Getting Vincent Valentine
You can get Vincent at any point in the game, provided:
- You can get to Nibelheim (Cloud and Tifa's hometown)
- You are trained or skilled enough to beat Lost Number (it's not all that difficult, but...)
Of course, you can't get Vincent when Cloud is telling his past. What you want to do is to find the key to that door in the basement of the Shinra Mansion. If you enter there, you'll find Vincent. Finding the key is a long process, but you don't need to do the whole thing if you (the player) already know where it is. So if you're lazy, go straight to the battle!
Here's how you find the key in the game. In a room at the south-west, you should find a letter on the floor. Get near it and press OK to read it: it's a letter written by Hojo long ago. "I must get rid of all those that stand in the way of my research, even that one from the Turks. I scientifically altered him and put him to sleep in the basement." Interesting, huh? Cloud will find a second letter. Read that one too. You'll soon find a menu with four choices, but you can only see three, the last one is hidden. You should read the four of them by making the whole process again and again, and then find out what they mean (they sound a bit sibylline). They're tips that tell you where to find the four numbers needed to open the safe on the first floor:
- Written behind the lid of a chest in the room with the plants. Open the chest, then press OK again standing by it to read the number.
- On the floor behind the grand piano.
- Go to the room with the door to the stairs and stand left to the chair. Walk 5 steps left, 9 up, 2 left, 6 up. You should be near it. Keep pressing OK while walking around and you should be able to read it.
- Select the hidden choice when reading Hojo's second letter.
Back to what you have to do: go to the room with the safe. Be sure you're ready for a battle, then try to open the safe. Now you should know the combination:
right to 36, left to 10, right to 59, right to 97
Press OK after each number. If you go past the number, it won't work, and you'll need to insert the whole combination again, so just keep pressing OK till you are in control of Cloud again. The safe is open? Great! Inside it is the key, the Summon Odin Materia (awesome!), and... oh oh...
Before you can take the two things, a boss attacks you: it's Lost Number. He's level 35, and has 7000HP/300MP. This monster has high defense against magic, so don't use any low level spell, you'll just waste your turn if you do. But, he isn't immune to Stop. Then try this: begin the battle with Haste+All on your party, Choco/Mog, then keep attacking till he can move again, resummon Choco/Mog, and so on. The battle becomes very easy if the summon does stop the boss. It's not always successful, so watch out, and be sure you have Restore+All equipped in order to keep your HP up. Remember, if Lost Number is not stopped, you can get to use Limit Breaks. So use them wisely! Now for his attacks: he can use Bolt2, phisical attacks, and sometimes a big punch for 2000+ HP, so be careful, you might need some Phoenix Down. Just a final note: once you've damaged him a bit, he'll lose either the red or the purple part, and his attacks will be powered up. The RED part will use more magic (not limited to Lightning), the PURPLE one will use physical attacks, so watch which part remains.
When you're done, get the red Materia and the Key to the Basement. Now you're ready to meet Vincent, so go downstairs and enter that door. Wake Vincent from his sleep (he's sleeping in the coffin) and he'll mumble a few things about being disturbed by strangers. When given a choice, talk about Sephiroth to proceed (you have to do so or you won't be able to get Vincent). After some more dialogue on how Sephiroth has lost his mind, Vincent will eventually ask you to leave. Wake him up again and ask him for his name (again, needed step. You can name him as you want, but hey, Vincent is his name, no other name will do :). He'll say he's a former Turk. Cloud will say he used to work for Shinra too, as a member of SOLDIER (he says this even if he has already remembered it's not true) and Vincent will ask him if he knows Lucrecia, the lady who gave birth to Sephiroth, an assistant to Professor Gast of the Jenova Project. But Cloud doesn't know her, and is a little surprised, having believed that Jenova was Sephiroth's mother. Vincent will explain that Sephiroth was born from Lucrecia, and is the result of an experiment on humans, an experiment that was made on both the mother and child. Vincent's sin was, he wasn't able to stop the experiment. He let the woman he loved face the worst.
Vincent will eventually go to sleep again; all you can do is leave. When you're leaving, however, he will follow you, and you can add him to your party. For Vincent, this is the chance to get revenge on Hojo...
Congratulations, Vincent is in your party now! Follow his part in the story, you won't be disappointed.