SPOILERS Hard Mode Discussion

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
Lol. Like I mentioned briefly in my post, I'm a VERY conservative player. I love to horde MP. If I take a sliver of damage, I heal up with Pray, or if pressured, I resort to Cure + Magnify. I use Aerith's Soul Drain ability at every available opportunity. I block. A lot. And with several Steadfast Blocks, it just suits my gameplay style just fine, lol.

Yeah, that time isn't indicative of the battle length at all. I have no idea what the usual average completion for that is!
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
Just beat the whole game on Hard Mode.

What a ride that was. Holy shit. Sephiroth was tough.

.....

Let's just give the Remake a round of applause for giving us a final battle Sephiroth who's actually legitimately difficult and threatening:monster:

Seriously, this game was so fucking fun, it's not even funny. I'm gonna end up platinuming this. Even with the stupidity of Hell House, The Arsenal, and Bahamut this mode felt appropriately challenging. Losing all items and MP charging was a huge fucking loss but it actually really challenges you to make smart materia combinations and ration your magic use. It was really fucking awesome.

I mean, it's not even that those Comrades bosses take that long (they don't). I'm just saying there's no way these VR bosses could be more difficult. :wacky:

Bahamut and Ifrit are like the Team NWO of summon matches. They're the real optional superboss that just fucking curbstomps you unless you specifically, carefully and mindfully take them on. Like, the Top Secrets boss gauntlet is one of the most challenging optional boss shit I've done in awhile in FF.

Blademaster Bahamut in Comrades has nothing on FFVII Bahamut. Imagine that fight except you're locked out of items, healing is fucking limited, being in Bahamut's very presence injures you, and Mega Flare will 100% wipe you unless you're max leveled, Manawarded, and near full life.

And when it gets tough, Bahamut goes, "Ohhhhh Ifrit~" and begins Mega Flare'ing you again. :monster:

Like, seriously. It's kinda hilarious how supped up they made Bahamut in FFVII. He's no joke.
 
Last edited:

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Blademaster Bahamut in Comrades has nothing on FFVII Bahamut. Imagine that fight except you're locked out of items, healing is fucking limited, being in Bahamut's very presence injures you, and Mega Flare will 100% wipe you unless you're max leveled, Manawarded, and near full life.

You more or less just described the Final Round Bahamut fight in Comrades. :monster: But that one is still nothing compared to the Dastardly Duo of Ardyn & Ravus. Or the true god of the skies, Kenny Crow.

Looking forward to FFVIIR's superbosses, though, if those from Comrades are any indication of the level of satisfaction that comes with bringing them down.
 

Girl Named Captain

Lv. 25 Adventurer
I loved how much Top Secrets made me think about how I moved from normal, to pressured, to staggered, and back to normal post-stagger. Shiva especially was extremely punishing if you played recklessly or didn't understand her phases.

Then Bahamut offered an interesting choice between playing defensively or offensively. Kill Ifrit before or after the meganuke? Wait until after, and you're looking at needing to deal with a second meganuke. Try to kill him before, and you'll be scrambling to get your defenses up for Meganuke after rushing Ifrit down. I ultimately went for the rushdown method because it was more fun. I really had to get good at positioning and juggling Bahamut's aggro for it to work, though.

I think the future 7R games are gonna have some spectacular boss fights once they've refined making fights in this combat system...I can't wait!!
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
And I have now platinum'd this entire game.

I have extracted every drop of gameplay life juice from the now desiccated husk known as the FFVII Remake.

My goal has been reached.

I am now complete.

Nothing left but total satisfaction.

....

Oh yeah, I have Resident Evil 3 Remake... I should go back and check that out :awesomonster:
 

Knights of the Round

Pro Adventurer
How in the $&); did you guys beat the ghoul? I’m about to throw my ps4 out the window.. he’s worse than Hell House was.

I’m casting arise each time he’s in his red form, but he just constantly attacks and stuns your party. His attack power is ridiculous.
 

