Battle System, Materia A good IDEA???

Hey guys I wanted to briefly explain the battle system here, and talk about the pros and cons of the materia system.

So basically ff7 has a system to learn spells, abilities, summons, and other useful stat gains (hp up, magic up, etc.) This system is called the materia system. As the game progresses you find new "materia."
The materia looks like big marbles apparently they enter the user and give them strength, but when you equip a materia you loose HP and strength, all the while gaining a magic boost. Each character you use has a different materia combination that will determine what they can do in battle. Certain weapons or armor give you "slots" to put materia in. Certain weapons give you combination slots where you can put two materia together for an added effect. For example the all materia plus a magic materia like bolt makes it so you can attack ALL enemies with a bolt spell.

Now this may all sound well and good, but the reason ff7 thrives is that you can level up your materia to learn new spells, abilities, and even cast summons multiple times. And when you have maxed out a materia, you get a new materia at level 0 as well as the benefits of a maxed out materia.


The different types of materia are as follows.

The green is the most common magic command ability, like bolt 1, ice 2 or comet 2.

The red is large summons that usually have certain elemental strengths that can turn the tide against a strong foe.

The yellow are command materia and can take the place of attack abilities. They could be steal, or maybe even double cut, where you attack twice.

The Blue is support materia, this is where you combine it with another materia for an added effect. It doesn't work by itself.

Finally the purple is the independent materia, it gives stat boosts such as an increase in hit points, and it levels just like other materia.

With each character you can choose which weapon, equipment or accessory to use. But you have to choose which materia to use, and also which materia you want to level up.


As for the overall battle mechanics you have to focus on each characters limit break. This is a bar that only increases when you take damage. It is a special attack for each playable character and does an amazing move. Managing this may be the only difference between characters. So I pose this question. As amazing as materia is, wouldn't you like to see more personalized characters, in terms of strengths or defined class, such as ff9. Or are you ok with this, me personally I'm on the edge I love 7 and 9, but not sure which battle system I prefer.

Great post by the way and I see what you are saying about the everyone not being unique with abilities or strengths but ff7 doesn't do it as terribly, I mean aeris actually seems like a white mage, while cloud is clearly a warrior, yuffie does act like a thief/ninja. Which is unlike 8. And also unlike 8 you actually care about the characters, which again separates how the player will use them.

Ya I agree, I think we as players adapt and make them whatever class they seem like, but in actuality it's basically some negligible base stat gains. But what might separate the characters more than that is which weapons they can equip, and the boost they get from it. But when the game is at the end, you basically pick and choose who the mage or warrior is. You can win either way. Where as in 9 you have to use strategy for each character accordingly.