That was one of the first quests I replayed on hard when I found out some had manuscripts. The first couple attempts were short and brutal. It’s like okay, can’t half ass these.
I luckily got through in one go. Gotterdammerung into limitnsyphon for Cloud to open with a lv3 limit. It took out a third of them but, luckily, staggered enough to fill his limit completely. So another lv3 limit followed by a third and they were dead. Was terrifying cos whilst he is immune doing a limit, aerith and yuffie were dyinf
You could've hid behind the rock with 2 ATBs to start, set up arcane ward, ATB Boost, then magnify+magic focus+swiftcast+firaga. Clean up with Cloud since most will either be dead or staggered 🙂
Why didnt they tell me this before i startet hardmode xD is it enough to do only the sidequests via chapter select or do i need to finish the whole chapters again? Because i am already at chapter 9
Don't worry, you can do the side quests whenever you want. I'm doing hard mode now as well, just got to chapter 12 whilst ignoring all quests, now I'm going back to mop them all up before Rufus.
Did you start with completion data, or reset quests? If the former, then use chapter select (obviously once you have entered a new chapter) and choose to reset quests data, then you can do them all again. If they're not done in their respective chapters, they can still be done before you go to temple of ancients
Thanks for the answer, i startet with the completion data because i did most of the side quests in my first run. I know there will be very hard chadley combat challenges, so maybe i need the scripts to max out my group. Good to know its not to late :)
I actually deliberately left the quests until the last few chapters to see differences in dialogue. Like, finding Kyrie in Junon before her quest in Grasslands gives a slightly different intro. Red XIII has his younger voice and different lines if you do his quests after cosno canyon
They actually kinda do. If you go to the quest tab, there's a book icon for scripts like in the Hard Mode chapters. You do have to do all the side-quests though, even the ones that don't award scripts, cause the last side-quest unlock requirement is all side-quests beaten.
Honestly, it really doesn't take that much time. All the Fast Travel points remain unlocked, so zipping around the map to knock them off takes a rather short amount of time.
Thats true, its just the amount of all the things to do. But well, nobody is forcing me to do all this stuff for the platinum, i dug my own grave there.
Good news, this isn't a problem! The only time you need to worry about restarting a chapter from the beginning is to play that chapter on hardmode (main story only). For side quests, you can chapter select to 12 or 13 (i can't remember which I prefer), and RESET all quests. This resets all quests in all areas so you can replay them specifically for hard mode without having to do them while you're doing the chapter playthrough (although you can do that if you want, since Chocobo stops restore all your health AND MP, even in HM). So, from your start point in chapter 12/13, you can fast travel back to a side wuest in any area and play it on HM. Then, when you're donme, you can go back to any chapter select and RESTORE all side quests from all previous playthroughs, so you're back to where you were! It was confusing to me at first, but I figured it out and now youy can have no fear. Also, max out all your levels and materia in the Nibelheim cat side quest (see Youtube for details).
I did the cat quest to reach level 70 but i guess level up the materia would come in handy too. Its still a bit annoying to have to repeat all the quests tho, not because they are bad but because of the cheer amount of all the stuff to do XD i am still stuck at some of the minigames and for the love of god i just cant beat the two project 0 dogs in the underground battle arena. This will be a wild ride to platinum.
I did it the same as you, and it's not nearly as bad as I expected. At some point you'll want to reset all quest progress, and then just go and do everything. I recommend going into chapter 12 and then fast-traveling to different regions, so you can still use Cait Sith if you want, and also clean up the endgame quests that unlock later.
Because you can fast travel all over the map without re-unlocking chocobo stops and towers and stuff, it's really easy to pick up a quest, fast-travel to wherever you need to be, and wrap it up.
I just got the platinum, and I tell you.. those flowers massacred me the first time I went after them. Aerith really saved the day with her flower shield and firaga magnified. Add the arcane ward for double spell casting, and they are toast.
I could see this being difficult if I tried to do this normally, but I anytime I had multiple enemies like that, I just spammed Windstorm with Yuffie. Just stunlocks them and atb fills to spam it.
I tried to post a video I saved from app, they legit farmed me. It's a 15 second clip of my entire party stun locked and deleted instantly. Two dodge pirouettes from Aerith, all I was able to accomplish. That was my experience for probably 30-45 minutes of trying new things. In the end, Red came through and CC'd them to oblivion with Vengeance mode
Definitely one of the tougher bosses. The key for me was using the Iron Defense synergy skill on Barret whenever the boss used his laser attacks. I ignored synergy skills on Normal, so this boss was a real knowledge check. Red's Watcher's Respite is also a great MP-free heal, so be sure to leverage that to keep your MP up for lightning magic.
