Guide: Hard Mode In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth! 

Off the rip: GREAT video; very worthy of any player’s time before venturing into a Hard difficulty run through Rebirth. Couple of extra bits: 1) You can link the Enemy Skill materia to a HP Absorb materia, then cast the enemy skill Plasma Discharge at the beginning of any fight. After that, every time you fill an ATB bar, Lightning AoE damage erupts from your character, and if that AoE damage hits any enemy, your character recovers HP. 2) The author of this video isn’t wrong about Assess materia’s importance. However, one should really do all of the possible enemy Assessing during his/her initial playthrough. You don’t want to be wasting a materia slot for Assess while actually in Hard difficulty content.

Someone probably already mentioned but, Elemental Materia paired with a dual materia (like the Fire and Ice materia) will actually alternate between the elements automatically depending on what the enemies weakness is. So you're not disadvantaged like you suggested at 4:00. It's actually really helpful in battles with multiple enemies with multiple weaknesses, especially some of Chadleys multi-round challenges.

Thanks for watching everyone! I put a lot of work into this one, and I hope it helps you on your way to completing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Hard Mode!

“Don’t forget to omnislash that like button”. Boy that takes me back.

Appreciate you taking the time to share these invaluable bits of information! I have to remember to use ATB Boost more often! Speaking of Red, his Stardust Ray ability is exceptionally effective in wiping out enemies as you probably already know! My all-star materia--many of which you highlighted--included HP Absorption + Enemy Skill, 1st Strike, Magnify + Barrier, Magnify + Time (to temporarily hasten the party or stop an enemy group), Prayer and Chakra! Besides having everybody's materia slots filled up, I also made sure that a 2nd party member was equipped with Synergy + Comet/Cometeor--the MVP combo of the collective--and that all members were equipped with Level Boost + Revival so that they all could access Arise until I could get at least three of the associated materia maxed out! Not all-inclusive by any means--just what I can remember at this moment! Thanks again for the final grinding tip! I used the EXP Up materia that I acquired during Chapter 13, headed over to one of the Fiend Intel sites and leveled up from 51 to 70 while watching 1-1/2 movies! All the best on all future endeavors!

Counterfire isn't just a useful ability to pull an ally out of harms way, it is also a useful way for Aeris to dump an ally right on top of her spell casting ward instantly. Do it with Yuffie especially while she has her shadow clone out and she can quadruple cast on Aeris' spellcasting ward.

Happy to see you had a change of heart about Rebirth. I remember reading a community post where you said you werent going to be playing it

My unlimited MP Aerith build basically uses Fire, Ice, and Fire & Ice materia paired with Magnify, MP Absorb, HP Absorp, and Magic Focus. Plus ATB Assist and the Chocobo Cloak to start every fight with two full ATB.

Cool to see you loving this game bro! Good to have you back. You should watch the behind the scenes videos square has been putting out and make a video on it. Love to see your commentary. Cheers!

Just a side recommendation for EXP and AP farming: Chapter 11 Hard mode EXP farming - You can go fight the horde of hoping bugs in Chadley monster investigation area - Slot Cloud with high physical damage weapon + ice element infusion + EXP bonus materia - Slot 2nd party member with synergy + comet materia combo - Slot 1 inactive (not part of battle team) character with HPMP materia and magnify + heal for sustain - All you need to do is Triple Slash with Cloud and enter punisher counterstance to build ATB for more triple slashes - Rough estimate of 15-25 mins to get all 7 party members to LV70 Grassland VR Easy mode AP farming - Have 3 characters (Barret is important here) with Cetrans armors and Chocobo armband, AP UP materias - Slot Barret with high physical damage weapon + Overcharge damage + ice & fire infusion materia combo + Auto unique ability materia - The rounds will instantly end in 2-3 seconds with Barret auto-overcharge as inactive character - Rinse and repeat for AP profits

I'm trying to complete the bruta combat simulations before tackling Hard mode, it's really tough but I need to complete this, I need the platinum, also I'm kind of tired of just playing mini games all the time so combat keeps me entertained for a while

Glad you’re making content again

Fyi gilgamesh island doesn’t need to be complete for swiftcast materia. I only completed two of the shrines and was able to purchase swiftcast. Not sure what the exact requirements are.

