Final Fantasy 7 Remake has a lot of moving parts and, as such, carefully dishes out information as and when it’s necessary. But if you’re familiar with the franchise, or RPGs as a whole, there may be specific things you’re looking for from the outset. As a result, you’ll probably be asking a lot of questions long before the game is ready to give you answers. We don’t want you sweating the small stuff instead of enjoying FF7, so here’s a bunch of spoiler-free heads-ups that’ll save you a bit of stress.
Around Midgar you’ll often find destructible boxes, and you should make a point of smashing them. Firstly, because they’re puny and pathetic little wooden constructs that deserve to be crushed under the might of Cloud’s buster sword, but also because they can sometimes recover your MP and drop potions or antidotes. More importantly, they reward you with an item called Moogle Medals.
You start getting Moogle Medals from the outset of the game, and you may find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out what to do with them. The game doesn’t actually tell you what they’re good for straight away, but don’t worry, a few chapters in, you’ll meet a character who will swap Moogle Medals for some special items.
We won’t spoil who this character is because, honestly, it’s an absolute delight, but we will say that you’ll come across the merchant in a side-quest. If you read our review, you’ll know that side-quests are well worth doing for their story and characterization contributions, but if you need more convincing, this is it. So, make sure to do them, kupo!
How You Get More Summons
Whether it’s Guardian Forces, Aeons, or Espers, calling on gods and mythical beings to fight by your side is a key part of the Final Fantasy experience. You could do this in the original FF7 and, of course, you can also do it in the Remake. However, it can be easy to miss the detail on how exactly you acquire these summons, especially since it’s very different from the original and other entries in the franchise.
The first is part of the main story, as a character will gift you the Materia item that houses the beast–there’s no missing it. However, from that point on, things get a bit trickier. The next one you’ll get is in Chapter 6. You’ll spot the red Materia next to a big fan, but it’s maddeningly out of reach. Don’t worry about it, you’ll get there eventually. Continue on with the main mission and you’ll be able to use a lift to approach a ladder to the left hand side of the giant fans and grab it. Just make sure you don’t leave the area without getting it.
The rest of the summons are tied to a character you’ll meet shortly after. His name is Chadley, which, according to Urban Dictionary, is a name given to “a made-up boyfriend, often used to deceive others into thinking that you have a boyfriend so they will stop questioning you or making jokes about you.”
Anyway, this strange mashup of Chad and Bradley presents you with the opportunity to fight for summons’ allegiance. You may find that the first summon he pits you against is tricky, but don’t stress about trying to defeat it then and there; you’ll see Chadley a lot and you can take on the fight when you’re feeling a little more levelled up.
Further summons become available to battle by completing the little Battle Intel challenges that Chadley sets you. There are a total of five summons in the game and we won’t spoil which ones, and although there is a sixth, it’s exclusive to a premium version of the game, which is a bit rubbish if you ask me but whatever.
How Joint Materia Work (For You FF7 Newbies)
Materia gives your characters a wealth of abilities to work with in battle. These range from the ability to cast fire, ice, wind, and lightning spells, manipulate time, create shells to protect allies, and restore their health. There are also a few that will grant you incredibly useful benefits that may not initially be clear. This is because they require a very specific setup before they actually take effect.
The biggest of these is Elemental, which will make it hurt much less when the enemy sets your ass on fire, tries to freeze you to death, or pulls some other magical nonsense to put an end to your adventure. Weapons and armor feature sockets that you place Materia into and there are two variants of sockets: single, isolated ones and joint ones. If you get a piece of armor with a joint slot and put the Elemental materia into one of those slots, the armor will give you resistance for the type of Materia you attach to it in the second slot.
For example, if you have one slot with Elemental and it’s attached to another slot with Fire equipped, any time an enemy tries to set you ablaze, the damage taken from the fire attack will be halved. As the game progresses, enemies become very aggressive and can bust out high-damage spells, so this is essential to know. Alternatively, if you slot it into a joint slot on a weapon, your attacks will be imbued with that element.
The Magnify materia works in the same way, except instead granting you resistance, it casts the attached spell to multiple targets. So, if you have Magnify attached to the healing materia, it will cure multiple characters instead of just one. It also works the same way for offensive spells, but it’s important to note that the primary target receives the bulk of the damage, and those around them get a reduced amount. Again, this is super useful, but you only really learn this information through experimentation.
The Importantance Of Spell Timing
Like the last few mainline entries in the series, FF7 Remake is a far more active and dynamic game when it comes to combat. Unlike the old days, when characters were rooted in position and would be forced to watch in horror as the enemy unleashed ridiculous attacks and killed their friends around them, characters in the Remake can run rings around their enemies if they choose to.
