Final Fantasy 7 Remake Top 10 BEST Materia

If you’re playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake, you’ll be collecting piles of materia and you’ll want to know which ones are the best so you can make sure to have them equipped to accrue those sweet, sweet AP points. While there are dozens of flashy situationally useful materia options, the best materia tend to be the most straightforward. Here are the top 10 BEST materia options for you to equip in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

10. Magic Up

Magic Up is mostly useful on Aerith specifically, but it does make a huge difference. At max level, Magic Up increases Magic Power by 50%. On most characters, that amounts to a few measly extra points of Magic. On Aerith, however, that multiplies the power of her already insanely powerful nukes by 150%, which then gets doubled when she casts her spells while standing on her Arcane Ward. Plus, she can equip two of them. This is one of the easiest ways in the game to reliably hit or get close to the damage cap.

9. Time

In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, your active character builds their ATB bar extremely quickly, while your party members lag behind and take ages to build up even a single ATB segment on their own. I’d estimate you gain ATB roughly 6x as fast as your party members. The main purpose of the Time materia is simply to increase the rate that your party members build up ATB without having to take control and babysit them. This ends up being pretty useful, especially since enemies tend to target whoever the active party member is. If you want to keep your squishier characters out of harm’s way, but still want to be able to take advantage of their abilities, Time materia is the solution you’re looking for.

8. Fire – Final Fantasy 7 Remake Best Materia

Most human or… flesh-based enemies in the game are weak to Fire, not to mention the summon Shiva. Of the four elements in the game (Ice, Fire, Lightning, Wind), Fire is one of the most useful since weakness to it is so common. In fact, it’s so common and so quick to master, that you’ll probably want to master a few of them and have them equipped on multiple characters. Also, unlike Ice, which takes a few seconds to detonate, and Lightning, which has a very small AoE if it has one at all, Firaga explodes in a big AoE instantly as soon as it makes contact with an enemy, making it capable of defeating multiple trash enemies in a single shot.

7. Barrier

Barrier may not seem particularly necessary during the normal game, though it is useful, but it’s completely indispensable in Hard Mode and in the post-game VR encounters. Want to survive Bahamut’s Megaflare without your entire team dying in one shot? Without Barrier, you’re looking at 8000+ damage to every party member. Want to make it through the longer hard mode chapters without having to blow all your MP on healing spells? You’re going to want to start making regular use of that Barrier materia. Barrier is so essential to the post-game, I recommend you max out 3 of them, one for every party member, and get started early so you don’t have to grind them out later.

6. Revival

Revival is useful throughout the base game mostly because Raise and Arise are so much more potent than spamming Phoenix Downs. However, in Hard Mode, where Phoenix Downs simply aren’t available, Revival Materia is your only means of reviving downed party members. This particular Materia also takes forever to master, so I recommend getting 2-3 of them as soon as possible and equipping them to your active party members. 3 isn’t strictly necessary, but if you’re in Hard Mode and both of your Revival Materia holders go down, you’re gonna have a bad time.

5. Lightning – Final Fantasy 7 Remake Best Materia

Final Fantasy 7 is a game chock full of robots. There are robots everywhere. And every robot is weak to Lightning. Not only that, Thunder is the catalyst of most robots’ pressured state, and thus is a necessary tool to Stagger these beefy enemies. You’re going to want at least 2 mastered Lightning Materia. Even the endgame super-boss is weak to Lightning. I’d say there are roughly as many enemies weak to Lightning as there are weak to Fire, but the enemies who are weak to Lightning tend to be much tougher, with much higher HP totals than squishy little Shinra Troopers. You’re gonna want that Lightning Materia.

4. HP Up – Final Fantasy 7 Remake Best Materia

It’s always good to have more HP, but in the endgame and in Hard Mode, you’re going to probably want two of these equipped to every character. Your characters end the game with between 4300-5800 HP, depending on the character and the weapon they have equipped, so it takes 2 mastered HP Up Materia on every character to get them near the HP cap, especially if you don’t like to use weapons that bolster HP totals. Keep in mind I mentioned above that Bahamut’s Megaflare does around 8000 damage. You can’t survive 8000 damage with a party average of 4800 HP. That’s just math, you guys.

3. Magnify

Magnify is Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s version of “All” Materia from the original. You only get one, you’re almost certainly going to attach it to Healing Materia, and when you do, you get a huge boost to your party’s overall performance. At max level, it only reduces your party-wide healing by 25%, which enables you to full-heal everyone with a single Curaga 99% of the time. As soon as you get this Materia, you’re going to want to equip it, and never, ever take it off. It’s one of the most useful Materia in the game. Shame you only get one of them.

2. Elemental – Final Fantasy 7 Remake Best Materia

Elemental Materia, especially when connected to the aforementioned Fire and Lightning elements, increases the power of your physical attackers by a ton. You’ll want to equip it right away, because I’m pretty sure it has the highest AP-to-master requirement in the game, but even at level 1 or 2 it’s tremendously useful not only for the amount of damage it adds to your attacks, but also because it allows you to hit enemy weaknesses without having to expend MP. At level 3, this thing adds a devastating 23% damage increase to all of your physical attacks, and it’s possible to improve it even further with bonuses you acquire from upgrading your weapons. You get two of these, and you’ll want to be using them 100% of the time so they can build up AP in every fight.

1. Healing

Healing is, from the moment you get it, the single most essential piece of Materia in the game. Unless you like spending 2-3 minutes trying to slowly refill your ever-increasing HP totals by chugging an endless amount of potions, Healing will be your most used Materia from beginning to end. You should definitely have 3 of them, one on each character, because it’s nice to be able to cast a heal whenever you need it no matter who’s running low on MP or who just so happens to be out of ATB segments to spend. Also, unlike many iterations of Final Fantasy, Regen is actually a good spell in this game as its buff is fairly potent and it even provides a small amount of burst healing when it first gets applied.

That about does it for the top 10 best materia in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more content like this, and click here for more articles and game guides related to Final Fantasy 7 Remake.