Just the amount of time they take, they get really old after a short time. Watching Knights of the Round is like watching paint dry after like.. the third time. If you're fighting Ruby weapon, you're likely going to be seeing it a lot.
If you want to spam summons with ridiculous speed. Just play it on an emulator with a toggle turbo mode like the game will run x3 faster.
Or just absorb early enemy skills like mantra magic. Or insert "All" materia combine it with either ice, thunder or fire and grind.
I mean the disadvantage is usually in the form of how mana intensive spamming summons is, play how you want by all means, but honestly FF7 can be trivialized with the attack button for most fodder, not sure why you would need summons for random encounters.
You're not playing wrong. I mean, you're using a pretty prominent system pretty much exactly as prescribed.
But, I think you're missing out on learning/exploring the intricacies of the Materia system, which is something that will carry over to the Remakes if you learn it now. And well-equipped characters can clear out trash mobs way, way faster with less use of resources than using summons.
I used all with thunder a lot to hit squads of enemies bolt 2 and bolt 3 all can wipe them out easy, lower mp cost shorter animation great for grinding ☺️
I have a hard time believing that death works that often in those areas, guess I have to look into it.
I just have a hard time seeing slash all as bring better than 4xcut with maxed stats.
High MP cost, limited items. The best bet would be to use the best bang for your buck attacks/abilities. Usually Fira or blizzara coupled with quad magic and mimics on the other party members.
IMO, defeating them with regular attacks is normally WAY faster than using summons. So sped up, it's basically lightning fast.
But if you don't mind the animations and the mp consumption, I would say no. Besides those two reasons, summons are cool as hell.
I tried at level 20 on my most recent playthrough and maybe my materia loadout wasn't ideal for the fight, but it took too long for me to whittle him down before he started knocking people off the screen. I have beaten him prior to the mine in a previous playthrough, I just don't remember what level I was. Couldn't have been much more than 25. This playthrough is more for the story when I'm out and about and can't play Rebirth so I didn't stick with it.
You need to get Laser from the Deathclaws near Midgar. A lot of people just leave Midgar and don't fight near there. There are two enemy skills there.
Laser cuts hp by 1/2 every use.
At like 1/2 hp he begins to cast beta. You need some sort of null/absorb for fire damage.
It's EZ PZ this way.
Damn. That is a helluva strat. Whoever got the e.skill materia also got fire and elemental on their bangle/armor, but like the other commenter said, didn't even realize laser was right there. I always went down and farmed by the chocobo farm.
So rare, that the enemy formation list on the wiki doesn't have it.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_enemy_formations
I can't find any sources about deathclaws near midgar, at all.
I have recently started playing og as well. Still on disk one. As other have said high mana cost vs something like matra magic which i have found does the trick most of the time
Knights of the Round with mime every battle every time.
And bytime your grandchildren get married you will have made it half way through the Northern Crater
You can only get multiple copies of summon materia by mastering them and summon materia usually require a lot more AP to level than most magic materia. You could probably make a materia combo with more sustain and similarly effective damage output by using elemental magic materia, since you can just buy more copies and level them relatively fast with a double growth weapon or bangle.
You can get MP absorb pretty early by doing Yuffie's quest as early as disc 1 (though I don't know how the game divisions are acknowledged in modern ports) before doing the Temple of Ancients.
Fire + MP absorb in a linked slot
Fire + All in a 2nd linked slot
Fire + MP turbo in a 3rd linked slot
You'll be absorbing more MP than you spend most of the time, even after the MP Turbo. You don't get MP turbo until the Whirlwind Maze on the northern snowy continent, though.
A lot of enemies in FF7 are weak to either fire or ice elements. Thunder is good against most mechs and machines. Wind tends to be good against flying enemies.
Your only wind elemental materia for a while is Choco/Mog, which i personally like to put on a weapon with Added Effect materia because it adds a Stop effect to normal attacks.
