How to Escape Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s Shinra Manor With Cait Sith
House of horrors.
Shinra Manor is an important place in the story of Final Fantasy 7 and one the party visits a few times in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. In Chapter 11, the party returns to Cloud and Tifa’s childhood home of Nibelheim in search of a Shinra computer terminal holding some valuable information. While they’re there, Cait Sith, Barret, and Aerith get trapped in Shinra Manor by Hojo and need to find a way out.
What follows isn’t necessarily the most difficult part of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but one that throws a barrage of puzzles at the player that can make this section feel frustrating. Here’s how to escape Shinra Manor as quickly as possible and progress through the main story.
Cait Sith is the star of the section, so make sure you equip him well before getting into your first fight. It’s a good idea to have fire materia stocked to hit enemies’ elemental weaknesses, plus some healing materia if you don’t want to dig into your item stock.
Cait Sith: hacker, infiltration expert, kitty cat.
How to Escape from Shinra Manor
The manor’s first room is a demonstration of how you’ll spend the next hour or so of your life. Press up to have Cait Sith mount his Moogle, then use L2 to pick up one of the boxes that drops when you hit the pressure place in the corner. Holding R1 lets you steady your aim and square tosses the box. While you’re aiming, pull down on the left analog stick to increase your throw distance — this quirk of the control scheme may feel awkward for some players. To escape the room, just throw a box at the blinking switch right next to Barret and Aerith’s cell. Before you head down the hall, hit the switch on the left wall to access a chest with Cait Sith’s golden megaphone weapon.
Most of the enemies in this section are easy to defeat even just with Cait Sith (that fire materia will come in handy), but the party can also escape most battles here if you’re not in the mood to fight dozens of bats.
The first real puzzle comes at the end of the hall, when Cait Sith activates an elevator. A broke pipe will stop it in its tracks. While riding the Moogle, pick up a box and head up to the platform on the right side of the room. Chuck a box at the bent pipe, which should break, releasing the elevator. Make sure to use another box to break the large crate with the Shinra logo just above the button that summons boxes before climbing aboard. Inside is the powerful gravity materia, which comes in handy against foes will lots of HP.
Don’t forget to grab the gravity materia before leaving this room.
After a few more fights with the party, Cait Sith will be left alone in a room with three mako vats. The pipe delivering boxes is high above the ground, so summoning one will shatter the box on impact. Head through the door at the end of the room to grab a cart stacked with boxes, and move it onto the metal plate in the first room, so that boxes bounce off it when they fall. Now, just grab a box and throw it at the lever above the middle vat, highlighted with a blinking orange light.
Through the now-open door, you’ll find the best part of this stage. The next room is full of boxes, so have Cait Sith turn into a ball and roll your little heart out as you smash them.
Shinra Manor Mako Generator
Next is the trickiest box puzzle in the manor. In this room, a mako generator is spinning away, but there’s no mako being delivered to it, so the door remains locked. You’ll need to toss two mako cubes into the glowing red funnel as it moves above the mako tanks to get it working again. Much more than most of this stage, your aim and timing need to be precise here.
Releasing the box at this moment should get it in the right spot.
Holding a cube, move as close as you can to the railing around the generator and angle yourself so your aiming reticle lines up with the funnel’s track when you’re pulling back at full strength. If you throw the box just before the funnel moves onto your reticle, the mako should land right where it’s supposed to be. It’s possible to make the shot from other spots, but this is the one that worked best for me.
Shinra Manor Ventilation Room
A short elevator ride takes the party to the Ventilation Room. After dispatching the enemies in the room, activate the computer terminal near the door. This will reveal a lever that opens the air ducts in the room, letting Cait Sith access them. First, hit the switch with a box to open the duct near the giant blue fans and head through to reach the second floor. There are a few recovery items to grab here, but otherwise you can head straight to floor three through the next duct, then up one more level to floor four. Here you can grab a materia that switches attack and magick stats along with some crafting materials.
Back on floor three, you’ll fight an adjudicator. The adjudicator will protect itself against magic or physical attacks, depending on which you use. Just switch from magic to physical damage whenever its shield changes.
If you see this, you’re almost home free.
Now, pick up a box and head to the broken section of railing. Toss the box down to the switch on the first floor, which will be directly in front of you. This activates the red duct on the third floor. Head through the duct to find two more adjudicators. Once they’re down, toss three metal boxes onto the elevator in the room to bring it to your level, then smash them all to raise it with Cait Sith aboard.
Shinra Manor Boss Fights
Activate the computer and you’ll fight Yin & Yang, a two-headed boss who switches between physical and magic attacks. The biggest challenge here is simply surviving its strong attacks. Yin & Yang is vulnerable to fire but resists physical damage, so prioritize fire spells.
With Yin & Yang defeated, you’re free to head up another elevator, where a short box-breaking minigame rewards you with a stuffed fat moogle collectible if you smash 10 boxes. In the next room, the way out is blocked by a vault door. Hologram Hojo appears again to say the password is hidden somewhere in the room. You can find it by moving the carts away from the wall, or save some time and enter 36, 10, 59, 97. You'll need to twist the joystick as if you were turning a padlock to scroll to the right numbers.
It’s nice to have a simple puzzle after back-to-back tough fights.
The final obstacle is the Forgotten Specimen boss. Like the adjudicators, Forgotten Specimen gains damage resistance to physical or magic attacks once it takes enough damage. Just pay attention to which attacks are dealing reduced damage and adjust your tactics. With Aerith casting spells and Barret dealing physical damage, it’s not too hard to get around the monster’s defenses.
And with that, you’re finally free to take one last elevator ride to the surface, where Cait Sith’s group reunites with the rest of the party and meets a surprising new acquaintance before moving on.
