Final Fantasy 7 Remake guide: Materia orbs

Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s Materia orbs are gems that increase stats and add damage types, spells, and abilities. In this guide, we’ll help you understand Materia and how to use it.

What is Materia?

Materia orbs are glowing, color-coded objects that look like gems. You can find them scattered (and occasionally hidden) around the world, buy them, and receive them as rewards.

Image: Square Enix via Polygon

Materia allow you to cast certain spells (Fire Materia let you cast Fire spells) and abilities, give stat bonuses, or add new damage types.

Materia types

There are four types of Materia, each with their own color:

• Magic Materia (green). Allows you to cast spells (by choosing Spells from the Commands Menu) depending on their type. For example, an Ice Materia adds the Blizzard spell, while a Healing Materia adds the Cure spell. This is the easiest way for you to deal elemental damage, especially early in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
• Command Materia (yellow). Adds new Abilities to your Command menu. The Assess Materia, for example, adds the Assess ability.
• Support Materia (blue). These are passive — they don’t add anything to your Abilities or Spells menus. They do things like add elemental damage to your basic attacks or increase the range of spells.
• Complete Materia (purple). These passively increase your stats with effects like increasing your max HP or the amount of gil you loot from enemies.
• Summoning Materia (red). Allows you to call in a summon (like a chocobo or an ifrit) to fight by your side. The option will only becomes available during certain battles like boss fights or other particularly tough fights.

How to use Materia orbs

To use Materia or gain their effects, they have to be set in your equipment through the menu. (Jessie will give you a Healing Materia at the beginning of Chapter 2, and that unlocks the menu.)

In your menu, choose Materia & Equipment. From there, you’ll select the party member whose Equipment and Materia you want to manage.

Each piece of Equipment — your Weapon, Armor, and Accessory — may (or may not) have slots where you’ll assign the Materia you collect. The circles next to each icon represent the slots. Upgrading a piece of equipment with Skill Points (SP) may increase the number of Materia slots it has.

Equipping multiples of the same Materia on your equipment won’t stack their effects. For example, having two Fire Materia won’t let you cast stronger Fire spells. To do that, you’ll need to level them up (which we’ll talk about below).

Linking Elemental Materia

Elemental Materia add a type of damage — Fire, Ice, Lightning, or Wind — to your basic attack or a resistance to a type of damage to your armor. You need two things to make it work, though.

Image: Square Enix via Polygon

You need to set it in a slot that’s linked to at least one other slot. You can see slots that are linked in the Materia section of your menu screen. They’ll have a connected outline around them.

When you place Elemental Materia in one slot and a Magic Materia in the connected slot on a weapon, you will gain extra damage in that element on your basic attack. If you do the same on a piece of Armor, you will gain extra resistance to that element’s damage.

Leveling up Materia

Materia levels up like the rest of your equipment in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. As you fight (and, hopefully, win), you’ll earn Ability Points (AP). AP levels up your Materia automatically as you gain it. The star rating on each Materia is its level.

As your Materia level up, they’ll unlock stronger versions of their abilities.

DualShock 4 wireless controller

• $60

Prices taken at time of publishing.

Sony’s own DualShock 4 controller comes in multiple colors: some pretty, some garish, some meant to resemble a certain bodily fluid.

• $60 at Amazon

Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.