Knowing how to Pressure enemies in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is key to winning fights. As, by exploiting weaknesses to put opponents into a Pressured state, you can then inflict damage on them more easily.
While that's very useful in a fight generally, there are also some combat challenges in FF7 Rebirth where you need to Pressure an enemy in order to clear them, and if you don't know how to do that then frustratingly beat a foes but not actually complete the assignment. If you're looking for clarification on what you need to do for this, then here's the lowdown on how to Pressure enemies in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and what it means.
How to use Pressure in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth combat
To find out how to Pressure enemies in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, at least one party member needs the Assess Materia equipped. To do this, head to the Main Menu, then Materia & Equipment, select a member of your party, then press Triangle to access the Set Materia screen in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. From there, make sure the Assess Materia is inserted into a free equipment slot - it's one of the yellow orbs if you're having trouble spotting it in the list.
At the start of a battle deal some quick damage with the Assess equipped party member to fill your first ATB gauge, then use the Commands Menu to activate the Assess ability and select the enemy to analyze. This will bring up a screen like the one above, with details about the enemy type and, crucially, in the description on the left side, it should tell you what you need to do to Pressure it. This may involve attacking during specific phases, dodging particular attacks, or using elemental weaknesses against them.
If elemental weaknesses are involved, then look at the icon(s) on the right side under Weaknesses / Detrimental Status Effects, opening the Icon Key with L1 if needed to confirm what they mean. You can then use Spells to hit the enemy with elemental attacks that exploit its weaknesses, providing you have a party member with the correct Materia equipped. As the names don't match up directly, the Spells available correspond to elements as follows:
- Fire = Fire
- Ice = Blizzard
- Lightning = Thunder
- Wind = Aero
Once you've taken the required actions to put an enemy into a Pressured state, the word 'Pressured' will appear by their stagger gauge under the life bar and it will fill more quickly, so hammer them with magic and abilities to max out the gauge and put them into a Staggered state. Certain character abilities, including Cloud's Focused Thrust, Barret's Focused Shot, and Tifa's Focused Strike will fill this stagger gauge fast, particularly if you have already put the enemy into a Pressured state.
Once Staggered, your enemy will be briefly incapacitated and take damage more easily without being able to defend itself or fight back, so take advantage of this to deal crushing blows. Using unique abilities on Staggered enemies will quickly fill your ATB gauge, allowing you to spend ATB charges on delivering critical finishing attacks to defeat them.
© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission
