In Final Fantasy VII, one of the final things you do is to go in the Northern Crater. During it, you have a few points where you are forced to split your team up. Those who go with the main party and those who do not.
When you get to the bottom of the crater, you find a room with all the party members in and sometimes the ones who were not with the main group have an item for you. Does this change depending on the character and the direction they took? Is there an optimal route to send people to gain the better quality items or it it just luck? Does anything else affect which items the other party members pick up?
Best Answer
Based this walkthrough posted on GameFAQs (search for {39} in the walkthrough), the items you receive are dependent on who you send which direction. The walkthrough author recommends the following orders:
You then enter the path at the bottom of the screen. I haven't verified this myself personally, but you can always try it and either don't save or use another save slot until you can confirm this gets you the items you want.
Note: Once you have completed your path and enter the room with the rest of the party members for the first time, do NOT talk to any of them. If you do not talk to anyone and continue through other doors in the room, you can actually go back along their paths, grab loot from all of the chests on that path, and still get loot from the party members when you return to the room. This is important because the above orders are intended to get you an extra Mystile, Imperial Guard, Shield Materia, and Counter Materia if you explore and loot all of the paths before talking to anyone else in that room.