Fort Condor might be a blast from the past for some people and others, their first foray into one of Final Fantasy 7’s tactical mini-games. Either way, here’s how to play Fort Condor in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
How Fort Condor Works in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (FF7)
You’ll have a chance to play Fort Condor for the first time when you unlock the Protorelic quest. This quest will make you shrink into nostalgic, bite-sized pieces to play a tower defense-style mini-game. Each new quest step will have you play a new round, with the games getting progressively harder. But the game itself is easy to understand once you have the rules down.
The goal of the Fort Condor game is to destroy the opponent’s Commander while keeping your Headquarters alive. To do that, you can select two hero units and a playstyle.
The hero units you have available are Tifa, Barret, and Cloud. Each hero unit has a class (Vanguard, Ranger, Defense), stats, and a specific ability. You won’t be able to unlock a hero unit until you’ve summoned enough units of that hero’s type to the field. For example, if you’re trying to summon Tifa, you’d need to summon multiple Vanguard and Elite Vanguard to fill up the bar around her picture and summon her. Once her bar is completely filled, press L1 and select her from the menu to summon her into battle. These units can only be summoned once per skirmish.
For Ally Units, you have the following units to choose from:
| Headquarters | Neutral | Spews fireballs over a wide area when enemies approach. You will lose the match if this unit falls. |
| Outpost | Neutral | Flings piercing pinions at approaching enemies. Losing this unit will not affect your chances at victory. |
| Vanguard | Vanguard | A standard close-combat unit capable of striking and moving quickly. |
| Elite Vanguard | Vanguard | A close-combat unit capable of striking and moving quickly. More expensive than a standard unit, but more powerful. |
| Ranger | Ranger | A standard unit that supports the front lines from the back. |
| Elite Ranger | Ranger | A standard unit that supports the front lines from the back. More expensive than a standard unit, but more powerful. |
| Enforcer | Defense | A standard close-combat unit with a large amount of HP designed to defend the front lines. |
| Elite Enforcer | Defense | A standard close-combat unit with a large amount of HP designed to defend the front lines. More expensive than a standard unit, but more powerful. |
| Cleric | Neutral | A support unit capable of firing magic attacks a short distance. Heals nearby allies when releasing skills. |
| Trebuchet | Neutral | A powerful, long-ranged static unit capable of striking a wide, but fixed, area. |
| Baillista | Neutral | A powerful static melee unit that strikes enemies directly in front with piercing blows. |
Each unit assigned with Ranger, Vanguard, or Defense is either stronger or weaker than those with a typing. The strengths and weaknesses of each type are:
- Vanguard is strong against Ranger.
- Ranger is strong against Defense.
- Defense is strong against Vanguard.
Each unit costs “ATB” to deploy. ATB is gained as time passes. The stronger a unit, the more ATB it costs to summon. But a good way to play the game is to look at what your opponent has in their arsenal. If their team is primarily vanguard and rangers, it’s a good idea to have Defensive units to protect against their aggressive assault.
Now that we know what our units are, here’s how to play. Once you start a match, a timer will start. You must kill your opponent’s commander before time runs out. Your ATB gauge at the top of the screen will also start immediately filling. Each segment that fills counts as one ATB. Standard units can be summoned with only two ATB.
To summon a unit, select a space anywhere on the board. The game will pause, and you can then scroll through your units and select which one you’d like to put in the space you picked. That unit will then begin performing its role.
In this way, you and your opponent must tactically decide which unit to pick and where to place them, all while battling against the clock. But if you’re struggling to grasp the board mentally, press L3 to switch the viewing mode to top-down. This helped me a lot.
If that sounds too tedious and you’d rather get back into the game, can I recommend tackling a Mindflayer to steal its crown or getting all the hidden treasures in the nearby Cache?
