Reactor Nr. 5: Please help :(

Hello!

I have a question about FF7 and I was wondering if somebody could help me... I've played the game several times, but this is the first time I've started playing the game on my new laptop. I have to admit: they are not the original cd's. My brother copied them for my birthday a couple of years ago... Now for my question: Once Cloud, Barret and Tifa are in the Sector 5 slums and they have to blow up Reactor Nr. 5 (this is waaaay early in the game, when you've already blown up Reactor Nr. 1) Cloud gets a flash-back and falls to the ground. Then he gets up and messes with the reactor. With the first reactor, you had to press OK and you got a timer (I think it was 10 mins). That was the time you had to get out of there. This time, I don't get a timer and I can't do anything to the Reactor: Cloud does it himself as a sort of demo or auto-pilot. Then he, Tifa and Barret melt together again and you have to get out of there before the reactor explodes. You have an encounter with President Shinra and he sets this huge robot out to destroy you. Once the 3 of them have taken care of the robot, it explodes and breaks the part of the bridge that Cloud is standing on. He falls and keeps dangling off the edge of the bridge. Tifa wants to help him, but Barret holds her back. Cloud says Barret has to make sure they get out of there and protect Tifa. Now, here comes my question: I remember that the Reactor is supposed to explode and Cloud will fall down onto a flower bed. However, this does not happen when I play it on my new laptop. Cloud just keeps dangling of the edge and nothing happens. The game doesn't freeze, because I see the characters keep moving. But I think it's strange there's no Countdown clock for the bomb... I left the computer on for 3 hours yesterday, but Cloud keeps dangling off the edge and nothing happens X_X... The screen also turns black and only the 3 characters are visible... Please help me: is this normal? Is it a glitch in the game? Should I get a patch? I checked several walkthroughs, but none of them cover this... Please help

*Tammy*

It does seem to be a glitch you've got. There isn't a timer on that reactor, and everything else appart from the big where Cloud is hanging sounds normal. It actually shows an FMV after that, so maybe it's having trouble opening that movie? Do they finish talking before he hangs there?

Thank you for your reply :) Yes, they do finish talking: Barret says he can't do anything about the thing exploding and he can't help Cloud, because Tifa asks him that. Barret asks if Cloud will be allright and you can choose between 'Be Strong' and another option where he asks Barret to help out. I picked them both, and then Cloud answers and after that he just keeps dangling...

At http://www.eyesonff.com/ff7/index.shtml there's a couple of patches you could try. If you have Win XP then the second patch may fix the problem. Other than that I can't be much help as I use the Playstation version myself, sorry.

I'll try the patch for Windows XP :) Thanks for all your help :)