Game Saves For Testing?

[Furzball]

I was wondering if anyone had made a batch of save game files for ff7 for testing purposes?  I've been having to re go through the game since I haven't played it in awhile and was wondering if anyone has savebatch so testing would be easier or if I need to make one myself for other people to use?

[nfitc1]

I don't believe that exists. I'd love for it to. Such a thing would not be unwelcome! Meaning, if you do make such a collection, please share it!

[Cupcake]

hmm... I may do that, if we can just get a list of places, and whether or not it would be cool for all characters to be maxed out in these save files

[nfitc1]

hmm... I may do that, if we can just get a list of places, and whether or not it would be cool for all characters to be maxed out in these save files

No maxed characters. The more natural, the better. Preferably NO used sources either. Stats could be raised via a SGE later if the user needs it.
I think some ground rules would need to be set for these. Let me suggest some, most of which you may not like doing:

#1 - Saves at every opportunity (excluding unnecessary back-tracking) with as few battles/kills as possible and as many field things done as possible between last save and current save
#1a - This includes all Save points in dungeons and first opportunity outside towns as soon as you can leave the town after town-related story event
#1b - Don't save after every side-quest, but before proceeding with the story, complete all available side quests
#1c - For save in North Cave, prefer to save immediately before group splits-up and only have opened the Save Crystal chest (pick nothing else up)
#2 - Level up naturally. Don't go out of way to grind levels (SGEs can artificially inflate the characters later)
#2a - Don't use sources. Hoard them all
#2b - Materia can be leveled as much as you want
#2c - Have at least one save (per character) where each character has only their first limit break
#3 - Get the best outcomes for different events (Stopping North Coral Train and getting Warrior Bangle, Getting Huge Materia from Shinra #26, etc.) before saving
#3a - At least read all the Costa Del Sol posters as soon as they become available
#3b - When the point in the story is reached, there should be four saves each having a different date scene on one slot. JENOVA can modify love points so just save four times and modify the love points of each of them differently. Preferably having the second character being the one the date will be with (to tell easily in-game).

I'm sure there are other things I'd want in a collection of saves. This is probably pretty extreme for most people and likely too annoying for one person to do alone (unless they wanted to). Maybe a group effort could be put into this. One person plays to the end of Midgar, the next plays to the save on the boat after Junon, the next plays until the end of Disc 1, etc. Each save would have to be documented as to what has been accomplished and such.
I know there are only 10 slots on the PC version, so you'll have to keep a backup of slots once all 150 saves have been used and either re-number the slots in the correct order or put in numbered archives/directories.

[Cupcake]

hmm... I may do that, if we can just get a list of places, and whether or not it would be cool for all characters to be maxed out in these save files

No maxed characters. The more natural, the better. Preferably NO used sources either. Stats could be raised via a SGE later if the user needs it.
I think some ground rules would need to be set for these. Let me suggest some, most of which you may not like doing:

#1 - Saves at every opportunity (excluding unnecessary back-tracking) with as few battles/kills as possible and as many field things done as possible between last save and current save
#1a - This includes all Save points in dungeons and first opportunity outside towns as soon as you can leave the town after town-related story event
#1b - Don't save after every side-quest, but before proceeding with the story, complete all available side quests
#1c - For save in North Cave, prefer to save immediately before group splits-up and only have opened the Save Crystal chest (pick nothing else up)
#2 - Level up naturally. Don't go out of way to grind levels (SGEs can artificially inflate the characters later)
#2a - Don't use sources. Hoard them all
#2b - Materia can be leveled as much as you want
#2c - Have at least one save (per character) where each character has only their first limit break
#3 - Get the best outcomes for different events (Stopping North Coral Train and getting Warrior Bangle, Getting Huge Materia from Shinra #26, etc.) before saving
#3a - At least read all the Costa Del Sol posters as soon as they become available
#3b - When the point in the story is reached, there should be four saves each having a different date scene on one slot. JENOVA can modify love points so just save four times and modify the love points of each of them differently. Preferably having the second character being the one the date will be with (to tell easily in-game).

I'm sure there are other things I'd want in a collection of saves. This is probably pretty extreme for most people and likely too annoying for one person to do alone (unless they wanted to). Maybe a group effort could be put into this. One person plays to the end of Midgar, the next plays to the save on the boat after Junon, the next plays until the end of Disc 1, etc. Each save would have to be documented as to what has been accomplished and such.
I know there are only 10 slots on the PC version, so you'll have to keep a backup of slots once all 150 saves have been used and either re-number the slots in the correct order or put in numbered archives/directories.

