Many surprises await you in Final Fantasy VII Remake, this is especially true for Chapter 9. The Hell House is by far the most difficult boss encountered in game at this point, with a fight that can very quickly end up in game over. It must be said that the group is reduced, since you only have Cloud, and Aerith, the second being quite fragile as a bonus.
Planning & Materia
- A bench and a vending machine will allow you to rest in a room a little before the boss, this will allow you to approach the fight in great shape. Remember to do it between arena fights.
- Unlike the other bosses, the elemental weakness of the Hell House will change regularly. Depending on the color of the house windows, you will know what to use or not. This means that having a maximum of Elemental Materia on each character will greatly help you in this fight. You need ice, fire, lightning and wind. You obviously don't have to have everything duplicated, but that will shorten the fight. Taking the high level ones seems to be a good choice. Also link your basic Elemental Materia with the Fire Materia on Cloud or Aerith to reduce the damage taken and increase the damage done.
- Survival Materia, such as increased health, reduced damage to the inactive character, and healing Materia are highly recommended. The damage is really huge on this boss.
- The good news is that almost all summon Materia are viable, but you'll need to use them at the right time to fully exploit the boss's weakness. We advise you to equip Ifrit and Shiva, as Fire and Ice are probably the most common weaknesses.
Hell House Abilities
- Chair Salvo: Fires a round of flaming, missile-like chairs. Avoid impact with a dodge. Also watch out for areas of fire left on the ground.
- Hospitality: Sucks in a character, binding them and damaging them over time. You can avoid the attack by being far away and running in the opposite direction, but if that is not enough, switch characters and cast a spell on the boss. Destroying the arms of the house is an option too, but it requires a lot of effort for a single technique which is not that formidable. You can heal the locked up character from the outside too.
- House Call: Jumps from one spot to another. This attack has different forms, whether in the form of an attack, a pursuit, repeated jumps or a dive from the heavens. It hurts in any case extremely and can touch the 2 characters.
- Barrier Shift: Changes Hell House elements, and therefore its weakness. It also has a barrier that will reduce the damage for a while. Beware of changes of elements, if you cast a spell similar to the new elementary type of the house, it will greatly regenerate his life.
- Double Rocket Charge: Turns on the thrusters behind the house, it then performs a 360 ° and incinerates everything nearby. It tends to take off afterwards.
Combat
- Physical damage will generally not have much impact on the house, moreover, being in melee with it is far from being without risk. Cloud is not useless, but it will generally be more rewarding to play Aerith. This will be all the more true from the second phase, when the house becomes able to fly, and it will be almost impossible to attack it in close combat most of the time.
- The simple and effective way to attack the house is to use its basic weakness of the moment, which is a concept that you should be familiar with. When its windows are red, use ice. When they are white, use the fire. When they are green, use lightning. When they are blue, use the wind. However, be careful, some spells have a delay between launching and activation (ice spells in particular), if the boss moves or changes its element, the result may be zero, even counterproductive. Towards the end of the fight, the timing will be important since the boss will often be protected by a shield, as a bonus.
- Launch the Arcane Ward of Aerith to double its spells, this will give you a great burst capacity with the right spells and the right timing.
- Aerith can heal the group without using mana with its healing wind and Limit Break. Prepare to make heavy use of Ether bottles for healing and spells in any case.
- Since Cloud will not be able to attack often, and magic is not his specialty, it may be wise to use it as a priority to heal and regenerate Aerith's mana with Ether. Don't hesitate to make him use attack spells too to speed things up.
- The doors of the arena will eventually open, which will give access to crates containing Mako to regenerate your mana.
- The rest of the fight will depend a lot on your execution and your sense of timing, try not to take too much damage, which will ask you to try to maintain a good distance between Aerith and the house. It's quite possible to get stuck in a healing and mana regeneration loop due to damage from the boss. You really have to try to reserve Aerith's ATB bar to send a devastating spell at the right time rather than to heal.