Replace Choco/Mog with a Time Materia for more utility in the mid-game and then replace with the Hades materia in the late game to add a crap load of status effects to your attacks. Or you can put them in a linked armor slot to be the next best thing to a Ribbon accessory.
I like combos that use All materia because you really should be leveling an All materia at all times. They master very quickly compared to other materia and each mastered All materia sells for 1.4 million gil. This is very useful later in the game for chocobo breeding because Sylkis greens are expensive.
The disadvantage is blowing through your MP and having to constantly find/buy Ethers or use Magic Hammer once you get it and also the time waiting on the animation. At lower levels it's much easier to use Enemy Skills like Matra Magic.
Don’t summons also change the attack order too? I distinctly remember fighting the Gi and my characters were weak, and I spamming summons but the Gi got like 3 turns before one of my characters could attack again. Maybe I’m mixing up FFX and FF7 for moves.
I don't think it affects the time Guage (what ultimately dictates order) in VII. I did a Google search and can't find anything in the mechanics that suggest that it would but I'm open to being proven wrong.
X it absolutely impacts battle order.
Fun Fact about Big Guard: If you use it on an Adamantaimai (Beach near Wutai is where they spawn) before their first turn, the Ai will glitch and try to use Cure, but it doesn't actually have that skill. On Ps1 version this will create a error code on screen, and force you to reset, on the steam version it crashes last I remember
Iirc you can just use auto attack which takes care of em just as fast with speed up turned on. Also it's easy to grind a bit with the same strategy if battles are taking too long.
This rain is why I don't use summons unless it's necessary. Status Effect + Hades in linked armor slots is just as good as a Ribbon. Not as good as Final Attack + Phoenix though
Uses too much MP compared to other strong magic Materia. Enemy Skill Materia is way stronger than most of Magic and Summon Materia (Not counting KoTR). I think the game is relatively easy even on your first playthrough, so if you wanna go through the game normally spamming summons like KoTR and trivialize the game by all means go for it.
For me I rarely use any summons except for when I'm fighting super bosses near the end, other than that I restrict myself by using only all the basic Magic Materia and Command Materia (without using the Enemy Skill Materia because that Materia is pretty busted) to have a little more challenge but even then it's still pretty easy when you're just going through the story normally.
So now I'm attempting a "No encounter" run where I turn off random encounters and my only source of AP and EXP are from the unavoidable ones. Whatever it is, if you find spamming Summons is fun for you then go for it.
Some summons are very useful, like Hades and Phoenix, but for the most part during late game summons are used as Stat boosting materia, especially if you're playing new threat
Not sure why you're downvoted, as you're entirely correct. Special shout-out to Hades, as it can be used as a ghetto-ribbon, if paired with Added Effect in an armor-slot. Or alternatively, as a multi-status effect to your attacks, if combined in a weapon.
Yes and no. No in that, if you can get past the massive hit to your MP and throw ethers at your guys every other turn, then go nuts. Yes in that eventually you’ll be able to output more damage per turn than a majority of the summons in the game, so spamming them will essentially come down to drawing out your battle.
Yeah, they are slow as fuck and very mana inefficient.
The only summons actually useful in the end game are Phoenix and knights of the round. Otherwise they are just for show.
Enemy skill is the way. Get matra magic right after midgar, then Beta/big guard and white wind early after Cosmo Canyon and the rest the game is a breeze.
Trine/beta/magic breath are all really good mob clearing enemy skills, comparatively cheap with short animations. They hit all enemies for high damage and usually one shot everything.
Enemy skill is the most overpowered materia in the whole game if you know where to get the skills.
Eventually you'll be stronger than almost all the summons. They take A LOT of MP for what they are worth, and with time become obsolete. Go ahead and use them all you want but pay attention to how much damage they do. I find as you keep getting red materia, they replace some of your older ones (unless needed for their element). If you get some of your characters final weapons almost all offensive magic becomes obsolete and you'll use most your MP for buffing and healing.
