Chapter 7: A Trap Is Sprung

Story mode. Written for a first playthrough and kept free of spoilers — it will not tell you what happens here, only what the game is asking of you.

Another reactor. If Chapter 1 was the tutorial for this sort of place, Chapter 7 is the exam: tougher machines, a mid-chapter brute, and a big fight at the end that you can make a lot easier if you pay attention on the way.

Equip lightning before you start

Almost everything mechanical in this chapter hates lightning, including both of the big fights. Put Lightning Materia on everyone who has a slot for it. If you picked up Elemental Materia in the last chapter, pair the two in Barret’s weapon so his gunfire carries it.

The way down

The first half is a descent. Chests sit at the bottom of the slide you start on, at the foot of the first ladder, on the stairs after the first proper fight and at the end of the platform before the second catwalk ladder. Take them as you go rather than planning to sweep up on a second pass.

The labs

The second half takes you through a stack of labs, floor by floor. This is the part that matters.

There are six keycards lying around the labs: on carts, in corners, among crates. Each terminal you reach lets you spend one to strip a part off a machine you will meet at the end of the chapter. Read the three options the terminal gives you:

• one only gives you some items afterwards;
• one makes the machine slower and less fond of its beam attacks;
• one takes away a big late-fight bombardment.

The second and third are the ones that make the fight easier. Guides argue about which is better; either is a good use of a card. A card you never find is not a disaster — the fight is just harder.

The labs also hold a Lightning Materia behind some crates, and a purple chest at the end of one hallway with a new weapon for Tifa. Smash every Shinra crate you see.

Partway up, something big comes through a wall. Lightning again. Hit its arms until it buckles, then stagger it and pile on before it gets angry.

The levers

A room with three sets of levers that need pulling together. You will get it wrong at least once; that is fine, it just resets.

After that, check the disposal room. There is a Magic Up Materia on the floor and whatever you diverted with your keycards is waiting there too.

Before you step outside

There is a bench and a vending machine just before the exit. The machine sells a music disc for 50 gil — buy it, nobody else sells it. Rest, save, and only then go through the front gate. The fight that follows ends the chapter.

Keep your distance from the front of it. Let Barret and your spells do the work when it is out of reach, and keep Tifa on the parts it sheds.

Game Notes

The keycard system is the best idea in this chapter. It turns a corridor into a search, and it lets the game pay you for curiosity in the currency that matters most right now: an easier boss. Players who sprint through the labs get a noticeably harder fight than players who poke in corners, and nobody tells them why.

It is also the first time the Remake leans on its three-person party for a puzzle rather than a fight. The lever room is silly and a bit clumsy, and it is still nice to see the three of them doing something together that is not hitting things.

How this page was made

Researched across 4 community walkthroughs and written from scratch — no source’s wording appears here.

How we decide what to print

Completionist mode. Full spoilers, in play order, with every permanent loss called out before you reach it. 2 entries below are marked where our sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

Spoilers from here.

Mako Reactor 5 is the trap the chapter title promises. Heidegger knew you were coming, the security is light on purpose, and once the bomb is on the core the way you came in is closed behind you — Shinra wants Avalanche caught and executed in public. The climb back up through the labs is where all the interesting collecting happens, and the Airbuster on the front-gate bridge is the reward for doing it well.

Nothing in Chapter 7 is lost forever. Chapter Select replays all of it.

The deadlines

There are two, and the second is the one that matters.

• Sliding down the pipe after planting the bomb. The four chests on the descent are behind you from then on.
• Stepping onto the front-gate bridge. It starts the Airbuster fight and the chapter ends with it. Everything in the labs, the disposal room and the bench room has to be done first, and every keycard you want to use has to be spent.

Everything, in order

The descent. Hi-Potion x3 on the left at the bottom of the slide pipe. Echo Mist x2 at the bottom of the first ladder, by Tifa at the railing. An Ether on the stairs after the Slug-Ray and Monodrive fight. Bulletproof Vest at the end of the platform before the second catwalk ladder. Plant the bomb in mako storage, and the trap closes.

