In Final Fantasy VII Remake, some of the Summon Materia you obtain will require you to defeat said summon in the Combat Simulator. That method of obtaining summons will carry over to Rebirth, as you need to defeat them in the simulator to get the materia. 
Alexander is a summon that has been featured in plenty of games, usually depicted as a large castle-type entity, and is unlocked upon reaching the 
Corel Region. This page will go over the battle with Alexander, including all of its moves and strategies for taking it down.
Alexander is the summon that unlocks once you reach the Corel Region.
Unlocking the Alexander Summon Boss¶
As mentioned above, Alexander is the summon that you will unlock once you reach the Corel Region. Like all other summon battles, fighting it right away will have it at Full Might, which can prove to be a challenge. You have the option to find the Divine Intel throughout the Corel Region, but you won’t have access to all of them until Chapter 9 of the main story. So, if you want the summon right away, then you’ll have to do battle with a stronger version of Alexander.
All of Alexander’s Attacks¶
Alexander will have two phases, with the change happening around 50% HP. Not too much changes, although it does seem to start using its abilities quicker in the second phase. Also, it can start doing the ultimate attack in the second phase.
-
Wave Cannon: Alexander smacks down ground with one of its arms and sends out shockwaves. These travel along the ground in all directions and can sometimes home in on you a little bit.
-
Earth Tremor: It puts its arms together and slams the ground with them, sending out a huge shockwave that does damage and knocks you away from it. You can block this, if needed.
-
Tracking Beam: Alexander shoots some projectiles from its chest that will track a character. Keep moving to avoid them, but you can also block them.
-
Radiant Wave:
Unblockable. Alexander sends out some beams along the ground, as markers, that it will send energy along to try and hit you. Stand in between them to easily avoid taking damage. -
Sweep: Unblockable. It will use one of its arms to perform a wide swing in front of it, trying to hit anyone up close.
-
Grand Laser: Unblockable. Alexander shoots a big laser along the ground, straight ahead. Pretty easy to dodge this, as it only goes straight.
-
Whirling Ray: Alexander will summon some beams that will appear on the ground and stretch across the entire arena. These beams will then slowly rotate, so you’ll need to stay in between them to avoid taking damage.
-
Punitive Sphere: Alexander extends his metal claws and places them on the ground, then begins charging up some energy. There will be random spots around the arena that will be highlighted, which will explode with energy after a few seconds. The spots that explode will leave behind some energy and cause damage over time when over them.
(1 of 3) Grand Laser is very easy to avoid, as it only goes straight.
-
Light Pillar: The boss will place some light pillars in the arena, usually two or three, which are actually targets. If you don’t destroy them, they will eventually explode and for each one that does, you will be stuck with a stack of
Karma. -
Divine Judgement: Unblockable/unavoidable. Alexander’s ultimate move. The more stacks of Karma you have on your characters, the more damage this attack will deal to them.
Alexander Boss Strategy¶
Alexander is a pretty straightforward boss, without too much of a big gimmick to it. The main body doesn’t really take much damage at the start of the fight, but you are able to target its arms. Destroy both of the arms to pressure Alexander, then you can start attacking the main body. You will want to quickly use abilities that increase the stagger gauge here, so you can really start piling on the damage. One thing you want to be wary of is not going too far with the damage, as a phase change will occur at around 50% HP.
(1 of 4) You’ll have to attack Alexander’s arms first, as you won’t be able to target the body.
The reason for that is that’s when the second phase of the battle will start, where Alexander will start using Light Pillars that directly influence its ultimate attack. When Alexander does Light Pillars, two or three will appear on the field. At first, they don’t seem like they do anything, but after a short while, the pillars will explode and you’ll have some kind of debuff on your characters. That debuff is called Karma and it simply makes it so Divine Judgement (the ultimate attack) does more damage. Thankfully, if you manage to have Esuna (
Cleansing Materia level 2), then you can cast that to remove one stack of Karma.
There’s really nothing else you can do to stop Divine Judgement, though, so you’ll be taking damage in some manner. Alexander will have to charge it a little bit, though, so you could attack to build up ATB, then immediately come out of the attack to heal. It’s not clear if Alexander can use Divine Judgement more than once, but the battle shouldn’t be lasting that long. It is weak to lightning, so having a 
Lightning Materia equipped on everyone is a good idea to maximize your damage. If you can get them all to Thundaga, that’s even more useful, but Thundara can be sufficient enough. For your main physical attacker, you can link the 
Lightning to an 
Elemental Materia on their weapon.
(1 of 3) The Light Pillars can be attacked and destroyed.
As for Alexander’s other attacks, the few you have to watch out for are Earth Tremor, Tracking Beam, Whirling Ray, and Punitive Sphere. Earth Tremor is a big shockwave that will not only damage you, but also send you flying away from the boss. Tracking Beam can be dangerous, since the projectiles home in on a character really well, and there are a good number of them. Whirling Ray is more of a nuisance, as the beams stay on the ground for quite a while and they very slowly rotate. As for Punitive Sphere, the initial explosion isn’t the problem, but it’s the effect that stays after the matter and the damage can slowly build up, should you be in it.
If you wait until you have access to all of the Divine Intel, then you could bring Yuffie into the battle, as her 
Elemental Ninjutsu will help a lot. Otherwise, as long as they have the Lightning Materias, any characters will work pretty well. Defeat Alexander and its summon materia will be yours.
Sign up
No Comments