Author: Trafficblast

Working your way through Final Fantasy 7 Remake, you’ll often get your best, most useful, or most interesting Materia from Chadley, the strange kid you meet in Chapter 3. Chadley gives you “Battle Intel” assignments, and unlocking each one lets you purchase a new Materia. Among those is Enemy Skill, a Materia that lets you turn the strengths of your foes against them.

Finding all the enemy skills in Final Fantasy 7 Remake earns you the “Master of Mimicry” Trophy, but nabbing it can be difficult, since very few enemies have skills you can learn with the Materia. Here’s a rundown of everything you need to know about Enemy Skill, including where to find all the enemies whose moves you can master.

If you need more info, check out our huge rundown of FF7 Remake guides, covering everything from an spoiler-free walkthrough, to boss battles, to side-quests and secrets.

Where To Find Enemy Skill Materia

Complete Chadley’s Battle Intel 16: Monster Bio Pt. 4, which you can unlock in Chapter 14. It requires you to use Assess Materia on 30 enemy types, but the total is cumulative–any enemies you’ve assessed before Chapter 14 will count toward the total. Just keep using Assess in every battle to clear this one, then return to Chadley to purchase your Materia.

How Enemy Skill Works

Enemy Skill is a Command Materia, which means it gives a character new options under the “Ability” menu in combat. While you have Enemy Skill equipped, you can learn a few specific abilities if enemies use them on that character. That means to get all the abilities for the Materia, you have to seek out specific enemies and get hit by their abilities. To get them all, you’ll need to complete the game once and get access to Hard Mode on the newly unlocked Chapter Select menu.

Here’s a rundown of each Enemy Skill ability, what it does, what enemy has it, and where to find them.

Algid Aura

Generates an aura around the character that does Ice damage to any enemies nearby. It’s handy to use against fire creatures on a melee fighter such as Cloud or Tifa, since you’ll get extra damage as you attack your foes.

What Enemy Has It

You can get Algid Aura from fighting Cerulean Drakes; you’ll need to be hit by their Ice Aura ability.

Where You Can Find Them

• Chapter 3’s “Just Flew In From The Graveyard” side-quest
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 15

Spirit Siphon

Creates a large area-of-effect aura around the user that drains HP from enemies and gives it to the character. Useful in fights when you need a quick health boost but you don’t want to stop fighting, or you have multiple enemies surrounding a character.

What Enemy Has It

You’ll need to get hit by a Phantom‘s Energy Drain ability.

Where You Can Find Them

• Chapter 14’s “Missing Children” side-quest
• Chapter 16 Shinra Combat Simulator, in the “vs. 3-C SOLDIER Candidates” fights

Self-Destruct

Triggers a big area-of-effect explosion around the user that does a whole lot of damage, but incapacitates the character that uses it. Useful in dire situations when a character is surrounded or about to die anyway.

What Enemies Have It

• Smogger: get hit by its Self-Destruct ability, which it uses after you kill it
• Vaghidpolis: get hit by its Apoptosis ability
• Bomb: get hit by Apoptosis
• Proto-Trypapolis: get hit by Apoptosis
• HO512-OPT: get hit by Apoptosis

Where You Can Find Them

• Smogger
  • Chapter 8
  • Chapter 14, in the Sector 5 Slums
• Vaghidpolis
  • Chapter 13
  • Chapter 14, in the “Subterranean Menace” side-quest
• Bomb
  • Chapter 9, in the “Dynamite Bodies” side-quest
  • Fighting Fat Chocobo in Chadley’s VR simulator
  • Chapter 17 (Hard Mode), in the Shinra Combat Simulator fight “Three-Person Team vs. Monsters of Legend”
• Proto-Trypapolis
  • Chapter 14, in the Collapsed Expressway
• HO512-OPT
  • Chapter 16

Bad Breath

Hits an enemy with just about every status effect in the game, all at once.

What Enemy Has It

Just one: Marlboro. You’ll need to get hit with Bad Breath to capture the ability, but make sure you have a teammate on standby with Cleanse Materia and the Esuna spell.

