SPOILERS Hard Mode Discussion

Tetsujin

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
Double post because I now beat the final VR challenge. First try too, so not too shabby. Couldn't have done it without the tips posted here though.

Went in with Barret and Tifa. Equipped Tifa and Cloud with maxed Elemental+Fire because I was scared of Ifrit :monster:
Barret was hanging back and playing support with barriers and manawalls and providing the occasional group heals with Pray while Cloud and Tifa just beat the shit out of everything.

Shiva was manageable.
Fat Chocobo was fairly easy.
Leviathan was ~a n n o y i n g~
Like, come back down here you stupid water noodle

As has already been said, Bahamut is the true challenge here. His Umbral Strikes can go suck a bag of dicks.
His countdown to Mega Flare really takes longer than you'd think. When he was down to 1 I used manawall and it almost expired again before he used it.
Went with Lex' advice to save two limit breaks for Ifrit. Catastrophe+Climhazard Ascension do make quick work of him (I did assess him beforehand though - gotta go for completion on the enemy intel! :P )
Bahamut got off two Mega Flares before I beat him.

Pride & Joy Prototype...honestly, felt like a breather after Bahamut. His pulse cannon attack was easily avoidable and his flamethrowers and shit kept healing Tifa and Cloud. No trouble there at all.

Only two trophies left now. Gotta get that last Aerith dress and finish the game on Hard. Now that I have the Götterdämmerung...Hell House, here I come. :wacky:
 
Odysseus

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
looneymoon said:
so I fought shiva, and i thought I was on hard mode... but then I noticed I could use items? that seems wrong. I had no issue with her, or fat chocobo :(
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Yeah I was doing Bahamut earlier and noticed I could still use items. Are Chadley's VR missions even scaled based on the difficulty selection?

Shademp said:
The trick is to take Failed Experiment out for a date and then never call back. :awesomonster:
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I unleashed my MAX FURY on the poor thing's heart and then left him for Wedge. Poor guy.
 
Keveh Kins

Keveh Kins

Pun Enthusiast
I've just started my Hard Mode playthrough, and it took me four attempts to beat the Scorpion Sentinel.

This does not bode well for future challenges :closedmonster:

To be fair it was just me rushing in thinking I could curb stomp it with all my jazzed up post-game abilities. I actually really enjoyed sitting down and figuring out a good materia/weapon set up to take it down.

Chakra and Pray materia are waaaayyy more useful in Hard Mode! As are a lot of the support materia that I mostly neglected on my normal playthrough.

I'm digging it, it forces you to really get into the nitty gritty of the combat system :monster:
 
Tetsujin

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
I had way less trouble with Rufus this time around. Finally got the timing right for Bravering his ass when he reloads. :joy:

Arsenal was a slog. Damage-spongey bullshit. :catfight:
Couldn't do enough damage to interrupt that final attack thing it does. Survived only because of Reprieve. The end of the battle was super clutch. Wouldn't have survived the next one but just barely beat it. Fuck. Would've been pissed if I had to do it all over again.

The Whispers and Sephiroth weren't too bad. I did forget to give Cloud back the Götterdämmerung after I gave it to Barret for the Arsenal battle. So I had to make do without Limit Break cheese strats as I didn't feel like restarting. :P

Anyway, the deed is done. The credits are rolling. Platinum trophy incoming. :monster:
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
tried hellhouse with some recommended setups i found online, and actually did pretty well. until the final phase when it knocked out aerith and cloud got swamped by all the enemies at once. i didn't really help that aerith had barely any mp going in.

does the level of bio you use effect the poison damage? because i could save a bit of mp using the low level one if not

also i didn't realise you could target its little arms when it's got its shield up, i completely missed that first time around
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
took a few tries (including one where i didn't get the tomberries fast enough and i lost within a minute), but i actually managed to beat hellhouse

plus i got madam m's quests so i get to tick those off as well

except now i have to fight the custom cutter machine with only cloud and 15 mp and it's not going well :sadpanda: i have gone back to the collapsed highway to look for shinra boxes but i can only find two, the others are past two burglers and a proto sweeper which i don't want to waste mp on. but i don't seem to get mp from these. i'm getting a bunch of moogle medals, which is super helpful when i have nothing else to buy with them except items i can't use in hard mode. but i save and reload and no mako stones. i just want a morsel of mp, pls

i thought for a second i was smart and discovered a way to restore it by doing other coliseum courses where they restore your mp after each battle, and had full mp by the end. then i exited back to the field screen and was back to 15 again :sadpanda:
 
