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The magic system used in the role playing game Final Fantasy VII uses small spheres of various colours, called materia, to let the user cast various magic.
Colours and usage
- Magic (green)
- For casting destructive spells like fire or ice.
- Summon (red)
- For summoning monsters such as Ifrit and Bahamut.
- Command (yellow)
- For adding commands such as steal and morph.
- Support (blue)
- Used in conjunction with other materia to provide an added effect.
- Independent (purple)
- Generally stat boosting materia such as HpPlus and LuckPlus.
Materia works in conjunction with slots, which are places on a weapon or armour to place materia. Slots can either be on their own, or paired with another slot for use with support materia like All, for casting spells at multiple targets.
Most materia lower one or more of the statistics of the character they are equipped on (primarily HP). Therefore, a character loaded with lots of materia will have many abilities at his disposal but will suffer in other areas, making the balanced application of materia an important ability to master.
Materia can have several levels of maturity, which are gained by obtaining AP at the end of battles. Some materia can have as many as 3 actions or spells: for example Fire materia enables the character to cast Fire on its first level. The second level enables Fire2, a strong fire spell, and its third level wields Fire3, the strongest fire spell. When materia has gained a certain amount of levels, it will become mastered and form a new piece of the same materia.
History
The word "materia" is Latin, and means "matter". In the game, materia is created when Mako energy crystallizes, forming materia orbs. Finding a natural source of materia is extremely rare; one such source exists in the Nibelheim mountains.
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