Where You Can Find It

• Chapter 17 (Hard Mode), in the Shinra Combat Simulator fight “Three-Person Team vs. Monsters of Legend”

With the April 23 update, Animal Crossing: New Horizons got a new special visitor: Jolly Redd, a fox who visits in his Treasure Trawler and sells art of questionable origin. You have to be careful when buying art from him, because sometimes, he sells forgeries. If you want to donate art to your museum, it has to be legitimate, so a keen eye for paintings, statues, and other art pieces is important. Plus, you don’t want to waste your hard-earned bells on a fake!

Below, we detail how to spot a real piece of art from a fake. As we continue to play and get visits from Jolly Redd, we’ll update this guide with images so you can be absolutely sure what you’re buying is legit.

How To Buy Art From Redd

The first time Jolly Redd visits your island–which will happen the day after Blathers tells you he’d like to expand the museum to include an art wing–he will wander around your island and sell you a piece of art sight-unseen. This piece of art should be legitimate. After that, he will randomly come to visit your island like many of the other special visitors in the game, and you’ll be able to enter his boat at the secret beach to the north of your island and inspect the art before you buy it.

How To Spot Fake Art

All the art in Animal Crossing games is based on real-world masterworks like van Gogh’s The Starry Night, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and Hokusai’s The Great Wave. There’s a good chance you’ll recognize at least some of the art on sale, and for the ones you don’t recognize, we aim to have images and a full list in this guide very soon.

The trick to spotting a forgery is inspecting the art to see if it matches its real-world counterpart. Usually, this involves looking for differences in a focal point of the painting: The Girl with a Pearl Earring’s pearl earring, Mona Lisa’s eyebrows, and the like. Colors, facial features, clothing, and more might be incorrect.

All The Art We’ve Found So Far

Below is a list of all the art we’ve encountered in New Horizons so far. We will continue to update this list and add images as we find more.

Art Name	Real-Life Art
Academic painting	The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci
Perfect painting	Still Life with Apples and Oranges by Paul Cézanne
Quaint painting	The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer
Serene painting	Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci
Scary painting	Otani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei by Toshusai Sharaku
Twinkling painting	The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the Elemental Materia is one of the best Materia orbs you can get, as it can imbue either your weapons with elemental power and your armor with elemental defense. However, this Materia can be incredibly easy to miss if you’re just gunning your way through the story without exploring every nook and cranny of each area. Below we detail where to find all the Elemental Materia orbs you can get and how it works.

For more guides, check out our FF7 Remake guide and walkthrough roundup. Otherwise, be sure to read our FF7 Remake review.

How Elemental Materia Works

As mentioned above, the Elemental Materia is a handy way to imbue a party member’s melee attacks with elemental power when attached to a weapon or increase their magical defense against a particular element when attached to armor. To explain, weapons and armor feature sockets that you place Materia into, and there are two variants of Materia sockets on weapons and armor: single, and linked.

The linked sockets are what you can use to activate Elemental on weapons and armor. If you get a piece of armor with a linked slot and put the Elemental materia into one of those slots, the armor will give you resistance for the type of Materia you attach to it in the second slot. Alternatively, if you slot it into a joint slot on a weapon, your attacks will be imbued with that element.

How To Get Elemental Materia

You can get your first Elemental Materia during Chapter 6. Progress through the chapter until you deactivate the second sun lamp. Climb down the ladder from there and go around the cargo containers to find another ladder going down, leading to a platform where you’ll fight two Queen Grashtrikes. Dispatch them, then use the nearby control panel to lower the walkway ahead. Align it with the gate so you can cross. Head to the far end of the next platform to grab the Elemental Materia.

You can nab a second Elemental Materia later during Chapter 14. However, you can only get this one if you’ve completed every single side-quest up to this point. If you need help finding and completing them all, you can refer to our full FF7 Remake side-quest walkthrough. It’s important to note that you do not need to clear the two sets of side-quests during Chapter 9 to unlock the oppurtunity to get the second Elemental materia.

Anyway, pogress as you normally would up to the point in Chapter 14 where you’re on your way to head up the plate to start Chapter 15. As you head to the objective, you’ll discover a letter on the ground beside a treaded construction vehicle past Wall Market. Do not miss it! Inside the letter you’ll find a message and another Elemental Materia.

With two Elemental Materia in your arsenal, you can truly optimize your ability to take advantage of enemy weaknesses. This is a must moving into the endgame chapters, as well as the bonus boss fights you can unlock after you beat the game.

