To get anywhere in Final Fantasy VII you're going to need Materia; small
glowing orbsthat fit into slots on Weapons or Armor,
you'll also need to know how to use them, as they make you more powerful,
give you special status boosts, allow you to use magic, and summon fierce
demons to your aid.
These Materia grow over the course of many years in places where there
is plenty of Mako Energy, usually at Mako Reactors.
You can find Materia in various places as you journey, even for sale at
certain shops, and the further you go the stronger the Materia you find
will become.
There are 5 different types of Materia.
| Colour |
Type |
Description |
Green |
Magic |
Allows
you to use Magic by using up MP. |
Red |
Summon |
Allows
you to summon powerful demons by using up MP. |
Blue |
Support |
Supports equipped Materia
through linked slots. |
Yellow |
Command |
Adds
another Command into the Battle Menu. |
Purple |
Independant |
Increases your stats
or creates bonus effects. |
Every Materia has a different use, for example, 'Sense' Materia can be used
to look at an enemies stats, and 'Fire' Materia can be cast at the enemy
to cause elemental fire damage.
Equipping Materia
To equip Materia to a character's current weapon or armor, go to the
Menu. Then select Materia, then the character you want to equip the Materia
to.
After that, select a slot on a weapon or armor to put Materia into, and
select the desired Materia from the list. If you want to remove a Materia
that is equipped,
point the cursor at it and just press 
to put it back in the list.
There is also another hidden menu within this section. Go over to a slot
to the far left, then press left again to open it.
'Arrange' will sort the Materia list by type.
'Check' will open up a Battle Menu example with all the Commands that character
will have, including Materia Commands.
'Remove All' will take off all equipped Materia and put it back in the list.
'Exchange' allows you to exchange equipped Materia with other characters,
whether they are in your Party or not.
'Trash' will throw away Materia, but I advise selling it instead. (Note
that you can only hold up to 200 Materia.)
Any effects made by a Materia, will be gone when you remove it, and returned
if you re-equip it.
But don't forget, over equipping Materia is dangerous, as Magic and Summon
Materia, lower your HP and raise your MP by a certain amount,
depending on how strong the Materia is. So equipping too many strong Magic
and Summon Materia will result in very low HP, so watch out for stat changes
when you equip.
When in the Materia menu, you can also quickly switch between Party members
using  and  .
Slots
Every weapon and armor have a certain amount of 'slots', from no slots to
as many as eight slots.
These slots are for equipping Materia and come in two forms; linked and
single.
| Slot |
Type |
Description |
 |
Single |
Allows
you to equip one Materia. |
 |
Linked |
Allows
you to equip up to two Materia. |
However, when you place two Materia in the linked slots, then the effect
of both Materia's are joined or 'linked'.
For example, you have a 'Restore' and an 'All' Materia and you place them
in linked slots, the 'Restore' Materia heals the HP of one party member
when used and the 'All' Materia allows to use the linked Materia on every
available target.
Resulting in the ability to cast Restore on all of your Party members!
The same effect can be used to restore your enemies, but that's not an
effect you want, so instead you can equip a 'Lightning' and an 'All' Materia
in linked slots to be able to cast Lightning on all of your opponents!
This is called a combination, or a combo, we have a whole list of effective
combinations, so go to our Materia
Combinations page to have a look.
Note however, that there can be ineffective combinations, meaning that
the two Materia equipped do not have compatible effects.
Leveling Up
You can Level up your Materia by fighting battles. After you win a
battle, you'll receive AP, (Ability Points)
which is accumulated over many battles to level up any equipped Materia.
However, if a weapon has a Double or Triple AP ability, then any Materia
on that weapon,
will receive double or triple AP respectively! But if it has a Nothing
AP ability, any materia on that weapon will receive no AP.
Each type of Materia receives different types of skills when it gets a
level up.
Magic - More powerful spells, for example Fire would become Fire2.
Summon - More powerful summons and ability to use more than once, for
example Ifrit could be summoned twice instead of once.
Support - More powerful Support Materia, for example an All's support
ability could be used twice instead of once.
Command - Improved Commands, for example Steal would become Mug.
Independant - Improved stats, for example HP Plus would raise your HP
by 20% instead of 10%.
