How hard is hard?

[KIERONOO]

I’m always put off by difficulty trophies in games but this plat is uncommon. Is hard not that bad compared to other games or are people just too good at final fantasy games?

[AiManiaTrophyhuntres]

you have to beat "normal" or "easy" first to unlock it. Play it on normal! if you can beat normal, you will find "hard" way easier than normal, bc you will have better equipp and materia. hard ist NOT the hardest trophy in the game. by far. normal sucks way more ^^"

[Snake2410]

4 hours ago, KIERONOO said:

I’m always put off by difficulty trophies in games but this plat is uncommon. Is hard not that bad compared to other games or are people just too good at final fantasy games?

It all is dependant on how much work you put into the game after your first playthrough.  You can make it really easy by grinding out the most useful materia, maxing your level, and getting the item from the 7* hard mode simulation fight.  If you jump right into hard mode from your first playthrough completion save I'll be quite challenging.

 

I recommend at least grinding out at lease what you'll need for materia and hitting level 50 to max your level before tackling hard.  It'll make it much easier, and if you want to make it a joke go to chapter 17 after finishing and beat the 7* sim that opens up there.  The item makes the vast majority of hard a joke.

[Astray404]

With everyone 9999 HP + Lv.5 Chakra + Lv.5 Pray + Revive, the only difficult part is the Bahamut fight in Shinra Combat Simulator

[AiManiaTrophyhuntres]

4 minutes ago, Astray404 said:

With everyone 9999 HP + Lv.5 Chakra + Lv.5 Pray + Revive, the only difficult part is the Bahamut fight in Shinra Combat Simulator

you don't even need half of that.. the slightest amount skill will make up for HP and Max revive or Max pray so nothing to worry about here either.

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by AiManiaTrophyhunting

[OTPYG]

It’s really not that bad. I started it immediately after my Normal playthrough and breezed through most of the game. Only struggled a little with a few bosses from chapter 14 onwards because I didn’t prepare for their fights correctly, the only one that took several attempts was the 7 star simulation fight, otherwise it was fine and a lot of fun to play through again with decent materia and weapons!

[Astray404]

4 minutes ago, AiManiaTrophyhunting said:

you don't even need half of that.. the slightest amount skill will make up for HP and Max revive or Max pray so nothing to worry about here either.

 

Yes, I've seen someone finished the Hard mode with around 5k - 6k HP, but mine is kinda defensive. Anyway it cannot be wrong to max all stats if you are not confident about the battle.

[FiendEliminator]

Hard mode is actually quite easy if you have good tatics for it, I personally did a "Cloud Block Cheese" With the item from the hardest arena fight while everyone else did damage, it fills the Limit really quick for massive damage from cloud!

[Guest]

Like others have said, it's not really that bad. A few boss battles and a few hordes of enemies will be your biggest challenge. They're not much more difficult than on normal mode, they just hit harder and have more hp. Try to do the Ultimate Weapon as soon as possible because you get an incredibly OP item.

[RoastedPeanut]

If you take the time to properly learn the combat system on normal, rather than doing an easy run button mash, you shouldn't really have too many problems with hard. Somethings hit harder and boss attack patterns change, but it's really not something that you should feel put off by. Even not being able to use items on your hard playthrough isn't a pain in the ass with proper Mp management 

[Geridian]

The "hard mode" of this game is nothing to be afraid of in any way.
The biggest difficulties are usually caused by yourself:

