Seriously? Is this, like, the acid test for any so-called “hardcore gamer”? Well, I have actually completed Um Jammer Lammy, but when I got my PSP video lead this was something I wanted to capture once I was done with the FFVII playthrough, just for being such a cruel, cruel way of telling you you failed.

Every. Game. Are they trying to say that it’s supposed to be so easy that it’s completion should be a fundamental skill in any gamer? Hmm.

So we’re still trying to buff and recover from that last Super Nova, throwing Ethers and Cures around and setting up Big Guard, but when he casts it again at 2:40…well, I didn’t fancy Barret’s chances much. Amazingly, we all survive and I spend ages rifling through my items, looking for a Megalixir and wondering why I didn’t bother arranging my inventory. At 5:17 he uses a new skill, Heartless Angel, which reduces the party’s HP to 1, which made the timing of the Megalixir pretty lucky. I finally get a chance to throw a few limits at Sephiroth and set up Big Guard, and then it’s all over. And, well, you’ve seen the ending, but if not, I captured that a while ago for another YouTube user, so go to http://www.youtube.com/user/gameendings and check it out!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are doomed. We didn’t cast Big Guard in time and only one of us has full HP, and Sephiroth has only gone and cast yet another Super Nova. Jesus Christ. Thankfully we manage to survive it without being knocked unconscious or suffering any status effects, which is pretty remarkable considering. Yuffie hits back with another Shadow Flare and I spend a while trying to get our party back in shape with Cures, Ethers and Big Guards. Yuffie barely survives Sephiroth’s own Shadow Flare, making me think I really need to cure quickly, so Clear Tranquil couldn’t have come at a better time. After another handy Level 4 from Barret, we buff like mad in anticipation of the next Super Nova at 6:30, and somehow survive, granting us time for another buff…

The “real” final battle against Sephiroth is a nightmare no matter how prepared you think you are or how easy the previous battles were, thanks to skills that take off huge amounts of HP and inflict evil status effects on everyone. He starts by casting a wall which can be taken down with the right skill, but I don’t have said skill. As ever, I responded with Big Guard and did a bit of buffing to recover from the previous battle. That said, Sephiroth still knocked Yuffie unconscious with Shadow Flare when she had full HP and a barrier protecting her. The upside of this was that we picked up the skill for our own use.

At about 2:40 you see his most painful and annoying attack, Super Nova. This skill will not only leave your party with barely any HP but will also inflict random status ailments. Amazingly, we survive the first hit and later respond with Meteorain and Catastrophe. The battle becomes a little more manageable after that as we re-cast Big Guard and use buffs and Enemy Skills whilst we can, but we leave it too late to cast another Big Guard before his next Super Nova – eep!

Quickly realising that my Big Guard’s gone, I set it up, and then panic and set it up again. Er…whoops. Anyway, I keep throwing out the enemy skills whilst buffing with Ethers and Cure/Alls (performing a huge buff from 2:30), and then at 3:25 I finally remember that I have a levelled-up Ultima materia. Doh!

Sephiroth’s first form is an interesting enemy that, as shown at the battles intro, consists of several “targets” which must be taken down with certain priorities in mind. The thing is, Sephiroth can revive the parts that you destroy, meaning that a lot of your hard work can be quickly undone if you’re not keeping up. Multiple target enemy skills are very useful for working out how strong each part is, so things like Beta, Trine, Aqualung and so on are useful, if somewhat draining on MP (as you see eight minutes in, I try and keep my MP near it’s maximum.) Sephiroth’s Stigma can also be a pain in terms of effects on your party, so be careful.

When I first played this game, this was one of the points where I threw my hands up in the air and admitted defeat, so it was really something when I eventually played through the game again and defeated Jenova’s final form. Before I discuss tactics; I think I should mention the music – it’s absolutely brilliant and hugely motivating without having all the drama of the Sephiroth battle music. Erm, anyway, we set up Big Guard as usual before opening with a number of bog-standard attacks so as to preserve some MP for healing when Clear Tranquil isn’t available. However, this isn’t the best strategy as it prolongs the battle long enough for Jenova to start her countdown five minutes into this video. When the countdown is underway you must decide whether to unleash the big guns and take her down before she casts Ultima and self-destructs, or buff like mad with Big Guard and Cure/All. I let out several standard attacks but keep Big Guard up just in case I can’t make it, and it turns out I can’t make it in time. Happily though, Ultima only knocked out Cloud, and who’s going to miss that spiky-haired emo jerk?

So after defeating two forms of Hojo we come to face his final form. Again, this form loves to use status effects on the party (such as Sleep and Poision), and will also do substantial physical damage with his Combo move (a move that sometimes messes the camera up to comical effect ) That said, he doesn’t do massive damage with his moves, so you’ll still have time to buff with Cure/Alls if you can’t cure the effects. As for offence, I used a few limits and enemy skills as usual, but I didn’t bother with Big Guard. As long as you have enough MP reserves to keep healing then you don’t need to worry about being poisoned or falling asleep; just keep using Ethers now and then and make sure you have a backup (Hi-Potions, Clear Tranquil) if you’ve been silenced and need to heal.

The battle was extended a bit due to two party members being asleep for a duration, but this had the interesting side-effect of using up Hojo’s skill power at 7:45 Anyway, it’s the last disc and the final dungeon next…

The final encounter against Hojo sees you fighting a sequence of battles where he shifts from three different forms over the course of the action. He begins with the standard human-like form you see at the start of this video, but you don’t really get to see what this form does by watching this video, as I had Barret’s level 4 limit break ready, which took out the first form instantly! Anyway, when he shifts to the second form he turns into a big shambling mess of purple stuff as a result of all the Mako nonsense going on inside him. In addition to it’s standard attacks, this form will poison your allies, which is a real problem if, like me, you haven’t stocked up on Antidote. This is a form that loves to use status effects on your party, so if you don’t know which items or skills will fix them, you’ll have to simply keep your party alive.

As well as curing, I kept cover materia on Barret so that he could build his level 4 quickly, and generally neither of these parts of the battle were too troubling – it’s not like I had to do any extra grinding to prepare myself for this battle…but Hojo wasn’t done with the party just yet…

This is a bit of a tank, but it’s also kind of rubbish. You can keep hitting it for ages and think that you’re not making a dent on it, but it’s just got a huge health bar, so to speak. On top of that, its attacks are rarely very dangerous if you have your Revive materia handy and are keeping your health out of the yellow (sadly, this is advice I didn’t exactly heed myself when my party members repeatedly fell unconscious.) As ever, the limits were the star of the show, as I was able to take a look at Cloud’s other level 3 limit, as well as keeping Yuffie’s Clear Tranquil as backup (yes, I know I should be obtaining her better limits, but still…) Anyway, there is still quite a bit to do in Midgar, so it’ll be a while before we can get out of here.