FF7 Magic-Only Run, report #2

Got up to Gongaga over the weekend. Thoughts:

1) I came to regret buying an extra Fire rather than an extra Lightning Materia first chance I got. A lot of the Midgar bosses are weak to Lightning and there were times when one character couldn't really contribute because I didn't have enough useful Materia to go around.

2) I got through the initial stage of bosses taking a whole MP bar to defeat and it's been pretty smooth sailing ever since, but now that I'm at the stage where my attack Materia is starting to level up, I think I'm about to fall off a difficulty cliff.

3) I thought I wouldn't need to worry about this so much but it turns out I do still have to keep up with weapon progression. They do have an effect on your magic stat and the increasing number of slots is important. (Fortunately the game gives you an upgraded weapon for Barret before the Dyne fight so I wasn't stuck trying to fight him with the Assault Gun.)

4) You can steal Ethers from just about everything between Midgar and the Chocobo Farm. Too bad I only realized that after I'd crossed the marshes. XP

5) I went ahead and got White Wind and Mighty Guard as soon as I could but they're such MP hogs that I doubt I'll be using them much at this stage.