Cait Sith Guide - Final Fantasy Insider

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Bryan is a writer who first fell in love with JRPG’s with titles like Breath of Fire II and Secret of the Stars. After his family fell under some hard times, he had no connection to video games or way to enjoy them except vicariously. That was until one Christmas morning when two things popped up under a tree. A Sony PlayStation and the game Final Fantasy VII. At the time, it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, every square polygon and cut scene, every story beat. He’d been transported into the future. Here we are more than twenty years later and several FF titles under his play-through belt and now Final Fantasy VII: Remake reminds him that no matter how far things advance, the best stories last forever.

A Few Quick Key Points

Full Name: Cait Sith or Reeve Tuesti.
First Appearance: (as a playable character)Final Fantasy VII, 1997.
Job Class: Most similar to a Red or Blue Mage.
Weapon: Megaphone.
Limit Break: Dice or Slots.
Appearance: Black Cat riding a Large pinkish-white Mog.

The spoilers in the following section may be especially relevant for those playing FF7: Remake and have never played the original. I highly suggest skipping ahead to Cait Sith’s Gameplay section.

The Story of Cait Sith

Cloud, the silent warrior who refuses to let his friends suffer and lead character in FF7, is looking for clues.

The massive Gold Saucer is the current place of curiosity. Your team has split up to search the theme park when the cat known as Cait Sith, sitting atop a giant mog robot, stops Cloud.

He offers to read Clouds fortune, but it is a terrible readout each time. Apologies follow, and Cait Sith decides to tag along as the last fortune he reads is still tragic. Cloud is not good at refusing due to a lack of communication skills, perhaps, and so Cait Sith joins the party.

You can technically have Yuffie in your party at this time, a thieving, adorably in-over-her-head, deadly ninja. But mainly, your party will consist of the following: Tifa, Barret, Red XII(Nanaki), and Aerith Gainsborough.

Tifa is the attractive female brawler and voice of reason. Barret is the loose cannon and self-righteous gun-armed man. Red XII(Nanaki) is a calm, loyal companion with a hidden past fighting for what’s right but also as a way to repay you for freeing him. Aerith is the healer, the saint, and the girl on the run who may be the last hope of saving the world. And now, Cait Sith.

A chirpy ally trying to befriend and fit in, the crew isn’t the most receptive of Cait Sith. It doesn’t much matter because they’re all thrown into Gold Saucer jail, Corel Prison. Yep, a theme park with its own actual prison and laws. Walt Disney would be thrilled.

As you traverse through the beautiful and tragic tale that fuels the nostalgic sense of old FF7 fans like myself, Cait Sith provides levity. That is until you learn that the cuddly cat is a robot piloted by a spy in Shinra.

Shinra is one of the main two antagonists in the game. It is a company killing the planet for financial gains. They more or less run a good portion of the world and keep people who may counteract them quiet with a group called ‘The Turks.’

These Turks are constantly on your tail. After the Gold Saucer, you may notice they’re less aggressive. The reason is Cait Sith now can keep the Turks up-to-date with your whereabouts and actions.

The cat is not without redemption.

Rage Against The Machine

Through cutscenes and spied dialogue before you met Cait Sith, Reeve has been the voice of reason in Shinra. He’s been speaking out against Shinra’s mad ideas and being shut down when attempting to bring positive change.

That is is all forgotten when you discover Cait Sith is a traitor. The anger in a first playthrough can make a fan forget the little details. Honestly, I thought the cat was just another species of humanoid controlling the mog.

I mean, after all, one of your best allies is Nanaki, a talking wolf-lion-dog. A talking cat that pilots a machine was fairly reasonable. Then it turns out to be a machine driving a machine! What? That’s not the worst of it.

Caught stealing some important Materia, Cait Sith admits to being a spy. But he isn’t ready to quit traveling with you. Why the hell would you let him? Well, Sith has Marlene, Barret’s daughter, hostage.

Why does he wish to tag along still if he’s got Barret’s daughter? Why not just have the crew do whatever he asks of them?

