Ultimate Party Animal

 Well, the patch to fix the "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" side-quest in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has landed. I had to re-attain the record for G-Bike, which led to a Queen's Blood game followed by a final 3D Brawler match (well, not so final - beating the Shinra Middle Manager unlocks a fight versus Sephiroth in it).

However, it turns out that this quest did not hold the last bit of party XP required to hit party level 10 for me.

For that, I first had to beat the Gears and Gambits games in Cosmo Canyon on hard mode - something I had zero shame in looking up a guide for - and then doing the same with Fort Condor (which... I also looked up a guide for. Look, RTSes have never been my strong suit).

However, that still wasn't enough. Because I've now got to do the Cactuar Crush... you guessed it, hard modes.

This should finish it - after beating the first one, I have 15 XP left to hit party level 10, and each awards 5 XP, so I just have these three challenges left.

Once all that is accomplished, I'll continue my Hard Mode playthrough (in this case the overall game's hard mode). I believe the last party level unlocks a feature on everyones' Folios that causes them to fill the limit gauge (I assume partially fill it, otherwise it'd be utterly busted) with each expenditure of ATB. We'll see how much it does that, but getting more Limit Breaks over the course of a difficult boss fight is sure to be useful.

We'll see if I actually make it all the way through on Hard Mode. I've been loving this game, but I now have an ambition to clear all the old-school Final Fantasy games I got (as I said in the previous post, I just beat the first one).

Still, being able to check the Ultimate Party Animal title off the list certainly feels good.

Also, upon returning to Hard Mode (which I should be able to now - I didn't want to do it in the middle of the side quest for fear of losing my progress) I can get the materials to make the Genji gear, which I think I could put to good use (the one that reduces incoming and outgoing damage might be really powerful on Barret, as I've already got him set up to tank with Lifesaver and the gun with the automatic protect spell every time he overcharges).