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7 tips for mastering Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Square Enix’s remake of the 1997 classic is finally here and we’ve played through to bring you these top tips to help you master the game and get you ready for hard mode.
To say Final Fantasy 7 Remake is hotly anticipated would be the understatement of the decade. Actually, make that the entire century so far. Decades of waiting from patient fans has given us Square Enix’s take on one of the greatest JRPGs ever made, and the game that kick-started an entire generation’s love for video games.
From the best-in-class music to the monument production values of the visuals, aside from a few tiny missteps the team has completely nailed it. We’ve played every minute of the glorious remake to completion to bring you the ultimate guide on how to master it. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a linear game that is extremely combat heavy, but with our tips you’ll uncover the secrets they don’t tell you, and the methods to tackle and take down any of Shinra’s best. Let’s get started.
The combat isn’t quite like you remember
Control Tifa to unleash a volley of punches on your opponent
© Square Enix
While “classic mode” allows you to just command Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, and Aerith via menus, Final Fantasy 7 Remake has an entirely new combat system that’s a whole lot of fun to play around with. As a sort of amalgamation of Final Fantasy 15 and the Kingdom Hearts series (and don’t panic if you’re not a fan of either), it borrows from hack ‘n’ slash games as well. But it isn’t a game you should be mashing buttons in, either. You can dodge, block (this can be very useful in some boss fights) and, crucially, time your attacks so you aren’t getting interrupted. You can also be interrupted when casting magic, and even worse, you can miss attacks if you time them poorly. Cloud’s Braver attack is particularly tricky for this, as he attacks close to where you input the command. As you progress there are character specific attacks that use all your ATB bars and have large wind-ups, so activate them when the time is right and don’t spam. Patience and knowledge are the keys to mastering Remake’s combat, and for goodness sake don’t forget to block.
Quick combat controls are never explained, but very useful
With Battle Settings you can use your favourite moves quickly
© Square Enix
If you go into the menu, you’ll find a section called Battle Settings. The game never seems to tell you this, but here you can customise each party member with four specific quick access commands. Holding L1 and then pressing either Square, Circle, Triangle, or Cross allows you to instantly action a battle command, assuming you have the Action Points to do it. This means you can quickly heal, or do a move you know works well to stun enemies, or even just cast Firaga if you want to. Again, this is party-member specific so you can have different commands on each face button for every party member. Very useful, but unexplained for some reason. While we’re talking about things that Remake doesn’t surface in an obvious manner: when healing or using items outside of battle, tap L1 to enable multi-use in the menus. You’re welcome.
Understand staggering and weaknesses
If you want to dispatch bosses quickly, you’ll need to stagger them
© Square Enix
As well as a health bar, every enemy in the game has a stagger meter. Filling this up will put them in a vulnerable state as their stagger bar drains again, meaning you can wail on them with all you’ve got, dishing out punishment and knocking their HP down way quicker than usual. As you’d expect, different foes have their own unique weaknesses, so perhaps you want to repeatedly hit them with wind to fill their stagger bar quicker. If you see “pressured” appear over their head, you know you’re on the right path, so keep it up and put them down. Keeping with the original Final Fantasy 7, the early game has you fight a lot of electronic opponents. Know what works well against turrets and machines? Electricity! So make sure at least one of your party members always has lightning materia.
Search everywhere, or miss cool stuff
Search every nook and cranny to find the best stuff.
© Square Enix
Early on in the game you’ll be given your first orbs of materia, giving you access to the basic spells many fans will remember and love. You’ll also be given a piece of summon materia, and while we won’t spoil which summon, or what it looks like, it’s important to know that you can miss things if you don’t search areas properly. In fact, your second summon materia isn’t something you’re given – you must search it out and complete a small puzzle and combat encounter to pick it up. Likewise, in the very same area there’s a piece of materia hidden via another little puzzle that will give you a nice stat boost early on. Remake is a long game, for sure, but we also don’t know how long we’ll have to wait until we get part two, so you should be savouring every area anyway.
Understanding AP and weapon upgrades
The weapon “trees” are a vital part of getting stronger
© Square Enix
While you can re-spec your weapon’s upgrade tree, there are a plethora of skills each of the weapons can have upgraded. From the more simple effects like “add 200HP” or “gain/link a materia slot” to the more specific siphon skills (allowing you to absorb HP from a staggered enemy) and boosts to stats when low or high health, it’s vital you use your AP to build your character in a way that suits your play style. If you want to tank with Barret then up his defence and attack. Conversely, perhaps you want him to be a mage? So improve his magic capacity and strength while giving him numerous extra materia slots. Don’t be afraid to experiment! Also, make sure you do plenty of the side quests as these are the path to unlocking books which not only give you a bonus amount of AP, but also unlock whole additional trees of skills to choose from.
Use every weapon to learn its unique ability
Use every weapon, unlock every ability
© Square Enix
As you play through Final Fantasy 7 Remake you’ll slowly amass weapons for each party member. Every weapon in the game has a unique ability but you don’t necessarily need to keep using the weapon for access to it. No matter the weapon, or how much you like or dislike it, use the weapon-specific skill as much as you can against grunt type enemies. This will quickly gain you a proficiency in the skill which means that skill is locked to you now, and not the weapon. It will usually take less than ten uses so isn’t hard to gain proficiency in each skill, but doing so will mean you can stick to a favourite while keeping skills that are otherwise exclusive to a weapon. This is particularly key for late game use of Barret, so always master his skills as soon as you can. Oh and no spoilers, but always try to go into battle with someone who can attack with ranged options.
Link materia as often as you can
Learn to mix materia and make it work for you
© Square Enix
Because this is part one of a larger collection of games within the remake, you aren’t going to end up with an ultimate weapon and accessory combo that allows you to hold 16 materia at once. What this means is that you have to get creative with the links you can make. Put simply, materia slots are often individual but there are linked slots and you can use your weapon upgrades to create more.
Linking materia is vital and can give you the edge in battle. Say you have a blue materia like elemental: this allows you to link it with a green materia such as lightning which will give your basic attacks lightning effect, which is incredibly useful against a lot of the enemies in Remake. Likewise you can link materia to create a slight immunity to poison, or to make your Cure materia work on all characters at once. It’s tricky due to limited slots, but with this tip and the rest of our help above you’ll soon be taking on a second playground of this masterpiece on hard difficulty. Good luck!
