Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a massive game with a mostly straightforward structure. Throughout its 40-plus hour playtime, you’ll go from dungeon to dungeon, completing some side-missions along the way, while pushing the story forward and rarely looking back. If you allow yourself to be swept up in the momentum of your mission to liberate Midgar, it can be easy to miss valuable collectibles accidentally. Some of the most important is Materia, which are colored orbs you can equip to characters to beef up their base attack skills by providing them spells, abilities, and summons.
You’re not going to want to bypass all the useful Materia you can collect throughout your journey. Below, we’ve detailed the easiest ones to miss, which includes info on what they do and how to find them. With this guide, you’ll be able to find Materia like Revival, Elemental, HP Up, Magnify, and more.
Be sure to check back often as we update this feature with even more essential Materia you might’ve missed. For more about Materia, you should also read our Materia loadout guide about how to build the proper set for your party. Otherwise, read our FF7 Remake review.
HP Up
The HP Up Materia is one of the easiest you can miss early on. As you’re exploring the streets of Midgar Sector 1 during Chapter 2, you’ll come upon soldiers guarding a checkpoint with a white van on the other side, and beside it is a purple orb of HP Up Materia. Unfortunately, you can’t grab it, so keep moving until you hit a cutscene, followed by an attack by Shinra Security Officers. Before going further, head back east towards the checkpoint, and then grab the Materia.
Deadly Dodge
From a tactical perspective, the Deadly Dodge combat Materia is essential for early fights as Cloud. It allows you to dodge towards enemies with an area damage attack, which is excellent for opening up most battles.
You can purchase a Deadly Dodge Materia from the item shop later in Chapter 3, but you can get one for free during Chapter 2. Continue heading south from where you got the HP Up Materia we mentioned above. Just before the fountain plaza, you’ll fight off three more troopers. Once they’re dealt with, check beside the car for a Deadly Dodge Materia.
Auto-Cure
Auto-Cure is an excellent safeguard for keeping a party member healed during a tough encounter. At its base level, it’s capable of healing weakened party members up to three times per battle. However, it won’t activate if you don’t have not enough MP or ATB Charges to go around or if you’re controlling the character in need of emergency curing.
To get the Auto-Cure Materia, sync up with Chadley, the weird kid in the Sector 7 Slums, who wants your help developing new Materia. He’ll give you the Assess Materia when you take on the quest; use it on any enemies you fight in Scrap Boulevard to get the data you need. Later, he’ll give you Battle Intel assignments with a variety of objectives to unlock additional Materia–some of which we highlight later in this guide–that you’ll generally want to prioritize completing on the side to gain more access to varying Materia types. For this report, return when you’ve analyzed two different types of enemies to buy the newly-developed Auto-Cure Materia at a discounted rate.
First Strike
Completing Chadley’s third Battle Intel Report nets you a First Strike Materia. It’s not too hard to miss, but it’s worth mentioning just in case you don’t check in with Chadley often. First Strike is super handy for boosting the amount of ATB you naturally earn at the start of a battle. You’ll want to consider equipping it onto Tifa if you’ve made her your party leader, as her Unbridled Strength ability is good to start building up as soon as possible during a battle. After purchasing an Iron Sword for Cloud during Chapter 3, you should have no trouble earning First Strike from Chadley, as completing the associated Battle Intel Report simply requires that you use different abilities on enemies while they’re staggered.
Cleansing Materia
Cleansing Materia is foundational. With this handy orb of Materia, you can heal the poison status effect with MP–eliminating the need to use antidotes. After earning enough AP from using it numerous times, you can use Esuna, which heals all status conditions.
To get yourself a Cleansing Materia, you need to complete the Rat Problem side mission during Chapter 3. To do so, talk to the Item Store owner once the game tells you you’re free to tackle optional quests. Then take the path going north that’s on the west side of Seventh Heaven. Duck through the pipe to enter a vacant lot full of rats. Take them out and open the chest on the east side of the area for three grenades.
Return to the lot and fight the Doom Rats. They’re pretty quick, so try using Punisher mode’s counter attack to whittle down their health, and use magic to hit them at a distance. If you can do some sustained damage, you’ll Stagger rats, which allows you to knock them out. When you return to the Item Shop owner, you can buy a Cleansing Materia for a discounted price.
Revival
Phoenix Downs are expensive, and while you can find them in the occasional chest, your supply of them is mostly limited. So why not have a Materia on hand that’ll help bring your friends back from the dead with MP? Revival is a must-have that you can get relatively early on, but end up missing if you’re not paying attention.
After beating the boss in Chapter 4, follow the objective back to the Sector 7 Plate Edge. Just before the first right turn, grab the Revival Materia lying on the ground to your left just before the walkway.
