Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade · walkthrough

Chapter 3: Home Sweet Slum

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.

Two chapters of corridors, and now a town. The Sector 7 slums are the first place the game hands you a map, some money and a day with nothing urgent in it. Spend the day properly. Almost everything worth having here is off the marker.

The first evening

You arrive at night and the game wants you in Seventh Heaven. Go — but check the jukebox when you get inside. It plays you a song and gives you the disc, and there are more of those scattered through the slums.

Tifa walks you to your new room afterwards. Before you go to bed, climb the ladder on the side of the building to the roof. There is a chest up there.

The morning: walk everywhere

You wake up with Tifa waiting and a list of errands, and the errands take you past most of the town anyway. Do them, but look sideways as you go.

The upper walkway of the Neighborhood Watch building, the low shed east of the houses, the empty lot north of the apartments through a gap you have to squeeze into, and the stairs opposite the man playing records by the pizza sign — each has something in it. Talk to the man playing records, too.

The shops open as you go. The item store sells a music disc for 50 gil; buy it. Then buy Ice Materia if you can afford it. Most of what lives in the slums is weak to ice, and the one thing that is not — the flying things you will meet in the old factory — is weak to wind, which you can unlock very shortly.

Scrap Boulevard

Your first job for the Watch. Tifa comes with you and stays for the rest of the chapter.

There is a cave in the middle of the boulevard. Look in the alcove on its north wall before you leave — that is a free Ice Materia, and you might have just bought one you did not need. The west edge, along the fence, has a chest as well.

The weapons store owner gives Cloud a new sword when you get back. Equip it and look at its upgrade screen; every weapon in this game has its own tree, and the points you earn carry across all of them.

Take every odd job

When you report back, the Watch opens up a board of small jobs, and a strange, excitable boy called Chadley sets up beside it. Start with Chadley. He hands you a materia that reads enemy weaknesses, asks you to use it twice, and in return starts selling you materia nobody else stocks. One of the first things he unlocks is wind magic, which is exactly what the factory jobs want.

There are six jobs in all. None of them is long and all of them pay. Doing all six gets you a quiet scene later in the day, a charm, and a small say in something that happens several chapters from now. Doing some of them still counts for something.

A girl near the weapons store will ask you to find her cats. They are easy to miss because you have probably already walked past all three.

The woman by the scoreboard counts what you kill. She pays out at 10, 20 and 50. Fifty sounds like a lot; it is not, if you take all the jobs.

Before you go back to the bar

Late in the day the game sends you after Tifa and a man in trouble. Once that is over and you head back into Seventh Heaven, every job on the board closes for this playthrough. The game warns you when it happens. Finish the jobs first.

If you have done all six, go to the apartments instead of the bar. Something small is waiting.

In the bar

While the others talk, there is a dartboard at the back. Beat the score on it. Someone will give you something for it tomorrow.

There is a short fight in an alley afterwards. Use fire. Then go back to the apartments, take what you are given, and save before you talk to the woman on the balcony — that ends the chapter.

Game Notes

The original game spent about ten minutes in these slums. The Remake spends a day and a half, and it is the best argument it makes for itself.

Nothing in this chapter is about saving the world. It is a filter that needs changing, a scrap dealer with a pest problem, cats that will not come home, a neighbour who keeps saying he is fine. The jobs are small on purpose. You are a mercenary who arrived yesterday, and the slum is deciding whether you are worth knowing.

By the time the chapter ends you know the names of the people at the item store, the weapons store and the Watch, and which of them owes you a favour. For a town you have lived in for one night, that is a lot of names.

Worth doing on a first run

Music Disc: 3. Tifa's ThemecollectibleCheck the jukebox inside Seventh Heaven when you first walk in. It is free.
Music Disc: 27. Hip Hop de ChocobocollectibleThe DJ by the pizza sign, down the steps past the metal frame. Talk to him and he hands it over.
600 gil (water-filter collections)itemTifa collects for the filter service from the item store owner, Marle and the weapons vendor. 200 gil each, handed to you.
Ice Materia (Scrap Boulevard cave)materiaIn the cave in the middle of Scrap Boulevard, in an alcove on the north wall. Most of the rats and gorgers out here are weak to it.
Iron BladeweaponThe weapons store owner gives it to you after the Scrap Boulevard job. Cloud's second sword.
Side quest: Chadley's ReportsidequestChadley stands beside Wymer outside the Watch. He gives you Assess Materia and the Combat Analyzer; assess two kinds of enemy and report back for 500 gil. This also opens his Battle Intel reports, which is how new materia enters your shopping list for the rest of the game.
Fire Materia (factory)materiaThe orb you saw behind the fence. Hold the switch beside the big grey door in the later warehouse to reach it.
Ifrit MateriamateriaJessie gives it to you at Stargazer Heights at the end of the chapter, as a story beat. It arrives with a spare Healing Materia nobody mentions.