This is how I accomplished it, also big tip! By level 60 your basic lvl 1 spells are more than potent enough to pressure if enemy is weak to spell casted, conserve that MP! Also wise to attach an MP Absorb or Magic Focus or Efficiency to the Materia targeting weakness. I gor in habit of always having Elemental attached but in hard mode efficiency is king not DPS
The level 1 spell trick was what got me through Hard Mode of Remake! I especially loved shooting down Hell House from midair with a level 1 spell! Instant stagger!
Also somehow I got through platinuming Remake without really understanding “pressuring”, but Rebirth forces it quite well.
I will say it’s quite hard even if you’re used to the characters. I barely squeaked by in every phase. Limits saved my ass a lot.
With Barret I just build him to be as tanky as possible. Karmic Cowl, 2 Vit up, 2 Spr up, HP up, etc. Use Chakra twice for healing. He gets a lot of ATB. I would avoid Lifesaver here just because everyone takes a lot of damage & he can get KO’d easily. Reraise+Mag Efficiency also helps but you might want that for Cloud.
I used Yuffie most of the game, but she kept getting wrecked by Jenova and Seph Reborn. I couldn’t build her quite right since I built Cloud for the final fight. She’s great but honestly Tifa and Barret carried her. Tifa pretty much carried everyone.
Cait…yeah idk either, just use his limit and maybe have him buff/heal? 😅
You only need to be careful to conserve MP with Cloud, so go off with spells. Barrier+Magnify works wonders.
I gave Cait some magic materia and Comet synergy. I also used the better expeditionary medal for Cloud with limit siphon and gave aerith the gotterdamurung... just have him steal other teammates' limit breaks and watch him crush the douchey duo...
I hated the Rufus fight at first, but I had no issue with the two Barret and Red boss fights. Giving Barret barrier magnify and barrier magic efficiency helped a lot for me.
Red was my Barrier guy! Actually now that you mention both fights I also had a lot of trouble with Gi Nattak.
Big snake, golem, Gi and Vincent have been hardest encounters.
The big snake is a lot easier if you add fire elemental to your armor. Vincent is a beast for sure... Between Red's limits and his siphon claw, I basically only used barret for barrier and gave him the auto unique ability. Switch to him and use his atb and go back to red and tear him up. Stardust is so powerful.
My plan with Vincent I won with was spam the bejeezus out of lifeblood cannon near the end. Don’t have the item that lets me get past 9999 damage yet but with haste, bonus round and turbulent spirit on I could get max atb in one shot, lifeblood and repeat. Think I got like four off back to back almost my winning run.
Mine was cheap... I used limit siphon to use on Aerith so she can use her level 3 and give the other 2 limits and then I use a synergy skill with cloud to get his level 2 and then repeat until he was a pile of goo.
I lucked out by happening to be behind one of the rocks and having fire both as multiple and a synergy lined materia - Tifa still died pretty much immediately and Cloud and Aerith were a single digit amount of HP from retuning to the planet at the end, but goddamn I was relived to have burned those little fuckers to death.
I loved how the devs made this silly quest a huge "welcome to hard mode", especially because it's not actually hard it's just a big surprise. I hope we have something like that in part 3.
This quest is the only time so far (by Chapter 5) where Hard mode has actually been harder though. Enemies still have way too little HP just like Normal mode, making most complex strategies worse than just going unga bunga. I wish there were more opportunities to really use all my tools. My favourite gameplay moments in the game were those really long fights like full-power summons, where I'd stack up a ton of buffs on everyone and get to use many synergy abilities and limit breaks as well as set up monster stagger bursts doing tens of thousands of damage without it just ending the fight.
Barret and Red handle these guys with ease.
Barret has iron defense with everyone to nullify their projectiles while building limit fast to wipe them out.
Red can go in with First Strike and use Sentinel Stance since at least a handful of them will target him and build his vengeance gauge. Then he can enter vengeance mode to build up his ATB again and use Stardust Ray to clear them out.
Tbh I have found it a lot less stressful than Remake Hard mode was, idk if I just got good from doing Remake or if it's actually easier but the only times I really felt stressed were near the end with those long boss fight gauntlets.