As you work your way through the slums of Midgar in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, you can’t help but meet Johnny, a colorful character who’s not especially bright. Despite mostly good intentions, Johnny can’t help but get himself into trouble almost constantly–but lucky for him, you’re there to bail him out. Tracking down all the game’s possible interactions with Johnny is worth the effort, though, not only because he’s pretty funny, but because it can net you a Trophy called “The Johnny Experience.”

Some of Johnny’s appearances in the game are mandatory, while others are tied to your choices, and a few are completely miserable. Here’s a rundown of all the places to find Johnny to earn the Trophy and follow one poor fool’s arc as he tries to make it in Midgar.

Chapter 3

Your first interaction with Johnny is part of the story. After completing at least one side-quest with Tifa, head back to the Seventh Heaven bar. You’ll see a bunch of people gathered nearby as part of the “Job Well Done” main scenario event. Head into the crowd to trigger your first Johnny scene.

Chapter 9

At The Honeybee Inn

The second time you encounter Johnny is soon after you enter Wall Market. Johnny will run past you as you approach Don Corneo’s mansion for the first time, triggering the “Discovery: Vagabond Johnny” event on your quest log. Turn around and follow him to the Honeybee Inn and interact with him there. You’ll want to agree with him when prompted during this interaction to get another scene with him later.

As you work your way through Wall Market after talking to Johnny, you’ll see him talking to each member of the Trio. You can stop and talk to him for some fun dialogue at each location, but these interactions aren’t necessary to earn the Trophy.

Triggering Johnny’s “The Party Lasts All Night” Side-Quest

There are two slates of possible side-quests in Chapter 9, one given to you by Chocobo Sam and the other by Madam M. The Chocobo Sam quests include one in which you’ll spend a heap of time with Johnny, but which set you get is dependent on your choices. Doing these things should activate Chocobo Sam’s quests in Chapter 9:

• Follow Johnny to the Honeybee Inn and agree with him
• Choose “heads” or “tails” in Chocobo Sam’s coin flip
• Choose the “poor man’s” option at Madam M’s

After returning to Madam M once you’ve finished the Corneo Colosseum portion, you’ll trigger Johnny’s side-quest, which will take you all through Wall Market.

Chapter 14

Complete the “Tomboy Bandit” Side-Quest

Head to the Sector 5 train station in Chapter 14 and you’ll find Johnny near the Item Shop. He’ll tell you about a woman who stole his wallet, along with all his money, and disappeared. The woman you’re looking for is named Kyrie, and she’s also a key figure in the “Don Corneo’s Secret Stash” side-quest.

Find Kyrie in Aerith’s church in Sector 5. She’ll send you to Corneo Colosseum to complete a fight for her, in which you’ll face the Beastmaster and his new pet, a Hellhound. The fight isn’t too tough; the Beastmaster is just as easy as the first time you faced him, while the Hellhound can be bested with ice spells to knock out its red flame, and healing spells, which douse its purple flame.

Once you’ve completed the fight, return to Kyrie to get the wallet back. You’ll officially complete the quest once you speak to Kyrie, but make sure to return to Johnny at the Sector 5 train station to see his final scene and complete the “Discovery” event.

One of the tougher boss fights you’ll encounter in Final Fantasy 7 Remake is the Hell House during Chapter 9. If you’re not up coming into this one prepared, you’re likely to get wiped quick. Below we detail everything you need to know about how to defeat this seemingly sentient house.

For more boss tactics, check out our FF7 Remake boss guide. Otherwise, be sure to check out our FF7 Remake walkthrough and guide roundup.

How To Defeat The Hell House

The Hell House is a tough fight, so make sure you’re prepared. Spread magic materia between Cloud and Aerith so you have spells covering all four elements: Ice, Fire, Wind, and Lightning. It’s also a good idea to remove Elemental materia from your weapons for this fight. You need a balance of elements because the Hell House will constantly change its elemental affinity, using a barrier that will defend it from your attacks. That means that if you’re using Elemental materia and the wrong barrier is up, your physical attacks will be useless, putting you at a big disadvantage. You also want to bring plenty of ethers to this fight.

