This Final Fantasy VII Remake Hard Difficulty Guide will provide you with tips, tricks and best character builds for hard mode. You must beat the game on hard for the Hardened Veteran trophy.
Hard difficulty is unlocked after you complete the game once on any difficulty. You can complete the chapters in any order via chapter select as long as you finish them all, but it makes sense to do them in order.
What’s changed in Hard Difficulty?
Hard Mode not only includes enemies which hit much harder and have higher HP, but it has certain caveats too. You can’t use items at all and benches only restore HP (not MP). You still recover MP during combat over time. However, after finishing the game once you do gain 2x XP and 3x AP, meaning you should hit Level 50 quickly and improve Materia faster.
What this means is that the Cure spell is going to become your best friend since you can’t use items to heal. However, you’ll also need to manage your MP because if you use it all earlier in the chapter, then you’ll have none left against the bosses at the end of the chapter and will likely have to start again.
You can also skip the two Bike Minigames in Chapters 4 and 18! This not only saves time but also means you don’t have to beat the boss in either one again.
Hard Difficulty Recommended Loadout
Useful Links for all Item Locations:
Getting through Hard Mode is 50% loadout, 50% skill. Although you can make some adjustments to suit your playstyle, the following is the best loadout for 90% of situations:
Cloud:
Weapon (Twin Stinger): Elemental – [Fire/Ice/Lightning/Wind], First Strike, 2x HP Up, 1x MP Up
Armor (Chain Bangle): Healing, Revival, Steadfast Block, Barrier
Accessory: Champion Belt
Tifa or Barret (give the loadout to whichever of the two is in your party):
Weapon (Tifa: Sonic Strikers / Barret: Light Machine Gun): Elemental – [Fire/Ice/Lightning/Wind], 2x HP Up, 2x MP Up
Armor (Cog Bangle): Healing, Revival, First Strike
Accessory: Champion Belt
Aerith:
Weapon (Reinforced Staff): 2x Magic Up, 2x HP Up, 2x MP Up
Armor (Rune Armlet): Magnify-Healing, Revival
Accessory: Healing Carcanet
» Also see Materia Locations & Armor Locations & Accessory Locations if you’re unsure where to get any of these.
Magnify-Healing is the single most important Materia combination in the game. Magnify means you can heal all characters (or damage all enemies) at once at the expense of just one casting, and since Magic will be used almost exclusively to heal in this mode, it will save you in countless situations. To use it you must equip the Magnify Materia + Healing Materia next to each other on a weapon or armor piece that has two linked Materia slots (looks like a line between the slots). This way the Magnify and Healing become “linked”.
Always have this on the character with the best Magic stat, as this means their castings will recover more health (hence the Magic Up Materia in the example above). The best healer by far is Aerith, but she doesn’t feature in many chapters so Cloud is the second best option. Unfortunately, there is only one Magnify in the whole game (in Chapter 9), so you’ll have to juggle this between the two of them depending on who is in your party.
The second most important Materia is Elemental. There are two of those in the game (Chapter 6 & Chapter 14). When placed on weapons, it gives your attacks elemental damage (8%, 15% or 23% depending on Materia level), whilst on armor it gives you resistance (of 50%, 100% and then absorption). Just like Magnify, it only works when you place it next to a Magic Materia (Fire/Ice/Lightning/Wind) in a “linked” Materia slot (a line between Materia slots that connects them).
Hopefully during your first playthrough, you Assessed every enemy and boss you came across. If not, consult our Final Fantasy VII Remake Boss Guide & Final Fantasy VII Remake Enemy Weaknesses Guide, because on your second run, you know which enemies and bosses are coming up and what their elemental weakness is. You can then plan accordingly and change the element linked to Elemental Materia to give your attacks an edge. This can make a huge difference in battles, and you get two of these so use them on Cloud and either Tifa or Barret, depending on your preference.
On rare occasions, it’s more beneficial to have Elemental on armor instead, thus becoming immune to the linked element. Some enemies only use elemental attacks so they can’t kill you if you have the corresponding element, making them super easy.
