I am not a clever girl. Despite playing through the original Final Fantasy 7 more than every other game in existence, I have only just discovered how one of its core mechanics works.

Squaresoft’s seminal RPG was the first video game I remember playing as a kid, and helped to influence all the anime, games, books, and other media I’d gravitate towards in years to follow. It is a masterpiece, and one I hold close to my heart even as Remake and Rebirth are taking over the gaming world all over again. But that doesn’t mean I’m any good at them...

As the second youngest of nine children, I would frequently be coached on how to play by my older brothers, only ever getting a go on the PlayStation or Nintendo 64 when they got bored with them. Until I got my own console for Christmas one faithful year, my valuable time with Final Fantasy 7 was fleeting. I was still pretty far though, and made it to the cargo ship Jenova boss fight until my brother called me out on my skill issues. Despite being over 10 hours in, my puny brain was still using all of my party’s original weapons and equipment, more or less brute forcing my way through the game by grinding instead of playing properly.

Turns out that after buying new equipment and heeding his advice, the game got a lot easier. Perhaps too easy with how overleveled I was...

I learned from my mistakes, and progressed all the way to Nibelheim before my save file got corrupted before school one morning and I cried about it. So I started again, only this time I was ready to kit my party out and ensure they were ready for anything. I cleared out shops of equipment and accessories and materia, but the latter is yet another mechanic I failed to get even well into adulthood. This week, decades after picking up Final Fantasy 7 as a kid, I’ve finally learned how materia works.

Living Like A Materia Girl

Thanks to a new video from SuperButterBuns which aims to instruct newcomers on what to expect from Final Fantasy 7, I learned that Materia aren’t just magical space rocks designed to give you skills and abilities, they can also be folded into your weapons and equipment in a way that essentially turns them into elemental powerhouses. For example, if a weapon has a duo of linked slots, you can equip ‘Lightning’ in one and ‘All’ in another to damage all foes on the field with a single spell, something that speeds up random battles and grinding so much.

You can also give certain weapons and equipment their own elemental properties with the right use of slots, mixing and matching obscene amounts of Materia in ways that can morph characters into specific archetypes geared towards dealing the utmost damage or acting as constant healers and protectors. It has taken me decades to see Final Fantasy 7’s deeper mechanical sophistication, but now I have, it only makes me more excited to replay it.

Mo Materia, Mo Problems

There is even a broken combo where Phoenix can be used as soon as your entire party is killed, essentially making them immortal if you keep executing this combo perfectly. I must try that one. The thing is, I’m not bad at Final Fantasy 7, I just haven’t been playing it right.

When the PS4 port was released almost a decade ago, I played it through to completion and tried to complete every single optional activity and encounter. All of the weapons were felled by my blade, and by the time I got to Sephiroth the poor bloke didn’t stand a chance. But he would have probably been killed a lot sooner if I was using Materia correctly.

You probably want to drag me for being a games journalist who is terrible at video games right now, but I’m viewing this new discovery in one of my favourite games ever as a huge positive, one that is only going to make further replays more mechanically satisfying than ever. Materia? I hardly know ‘er! But now I do.

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

RPG 4.5/5 10.0/10 Released February 29, 2024 ESRB T For Teen Due To Blood, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence Developer(s) Square Enix Publisher(s) Square Enix Engine Unreal Engine 4 Franchise Final Fantasy PC Release Date January 23, 2025
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Final Fantasy Rebirth is the second part of the FF7 Remake project. It continues the story of Cloud Strife, a former SOLDIER turned mercenary who joins Avalanche, a group of eco-terrorists seeking to save the planet from the malevolent Sephiroth. As the party pushes out of Midgar, leaving the Shinra Corporation devastated, where will their paths take them?

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