Reeve, still as Cait Sith, answers this question before it comes up. He is intrigued by the selfishness of Cloud and the team, Cait Sith admits he may be wrong about them. He thought they were terrorists, after all.

Cait Sith leads the team to the Temple of the Ancients, where he helps Aerith gather up the Materia from the Temple. A Materia so grand it turned out to be the entire Temple itself. The robot sacrifices itself to save them, reading Aerith’s fortune one last time.

It’s a good moment, almost tragic, except that you remember Cait Sith is a robot. He literally comes back moments later as a new model asking for a second chance. Oh, and of course Marlene is safe.

Reeve is Definitely Fired

In an even more redeeming arc, when Tifa is about to be killed as a scapegoat for Shinra’s failures and the assaults by Sephiroth, Cait Sith comes to the rescue. He knocks out Scarlett, an evil woman who works for Shinra, and takes far too much joy in what would be Tifa’s demise. He does this with knockout gas so as not to be noticed.

He also frees Barret and gets the whole crew onto the Highwind for escape. That’s an airship you use to traverse the map in the late game of FF7.

Lastly, Cait Sith becomes a spy for you as he once was for Shinra. He lets you listen to the secret meetings of Shinra.

You learn about the Huge Materia and Shinra’s plans to stop Diamond Weapon. Worried this will cause more harm to the planet, you get ready to counteract their plot. Shinra is struck hard by Diamond Weapon in the midst of all this, their President, Rufus Shinra, is believed to have been killed in the attack.

With Rufus Shinra presumed dead, the new ‘heads’ of Shinra imprison Reeve. They never liked his “voice of reason” approach to Shinra’s plans in the first place.

It’s in this moment where the team finally learns Reeve is Cait Sith as he pleads with you remotely to help him. With all that’s happened, you do. He is part of the team now.

Cait Sith Offline

There’s not much to add to Cait Sith’s story after this, for the most part. He decides to help you in the fight against Sephiroth. I admit to not finding his decision as hard as the others.

Still, Cait Sith, or Reeve, never betrays you again. When all is said and done, Reeve Tuesti will be an asset to the future of Midgar.

Origins Revealed

In a later game entitled, “Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-” a prequel to FF7, we see the first iteration of Cait Sith. Here, he is helping out a rogue Turk but not turning him in because Reeve understands the man the Turk is helping. He recognizes that the Turk is doing something good.

The cute cat that is Cait Sith isn’t enough in battle. Reeve comes up with the idea to build the more combat-ready robot Mog for Cait Sith to ride.

Why not just the mog, you wonder? Well, Cait Sith is an animatronic built with an incredible prediction algorithm. Allowing it to decipher puzzles and almost always correctly read fortunes. That and certain other dialogue allude to him having somewhat of its own A.I. and not just being entirely controlled by Mr. Tuesti.

The ability to handle complex algorithms and make very accurate predictions is more than just a hint at his role when first met by Cloud. Specifically, Cloud’s poor fortune in the Gold Saucer in the original title.

“You will get what you want, but lose something dear to you.”

The massive mog Cait rides is the brute force, the cat, Cait Sith, is the brains. This revelation also shines some light on the neat little nuance that while Reeve controls Cait Sith, for the most part, there is something to the cat that separates it from its master.

After FF7

Cait Sith joins Vincent in the Dirge of Cerberus plot. After a fight with the game’s villains called Deepground, he shows the world the truth of their plot. How they plan to use the life Stream to Summon Omega, and how Vincent is the hero out to stop them.

The events in this game are said to occur one year after Advent Children. Still, the story of Advent Children is where you’ll last see Cait Sith until a brief cameo in FF7: Remake and his eventual return in the following parts of FF7: Remake.

Advent Children

In the incredible FF7 film(I’m not biased), Cait Sith has ditched the mog and gone full plush-toy, animatronic cat. He rides Nananki into battle to help with the Bahamut fight. You can also catch Reeve reaching out to Cloud via cellphone in the film, clearly now in charge of rebuilding Midgar.

A Midgar, by the way, that only has any people left after Meteor hit at the end of FF7 because Reeve evacuated the city. That is what Cait Sith was doing when he went offline to ‘think’ about whether to join in the final fight or not.

