Guide: Final Fantasy 7 Remake Hard Mode Guide: Help, Tips, and Essential Advice for Beating Hard Mode

Want to know how to succeed in Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s hard mode? This guide provides key tips for tackling the game’s challenging difficulty level, often referred to as ‘hard mode’. (You can also find information on unlocking hard mode itself.)

Okay, so I’m totally loving Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but man, it can be really challenging! And if you think the normal game is tough, try hard mode – it seriously ramps things up. Some of the boss fights become unbelievably difficult, and you really need to have a well-planned party and strategy, or you’ll get stuck constantly. I’ve definitely hit a few walls myself!

Here are some important things every player should think about before starting hard mode.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Hard Mode Help – Tips, Tricks, and Advice for Beating Hard Mode

Make the most of character switching

If you’re familiar with Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s normal mode, you understand how crucial it is to switch between characters. This becomes even more important on hard mode, where frequent character switching is key to staying alive and dealing maximum damage.

In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, enemies usually focus their attacks on whichever character you’re currently playing as. While it’s not always the case, they generally prioritize the player-controlled character. This is a subtle way the game encourages you to switch between characters to spread out enemy attention. If multiple enemies focus on a single party member – particularly in harder difficulties – that character can be defeated very quickly.

For a tougher challenge, we suggest getting into a flow during battles. Fill up your ATB gauge with one character, use a command, and then immediately switch to another character. Repeat this process to prevent enemies from focusing their attacks on just one person in your group.

Changing which character you’re controlling is a smart way to deal a lot of damage. If your enemy is busy attacking someone else, you can take the chance to use strong magic or a powerful skill without worrying about being attacked yourself.

When playing on hard mode, quickly switch between characters after giving them only a couple of commands – especially if you’re controlling more than one party member. Getting used to swapping between Cloud and your teammates will significantly improve your chances of winning.

One healer isn’t enough

Many RPGs let one character handle all the healing, but that strategy doesn’t work well in Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s hard mode. Since you can’t restore magic points (MP) outside of battle – items are banned, and rest areas only heal hit points – taking too much damage can quickly lead to trouble. Keeping everyone healthy drains your MP fast, and running out of MP on hard mode is a recipe for defeat.

Relying on just Cloud or Aerith for healing isn’t effective because they’ll quickly run out of magic points. It’s much better to equip everyone with Healing materia. This way, you can switch to any character and have a healing spell ready, which can be a lifesaver in difficult fights and help you turn the tide when things look bad.

Even so, it’s most effective to have dedicated characters focus on healing, and that’s where the Magnify materia helps. When combined with Healing materia, Magnify lets you restore health to the entire party at once, which is really important in harder difficulties. It’s best to equip your strongest healer with Magnify, and let other characters use individual healing spells.

And speaking of healing…

Heal sooner rather than later

It sounds simple, but it’s easy to overlook: when your health gets low and the screen turns red, it’s especially dangerous on harder difficulties. One hit could knock you out, and you might not have time to heal before it happens.

Heal your teammates before their health gets dangerously low. In harder difficulties, enemies – especially bosses – hit much harder. If someone has already lost more than about 30% of their health, use healing spells or abilities to quickly restore it.

Some bosses hit so hard they can instantly defeat your entire team if anyone is low on health. Because of this, it’s crucial to heal whenever your characters have enough energy to do so.

Chakra and Pray materia can be lifesavers

While Chakra and Pray materia might feel unnecessary for healing on easier difficulties, they become incredibly useful in hard mode. This is because managing your magic points (MP) is much more important when the game is more challenging, and these materia help with that.

In hard mode, keeping your mana points (MP) high is essential. That’s where abilities like Chakra and Pray come in handy for healing your team. Chakra restores health to the user based on damage received, and Pray heals everyone in the party. The best part? Neither ability costs any MP to use!

Using both Chakra and Pray can help you conserve magic points, but they both have limitations. Neither ability works outside of combat, and Chakra is most effective when your health is already low – a dangerous situation, especially in harder difficulties. Plus, Pray consumes two ATB bars, which can be difficult to fill during challenging battles.

