FF7 Remake Materia Guide: How They Work, Best Practices, And How To Get More

Like in the original Final Fantasy 7, Materia is an integral part of FF7 Remake's combat system. Serving as the game's spells, abilities, and summons, you can equip these colored orbs to your characters to increase the power of their attack skills, while also giving them a bunch of other benefits. As a rule of thumb, you should equip as many Materia orbs as you can early on, since they level up with use.

For general guidance on how to best build the proper Materia loadout for your party, be sure to check out our in-depth guide covering the subject. Otherwise, read below for a general explainer of Materia and other things you should know about them. For more guides, check out our FF7 Remake walkthrough and guides roundup. Though, be sure to read our FF7 Remake review.

Materia Types

There are five types of Materia you can equip to your party, which each improve your characters' abilities in unique ways. You'll want to use your Materia as much as possible, as doing so levels up each particular orb, thus enhancing its effectiveness or potency--more on that later.

• Magic Materia (Green): Setting Magic Materia allows your characters to cast spells, which is an essential tool for weakening enemies, especially some of the game's most difficult bosses. Magic Materia includes the spells Fire, Ice, Thunder, Healing, Poison, and more.
• Command Materia (Yellow): Setting Command Materia allows you to use abilities that further assist you in battle, such as Assess, Steal, and Chakra, just to name a few. Command Materia generally serve a physical function and help boost your capabilities, either directly or indirectly.
• Support Materia (Blue): Setting Support Materia is a unique process compared to the other types. Support Materia do nothing on their own; they only serve the purpose of enhancing the power of other Materia. They're also unique in that you can only activate their functionality by attaching them to linked Materia slots in your weapons and armor--again, more on that later. Support Materia are incredibly useful and add additional effects to your attacks or spellcasting.
• Complete Materia (Purple): Setting Complete Materia improves a character's base attributes, like HP, MP, or Luck. It even gives them unique combat abilities, such as the Deadly Dodge, which allows whoever has it equipped to perform an area-of-effect attack from a forward dodge.
• Summoning Matera (Red): Setting a Summoning Materia invokes a summon creature into battle. They're exclusively set to a character's weapon, and upon being equipped, also boost that character's base attributes. Summons have special Materia slot, so equipping them won't block you from using another Materia as well. When a summon creature is called into battle, they act as an AI-controlled party member and can be issued attack commands.

How To Equip Materia

At the start of Chapter 2, FF7 Remake explains in detail how to equip Materia, which you're told is set via the Materia & Equipment screen in the Main Menu. As stated, Materia is fitted onto your weapons and armor, which you'll notice each have their own set of slots--though, the Bronze Bangles you start with don't have any. There's nothing to consider early on about the organization of your Materia across both your weapons or armor. However, this does change a bit later when you're equipping Support Materia, which requires it to be inserted into linked slots.

There are two variants of Materia sockets on weapons and armor: single, and linked. If you put a Support Materia into one of those link slots and attach a Magic Materia alongside it, then you will activate the effects of the Support Materia with the particular Magic Materia's element.

Some Materia have different effects when attached to the linked slots of either a weapon or armor. For example, if you have one slot with an Elemental Materia and it's connected to another slot with Fire on a piece of armor, any time an enemy tries to set you ablaze, the damage taken from the fire attack will be halved. On the other hand, if you equip those Materia into a linked slot on a weapon, your attacks will be imbued with that fire instead.

A final note about equipping Materia: make sure you're setting up your most frequently used Magic Materia spells to your Battle Commands. It helps ensure you're able to use your favorite Magic Materia spells during a fight quickly.

How To Unlock More Materia Slots

To get more Materia slots, you can either purchase new armor with additional slots or upgrade your currently equipped weapons via the Weapon Upgrade system, which is a series of skill trees that include nodes that add more Materia slots. For more about how the Weapon Upgrade system works, be sure to check out our Weapon Upgrade guide detailing everything you need to know.

How To Get More Materia

If you're looking for new Materia, you can always purchase some at items shops or vending machines. You can even get more powerful ones from Chadley, a Shinra intern you'll meet on the streets of the Sector 7 Slums during Chapter 3. After you complete his side mission, he provides you with a series of challenges you can complete to earn the ability to buy new Materia from him at a discounted price. You can even get Summoning Materia from his special VR missions, which you can complete to add to your growing stockpile as powerful Materia.

A lot of valuable Materia can also be found in the environment--some of which are easy to overlook. Be sure to check our feature detailing most essential Materia you might've missed, so you're always working with the best Materia throughout your journey.

How To Level Your Materia

It's especially important to know which Materia you want to invest in early because of how battles impact a Materia's strength. The more you use a Materia during battle, the more experience (AP) it gains, until it eventually levels up--increasing that individual Materia's damage potency or overall effectiveness. For example, for spells: Blizzard becomes Blizzara, Fire becomes Fira, and Cure becomes Cura--all more powerful versions of their original spells. Leveling a Materia will sometimes unlock new spells or abilities with different effects, as well.

You should take a vested interest in leveling up spell Materia in particular, as they're some of the most potent attacks in the game, and if you send a single spell into a cluster of enemies, you can sometimes kill two birds with one stone.

Even if you don't end up using some of your Materia in the end, leveled-up versions are some of the most valuable items in the game, so you're welcome to sell the ones you've stopped using to various shopkeepers to earn a little extra money.