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.

Chapter 3 is where the Remake’s completion model shows its hand, so it is worth saying once, plainly: almost nothing in this game is lost forever. Finish the story and Chapter Select opens, every chapter replays with its side quests and chests intact, and Hard mode is played the same way. What you can lose is the chance to do something on this playthrough — and a few of those losses decide things you will not see until Chapter 9.

The one deadline

Entering Seventh Heaven to “claim your payment”, after the fight over Johnny, closes everything. All six side quests, the factory and its three chests, Katie’s kill-count rewards and the Alone at Last scene go with it. The game puts up a warning first. Believe it.

Two things ride on finishing all six jobs before that door:

Alone at Last — the scene at Stargazer Heights only triggers with all six done. Marle hands over a Crescent Moon Charm (with a Potion nobody lists) and Tifa asks what dress she should wear.
Tifa’s affinity. Each job done with her nudges the hidden tally that decides who visits Cloud at the start of Chapter 14. “Not in the mood” when she offers you a drink later in the bar pushes the other way.

Tifa’s dress is decided here

Her three answers map to her three Chapter 9 dresses: “Something mature”, “Something… sporty?” and “Something exotic?”. Skip Alone at Last and she defaults to the mature dress.

That default is the useful part. The Dressed to the Nines trophy wants all nine dresses — three each for Cloud, Tifa and Aerith — and the only way to see the other two is to replay. So do not spend your first run on “mature”. A later Hard replay that skips the odd jobs will give it to you without trying.

Everything else, in order

First evening. Tifa’s Theme from the Seventh Heaven jukebox, free. The Phoenix Down on the roof of Stargazer Heights, up the side ladder — one guide says to take it before you go downstairs that night, the rest pick it up the next morning, and it is there either way.

The morning. An Ether on the Watch’s upper walkway, round the corner from Biggs and Wedge. Adrenaline x2 on the porch past the low shed east of the houses. Grenade x3 in the vacant lot north of the apartments, through the squeeze-gap. Hip Hop de Chocobo from the record man by the pizza sign — one guide dates this to the Johnny rescue, four put it here, and here is right. Hi-Potion x2 up the stairs opposite him. The water-filter round pays 200 gil three times over. The Prelude is 50 gil at the item store, one copy.

Scrap Boulevard. Ice Materia in the cave’s north alcove and Antidote x2 along the west fence. Back at the weapons store, the owner gives you the Iron Blade.

Talagger factory (only open while the jobs are live). Antidote x2 in the first fenced area, Sedative x2 by the switch right of the south-wall door, and the Fire Materia you can see through the fence — the door switch in the later warehouse lets you reach it.

Barret’s Theme is 50 gil at the food stand by the station. No shop anywhere later stocks it; you have until you leave the slums in Chapter 4.

The six side quests

Quest	Giver	Fight	Reward
Chadley’s Report	Chadley	assess two enemy types	500 gil (plus Assess Materia and the Combat Analyzer up front)
Rat Problem	Item store owner	Wererats, then Doomrats	Hi-Potion x5; Cleansing Materia in stock
Nuisance in the Factory	Scrap dealer	three packs of Lesser Drakes	500 gil
On the Prowl	Wymer	Wrath Hound, twice	Elixir
Just Flew In from the Graveyard	Gwen	Cerulean Drake	Star Bracelet
Lost Friends	Betty	none — three cats	Maiden’s Kiss

Chadley’s reward is 500 gil. One widely used list gives Auto-Cure Materia; that is the materia his first Battle Intel report puts in his shop, which is a different thing. Lost Friends pays a Maiden’s Kiss, not the “Maiden’s Tear” one guide prints — there is no such item.

The Wrath Hound is weak to ice, not fire. It looks like the Guard Dog, it is not the Guard Dog, and it runs at about two-thirds health so you fight it twice. Throat Clamp grabs a party member; break it with damage.

The Lesser and Cerulean Drakes are weak to wind, which is why Chadley’s report comes first: Battle Intel 02 is what unlocks Wind Materia. Any spell knocks a drake out of the air for a moment.