You know what man, let's get a group of people together and do it.  If you get started with the Midgar chapter, I'll take care of Midgar til' Costa-Del-Sol.  You have some good ideas, but I'm kind of unsure as far as what you mean by some of them, that's why I want you to start, so I get an idea of how the ideas work out (sorry if this was rambling and confusing)

[Furzball]

Very neat and necessary to have these kinds of rules. My only idea to add is maybe add 99 save crystals at start of game as only edit. I'm unsure if or not they can be used outside crater or if it would mess up the game in any way in terms of programming rather then save go to next step. I suppose at first I would want to do all the already in game save points as the main goal of the project. Then once that is done, make saves at every event, and create a notepad that lists the saves location, event, and the memory slot location ingame (slot 1, save 3 for example.) mainly the program would be for the PC version obviously, since I have no clue about hacking PSX version. I'm thinking that perhaps I could take visual basic and make a small program that lists these saves and will copy them into the ff7 saves folder. Cause my main concern is that there will be so many save games that it goes over the limit. Anyways just dropping this idea here for when I get to it. My only question is that will the fact that I'm testing the Zack Project mods that I'm making somehow end up messing up the information? If so I have to partition my drive and play ff7 regular off the partition.

[nfitc1]

I'm glad you're not put-out by the rules I want to impose, I just want to make a collection that has as little editing done to it as possible so that testers have simple points they can immediately pull up and test from. I'm sorry if some of those rules sound vague. I was kinda writing some of them in a hurry. I'd be glad to clarify some things that sound confusing.
I don't think Save Crystals can be used anywhere besides the final dungeon. You'll have to mod the game to get it to work elsewhere. Even then I think only one could work. I remember trying to use them on the PSX version and it ended up saving incorrectly.
Yeah, I can get started on, and hopefully finish, the Midgar chapter today. I'll let you know how it goes.

[BlitzNCS]

Yeah, the Save crystals dont work outside the Final dungeon, even if you enable them to be used in the field. i think its the field script that makes them useable, and every area would have to be modded to do it...

[proJ3CHT]

Hey kids i dunno if this is any use to you but the ultima edition has a complete folder of game saves from every single save point from the game, i found this useful coz i wanted to carry on from the golden saucer wen i upgraded to the PC version from my psx one lol

[nfitc1]

"Ultima Edition" is illegal. Anything that comes with it is most likely worthless.

[proJ3CHT]

apart from the gamesaves which you guys are disscussing lol

[nfitc1]

apart from the gamesaves which you guys are disscussing lol

Of which we can't guarantee any content being accurate and obtainable in a legal copy in the game. It will do testers little good to have saves with, say, maxed out inventory or materia or maxed stats if that's something they're going to test against. Discussing using those is against forum rules:

No linking to/discussion of/advertising of illegal downloads, including FFVII Ultima Edition.

Save game files made by an illegal version of the game are still illegal. The discussion of such is now terminated.

Oh, and don't end all your posts with "lol" for the sake of doing it. That's something I'd expect to see on 4Chan and just lowers people's desire (at least mine, to whom I assume you are attempting to communicate with) to communicate with you. Also don't just say "kids" to address the people entering the topic. You don't know how old they are and chances are, they don't care how old you are. That's being disrespectful and could be interpreted as an insult which is another violation of the rules and just Internet etiquette in general.

[proJ3CHT]

jeez didn mean to upset anyone i didn think the way i type be it grammerfied or not really makes a difference and the kids comment is just small upbeat joke, really is no need to rant about it.

and i didnt know about the ultima edition rules sorry about that.. but i was trying to help

[nfitc1]

Yeah, I can get started on, and hopefully finish, the Midgar chapter today. I'll let you know how it goes.

Let me share how far I've gotten so far:
Save #1: First Save Point. Picked up the two potions from the unconscious guards and the Phoenix Down from the chest in the reactor.
Save #2: Picked up Restore Materia, defeated Guard Scorpion (Braver+1), Equipped Barret with Assault Gun and saved at previous point
Save #3: Picked up Ether at top of the room, rescued Jesse, bought flower from Aeris, picked up Potion from Sector 8 Square, didn't fight guards, saved outside train station
Save #4: AVALANCHE-related and Cloud/Tifa Promise scenes, skipped Materia tutorial, picked up "All" Materia and whatever it was in treasure chest (Ether?) from learners hall, bought three iron bangles and a Fire Materia, saved in same place as Save #3
Save #5: Got 100 gil stolen (I don't care about losing that), picked up green item in duct after sliding down hole in the wall at the end of the tracks, saved right before entering Reactor #5
Save #6: Got all the items in that area between tracks and reactor, saved at bottom of reactor 5
Save #7: Saved in room before exiting Reactor 5
Save #8: Picked up Phoenix Down from chest, beat Air Buster (Beat Rush+1), Cloud's in Limit Break at end of battle, met Aerith (named her that), made mistake dropping first barrel, others were correctly dropped, Saved outside church after getting back to the ground
Save #9: Saved at Aerith's house (probably dumb because this was probably less than 30 seconds away from last save)
Save #10: Got all items around Aerith's house, took the 5 Gil, talked to Aerith's mother, saved outside house
Save #11: Just entered Wall Market
Save #12: Became "Ms. Cloud" with basic dress and best wig, Saved in Wall Market

After that Cloud died during the battle with Aps (During the same Sewer Tsunami attack that killed him I might add ) because I forgot to give Aerith the Cure=All before the fight. I could have revived him, but I lost the will to keep going at the time. I'll continue later.
I have run from every escapable battle so everyone has pretty low levels.