Mayo Master

Mayo Master

Pro Adventurer
I'm getting there... after reading people's reactions, I decided to skip chapter 9 for now and moved on to the rest. I finally cleared chapter 17 yesterday, so all that's left is chapter 9 and 18. I managed to beat Arsenal on the first try by the skin of my teeth - While it was preparing its final attack, and you're supposed to throw everything you have at it, I had just enough MP left for Aerith to cast Thundara (not -ga!) and thankfully that did the trick :lol:

Also managed to complete the arena. Boy, that fight against Bahamut was a tough one. My big tip: I had Cloud set up with Elemental/Fire on the armor, so when Ifrit was called on the field, I just sent Cloud to a game of whack-a-summon (as said by others: having a Limit Break ready is also nice). The key was to get HPs high enough to survive Mega-flare (I really had to level up the HP Up materias before getting there).

To be honest, while it's enjoyable, I still prefer the game mechanics laid out by the Normal difficulty on the 1st playthrough. Hard mode is a little too much about MP management for my tastes - I ended up on regular Game Overs vs regular mobs because I was too cheap to spend magic (namely, so much reluctance towards using offensive magic on regular mobs).
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
do shinra boxes actually restore mp

because i've been through like 50 and not got one mp drop yet and i'm starting to doubt if i've ever seen it

i've managed to get about 40 mp by switching to the mythril saber (50% mp recharge) and fighting normal battles in the highway. i got most of that from the proto sweeper battle, just because it took me ages and i had lots of time to regenerate

i don't enjoy not having such limited means to regain mp tbh, i think it's a little too much
 
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
I’ve beaten 16 out of 18 chapters on hard mode (including two chapter 9 playthroughs for both sidequest manuscripts). I actually didn’t find the Hell House to be that hard at least compared to other Hard Mode bosses so far. But that may be due to having so many Materia maxed out. The hardest one for me was the Ghoul boss fight in Chapter 10, with Eligor a close second.
 
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
All right I just finished beating the entirety of the game on Hard Mode! Plus got every single Manuacript and maxed out all of my Materia (which includes 4-5 maxed copies of all green materia, every single blue Materia that’s available is maxed, every single purple and yellow Materia is maxed, and I decided to max out 8 copies of HP and MP up materias for good measure too so each character could equip two of each without overlap).

I also just beat (plus assessed/enemy skilled) the Malboro battle sim. Only have to do the Summon and Pride & Joy challenge left.
Of all the story bosses in Hard Mode I would say The Arsenal was definitely the toughest (i.e required the most restarts) then the Chapter 11 bosses were the next hardest.

And I have one more dress for Aerith and Cloud I still need to witness (both of their lowest ones, will replay the chapters on Easy for that) and Barret’s resolution scene.

Ironically the only thing preventing me from Platinuming the game might be the Jessie Biker Boy trophy, even on Easy mode beating the Chapter 4 bike mini-game with at least 80% health left has been impossible for me so far.
 
Odysseus

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Theozilla said:
Ironically the only thing preventing me from Platinuming the game might be the Jessie Biker Boy trophy, even on Easy mode beating the Chapter 4 bike mini-game with at least 80% health left has been impossible for me so far.
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What part are you having trouble with? I did it pretty easily on normal mode so maybe I can offer some advice.
 
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
Odysseus said:
What part are you having trouble with? I did it pretty easily on normal mode so maybe I can offer some advice.
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Basically speeding up to reach enemies makes guarding not available so it leaves me open to damage, likewise guarding makes accelerating not possible so I can’t reach the enemies to damage them. The response time to Acceleration in general seems slower than it should be.
 
Odysseus

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Theozilla said:
Basically speeding up to reach enemies makes guarding not available so it leaves me open to damage, likewise guarding makes accelerating not possible so I can’t reach the enemies to damage them. The response time to Acceleration in general seems slower than it should be.
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Guarding isn't necessary until Roche I think, you're better off just avoiding attacks altogether. The acceleration is kinda worthless sometimes, because the enemies will stay a set distance ahead until the game wants you to hit them. Using the ranged attack is the best way to compensate, and if you line it up right you can take out two enemies at once with it.
 
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