He was being a hero.

Cait Sith Gameplay

Cait Sith can be adjusted like any party member in FF7 with the right Materia or powerups to be a fighter, a black mage, a summoner, or a supporting character. However, putting the least amount of grinding into making him useful means he falls more into the role of Blue Mage.

A Blue Mage can deal damage and provide support, randomly great support or significant damage, but usually just in the middle.

His base leveling stats display this as well as his limit breaks. I suggest banding him with Enemy Skill Materia, then a few special stat-boosting and Command Materia for maximum viability.

Add an Auto-Life spell combo in case his limit accidentally kills the whole team, of course. It can do that.

To have auto-life in FF7, you have to use a Materia trick as there isn’t a reraise spell out-right. In a combined slot, put Phoenix or Life Materia (I would suggest Phoenix for Cait Sith since it revives ALL) and the support Materia; Final Attack.

Our suggested Materia and equipment for an LVL.60 Blue Mage version of Cait Sith would be as follows:

Weapon: HP Shout (Ultimate Weapon) or Starlight Phone (still has Materia growth if needed)

Slot 1&2: Contain+Added Effect
Slot 3&4: HP UP, MP UP.
Slot 5&6: SlashAll(not Flash!), Enemy Skill
(1st)Slot 7&8: Manipulate+StealAsWell or Sneak Attack (until all Enemy Skills are learned)
(2nd)Slot 7&8: Seal+Added Effect (once all Enemy Skills are learned)

Armor: Wizard Bracelet or a Mystile. (Dragon Armlet or an Escort Guard are fine as well).

Slot 1&2: Phoenix+Final Attack
Slot 3&4: HP UP, Magic Plus
Slot 5&6: Hades+Added Effect
Slot 7&8: Destruct, Long Range(If Wizards Bracelet is equipped)

If you use the Slash All Materia with the suggested added effects and long-range, you can cause status effects to multiple enemies. That makes his attacks worthwhile, even though the focus on magic has limited his strength. If Slash All is upgraded to Flash, the Materia and this boost become ineffective. So, it’s better to add Slash All once you’ve equipped the Ultimate Weapon(HP Shout) so it never upgrades to Flash.

Hades with Added Effect on armor gives immunity to pretty much all status. Doing this means you can equip an accessory to Cait Sith that increases his Vitality or Magic instead of a Ribbon. If you no longer need an HP Plus as you level up, consider replacing it or other stat upgrades with some good magic Materia.

Suggested Accessory: Hypno Crown(Until Enemy Skill is Mastered)
Final Accessory: Tough Crown (+50 Vitality and Spirit) or Circlet (+30 Magic and Spirit)

Quick Growth for Materia

I want to leave you with some tips to help Cait Sith in this short section. But! You can use this for all characters in-game.

Equip your active party with weapons and armor that have Double or Triple growth in Materia slots. Then insert the Materia you wish to master first into said slots, and one Exit Materia to flee in case of emergency.

For Cait Sith, this would be the following.

Weapon: White or Black M-Phone. Both give Double AP.
Armor: Rune Armlet. Provides Double AP with four available slots.

Go to the Northern Crater and farm/fight Magic Pots for a ton of AP. Three fights should Master an Added Effect to quickly multiply your number of that Materia. You also fight Movers there, giving 0 experience and 800 ap if you want to avoid leveling up.

Cloud and Cid have weapons with triple AP growth on them. The Apocalypse and Scimitar, respectively. Making those two the best for AP grinding.

Slots

These are Cait Siths Limit Breaks. Unlike the rest of your party, Cait Sith only has two limit breaks in the game.

Dice: Cait throws two dice, dealing a random physical amount of damage to one enemy based on the result. For every ten levels after LVL 20, he gains an extra die to this throw, capping at LVL 60 when he throws a total of six dice.

The minimum damage for six dice is 2100, and the maximum is 9999. It is a decent attack if not consistently powerful. It doesn’t miss and generally becomes quite good around LVL 40.

This attack does fixed damage and doesn’t use Cait Siths stats for its damage calculation. That means you can focus on only building Cait Siths magic to maximize his potential in combat.

