With the release of the highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII Remake, longtime fans and newbies will be glued to their gaming consoles for days. Venturing in Midgar will have some challenges, and utilizing your Materia may be confusing at the beginning, so we listed out some tips to help out in your new adventure.

Smash all the boxes

When exploring in every chapter, always smash the Shinra boxes scattered in all levels whenever you see them. Not they only replenish some of your HP and MP, you can acquire potions and other recovery items and in some cases Moogle Medals that you can redeem for special items later in the game.

Sidequest all the way

There are tons of side missions that you can take in the game, though it’s completely optional, nothing hurt if you take it right before tackling on the main story. As most of the side missions are pretty straightforward, ranging from killing a specific monster to finding certain NPCs. Invest your time in finishing these quests every chapter as you can gain special items and Gil, and in most cases, reveals some backstories of the cast and other side characters.

One important sidequest to complete is Chadley’s Battle Intel, completing the first batch will land you with strong set of Materias that are helpful in the early parts of the game, this will also unlock the VR missions where you can obtain Summon Materias. So always check for new Battle Intel in every chapter.

And the game tends to reward you if complete all the side missions, may it be a bonus item reward or a special scene, so finish those quests whenever possible.

Master the combat system

Final Fantasy VII Remake’s combat system blends real-time action and the classic ATB, learning how the system works will get you an advantage in slaying monsters and Shinra soldiers. So here are some important reminders when in combat:

Don’t rely too much on just spamming your normal attacks to defeating foes, mix it with your special attacks to deal more damage and to build up the stagger meter and your ATB.

Use Cloud’s Punisher mode and guard any attacks to land a powerful counterattack, this can deal massive damage and can rack up the stagger meter if done correctly.

Charge up Tifa’s special move with Unbridled Strength up to the max, once you staggered an enemy, unleash your max special move and combo with an ATB skill for big damage.

Cast Aerith’s Tempest in a crowd and switch back to Cloud or Tifa to the enemy crowd focus on them, the Tempest special move can deal great amount of damage in the targeted area when fully charged so it’s a good crowd control to finish a battle quick.

Guard whenever possible, not does it reduce the damage, you can do a counterattack (especially with Cloud’s Punisher mode) when the enemy is open after you blocked its attacks. And in most cases, some attacks are unblockable but can be avoided by simply evading it. So it doesn’t hurt if you go defensive in some battles.

Learn to switch to other characters, it’s quite useful to utilize each of the characters specialty and it builds up each of their ATBs faster. Aside from that, make sure your party have specific roles, like have Cloud as your tank to keep your enemies focused on him, have Barret do the range attacks with both normal attacks and magic, have Aerith be your support by buffing the entire team and do the occasional healing as well as provide support fire from afar. Tifa be your DPS to build up the stagger meter and let her land powerful blows with her special moves.

Be the Materia girl

The Materia system makes a return and it is still fully customizable like in the original. Each type of Materia can either open a new skill or spell to your list, or can increase your stats or add more enhancements to your existing skills, so utilizing them to the fullest is your top priority to make slaying monsters a lot easier.

Be sure to level up your Materias by equipping it to your gear during battles so you can unlock the next tier level of the Materias. And you can even level up some of the duplicates and sell them for Gil, the higher their experience points, the higher their sell value.

Unlock additional Materia slots by upgrading your weapon to you can equip more, you can balance your Materia with Magic, Command, Support and Complete for an efficient build and even distribute certain spells and skills to each of your party members for a well-balance line-up.

And now you’re all set! Time to relive the adventure in Midgar with Final Fantasy VII Remake and enjoy the game.