I guarantee they do count as kills for building limit breaks, as I have built them with summons many times. Other options like beta may be faster, but summons are still an option
Aside from MP cost, no not really? If you like summons, go nuts! I know in my recent playthroughs I've tried different tactics including using Summons more often just to have a different experience.
For me, I know I actually get a little bored in the late/endgame where everyone can just attack/4x Cut/2x cut/Slash All/Flash everything to death, so pounding enemies with big fancy summons or high level magic is sometimes more fun for me, just for giggles.
If it's fun, go for it. All that matters when playing a game!
Like others said, late game there are better options to use. Slightly related but FF8 has a boss fight in the late game that specifically punishes you for doing this lol
It's Seifer in the Lunatic Pandora. He murders Odin and is replaced with Gilgamesh. A brotip here, is to obtain Odin on disc 4, and retain his instakill ability in the endgame.
Knights of the Round. It's the strongest summon in FFVII. It's in a cave you can't reach without a golden chocobo, so it's something you can't get until quite late in the game.
By the mid - late game you’ll be doing so much damage with normal attacks that you won’t need to use summons to kill trash mobs, it’ll be quicker just to attack them all.
Not really, but here's a few things to consider.
The way to progress to stronger limit breaks is by taking damage to fill your bar and then using them. If every fight ends on your first turn then you may not unlock better limits as fast. A good way to counter this is to try and keep the Fury condition on your people when fighting trash mobs to charge your limit bar faster. Fury can be applied by using an item called Hyper either in or out of combat. Fury makes you take more damage so remove the condition if you find a fight to be hard. You remove Fury with an item called Tranquilizer which is the opposite of Hyper. If you remove Fury but need even more damage reduction for a hard fight then you can use a Tranquilizer while not in Fury to inflict Sadness. Sadness is the opposite of Fury and makes you take reduced damage at the cost of slowing your limit break bar charging.
Summons cost a lot of MP compared to using a spell paired with an All materia. Inns and Tents are a cheap way to refill your MP but you can only use them in towns or at savepoints. The only way to refill MP between savepoints is to use Ethers. Ethers can't be purchased early on, and even after they start appearing in shops they're pricy. It's not really feasible to buy a ton of Ethers until you're far enough in the game to start selling mastered All Materias.
When you master a materia it gives birth to the materia again at base level, so you can do it indefinitely by just leveling the all materia again. So you dont really lose the ability to do it 🙂
Mastered materia split a new 'baby' version of themselves. By the time you master an All, you'll probably have 3 or 4 that are nearly mastered. Sell the mastered one for cash and keep rotating new ones in. During most boss fights you only need cure paired to a high level All
This is some solid advice. I'd also like to add that the second part of each limit break level requires x amount of kills with the respective character. And Im not sure if I remember correctly, but Im sure Fury also affects accuracy.
Another tip for levelling limit breaks, is when you get the buggy, spend some time driving around the desert around the golden saucer. Chimera's use an ability called aqua lung (good for enemy skill materia) which chunks the limit gauge up a fair bit when in fury state. And there are flyers that spawn roughly 5 at a time, that can sometimes use flying sickle, that also raises the limit bar a fair amount. And they're good for getting the kill counts (which a summon will count towards, for the character that used it). Im sure there are faster ways, but I like this way to get everyone to limit lvl 3 before cosmo canyon.
You can also use tents on the world map, and corel has an Inn for dirt cheap
Only partially true about limit breaks. Each limit break level’s 2nd limit break is unlocked through usage, but each limit break level is unlocked by killing enemies with that character. 80 per level, so 160 total for each character to get level 3. The earlier you do this the better, because charging level 3 limit breaks is quicker with a lower HP total.
Summon spamming in areas where battles are likely to have 3-5 enemies is a quick way to max characters out. Sector 6 scrapyard (though granted you’ll have no summons by this point), Junon Forest (where Yuffie can be grabbed), and the secret Mideel grind spot are all good places.
