The quest for the protorelic can start at the end of chapter 10, when the team must set off for the airfield. No level is recommended for the various investigation reports because no combat is present.
Investigation report 1: planetological remains
The report is located towards the center of the canyon, in the middle of an area rich in ancient ruins. Near the marker, three people are waiting near a mysterious pool. These are Nayo, Polk and Billy Bob, members of the main branch of Avalanche met with Yuffie in the INTERmission DLC of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade.
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After a discussion where you discover what happened to Wedge, you learn that these pools are in fact geysers of the River of Life. The problem is that they are out of whack. So you will have to repair them. For this, Chadley sends you Chadley Junior a robot intended to restore these fountains. Now is the time to discover yet another mini-game, entitled Rouages & Gambits. The goal is to program three robots by assigning them actions, triggered hierarchically and under conditions thanks to gambits, a system which should bring back memories for fans of Final Fantasy XII.
In each Cogs & Gambits mission, you will have a large Flan in the center of a triangular arena. At each corner of the triangle, you have portals from which the robots you assign come out to attack the Flan. Robots can be deployed if the ATB bar is sufficiently full. And depending on how the gambit level robot is made, it may require a greater or lesser amount of ATB. You also have special moves, such as life point recovery or a Comet, causing heavy damage.
However, the Flan will also attack you by sending small flans at your portals to destroy them. As you can imagine, it is essential to protect these portals otherwise the game ends, navigating between each of them if necessary. An attack-defense balance must therefore be maintained depending on the situation, especially since, like you, the flanks also launch orchestrated attacks on gambits that you can consult with the Square key.
A system of elementary rock-paper-scissors weaknesses then sets in which we will have to insist on. Ice beats lightning, lightning beats fire, fire beats ice. A symbol appears at the blanks' life bar to indicate the weakness to use. To start, don't panic, Chadley has everything planned and you just have to launch the mission.
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Nothing special here: defend yourself against the first flanks and as soon as you have a comfortable ATB lead, deploy robots from the unattacked portals. Be aware, however, that the Royal Flan carries out two powerful attacks when five of your robots attack it simultaneously. In addition, it protects itself with Barrier when four of your robots come from the same portal.
Once the Royal Flan is destroyed, the River Fountain of Life is stabilized. The Avalanche trio will accompany you during each gate repair. The second is also to the north.jd
Investigation Report 2: Ruins in the Sky
The second portal is located towards the north of the region, accessible after a gliding sequence with the chocobo. This time, you can (and must) program your three types of robots yourself. For a minimum of hassle, it is possible to switch the mini-game to easy mode by pressing L3 and benefit from programs decided by the AI, among the four it offers. We used one of them, which you will find below in the image.
For the rest, continue to maintain this attack-defense balance depending on the threats sent to you. Royal Flan triggers Royal Lariat when targeted by three of your robots. He can also cast Haste and inflict Royal Bite on robots near him. Once the fight is successful, a small flashback of Barret's troop plays. Now head to the third portal.
Investigation report 3: capital in ruins
For this third mission of Rouages & Gambits, go to . As with the previous fight, we used one of the configurations proposed by the AI and which we display once again below.
Be careful, there are flying blanks during this mission. You must therefore equip your robots accordingly, such as missile or gravity shots. Regarding the Royal Flan, it continues to use Royal Bite for melee, uses Corrosive Floods to reach your robots from a distance and modifies its elemental weakness, as well as the spells used, in case of low HP. Finally, he uses the fearsome Royal Double Leap when targeted by three enemies.
By winning the game, a new flashback showing a scene from Barret's Avalanche group begins, and there is now only one portal left to activate.
Investigation Report 4: Temple Ruins
The last portal requires a bit of climbing to get there. You must then take the Ruins Elevator – Lower Access and then climb the stairs while being careful of enemies to your destination. Before launching the final test of this protorelic quest, check that Cloud has full HP and MP. To triumph over this latest Cogs & Gambits, we once again used the AI bot setup below.
In addition to the flying flans from last time, reinforced flans join the ranks of a Royal Flan which repeats the same attacks and affinity changes as in the previous mission. This is therefore logically the most difficult mission so, more than ever, be careful when deploying your robots.
After defeating the Royal Flan, the famous protorelic of the mako fountains appears. A final moving scene plays, after which Cloud grabs the relic. In the process, a new interlude with the mysterious warrior takes place. Except that there, you are thrown into a fight against him.
Don't worry, he doesn't have that much HP and he is vulnerable to fire, poison, Anti-Armour, Anti-Providence, Anti-Brave and Anti-Faith. Above all, dodging his attacks or placing a perfect guard will destabilize him. Watch him and go patiently so that the fight goes well.
Once victory is achieved, he tells you again about these protorelics, an altered form of pieces of the legendary Genji equipment. Your struggle with the eccentric swashbuckler is not over.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is available on PS5. Do not hesitate to consult our complete guide to find out more.