On Hard, defeating bosses and completing side quests where you defeat stronger versions of enemies will reward you with manuscripts which give you SP. Getting one of these per character on Hard will unlock Weapon Level 6 and a new core for each weapon which offers a number of useful abilities. The best ability by far is Reprieve, which means your character will be left with 1HP from an attack that would have killed them. It can only be used once per battle, but it will save you countless times and buy you enough time to use a Cure spell.
The next best ability is a 20% MP reduction for Cure spells. It may not seem like much, but a Curaga now costs 9MP instead of 12MP. That’s a 4th curative spell for free for every 3 you use. However, this is only on one weapon per character.
For Tifa, use Sonic Strikers, for Barret use Light Machine Gun, for Aerith use Reinforced Staff. For Cloud, Twin Stinger is the best weapon because even though it might not be as outright powerful attacking-wise as other weapons, it has both the essential Reprieve and 20% Cure MP Cost Reduction abilities.
Hard Difficulty Combat Tactics
As far as battles go, regular mobs shouldn’t prove much trouble. First Strike is a fantastic Materia which, when maxed, gives you a nearly full ATB at the start of a fight. On two characters, this means you can run in and immediately use their abilities. Cloud’s Triple Slash is brilliant and should always be the go-to move, whilst Barret’s Maximum Fury followed by an Overcharge can also eat into an enemy’s HP. It’s not very useful for bosses though, since they have such a large HP pool anyway.
As for general strategy, particularly on bosses and tougher enemies, you should be looking to Stagger them as quickly as possible with the ‘Focus’ abilities (Focused Thrust/Focused Strike/Focused Shot), particularly when they’re on ‘Pressure’ status. Once Staggered, use Tifa’s 
move and the True Strike ability when you have ATB charge to quickly build the Stagger % to increase damage. Aerith should always be your dedicated healer when she’s with you, but if not then ALWAYS prioritize healing over anything else. If a character goes into the red zone or dies, immediately use Curaga or Raise with the first character to have their ATB charged.
Finally, since you’ll be using Cloud as your Leader for the vast majority of the game, learn the value in blocking. Cloud’s counter in Punisher mode (and his Counterstance ability) are incredibly beneficial. Using them effectively can trivialize otherwise hard enemies and bosses as the damage using counter is far higher than a normal attack. The Steadfast Block Materia not only reduces damage from enemies significantly but every block charges your ATB fast too.
It might take some getting used to at first (particularly if you played on Easy first and rarely had to play defensively), but Hard Mode is tailored around mastering the art of defensive tactics. Learning how to use Counterstance is practically the only viable tactic for the last boss, for example.
Other Tips for Hard Difficulty
Other tips for Hard mode include:
- Always smash crates! There’s a decent chance they will contain Mako shards which replenish your MP. This is the only way outside of combat you can regenerate MP in Hard Mode.
- An easy way to replenish all MP is to find some crates, smash them (chance for Mako shard), save the game, reload the save you must made, the crates will have respawned and can be smashed again. This trick works because every time you save/load it respawns the crates so you can farm MP as much as you want when necessary.
- If you’re unsure what element an enemy or boss is weak to, use Assess and then press
and ‘Restart from Last Battle’. This will place you just before said enemy/boss and allow you to adjust your Elemental Materia accordingly. Or you can use our Boss Guide that includes all weaknesses. - Also check the Enemy List & Weaknesses for a complete list what each enemy’s weakness is (so you don’t need to assess them again).
- Fleeing is an option! Since the 2x XP and 3x AP bonuses are unlocked after completing the game, you’re going to be fairly close to level 50 already and your Materia will level fast. Therefore, you don’t need to fight every enemy you come across. It’s often best to run and save your MP than get involved in a needless scrap. You can’t use the items enemies drop anyway and you’ll have so much Gil saved up that you won’t need that either.
- Obtain the manuscripts. Beating the bosses in the early chapters will give you manuscripts granting SP and thus taking you over the threshold to unlock Weapon Level 6, but these abilities are expensive. You can do side quests in Chapters 3/8/9/14 to be rewarded with more so you can buy those top tier abilities.
- Save regularly! It goes without saying, but if you get into a fight and things go badly and you’ve used up a ton of MP, it’s often best to try again rather than attempt to plod on with limited curing capabilities.
