While the full game doesn’t land for a month, the recent arrival of the demo has given us a chance to get into the brilliance of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, so here’s everything you need to know about how to beat the first boss. If you played the original game then you’ll know that it’s the Scorpion Sentinel that you’ll need to defeat first to get through the Mako Reactor section of the game, which was a defining moment in the original game.
It was one of those amazing boss fights that you remember for the rest of your life and the updated Remake version has done it justice by making it just as memorable. The addition of the sublime graphics brings it to life perfectly and the tweaks to its gameplay mechanics bring some new dimensions to the Scorpion Sentinel, which is just as tough to beat in the Remake.
How to fight the Scorpion Sentinel boss
Right off the bat there’s some dialogue between Cloud and Barret about how to fight the game’s first boss. Cloud tells Barret that they need lightening magic damage and it’s one of many little dialogue hints you’ll find in the boss fight, as well as in the rest of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, so make sure you pay attention to them as much as possible.
This tip, however, can be a little confusing, because when you go to check on Cloud’s spells all you’re going to find is fire, which will make you think it’s something that you’ve either missed along the way or just don’t have for some reason. The good news, though, is that you definitely do have lightning magic and it isn’t something that you’ve missed. Cloud doesn’t have it, but Barret does, so you just need to switch to him using either the left or right directional button.
Once you’ve done that, you can press X to bring up the Commands Menu and select Spells and you’ll be able to select Thunder, which is Lightning Magic, just to add to the confusion, and then unleash it at the Scorpion Sentinel. As a result of the huge damage Barret can do with the Thunder spell he has, it’s a good idea to switch to him as soon as the fights starts and then you can read more about the different phases below, before we get into the additional tips at the bottom.
First boss phase 1:
This is simply damage time. Switch to Barret, get out of the way of the first attack and start pummeling it with shots until you build up an ATB charge. This will then let you use the Thunder spell on it. Keep doing that with the addition of ability moves and his Charged triangle button shot when you have the chance and you should make it through the first phase of the boss fight relatively easily. You can check out some pro tips below to see how to speed things along.
Phase 2:
You’ll get a mini cutscene between the first and second phase as the Scorpion Sentinel leaps over to the other side of the platform and throws up a shield. This will reduce any of your attacks to incidental levels unless you get behind it and rain down your hits on its back end. The area that you’re looking for is called the Shield Generator and if you go after this with abilities and magic then you’ll eventually knock it out of action and it’ll revert back to the first phase again.
While attacking it from behind with the shield up you’re better off keeping your distance as Barret to prevent its tail attacks from doing too much damage. However, when you get targeted with the missiles, switch on over to Cloud and run in to use his biggest hits on the same area while Barret is under fire to maximise your impact. We’ll cover switching tips a little more in the tips and hints section below.
The other option is to switch to Cloud at the start of this phase and using a combination of magic and ability moves on the Shield Generator to shut it down quickly. It’s a slightly riskier method, because he’ll be in the firing line for some of the first boss’ toughest hits, but if you have a couple of ATB charges for him already at the start of the phase then it could mean busting through phase 2 in just a couple of moves.
Phase 3:
After it’s cycled between the first two phases a couple of times it will then flip it’s lid and fire off rockets at the roof bringing down a lad of debris, while also adding in an overpowered laser to its stinger tail. The good news, though, is that it won’t have a shield and you can hide behind the debris whenever it’s about to fire. This will protect you from the shot and allow you to reply with your own mix of Thunder, ability and charged damage to take it down to its last phase.
Phase 4:
When the Scorpion Sentinel boss is down to its last chunk of health, it will enable its auto heal function, putting more emphasis on hitting it with everything that you’ve got as fast as you can. Everything that you’ve done up until this point needs to be redoubled keeping up the big damage as much as possible. The good news is that your Limit Break move will have charged up by this point, so you will be able to use this to dish out even more damage to close out the final phase. You can save this until it’s staggered to get the most out of it, but you don’t have to to be able to see it off.
You can also target its legs to topple it for a little while to free you up to smash in as much damage as possible on the rest of it. If you time it all right then you can get through phase 4 with very little problems at all.
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How to beat the Scorpion Sentinel video guide
More first boss fight tips
- Keep an eye on Cloud’s ATB charges. When these are full you can either switch to him to use them on Abilities, Spells or Items or use L2 to give him a command to use any of them. Abilities are your best move to finish off the first boss as quickly as possible, but you’ll need to make sure he’s targeting the Shield Generator whenever it’s in Phase 2.
- If either of your characters get grabbed by the Sentinel robot then you need to switch to the other character and hit it as hard and fast as you can to get it to let go. You might need a potion to bring them back from the brink too. After the whole ordeal, you can then get back to the phase shifting above.
- Keep an eye on the health bar for both Cloud and Barret and top them up with a potion or two any time they need it.
- If you run out of magic, give Barret an Ether to keep him firing out the Thunder spell to keep hitting it with high damage attacks.
You can check out our computer games tips section for more hints of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, or see the official website at https://store.na.square-enix-games.com/en_US/product/562671/final-fantasy-vii-remake-1st-class-edition-ps4.