At the start of the fight, watch the Hell House’s windows. When they’re red, the house’s barrier is tuned to Fire; green is Wind; yellow is Lightning; and blue is Ice. You want to cast spells of the opposite type of whatever the barrier is in order to run up the Hell House’s stagger meter–so if the barrier is Fire, use Ice, and if it’s Wind, use Lightning, and so on.

In the first phase, the house will fling explosive furniture and toys at you, so stay well back. The Chair Salvo attack will launch a bunch of chairs that will track you like missiles, but you can avoid them fairly well if you just run around the arena and try to keep moving. When the house sprays out stuffed animals, stay clear of them–they’re all bombs. And when it uses its Hospitality attack, try to run away; it’ll suck one of your characters into the house, taking them out of the fight briefly while inflicting a bunch of damage. If you can hit the house with a spell opposite its barrier during that attack, do so.

The first phase isn’t too tough if you have the magic to deal with it. After the house takes some damage, it’ll flip to a much more aggressive second phase. You’ll get fewer indications of the house’s barrier from here on out; what magic to hit it with will be dictated by its attacks, which you can interrupt with the right spells. Keep back from its Jetstream attack, in which the house will spin around and spray fire, then use Ice. Do the same for the Double Rocket Charge attack, where the house will shoot itself straight at you–run to the side to avoid the first charge, but know that the house will follow up with two more. The Housing Shock attack will see the house chasing you around to do electrical damage, so try to hit it with Wind. Renewed Hospitality is a Wind attack, so use Lightning.

The tough part of this fight, really, is dealing with God House Mode. The house will create a barrier for itself that severely reduces both physical and magical attacks and isn’t tied to an element. When that happens, change targets to the Hell House’s arms and focus fire. A couple of big spells from Aerith or ATB attacks from Cloud should be enough to damage the house and drop the barrier, opening it up for your regular slate of attacks. You’ll really need to be on your toes for this one, though; as soon as the barrier is down, hit the Hell House with whatever spell will stagger it most based on its window color, since you have a brief period after God Mode drops where you can get a big boost on stagger.

This battle will put you through your paces because it’ll require you to be ready with the right spell at the right time, but it also makes charging your ATB meters difficult as you deal with the barriers. When you do get a big hit with the right element, close the gap with Cloud for Punisher attacks and ATB abilities in order to run up as much stagger as you can. Above all, though, be careful about keeping your team alive; don’t be afraid to use a lot of items and healing spells here, because you’re going to need them.

In the last phase, Hell House will add an attack called Heavensward, where it’ll fly around the battlefield, shooting more chairs and other explosives at you. If you keep moving, you should be able to avoid the missiles, but eventually the house will shoot itself back down at you. You’ll have a brief window before it hits it with a spell, if you can land it, so pay attention and get your ATB bars charged ahead of time.

As long as you remain patient, cast the right magic, and dodge properly, you should scrub Hell House from the field in no time. Props to you, though! You really showed them where the heart is–certainly not this home!

Many of us are spending this extra time at home catching up on shows we’ve long been meaning to binge-watch, movies we’ve been wanting to stream, books we’ve been meaning to read, or video games we’ve been waiting to play. And with the film industry on hiatus for the foreseeable future, that means even usually busy stars now have time to catch-up on their streaming queues and reading lists.

We reached out to 1917 and Captain Fantastic actor George MacKay — whose latest movie, True History of the Kelly Gang, is now available on VOD — to see what he’s doing to keep himself entertained these days.

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What Is the Last Thing You Finished Watching?

I’ve just rewatched The Dark Knight. What a film! Masterful, so stylish, so powerful and what a performance by Heath Ledger. I remember watching it at the IMAX when it came out, and it is one of the best film experiences I’ve ever had.

What Are You Watching Right Now?

The Wire – Season 1. The Wire is one of those series I have been hearing about for years, a series that was a milestone in television, and I am very much enjoying catching up with it now.

What Is Your Go-to Comfort Watch?

The League of Gentlemen and Inside Number 9. I think Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Mark Gatiss are genius.

What Book Are You Reading? / What Is The Last Book You Read?

Light Years by James Salter. My friend put me onto James Salter a short while ago, she recommended Solo Faces; I had not heard of Salter before, and he is amazing. The way he can be so insightful with so few words is extraordinary.

What Game Are You Playing? / What Is The Last Game You Played?

Scabby Queen. This is a card game I have been frustratingly slow at learning, but I think I am getting the hang of it now.