Cannon_Fodder

Pro Adventurer
I think the best way to beat the Ghoul is to play defensively. He doesn't have a ton of health, but he can mess you up if you get close. So keep track of what phase he's on (immune to magic or physical) and never try to get too many hits in. I found that if I tried a full combo I'd get hit by his scream or his beam o' death. I never bothered using restore magic on him because I don't know if it affects his stagger gauge; when he was weak to magic, one -ga spell from Aerith was enough to knock him back into being immune to magic.

This isn't me, but this clip shows what I'm talking about (taken to an extreme). As long as you aren't too aggressive, you can beat him.
 

Knights of the Round

Pro Adventurer
I think the best way to beat the Ghoul is to play defensively. He doesn't have a ton of health, but he can mess you up if you get close. So keep track of what phase he's on (immune to magic or physical) and never try to get too many hits in. I found that if I tried a full combo I'd get hit by his scream or his beam o' death. I never bothered using restore magic on him because I don't know if it affects his stagger gauge; when he was weak to magic, one -ga spell from Aerith was enough to knock him back into being immune to magic.

This isn't me, but this clip shows what I'm talking about (taken to an extreme). As long as you aren't too aggressive, you can beat him.
Thanks. Looks like the way to beat him is to spam party switching.. not the most creative of boss designs..

Yeah, casting Arise will pressure him and fill his stagger gauge, but to do that you have to get close to him with Cloud and Tifa since they don’t have distance attacks.

Edit: Finally got him. Just had to spam party switches and Raise/Arise while keeping my distance. He was a pain.
 
Last edited:

Cannon_Fodder

Pro Adventurer
To be honest, I think that guys party switching was excessive. Mostly just doing that to keep everyone behind the shield so they wouldn't get hit but the AI is usually smart enough to avoid those attacks or at least block them to reduce damage. You shouldn't need to switch that much.
 

Maidenofwar

They/Them
I finally beat all the extra combat sims in c17 that were unlocked after beating the game, I'm going to enjoyed my hard earned weapon manuals, refocus materias and Bad Breath. Want to go through c17 on Hard now and pick up at least one more weapon book for Aerith so when I start story from c1 she'll be starting from c1 like everyone else.
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
Now it's truly finished.

All enemies assessed. All weapon manuscripts found. All dresses obtained. All Chapter 14 resolutions viewed. The play log is now 100% complete.

What a game... Just wow. It was amazing. I almost feel sad strip mining everything I could meaningfully do out of the game now :monster:
 

Cannon_Fodder

Pro Adventurer
Sorry for the double-post, but I just beat the final VR challenge a bit ago, and was thoroughly annoyed because I forgot to equip my Assess materia to scan Ifrit and the Pride and Joy Prototype. So I finished the challenge and went to equip my Assess materia, only to realize I already had it on Aerith. I just hadn't noticed. So I had to redo the whole fight just to scan some critters when I could have already done that.

On the plus side I got my time down to 12 minutes! Dolphin Flurry ain't nothin' to fuck with.
 

Castiel Strife

Pro Adventurer
I want to play through the game again, but rather than attempting hard mode again I think I’m just going to do another normal playthrough lol. I just don’t have the patience for hard mode. I’ve beaten a lot of games on hard mode (generally after completing them on normal). Games like Uncharted and Call of Duty (nothing to brag about). But in this case I just don’t think it will be fun at all. I have no doubt I could do it if I really set my mind to it, but I just don’t think I have the patience to go through with it.

I got to chapter 4 and the fight against Roche and gave up. It wasn’t even that the fight itself was all that difficult, it’s just that I knew that if I was already struggling quite a bit with Roche that I was really going to struggle down the line. The coliseum and Hell House, without any MP being given back to you?! That’s insane. The game on hard mode is hard enough without no items. At least let you use items when you aren’t in a battle?? I’m glad some of you are enjoying it though. Have fun ya damn sadists. :tearsofjoy:

Nah, but seriously. The posts in this thread don’t make hard mode seem any more enticing haha. It just seems so damn tedious. Good luck to all you brave souls. I will say, though, that I’m already getting that itch to play again and I think I’ll just play it on normal and do a cleanup of sorts by picking up things I missed in my original playthrough.
 
Top Bottom