These come from Chadley, one of the first quest givers you’ll come across, who is a Shinra researcher who wants to help Cloud in his fight against the corporation. He offers you Battle Intel Report missions to complete - and this page explains strategies for all 20 and the associated Battle Intel Report rewards. On this page: This will start a series of Battle Intel challenges, an ambient quest line that follows you throughout the game. Each quest rewards you with useful Materia and items that will enhance your combat abilities, so it’s worth taking note of Chadley’s challenges. Head to the Battle Intel tab in the pause menu to check out the challenges. Each requires different criteria and can be completed at any point in the game, so make sure to check them every so often to keep up with your progress. If you’re after all the Summons in the game, then going through the entire list is essential. With that explained, here’s how to unlock and complete Chadley’s Battle Intel missions and unlock every reward… Complete the mission ‘Chadley’s Report’ in Chapter 3 which you will unlock as part of the story when Cloud starts out in the Neighbourhood Watch. Use the Assess Materia that Chadley gives you to assess two enemies in battle. You can do this by equipping the Materia in the Materia and Equipment section of the pause menu and casting the spell. To complete this report you have to hit enemies that are vulnerable to fire, ice and lightning attacks with spells respective of their weakness. The best way to go about this is to assess an enemy first so you can observe what it is weak to. Once done you can use this to your advantage, and attune the necessary spells to stagger it. If you start a battle and don’t have the right Materia equipped, press pause and give up, then come back with the proper equipment. You shouldn’t have any trouble unlocking this naturally, as it asks you to use different abilities like Braver, Triple-Slash and more on enemies that are staggered to complete the task. To stagger an enemy, use Tifa’s basic attacks to raise the orange bar until the enemy buckles under pressure, leaving it open to damaging abilities. Make sure you’re not just using the same abilities here! This one should unlock through natural progression, but just in case, use Tifa as much as possible to stagger enemies. She is the best character for inflicting stagger, so switch to her in battle and use her basic attacks and the ‘Unbridled Strength’ ability to buff her capabilities and force enemies to buckle under the pressure. Embark on side quests to find alternate enemy types than the ones you’ll encounter during the story. This is your first real test which you can activate by speaking to Chadley and selecting the VR Missions menu. This will pit you against the ice queen Shiva. Shiva is weak to Fire, so use that to your advantage when you’re fighting her. Equip Fire Materia on Cloud and if you’ve unlocked it, pair Elemental Materia with Fire Materia to deal extra damage per every sword hit. You can stagger her easily by pelting her with fire spells - then quickly follow up with Cloud’s abilities like Braver and Triple-Slash to make short work of her health bar. As mentioned previously, you should make a habit of using the Assess Materia at the start of battle on any new enemy you come across to quickly complete this report. If you’re struggling, complete side quests and inspect every corner of the map when it opens up in Chapter 3,9 and 14 to find enemies off the beaten path that you may not encounter in the story. You should get this by progressing naturally through the campaign, though! Once you’ve fostered the habit of using Assess on every enemy you come across, also make sure that when you notice their weakness, you swap to the corresponding Materia or even restart the battle so you can use their achilles heel against them. Keep assessing enemy units and using the appropriate spells that exploit their weaknesses, and you should unlock this fairly quickly. If not, keep pushing through the campaign and completing side quests. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting this naturally, but consider using area of effect spells or Cloud’s Braver on a group of small enemies to complete it quickly. Other options include Limit Break’s like Barrett’s Catastrophe attack, which causes a gigantic explosion. The Magnify Materia will also let you hit multiple enemies with the same attack, so equip and use the corresponding spell if you’re struggling. This one is something of an open goal, and you should unlock it as soon as you receive the report if you’re far enough into the campaign. If not, explore the corners of each map when the world starts to open up and make sure you’re taking down every single enemy type you can find. Another combat simulation which you can access by speaking to Chadley and selecting ‘VR Missions’ - this time with Aerith in tow. The Fat Chocobo is mostly immobile, so make sure to pelt it from afar with strong elemental spells, in absence of a specific weakness. Poison Materia is super powerful here, especially if you use it early in the battle. As soon as the Fat Chocobo starts to spawn extra characters from the depths of Final Fantasy lore, wipe them out first and then focus back on the Fat Chocobo. Use lots of strong spells to stagger it then go to town! Keep up your Assess habit - make it muscle memory to use this spell at the start of every battle. Eventually, as you complete side quests, combat simulations and more optional challenges you should finish this report in the later stages of the game. Ok, this one is pretty tricky. The game doesn’t do a great job of explaining this mechanic to you, so let me explain. When you stagger an enemy by increasing the orange bar, you will see a 160% tag at the moment when it breaks. To complete this challenge, you have to increase that percentage to 200%, but the game doesn’t explain how to do that. The best way to do this is to play on Normal and fight a boss or a large