Nearly five years after it was first announced at E3 in 2015, Final Fantasy VII Remake is finally here. Square Enix's latest brings a lot of changes to the game's much-loved combat and character progression systems. Unlike the original game, you won't be buying and selling dozens of weapons all the time. Instead, each character has six possible weapons, which cannot be sold. Some are easier to find than others, and all of them contain their own unique skill grid to allow you unlock upgrades in the order you choose.
In the case of linked slots, any two materia can go in those slots, but a Support materia must be one of them for a combo effect. The other slot must be filled with either a Magic, Summon, or Command materia. Please note that a Command-Support materia combo is very rare, as most of them won't work, but there are a few. In terms of materia slots, Wizard Bracelet, which can be bought after the Ultimate Weapon attacks Mideel near the middle of disc 2, it drops from the Jenova Life encounter at the end of disc 1. To a greater extent than the original FF7, each playable character has innate strengths and weaknesses that are worth leaning into. Here's our top picks for Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith. You can tell this by going to the Materia menu and looking at the slots you have available. If the slot is standalone, that means nothing can be linked with that Materia. If there is a black line connecting the two slots though, this means they can be connected. 'Adds an additional materia slot or links two existing slots'. I tried to link slots but couldn't figure out how to. Anyone knows how to link them?It happens automatically once you upgrade. When you've highlighted the upgrade, check the materia slots on the top left.
While there's plenty of room for exploration and experimentation, we found some weapons suited a particular character's innate strengths better than others. Here's our picks for the best weapons and essential ability unlocks for Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith – and which you can afford to skip.
FF7 Remake weapon upgrades: General tips
FF7 Remake's weapons system is all about flexibility. There's no right way to customize each one, and the only wrong way to use it is to forget to allocate your skill points! It's easy to do if you're getting into rapid-fire fights in a dungeon, or when a boss fight is followed by a chapter break or a lengthy cutscene.
If you find this happening routinely, consider automating upgrades by highlighting a weapon name and pressing the Triangle button. You'll see three options: Balanced, attack, and defense. Attack makes the most sense for Cloud and Tifa, while we opted for balanced with Barret's spare weapons and defense for all of Aerith's rods. You might not want to do this for everything, but it's fine for the equipment you don't use as often.
One general tip that applies to every member of your party: you'll get a whole lot of Materia in FF7 Remake, more than you can possibly use. For every weapon in your arsenal, we recommend that you unlock new Materia slots ASAP. Sure, it might not be as flashy as an extra 250 HP, but Materia gives you even more flexibility to tweak each character to your specifications.
Best weapon upgrades for Cloud in FF7 Remake
In case the six-foot sword wasn't a dead giveaway, Cloud is primarily a close-range attacker. Most of his arsenal is geared toward boosting his strength stat, though two late-game blades (the Mythril Saber and Twin Stinger) boost his magic stat considerably.
I didn't use those much, instead favoring straightforward melee setups for the Buster Sword and Hardedge, which boost Cloud's attack stat at the expense of his magic power. You'll probably rely on the Buster Sword early on, and it make sense to prioritize HP, attack, and defense boosts for your upgrades.
Later on, the attack boosts for the Hardedge are truly outstanding, and offset the blade's limited number of Materia slots (a maximum of four in two pairs). Prioritize all the boosts to attack power and equip the Elemental Materia on the blade to deal with foes with weakness to magic. Let Aerith or Barret be your caster instead.
Best weapon upgrades for Barret in FF7 Remake
Barret also has two melee weapons, the Steel Pincers (available from the Moogle Emporium) and the Wrecking Ball (a sidequest reward in Chapter 14). The latter offers a big attack boost, but really hampers his magic stat. Like Cloud's magic blades, we didn't use these much, but they could be fun to play around with on a second playthrough or in Corneo's arena.
I used Barret's base Gatling Gun for much of the early game despite having other options, as it offers a nice balance between attack and magic, letting you keep Marlene's big daddy away from the fray. Since he'll need to absorb a lot of damage for the party early on, use your skill points to improve his HP and defense stats first.
You'll get access to Big Bertha in Chapter 13, from the Sector 7 weapon shop guy. Again, prioritize HP and defense boosts here, and make sure to unlock the 'self-healing 50 percent boost with low HP' node for 12 SP as soon as you can.
Best weapon upgrades for Tifa in FF7 Remake
Later on, the attack boosts for the Hardedge are truly outstanding, and offset the blade's limited number of Materia slots (a maximum of four in two pairs). Prioritize all the boosts to attack power and equip the Elemental Materia on the blade to deal with foes with weakness to magic. Let Aerith or Barret be your caster instead.
Best weapon upgrades for Barret in FF7 Remake
Barret also has two melee weapons, the Steel Pincers (available from the Moogle Emporium) and the Wrecking Ball (a sidequest reward in Chapter 14). The latter offers a big attack boost, but really hampers his magic stat. Like Cloud's magic blades, we didn't use these much, but they could be fun to play around with on a second playthrough or in Corneo's arena.