However, that also means that the hit and miss system is a little more dynamic. Although the Remake doesn’t make a big deal about it, opting to let you learn through experience, it’s actually really easy to fire off a spell and completely whiff it. Timing is key in Remake’s combat model, so you need to watch your enemies closely and use spells when they aren’t wildly darting around the battlefield, so that you can be sure that it’ll travel and land properly.
Another major consideration that will force you to be careful with the timing of attacks is that an enemy can interrupt you. If you’re casting a spell and the startup animation is long, your opponent could fire off a quicker attack and stuff whatever you’re doing. Given that you’re spending precious resources to use your special abilities, getting mugged off like this will hurt your HP and your ego.
Even worse is if you poorly time one of Tifa’s specials or Cloud’s Limit Break and the enemy is just out of reach, in which case watching them just nonchalantly walk away from your badass, super damaging, cinematic super move will make you question whether you’re cut out for this mission at all. Pick your moments!
How To Really Punish With Punisher Mode
Alright, time for a few quick tips. These will be simple, but they’re crucial to know and can be either missed or not properly understood. Cloud’s unique ability is Punisher mode, which gives him quicker, more powerful attacks but with mobility as the trade-off. The other thing that the Punisher mode allows you to do is respond to an incoming melee attack with a counter. So, if you’re facing an enemy that is getting all up in your extremely gelled pointy blond hair and trying to slap you about, activate that Punisher mode and start blocking to show them what happens when they try to mess with a former-SOLDIER with pencil-thin arms that can still haul around a sword the size of a camper van.
How Tempest Works (Not Like The Shakespeare Play)
Aeirth’s unique ability is called Tempest. She fires a crystal at her target that can be charged up for a more powerful effect. However, it’s pretty tricky to use as it has some situational application. This is because the crystal actually takes a bit of time to do its thing after Aerith sends it out.
When you hit triangle, the crystal travels to the target point and, if it connects, it will do a small amount of damage. Then it takes a couple of seconds to build some power and explodes, dishing out damage to whoever and whatever is hanging around. It’s more of an area-of-effect spell than a direct attack thing, so you’ll need to plan carefully when using it. The longer you hold the triangle button down, the more powerful the explosion will be when it happens.
The best times to use this is when you’ve hit an enemy with a spell that locks down their movement, they’ve been staggered and thus are unable to get out of the way, or are being absolutely pummelled by one of your teammates and thus can’t do anything but take your deadly crystals to the face.
The True Reward Of Weapon Proficiency
At the start of the game, your party members have limited access to weapons, however, you’ll eventually be able to purchase new ones or find them in the world. Each one has a cool look and can be levelled up to become a devastating tool of destruction, as well as bolster your character’s core attributes. Another major addition each offers is a new combat ability.
Each weapon has a special action that you can execute when it is equipped. However, if you look at it on the weapon select menu, you’ll notice there’s a little bar that shows your proficiency in its special action. As you put the weapon to use, that bar will fill and, eventually, the associated character will gain that ability, which can be used whether or not you have the weapon equipped.
That proficiency bar fills up really slowly, but if you pay attention to the little bit of text below the bar, it’ll tell you how you can speed up the process. Trust me when I say it’s worth spending a bit of time grinding whenever you get a new weapon so you can max out that bar as quickly as possible. You’ll want to do it with random enemy mobs that you’re familiar with, as you’ll need to switch to the specific character you’re working on to fulfill the objective and it’s easier if you know there won’t be any surprises.
Some weapons are designed to present a different style of play for the associated user, and this style may not vibe with the way you want to play them, so it’s best to earn your proficiency in low-stakes battles. You don’t want to be facing a boss with weapons that don’t let you play your characters the way you’ve specced them out to be.
There’s A New Game Plus Of Sorts
As previously mentioned in this article, and in the FF7 Remake review, you should do all the side-quests you can. They enhance the story and often give you some valuable items. However, if you’d rather focus on getting the main campaign finished, but don’t want to miss out on anything, you’ll be happy to hear that you can come back and tie up loose ends.
FF7 has a new game plus of sorts. It’s actually a chapter select that pops up after you’ve completed the story and lets you drop in and out of different parts of the game while keeping your experience, items, and loadouts. The thing to know, however, is that you’ll start at the beginning of the chapter, so you may need to spend a bit of time replaying chunks to get to the bit you need.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Artificial intelligence‘s recent rise to the forefront of business has left most office workers wondering how often they should use the technology and whether a computer will eventually replace them.
