In Final Fantasy VII, Materia are one of the most fundamental pieces of the combat system. The Materia that a character has equipped determines what options they have available to them in battle and how efficiently they can utilise them.

Materia can be split into three different categories - standard Materia, Huge Materia, and Master Materia. There are 80 different types of standard Materia, 4 types of Huge Materia, and 3 types of Master Materia. You can hold at most 200 pieces of Materia in your inventory at once, but the Huge Materia do not count towards this total as they are Key Items.

Almost every single type of Materia which you obtain will be in this category. This group is so large that it is also broken down into the following five subcategories:


When a battle is won, on top of the EXP (Experience Points) and the gil (currency) your party will gain, every piece of Materia which was equipped to the party's weapons and armour will gain AP (Ability Points). This allows the Materia to level up and become more powerful. Once a piece of Materia reaches the maximum level, it will be considered "mastered". From here, it will produce a clone of itself which will be the minimum level if there is available space in your inventory.

The one exception to this is the Underwater Materia, which cannot be levelled up, is mastered from the moment you get it and will never clone itself.

Below is a table with the location details of all 21 Magic Materia:


Missables:

• Ultima is missable if you do not manage to catch up with the train.

Below is a table with the location details of all 13 Support Materia:


Missables:

• Added Effect is missable if you leave the Cave of the Gi before picking it up.
  
• The Elemental Materia in Tifa's house is missable. During the Nibelheim flashback, you must go to Tifa's piano and "jam on it". Then, when Tifa becomes the party leader in Disc 2, you must return to the piano and start playing it to obtain the Materia.
  
• Final Attack is missable if your Materia stock is full when you first complete special battle.
  
• MP Absorb is missable if you do not complete Yuffie's quest in Wutai before Disc 3.
  
• MP Turbo is missable if you reach the end of the Whirlwind Maze.

Below is a table with the location details of all 13 Command Materia:


Missables:

• The Enemy Skill Materia in Hojo's Lab is missable if you leave the Shinra Building without it.
  
• Morph is missable if you enter the large doors in the doorway puzzle room without having picked it up.

Below is a table with the location details of all 17 Independent Materia:


Missables:

• Luck Plus is missable if you enter the large doors in the doorway puzzle room without having picked it up.
  
• Underwater is missable if you missed the Morph Materia, as it is required to morph a Ghost Ship into a Guide Book.

Battle Square Prizes:
Prizes in the Battle Square can vary in price depending on how far into the game you are. Below is a table summarising the prices of the three Independent Materia that are sold here:

Below is a table with the location details of all 16 Summon Materia:


Missables:

• Bahamut is missable if you head to the XII in the Clock Room without picking it up.
  
• Bahamut ZERO is missable if you collect all four Huge Materia but missed out on either Bahamut or Neo Bahamut.
  
• Ifrit is missable if you leave the Cargo Ship without picking it up.
  
• Kujata is missable if your Materia stock is full when you try to pick it up. Due to a glitch, it will vanish completely.
  
• Neo Bahamut is missable if you head too far into Whirlwind Maze without picking it up.
  
• Ramuh is missable if you win your freedom in the Chocobo Race without picking it up.

Notes:

• Once the Highwind is obtained, a Chocobo will only be by the fence once you've caught on and sent it to a rented stable.
  
• Titan Materia will be invisible until Disc 2, but it will still be obtainable.

Unlike standard Materia and Master Materia, pieces of Huge Materia count as Key Items and thus take up none of your 200 Materia spaces.

Somewhat into Disc 2, you will be tasked with stealing four pieces of Huge Materia from Shinra. Obtaining each piece requires you to successfully complete a quest, which are mandatory to continue with the game, but are all possible to fail. Below are the details:


Below are the different button combinations for the Shinra No. 26 password:


Once the four quests have been completed, you will move any Huge Materia obtained to Buganhagen's observatory in Cosmo Canyon and they will become usable.

The colours of Huge Materia gained will not be determined by which locations you stole them from, but rather the amount you managed to steal - for example, you cannot steal just the Blue Huge Materia. Below is a table detailing the uses of each Huge Materia:

There are three types of Master Materia - Master Magic Materia, Master Command Materia, and Master Summon Materia.

There are two methods to obtain the Master Materia:

• Exchange a set of mastered standard Materia to the Huge Materia in Bugenhagen's observatory in Cosmo Canyon. This can be done as many times as you want.
  
• Defeat Emerald WEAPON and give the Earth Harp it drops to the Kalm Traveller. He will give you a full set of Master Materia. This can only be done once.

All 21 types of standard Magic Materia are required to create the Master Magic Materia. It takes a total of 1,029,000 AP to master the entire set.

Of the 13 types of standard Command Materia, only 7 are needed to create the Master Command Materia. It takes a total of 430,000 AP to master the needed subset.


Of the 16 types of standard Summon Materia, only 11 are needed to create the Master Summon Materia. It takes a total of 1,885,000 AP to master the needed subset.

AP is rewarded whenever a battle is won, and it is given to any Materia which is currently equipped to your party members’ weapons or armour. Each weapon and armour will have a certain amount of Materia slots as well as an AP growth rate, which can apply a multiplier to the amount of AP gained by the Materia on that item.