Katie’s fiend-slaying rewards — Potion x5 at 10 kills, Revival Earrings at 20, MP Up Materia at 50. The alley hoodlums do not count. One guide says these stay claimable later; another puts Katie on the road in Chapter 4; readers of two guides say she is inactive on a Hard replay. Claim them in Chapter 3 and none of that matters.

The bar

Barret pays 1,050 gil while you wait. The darts board at the back pays Luck Up Materia if you beat Wedge’s record — handed over in Chapter 4. Finishing 301 in seven throws or fewer is Heavenly Dart Player; six is the minimum possible.

The four hoodlums in the alley are weak to fire. Near the end they drink something that makes them shrug off staggers; burst them down before that.

Jessie gives you Ifrit Materia at the end of the chapter, and with it a Healing Materia that no guide mentions. You will be glad of the spare.

Hard mode

Two Manuscripts in this chapter are Hard-only:

The Art of Swordplay Vol. V — the Doomrats in Rat Problem.
Way of the Fist Vol. IV — the Wrath Hound in On the Prowl, the second encounter after the chase.

Every Manuscript is given once per save. Win the fight again and it pays a substitute; the same rule turns some unique chests into a Potion or a Healing Materia on later replays, which is worth knowing before you go back for a chest “you missed”.

Game Notes

Chapter 3 is the chapter that most people who quit the Remake quit in, and they quit for the same reason: it looks like filler. Pest control, a cat search, a man who wants his filters changed.

Look at what the chapter is actually doing, though. It introduces the item store owner, the scrap dealer, Wymer, Betty, Marle, Gwen and Katie by name, makes you do each of them a favour, and pays you in small, specific things. Nobody does that for scenery. The original game had these slums for a few screens and asked you to care about them on trust. This one makes you work there for a day first, and then it holds you to it.

Everything in this area

Evening arrival

Music Disc: 3. Tifa's ThemeCopy missablecollectibleCheck the jukebox inside Seventh Heaven when you first walk in. It is free.Lost after: The end of Chapter 3.Get another: Chapter Select. The jukebox gives it again on any replay of Chapter 3.
Phoenix Down (apartment roof)itemUp the ladder on the side of Stargazer Heights, the apartment building Tifa walks you to. Grab it that night or the next morning; it waits.

The morning

Ether (Neighborhood Watch, upper level)itemAround the corner outside the room where Biggs and Wedge are waiting.
Adrenaline x2 (porch past the shed)itemCrawl through the low shed east of the residential area. The chest is on the porch on the far side. You will come back through here for a cat.
Grenade x3 (vacant lot)itemNorth of the apartments, through the dark cylinder and the squeeze-gap into the empty lot. Right-hand side, against the brick wall. The rats for Rat Problem spawn here later.
Music Disc: 27. Hip Hop de ChocoboCopy missableSources disagreecollectibleThe DJ by the pizza sign, down the steps past the metal frame. Talk to him and he hands it over.Lost after: The end of Chapter 3.Get another: Chapter Select.Sources disagree: One guide places this during the Johnny rescue at the end of the day; four others put it in the morning free roam, and the morning is right.
Hi-Potion x2 (stairs left of Seventh Heaven)itemUp the short flight opposite the DJ and round the corner past the junk.
600 gil (water-filter collections)itemTifa collects for the filter service from the item store owner, Marle and the weapons vendor. 200 gil each, handed to you.
Music Disc: 1. The PreludeCopy missablecollectible50 gil at the item store once it opens. One copy in stock.Lost after: Leaving the Sector 7 slums for the last time in Chapter 4.Get another: Chapter Select.

Scrap Boulevard

Ice Materia (Scrap Boulevard cave)materiaIn the cave in the middle of Scrap Boulevard, in an alcove on the north wall. Most of the rats and gorgers out here are weak to it.
Antidote x2 (Scrap Boulevard, west fence)itemFar west edge, down the left path by the fence, guarded by a Gorger and a Wererat.
Iron BladeweaponThe weapons store owner gives it to you after the Scrap Boulevard job. Cloud's second sword.