Down the pipe to the B8 monitor room. Keycard 1 is on a cart on the left.

B7 lab. Lightning Materia behind the breakable crates in the right-hand (north-west) corner. Keycard 2 is on the right after the Elite Grenadiers and Security Officers, or in the crates. Keycard 3 is in the south-west corner of the area past the B7 hallway, after the Elite Shock Trooper and Sentry Rays.

B6. Keycard 4 on the cart beside Tifa in the supply room, or in a crate on the left. At the end of the hallway past the lab, the purple chest in the back-left corner holds Sonic Strikers for Tifa — a Potion on a replay where you already own them.

B5 lab. Keycards 5 and 6 — a cart on the east side and the floor of the north-east corner. The terminal by the B5 door opens the way on.

B4. The Cutter smashes through a wall. Afterwards, at the top of the ramp it leaves, the second Ether is on the south-east platform.

The emergency lock. Four rounds of three levers pulled in sync with Tifa and Barret: In Lockstep. Mistakes just reset the round.

The disposal room, opened from the control-room terminal. Magic Up Materia on the floor — Healing Materia on a replay where you already took it — and every part you diverted with a keycard.

The bench room. The vending machine sells 2. Bombing Mission for 50 gil, the only place it is sold, and buys AI Programming Cores for 500 gil each. Rest here.

The keycards

Six cards, six terminals, three options. Each card you spend takes one component off the Airbuster and sends it to the disposal room instead.

Diversion	Effect on the fight	What you get
M-Unit	none	consumables in the disposal room
AI Programming Core	fewer Finger Beams and EM Fields, slower casting	a Core that sells for 500 gil
Big Bomber Shells	fewer, weaker Big Bomber bombardments	a Shell you can throw for about 500 damage

Guides agree that the M-Unit is the weakest use of a card and disagree on the rest: one puts the AI Programming Core first, two others want every Big Bomber Shell you can take. Both are fine. One guide says the first card is forced onto the M-Unit; another describes a free choice from the start. What the M-Unit pays is given as two each of Ether, Phoenix Down and Hi-Potion by one guide and Ether x2 by another.

Bosses

Cutter (mid-chapter) — weak to lightning. Damage both arms to Pressure it, then stagger with Thundara and Focused Thrust before it switches into its rampage.

The Sweepers and Laser Cannons fight on the way up is the hardest ordinary fight in the chapter on Hard. Steal a Turbo Ether from the Sweeper Prototype.

Airbuster — weak to lightning; one source adds wind, no one else does. Steal AI Programming Core, drop Titanium Bangle. Immune to Poison, Silence, Sleep, Slow, Berserk and percentage damage, with strong resistance to Stop.

• 100–75%: electric attacks down the three arms of the T-shaped bridge.
• 75–50%: Tankbuster straight down the middle, and the arms detach. Hit them; they bottom out at 1 HP rather than dying.
• 50–10%: it flies out of melee range. Barret and spells.
• Under 10%: back in reach, with the Big Bomber near the end.

The fight is on a 25-minute timer. It ends the chapter: Cloud is separated from the others, and when the reactor gives way he falls to the undercity.

Hard mode

Sharpshooter’s Companion Vol. VI is the Airbuster’s Hard reward. After the arms detach on Hard it adds a lightning wall, a rocket punch and a grab that feeds into Tankbuster, which does around 3,000 damage even guarded.

Game Notes

Chapter 7 is the original’s reactor-five sequence with a smart idea bolted on. The Airbuster used to be simply a fight. Here it is a fight you have been building all chapter without quite realising: every keycard in a corner is a bombardment you will not have to sit through, and the game never tells you the exchange rate in so many words.

It is also the end of the first act. The bombing run is over, the party is split, and the game is about to slow right down and hand you a very different chapter with a very different companion.

How this page was made

Researched across 7 community walkthroughs and written from scratch — no source’s wording appears here. 2 are marked where sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

How we decide what to print