Towards the end of Chapter 2 inFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth, players will reunite with Chadley. Android and former assistant to Professor Hojo, Chadley is striking out on his own to explore and investigate the world. Much like in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Chadley wants the party’s help in conducting his research and offers powerful materia as a reward for their help.
To better fit the open world areas ofFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Chadley’s Research has expanded in scope, encouraging players to explore the world and seek out a variety of landmarks. Powerful fiends also dot the landscape, which players can fight to gather battle data. All of this exploration, in turn, unlocks new materia for purchase from Chadley and new combat simulations to challenge. This guide will explain the different types of objectives Chadley might give to the player as part of the World Intel system.
Remnawave Towers
The first type of World Intel Task players will learn about, Remnawave Towers are the only type of World Intel that is marked on the map initially. To mark the others players will either need to locate them manually by exploring, or activate a nearby Remnawave Tower. Players need to find a control panel on the tower and activate it by interacting with it. This is sometimes found at ground level, but will often require players to climb part of the way up the Tower.
After activating a Remnawave Tower, nearby World Intel tasks will be added to the map. This means that players should always prioritize Remnawave Towers when exploring a new region. Additionally,Remnawave Towers (and the other World Intel Tasks) are great sources of Party XP.
The Combat Simulator
A returning feature from Remake, Chadley’s Combat Simulator allows players to take on a variety of combat challenges to unlock new materia.Additional challenges will be unlocked by fighting enemies in each region, using the assess materia on enemies in a region, and completing Fiend Intel fights. Along with unlocking new materia, certain challenges will unlock new abilities for the Enemy Skill Materia when completed. The Enemy Skill Materia can be incredibly useful once more abilities have been unlocked in this way.
Lifesprings
Players can track down Lifesprings throughout each region to tap the Lifestream and gain new knowledge. When players are nearing a Lifespring they will often spot “Springseeker Owls”, who will fly towards the Lifespring and can be followed right to it. On arriving at a Lifespring and interacting with it, players will need to complete a simple timing minigame to scan it. Just tap the interact button when the contracting ring overlaps with the target area to complete each step of the scan.
Completing Lifesprings will also reveal some new locations on the map,often including the locations of Transmuter Chips.
Fiend Intel
Of course, for Chadley to create challenges in the Combat Simulator he’ll need data on the various enemies the party encounters. Rare varieties of certain creatures can be found around the map and Chadley will task the party with gathering data on them. These are “Fiend Intel” challenges, where MAI (Monster Assessment Instrument) will provide information about a creature and a set of three challenges to complete while fighting it. These are straightforward combat encounters, and players will often be tasked with pressuring and staggering the target, so players should start by using the Assess materia to determine the target’s weaknesses.
Divine Intel
Chadley is also gathering data on the various summons associated with each of the game’s regions. To do this, he needs the party to seek out sanctuaries hidden away throughout each area and analyze them.These sanctuaries contain the crystalized knowledge of summons and will strengthen the summon materia associated with themwhen investigated. Finding and analyzing these sanctuaries also unlocks the option of fighting a weaker version of that summon in the Combat Simulator, making that summon materia easier to acquire.
When analyzing a sanctuary, players will be shown a pattern of button inputs and then tasked with mimicking that button input with the same timing. This is a simple memory game and is rather forgiving when it comes to timing. There is no penalty for failing the minigame since it can be repeated as many times as needed.
Protorelic Phenomenons
Each region has a “Protorelic” to track down, a rare artifact that Chadley wants to study. To acquire the Protorelic players will need to complete a series of challenges at multiple locations throughout the region.The specifics of these challenges will differ from region to region, with the Grasslands region tasking players with chasing a group of bandits from hideout to hideout as they flee with the artifact.
Each step in the Protorelic Phenomenon challenges for a region will provide data for Chadley that can be exchanged for new Materia. Collecting every Protorelic is also crucial to unlocking a particularly useful summon later in the game, making the Protorelic Phenomenons particularly valuable World Intel tasks.
Materia Development
The fruits of these labors, Chadley can use all the data collected by the Party to create new Materia, which can be purchased using the data points earned from each World Intel activity.The materia available differ from one region to anotherbut are always tremendously useful. Some particularly versatile Materia that are only available through Materia Development are multi-magic materia, like the “Fire & Ice” materia earned from research in the Grasslands. These powerful materia provide multiple types of magic while only taking up a single materia slot, allowing much greater build versatility and also stretching the utility of magnify materia to affect multiple spells if slotted correctly.
Taking advantage of Materia Development whenever possible is crucial to growing the party’s strength and will make difficult encounters much more manageable. It’s one of the main reasons that players should clear out as many World Intel objectives as possible when they first enter a new region and will make story encounters considerably less difficult.