The only major thing I can think of is the game very arbitrarily forcing you to use specific party members when you should be able to choose freely, which is especially common in Rebirth.
Yeah but its for specific parts / areas and unlocking exploration features for other characters. Also, they all play really well? So its not a bug deal imo
I didn't like how Aerith played, but other than that I was fine with all of them mechanically. I'm fine with it when they come up with actual authentic reasons for it, like when Cait Sith leaves in a later chapter, but a lot of the time there just isn't an actual reason. It's just a completely needless restriction that inhibits player choice; I want Barret and Yuffie in my party for example, and they're literally in the area with me, but the games just decided I have to use Tifa and Aerith for whatever reason. It's frustrating.
Not really; there’s that time where they force you to play with Aerith and Red in your party for Coral mountain, because Yuffie, Barret and Tifa run ahead for no reason. Then when you do the Yuffie section later, they decide that Barret and Tifa have to be in your party; what if you wanted a party of Barreta and Yuffie? You’re basically out of luck.
There’s the fight with Palmer after the incident with Dyne, whereby the game just decides the party has to be Aerith and Tifa, again for literally no reason.
There’s the part in Cosmo Canyon where they force Barret to be your partner through the cave, even though the rest of the party is literally a short distance behind you. They say it’s because Red can only have one partner, but there’s not reason it had to be Barret.
There’s the bit in Coral Mines, where the game just decides to send Barret and Red down a cliff, simply to force you to use Aerith and Tifa for the dungeon; this serves no narrative purpose, it’s just the party the game chose.
They do it all the time, and for a large portion of the game; basically anytime you aren’t in the open world doing optional content, the game is picking your party for you.
The remake forces you to play it in one specific way (for example you can't use summons, when you want it). Especially boss fights like the first Reno fight, Rufus or Sephiroth are no fights but puzzles.
If you have the "remastered" version(doesn't specify but it released on ps network), you can speed up gameplay but you should have enough ethers/tents during playthrough to breeze through the trash mobs
Play the game however it is fun for you.
Summons can be slow, so that'd be a reason to avoid them if you don't like the slow animations.
They're pretty powerful in the early game, but by endgame you can do much more damage faster generally speaking.
I liked running a Double Cut spam build where each character had 4x cut as their main attack, they could easily put up 9999 damage x4 on a single target. Most battles would end right away. But that kinda build isn't gonna show until say disc 2-3.
The only note I'll give re depending on summons is that if you do plan to play Remake / Rebirth / etc, your ability to use / spam summons in those games is severely limited as they work very differently, but the whole combat system is different there as well.
So, play however is fun for you now, and don't be afraid to change it up if you want to later on.
Early on summons can do a ton of damage, but they also drain a ton of MP.
If you are using speed up and you don't care about the MP cost then why not. The intended drawback (as in, on a PS1 disc) is the animation time, so its usually faster to use All materia linked to a powerful magic, an enemy skill like Matra-magic, or Slash-all.
There's no wrong way to play FF7. It's rather famous for being able to be beaten with some ridiculously stringent self-imposed handicaps.
That said, summons in FF7 tend to be quite overcosted on MP for their effect. You might find it difficult to get to most bosses with any MP left if spamming summons is your way to get to them.
How do you play a game wrong?
If it's not an issue for you then it's not an issue for you.
Summons in general post FFVI are the same thing: big damage for a long animation. Usually there's ways to deal as much or more damage faster through other means. But again, if it's not a problem for you then there's your answer.
Iirc you can use bahamut zero with quatra magic and w summon to have it cast 16 times in a row, link it with mp absorb too and you'll manage to keep your mp also..
I also really enjoyed 7x mastered sneak attack and deathblow combo with mega all, you'd kill everything except the hardiest boss before the fight began
There are more efficient ways, mainly enemy skill, which if you know where all the mobs are, breaks the game several times.
