Who doesn’t love a giant mech? With Final Fantasy VII Rebirth arriving in full gear, players can utilize the Alexander summon. But first, they’ll have to defeat the big old robot in Chadley’s combat simulator. Alexander becomes available in the Corel region, making the summon the third major one of the game, after Titan and Phoenix.
Make Ready for the Mech
Like other summons in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, we recommend going to the corresponding Sanctuaries to weaken it before battle. This will strengthen the Materia too. For Alexander, they’re uniquely located in two distinct sections of a region, as Corel gets bifurcated by the Gold Saucer. This means that players can visit one Sanctuary to the west of Costa Del Sol, but can’t visit the other two until they get the buggy upon leaving the Gold Saucer. Thankfully, the other two are located near each other. You’ll need the buggy to cross over the logs in the stream on the way to the more northern one.
Once you’ve done that, you can swing back to Chadley to fight the summon in a weakened state. Alexander offers more of a defensive challenge, invulnerable to attacks until the two massive arms get taken out. For this fight, it’s less about who you use and more about what kind of attacks and magic you have. Alexander is weak to lightning, so you want to use whoever has the best lightning attacks. Aerith or Yuffie could prove valuable here. You also want someone who can cast Esuna, so that you can weaken Alexander’s Divine Judgement attack.
That’s right, just like Phoenix, Alexander has one move that can prove your undoing. The two summons actually aren’t as different as they would seem. Like Phoenix, Alexander mostly uses attacks you can dodge. Since these lasers shoot at certain areas of the field, especially those near Alexander, I found ranged attackers helpful once again. But you could also use melee ones easily with a little patience. It’s Divine Judgment you really need to watch out for here.
Casting Judgement
At a certain point, Alexander will cast Karma counters onto the party. Denoted by little red scales (as in the courtroom kind, not the dragon kind), you’ll want to get rid of these if you can. Esuna will remove one each time you cast it. Since you won’t have too much time, multiple party members casting Esuna can help. And just to be safe, it’s not a bad idea to keep yourself at max health once you see those red counters appear.
With and without using Esuna, Divine Judgment still took out a party member each time. Thankfully Barret’s high health and defense kept him going. He may prove a good choice too, especially if you don’t have Cleansing Materia for Esuna. Whenever you take the arms out, focus all the pressuring attacks you have on Alexander to stagger him, and then let loose with everything you’ve got—lightning or otherwise. The arms will revive after you stagger Alexander, so focus on them again and just repeat this until he’s down.
With that, you should put Alexander out of commission. But now, this giant mech can work for you. It can shoot its various laser attacks at enemies, making it especially useful for fighting flying bosses. But with this humongous fortress at your disposal, use it for whatever you like. Giant mech lovers, rejoice!
If you’d like to know more about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, what we call “one of the best games of the past decade,” you can read our review here.