I used Barret's base Gatling Gun for much of the early game despite having other options, as it offers a nice balance between attack and magic, letting you keep Marlene's big daddy away from the fray. Since he'll need to absorb a lot of damage for the party early on, use your skill points to improve his HP and defense stats first.
You'll get access to Big Bertha in Chapter 13, from the Sector 7 weapon shop guy. Again, prioritize HP and defense boosts here, and make sure to unlock the 'self-healing 50 percent boost with low HP' node for 12 SP as soon as you can.
Best weapon upgrades for Tifa in FF7 Remake
Like the two dudes on the squad, Tifa has two items that boost her magic stats significantly, if you're tempted to make her a spellcaster. I wasn't, because Tifa's speed makes it really easy to chain abilities into devastating combos.
Early on, the Metal Knuckles are a solid pick, but the magic stat sucks and the Overpower ability feels redundant. Speed and attack power are what you want to focus on here. (Speed will make her ATB gauge fill faster, making combos a breeze.)
Once you find the Feathered Gloves in Chapter 10, switch over to those. They're not as powerful as the Metal Knuckles, but they make up for it with a little boost to magic and a much more useful ability in Starshower, which deals a lot of damage and quickly closes a gap between Tifa and an enemy on the battlefield. Get the ATB Charge Rate 10 percent Boost for 10 SP first thing, then prioritize speed and attack.
Tifa's ATB bar charges quickly enough that she can stagger enemies with low-damage magic, then pummel them with her fists. Unlike the original FF7, you don't need to have a high magic stat to make spells worthwhile in FF7 Remake.
Best weapon upgrades for Aerith in FF7 Remake
Aerith's upgrade possibilities are among the least interesting of the bunch, because all her weapons are pretty similar to one another. Don't bother with the 5 percent elemental damage boosts: her magic stat is already the highest of the team and this barely moves the needle.
You can get the Silver Staff shortly after she joins the party from the Moogle Emporium in Sector 5. Focus on magic attack power boots and HP boosts to make her a little less delicate. Bar gambling machines for sale. Two 14-point boosts reduce the cost of Attack and Healing spells respectively, and are worth the investment.
You'll find the Mythril Rod in a treasure chest during a dungeon in Chapter 11. The upgrades here are mostly killer – boosts to magic attack, MP, and loads of bonus Materia slot – but you can skip all the conditional High HP / Low HP boosts, which won't have a noticeable impact. The Reinforced Staff is also a nice option due to its ATB-charging ability, but is saddled with a lot of filler 'upgrades' and arrives very late in the game.
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Materia Pairing
Certain weapons and armor in the game contain single and paired Materia slots as shown below:
(Paired Slot)
You can pair Materia with Support Materia (the blue ones) in the paired Materia slots. Each Support Materia has a different effect on the Materia that you attach it to and this is not necessarily limited to just Magic Materia. The effects can be applied to most Magic Materia, some Command Materia and some Summon Materia. A few examples are listed below:
All Materia Probably the most important Support Materia in the game. This Materia allows for quick and easy healing of allies with low health early in the game and Restore Materia should always be paired with an All Materia (unless of course you have a Mega-All Materia, which you have access to much later in the game). All Materia also gives you the ability to attack every enemy in the battle with one use of a Magic Materia (as long as they're paired together in the same slot of your armor). Because you're given access to quite a few All Materia in the game, equip one to a Restore Materia and use the rest for offensive spell casting. Just make sure to check that the Magic Materia you've paired the All Materia with doesn't automatically hit every enemy on the field already (for example, Ultima Materia hits every enemy on the field without the need for a paired All Materia).
It can be paired with the following Materia: Restore, Heal, Revive, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Poison, Gravity, Seal, Mystify, Transform, Time, Barrier, Destruct, Master Magic
Added Effect: Can be linked to some Magic Materia and some Summon Materia. If you pair it on your weapon you have a 20% chance of inflicting a status effect on an enemy when you use a regular attack. If you pair it on your armor you can make a character immune to specific status effects.
The best Materia to pair with Added Effect Materia is Hades Materia.
It can be paired with the following Materia: Poison (Bio), Seal (Sleep, Silence), Mystify (Confuse, Berserk), Transform (Mini, Toad), Time (Haste, Slow, Stop), Destruct (Death), Contain (Confusion, Stop, Petrify), Choco/Mog (Stop), Odin (Death), Hades (Sleep, Poison, Confusion, Silence, Frog, Mini, Slow, Paralysis).
Counter Materia: This Materia is not the same as Counter Attack Materia. Counter works by attacking the enemy with the paired Materia after the character has been attacked. It starts off with a 30% chance to activate and improves up to a 100% once the Materia has leveled to level 5. Read the fine print though;'Attacks with paired *Command* when damage is incurred' This indicates that you must use Command Materia, rather than Magic Materia, in order to activate the effect. This includes the following Materia:
Deathblow, Master Command, Manipulate, Mime, Morph, Sense, Steal, Throw
Note: When paired with Master Command Materia, which gives you access to every Command in the game, a random Command will be chosen and used when the Counter Materia is activated.
Ffvii All Materia