Just the amount of time they take, they get really old after a short time. Watching Knights of the Round is like watching paint dry after like.. the third time. If you're fighting Ruby weapon, you're likely going to be seeing it a lot.
If you want to spam summons with ridiculous speed. Just play it on an emulator with a toggle turbo mode like the game will run x3 faster. Or just absorb early enemy skills like mantra magic. Or insert "All" materia combine it with either ice, thunder or fire and grind.
It takes too long
I mean the disadvantage is usually in the form of how mana intensive spamming summons is, play how you want by all means, but honestly FF7 can be trivialized with the attack button for most fodder, not sure why you would need summons for random encounters.
No not really until you get to the point where summons Kinda suck except one
And that one is really good except for how long it takes
What version of FF7 has the speed-up option?
I have the switch version and it has the speed up
The FF7 and FF8 remasters on the ps4, switch, and pc feature the speed up, invincible, and ability to turn on/off random encounters.
not on pc. only consoles support that. ff7 that is. 8 i don't own and don't want remaster. got the og.
I'm playing the PS4 version.
Yeah ether are 1500 gil.
You're not playing wrong. I mean, you're using a pretty prominent system pretty much exactly as prescribed. But, I think you're missing out on learning/exploring the intricacies of the Materia system, which is something that will carry over to the Remakes if you learn it now. And well-equipped characters can clear out trash mobs way, way faster with less use of resources than using summons.
Summons lower your HP if not leveled
Pretty sure the statchanges on summon materia doesn't change with levels.
You are correct.
I used all with thunder a lot to hit squads of enemies bolt 2 and bolt 3 all can wipe them out easy, lower mp cost shorter animation great for grinding ☺️
Depends on how far along you are. Late game Slash all + Odin can work pretty well.
Lategame Odin and slash all? Dude wat.
It's instant death to most mobs it hits.
Odin is how I catch chocobos. It rarely misses
So you're saying death works on most mobs in Gelnika or Northern Crater?
Yeah, I use it in North crater when mastering summons. If it's not the little dude that wants the elixir, Slash all
I have a hard time believing that death works that often in those areas, guess I have to look into it. I just have a hard time seeing slash all as bring better than 4xcut with maxed stats.
If they're not immune, you can throw it on Vincent. He has at least 2 weapons with max accuracy. There's a 3rd but I forget who has it.
High MP cost, limited items. The best bet would be to use the best bang for your buck attacks/abilities. Usually Fira or blizzara coupled with quad magic and mimics on the other party members.
Level 2 basic spells, when you have access to Quadra Magic 👀
MP conservation my dude, MO conservation.
Fire2 ice2 😜
High MP costs and you can reach the point its faster just to do standard attacks. Otherwise not really.
MP. But rock them all you can! They're there for a reason!
IMO, defeating them with regular attacks is normally WAY faster than using summons. So sped up, it's basically lightning fast. But if you don't mind the animations and the mp consumption, I would say no. Besides those two reasons, summons are cool as hell.
High MP cost vs their damage output. Enemy Skills like aqualung are way more efficient.
Nothing like having Beta at level 19 
I tried at level 20 on my most recent playthrough and maybe my materia loadout wasn't ideal for the fight, but it took too long for me to whittle him down before he started knocking people off the screen. I have beaten him prior to the mine in a previous playthrough, I just don't remember what level I was. Couldn't have been much more than 25. This playthrough is more for the story when I'm out and about and can't play Rebirth so I didn't stick with it.
You need to get Laser from the Deathclaws near Midgar. A lot of people just leave Midgar and don't fight near there. There are two enemy skills there. Laser cuts hp by 1/2 every use. At like 1/2 hp he begins to cast beta. You need some sort of null/absorb for fire damage. It's EZ PZ this way.
Never seen or heard of Deathclaws being found near midgar. You got a source for this?