1. The Hard Mode is definitely meant to be played with 50s characters and materia at maximum level ==> Why else would a programmer team advertise so massively that you get a big bonus for EXP and AP by unlocking the "Chapter Select"?
2. 2 HP and MP Materia on all characters is definitely a waste of slots. Barret for example already has a very high pool without a HP materia and also I only used 1 HP Materia for each character. Aerith herself is best equipped with everything that increases her magic damage and chance of critical hits (= luck materia) and I gave her only 1 HP materia, but 2 MP materia. With Cloud and Tifa for example I hardly ever used spells (except maybe one time Resurrect or Vita) so I didn't give them MP materia.
3. Running around the whole "hard mode" with "Vita and Amplify" is also a waste of the possibilities of the Amplify materia. A fast cast haste or barrier spell on the whole team is more helpful and using Prayer does not cost any MP. Okay, Prayer costs 2 ATB bars but haste and Steadfast Block (see below) makes ATB no problem. And in some places where you are on the road with one or two characters and are confronted with 2-3 enemies, "Amplify and Lightning" will make short work of those same enemies.
4. Three quarters of the trash mobs can be killed in a few seconds even in "Hard Mode" with 2x Tripple Slash (Cloud), 2x Starfall (Tifa) or "Amplify and Spell Materia like Lightning or Fire".
5. When equipping weapons, pay attention to how the stats change! For example, many sites proclaim that the best weapon for Cloud is the one that increases his offensive value the most. However, you'll soon notice that all other stats (including HP) are lowered (compared to the bonuses of other weapons). Therefore my tip at this point is that you should firstly consider the number of available materia slots when equipping weapons (especially at the beginning of the "Hard Mode"!) and then make sure that all stats do not suffer too much by equipping a weapon. "Reprieve" is all well and good, but weapons with this bonus are usually not really great. If you don't want to go out the door without this weapon skill and 9999 HP you should rather work on your skill first (which makes everything easier in the long run!).
6. To equip every character with "Steadfast Block" definitely makes sense since the CPU characters block very often. For example, since I had equipped Barret with a Prayer Materia I could activate it almost always because of "Steadfast Block". The same rule applies to this materia and to barrier: Negating damage is always better than eating damage! But I don't know if there is a real damage reduction on the counterattack of Cloud with this materia or not.
7. "Götterdämmerung" and instant limit attacks are cool, but an instant "Vision" Limit for 1 character with 3 ATB bars also has its advantages in the long run during a longer fight. Speaking of "Götterdämmerung": Three quarters of the Hard Mode can be done without this accessory. I only really needed it when fighting Rufus.
8. The combat system is definitely designed to micromanage between longer animations of characters and enemies or during certain actions of the enemies! For example with the "Arsenal": If you see that he has decided to roll over the other character that you are not actively playing, you just have to switch to that character and quickly get him into a safe position.
9. Aerith's field for "double spells" is not to be despised either, because every elementary attack spell (no matter which level and whether reinforced or not) is cast twice for a one-time cost.

 

[MarcusPunisher]

I say out of all things, be ready to manage your teammates, cause their A.I. is so brain dead on hard for some reason, they were actually the reasons why I had some difficulties with certain bosses. 

[arcanehornet_]

It’s, well, hard..

[BigPete7978]

On 6/2/2020 at 4:11 PM, AiManiaTrophyhunting said:

you have to beat "normal" or "easy" first to unlock it. Play it on normal! if you can beat normal, you will find "hard" way easier than normal, bc you will have better equipp and materia. hard ist NOT the hardest trophy in the game. by far. normal sucks way more ^^"

I literally was on the last boss and had no joke 1 HP and a LIMIT Break. It was a toss up between healing and using my LIMIT Break. I chose the LIMIT Break and barely ended up beating the boss. Needless to say Normal had some moments that were definitely difficult to me, and it has kept me from starting a Hard playthrough. Your comment has me wondering if I should start working may way back through the game. 

[Dry_Plumbus]

Took me close to 100 hours to get the plat on this, and all of the trophy guides at the time had little to zero quality hardmode advice in them.

 

But even after figuring the optimal setups the hard way, it was still far from a walk in the park.

 

The high complete percentage is prob cause of people like me that put on zombie nostalgia blinders on my way through the second playthrough even though I kept slamming my head against some pretty over tuned bosses and questioned many times if I was having any fun with it (on hard mode that is, I loved my first play through).

 

I would say it was pretty damn hard.

[BigPete7978]

19 minutes ago, Jables_The_Hutt said:

Took me close to 100 hours to get the plat on this, and all of the trophy guides at the time had little to zero quality hardmode advice in them.

 

But even after figuring the optimal setups the hard way, it was still far from a walk in the park.

 

The high complete percentage is prob cause of people like me that put on zombie nostalgia blinders on my way through the second playthrough even though I kept slamming my head against some pretty over tuned bosses and questioned many times if I was having any fun with it (on hard mode that is, I loved my first play through).

 

I would say it was pretty damn hard.

See I am not trying to playthrough again if I am not having fun. This is my main issue with difficulty trophies/achievements, they typically are not fun at all. 

[Dry_Plumbus]

There are many types of players out there, and i'm the definitely the type that primarily plays games to have fun, and trophies are a bonus on top of it. I pushed myself beyond my limits of what I considered to be enjoyable gameplay with hard mode FF7R. But at that time admittedly I was facing peak levels of covid19 stress and getting laid off so I kind of needed to just immerse into a game and use that distraction from real life. Plus FF7 is one of my favorite games of all time.

 

But yeah, I did not enjoy that hard mode playthrough, it was very unbalanced and frustrating. I wouldn't push anyone to go for it if they are on the fence about it.

 

Nostalgia factor notwithstanding.

[AiManiaTrophyhuntres]

14 hours ago, BigPete7978 said:

See I am not trying to playthrough again if I am not having fun. This is my main issue with difficulty trophies/achievements, they typically are not fun at all. 

well I had more fun on hard than on normal having all the materia, and having to think about strategies. Tha thing is, hard is easier bc you literally have ALL the options available that are missing on normal, all equipp and everything. you just have to learn how to use it to be more efficient than you could have ever been on normal. go find all limits first, level up to 50, max some materia and then go and get that bracelet, whats the name? the best one from that secret boss, its a gamebreaker, but I did 10 of the levels without it, understanding how your options play well together is important. you will be surprised, really!

