The trophy list for Final Fantasy VII Remake is structurally quite forgiving: while you can “miss” numerous trophies on your first playthrough (typically for side quests and minigames), after you beat the game once on any difficulty you’ll unlock Chapter Select, which will allow you to replay any chapter in any order at any time on any difficulty to get what you missed previously. Don’t want to fuss with a particular minigame? Skip it! You can always come back via Chapter Select. Miss a weapon? Go back and get it with Chapter Select! Just didn’t feel like grinding everything up? No worries! You’ll earn x3 XP and AP when you repeat chapters via Chapter Select.

Not only do you not have to worry about nuisances on your first playthrough thanks to Chapter Select, it’s actually mandatory to play through the game more than once, as you’ll have to beat the game on Hard difficulty, which in turn is only unlocked after beating the game once on any other difficulty. There’s no real problem with playing on Easy/Classic, as every side quest, minigame and progression trophy can be earned in these modes, but it may leave you somewhat under-prepared for Hard difficulty in terms of gameplay mechanics.

Not only do you have to beat the game twice on various difficulties, but there are some trophies you can earn based on decisions you make throughout a playthrough, typically involving how many side quests you choose to complete in various chapters. You don’t have to play through the entire game again to lock these decisions, but you do need to complete the entire chapter where the decisions are made. For example, various choices made earlier in the game affect certain things in Chapter 9, so if you need to lock a decision from Chapter 3 you’ll need to play through Chapter 3, after which you can skip ahead to Chapter 9. Hence you’ll need to play through every chapter at least twice, and some chapters perhaps as many as three times.