Essentially, use these skills carefully. They likely won’t take the place of your regular healing, but they can be incredibly helpful when your group is heavily damaged.

Never stop exploiting weaknesses

In Hard mode, taking advantage of enemy weaknesses is essential. While you can often succeed in Normal mode without focusing too much on things like elemental vulnerabilities, you’ll need to exploit every weakness in Hard mode to win.

Look, as a gamer, I always say: if you find out what your opponent hates, exploit it! Keep the pressure on them constantly – lock them down so they can’t even move. Seriously, a frozen enemy can’t hurt you, and that’s how you win. It’s simple, really.

As we mentioned before, MP is really important when playing on hard mode. Powerful spells like Firaga and Thundaga use up a lot of MP quickly. So, when trying to exploit an enemy’s weakness, it’s often better to use mid-level spells like Fira and Thundara. They usually do enough damage while costing significantly less MP. Sometimes, even basic spells like Fire and Thunder can be effective.

It’s usually better to use your strongest spells to inflict a lot of damage, rather than trying to target specific enemy weaknesses.

Know your pressure moves

If you inflict enough damage on an enemy or hit a vulnerable spot, you can “pressure” them. When an enemy is pressured, they become briefly defenseless, and your attacks will cause extra stagger damage. While simply using your strongest attacks works fine on normal difficulty, you’ll need to really capitalize on these pressure moments when playing on hard mode.

This involves learning and using skills that primarily cause an enemy to stumble or lose balance. Luckily, the game usually tells you which attacks do extra ‘stagger’ damage, so it’s mostly about remembering which skills are most effective. For instance, Cloud’s Focused Thrust and Barret’s Focused Shot are both excellent for quickly building up stagger damage.

The trick is to use your special abilities right after pressuring your enemy, before they can recover. So, it’s smart to hold onto your ATB (ability points) until your opponent is vulnerable. If you build up enough ATB with several characters, you can unleash a series of powerful attacks that stun them all at once.

The main goal when fighting a weakened enemy is to knock them off balance, and doing so is especially important on harder difficulty levels.

HP Up is essential

One of the best things about Final Fantasy 7 Remake is how you can customize your team. However, if you’re playing on hard mode, certain materia are essential, and the most crucial one is definitely HP Up.

It’s really beneficial to equip HP Up to all your characters – it’s too effective to pass up. When fully upgraded, this materia significantly increases everyone’s health, making them much more durable in battle.

It’s not enough to just make your characters stronger; you need to focus on surviving. Some of the toughest bosses can defeat your entire party with a single hit if your health isn’t maximized. That’s why increasing your HP is absolutely crucial. Without it, your characters simply won’t have enough health to withstand the attacks.

Don’t sleep on Steadfast Block

Okay, so as someone who’s spent a lot of time with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, especially on hard mode, I need to talk about Steadfast Block. Seriously, this materia is amazing and doesn’t get enough credit! Basically, blocking is the way to go when things get tough, and Steadfast Block just makes it even better. It doesn’t just reduce damage from attacks – even magical ones! – but it also fills up your ATB gauge faster. It’s a total game-changer, letting you unleash those powerful abilities more often.

As a huge fan, I have to say Steadfast Block is a game-changer! It takes something you already do – blocking – and just makes it so much better. Once you max out the materia, you really feel the difference; you take way less damage and your ATB fills up crazy fast. Seriously, in Hard Mode, having a constant supply of ATB is a lifesaver. Being able to build up a ton of ATB just by holding R1 to block is something you really shouldn’t underestimate – it’s a huge advantage!

Need help choosing the best weapons and materia in Final Fantasy 7 Remake? Our guide to All Weapons: Character Builds and Best Materia has you covered!

Our Final Fantasy 7 Remake guide covers everything from how long it takes to beat the game and how many chapters there are, to details on New Game Plus, Chapter Select, the endgame, and unlocking Hard Mode. We also have dedicated guides for side quest locations, including the Chocobo Search and Corneo’s Secret Stash.

2026-01-21 18:19