How to Defeat Pride and Joy:
Of the many combat challenges in the Shinra Combat Simulator, there’s one that will truly test your patience. This is the “Three-Person Team vs. Top Secret” challenge, rated at 7 Stars and only available in Hard Mode (which unlocks after finishing the game once). Along with completing all the other battle challenges beforehand, you also need to complete the Corneo Colosseum Challenges and all Battle Intel Reports.
This combat challenge consists of five boss fights in a row. You’ll start with Shiva, then fight the Fat Chocobo, move on to Leviathan, face Ifrit and Bahamut, and end it with Pride and Joy in the final round. You’ll recover half of your overall HP and MP after each round but item use is disabled. Still, if you really want the Ultimate Weapon Trophy, then you’ll need to slog through this.
First off, make sure you have all of your characters in tip-top shape. Give Cloud the Hardedge and Astral Cuff, double health, Steadfast Block and Revive. His main job is physical attacks and staying alive, along with reviving anyone that goes down. Tifa should have the Metal Knuckles and Champion Belt along with double health, Revive, Steadfast Block, Barrier and Time. Her main job is building Stagger and providing extra damage when an enemy is staggered.
For Aerith, use the Mythril Rod along with Magnify + Cure, double health, MP Absorb + Lightning, MP Up and at least one Magic Up. She’ll also need the ability to Revive. Along with dealing Magic damage, Aerith will be the main support and serve to keep everyone topped up.
The first round is against Shiva. You’ve fought her before and the pattern is pretty much the same here – attack with Fire spells which will inflict Stagger. The one thing to keep in mind is to inflict Stagger when she’s at 50 percent HP. This will allow you to take her down and avoid dealing with her potential berserk state.
The second round is against Fat Chocobo. You can attack it straight on – just make sure to dodge and take out the Tonberries quickly. The next round is Leviathan and here’s where the challenge starts to kick in. Position your party members close to avoid its ranged attacks. Use Thunder for staggering it and switch to Aerith when it starts flying. Whenever Leviathan begins to dive, block with either Cloud or Tifa.
The fourth round is against Ifrit and Bahamut so start by casting Barrier. You’ll take on Bahamut first. Once it drops down to 50 percent HP, Ifrit will appear. Make sure to have Fire immunity on your accessory to prevent Ifrit from causing any major damage. You’ll want to take it out as soon as possible – Tifa’s Stagger attacks works wonders and Cloud’s Counterstance will help to survive a lot of the magic attacks. Limit Breaks should also be used liberally.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle in this fight will be Bahamut’s Mega Flare. First, make sure everyone is above 50 percent health. You can have Aerith use Auto-Revive with the Revival Earring or use Arise. Either way, the attack will deal 9999 damage so you need a game plan for getting your party back in quickly.
The fifth and final round is against Pride and Joy. There will be several spots in the area that will burn you so stay away from those. Pride and Joy attacks with its arms and can cause quite a bit of damage. Stay back when it raises its arms up. If it grabs a party member, there’s a good chance they’ll go down so make sure Arise is on hand to save them. Stagger the boss (Thunder is helpful here) and use Limit Breaks for max damage. Keep up the pressure and it should go down, thus netting you the trophy and the pride and joy (see what we did there?) of beating the toughest boss in the game.
How to Learn All Enemy Skills
Much less challenging but still somewhat of a task is having to learn enemy skills. These are skills acquired when you have the Enemy Skill Materia equipped. Why would you want to learn enemy skills at all? Besides one of them (at least) being useful, it’s necessary for the Master of Mimicry Trophy. So how do you go about it?
First, you need the Enemy Skill Materia which is a reward from completing Battle Intel Report 16. Then you need to find the enemy in question, take damage and unlock the skill. There are four enemy skills in total – the first is Spirit Siphon, which you learn from the Phantoms that appear in the Sector 6 Slums, Public Graveyard during a side quest in Chapter 11.
Next up is Self Destruct which can be learned from Smoggers. You’ll find them in either the Collapsed Expressway or in the Underground Test Site, B1 in Varghidpolis in Chapter 14. Algid Aura, which you get from Cerulean Drakes, is the third skill. These are found in the Collapsed Sector 7 Plate, Distillation Tower 2 on the fourth floor in Chapter 15.
The fourth and final skill is the toughest to obtain. Bad Breath must be learned from Marlboro which appears in the fifth round of Hojo’s Lab Shinra Combat Simulator challenges (usually the high star ones which are only available in Hard Mode). It’s somewhat worth it though since it can induce Poison, Sleep and Silence and doesn’t cost any MP to use. Look at it this way – if your party is equipped to handle the 7 Star Challenge, then it should be capable of obtaining Bad Breath in Hard Mode as well.
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