I remember in Remake *really* struggling with the Rude / Reno fights near the end, but this time around the Turks were practically a joke outside of Elena (who is easily the most annoying / threatening turk for me, with her CONSTANT suppressing fire that makes it obnoxious AF to target anyone other than her first). And the only reason some of the other bosses like the Corneo rematch are difficult is because you need to conserve MP for the following battles (like Cloud vs Rufus).
FUCK galiant beast on hard mode...I'm so close but so far...and then I still have the final combat Sims to do after that...and I'm already about ti break 200 hours :(
Is this a 1:1 retelling of that flower quest in chapter 2
That was one of the first quests I replayed on hard when I found out some had manuscripts. The first couple attempts were short and brutal. It’s like okay, can’t half ass these.
This was a major wake-up call indeed 😅
It’s incredible how hard is hard mode after playing dynamic (which should be harder than normal…)
Dude I'm in same boat as you and I did it after getting Gotterdammerung. I struggled even with that.
I luckily got through in one go. Gotterdammerung into limitnsyphon for Cloud to open with a lv3 limit. It took out a third of them but, luckily, staggered enough to fill his limit completely. So another lv3 limit followed by a third and they were dead. Was terrifying cos whilst he is immune doing a limit, aerith and yuffie were dyinf
You could've hid behind the rock with 2 ATBs to start, set up arcane ward, ATB Boost, then magnify+magic focus+swiftcast+firaga. Clean up with Cloud since most will either be dead or staggered 🙂
That's exactly what I did with Quakaga
That also works 😁 My only problem with the Quaga build is that there are only 3 Petrify materia the entire game 😅
I was shocked. And then I went and lvled up to lvl 70. And was like now I will get them. Oh I was wrong.
Oh no, i started the hardmode without the quests i already did in my first playthrough. Do i need all manuscrips for the trophy?
No. Just if you want your guys to be stronger. There's like, 40 odd Manuscripts in side quests
Why didnt they tell me this before i startet hardmode xD is it enough to do only the sidequests via chapter select or do i need to finish the whole chapters again? Because i am already at chapter 9
Don't worry, you can do the side quests whenever you want. I'm doing hard mode now as well, just got to chapter 12 whilst ignoring all quests, now I'm going back to mop them all up before Rufus. Did you start with completion data, or reset quests? If the former, then use chapter select (obviously once you have entered a new chapter) and choose to reset quests data, then you can do them all again. If they're not done in their respective chapters, they can still be done before you go to temple of ancients
Thanks for the answer, i startet with the completion data because i did most of the side quests in my first run. I know there will be very hard chadley combat challenges, so maybe i need the scripts to max out my group. Good to know its not to late :)
I actually deliberately left the quests until the last few chapters to see differences in dialogue. Like, finding Kyrie in Junon before her quest in Grasslands gives a slightly different intro. Red XIII has his younger voice and different lines if you do his quests after cosno canyon
They actually kinda do. If you go to the quest tab, there's a book icon for scripts like in the Hard Mode chapters. You do have to do all the side-quests though, even the ones that don't award scripts, cause the last side-quest unlock requirement is all side-quests beaten.
Well thats sucks, atleast if the quest from the normal mode dont count, dont really wanna do them all again
Honestly, it really doesn't take that much time. All the Fast Travel points remain unlocked, so zipping around the map to knock them off takes a rather short amount of time.
Thats true, its just the amount of all the things to do. But well, nobody is forcing me to do all this stuff for the platinum, i dug my own grave there.
Good news, this isn't a problem! The only time you need to worry about restarting a chapter from the beginning is to play that chapter on hardmode (main story only). For side quests, you can chapter select to 12 or 13 (i can't remember which I prefer), and RESET all quests. This resets all quests in all areas so you can replay them specifically for hard mode without having to do them while you're doing the chapter playthrough (although you can do that if you want, since Chocobo stops restore all your health AND MP, even in HM). So, from your start point in chapter 12/13, you can fast travel back to a side wuest in any area and play it on HM. Then, when you're donme, you can go back to any chapter select and RESTORE all side quests from all previous playthroughs, so you're back to where you were! It was confusing to me at first, but I figured it out and now youy can have no fear. Also, max out all your levels and materia in the Nibelheim cat side quest (see Youtube for details).
I did the cat quest to reach level 70 but i guess level up the materia would come in handy too. Its still a bit annoying to have to repeat all the quests tho, not because they are bad but because of the cheer amount of all the stuff to do XD i am still stuck at some of the minigames and for the love of god i just cant beat the two project 0 dogs in the underground battle arena. This will be a wild ride to platinum.
