FF7 Rebirth Gongaga: Every Fiend Intel location and strategy

There are Fiend Intel goals in every region of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Chadley’s partner, MAI, will “assist” you with her grating commentary during these battles. So, let’s make this quick. Here’s how to find and beat all the Fiend Intel in Gongaga.

Fiend Intel 1: A Croaking Chorus – Amphidex

• Pressure an enemy.
• Don’t turn into a Frog.
• Defeat all enemies within the time limit.

These little jerks. The Amphidex is found in northern Gongaga, just West of where you enter the area from Corel.

The frog-like fiends are weak against ice and will crumble quickly, but the real trouble here is their ability to turn you into a frog, and the combat objective that requires you not to become an amphibian.

My recommendation is that you use powerful ice spells on the creatures while keeping your distance. Any character you aren’t controlling in battle generally does a good job of avoiding frog-ification, so you just need to keep whoever you’re steering away from the Amphidex. They don’t take too much effort to knock out, so keep the pressure on while avoiding their frog song, and you should have it handled.

Fiend Intel 2: Mean Green Mother – Brumeflower

• Pressure an enemy.
• Defeat all enemies within the time limit.
• Defeat the enemies before the fully evolve.

Located on the hills southeast of the town of Gongaga, the Brumeflower can be a bit tricky. Normally, when you have the goal of defeating an enemy within a time limit, you have a generous window to eliminate all the fiends. That’s not the case here, and that’s because you need to defeat the Brumeflower before they evolve, and they are in a hurry to grow up.

They are, however, deathly allergic to ice. Inflicting enough damage pressures them, and that buys you valuable time. Hit each individual one with powerful ice spells as quickly as you can and push them into a stagger state. If you’re lucky, they’ll group up and be hit by splash damage. If you can stagger them quickly, your party should be able to kill them before they can evolve, netting you all the combat goals.

Fiend Intel 3: Shake the Earth – Grandhorn Warden

• Pressure an enemy.
• Stagger an enemy.
• Defeat all enemies within the time limit.

The Grandhorn Wardens are a bit of a pain. They are found in the wilderness southwest of the town of Gongaga. They’ll put their guard up frequently, and if you hit them twice during this time, they’ll counterattack.

To pressure them, you either need to hit them twice with heavy attacks (like Braver) while they’re guarding or when they’re counterattacking. The caveat here is that when they’re counterattacking, they’re immune to melee attacks. You’ll need to hit them with fire, such as their elemental weakness of fire.

Aside from that, it’s a reasonably straightforward battle.

Fiend Intel 4: Maddened by Mako – Savage Grandhorn

• Pressure an enemy.
• Stagger an enemy.
• Defeat all enemies within the time limit.

Found within the Gongaga ruins in the southwest of the map, the Savage Grandhorn is rather imposing. At least there’s only one.

This fight is tricky, but fire is your friend. You’ll probably want more than one of your party members equipped with fire materia, because the Savage Grandhorn uses the attack “Earthbound” to restrain party members. Your restrained party member will not be able to attack, so if they’re the one with the fire, you’ll have a tough time until they’re released.

They can be pressured by hitting them with heavy attacks when they’re Guarding. You need to be careful doing this, since they’ll counterattack if you hit them twice while their guard is up. Instead, you want to use these moments to hit them with heavy attacks, such as Cloud’s Braver. Especially Cloud’s Braver since ranged attacks get deflected. Once it’s pressured, push them into stagger. When they’re staggered, hit them with fire and you’ll soon have the battle won.

If this proves difficult, you can add a fire summon like Phoenix of Ifrit to help, but at that point, you might have trouble making the time limit.

Fiend Intel 5: A Two-Pronged Assault – Maloceros

• Interrupt an enemy while they are using Concentrate
• Stagger an enemy.
• Defeat all enemies within the time limit.

The Maleceros is trouble. They’re found south of the town of Gongaga in a small industrial area not far from the reactor.

The trouble with Maleceros is that they become pressured automatically after performing certain abilities. However, they only remain in that state for a brief moment, which makes it difficult to quickly build their gauge to stagger them.

To make matters worse, after their gauge is built up enough, they will use the move “concentrate,” which depletes their stagger gauge. When they enter this state, you need to hit them with powerful attacks twice to knock them out of it. At that point, you can continue building their gauge.

It might be helpful to have Barret use “Bonus Round,” which increases the effect his normal attack has on the stagger gauge. This way, whenever the Maloceros enters a brief pressured state, he’ll just be able to take advantage of that without needing to quickly pop off an ability.

Fiend Intel 6: Reactor Royalty – Fulvum Varanus

• Pressure an enemy.
• Stagger an enemy.
• Defeat all enemies within the time limit.

This is finally a more straightforward battle. The Fulvum Varanus is found in the caves west of the reactor and northeast of the port. They are weak against ice attacks. However, the way to pressure them is to hit them with a heavy attack (once again, Braver is a good bet) while they’re in an ambush state. They enter this state relatively often, so fill your ATB, then watch them for a moment until they put their guard up. Then, give them a good whack, and they’ll get pressured. Build up their stagger, and when that triggers, hit them with Ice and everything else you’ve got.