- The Barrier Materia is extremely useful against the harder bosses. Manawall halves all damage (physical and magical) and in some rare cases, is the only way to survive certain attacks. It’s expensive MP-wise though, so don’t use it too liberally.
- If you’re dangerously low on MP and still have a boss to come, use the Pray Materia. It costs 2 ATB to use and doesn’t heal nearly as much as Curaga, but in a pinch it is the best way to quickly heal party members without MP. Chakra is another quick alternative that costs only 1 ATB but heals you without the use of MP.
Can you think of any more Hard Difficulty Tips? Feel free to share your tactics in the comments below.
Thanks for this guide!!
A few more tips unless I missed them
Using Pray could be a good healing method. No MP cost, if possible save ATB when easy to beat enemies are weak, use as much Pray as you can with anyone who has it for a few hp boosts, then finish the enemy with a hit or two left.
Also Aerith’s Soul Drain ability, whilst it might not gain a lot of MP, again every bit helps.
what about the Materia that restore mp (0.1% of damage dealt )
So, idk how useful this is but I’ve been using both magnify and mp absorb with the same element.
I.e. ice linked with magnify
ice linked with mp absorb
I understand it’s a lot of materia slots; however, this has allowed me the ability to use the magic often (and sometimes it paid for itself).
Hope this helps… I dont feel that mp absorb on a single this is worth it. Lemme know if you try it out.
A guide to know precisely where to get all the 48 manuscripts (which bosses & side quest) would be great.
The only manuscript you can miss is one that replaces the materia behind the fan on chapter 6. Just play through on hard and you get all the rest as long as you do all side quests.
Not true… you can also miss 2 in chapter 9. There’s a manuscripts guide on this site
Enemy Skill can be a good way to recover MP, especially when combined with HP or MP-Absorb.
Deadly Dodge-HP absorb can be another good choice for enemies easy to dodge.
A great tactic I’ve found for Cloud early on in hard mode is using ATB Stagger, First Strike, Steadfast Block, Refocus and Time (Haste) for Materia, combined with Transference Module. This works especially well with the battle at the end of chapter 4, where Cloud can quickly get up his Limit to execute Refocus and thus gain many more ATB charges, and in turn, quicker access to his limit breaks.
but i remember enemy skill doesn’t link with MP-absorb no? or does it
But there isn’t such a thing as mp absorb materia though is there?
Scrap that. Just unlocked it. For anyone that wants to know its the last thing you get from Chadley after maxing out all 12 magic materia.
deadly dodge+ absorb is fine. the issue with enemy skill is tho that all enemy skills are hilariously bad and useless..
What Armors are you using on which character?
Updated in the guide 🙂
Cloud = Chain Bangle > Tifa/Barret = Cog Bangle > Aerith = Rune Armlet
Thanks for the great guide. Just one thing, where did you get 2nd elemental materia? I only seem to have 1. Thanks!
Ahh just seen your materia guide and that shows both. Thanks!!
Where did you find the second magnify? The materia guide doesn’t say?
Never mind read further below :P
There isn’t one I’m afraid! Would be handy…
Hi there, could you please explain how you have Aerith’s Guard Stick with 6 materia equipped but I somehow only have 5 slots? Thanks!
When you reach Weapon Level 6 (after you get Manuscripts on Hard) it’ll open up another Core with a bunch of abilities/Materia slots.
Level your weapon up to LV6
Which weapon for Barret ?
Which weapon for Barret? Thank you
‘For Tifa, use Sonic Strikers, for Barret use Light Machine Gun, for Aerith use Reinforced Staff.’
Took me a bit to see that too XD
How the hell you can have 2 magnify materia?
You can’t, there’s only 1 in the game. Put it on either Cloud or Aerith.
Why not Mythril Saber? It has 50% MP regen boost
Cos there isn’t any MP regen in hard mode
I use mithril sabre when i use too much mp and run into random fights to trigger it but that is desperate measures really; the more money you have the more u get from mako shards so if you are running dry on a character add a couple maxed mp ups and go box hunting. Had this happen on Ch. 9 before rude.
If you’ve already assessed all enemies on a prior play through, you can just press the Touchpad during a fight to bring up the assessment screen, you don’t need to reassess them. It may not show you the HP again, but it will still show their weaknesses and strengths.
