The Northern Cave is in the northern section of the northernmost continent (not surprisingly). It is also called the North Crater or Northern Crater. It is the last area of the game that you visit after the story.

There is only one real visit that you will make to the Northern Cave through the story mode of the game, but you can visit the Northern Cave and leave after obtaining all the items. Check out the Northern Cave Walkthrough page for details.

Note that there is a point of no return in the Northern Cave. The point of no return is when your team all reconnects after having split up. The team will all be standing around waiting for Cloud to say, “Move Out.” Until he does, you can turn around and climb back to the top.

Before you complete the story, there are a ton of side quests that you can complete, which are detailed on this page:

There are a ton of great, high-level items that you can obtain by navigating through the Northern Cave, so you should head down as low as you go before moving on to the late-game side quests. Some of the items include:

• Counter Materia
• Elixir (x3)
• Guard Source (x2)
• Hero Drink (x2)
• HP Absorb Materia
• Imperial Guard
• Luck Source
• Magic Counter Materia
• Mega All Materia
• Megalixir (x2)
• Mind Source (x2)
• Mystile
• Power Source (x2)
• Remedy (x2)
• Save Crystal
• Shield Materia
• Speed Source
• Tetra Elemental
• Turbo Ether (x2)
• Vaccine (x2)
• W-Magic Materia
• X-Potion (x2)

The map below shows the location of the Northern Cave on the world map: