At the time of writing, we’re counting down to the long-awaited second part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project, which we now know is called Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
That’s not all we know, in fact; we know that this second game is going to conclude in “The Forgotten Capital”, which is where the first disc of the original game ended. Yes, with that scene — though as we’ve previously discussed, Final Fantasy VII Remake took great pains to point out that “the future is a blank page”, and that game’s final encounter was literally facing down the concept of “Destiny” itself.
Anyway, long story short, I’ve been revisiting Final Fantasy VII Remake ahead of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s release, so I thought I’d talk a bit about my experiences so far.
Specifically, I’ve been playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake’s story on Hard mode, which unlocks after you beat the game. For the unfamiliar, clearing the game for the first time unlocks a Chapter Select mode, where you can jump to the start of any of the major sections of the game, and also see a breakdown of any optional collectibles that you might have missed.
Hard mode allows you to play through starting at any chapter (or right from the beginning, if you prefer) at a difficulty designed for characters who have already been through a full playthrough. Additional rewards are available in Hard mode, including greater enhancements to weapons and some other optional fights to participate in.
It does not look as if any progression or equipment will carry across to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, however, which some people are a bit upset about, but it makes sense to for the new game to start over from scratch rather than attempt to cater to wildly varying power levels according to prior progress that players might have made.
The other distinguishing feature of Hard mode is that you are unable to use items. At all. That means you can’t chug a potion either inside or outside of battle, can’t use Phoenix Down to revive an ally, and can’t use Ether to replenish magic points. This places the emphasis very firmly on character, weapon and magic abilities, and demands that you play in something of a different way to the easier difficulty levels.
Probably the biggest difference is that you have to be much more careful with your use of magic. This becomes immediately apparent during the game’s first boss battle against the Guard Scorpion, which is weak to lightning. While it is, of course, tempting to immediately fling as many Thundaga spells as possible at the boss, this leaves you with no MP remaining for utility spells such as healing, regeneration and putting up protective barriers. And believe me, you’re going to need them.
In the easier difficulties of Final Fantasy VII Remake you can make it through much of the game by mitigating the damage you take as much as possible through careful use of items. You get plenty of items just through exploring, and more than enough money to stock up on them when needed, so it’s easy to become reliant on them.
There’s a downside to playing like that, though; using items uses ATB gauge charges, just like abilities, so if you’re constantly chugging potions you’re never making use of magic or character abilities. And some of those character abilities are very powerful when used under the correct circumstances.
One thing I’ve found particularly useful during Hard mode is the “Counterstance” ability that Cloud learns from one of his weapons. Using this ability consumes one ATB charge and places him in a stance where, if he gets hit, he immediately unleashes a very powerful counterattack that can often hit nearby enemies as well as its main target. If he doesn’t get hit during the few seconds the stance is active, he’ll just unleash a powerful swing on the main designated target, which can still do a nice bit of damage.
I don’t think I used Counterstance at all in my original playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake — a fact I think I can confirm by the fact that the weapon which teaches it had 0% progress made towards its acquisition — and now I am very much seeing the error of my ways. When used in regular encounters against small enemies, it can devastate an entire group in seconds. And during boss fights, it is enormously helpful.
The best example of this I’ve seen in my playthrough so far is the duel against Roche during the raid on the Shinra warehouse in Chapter 4. I don’t remember a lot about this fight from first time around, but on Hard mode it kicked my absolute ass a good few times before I really felt like I got a handle on what the game was expecting of me.
In short, this was no hack-and-slash battle involving keeping damage going as often as possible. It was an actual duel, involving keeping an eye on the enemy’s movements and blocking, countering or dodging them as they came up. And with relatively heavy punishment for making mistakes, it was important to minimise taking damage as much as possible.
After the first couple of attempts, Roche seemed unreasonably difficult to beat. But once I figured out that I wasn’t supposed to just be hitting him repeatedly, the battle became much more interesting. It became a case of preparing for his attacks with either a block or Counterstance if it was ready, then unleashing my own attacks when he was Pressured or Staggered.
But there are additional considerations there, too; when he becomes Pressured, it typically knocks him down, which you’d think would be an ideal opportunity to hit him with a heavy Stagger-building ability — but no. When he gets up, he unleashes an unblockable ranged attack (another Hard mode addition) that can one-shot you if you’re not careful; it’s easy enough to dodge, but you have to be ready for it.
From here, the battle continued on with a nice rhythm to it; at no point did it feel mindless, but it also didn’t feel so overwhelming that I was unable to keep up with what was being expected of me. Every counterattack I unleashed was enormously satisfying; every unblockable move I successfully dodged made me feel absolutely great. And when he finally went down, I felt like I’d just enjoyed one of the best fights in the game so far.
Make no mistake, Hard mode in Final Fantasy VII Remake is hard work, and it feels like the game is outright taunting you by still allowing you to collect items despite you not being allowed to use them. But it’s been very rewarding so far, and I’m glad I decided to revisit the game ahead of Rebirth.
Plus I have the Yuffie episode to play, too, which I don’t know anything about whatsoever — although I do know I am annoyed that Square Enix didn’t put the damn thing on the PS5 version’s disc, instead requiring you to download it as DLC. This effectively makes the PS5 physical version almost entirely useless if you already have the PS4 version, but oh well.
Anyway, I’m having a good time, and I’m looking forward to Rebirth. I’m very much intrigued by exactly how much the post-Remake games are going to deviate from the original Final Fantasy VII; I have a strong suspicion that we have some big surprises waiting for us, and I can’t wait to discover them for myself.
More about Final Fantasy VII Remake
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I, for one, am looking forward to learning whether cutting the strings of fate will end up averting one of the saddest moments in the history of video games, or made it into something worse. For all we know, someone else could end up dying instead!
I think everyone is curious to see how that all goes down!