EDIT: My mistake, I realised after writing this that it doesn’t make any difference, as you meant knowing the weakness before the fight to adjust your load out. My apologies. 🙁
Either way that’s good to know, I didn’t realise this even after completing the game! Of course there’s a lot of things I didn’t realise until right at the end, like the ability for Cloud to counterattack if you ‘Guard’ in Punisher stance (only found that out by accident during the final boss fight XD)
You can also do triangle to switch to Punisher at the moment you are hit, it will do a counterattack without guarding
Is it as diffucult as it sounds?
No it really isn’t…since you have this guide to help ;)
In all seriousness, it isn’t that hard. I’d say it’s around 60-70% about having the right setup and the other 30-40% is implementing that setup into a strategy. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly skilled at action/fighting but only the last bosses of Chapters 17 and 18 took me more than 2 tries.
You say use Twin Stinger cause the stats off set the lack of 20% cure reduction, but the Twin Stinger has the cure reduction on it. Did you mean to recommend using a different weapon?
Sorry Mitch, that’s a mistake on my part. Twin Stinger is definitely the best weapon for Cloud.
Thanks for spotting!
What I meant to say was ‘the lack of overall stats compared to other weapons is offset by having BOTH Reprieve and Cure Reduction 20%”!
Why do you use the weapons you do? It sometimes feels like it’s better to use other weapons for some of them, like Aerith.
Personal preference really. I used whichever ones had Reprieve or 20% Cure as they were more important. I definitely swapped to Reinforced Staff though so I’ll edit that. Thanks!
Can’t you use the rest areas in Hard Mode?
Yes but they only restore HP (not MP).
there is only 2 magic ups in the game. You are showing Tifa and Aerith using a total of 3.
You might want to adjust party setups because they do swap a bit during the game. So certain materia will not be available at certain points due to Tifa/Aerith being together at one point.
Yes sorry that’s a mistake on my part. The Materia swapping system is a big annoyance in this game and I must have gotten mixed up.
There should be something like a copy/paste Materia setup or “Swap All” so that when characters leave and rejon it’s super easy to switch. Chapter 17 in particular is a HUGE pain. I’ll fix this, thank you.
Press R1 when you are in the Materia allocation menu to bring up the materia slots for *every* party member. Then just use Triangle to swap each materia slot with the member you want to swap materia with. Takes ~10 seconds to swap 2 people’s materias to eachother with no hassle.
Where do you find the third Power Up materia at? I’ve only found two.
I’m curious how exactly your recommended loadout changes when you have Cloud, Barret and Tifa in the party, such as the beginning and end of the game, as there are only two Elemental materia (I think?) in the game.
In those situations use the Elemental Materia on your 2 main chars.
Same with other Materia you don’t have enough of – put it on your main chars to balance it out. Fill your two main chars with the recommended loadout and give the third char whatever you have left.
For a boss where you use ranged attacks with Aerith a lot, I would put Elemental on Cloud and Aerith.
For a boss where you use melee attacks more often, I would put Elemental on Cloud and Tifa.
Basically whoever is the most useful for an upcoming fight should get the best loadout you can put together.
You have Tifa/Barret under the same setup. So what are your load outs when Aerith isn’t available and you’re using Cloud, Tifa and Barret? Do you replace one of Tifa and Barret with Aerith’s loadout?
Yes, just give Aerith’s loadout to Barret or Tifa in this case. The reason being that you’ll want a dedicated healer in a group of 3.
Yes, or I just have the exact same on both Barret and Tifa, except I give Barret First Strike (Maximum Fury is great) and Cloud takes Magnify-Healing.
I have a couple of small tips that might help. Before starting Hard, try to get your HP Up, Magic Up and MP Up materia to at least level 3. After level 3 the AP requirement jumps up to 3500 which is a lot. You could max them all out by replaying the combat simulator or colosseum on Classic but that would take many boring hours of grinding. You should also have 3 Healing materia maxed so you can have 1 on each character. Elemental materia should be at least level 2.
If you go to the colosseum on Chapter 14 instead of Chapter 9 you can do the 3-man challenge. This finishes controlled in under 2mins and automatically in 2.5 to 4mins. Considering you are well equipped you can level around 30 materia at the same time. So this makes it really fast and easy.
