GarlandTheGreat | FFVII - Action Button Only Challenge [No EXP] , Part 19: Demons Gate @GarlandTheGreat | Uploaded July 2023 | Updated October 2024, 14 hours ago.
This is one of the biggest obstacles I've faced in a challenge in a long time. I've had many hard battles with this guy over the years, but this one seemed nearly impossible and I had to do a lot of trial and error before I found something that worked.

What's the big problem then? Pretty much everything. You have very little HP, you can't defend or put up Barrier, it's hard to heal and your damage output is poor. You can just forget about the Berserk strategy, because it will last no longer than the second Demon Rush if you can even get that far. How do we even heal when most of the attacks will kill Aerith? Well, there's one she can survive and that's going to be the solution here. The one thing I did know for sure is that this was going to be a Great Gospel battle. That's the only way to heal and the only way to survive here. It may seem cheap to use immunity, but it doesn't last very long, so this is still going to be a highly strategy reliant battle that requires careful planning and execution. Of course, we can't avoid the luck factor either, but that's something you have to live with in such an extreme challenge.

For my setup, I've got Cloud with the Yoshiyuki, Aerith with the Princess Guard and Cait with whatever was his best weapon at the time. For armor, I used Diamond Bangles, the best available at the time. Cloud and Cait have double HP, which allows them to survive one rock, while Aeirth is set up with the lowest HP where she can always survive Cave-in and guarantee it fills up her limit bar. This requires Fury and a level one Elemental linked to Ice in her armor. The guys are set up to get healed by Cave-in, but that probably wasn't necessary. Aerith also has Added Effect linked to Time in her weapon to inflict Slow. Cloud has a level 4 Counter Attack for an 80% chance to counter. I know what you're thinking. Just use gameshark codes to master 8 of them, right? Well, there's a limit to how many I have room for in addition to the required stuff, and it could actually make things worse, as you would have less control over your damage output. I'll explain why that's important below.

So, how do we actually do this? First of all, Cait needs to get his first turn before Cloud to use Lucky Girl, since you absolutely must get double damage out of that Meteorain. This is needed to make sure the first Great Gospel lasts through the first Demon Rush. Meteorain will deal nearly 1800 out of the 2500 damage required to trigger the first Demon Rush, so it'll happen after a couple more turns. Once Demon Rush is used, the immunity is about to wear off and this is the luck reliant part. You'll never know how many rocks he'll drop before Cave-in, so you just have to hope the immunity lasts long enough, or that he doesn't drop any on Aerith. The guys can survive a rock each, and you're allowed to lose Cait, since the Yoshiyuki damage will make up for it, but you absolutely cannot lose Cloud. You also have to hope he doesn't use Cave-in before the immunity runs out, and you need to be careful not to deal more than 5000 damage to him before Cave-in, or you'll trigger the next Demon Rush and die horribly.

If nothing goes wrong, Cave-in will fill up Aerith's limit break and you'll get to use the second Great Gospel. This will keep you alive through the next Demon Rush and now you have to repeat the whole process. Hope Aerith doesn't get killed and make sure you don't exceed 7500 damage before the next Cave-in. If something does go wrong here and you fail to put up the final Great Gospel, you could still win with some luck. The guys can survive Demon Rush with full health and Cloud will get double damage from the Yoshiyuki if Aerith dies. It all depends on how many turns you get before Demon Rush and you definitely need Cait to take the first rock afterwards so that Cloud will get at least one attack with triple damage. This ended up being a pretty lucky battle, since the immunity always ran out at the exact right time.

Now that I made it through this one, how far do you think this challenge can go?

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