Chocobo And Moogle Summon Materia
After getting your first Summon Materia at the start of Chapter 4, you’re probably going to be champing at the bit for the next one. The next Summon Materia is available during Chapter 6 and is pointed out to you by Tifa as you’re slowly passing by some industrial ventilation fans. Unfortunately, you can’t access it until after you power down two out of the three sunlamps in the area.
Once that deed is done, return to the H-01 section to use the gondola that will take you back toward the ventilation system. On the far side, take the ladder up to a service room where you activate a console that orders you to do some cleaning maintenance in the next room within a minute. Kill all the enemies and press the button on the console at the end of the room in time to complete the job. Don’t worry if you fail to kill everything within the time limit, though. You can double back out of the room and hit the console again to start a new, easier fight with some weaker enemies.
Once you activate the other console, you can head into the fan corridor and snag the Chocobo and Moogle Summon Materia. It’s a useful one to have equipped when up against enemies weak to the Wind element.
MP Up
If you’re in the market for another MP Up Matera, but would rather not fork over the 2,000 Gil needed to purchase a new one, then you can snag yourself a freebie during Chapter 6. The positive effects of this Materia are apparent, and you’re likely going to want a couple for a special somebody who’ll inevitably end up joining your party later on.
Return on the second gondola to the area you entered when you climbed down the ladder from Sunlamp 2. Go around the cargo containers to find a ladder down, leading to another platform where you’ll fight two Queen Grashtrikes. Dispatch them, then use the control panel to lower the walkway ahead. Don’t align it with the gate so you can cross; instead, keep lowering it until the MP Up Materia sitting on top of the frame is low enough for you to grab.
Elemental Materia
The Elemental Materia is a handy way to imbue a party member’s melee attacks with elemental power when attached to a weapon or increase their magical defense against a particular element when attached to armor. To explain, weapons and armor feature sockets that you place Materia into, and there are two variants of sockets: single, isolated ones and joint ones. The joint sockets are what you can use to activate Elemental on weapons and armor. We highly recommend you give this one to Cloud, but try to be cautious when you face an enemy whose elemental affinity matches the current element of whoever is using this Materia.
To get yourself an Elemental Materia, follow the directions we detailed above about how to get MP Up during Chapter 6. After manipulating the walkway to get the MP Up Materia, put it back in place so you can cross it. Head to the far end of the next platform to grab the Elemental Materia.
Binding
Binding Materia is a must for party members you’re speccing to become powerful mages. It allows you to cast status ailment spells like Sleep, Silence, and Berserk. It’s possible to purchase one at the Wall Market Materia shop during Chapter 9, but that’s 3,000 Gil, and who wants to burn that much hard-earned cash on something you can get for free?
A Binding Materia is up for grabs earlier on during Chapter 9 when you need to use a robotic hand to pick up some cargo containers. Right after fighting three Terpsicolts, look for a ramp heading down on the east side of the area where you’ll find a split path. Head up the path with the slope to find controls for the big robot hand. Use the hand to pick up the cargo container and move it to the right, so that it makes a path with the wood walkway nearby, which has the Binding Materia on top of it. When Aerith heads down, pick her up, and place her on top of the cargo container. She’ll then run over and grab the Binding Materia for you.
Magnify
The Magnify Materia works much like Elemental in that it’s one you attach into joint slots. When you connect a spell Materia to Magnify, you can cast that respective spell onto multiple targets. So, if you have Magnify attached to the Healing Materia, it will cure multiple characters instead of just one. It also works the same way for offensive spells, but it’s important to note that the primary target receives the bulk of the damage, and those around them get a reduced amount.
You can find a Magnify Materia not long after you get Binding during Chapter 9. After you’ve first confronted a fella named Beck and his goonies, proceed until you reach another section with a robot hand you can operate to move some containers around. You can grab the Magnify Materia by moving the first container up and to the right to make a path to it, then dropping Aerith off on tor for her to procure it in your stead.
All The Summon Materia From Chadley’s Intel Reports
If you’re gunning your way through FF7’s story, you’re guaranteed to miss the majority of the game’s Summon Materia. Because if you’re not talking to Chadley, then you’re going to lock yourself out of getting these powerful battle allies–for a while, at least.
To start the process of getting more Summon Materia, talk to Chadley again as early as Chapter 8 to access your first VR Mission, which is a unique challenge where you fight a summon creature to earn its respective Materia.
Make it a rule of thumb to find Chadley every time you come upon a new semi-open area where you can explore and do side missions because chances are he’ll have a new VR Battle for you to complete. Pivotal moments where you can talk to him to get a new VR Mission include Chapter 8 (Shiva), Chapter 9 (Fat Chocobo), and Chapter 14 (Leviathan). There is another one you can earn, but you can only access that by completing all of Chadley’s Battle Intel Reports. We’ve listed their identity under this spoiler tag: Bahamut.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
