatedly.

Upper Junon — the part that matters

Enemy Skill Materia, on the ground in the Beginner’s Hall on the first street.

There are four in the entire game. Each one is another character who can carry the complete enemy skill set, and the set includes some of the best abilities in FF7. Every missables list we checked flags this as a first-visit grab.

In the same barracks block: Mind Source and Luck Source on the second floor, Power Source and Guard Source on the third, and a 1/35 Soldier. On the second street, Speed Source in the closet behind the grey door, and the second 1/35 Soldier.

The Soldiers are pure collectibles with no combat use whatsoever. They pay off much later.

Is any of this really missable?

The honest answer is that the guides flag it out of caution rather than knowledge. Junon does reopen later, and one missables guide says plainly that later visits have little missable and better shops. No source we found states that the barracks treasure rooms are ever sealed.

The two things that are definitely one-shot are the minigame prizes, and they are one-shot because they are performances, not pickups.

There is also a claim — from exactly one source — that the Upper Junon Materia store carries an otherwise unused stock including Magic Plus, available nowhere else in the game and only before you get the airship. Nothing corroborates it. Check the shop’s stock while you are here; it costs nothing to look.

The parade

Run straight down toward the camera to the back line rather than following the soldiers around — it is faster and gets you in position. Then hold a perfectly straight line and press when the prompt appears.

Alignment is what scores. Their step timing is not. One guide states the prompt only appears at all when you are properly lined up, which would make alignment the entire game.

Reward bands are disputed. Eight sources put them at 30, 40 and 50 percent; one puts them at 22 and 51. One calls the rating “points” rather than a percentage. And one account claims the starting rating is randomised and decays as you march, making the outcome partly luck — which nothing else corroborates and which, if true, would explain a lot of frustrated players.

Top band is 5,000 gil.

The send-off

Ten points per correct move, zero for turns, thirty for the finishing move, hundred maximum.

The trap: you must be facing the right way. A correct button press while misfacing scores nothing. And the practice run uses a fixed command order while the real performance is randomised, so anyone who memorised the practice is about to score badly.

Prizes are Silver Glasses, HP Plus, or Force Stealer — 36 attack on double Materia growth, with three unlinked slots.

Read that as a trade, not an upgrade. Against the Hardedge you stole in the Shinra Building it is four more attack, one fewer slot and no linked pair. What you are buying is the growth rate, and at this point in the game doubling the AP on three Materia is worth more than a link you are not using yet.

The bands are reported as 0–50, 60–90 and 100+, which leaves 51–59 and 91–99 undefined by most sources; one guide closes the gaps at 51–99. One says the top prize needs exactly 100, others say 100 or more.

Separately, one guide claims Force Stealer is unobtainable after leaving Junon while another lists it in Junon’s own weapon shop stock. Those cannot both be true.

Around the town

White Wind from Zemzelett on the grassland. It heals the whole party for the caster’s current HP and clears status at the same time, and it stays good until the credits. Zemzelett takes double from Wind and nullifies Earth, Water and Gravity, so bring something physical. It has no steal, and its drop and its morph are both Hi-Potions — once the skill is learned there is nothing here to come back for.

Boomerang is a 12.7% steal from Formula, whose drop is a Hi-Potion at the same rate and whose morph is a Speed Drink. At 30 attack with four slots and one linked pair, it is worth robbing a few Formulas the moment Yuffie joins.

Yuffie is recruitable in the forests here at roughly one in eight. She is optional for the entire game, and the conversation after her fight has several answers that lose her again.

Buy Hypers. Enemies in this region inflict Sadness constantly, which slows Limit gauges, and this is the first shop stocking the cure in quantity.

Game Notes

There are no affection choices anywhere in Junon. Two independent date-mechanics sources confirm it by omission — their event lists jump straight from Fort Condor to the cargo ship.

That is worth saying because it is the kind of negative fact guides never state. You can read six Junon walkthroughs and come away unsure whether you missed something invisible, because none of them will tell you there was nothing there to miss. Absence is harder to document than presence, and almost nobody bothers.

The other thing Junon does, and does better than anywhere else in the first disc, is make Shinra boring. Not evil — boring. A uniform that does not fit. A drill sergeant. A corridor. A televised parade with a viewer rating that somebody in middle management is going to be held accountable for.

You spent five hours bombing these people. Now you are in their formation, in their costume, being scored on your marching, and the game does not editorialise about it once.