Final Fantasy 7 (VII) Remake Chapter 18: Destiny’s Crossroads Walkthrough

Chapter 18: Destiny’s Crossroads is the 18th and final story mission in Final Fantasy 7 (VII) Remake. This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Destiny’s Crossroads Main Mission.

Destiny’s Crossroads starts when you complete Deliverance from Chaos.

Area: Midgar Expressway
Requirement: Complete Chapter 17: Deliverance from Chaos
Objectives:

• Flying Through the Night
• The Turning Point

Flying Through the Night

At the start of the chapter, you will be riding on a bike again like you were in Chapter 4.  The section operates in a similar manner, you control the bike and need to protect the group in the truck from the Shinra Soldiers who attack using bikes of their own. This time there will also be trucks though, which you need to watch for someone targets at you with a laser. If you are being targeted, move to the other side of the vehicle so you can’t be aimed at from inside. Remember when you are behind the truck you can use your special attack as a ranged attack by holding before pressing .

After destroying the truck a helicopter will start following you. Watch in front where the red arrows are, as the helicopter will drop a series of bombs in that spot before you reach a tunnel and it pulls away.  Red will then heal some of your health before the next enemy group.

Inside this tunnel, you will need to deal with a group of Slug-Rays followed by a M.O.T.H. Drone. The Drone will move in front and shoot its blades backward towards you in a line a few times. After it shoots all of its volleys it will slow down a bit, allowing you to get some hits in on it. If it stays close to you and starts spinning its blade it will then swing towards you to run into you, but you can guard this to avoid it. If you successfully guard it it will stun the Drone for a moment, allowing you to get in more hits.

After the tunnel the helicopter will appear again, accompanied by two 3-C SOLDIERs on bikes. The SOLDIERs will typically only attack you if you are trying to attack them, so if the helicopter is firing a volley of missiles just move back and forth avoiding those and you should also be able to avoid the SOLDIERs.  After a while, the helicopter will start marking multiple spots for missiles at once, with the closest spots to you being fired at first. Once the SOLDIERs are dealt with the helicopter will be too.

Boss Fight: Motor Ball

You will now be attacked by a large six-wheeled mech. You start damaging it by attacking its wheels from the sides. When it flips up onto one set of wheels slow down and move to the other side, as it will drop down hard onto the set of wheels to try and crush you. Once all six wheels are destroyed it will be staggered and you can put some damage into the main body.  Note that through each time you can damage the main body it holds you stagger %, but getting over 300% at this point doesn’t actually award the trophy for it.

After it comes out of stagger it will spin in a circle shooting flames around itself, so move away from it while it does this. It will then heal its wheels, and you need to repeat damaging them again.

This time, while you are beside it, it might start shooting a laser to the side, which you avoid in the same manner as avoiding its crush attack. After staggering it for a second time it will move ahead and start shooting volleys of electrical orbs towards you, which you need to avoid until it moves back near you. The third time while damaging its wheels it will put a shield up around the wheels to force you to continually switch sides each time, but it won’t heal all six of the wheels.

If you don’t destroy it after the third stagger, it will go forward again and launch more volleys at you. This time after every volley it will also launch a large orb back towards you that you need to avoid. Once you reduce its health to zero it will be destroyed.

The Turning Point

When you get off the bike, you can go forward and use the bench and vending machine, then proceed past the toll booth line. After some scenes, the game gives you one final warning about being ready before proceeding. Stock up at the vending machine and set your team up with proper Materia and gear, then proceed forward.

Boss Fight: Whisper Harbinger (Whisper Bahamut)

The worst part about this fight is that it’s incredibly long and if you die at any point you have to go back to the beginning. It’s split up into a number of stages. Firstly, you’ll fight Whisper Rubrum, Whisper Viridi and Whisper Croceo as a trio while your party changes (although you’ll always have Cloud). Then you’ll fight them individually and deal damage to Whisper Harbinger through the proxy of the other Whispers. You don’t actually fight the Harbinger (big monster in background) directly or have to worry about any attacks from him. In the next stage, the three will all join together as Whisper Bahamut. Then you fight all three together again before a very short segment against Harbinger.