creature that has a long stagger time when you break the orange bar. You can play this by ear and then replay a battle to finish this report. When you find one, you should then switch to Tifa and use Unbridled Strength by draining your ATB bar. This will unlock her super stagger abilities (bound to the Triangle button). When the enemy is staggered, hammer the triangle button to cycle through the three stagger attacks and you should quickly increase the meter to 200%. Sometimes you might kill the enemy before you can hit the percentage, but just keep trying and you’ll eventually manage it. If you’re struggling, remote control the other characters and ensure they’re not attacking. This one is easy to unlock, but the part where most people get stuck is in equipping the Materia. It’ll be in your inventory anyway, so equip the Refocus Materia on your character of choice and achieve Limit in battle by weathering a long fight. Combat simulations and Corneo Coliseum challenges are good for this. Once you manage to hit your Limit, use the Refocus Limit Break. Complete the battle, boot it up again and follow the steps to achieve Limit a second time. Use Refocus again and you’re done. Simple as that! As this challenge starts to get more demanding, the best tip is to make sure that you’re not killing new enemies before you stagger them. Make a habit of using Tifa’s basic attacks to stagger enemies instead of killing them prior to that point, as her punches do a small amount of damage but raise the stagger bar significantly. If this approach isn’t working, use Assess to find their weakness and exploit that with the appropriate spells to stagger most enemies instantly. Leviathan deals incredible damage and is fluent in water attacks, so make sure you’ve got resistance or an MP Absorption Materia to ward off its elemental damage. Unfortunately, the Leviathan doesn’t have any specific weaknesses, so your best bet is to equip your most powerful materia and put your best foot forward, mapping all your strongest abilities on Cloud and Tifa and attuning support spells to Barrett and Aerith who can provide support from afar with curative magic and ranged attacks. Use the open world sections to your advantage in chapters 3, 9 and 14 and keep exploring, making sure to use Assess at the start of every battle. If it’s a struggle, simply give up and respec if you find yourself in battle and you don’t have Assess equipped on anyone in your party. Again, this should unlock fairly easily if you make it into a habit. This is fairly tricky to complete, but keep on the lookout for every alternative weapon in the game, and when you find them, equip them immediately and use the attached ability until you become proficient in it. You can find your weapon ability in the Materia and Equipment screen in the pause menu. In the top right you’ll see it in action, and the bar beneath will tell you your proficiency level. Change your battle style and focus on using that ability until you get a notification telling you that you’re proficient in it. Once you manage that, you can then use that ability at any time, with any weapon. This significantly expands your pool of abilities if you acquire all 16 weapon proficiencies, so it’s well worth doing as you progress through the game. The easiest way to complete this challenge is to find the Pedometer Materia at the start of Chapter 14 when you walk out of Aerith’s house after a grilling from Elmyra. If you check it out in the menu you’ll notice that the criteria for this special Materia asks you to take 5000 steps. If you run around completing side quests and increasing the ticker, you’ll eventually transform the Pedometer Materia into an AP Up Materia. The AP Up Materia doubles the amount of AP you’ll earn in battle, which means you can upgrade your Materia quickly by pairing whichever one isn’t fully maxed out with the AP Up Materia. Upgrade each Materia as you go on, replacing them when they’re fully completed to master all 12 types of Magic Materia, which are the green orbs that denote natural elements. The most difficult one to fill is the Revival Materia, so start grinding out that one early. Looking for more help with Final Fantasy VII Remake? Learn how to get the Best Materia, which can be levelled with easy AP sources. There’s also Summons to unlock, most of which you get from completing Intel Battle Reports. Once you’ve finished the game, it’s worth unlocking the remaining Final Fantasy 7 Dresses by choosing the correct options during the Johnny, Heads or Tails and Madam M massage course choices, and finding any weapon locations or Music Discs you left behind. And if you’ve just started, then learn what to do during the timer choice and the Lost Friends quest. Keep playing through Final Fantasy 7 Remake and completing all of the optional quests and combat arena challenges to eventually catch and defeat every enemy variant. You should unlock this through normal gameplay, but just in case, make sure you check every corner of the open-world maps and answer the call of every side quest to ensure you’re seeing every enemy the game has to offer. The dreaded Bahamut is your final combat simulation and provides a robust challenge to the player, even if their party is high-levelled with fleshed out Materia and Weapons. As you might expect, it doesn’t have any specific weaknesses, and uses a myriad of attacks in battle to unravel your party’s tactics. It’s a tough fight, and if you have any Revival Earrings, you may want to equip them so you can survive its killing blows. Bahamut is really tricky, but just watch for the ability where it issues a countdown, called Megaflare. When it ends it will deal a killing blow to your entire team. You want to beat Bahamut before it can use Megaflare multiple times, so focus on staggering it early with Focused Thrust and Omnistrikes. Put your best materia and equipment forward and be careful with blocking and healing. Regardless, you can always turn down the difficulty if it’s too much to handle