[Lance_87]

FF7R is the only JRPG with multiple difficulty levels i've ever played. That said, Normal mode offered a decent level of challenge compared to Easy/Classic. Hard is the same but can be more/less frustrating depending on the situation.

 

15 hours ago, BigPete7978 said:

I literally was on the last boss and had no joke 1 HP and a LIMIT Break. It was a toss up between healing and using my LIMIT Break. I chose the LIMIT Break and barely ended up beating the boss.

 

Hahah, that happened to me on my Normal/Hard playthroughs, but with Airbuster and Abzu (the first fight). I've even done most of the Valkyrie boss fight with only two characters on Hard mode on my first attempt.

[Yechan]

I just finished this on hard and got the platinum. The most difficult part for me was the Bahamut fight in the Shinra Combat Simulator. Since some of the recommended setup for the Bahamut fight didn't work for me, I experimented on my own which materia/weapon/equipment worked best for my playstyle throughout the Shinra Combat Simulator battles. Always kill the tonberry first.

[AndresLionheart]

21 hours ago, Jables_The_Hutt said:

Took me close to 100 hours to get the plat on this, and all of the trophy guides at the time had little to zero quality hardmode advice in them.

 

But even after figuring the optimal setups the hard way, it was still far from a walk in the park.

 

The high complete percentage is prob cause of people like me that put on zombie nostalgia blinders on my way through the second playthrough even though I kept slamming my head against some pretty over tuned bosses and questioned many times if I was having any fun with it (on hard mode that is, I loved my first play through).

 

I would say it was pretty damn hard.

I didn't find the bosses overtuned at all, tbh. I barely had any ocassions where anyone's HP dropped to red. The only death was from Cloud one single time against Eligor because I didn't know the gimmick was gonna be that we get Reflect casted on us so that we can't heal with spells. If I knew I would have brought Chakra and Pray.

I was actually surprised at how fast the bosses were dropping. If I had to guess I'd say I was killing them about 3 times faster. I was mostly using my generic setup and just changing around what element I had tied to the Elemental materias.

I played the game one month later so I had been reading comments like yours in this forum before playing on Hard. I almost didn't do it but I tried out a few chapters to at least see what people were talking about.

 

What in my opinion made it fairly easy was Steadfast Block Materia.

 

20 hours ago, BigPete7978 said:

See I am not trying to playthrough again if I am not having fun. This is my main issue with difficulty trophies/achievements, they typically are not fun at all. 

I would have stopped if it wasn't for the fact that was much easier than anticipated. It wasn't that much fun without a story to experience along the way, but it was easy enough to be worth finishing the platinum. I also don't like having to replay games on higher difficulties, it feels like such a waste of time.

[Zippyhammer]

It's Hard. Not Hard hard, just hard.

 

Jokes aside, all you need is to be resourceful with your magic, if it's not needed, save it, and use Pray for healing instead.

Also set a Materia (I forgot the name) that heals everyone with only one use of magic

[Akrioz]

I would say that Hard is not Hard at all for the majority of your playthrought. These threads had me worried and I genuinly wanted to skip on the game because of "retarded Hard dificulty".

I only died thrice on my entire Hard playthrough. Once in final fight(forgot what the boss can do) and twice in a different places because I wasn't paying any attention and tried to bruteforce everything. 

[FearElemental]

After getting the plat today, I can say that hard isn't very hard. I played through most of it without the Limit Break accessory and had very little difficulty. 

 

Unfortunately, getting the limit break accessory from the final simulation battle is harder than the hard mode playthrough, simply because one of the enemies can deal 9999 damage. Seeing as you need to defeat it for the plat as well, you may as well start here. Reprieve and revival earrings help tremendously for it.

[AndresLionheart]

On 20/6/2020 at 3:50 PM, FearElemental said:

Unfortunately, getting the limit break accessory from the final simulation battle is harder than the hard mode playthrough, simply because one of the enemies can deal 9999 damage. Seeing as you need to defeat it for the plat as well, you may as well start here. Reprieve and revival earrings help tremendously for it.

No, no need for Reprieve or Revival Earrings. All you need is one character with Barrier materia.

When Bahamut counts down to 1 cast Manaward on everyone and the damage drops to 5000. Cast a magnified Curaga right after and everything is fine again.

I had 2 characters with Barrier just to be safe and get to cast all the Manawards in time. There was no need since there is plenty of time. You could also start casting them at 2 since a single target spell lasts pretty long.