In the first stage against the three of them, try and take down the Whispers one at a time by focusing your attacks on one target before moving on. This stage is really easy; use Cloud’s Punisher Mode followed by either Triple Slash or Counterstance depending on if you’re feeling aggressive or want to be patient. The other characters can then chip in with their strongest abilities (Aerith can heal if you need). It’s a good idea to equip Steadfast Block on Cloud as the Whispers love to attack him physically, so this way you can reduce damage further and build ATB further for Triple Slashes/Counterstance. The other Whispers that you aren’t attacking tend to be preoccupied with your other party members so you shouldn’t have too much trouble tanking the one you’re focusing on as Cloud.

After dealing enough damage to the three, you’ll then fight each one individually with more powered up and faster attacks. It’s more of the same though, block and counter in Punisher Mode, then Triple Slash them to death. Once you defeat one of the Lesser Whispers, Whisper Harbinger will be Staggered but you deal damage to him by attacking the defeated Whisper. Deal as much damage as you can and part of his body will break off and that Whisper will vanish from the battlefield. If you aren’t quick enough you’ll have to defeat that Whisper again and finish the job (each Whisper is linked to a certain proportion of Harbinger’s health bar).

In the final phase, you’ll face off against Whisper Bahamut. However, this is much easier than the regular version in the VR simulator. He doesn’t have a lot of HP, so if you can save your summon (bringing your own version in for a Bahamut Derby is a cool spectacle!) and Limit Breaks for this part, you’ll already be halfway there.

He stays close to the ground and mainly swipes at you with his claws, plus fires energy beams and charges at you. He can still use his Grab attack too, so swap to another character and attack the hand to make him drop the grabbed character. He’ll likely cast Megaflare when his health starts to get low, but this won’t damage you nearly as much as the regular Bahamut’s attack. It’s still wise to fire off a quick Magnify-Curaga before and after it hits, while of course Manawall (Barrier Materia) will help.

Counterstance is the way to go here, since he loves to swipe his claws at Cloud very often. It will do a lot of damage and build the Stagger bar. If you Stagger him, you’re nearly done. Hit him with your hardest abilities supplemented with Tifa’s Rise and Fall to build the Stagger % and he’ll go down surprisingly fast.

After this, you have to face all three Whispers yet again. What worked earlier works here; just focus on one at a time using Cloud’s Steadfast Block followed by Triple Slash or Counterstance depending on how much HP you have and how aggressive you’re feeling. There’s no need to take too many risks, but if a Whisper is close to death it’s best to try finish him off than playing defensive.

As you Stagger each Whisper, Barret and Red XIII will hit Harbinger with their Limit Breaks automatically as you keep doing damage through them. After all three lesser Whispers are gone, you’ll need to deliver a tiny bit of damage to Harbinger (use magic or Aerith’s regular attack) to finish him off for good.

Hard Mode Tips: There’s not much to add on Hard except that this battle is surprisingly easier thanks to Gotterdammerung (accessory you got from beating Pride and Joy in Chapter 17 Battle Simulator). Ascension absolutely ruins the Whispers and Bahamut as they have no physical resistance, so pop it at the start of battle and then whenever it’s available throughout the battle to reduce their health significantly.

You might have to lean on Counterstance a little more than Triple Slash as it’s always good to play more defensively on Hard, but there’s little to worry about. Also try to limit your MP usage, so equip Pray if you’re struggling. It’s a long battle so you can be excused for using a few Magnify-Curaga casts, but you’ll want as much MP as you can for the final boss fight that’s coming right up after this!

Boss Fight: Sephiroth

This is the final story boss fight! Since this is the last battle, it goes without saying that you should burn all of your Elixirs, Turbo Ethers and any other curative items here. You certainly won’t need them on Hard (because Hard doesn’t let you use any items anyway).

For this fight, it’s worth sticking Elemental-Ice on Cloud’s armor (not weapon). Sephiroth uses all four types of elemental spells but seems to use Ice and Fire the most. If you’ve leveled up your Elemental Materia you will be resistant to the linked element or even absorb it.

You start off just with Cloud, but as the battle progresses two other characters join you (either Tifa+Barret or Aerith+Barret).

The first part of the fight with Cloud is all about countering. Have Steadfast Block Materia equipped and Punisher Mode, then block and counter Sephiroth’s attacks with a few hits of your own. Don’t get too greedy with attacking him though as he’ll just swipe at you with his sword and knock you over if you over-extend yourself.

As soon as you see Telluric Fury, use Counterstance. This will block the attack and deliver a good chunk of damage back at him and build Stagger. If you see him use the Scintilla ability, DO NOT ATTACK! This is his version of Counterstance, so if you attack him he’ll block it then hammer you. Roll backwards out of range until he uses the ability and it misses. It’s also best to evade or dodge Aeolian Onslaught as Counterstance doesn’t work against it.