You didnt mention that elemental materia, when maxed out, ABSORBS THE LINKED ELEMENT. If you have it attatched to a fire and ice materia, then all magical fire and ice attacks heal you instead of damage you. Lets you use less atbs curing. Its a gamechanger against enemies like that one where whenever you attack them it counterattacks with lightning.

Decided to start hard mode yesterday - literally perfect timing thx sm 😂❤

I can tell you that chapter 13. The white haired angel is legit. Got lvl 70 in no time and max all my materia. Just set it to easy and boom., your done. rinse and repeat. btw you need to complete the game first

i suppose it goes without saying that another tip could be "if you haven't already, become a master at parrying/blocking" for those all important boss fights, especially when it comes to a certain rich boss in chapter 12.... otherwise you could spend 1-2+ hours stuck on him XD

Ty for the vid. Should I upgrade the recommended material in dynamic or wait until hard mode? I’m only on chapter 8, long way to go 😂. I like to be prepared.

More stars does NOT equal more AP. Put AP Up on support materia like Warding, Magic Focus, Swiftcast, etc. as they need so much more AP than anything else (your HP and MP and Luck Ups are plenty leveled up by hard mode).

Just need to complete chadley simulator to platinum this game. Having lots of fun

I'm just building up to my hard mode play through. After completing the main story I've gone back and completed all the side stuff. I platinumed remake and dlc but I feel this will be my biggest achievement in gaming to get a platinum on this

Synergy Abilities don't have i-frames like limit breaks so be careful of when you use them

In battles were status effects are an issue a magnifying resist will go a long away

Good to see you back SOLDIER!

I had no idea you could stop the stagger bar :O

I find Red being able to use his vengeance meter to heal the whole party for a large amount to be extremely useful. He's a natural tank with his vengeance mechanics anyway and on very aggressive enemies where his vengeance meter can be repeatedly maxed easily, he's extremely useful and MP efficient. I also just like using Barret with the prayer materia and haste, use Barrets steelskin ability and for a lot of fights he can just stand in the face of attacks rapidly charging ATB to spam prayer for no MP heals.

Just finished my story run last night. Moving on to hard mode and mini game clean up. A few really broken builds possible that I've seen. Also mean I should start looking for optimization on materia and weapons rather than just.... whatever.

Just beat the game on Dynamic, I just need time to recuperate from the ending before I can play Hard mode lol

Props to you for the excellent content. There are a lot of critics in the comments :[ I enjoy the game, in the middle of running through hard mode currently. Not a fan of the minigames but I was able to get through almost everything minus the last brutal challenges and hard mode chapters (doesn't seem hard so far)

Dont even care about the video, just glad to see u back online brother! Keep making that good content!

I’m curious to see if the HP MP materia is viable

I've had elemental-fire and ice equipped on my weapon for over half of the game. If an enemy is resistant to ice and weak to fire, it rings up as a weakness hit every time. The materia defaults to the element that is most effective against the enemy being hit. Though, you probably wouldn't want it if they were resistant to both fire and ice, but that's pretty rare; and weakness to one or the other is fairly common.

Soothing breeze is an excellent healer specially at end of fights and it's mp free

Can you show the materia set up in a separate video ?