To unlock his second Limit Break, you must have killed 40 enemies with Cait Sith first. It will then be learned instantly after a battle.

Slots: You will press an action button to stop the spinning slots and try to get the best combination possible from the skills listed below. It is possible to get quite good at using Slots, but it is always a gamble. More so, most of even the good slots, except for ‘Game Over,’ will not be as powerful as other characters’ Level 3 or 4 Limit Breaks.

Being only a Level 2 Limit Break, it does charge up faster. So, like most gambling, it has both positive and negative factors to consider beforehand.

Here are the possible attacks from, ‘Slots.’

Attack	Slots Needed	Effect
Toy Soldier	Crown/Crown/Crown	Toy soldiers appear and fire at all enemies dealing five times Cait Sith’s normal attack damage.
Mog Dance	Star/Star/Star	A moogle appears, dances, and restores all your party’s HP and MP.
Lucky Girl	Heart/Heart/Heart	A cat-girl appears and makes all characters’ attacks automatic critical hits until the battle ends. If a character dies afterward, they will lose this boost.
Transform	Moogle/Moogle/Moogle	Will fail if Cait Sith is alone. Cait’s allies disappear, merging their stats into a new large moogle form. The stats cannot surpass the natural limits (255 for stats or 9999 HP). This form can do anything Cait can do aside from Limit Breaks. When the battle is over, the amount of HP and MP left is split amongst your party. Also, anyone dead before ‘Transform’ was used is revived! That means if the party’s HP level is higher than 3000, it will drop.
Game Over	Face/Face/Face	Causes instant death to all enemies. It is not blocked by death immunity and, therefore, effective against any enemy. If the battle is an attack from both sides, only one side of the enemies is hit, and the other still needs to be dealt with.
Death Joker	Face/Face/Bar	All allies are instantly killed. It can’t be prevented by death immunity with the Safety Bit or Death Force. If the battle is a Side Attack, only one side of the party is hit, so at least no Game Over, unless the side not hit was already out of play.
Summon	Bar/Bar/Bar	It summons a random summon from the game. The lower Cait Sith’s level, the more likely the player will call the lower summons and vice-versa. Knights of Round has a minimal chance only at higher levels.

This second table shows the other possible effects of slots.

Toy Box Attacks	Any other slot combination will randomly drop one of the following effects on an enemy, this is known as, “Toy Box.”
Falling Rock	Hits a single enemy for two times Cait’s normal damage.
Icicles	Hits a single enemy for 2.5 times Cait’s normal damage.
Weight	Hits all enemies for three times the normal damage.
Hammer	Hits a single enemy for 3.5 times the normal damage.
Fat Chocobo	Hits a single enemy for four times the normal damage.
Hell House	Hits a single enemy for 4.5 times the normal damage.
Meteorites	Hits a single enemy for five times Cait’s normal damage.

Other Games

Cait Sith’s first actual appearance as a cute little black cat was in Final Fantasy VI as a summon. It increases your magic by 1 at Level Up and can teach Imp, Confuse and Float when equipped. He costs 28 MP and uses Cat Rain on the enemies, which causes confusion.
Cait Sith is playable in Dirge of Cerberus. He is pretty terrible in fighting in only his cat form, and it’s better to focus on stealth in the one mission you play as him. You can also use him for fun in some extra missions in-game.
Cait Sith appears as a Summon in Crisis Core, curing Zack Fair of ailments and giving him some incredible temporary status buffs. Including MP and AP cost 0, Magic and Physical Null, and Barrier spells. Each with a varying time in accordance with the level of the summon.
To acquire this summon, you must find “Cait Sith’s Megaphone” in mission number 8-4-3, also known as Suspicious Mail 3, received from “A Hot Treasure Hunter.”
Other versions of Cait Sith as a small cat can be found in multiple titles, but generally in smaller NPC-like roles or as annoying monsters.

Weapons You Can Miss!

You can miss two weapons in FF7 that are the top-tier weapons for Cait Sith. The first is the best weapon with eight-linked Materia slots and normal AP growth.