Battles fought and kill count in save 12:
First two MPs (Cloud+2)
Guard Scorpion (Cloud+1)
Air Buster (Barret+1)
MP (Aerith+1)
Total encounters: 21
Total escapes: 17

Upcoming battles:
Corneo's Lacky x5 + Scotch (Cloud+6) (Unless I replay save #11 to get Cloud the best stuff (which I might).
Aps

[Timu Sumisu]

i'd actually suggest against running from every battle... it'd give a more realistic set of saves if you fought whatever you run into, but never try to grind. just make sure you cover the proper path. as to the cross dressing, i say ye should get all the items (looks kooler at the end imo, all the key items)

[nfitc1]

i'd actually suggest against running from every battle... it'd give a more realistic set of saves if you fought whatever you run into, but never try to grind. just make sure you cover the proper path. as to the cross dressing, i say ye should get all the items (looks kooler at the end imo, all the key items)

That's true about the battles. I was really just running to get more saves in quicker. So far, save 12 only has about 31 minutes on it.
I'm not so sure about the cross-dressing thing being necessary. If Cloud's fully girl-ified you'll miss the Corneo's Lackey battles. While seemingly insignificant, you'll completely miss this if Cloud gets picked. It's probably best to have one where Tifa will get picked, one where Aeris will get picked, and one where Cloud will get picked. I'll probably do that, but that means running through Wall Market (a very boring sequence) two more times. Oh well. I don't have time to finish this slot today, but I'll be able to get to it tomorrow afternoon.

[Furzball]

Nice job on going through Midgar as of far, I know I couldn't do that without trying to level up decently well. I think that if we do this we should add a save of the debug room for those that would use it.

[hotdog963al]

jeez didn mean to upset anyone i didn think the way i type be it grammerfied or not really makes a difference and the kids comment is just small upbeat joke, really is no need to rant about it.

and i didnt know about the ultima edition rules sorry about that.. but i was trying to help

Everything you need to know is written out in the rules thread, worth a read!

[nfitc1]

So I just got done with the first slot (all 15 saves) so I'll give a report on my progress.

#13: Replayed from #11 and got Silk Dress, Blonde Wig, and Sexy Cologne. According to the Don Corneo mechanics guide on GFAQs this is one of the cheapest/fastest way to get Aerith picked. Saved in Wall Market. (time on save: (30:42)
#14: Same, except I also got the Diamond Tiara, Bikini Briefs (GAH! I HATE THE GROUP ROOM!) and got Cloud make-uped (time on save: 32:20)*
#15: Continued from #14. Re-Equipped a little. Gave Cloud All=Restore, Tifa Fire, and Aerith Ice & Bolt. Got the Ether in Don's basement and Hyper behind his bed. Defeated Aps (killed himself again ). Picked up Potion & Steal (probably shouldn't have, but whatever). Got into one fight with a trio of Sahagins. Didn't buy anything, but I probably should have to at least make this next part do-able. Oh well, I'm headed back to Wall Market after the fight with Reno anyway and almost nothing changes.
Cloud: +1 kill; Braver +2
Tifa: +1 kill; Beat Rush +2
Aerith: +1 kill; Healing Wind +1

Next few planned save spots in Slot 2:
#1: Save at base of Pillar
#2: Save after re-entering Wall Market BEFORE picking up Sense materia
#3: Save after shopping in Wall Market for a while and getting outside Shinra Building.
#4: Save after climbing stairs
#5: <from #3> save after busting in

My memory's a bit hazy as to the next few places, but I'll do my best to get saves in all the spots. I likely won't get any further until next week, but if I get a chance throughout the weekend I'll try to do more.

*Choosing the Bikini Briefs over the Lingerie was a slight concession on my part. The guide mentioned above indicates that the Briefs could be a deciding factor in choosing Aerith over Cloud (with Silk Dress, Blonde Wig, Sexy Cologne, & Ruby Tiara). Although we actually learn something plot-related in "The &$#% Room", I chose the "stronger" of the two items.
I don't think the make-up makes any difference to the Don's choice. In fact, it doesn't show up as an item. That's one reason why I want these saves. It's easy enough to have a save at the moment you can make these decisions and see if anything is different between the choices. Though if I have to do that stupid squat game that is supposed to last 30 seconds but actually lasts over-a-minute or that poorly translated conversation with the Don one more time I think I'm going to go crazy.

[BrokenCrowe (Mendelevium)]

I have a memory card for the PS1 that has a save for every save i did... i wanted to be able to play any part of the game when i wanted to xD.... If its possible to transfer from a memory card to a PC id gladly offer assistance ^.6