Most weapons have a “Normal” growth rate (1x). Below is a table displaying any weapons with unusual growth rates:


If you want to maximise the Materia you are gaining, then you will want to choose equipment with both high AP growth and a high number of Materia slots.

It is also important to consider whether you want a few Materia levelled up extremely fast or many Materia levelled up at a good speed. For example, the Rune Armlet has 4 slots with doubled AP growth, meaning that it can effectively take 8 times the amount of AP given at the end of a battle. However, the Precious Watch has 8 slots with normal AP growth, which means that it also takes 8 times the AP given.

The best two pieces of equipment for AP growth are Cloud’s Apocalypse, which gives 9 times the AP earned, and Cid’s Javelin, which gives 10 times the AP earned.

Cid’s Scimitar has tripled AP growth, but only two Materia slots. This means that it gives 6 times the AP earned. Despite this, the tripled AP rate can be excellent for quickly levelling Materia which needs an enormous amount of AP.

For example, the Knights of the Round Materia normally takes 500,000 AP to master. With a doubled AP growth rate, it effectively takes 250,000 AP to master. With a tripled AP growth rate, it instead effectively takes 166,667 AP to master.

• Rune Armlets can be bought in Bone Village for 3,700 gil.
  
• Weapons with 4 slots and 2x growth can be bought from the various weapon shops in Junon after obtaining the Highwind.
  
• Cid's Javelin can be found in a chest at Gaea's Cliff, which means that it is missable.
  
• Cid's Scimitar can be found in a chest at the Junon Underwater Reactor, from a chest by the submarines. This is also missable, as you cannot return to here after boarding the submarine.
  
• Cloud's Apocalypse can be found in a chest in the Ancient Forest, a location near to Cosmo Canyon which can only be accessed by either riding a Green/Black/Gold Chocobo or defeating Ultimate Weapon.

To master each group requires:


The following Materia are "mastered" at 0 AP do not produce a clone upon doing so:

• Master Command
  
• Master Magic
  
• Master Summon
  
• Underwater

An Enemy Skill Materia can only be mastered by learning all 24 enemy skills on it.

The best location to grind for AP is the game’s final dungeon, the Northern Cave – specifically in the Lake Area where you will end up after the team splits up if you go left and then to the upper path.

In this location, the best encounters are Movers, which give 800 AP each, but always attack in groups of three, meaning each fight is worth 2,400 AP.

The second-best encounters are Magic Pots, which give 1,000 AP each. They will attack either alone or as a pair, meaning that you can get 1,000 AP to 2,000 AP from each fight, but each one you kill will cost you one Elixir. I would recommend learning the W-Item glitch so that you can clone Elixirs ready for grinding.

The other encounters in this area are decent for AP gain:

The Enemy Skill Materia is not mastered by grinding AP, but instead by learning all of the 24 possible enemy skills on it.

Below is a table containing the details of all Enemy Skills:

1. Midgar Zolom will only use this move when its HP is low.
   
2. Jersey will be unable to use this move if it has been damaged.
   
3. Find a Chocobo whose Level is a multiple of 4. Feed it Mimett Greens and then use the Enemy Skill L4 Suicide.
   
4. Post-JORG version only. This enemy is beyond the game's "point of no return". "JORG" is short for "Japanese Original".
   
5. Dying attack used against its killer. Only the first Dragon Zombie encountered in a playthrough will be able to use this move.

• Fleeing a battle or having your whole team ejected from the fight will cause any Enemy Skills learned during the battle to be forgotten.
  
• Enemy Skills cannot be learned from enemies in the Gold Saucer’s Battle Square.
  
• Enemy Skills cannot be learned by using the Enemy Skill from one of your characters against another character holding an Enemy Skill Materia without the move.
  
• A single character can learn an Enemy Skill on multiple Enemy Skill Materia at once by carrying more than one. However, if an Enemy Skill has already been learned on at least one of the Enemy Skill Materia being held by a single character, then being targeted by that attack will not teach it to the remaining Enemy Skill Materia.

Of the 24 Enemy Skills which can be learned, only two of them can be missed.

It is only possible to have two Enemy Skill Materia by the time that the Materia Keeper boss fight is encountered in Mt. Nibel. The third Enemy Skill Materia can be obtained before Gaea’s Cliff is reached, where Stilva can be battled.

Unfortunately, the Highwind is required to reach the fourth Enemy Skill Materia, which can only be obtained after the Whirlwind Maze has been completed, which stops you from revisiting Gaea’s Cliff.

For this reason, it is vital that the Wutai Pagoda sidequest is not completed until after the fourth Enemy Skill Materia is obtained from the Chocobo Sage’s House on the Northern Continent. Then Yuffie must equip only the Enemy Skill Materia that have not yet learned Trine before she faces the fifth and final opponent of the Wutai Pagoda, Godo. He will eventually use the move Trine against you.

After losing all their health, Dragon Zombies are supposed to perform this attack against their killer before they die. However, due to a coding error, only the very first Dragon Zombie encountered will be able to use this move. Thus, it is important to save your game before entering the stalactite area of the Northern Cave and put all four Enemy Skill Materia onto the character who will kill the Dragon Zombie, which will have a maximum of 13,000 HP. It is also vital that the Dragon Zombie has enough MP left to cast Pandora’s Box before it dies.