Final Fantasy VII Remake completely changed the game with a new action based gameplay style that still brought many of the elements of the original that people loved. With the action oriented combat, the game decided to include a feature that many other games have used over the years, which is a Stagger mechanic for enemies. Successfully staggering enemies can mean the difference in defeating an enemy or losing, so knowing how to do this can be very vital to your survival in Final Fantasy VII Remake.
How To Stagger Enemies
As with most action RPGs, your first instinct is to just lay into whatever enemy you are facing with your sword or respective weapon. That is a good approach to have most of the time in Final Fantasy VII Remake, but some enemies can have a lot of health or just really high defense. To make them more vulnerable, you want to Stagger them.
While you have an enemy locked on or even just targeted, you will notice some information pop up on the screen that includes their name and health bar. Once you start hitting the enemy, you’ll notice another gauge just below the health bar that will start to fill up with an orange color.
This is the Stagger bar, but there’s not a set method for staggering every enemy. Most enemies in the game will see the bar go up by being attacked normally, though Spells and Abilities are usually the way to go here.
What you’re definitely going to want to do though is take advantage of your Assess Materia that you get from Chadley. Using the Assess Materia will scan the enemy and give you a breakdown of their weaknesses, immunities, and such. When talking about Stagger though, the Assess Materia will also tell you information about the best way to Stagger most enemies.
There are definitely some where it will not tell you what’s the best type of attack or strategy to raise the Stagger bar, but a good majority of them will do so. Many bosses will tell you this as well, so you know just how to go after them. You’ll notice this is working especially when you see “Pressured” underneath the health bar as well, so start really adding to that Stagger gauge there.