Odd jobs

Side quest: Chadley's ReportCopy missablesidequestChadley stands beside Wymer outside the Watch. He gives you Assess Materia and the Combat Analyzer; assess two kinds of enemy and report back for 500 gil. This also opens his Battle Intel reports, which is how new materia enters your shopping list for the rest of the game.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Side quest: Rat ProblemCopy missablesidequestThe item store owner. Clear the Wererats in the vacant lot, kill a little time in town, then go back for the Doomrats. Pays Hi-Potion x5 and adds Cleansing Materia and Hi-Potions to his stock. Opens On the Prowl.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Side quest: Nuisance in the FactoryCopy missablesidequestThe scrap dealer behind Seventh Heaven. Narjin lets you into the Talagger factory, where there are three groups of Lesser Drakes — two in the warehouses and a third the game makes you look for. Wind is their weakness. 500 gil. Opens Just Flew In from the Graveyard.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Side quest: On the ProwlCopy missablesidequestWymer, after Rat Problem. A Wrath Hound in Scrap Boulevard that runs away partway through the fight, so you fight it twice. Ice, not Fire — it is not the Guard Dog it looks like. Pays an Elixir.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Side quest: Just Flew In from the GraveyardCopy missablesidequestGwen at Pillar Plaza. The Watch Security Key is in a wooden crate outside the factory, just before the vending machine; it opens the sealed door in the last warehouse, where a Cerulean Drake waits. Wind again. Pays a Star Bracelet.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Side quest: Lost FriendsCopy missablesidequestBetty, near the weapons store. Three cats: on Seventh Heaven's porch, at the T-junction east toward Pillar Plaza, and through the shed past the item store, where a woman in green points the way. They all run home on their own once found. Pays a Maiden's Kiss — one widely used guide calls it a Maiden's Tear, which is not an item in this game.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Katie's fiend-slaying rewards (10 / 20 / 50 kills)Copy missableSources disagreeitemKatie by the scoreboard keeps a running count. Potion x5 at 10 kills, Revival Earrings at 20, MP Up Materia at 50. The hoodlums later in the day do not count.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.Sources disagree: One guide says these cannot be missed and can be claimed later; another places Katie on the road to Wedge's place in Chapter 4. Readers of two guides report her inactive on a Hard replay. Claim them in Chapter 3.

Talagger factory

Antidote x2 (factory, first warehouse)Copy missableitemIn the fenced area by the locked gate. You can see a materia orb behind the fence; that comes later.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select. The factory only opens for the side quests.
Sedative x2 (factory)Copy missableitemBy the switch to the right of the door in the south wall.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Fire Materia (factory)Copy missablemateriaThe orb you saw behind the fence. Hold the switch beside the big grey door in the later warehouse to reach it.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select, or buy one at the item store for 500 gil.
Music Disc: 4. Barret's ThemeCopy missablecollectibleThe food stand by the Sector 7 station, 50 gil. One copy.Lost after: Leaving the Sector 7 slums for the last time in Chapter 4.Get another: Chapter Select. No later shop stocks it.

The evening

Discovery: Alone at LastCopy missablesidequestOnly if all six odd jobs are done. Go to Stargazer Heights instead of the bar, change the filter in your room, and visit Tifa. Marle hands over a Crescent Moon Charm, and Tifa asks what kind of dress she should wear.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select.
Choice: Tifa's dress ("mature", "sporty" or "exotic")Copy missablereferenceDecides which of Tifa's three dresses appears in Chapter 9. All nine dresses across Cloud, Tifa and Aerith is a trophy. Do not pick mature on a first run: any later replay that skips the odd jobs gives it to you for free.Lost after: Entering Seventh Heaven after Johnny's rescue.Get another: Chapter Select — answer differently on each replay. Skip the scene and she defaults to the mature dress.
Ifrit MateriamateriaJessie gives it to you at Stargazer Heights at the end of the chapter, as a story beat. It arrives with a spare Healing Materia nobody mentions.
1,050 gil (Barret's payment)itemSit at the counter to wait out the meeting and Barret pays you.
Darts: beat Wedge's record (Luck Up Materia)Copy missablemateriaThe board at the back of the bar while you wait. Beat the record and Wedge hands you Luck Up Materia in Chapter 4. Finishing 301 in seven throws or fewer earns a trophy; six is the minimum.Lost after: Leaving Seventh Heaven after the meeting.Get another: Chapter Select. Luck Up also comes from the Wall Market squats and elsewhere later.

Hard mode only

The Art of Swordplay Vol. V (Hard)key-itemThe Doomrat fight in Rat Problem, on Hard. Hard unlocks after the credits and plays chapters from Chapter Select. Each Manuscript is given once per save; a repeat win pays a substitute.
Way of the Fist Vol. IV (Hard)key-itemThe second Wrath Hound fight in On the Prowl, after the chase, on Hard.

How this page was made

Researched across 8 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