Once he’s Staggered you’ve dealt him some good damage, the second character will join you. Sephiroth will get more aggressive and attack more regularly with elemental spells, but if you have Elemental Materia on your armor you should be able to negate 50% of those and continue using Counterstance against Telluric Fury to whittle his health down. You can see what element he will be using as he uses Elemental Infusion to give you a clue, so you can know whether you can withstand those attacks or whether you’ll have to dodge. He’ll also use an AoE attack called Hell’s Gate which is best avoided by dodging out of range.

When 50% of his health is gone, your third character appears and the main battle begins. All gloves are off as Sephiroth brings out the big guns (or rather, a single black wing) and starts using Octoslash.

At this point, it’s best to have Manawall and Haste on at least Cloud, but having it on all 3 characters is better if you can. Otherwise, Octoslash will pretty much kill anything it hits if they aren’t at full health (you’re locked in to taking 8 full slashes of Sephiroth’s Masamune – not good for your health even in the best of situations).

Once he gets down to about 15-20% of his health, he’ll start counting down from 10. As long as you keep playing aggressively and dealing him lots of damage, he shouldn’t reach 0. If you do let him go to 0, he summons a giant comet out of the sky to kill your entire team. Conclusion: don’t let it happen.

He also uses Shadow Flare and Heartless Angel. For the former, large black energy balls will form on the ground around the arena and if you’re caught in one, you’ll take huge damage and probably die. For Heartless Angel, Sephiroth will float in mid-air and he’ll throw his sword down beneath him, creating a large circle of life. If you’re caught in this blast radius, you’ll also take huge damage. As soon as he uses this attack, run as far away to the other end of the platform as possible and wait it out.

Keep the pressure on him and use your Limits as soon as they are charged. With how much damage you’ll be taking, they should build fast. As long as you dodge the two main attacks in this phase, Punisher Mode and the usual Stagger Cycle supplemented with Limit Breaks will see you win. It’s probably best having one character focusing purely on healing (Cloud, or Aerith if she joins you) and reapplying Manawall/Haste at this stage (Barret or Tifa). If your ATB is full then just keep it that way so you’re ready whenever for an instant heal.

Hard Mode Tips: The first phase of this fight is purely trivial. Since you should have the Gotterdammerung accessory (from Pride & Joy boss in Chapter 17 Shinra Combat Simulator on hard) and start with a full Limit, use Ascension and it will instantly Stagger him, and then you can attack him in Punisher Mode.

Regardless of whether Aerith or Tifa join you, use them as support characters to refresh the Haste Buff (Time Materia). Barret should be equipped with Barrier Materia to cast Manawall on Cloud when he joins the fight. Try to keep Manawall refreshed on Cloud (it halves all physical + elemental damage received). If you happen to have two MAX Barrier Materia, assign one to Tifa or Aerith too (whoever joins you), thus you can draw from two character’s MP pools. If Aerith joins your party, have Magnify Materia + Healing Materia on her. If Tifa joins you instead, put it on Cloud and make him the healer instead.

Use Cloud’s Ascension Limit Break whenever you get a chance. Don’t wait for Stagger (unless it’s extremely close), just use it. With the amount of damage you take on Hard, it will build up extremely quickly so you can just keep using it over and over. The last hit adds about 75% to the stagger bar in one strike.

Other than that, tactics are pretty similar. As soon as any character’s health dips below 50%, throw a Magnify-healing spell out and make your utmost priority to Revive/Raise any dead characters (definitely have Revival Materia on all characters). Sephiroth likes to only focus on the character you are controlling, so a great tactic is to use one character, aggro him, then switch to another character and get some good hits in while he isn’t focused on that character. Obviously, the more party members you have alive, the easier this is.

As long as you know how to dodge the attacks in the final phase, both of which can kill you outright, you should get through this. Good luck!

This finishes Chapter 18: Destiny’s Crossroads, and the story as a whole in Final Fantasy VII Remake.

For all other Mission Walkthroughs, check out our complete Final Fantasy 7 (VII) Remake Walkthrough.

If you want to start your hard playthrough next, check out the Final Fantasy 7 (VII) Remake Hard Difficulty Guide. For Collectibles, Secrets and anything else you have left for 100% completion, check out the full Final Fantasy 7 (VII) Remake Wiki & Strategy Guide.