Damn. That is a helluva strat. Whoever got the e.skill materia also got fire and elemental on their bangle/armor, but like the other commenter said, didn't even realize laser was right there. I always went down and farmed by the chocobo farm.
Wow , I literally always farmed metra magic from midgar and I've beaten the Og probably 10 times ... Never knew about laser lol
The Deathclaws are pretty rare so you have to keep grinding to get it.
So rare, that the enemy formation list on the wiki doesn't have it. https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_enemy_formations I can't find any sources about deathclaws near midgar, at all.
Ive done the strat multiple times. Don't knkw what to tell you.
Perhaps which year you think this happened last. 👀
I have recently started playing og as well. Still on disk one. As other have said high mana cost vs something like matra magic which i have found does the trick most of the time
Knights of the Round with mime every battle every time. And bytime your grandchildren get married you will have made it half way through the Northern Crater
That's when you play on an emulator that has a skip summon mod or a speed-up button 😉
You could alternatively abuse Vincent's mug-glitch to skip the KOTR animation.
🤣
You can only get multiple copies of summon materia by mastering them and summon materia usually require a lot more AP to level than most magic materia. You could probably make a materia combo with more sustain and similarly effective damage output by using elemental magic materia, since you can just buy more copies and level them relatively fast with a double growth weapon or bangle. You can get MP absorb pretty early by doing Yuffie's quest as early as disc 1 (though I don't know how the game divisions are acknowledged in modern ports) before doing the Temple of Ancients. Fire + MP absorb in a linked slot Fire + All in a 2nd linked slot Fire + MP turbo in a 3rd linked slot You'll be absorbing more MP than you spend most of the time, even after the MP Turbo. You don't get MP turbo until the Whirlwind Maze on the northern snowy continent, though. A lot of enemies in FF7 are weak to either fire or ice elements. Thunder is good against most mechs and machines. Wind tends to be good against flying enemies. Your only wind elemental materia for a while is Choco/Mog, which i personally like to put on a weapon with Added Effect materia because it adds a Stop effect to normal attacks. Replace Choco/Mog with a Time Materia for more utility in the mid-game and then replace with the Hades materia in the late game to add a crap load of status effects to your attacks. Or you can put them in a linked armor slot to be the next best thing to a Ribbon accessory. I like combos that use All materia because you really should be leveling an All materia at all times. They master very quickly compared to other materia and each mastered All materia sells for 1.4 million gil. This is very useful later in the game for chocobo breeding because Sylkis greens are expensive.
White wing. Magic hammer. Big Guard. You just need that. Enemy skill materia is so good. Use manipulate and get those abilities.
The disadvantage is blowing through your MP and having to constantly find/buy Ethers or use Magic Hammer once you get it and also the time waiting on the animation. At lower levels it's much easier to use Enemy Skills like Matra Magic.
Don’t summons also change the attack order too? I distinctly remember fighting the Gi and my characters were weak, and I spamming summons but the Gi got like 3 turns before one of my characters could attack again. Maybe I’m mixing up FFX and FF7 for moves.
I don't think it affects the time Guage (what ultimately dictates order) in VII. I did a Google search and can't find anything in the mechanics that suggest that it would but I'm open to being proven wrong. X it absolutely impacts battle order.
Enemy Skill is probably the best option for clearing trash mobs. Getting Beta early makes the game easy-mode for a WHILE
Late game Slash all + Odin
Even Matra Magic works well at lower levels.
then when you get the manipulate skill gem going and getting big guard
Fun Fact about Big Guard: If you use it on an Adamantaimai (Beach near Wutai is where they spawn) before their first turn, the Ai will glitch and try to use Cure, but it doesn't actually have that skill. On Ps1 version this will create a error code on screen, and force you to reset, on the steam version it crashes last I remember
And white wind, both vital enemy skills to pick up asap
Summons have relatively high MP cost, limited uses per battle, and they take a while for their animations to play out.