Also with chapter select you get even more AP. For the very hard materias you can use the AP UP if you want to push specific materia. Besides that, the easy materias are leveled out so fast. It does not take that long. If you are willing to control the Chapter 16/17 combat simulators give even more AP. But I would suggest doing Chapter 14 col and watch some series nearby.
Me personally I ran the garage section of chapter 16 over and over again. Fire Materia x Magnify will one shot everything except the dogs which will be staggered instead. Takes about 5 minutes each time.
same i ran the garage scene of chapter 16 repeatedly on normal up to the lobby entrance…super quick super fast for AP grinding…. and yes magnify- fire takes out mobs easily
So for hard mode, considering we follow your completionist route, that means the hard playthrough makes no sidequests on 3/8/9 which are huge income sources for extended manuscripts (and also exntended weapon lvls or is 6 the max?), arent they?
So after the 2/3 bridal completion in Chapter 9, wouldnt it be beneficial to do the 3/3 completion right after to get all the manuscripts in 3 and half the others at least before venturing on? I feel like from Chapter 10 onwards there will be a harsh raise in difficulty wont it?
You get enough Manuscripts automatically from bosses, no need to play side quests on hard. I got all the useful skills I want and weapon level 6 on all characters without doing quests on hard. Whether you have those extra manuscripts or not makes no difference imo. More straightforward and time-saving to just speedrun hard and ignoring the side stuff.
Something that just popped up in my mind. Do you need to do all the sidequests in the same difficulty line? My idea given to get back to Chapter 3 after finishing 2/3 bridal dresses to get more manuscripts implies doing it on hard but I guess the people do not want to do Hell House a second time on hard mode. So could you do Chapter 3 all sidequests on hard, Chapter 8 half the sidequests on hard and then Chapter 9 on easy to get bridal 3/3 and quite some manuscripts at the same time or does it have to be all on the same difficulty?
Sorry for double-posting.
Not sure why you’re doing this such a complicated way. After my first playthrough I had only needed 1-2 manuscripts per character tops, which were obtained through boss fights along the way. Maybe you didn’t buy the ones from the Moogle shop on playthrough 1, but even if you skip those you should be able to get all just from bosses.
Any tips for the house boss on chapter 9? I keep getting destroyed but didn’t have much trouble up to this point. Those damn Tonberrys… I triple slash them right away but sometimes one lives and chef’s knife’s me…. but overall too much insta-killing. I have auto-life earings on, using magnify + curaga, and relying on aerith’s ray of judgment even though it doesn’t seem to do much here…. no real way to stagger this boss with cloud and aerith that I can see
We have a boss guide on the site with tips for every boss 🙂
Thanks for the tip Darth. Biogo was the key, was able to get it off 3x in the fight and it made a world of difference. No use controlling Cloud either as the boss guide pointed out, that was my key mistake. Using your strategy I didn’t even faint once.
Anyone able to give any tips for the last battle simulator match (7 starred one)?
There’s a guide for that here
I’ve been using these guides on and off over the past year and I gotta say, thank you and the other guide creators for going out of your way to compile all this information. If it weren’t for you all I don’t think I’d have gotten my RE2 platinum lmao.
You’re welcome. Thanks for using PowerPyx as your go-to for guides! We love making them as much as you all enjoy using them 🙂
@Darth_Krid thanks 🙂
Tifa is the only character without a weapon with both Reprieve and 20%MP Cure Reduction? So Sonic Strikers over Purple Pain because MP Reduction>Reprieve?
I’m gonna go with personal preference on this one, but the Sonic Strikers already have 6 Materia slots (3 connected) by the time you unlock the final sub-core compared to Purple Pain which requires 32 SP to connect the last 2 slots. If that does bother you then Reprieve and the Limit Break Damage Boost may be more appealing.
Where do I get a 3rd First Strike? I only have 2!
I can’t get past the second colosseum fight in chapter 9. It’s the one where you fight about 20 Corneo lackeys at once. Any tips for that one? They spam a move where Cloud gets stunned for about 20 seconds which I can’t seem to deal with.
Select Classic difficulty, the AI will beat it for you.
