Final Fantasy VII Remake Timer: should you choose 20 or 30 minutes for the bomb?
Final Fantasy VII Remake brings many elements of the classic game back in a reimagined, far more high-definition form - and one memorable moment of the original game is a thrilling, time-limited escape from the Mako Reactor at the end of the game's first chapter. As part of this, players are faced with their first of the FF7 Remake choices with consequence: should you set the bomb timer to 20 minutes or 30 minutes?
On this page, we explain how the choice with the bomb timer effects you, and some other things about how decisions like this will effect you as you progress through FF7 Remake. There's two sections: Set Timer for 20 minutes or 30 minutes, and a note on choice in FF7R.
FF7 Remake: 20 or 30 minutes for the Mako Reactor 1 Bomb?
As you reach the climactic moments of the first chapter of FF7 Remake, Barret and Cloud will move to plant a bomb at the heart of Shinra's Mako Reactor 1. This is also where you'll be faced with your first dialogue option prompt in FF7 Remake, where it asks:
Set Timer:
- Twenty minutes
- Thirty minutes
This choice is pretty straightforward, all told: it will determine how long you'll have to escape the Mako Reactor in real time - twenty or thirty minutes. You will have to fight a boss battle against the iconic Guard Scorpion enemy, too, but your 20 or 30 minute timer doesn't begin until after the boss battle is over. In terms of the impact on the game, it has two, of course:
- If you select twenty minutes, you'll have to make your escape more quickly. The escape section includes some battles, but if you're proficient at combat, you should be able to easily get out of the Mako Reactor in 10-15 minutes, leaving you around 5 minutes to spare. By selecting 20 minutes, you'll get a slight extra reward, too - in Chapter 2, Jessie will give you an Ether item and 2 Hi-Potion items "for being brave".
- If you select thirty minutes, you can have a more leisurely escape from the Mako Reactor. However, you won't get any additional rewards from Jessie.
On Hard Mode play throughs, you can only select Twenty Minutes, even though the items you get for doing so are useless in that mode. In general consider it safe to select 20 minutes, but make sure you help Jessie up straight away when she has a piece of debris land on her, otherwise you'll have to go back and get her, wasting valuable time.
A Note on Choice in FF7 Remake
Across its various chapters and adventures, Final Fantasy VII Remake features a good amount of choice - in fact, there's more direct choice in this Midgar Adventure than in the Midgar section of the original FF7. With that said, most of the player choice you're offered don't actually have that large of an effect on things. As such, you can largely go with your gut. If you really want to know how every option plays out, however, we have a full FF7 Remake Choices and Consequences guide covering every outcome.
The single biggest series of choices you have in the game relate to the big quest that plays out during Chapter 9, which can result in what outfits you get for Tifa, Aerith and Cloud in Wall Market. Some other choices are less straightforward than this A/B choice over the bomb timer - for instance, chosing to take on or ignore certain side quests and even your choice of FF7 Remake's weapons will have a big effect on your game as you progress - so keep that in mind!