Chapter 10: Rough Waters

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.

A breather chapter, after a long one. It is underground, it is mostly corridors and water, and it is one of the shortest chapters in the game. The only part that needs any thought is the first five minutes.

The first fight

The chapter opens on a small choice. Pick whichever answer you like. It is a quiet thing that adds up with other quiet things, and it changes nothing in this chapter.

Then a big fight, with no bench and no shop in front of it. What you need to know:

• Fire. It is weak to fire and shrugs off ice. Sword hits fill its stagger bar faster than spells do, so let Cloud do the work and use fire to soften it.
• Aim for the horns. A heavy fire hit on a horn breaks it and leaves the thing reeling. That is your opening.
• When it crouches to pounce, run. Rolling does not get you clear, and blocking does nothing.
• It poisons the water. Keep antidotes or a cure on hand, and if you picked up something in the last chapter that guards against poison, wear it.
• It gets worse at half health. Save a summon for the second half.

The waterworks

After that it is a straight run of consoles that drain or raise the water. When the way looks blocked, look for a console. When the path splits, the marker points at the way on and the other branch almost always ends in a chest. Take the branches as you meet them; the route is one-way and closes behind you at the bigger ladders and doors.

Four worth knowing about:

• After you drain the first big channel, go under the gate instead of up the stairs. The purple chest there is a new weapon for one of your party.
• On the first climb back up along the main channel, a platform on the right has a materia on it.
• Past the second bench, take the south branch at the first split for a chest, then later go down the ladder and north at the second split for a materia and, at the end of that path, an accessory.
• The vending machine at the first bench sells a music disc for 50 gil.

The fish-men that drop off the walls are weak to fire and can turn you into a frog. A Maiden’s Kiss fixes it. The crabs counter you while they guard; hit them with ice and wait for the guard to drop.

The pump

Near the end, two of your party work a pump. It is a timing game: stop the needle in the red zone three times. Every miss makes the zone bigger, so you cannot really fail it. Rest at the bench before you do it — a few fights follow back to back on the way out.

Game Notes

Every long game needs a sewer level, and this is the Remake’s. It is short, honest about being a corridor, and broken up by a puzzle or a fight every few minutes, which is about as much as a sewer can be asked to do.

What lifts it is that it comes straight after the loudest chapter in the game. The noise stops, the party has room to talk, and the game slows down on purpose. It is a palate cleanser, and it knows it.

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.

The trapdoor drops Cloud, Tifa and Aerith into the Sector 6 sewers, and the chapter is the walk out. It is short and linear, with no side quests and no Chadley. The sewers you come back through in Chapter 14 are a different stretch, so nothing here waits for you later in the run.

What can be missed

Nothing is behind a single door; everything is behind a one-way route. All nine chests sit on side branches, and the way back closes behind the bigger ladders and doors. Take each branch when you meet it. Chapter Select replays the chapter if you do not.

The wake-up choice in the first minute — help Tifa or Aerith up first — adds affection for whoever you pick. It feeds who visits Cloud at the start of Chapter 14 and does nothing else.

Abzu is the first fight, so any preparation happens at the end of Chapter 9: Wall Market’s shops, a Star Pendant, fire materia levelled.

The Oppressed is the chapter’s disc. The Chapter 14 sewer vending machine sells it again, so skipping it here costs you nothing.

Everything, in order

Abzu. See below.

Follow the Waterway. An Ether to the right in the first hallway; the way on is left. Sahagin ambush you from the walls — fire hurts them, so does ice in two guides’ reading, and they can inflict Frog. Up the ladder round the corner, Hi-Potion x2 by the next hallway. Pull the console to drain the first aqueduct, then go under the gate, not up the stairs, for the purple chest with Tifa’s Feathered Gloves. A save that already owns them gets a Potion from that chest instead. The next room has a bench and the vending machine with The Oppressed for 50 gil. Then Wererats, and two Wererats with a Scissorclaw — resists melee, weak to ice, counters while guarding.

Find the Skeleton Key. Up into the dark rooms. The power switch is on the far south wall. Clear the Scissorclaws in the east room, drain it, and take the Key to the Sewers from the bottom. Drain the west room too for 800 gil. The key opens the door opposite the power switch.

Crossing the Trunk Line. A chain of switches, each guarded — Wererats, Scissorclaws, Blugu, Sahagin. On the first climb back up, the right-hand platform holds Poison Materia.

Crossing the Sluice Gate. Cross the gate you lowered, beat the Sahagin below, pull the switch and cross the raised platforms.

To the Sector 7 Slums. A second bench and vending machine (same stock, no disc). At the first split, the south branch has a Wererat group guarding Orb of Gravity x2. Back in that room, climb the ladder, squeeze through, and clear the Scissorclaws. At the T-junction go south, then west; at the second split go down the ladder and north for Warding Materia — Healing Materia on a save that already has it — and on to the end of that path for Revival Earrings. Then back to the first split and north to the objective.

To the Surface / Operating the Pump. Start draining the tank from the panel in the control room on the right. Control passes to Aerith, with Tifa, for the pump: stop the needle in the red zone three times, with every miss widening the zone, then switch the pump on at the panel. Two Sahagin jump you on the way out, three more wait at the top ladder, and the exit ladder ends the chapter with Sewer Survivor. There is no boss at the end.

Abzu

Weak to fire; resists ice, and ice builds no stagger. Magic barely nudges its stagger bar, so physical damage is what breaks it. Immune to Slow, Poison and Silence.

A heavy fire hit on a horn — Firaga, or Ifrit’s Crimson Dive and Radiant Plume — breaks it and puts Abzu into Pressured; follow up with focused abilities. Its kit: Bash and Smash, Ground Pound, Charge and Triple Charge, Pounce (unblockable, Bound — run rather than roll), Backwash Spout (poison whirlpools), and Provoke, which inflicts Fury. At half health it casts Enrage and phase two adds Backwater Blast, a flood — get away from the grate side. It dives into the channel now and then; that is your window to heal.

Bring Fire and Elemental on Cloud, a Star Pendant or Esuna and antidotes for the poison, and Ifrit.

Steal: Turbo Ether. Rewards: 840 EXP, 10 AP and a Phoenix Down; one guide adds 350 gil.

Hard mode

• Way of the Fist Vol. VII — Abzu, on Hard. Put Fire and Elemental on Tifa as well as Cloud. Abzu is the only boss in the chapter, so there is no reason to hold anything back for later, and you can run from the ordinary fights that follow.

The other Abzu Manuscript, Way of the Fist Vol. IX, comes from the Chapter 14 rematch, not from here.

Game Notes

Chapter 10 has a reputation as the Remake’s dead air, and it is not entirely unearned — it is a sewer, and it plays like one. But it has the best-placed boss of the first half. Abzu arrives at the moment you have the least control over your setup, which makes the end of Chapter 9 matter in hindsight. If you left Wall Market without fire materia levelled and something against poison, you find out here.

The wake-up choice is the other thing worth noticing. It is one button press, it feeds a scene four chapters away, and nothing tells you. That is the Remake’s affection system in miniature: the weights are small, they are everywhere, and they are never announced.

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