A demo for Final Fantasy VII Remake released this week, allowing players to, once again, face off against the Guard Scorpion boss at the Mako Reactor. However, there was a major change made to how this iconic boss fight proceeds.
This fight is famous for one phrase alone: "Attack while it's tail's up!" In the original game, it's a suggestion Cloud gives the player. However, it's actually a translation error. As many found out, attacking the Guard Scorpion while its tail is up results in it unleashing a pretty hefty counterattack called "Tail Laser." In truth, Final Fantasy VII has a few translation errors, including calling one of the main characters "Aeris" instead of Aerith.
While the demo for the remake was rife with references (including Barrett singing along to the victory chime from the original game), there was no reference to this famous translation flub. Instead, when the Guard Scorpion gets ready to unleash his Tail Laser attack, Cloud instructs the player to hide behind some debris.
Fans of the original game should remember that Thunder magic is its weakness, but that wasn't something the game explicitly spelled out. In the demo for the remake, however, Cloud simply share's the creature's vulnerability with the player.
There's a fair bit of creativity that went into revamping this fight for a more modernized play style while still honoring the original game. After all, few games these days use turn-based battle combat like the original Final Fantasy VII did, and the series itself ditched that combat style long ago. One of the strategies in the original game that players used in this boss fight was placing Barrett, a long-range fighter, in the back row. This allowed him to take less damage overall while still dealing decent damage of his own. In the remake, Barrett's long-range expertise comes in handy, as the Guard Scorpion crawls across the walls and renders Cloud temporarily useless.
The Guard Scorpion in the original used a move called "Search Scope," which didn't actually do any damage, but would allow the boss to target its victim. In the remake, the boss' moves aren't named. However, the Guard Scorpion does use a targeting system, which one can assume is the updated version of Search Scope. New additions to the boss fight include the Guard Scorpion's self-healing and guarding abilities, which will force even the most seasoned Final Fantasy VII players to think outside the box in order to counter it at times.
Final Fantasy VII Remake is developed and published by Square Enix. The game arrives on April 10 for PlayStation 4.