Final Fantasy VII Remake is a game that series fans have been waiting for for ages, and it’s finally here. It’s actually a real game that you can play on your PS4. It also brings back key elements and systems from the PS1 classic, including the popular Materia system. Here’s everything you need to know about Materia in Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Materia System Explained in Final Fantasy VII Remake
In the original game, you could equip Materia orbs in your weapons and armor to give your characters new abilities, spells, or enhance existing ones. It’s the key to making your characters actually useful in combat, so if you don’t want to have too hard a time in this game, you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of Materia.
Getting Materia
The first step to making full use of the system is, of course, to actually get some Materia orbs. These can be obtained in a variety of ways, as listed below:
- Found as item pickups while exploring.
- Drops from enemies or bosses.
- Rewards for collecting Battle Intel for Chadley.
- Found through purple Discovery quests.
- Purchased from vending machines and vendors.
As you’re exploring Midgar in Final Fantasy VII Remake, every now and then you might come across shiny item pickups that could reward you with Materia orbs. Characters might also direct your attention to orbs in hard-to-reach areas, and you’ll unlock a purple Discovery quest.
In the case of the latter, you’ll usually need to figure some way to travel off the beaten path to get these. They’re usually worth it, though, with the first Materia orb from a Discovery quest being a Chocobo/Moogle summon.
More commonly, you’ll be purchasing new and existing ones from vendors, or from the vending machines. Lastly, when you first get to the Sector 7 slums and unlock side quests, you’ll meet an NPC named Chadley, who develops new Materia in exchange for Battle Intel.
You can check his Battle Intel quests from the character menu, and these usually require you to achieve certain things in combat, like Staggering enemies a number of times, or hitting weaknesses. Once you’ve completed the Battle Intel, return to Chadley, and he’ll sell you new orbs at a discounted price.
How to Equip
Equipping Materia in Final Fantasy VII Remake is as easy as heading into your character menu, choosing the Materia and Equipment option, and slotting them from there. One important thing to note is that every piece of equipment has a set number of Materia slots. So for example, Cloud’s Buster Sword starts with two slots, which means you can only slot in two orbs in there.
While in the menu, press the triangle button to set Materia, choose your desired slot, then press the X button to choose any Orb from your inventory to slot them in. Once slotted, your character will gain a new spell. For instance, the Fire Materia gives Cloud the Fire spell in combat. There are many different types of orbs, giving you access to other spells like Assess (basically Libra in other Final Fantasy games), curative spells, and buffs and debuffs.
At the start of the game, it doesn’t matter which slot you put your Materia in, but later on as you get linked slots in your equipment, they’ll matter a bit more. We’ll get to those in a bit.
Improving Spells
As stated in the example we used previously, slotting the Fire Materia on a character’s equipment will give them the Fire spell, but how do you get the powered up versions of that spell, like Fira and Firaga? The key is to just have it equipped while in combat.
Each battle you win in Final Fantasy VII Remake gives you a few AP for any equipped orbs on your characters. As you accrue more AP, your orbs will start to level up, eventually giving you access to way better spells. Coming back to the Fire example, once you have enough AP, you’ll unlock Fira in battle.
While in combat, choose Spells from the command menu, go to Fire, then press right on the d-pad to access Fira, and eventually Firaga when you unlock it. The same applies to other types of orbs as well.
Summoning Materia
Summons in this game make use of Materia as well, and you’ll need to slot them on your weapon to use them. We have a full summoning guide that goes into further detail about that, but here’s a quick breakdown.
Essentially, each summon has their own Materia orb, and you can slot them on a weapon. The good news is that every weapon has a dedicated summoning slot, so you don’t need to waste any precious slots on your weapon just for that. Summon Materia can be gotten through story progress and side quests, so you’ll want to do as much optional content as you can in the game.
Linked Materia Slots
Finally, we come to the most advanced part of the Materia system: linked slots. As you gain access to better weapons in Final Fantasy VII Remake, you might start to notice that some of them have linked slots. They basically look like regular Materia slots connected to each other with a line.
You can still slot in your regular orbs here and they’ll work normally, but certain types of orbs will make special use of linked slots. The earliest example in Final Fantasy VII Remake is the Elemental Materia, which boosts your magic attack at the first level, and will only be effective if used in a linked slot.
This means that your Elemental orb should be in a linked slot with another magic-based Materia, like Fire, Ice, or Wind, to boost its effect. Putting the Elemental orb in any other slot would just be a waste, so keep that in mind.
That’s all you need to know about how the Materia system works in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Be sure to search for Twinfinite or check our guide wiki for more tips and information on the game.
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