Those were among the highlights of a recent study conducted by the workplace communications platform Slack. After conducting in-depth interviews with 5,000 desktop workers, Slack concluded there are five types of AI personalities in the workplace: “The Maximalist” who regularly uses AI on their jobs; “The Underground” who covertly uses AI; “The Rebel,” who abhors AI; “The Superfan” who is excited about AI but still hasn’t used it; and “The Observer” who is taking a wait-and-see approach.
Only 50% of the respondents fell under the Maximalist or Underground categories, posing a challenge for businesses that want their workers to embrace AI technology. The Associated Press recently discussed the excitement and tension surrounding AI at work with Christina Janzer, Slack’s senior vice president of research and analytics.
Q: What do you make about the wide range of perceptions about AI at work?
A: It shows people are experiencing AI in very different ways, so they have very different emotions about it. Understanding those emotions will help understand what is going to drive usage of AI. If people are feeling guilty or nervous about it, they are not going to use it. So we have to understand where people are, then point them toward learning to value this new technology.
Q: The Maximalist and The Underground both seem to be early adopters of AI at work, but what is different about their attitudes?
A: Maximalists are all in on AI. They are getting value out of it, they are excited about it, and they are actively sharing that they are using it, which is a really big driver for usage among others.
The Underground is the one that is really interesting to me because they are using it, but they are hiding it. There are different reasons for that. They are worried they are going to be seen as incompetent. They are worried that AI is going to be seen as cheating. And so with them, we have an opportunity to provide clear guidelines to help them know that AI usage is celebrated and encouraged. But right now they don’t have guidelines from their companies and they don’t feel particularly encouraged to use it.
Overall, there is more excitement about AI than not, so I think that’s great We just need to figure out how to harness that.
Q: What about the 19% of workers who fell under the Rebel description in Slack’s study?
A: Rebels tend to be women, which is really interesting. Three out of five rebels are women, which I obviously don’t like to see. Also, rebels tend to be older. At a high level, men are adopting the technology at higher rates than women.
Q: Why do you think more women than men are resisting AI?
A: Women are more likely to see AI as a threat, more likely to worry that AI is going to take over their jobs. To me, that points to women not feeling as trusted in the workplace as men do. If you feel trusted by your manager, you are more likely to experiment with AI. Women are reluctant to adopt a technology that might be seen as a replacement for them whereas men may have more confidence that isn’t going to happen because they feel more trusted.
Q: What are some of the things employers should be doing if they want their workers to embrace AI on the job?
A: We are seeing three out of five desk workers don’t even have clear guidelines with AI, because their companies just aren’t telling them anything, so that’s a huge opportunity.
Another opportunity to encourage AI usage in the open. If we can create a culture where it’s celebrated, where people can see the way people are using it, then they can know that it’s accepted and celebrated. Then they can be inspired.
The third thing is we have to create a culture of experimentation where people feel comfortable trying it out, testing it, getting comfortable with it because a lot of people just don’t know where to start. The reality is you can start small, you don’t have to completely change your job. Having AI write an email or summarize content is a great place to start so you can start to understand what this technology can do.
Q: Do you think the fears about people losing their jobs because of AI are warranted?
A: People with AI are going to replace people without AI.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Tuesday that it would provide up to $325 million to Hemlock Semiconductor for a new factory, a move that could help give Democrats a political edge in the swing state of Michigan ahead of election day.
The funding would support 180 manufacturing jobs in Saginaw County, where Republicans and Democrats were neck-in-neck for the past two presidential elections. There would also be construction jobs tied to the factory that would produce hyper-pure polysilicon, a building block for electronics and solar panels, among other technologies.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on a call with reporters that the funding came from the CHIPS and Science Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. It’s part of a broader industrial strategy that the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, supports, while Republican nominee Donald Trump, the former president, sees tariff hikes and income tax cuts as better to support manufacturing.
“What we’ve been able to do with the CHIPS Act is not just build a few new factories, but fundamentally revitalize the semiconductor ecosystem in our country with American workers,” Raimondo said. “All of this is because of the vision of the Biden-Harris administration.”
A senior administration official said the timing of the announcement reflected the negotiating process for reaching terms on the grant, rather than any political considerations. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss the process.
After site work, Hemlock Semiconductor plans to begin construction in 2026 and then start production in 2028, the official said.
Running in 2016, Trump narrowly won Saginaw County and Michigan as a whole. But in 2020 against Biden, both Saginaw County and Michigan flipped to the Democrats.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
