Reprising his role from another recent popular game, the Mindflayer is the Classified Intel of the Junon Region of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. He’s pretty cool-looking, but he can be a bit tricky to bring down.
The Minflayer is only available after you complete all the World Intel objectives in Junon. This just means scanning all the Lifesprings, not doing literally everything. Once you do, the Mindflayer will be revealed on your map. It appears on the northern island in the bay, but you can’t even start the fight without first having completed the World Intel.
Before we get into defeating it, I want to point out that you can attempt this fight at any level. If you want to go through more of the game, level up, and get better equipment, you can come back and have an easier fight. I’m not judging.
How to defeat the Mindflayer
The Mindflayer in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has no elemental weaknesses, so that sucks. It is also immune to Brute forcing your way through is possible, but, as usual, staggering it will get you to the finish line quicker.
In order to pressure the Mindflayer you need to use synergy moves. This means you’ll want as many characters who can do synergy attacks as possible. The Mindflayer will not be impressed by your extra bar of ATB, so make sure you’ve actually got some damage-dealing synergy in your arsenal.
In order to pull off these attacks, you’ll need to keep switching to other teammates to build their ATB and then use their abilities. Once two people with a synergy ability use enough of their abilities, the synergy option becomes available. It’s a lot of micromanagement, but I never promised an easy fight.
The main hook to this fight and the trick you need to know to take it on is that the Mindflayer will use a pair of spells in succession. The first is Telekinesis, which will throw a bunch of boulders on the field trying to squash you. However, it’s the follow-up, Psychotic Break that you really need to watch out for. If you’re hit by it, it’s an instant kill with 9999 damage. The only way to survive it is to hide behind one of the boulders that it conveniently dropped.
Watching out for this is the most important part of the fight. AI-controlled party members will take shelter automatically, so it will be really embarrassing if you’re the only one affected. Also, you’ll then have to scramble to resurrect the party member you lost.
That’s the basis of it. Synergy attacks and avoiding Psychotic Break. As I mentioned, you can brute force this fight as long as you’re paying attention to the Mindflayer’s attacks. Using abilities like Cloud’s Focused Thrust and Barrett’s Focus Shot and Bonus Round can build up the stagger gauge without needing synergy attacks.