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Here’s two extra tips I just found out. Stick enemy skill on cloud and the item that automatically allows access to level three limit break. If you are facing groups of small to medium sized enemies like some of the fights on the coliseum, run in the middle of them, attack a couple times and use your atb materia when you get to one bar to make it two. Cast mind blast, and it’ll pretty much stagger everything in the area. If you have Clouds folio ability that charges the limit a percentage when staggering an enemy, you will end up with a full limit bar and can cast his level three limit break basically at the start of battle. I did this in the coliseum fights and you get a bunch of AP quickly. Second tip that I haven’t seen anyone talk about. Soothing breeze is an extremely good healing spell for hard mode that only cost 1 ATB. You could theoretically keep enemy skill on Cloud, run him near the enemies you are attacking, and have Barret use provoke or his other ability to draw fire because cloud is easily interrupted while doing soothing breeze. I used soothing breeze all the time during dynamic mode either with cloud and Barret in the ring far from combat, or close to combat with cloud just far enough that Tifa could attack and still be healed. Also, I assessed and did all side quests during my first play through, it’s making hard mode quicker because all I have to do is run to the objective because everything else is explored and I also don’t have to waste a materia slot on assess.

also its insane to me how so many ppl especially streamers totally ignore synergy skills, like what?! for example clouds spellblade or even power blade hit damage caps for me and that for free lol

3:00 what sorts of situations specifically would you use recommend using Limit Siphon? Thx

I use Cloud as my primary combatant. I give him all my HP/Vitality materia, auto unique ability, and Wind/Elec materia paired with elemental materia. And strength up. Then Barret is my support character who has the first strike materia, empowerment/ cast all materia, and Fire/ Elemental materia, also auto unique materia, Lastly Tifa is my healer with 2X HP up and MP up materia, first strike, chakra, barrier and revival as well first strike. // so usually what happens when I fight is barret will automatically use bravery on cloud and Tifa will use barrier / wall on cloud. I then switch to barret, cloud uses punisher and I have barret use bonus round ability to deplete the stagger bar, switch to Tifa and I have her activate bridal strength switch back to cloud and by then barret charge ability is being used and I use clouds infinity end on the staggered enemy. By then Tifa is using dive kick on the enemy too and the fights over, also I have luck up for cloud so each attack is critical

For it was a bit funny playing normal first because I was playing like I play hard mode on Remake Sometimes I forget I could use items half way through the game Of rebirth I don’t think I will play hard mode rebirth for a bit since I don’t think they will transfer the game date to next game hopefully they would on next game

Am i an idiot for not knowin bout cushions healin Mp?🙃 but i mean i never really needed it honestly. Once you’re max lv MP would be much easier to manage during battles

Ff7 rebirth hard is way easier than ff7 remake's.

cloud was my healbot in hardmode, he had 3xhealing with magic efficiency/magnify/autocast and with his last weapon you basically never run out of MP

Let's go! Been waiting for this!

Hard mode was easier than normal mode

Why do you use magnify on healing materia when Prayer is an option? I use my magnify for time, and Barrier.

Does enemy intel reset in Hard Mode? If not, then Assess isn't really that necessary in hard mode if you already assessed all the enemies in your first playthrough.

Is it advise to unlock all those item first in lower difficulty (2nd playthru via chapter selection) then to hard mode?

Amazing tips. Thank you so much!

What's the difference between hard mode and dynamic? How do i get cloud weapon to level 8... That's driving crazy 😂 Once you scan enemies on your first playthrough, you do need to scan again I also this video where you can stack magnify and focus materia or two focus materia. with the same elemental materia.. Boy those hit hard.

In the accessories section you don't recommend running Genji Gloves?

Excellent video and thank you for this!

just what we all needed!!!!!

For some chapters you can get to a boss, beat it, fast travel to a stop, use a cushion and then fast travel back and continue on. You dont need to use assess at all for the most part in hard mode if you already assessed the enemies in your first playthrough... This takes up a slot you could be using for something else.

I'll come back to the last bosses in hard mode when they make cutscenes skipable 😂

How different is rebirth's hard mode in comparison to remake or is it generally the same?

poison + mp absorb is a must for hardmode, thank me later

NOICE!!! 🤘

Wow... Those quetzalcoatl attack deal more than 3k+ damage 😨.