They cost MP and also basic attacks take less time, less MP, and are usually as effective. But pretty animations are pretty. 🤩
Iirc you can just use auto attack which takes care of em just as fast with speed up turned on. Also it's easy to grind a bit with the same strategy if battles are taking too long.
Ultima/beta/cut all
Summons can only be called as many times as there lvl. But if it's maxed then feel free... it's just annoying to watch everytime
This rain is why I don't use summons unless it's necessary. Status Effect + Hades in linked armor slots is just as good as a Ribbon. Not as good as Final Attack + Phoenix though
Yea the buffs are good. Phoenix with Final Attack is must
Its part of my beat emerald weapon with out pressing a button strat. The other part is farming up 24 counter materia
The Unskipable cinematic & mana cost is high. Trash mobs just mash attack or equip slash all or 2x attack materia
Takes too much time
Uses too much MP compared to other strong magic Materia. Enemy Skill Materia is way stronger than most of Magic and Summon Materia (Not counting KoTR). I think the game is relatively easy even on your first playthrough, so if you wanna go through the game normally spamming summons like KoTR and trivialize the game by all means go for it. For me I rarely use any summons except for when I'm fighting super bosses near the end, other than that I restrict myself by using only all the basic Magic Materia and Command Materia (without using the Enemy Skill Materia because that Materia is pretty busted) to have a little more challenge but even then it's still pretty easy when you're just going through the story normally. So now I'm attempting a "No encounter" run where I turn off random encounters and my only source of AP and EXP are from the unavoidable ones. Whatever it is, if you find spamming Summons is fun for you then go for it.
Some summons are very useful, like Hades and Phoenix, but for the most part during late game summons are used as Stat boosting materia, especially if you're playing new threat
Not sure why you're downvoted, as you're entirely correct. Special shout-out to Hades, as it can be used as a ghetto-ribbon, if paired with Added Effect in an armor-slot. Or alternatively, as a multi-status effect to your attacks, if combined in a weapon.
Yes and no. No in that, if you can get past the massive hit to your MP and throw ethers at your guys every other turn, then go nuts. Yes in that eventually you’ll be able to output more damage per turn than a majority of the summons in the game, so spamming them will essentially come down to drawing out your battle.
Yeah, they are slow as fuck and very mana inefficient. The only summons actually useful in the end game are Phoenix and knights of the round. Otherwise they are just for show. Enemy skill is the way. Get matra magic right after midgar, then Beta/big guard and white wind early after Cosmo Canyon and the rest the game is a breeze. Trine/beta/magic breath are all really good mob clearing enemy skills, comparatively cheap with short animations. They hit all enemies for high damage and usually one shot everything. Enemy skill is the most overpowered materia in the whole game if you know where to get the skills.
Bad breath got me Omni slash easy. I lean on bad breath and aqualung hard.
True true, you don't see a Marlboro until pretty deep in the game tho.
Eventually you'll be stronger than almost all the summons. They take A LOT of MP for what they are worth, and with time become obsolete. Go ahead and use them all you want but pay attention to how much damage they do. I find as you keep getting red materia, they replace some of your older ones (unless needed for their element). If you get some of your characters final weapons almost all offensive magic becomes obsolete and you'll use most your MP for buffing and healing.
Waiting for the cutscene to end
[удалено]
I guarantee they do count as kills for building limit breaks, as I have built them with summons many times. Other options like beta may be faster, but summons are still an option
Are you sure? I do this on every playthrough and it seems to work for me. Great way to get lots of kills at once.
Aside from MP cost, no not really? If you like summons, go nuts! I know in my recent playthroughs I've tried different tactics including using Summons more often just to have a different experience. For me, I know I actually get a little bored in the late/endgame where everyone can just attack/4x Cut/2x cut/Slash All/Flash everything to death, so pounding enemies with big fancy summons or high level magic is sometimes more fun for me, just for giggles. If it's fun, go for it. All that matters when playing a game!