Although, when a Magic Materia levels up, the old spell is not lost, for
example a Lightning Materia when it gains a new level becomes Bolt2, but
in the Battle Menu you can use Bolt and Bolt2.
So don't worry about 'overwriting' previous Magic abilities.
This is only for Magic Materia though, Summon and Support Materia do not
gain new abilities, just more uses in battle. Independant and Command
get better skills that actualy do overwrite the old one, but that is because
it is obsolete and in no way helpful when you have a better skill.
Of course, higher level spells will mean you'll need more MP to use them,
so watch your MP levels.
When a Materia has leveled up as far as it will go, it will become a 'Mastered'
Materia. When this happens, a new Materia will be born from it. For example,
you have just mastered a 'Restore' Materia and at the same time another
'Restore' Materia will then appear in you Materia List, only, as it has
only just been created it will have no AP and therefore no levels.
By mastering Materia, you can double your best or favourite Materia and
sell some of the masters for lots of Gil.
Mastered 'All' Materia can be sold for an incredible 1,400,000 Gil!
If you want to sell any of your Materia, go to any shop you want, and
choose to Buy/Sell Materia.
Select Sell and pick a desired Materia to sell. Please not that once a
Materia is sold, you will not be able to reclaim it from the shop, unless
it just so happens to be a Materia shop that sells them anyway.
Also, be careful when selling Materia, as it only takes one press of a
button to sell a Materia (unlike selling items), there isn't even a confirmation
prompt, so don't go crazy with your controller while selling them.
If you wish to extend your Materia collection, you can buy some at specific
shops.
The Materia available will not always be bargains, or even very good Materia,
so Materia found along your journey will nearly always be better. However,
there is a Materia shop at Cosmo Canyon that sells HP and MP Plus Materia,
which are pretty valuable for raising your party's stats.
Battle Menu
The battle menu is where most of your equipped Materia will be available
to use during battle.
Here are the available battle menu commands.
Attack - Default-- doesn't require Materia to use.
Magic - List of all Magic Materia and their spells equipped.
Summon - List of all Summon Materia equipped.
Item - Default-- doesn't require Materia to use.
There are also plenty of commands that can be added by equipping Command
Materia.
| Command |
Description |
| Slash-All |
Attacks all enemies. |
| Double
Cut |
Attacks
one enemy twice. |
| W-Magic |
Casts two spells in
a row. |
| W-Summon |
Casts
two Summons in a row. |
| W-Item |
Uses two Items in a
row. |
| Steal |
Steals an
Item from an enemy. |
| Sense |
Senses your enemies
stats, HP, MP etc.... |
| Throw |
Throw an
item at an enemy, causing damage. (Item picked may be random when
in conjunction with a Support Materia.) |
| Morph |
Morphs an enemy into
an Item. |
| Deathblow
|
Sometimes
deal a Critical blow to an enemy. |
| Manipulate |
Manipulates one enemy
at a time, allowing you to control it's actions. |
| Mime |
Mimes the
last move made. |
| Enemy Skill |
A list of special attacks
learnt from enemies. |
| Master Command |
Allows you
to do several Commands at once. |
In the Magic part of the menu, is all of your equipped Materia. If one of
them has had a level up though, there may be two seperate spells for that
Materia. For example, your 'Ice' Materia has just upgraded to level 2, which
means the spells 'Ice' and 'Ice2' will be available to use. Of course, higher
level spells will mean you'll need more MP to use them, so watch your MP
levels.
Also, when you have a Materia linked with an 'All' Materia, a small red
arrow will be next to the spell, indicating that it can be used on multiple
targets, causing 1/3 of the normal damage, or curing 1/3 of the normal HP
amount.
A final note; Magic and Summons use up MP depending on how strong they are,
Magic can be used multiple times, (as long as you have enough MP) Summons
can only be used the same amount as it's level, Support and Independant
Materia effects are permanent unless removed, and Commands can be used an
unlimited amount of times.
When using some Materia in conjunction with a Support Materia, the target
may be automatically chosen; a random enemy when the materia does damage
etc.. and your character when materia heals etc..
So watch out for that.
Ok, now all that's sorted, click on a link below to check
out all the Materia stats, where to find them and what Materia Combinations
work best.
By FFFreak.
|
Final Fantasy VII