Starlight Phone: It is found in a chest in ‘Midgar Underground’ when you return to Midgar the second time during the ‘Mako Cannon Rampage’ part of the game.

Cait Sith’s Ultimate Weapon is the next; it increases damage the more HP Cait Sith has.

HP Shout: It is found in a locker room in the Shinra Building on Floor 64 during your return to Midgar and the ‘Mako Cannon Rampage’ part of the game. If you try to get it earlier, Cloud will say it won’t do any good and doesn’t take it. So you can’t receive it until you return.

You can still use the Gold M-Phone to get eight linked-Materia slots if these weapons are missed. So it isn’t game-breaking if you’ve focused on making him a magic user.

Any Tips?

Do I own a Cait Sith Plush?

Cait Sith can make an excellent Summoner, White or Black Mage, because of his high magic stat instead of the Blue Mage route.
Using Dice is often the safer route, though it is rare; I can say I once KO’d myself twice in a row with Slots. However, the few players who have mastered Slots love it.
You get some interesting extra dialogue by having Cait Sith in the party during the Temple of the Ancients portion of the game in FFVII.
Magic maxes out at 255, that’s your goal number. So, if you maxed out HP or MP and can free up a Materia slot for Magic Plus, or just Magic Materia, they are great alternatives.

Interesting Facts

Cait Sith is the first playable ‘plush’ character from a video game to have an actual plush. A plush of a plush!
Cait Sith is named after Cat-Sith, a Celtic Mythological cat figure. There’s a lovely lot to read on this mythos here.
In Japan, black cats are considered good luck. Likely why Cait Sith is so shocked when he can’t give Cloud a good fortune.
Cait Sith is the name of some cat enemies in Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy IV, and Final Fantasy V. Though sometimes referred to in five as Gaelicat, which is sensible as it’s based on a Gaelic(Celtic) myth.
Lulu uses some Cait Sith dolls as weapons in FFX.
Cait Sith spying on the party in FFVII is actually a heroic act. To him, AVALANCHE was indeed a group of terrorists. Even without the tragedy that Shinra lied about when they pinned the fall of Sector 7’s mass exodus on the group. Avalanche’s more minor actions beforehand had real collateral damage. Barret defends them by talking about the bigger picture and even using the word ‘few.’ Cait has a retort that ultimately symbolizes who Reeve is as a character.

Cait Sith replies to Barret with the following, deeply meaningful quote:

“What may be a few to you was everything to those who died…”

FAQ’s

Question: Why do people hate Cait Sith?

Answer: It’s not so much that they hate him, as that his Limit Breaks tend to make him less viable of a character to play during the original FF7. Although, he may be hated at a point in-game due to his betrayal and the “kidnapping” of Marlene.

Question: When did Cait Sith become popular?

Answer: Actually, this is a good question. Initially, Cait Sith was very much the least popular character of the party in FFVII. Cait Sith became more popular over time with the affable image of the cat, and those who liked his story fought to spread the best qualities of him around.

Question: When does Cait Sith join your party?

Answer: In FF7, once you go through the first Gold Saucer visit. In the FF7: Remake, hopefully in Part 2.

Question: What does Cait Sith mean?

Answer: It is a play on words so as not to directly call him Cat-Sith, i.e., the Celtic mythical creature.

Question: Is Cait Sith in Kingdom Hearts?

Answer: The fortune read for Sora by Marluxia in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of memories is relatively identical to the fortune Cait Sith gave Cloud in FF7. So, you could say he is there in spirit. You can unlock a gummi ship of Cait Sith in Kingdom Hearts II.

Ultimately

I found Cait Sith to grow on me more and more as the years went on. As a younger player, I don’t think I truly respected Reeve’s fight. As an older player, I am enamored by the character and curious about the animatronic cat he uses in battle, Cait Sith.

Cait Sith adds a sense of fun and randomness to combat thanks to his Limit Breaks. He also brings a good magic stat for casual or advanced players and always plays the hero. Except for that whole Marlene thing, what the hell, man.

Our final verdict: Give the good luck charm a chance; he’s earned it.