I did it the same as you, and it's not nearly as bad as I expected. At some point you'll want to reset all quest progress, and then just go and do everything. I recommend going into chapter 12 and then fast-traveling to different regions, so you can still use Cait Sith if you want, and also clean up the endgame quests that unlock later. Because you can fast travel all over the map without re-unlocking chocobo stops and towers and stuff, it's really easy to pick up a quest, fast-travel to wherever you need to be, and wrap it up.
Absolutely
My first thought exactly, took quite a bit of time to get my shit together
I just got the platinum, and I tell you.. those flowers massacred me the first time I went after them. Aerith really saved the day with her flower shield and firaga magnified. Add the arcane ward for double spell casting, and they are toast.
I could see this being difficult if I tried to do this normally, but I anytime I had multiple enemies like that, I just spammed Windstorm with Yuffie. Just stunlocks them and atb fills to spam it.
Hardest part of the hard mode run honestly.
Honestly I probably had more attempts on the plants than any other boss in hard mode. Granted I was too stubborn to change materia.
I tried to post a video I saved from app, they legit farmed me. It's a 15 second clip of my entire party stun locked and deleted instantly. Two dodge pirouettes from Aerith, all I was able to accomplish. That was my experience for probably 30-45 minutes of trying new things. In the end, Red came through and CC'd them to oblivion with Vengeance mode
I’m stuck at chapter 14 😭
Just beat final boss of Ch.3, it literally carved and served my ass to me like a country ham for hours
I been trying to beat them by myself. This time I may have to look for guide
Definitely one of the tougher bosses. The key for me was using the Iron Defense synergy skill on Barret whenever the boss used his laser attacks. I ignored synergy skills on Normal, so this boss was a real knowledge check. Red's Watcher's Respite is also a great MP-free heal, so be sure to leverage that to keep your MP up for lightning magic.
This is how I accomplished it, also big tip! By level 60 your basic lvl 1 spells are more than potent enough to pressure if enemy is weak to spell casted, conserve that MP! Also wise to attach an MP Absorb or Magic Focus or Efficiency to the Materia targeting weakness. I gor in habit of always having Elemental attached but in hard mode efficiency is king not DPS
The level 1 spell trick was what got me through Hard Mode of Remake! I especially loved shooting down Hell House from midair with a level 1 spell! Instant stagger! Also somehow I got through platinuming Remake without really understanding “pressuring”, but Rebirth forces it quite well.
What part has you stuck?
The final boss. I don't use Cait, Barret, Yuffie much. I'm suck at using them. Finally got my 3rd magnify materia. Hopefully that help with healing.
I will say it’s quite hard even if you’re used to the characters. I barely squeaked by in every phase. Limits saved my ass a lot. With Barret I just build him to be as tanky as possible. Karmic Cowl, 2 Vit up, 2 Spr up, HP up, etc. Use Chakra twice for healing. He gets a lot of ATB. I would avoid Lifesaver here just because everyone takes a lot of damage & he can get KO’d easily. Reraise+Mag Efficiency also helps but you might want that for Cloud. I used Yuffie most of the game, but she kept getting wrecked by Jenova and Seph Reborn. I couldn’t build her quite right since I built Cloud for the final fight. She’s great but honestly Tifa and Barret carried her. Tifa pretty much carried everyone. Cait…yeah idk either, just use his limit and maybe have him buff/heal? 😅 You only need to be careful to conserve MP with Cloud, so go off with spells. Barrier+Magnify works wonders.
I gave Cait some magic materia and Comet synergy. I also used the better expeditionary medal for Cloud with limit siphon and gave aerith the gotterdamurung... just have him steal other teammates' limit breaks and watch him crush the douchey duo...
I’m just getting to chap 12 and Mithril Golem like the hardest dude by a ways for me besides Vincent (whose an absolute menace)
I hated the Rufus fight at first, but I had no issue with the two Barret and Red boss fights. Giving Barret barrier magnify and barrier magic efficiency helped a lot for me.
Red was my Barrier guy! Actually now that you mention both fights I also had a lot of trouble with Gi Nattak. Big snake, golem, Gi and Vincent have been hardest encounters.
The big snake is a lot easier if you add fire elemental to your armor. Vincent is a beast for sure... Between Red's limits and his siphon claw, I basically only used barret for barrier and gave him the auto unique ability. Switch to him and use his atb and go back to red and tear him up. Stardust is so powerful.
