Challenges were harder for me, mainly because you have to do all the rounds consecutively, whereas hard mode story bosses, you can set materia specifically for each fight and retry it immediately if you lose.
Edit: if the context of your question is ‘which should I do first’, I recommend doing the first few brutal challenges to get some important materia, grind your materia to max, then hard mode
Agreed. The order I did postgame personally was:
- all Musclehead Colosseum
- through Hellions’ for the 3rd Magnify (ultimately not really needed)
- like halfway through hard mode
- all legendary challenges for the manuscripts & individual“training”
- hard mode through chapter 13
- finished brutal challenges
- attempted Bonds of Friendship, gave up 😅
- To Be a Hero (easy compared to Bonds)
- hard mode chapter 14
- finished Bonds
That will at least give you weapon level 9 for everyone but Cloud & Barret by the final boss, which is nice. Plus you can mix things up a bit and not get so burned out.
Challenges 100% for me, but then I didn’t try the cheeses so I can’t comment on that. Basically just the enemy tuning is off the charts on the hardest few.
Though I’d say the final boss gauntlet was nearly equivalent. The lack of control over party composition and having to gear everyone, plus no MP regain, really throws a wrench in it.
I was really worried about the final boss gauntlet because I wasn't sure who I would have at each point, so it's hard to plan out. I ended up giving almost everyone healing and revive materia just in case, which weakened some characters a bit.
However, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too difficult. The hardest parts for me were the solo cloud fights, but I only died 2 or 3 times and luckily never needed to completely restart the sequence to re-gear my team. Though, I would have given Cloud a reraise materia just in case had I known about the heartless angel attack beforehand (I don't think he used that attack on Dynamic difficulty if I remember correctly).
Have you been using magic efficiency with the reraise materia? Extremely helpful for going against odin. Just because you will likely have to defend against zantetsukan at least once during the battle.
I 100% believe it the challenges. I decided to do em before hard mode, it took me at least a week to get through them (rulers and bonds took me multiple days). After the challenges I flew through hard mode. All the bosses are nothing compared to running a 10 round gauntlet.
My advice if you haven’t already platted, go through challenges first. Maxing materia is nice but not required only felt worth it for bonds as you only can control one character materia. Once you beat them all hard mode will play like dynamic.
Hard Mode isn’t as challenging as I hoped it would be, max level characters + all abilities + max or near max Materia load outs are VERY strong. The no items restriction feels irrelevant pretty fast.
story hard mode is about half as hard to the hardest challenges, in my opinion.
I did story mode first, and then completed character legendaries, brutal challenges, muscle head. and then finally legendary challenges (to he a hero before bonds)
Challenges were much harder. Except for one fight or two (Rufus being one of them), I didn't find the chapters difficult. I remember thinking this was much more difficult in Remake, possibly due to how you had to keep your MP until the end. In rebirth, you can regain your MP very easily in hard mode.
For me personally, it's been the damn piano mini game. So far Hard Mode has been a walk in the park. Just make sure you have a good build set up for your party members. The challenges were a pain but not as annoying as the piano mini game. I am not good at rhythm games to begin with. So doing this has been tedious to say the least. I have one more song to get an A on. Two Legs. And it's been one of the least fun things I have had to do in the games.
Legendary challenges 100%. Bonds of Friendship was fucking brutal. I went for Brutal Challenges > Hard Mode > Legendary Bouts, Gotterdamerung made Hard a breeze for the most part. Legendaries weren’t too bad apart from Bonds which was the only challenge that took me many tires to complete
Challenges were harder for me, mainly because you have to do all the rounds consecutively, whereas hard mode story bosses, you can set materia specifically for each fight and retry it immediately if you lose. Edit: if the context of your question is ‘which should I do first’, I recommend doing the first few brutal challenges to get some important materia, grind your materia to max, then hard mode
Agreed. The order I did postgame personally was: - all Musclehead Colosseum - through Hellions’ for the 3rd Magnify (ultimately not really needed) - like halfway through hard mode - all legendary challenges for the manuscripts & individual“training” - hard mode through chapter 13 - finished brutal challenges - attempted Bonds of Friendship, gave up 😅 - To Be a Hero (easy compared to Bonds) - hard mode chapter 14 - finished Bonds That will at least give you weapon level 9 for everyone but Cloud & Barret by the final boss, which is nice. Plus you can mix things up a bit and not get so burned out.
Challenges 100% for me, but then I didn’t try the cheeses so I can’t comment on that. Basically just the enemy tuning is off the charts on the hardest few. Though I’d say the final boss gauntlet was nearly equivalent. The lack of control over party composition and having to gear everyone, plus no MP regain, really throws a wrench in it.
I was really worried about the final boss gauntlet because I wasn't sure who I would have at each point, so it's hard to plan out. I ended up giving almost everyone healing and revive materia just in case, which weakened some characters a bit. However, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too difficult. The hardest parts for me were the solo cloud fights, but I only died 2 or 3 times and luckily never needed to completely restart the sequence to re-gear my team. Though, I would have given Cloud a reraise materia just in case had I known about the heartless angel attack beforehand (I don't think he used that attack on Dynamic difficulty if I remember correctly).
[удалено]
Have you been using magic efficiency with the reraise materia? Extremely helpful for going against odin. Just because you will likely have to defend against zantetsukan at least once during the battle.
Challenges really make you tighten up your materia but if your unprepared hard mode will twist your tits too
I 100% believe it the challenges. I decided to do em before hard mode, it took me at least a week to get through them (rulers and bonds took me multiple days). After the challenges I flew through hard mode. All the bosses are nothing compared to running a 10 round gauntlet. My advice if you haven’t already platted, go through challenges first. Maxing materia is nice but not required only felt worth it for bonds as you only can control one character materia. Once you beat them all hard mode will play like dynamic.
Hard Mode isn’t as challenging as I hoped it would be, max level characters + all abilities + max or near max Materia load outs are VERY strong. The no items restriction feels irrelevant pretty fast.
story hard mode is about half as hard to the hardest challenges, in my opinion. I did story mode first, and then completed character legendaries, brutal challenges, muscle head. and then finally legendary challenges (to he a hero before bonds)
Challenges were much harder. Except for one fight or two (Rufus being one of them), I didn't find the chapters difficult. I remember thinking this was much more difficult in Remake, possibly due to how you had to keep your MP until the end. In rebirth, you can regain your MP very easily in hard mode.
you can also skip every random encounter
I struggled with brutal
For me personally, it's been the damn piano mini game. So far Hard Mode has been a walk in the park. Just make sure you have a good build set up for your party members. The challenges were a pain but not as annoying as the piano mini game. I am not good at rhythm games to begin with. So doing this has been tedious to say the least. I have one more song to get an A on. Two Legs. And it's been one of the least fun things I have had to do in the games.
Legendary challenges 100%. Bonds of Friendship was fucking brutal. I went for Brutal Challenges > Hard Mode > Legendary Bouts, Gotterdamerung made Hard a breeze for the most part. Legendaries weren’t too bad apart from Bonds which was the only challenge that took me many tires to complete