I forgot to mention it’s a mandatory fight you have to do during the story. It’s not one of the challenge fights. I managed to beat it anyway.
Can you save in hard mode ?
Yes, you have unlimited manual saves and it still makes autosave. You can also pause during combat and select to retry the battle if you used up too much MP. If you get a Game Over it puts you back before the last fight (no need to replay entire chapter or anything so drastic).
Hi
Can someone tell me how to get 6 hp Up materia ? I only have two 🙁
Buy them from Vending Machines, they are available in the late game, e.g. Chapter 18 Vending Machine. You can buy as many as you want (same for MP Up and Revival Materia).
You can get unlimited MP in hard mode if you’re willing to do the save/load combo. Just find a crate that has a mako shard in it then save/load then the crate and shard will be there as many times as you need to buff you back up. It’s a pain because the loading screens suck but if you got far into a chapter and don’t want to re-do it later it can come in handy.
I wonder, how good is the parry materia ?
Can somebody answer my question?
Ive done 16 chapters on hard im on 17th i defeated the marlboro boss
But i dont have the prototype boss cus ive forgto some coliseum fights
Can i go back to the coliseum fights without losing progress on my hard playthough? cus i dont wanna do a hard playthough again or should i continue my hard playthough for the trophy and come back to it later?
As long as you completed a chapter your progressed is saved. If you are in the middle of the chapter you will lose your progress.
So finish a chapter before switching to easy and you are golden.
According to your guide you recommend 3x Elemental material, 1 each for Cloud, Barrett and Tifa for hard difficulty playthrough but guide only mentions where to find 2?
There’s only 2 Elemental Materia.
You put it on either Tifa OR Barret (so only on one of them, not both of them… depending on which of the two is in your party).
one point to mention here: you do regenerate MP in battle in hard mode; you can easily see this in Chapter 4 against Roche. Just run around the arena avoiding him and you will see your MP slowly tick up. Of course, this depends on the natural MP regeneration rate + the boost provided by your weapon.
while this is not an optimal strategy to regain MP, it is viable in situations where you can reliably kite for awhile with minimal chances for damage. just wanted to let people know about this.
Can someone tell me if Aerith’s magical range attacks are considered magic or attack? Also, Aerith first staff (Guard staff) has both the sought after cure reduction and reprieve. You failed to mention that in your guide so just wanted you to know. Thanks for reading.
Why go for weapons with less atk instead of stronger ones? Just want to know since I’m going for hard mode.
For hard it’s good to pick a weapon that has the upgrades “Reprieve” (makes you survive a deathblow with 1HP) and “Healing Spells MP Cost Reduction 20%” (you have more heals because they cost less).
These abilities outweigh the small difference in attack values.
Which summons should you equip for the characters ? I‘m kinda missing it in the great Loadout description !
Thx
Since you say that “For hard it’s good to pick a weapon that has the upgrades “Reprieve” (makes you survive a deathblow with 1HP) and “Healing Spells MP Cost Reduction 20%” (you have more heals because they cost less).” wouldn’t Aerith’s best weapon be the Silver Staff instead of the Reinforced Staff?
Reinforced Staff has higher MP / attack / magic stats (which also means more healing in a single use). This offsets the lack of “Healing Spells MP Cost Reduction 20%”. Both of them have Reprieve. But really, either staff is fine with Aerith, it’s more personal preference. I used the Reinforced Staff. You can also go for Silver Staff if you prefer.
Reinforced Staff = Better Stats (more healing per use / more damage per use / more MP total)
Silver Staff = -20% MP cost on healing spells and better MP recovery (can heal more often but slightly weaker effect per use)
Maxed Silver Staff is 120 MATT and Reinforced is 131 MATT. Just reading the enhancements over, Reinforced Staff looks like a defensive weapon more then anything while Silver Staff looks like an above average damage staff with the highest MP regen in game;
-20% MP Cost for heal and attack spells
50% MP recovery
Trade Off-gain mp from taking severe damage
And a 5% damage boost to all 4 elemental spells.
20% Damage boost when at full MP.
The 11 MATT doesn’t seem to be worth it over stuff like that. Whatever helps you beat the game though. All my characters are on pretty YOLO high damage builds tbh except Barret.