Final Fantasy 7
Gold Saucer

You may have seen this before, but if you haven't, I'll still tell you what it is, about "The Squares", and what each of them are good for. Okay, if you haven't been there yet, then you obviously haven't visited North Corel, Barret's home town. So, to get there, assuming you haven't gotten there yet, head northeast of Costa Del Sol, and there's a small canyon, which you can enter, and follow that, to reach North Corel. From there, you must run all of the way to the left, and you'll be by a big blue machine, which rides on ropes, and will lead you to the Gold Saucer, however, make sure you either have 3,000 or 30,000 Gil, so you can get in. 3,000 Gil can get you a one-time pass, meaning, you can get in, but once you leave, you have to pay another 3,000. So, if you plan on racing chocobo's, or you want all of the items from all of the Squares, youmight want 30,000 which will be you a life-time pass. You can leave freely, and come back in without paying. Anyway, once your there, talk to the girl behind the stand thing. She will allow you to enter on the...what do they call it? Let's say Ropeway Machine. If you haven't been there before, there will be an awesome CG cinema, introducing the Gold Saucer. And your there! Now for the Squares!

"The Sqaures" are basically different locations in the Gold Saucer, with specific names. The Gold Saucer consists of the following "Squares".

• Chocobo Square
• Speed Square
• Ghost Square
• Event Square
• Wonder Square
• Battle Square
• and Round Square

Chocobo Square is mainly used to race chocobo's, but it is also used as a betting station, to bet on chocobo's, if you haven't yet gotten one. Chocobo Square is essential for chocobo breeders everywhere, so you can obtain the famed gold chocobo. Chocobo Square has many valuable materia available, and other, useful, and useless items. Some of the items include, the rare magic counter materia, Cat's Bell, Precious Watch, and other rare items which are very useful. You can also get Elixirs, and items like Fire Viel which cast magical spells of enemies using that particular item. Chocobo Square is also useful for GP. It is the ultimate place to earn it, because you can get large amounts each time you race, and win that is. You can trade an item in for GP, and the rarer the item, the higher amount of GP you will earn.

Speed Square is just a big roller coaster. But, with a nice little addition. A gun. As the roller coaster moves by itself, you must try to shoot as many enemies as possible, including the big UFO, and a big yellow boulder each worth thousands of points, as the other enemies range between 30-70 points. If you get a good score, yo will get good items, which get better according to what disc you are on.

Ghost Square is an ordinary hotel, where you can get fully healed, just like the rest of them. However, this hotel just loves Halloween and sticks with it as their theme. You come here on your first visit, where someone unexpected comes to wake you up.... Also, there is a very useful item in the dresser cough,cough,elixer,cough,cough.

Event Square is a theater, where you can pretty much watch shows. However, you can only do anything here when you are on a date.

Wonder Square is where you can pretty much gain GP....very......very...slowly. Basically, in my opinion, it is worthless, unless you liked the mini-games you have experience thus far, such as the motorcycle mini-game, the submarine game, and even snowboarding, which all appear, with more, as you experience them in the actual story part of the game.

Battle Square is the most USEFUL place in all of the Gold Saucer, besides the Chocobo Square (assuming your breeding, and/or racing chocobos). Battle Square is where you, as the name inscribes, battle, for special points called Battle Points (BP). BP allows you to obtain certain items, not available anywhere else. The downside of gaining BP is that if you leave Battle Square, you lose all of your BP, and have earn it again. It isn't so bad, unless you just earned tons of BP. Also you can't save, and if you just need 10 more BP to earn the 32,000 points you need to get Omnislash, and then something zaps the power line, and you lose EVERYTHING, your gonna pretty much lose your sanity. However, it isn't very hard, if you have the right materia, weapons, armor, and good luck (for the slots which always seem to piss you off with their handicaps), you'll be fine. For the battles, you must fight your way through 8 monsters, which get harder as you go along. Along with that, you have to play "slots", which can either help you, or completely screw you over. The good thing is, if you die, you don't actually don't die. You leave the battle, and return with your other characters, and you'll receive the most utterly useless item, a tissue, as a consolation prize. However, until you die, you'll still be in that frustrating battle, with every handicap you can possibly think of, and some handicaps you might have include:

Here are all of the effects that can be chosen between fights (going from best to worst, in my humble opinion):
Cure: The fighter's HP is completely healed at the beginning of the next fight.
Lucky 7: The fighter does not get any handicap.
5 Levels Down: The character drops five levels, which hurts their statistics (lower HP, strength, etc).
10 Levels Down: The character drops 10 levels, hurting their stats even more.
Poison: The character gets the Poison status.
Time x30 Damage: The fighter's time in the time bar at the end of the last battle is multiplied by 30 to determine how much damage he/she will receive. This cannot kill the character.
Support Materia Broken: The character's Support (blue) Materia is broken and is no longer effective.
Zero MP: The fighter's MP (not the maximum MP, just the MP) goes down to 0.
Accessory Broken: The fighter's accessories are disabled.
MP: The fighter's maximum MP is cut in half.
Item Command Sealed: The person can no longer use any items.
Speed: The fighter's speed is cut in half.
Independent Materia Broken: All of the character's Independent (yellow) Materia is disabled.
Mini: The fighter gets the Mini status.
Frog: The character is turned into a frog.
Armor Broken: The character's armor is broken and no longer effective.
Sword Broken: The fighter's sword/weapon is broken and physical attacks are practically useless.
Summon Materia Broken: None of the character's Summon (red) Materia can be used.
HP and MP: The fighter's HP and MP are cut in half.
Magic Materia Broken: All of the fighter's Magic (green) Materia can not be used anymore.
All Materia Broken: All Materia are completely disabled - ouch!

As for Round Square, all it is is some gondola ride. You have to take it on your date, where you can learn new things about them, while viewing the CG Cinema's by looking out each window. If you decide to come back after the date, you'll see some other CG Cinema's, that weren't available before. But other than that, it's pretty much just there for no reason at all but to take up room.