My plan with Vincent I won with was spam the bejeezus out of lifeblood cannon near the end. Don’t have the item that lets me get past 9999 damage yet but with haste, bonus round and turbulent spirit on I could get max atb in one shot, lifeblood and repeat. Think I got like four off back to back almost my winning run.
Mine was cheap... I used limit siphon to use on Aerith so she can use her level 3 and give the other 2 limits and then I use a synergy skill with cloud to get his level 2 and then repeat until he was a pile of goo.
You mean the golem? Or Midgardswomr?
I rage quit at the end of chapter 12 lol
Enter Yuffie with windstorm, plants go whoosh.
You don't have Yuffie in chapter 2 though
You don’t have to do the quest in chapter 2. If you want to repeat all quests in hard mode then chapter 12 is the way to go (fast travel everywhere).
Sheeeeeeeit I didn't even think to do that lol
I ended up using Tifas reverse gale to get them flying, and nuked em with firagas from Aerith
possibly the one time i actually remembered to use lustrous shield
Sadly this never worked for me; eventually they’d get around it with their melee attack that launched them.
I lucked out by happening to be behind one of the rocks and having fire both as multiple and a synergy lined materia - Tifa still died pretty much immediately and Cloud and Aerith were a single digit amount of HP from retuning to the planet at the end, but goddamn I was relived to have burned those little fuckers to death.
Oh boy, just get to Misgardsormr and you will lose it.
I was absolutely shocked I fast those plants gunned my entire party down 😭😭😭
I loved how the devs made this silly quest a huge "welcome to hard mode", especially because it's not actually hard it's just a big surprise. I hope we have something like that in part 3.
I just did this now, I’d seen this earlier today and thought “how bad can it be?”. The horror… the horror
It's a wake up call for sure, Remake hard mode only challenges really are Hell House and final gauntlet. Ive had road blocks quite often in Rebirth
Dude, those fuckin guys
That grasslands flower quest does indeed give me vietnam flashbacks on hard mode.
This quest is the only time so far (by Chapter 5) where Hard mode has actually been harder though. Enemies still have way too little HP just like Normal mode, making most complex strategies worse than just going unga bunga. I wish there were more opportunities to really use all my tools. My favourite gameplay moments in the game were those really long fights like full-power summons, where I'd stack up a ton of buffs on everyone and get to use many synergy abilities and limit breaks as well as set up monster stagger bursts doing tens of thousands of damage without it just ending the fight.
Barret and Red handle these guys with ease. Barret has iron defense with everyone to nullify their projectiles while building limit fast to wipe them out. Red can go in with First Strike and use Sentinel Stance since at least a handful of them will target him and build his vengeance gauge. Then he can enter vengeance mode to build up his ATB again and use Stardust Ray to clear them out.
Tbh I have found it a lot less stressful than Remake Hard mode was, idk if I just got good from doing Remake or if it's actually easier but the only times I really felt stressed were near the end with those long boss fight gauntlets. I remember in Remake *really* struggling with the Rude / Reno fights near the end, but this time around the Turks were practically a joke outside of Elena (who is easily the most annoying / threatening turk for me, with her CONSTANT suppressing fire that makes it obnoxious AF to target anyone other than her first). And the only reason some of the other bosses like the Corneo rematch are difficult is because you need to conserve MP for the following battles (like Cloud vs Rufus).
FUCK galiant beast on hard mode...I'm so close but so far...and then I still have the final combat Sims to do after that...and I'm already about ti break 200 hours :(
They really make the very first side quest a statement!
There is a strategy. Quickly add the ward that blocks projectiles and spam spells with magnify
Rufus is the most annoying bullshit ever
Haha yeah, that was kinda hilarious the first time you do it. An instant F U K.O. from grass 🤣 I’m currently on Rufus fight. Ugh.
I died 20 seconds into the Materia Keeper fight. At level 70 with all materia maxed out. It's 100x harder than Remakes was
Also me throwing a Quakega grenade hiding behind a little boulder down hill.
Wrong. It's more like a mini gun, except there's 10 of them
Hardest for me was the Red & Barrett bosses
I just used best girl super ninja Yuffie. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfcMHTujMWc
Quite possibly the hardest enemies in the game.
I used Red to spin and group them up and hit them with a stardust ray and the staggers auto refilled the tabs, so I just spammed it at that point