What Is Next On Your To-Watch/Read/Play List?

Hell or High Water by David Mackenzie. I missed this when it came out in the cinemas, but have only ever heard wonderful things about it. A mate of mine who I trust recommended this very highly when we spoke the other day.

What is one thing you’d recommend that other people should watch/read/play if they’re looking for something new?

Go back through all series of Inside Number 9, and Light Years is a truly beautiful piece of work.

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True History of the Kelly Gang is now available on Amazon, GooglePlay, YouTube, Vudu, and other digital platforms. Director Justin Kurzel’s film revisits the legend of Ned Kelly (played by MacKay), Australia’s most notorious outlaw. The stellar ensemble also includes Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult, Essie Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, and Charlie Hunnam.

In our 8.0 review of the film, we said, “George MacKay once again impresses, making Kelly a tightly coiled, dangerous yet still emotionally accessible punk.” Our review describes the “gripping, atmospheric” film as “grungy and grand, intense yet intimate,” hailing it for “employing an off-kilter approach rather than traveling a safe and familiar route.”

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If you enjoyed this then check out the binge lists of the casts of Star Trek: Discovery and Picard, Sonic and Westworld actor James Marsden, the showrunners of Amazing Stories, the cast of The Boys, and Spiral director Darren Lynn Bousman.

And also be sure to learn how you can help, and stay safe, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

You is currently available to stream on Netflix.

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“Hello, you…”

These are the first words we hear Joe Goldberg (played with Ted Bundy-like charm by Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley) say, albeit through VO, to Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) as he stalks her through the bookstore he manages. Before even approaching her, he’s created this relationship with her in his head that is attentive. Coy. Protective even. Yet, to any sane person, it’s also extremely predatory, creepy, and a big, red flag.

Binge It! The Deuce Is a Perfect Chaser for Fans of The Wire

In a time when working through a list of heady, cerebral dramas and multiple-season comedies might feel like a chore, You is an insane erotic thriller that can spice up any queue. Only two seasons and 20 episodes out, with a third season on its way, it’s a show that’s quick, bold, and leaves a lasting impression (like a spice – get it?). It’s hard to talk about how addicting this show is without getting into the spoilers, but all you need to know is that Joe is a delusional man who largely has inner monologues. Like a lot. Just imagine (500) Days of Summer… but with more murder.

Check out the sneak peek of Season 1 of You that IGN debuted back in 2018:

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Adapted from the Caroline Kepnes’ novel of the same name and originally airing on Lifetime (before being canceled and saved by Netflix), You was always going to be a sexy, campy drama. Bringing the show to Netflix gave it the chance to flourish as a legitimate and unpredictable binge-watch, leaning into its absurdity while also carefully tearing down the male gaze from inside the house.

Even though we follow Joe as our “hero,” we don’t actually know if the show wants us to root for Joe, and that’s what makes half the fun of watching. If anything, you root for him to get the girl so that you can root for him to lose her because HE is a loser. This show is the response to all of Hollywood’s portrayals of the male gaze, and does so with truly ridiculous plots and whipsmart pacing. For every noble thought or gesture Joe has or makes, we very clearly see their repercussions and it’s like schadenfreude to watch his knight-in-shining-armor schtick fall apart. Joe spends most of the series struggling to spin several plates on poles while sitting in a car heading for a speeding train with a bomb on the tracks. It’s hard to predict which shoe will drop or which punches the show will pull, but it’s exhilarating from start to finish.

Netflix’s You is ridiculous, popcorn fun. Designed with insane cliffhangers at the end of each segment that’ll leave you scrambling to hit play on the next, the show makes it quite impossible to watch just one episode.

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• The West Wing Brings Charm and Care to the Drab World of Party Politics
• Alice Isn’t Dead Is the Ultimate Mental Road Trip
• Farscape’s Legacy Is That It’s One of the Best Sci-Fi Shows Ever
• Darkplace Is the Medical-Procedural/Occult-Action-Thriller-Doc You Need
• The Deuce Is a Perfect Chaser for Fans of The Wire

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Binge It! is IGN’s recommendation series. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, music… if you can binge it, we’re here to talk about it. In each installment of Binge It!, we’ll discuss a piece of content we’re passionate about — and why you should check it out.