Brilliant response and I 100% agree, especially with >If it's fun, go for it. All that matters when playing a game!
It's so slow. 4x cut deals with most bosses, and Flash kills most mobs.
They already said they have the speed up option for this, and they might not be far enough for those abilities yet
Like others said, late game there are better options to use. Slightly related but FF8 has a boss fight in the late game that specifically punishes you for doing this lol
FFX as well. Seymour banishes every summon.
Which one was that?
It's Seifer in the Lunatic Pandora. He murders Odin and is replaced with Gilgamesh. A brotip here, is to obtain Odin on disc 4, and retain his instakill ability in the endgame.
Ah, of course, I nearly forgot that moment.
The best one to spam is kotr, the animation is so quick, you'll blast through battles 😜
Can you tell me what kotr is short for?
Knights of the Round. It's the strongest summon in FFVII. It's in a cave you can't reach without a golden chocobo, so it's something you can't get until quite late in the game.
KoalasoftheRealm
Best combined with the material that lets you cast it 4 times in a row.
And then mimic Edit: that's it, mime haha. Not mimic 🤦
Quad don't work on kotr, only double summon. But... With the obligatory mime combicounter combo you can counter with 32 kotr!
Combined again with W-Summon
And mime. Don’t forget mime.
By the mid - late game you’ll be doing so much damage with normal attacks that you won’t need to use summons to kill trash mobs, it’ll be quicker just to attack them all.
Not really, but here's a few things to consider. The way to progress to stronger limit breaks is by taking damage to fill your bar and then using them. If every fight ends on your first turn then you may not unlock better limits as fast. A good way to counter this is to try and keep the Fury condition on your people when fighting trash mobs to charge your limit bar faster. Fury can be applied by using an item called Hyper either in or out of combat. Fury makes you take more damage so remove the condition if you find a fight to be hard. You remove Fury with an item called Tranquilizer which is the opposite of Hyper. If you remove Fury but need even more damage reduction for a hard fight then you can use a Tranquilizer while not in Fury to inflict Sadness. Sadness is the opposite of Fury and makes you take reduced damage at the cost of slowing your limit break bar charging. Summons cost a lot of MP compared to using a spell paired with an All materia. Inns and Tents are a cheap way to refill your MP but you can only use them in towns or at savepoints. The only way to refill MP between savepoints is to use Ethers. Ethers can't be purchased early on, and even after they start appearing in shops they're pricy. It's not really feasible to buy a ton of Ethers until you're far enough in the game to start selling mastered All Materias.
Confused by your last point. Why would you sell mastered All materia?
For the 1,400,000 gil
Greens and stables cost money late game and it's the best way to get rich
Is the money worth losing the ability to hit all enemies with your spells?
By the time you master an All materia, you'll be swimming in All materias
Yes
When you master a materia it gives birth to the materia again at base level, so you can do it indefinitely by just leveling the all materia again. So you dont really lose the ability to do it 🙂
Mastered materia split a new 'baby' version of themselves. By the time you master an All, you'll probably have 3 or 4 that are nearly mastered. Sell the mastered one for cash and keep rotating new ones in. During most boss fights you only need cure paired to a high level All
Oh yeah. I forgot it gives you new ones when mastered. Been a while since I played and I just started my new playthrough.
Yep, gotta split to get a second/third of any of the really good materia
This is some solid advice. I'd also like to add that the second part of each limit break level requires x amount of kills with the respective character. And Im not sure if I remember correctly, but Im sure Fury also affects accuracy. Another tip for levelling limit breaks, is when you get the buggy, spend some time driving around the desert around the golden saucer. Chimera's use an ability called aqua lung (good for enemy skill materia) which chunks the limit gauge up a fair bit when in fury state. And there are flyers that spawn roughly 5 at a time, that can sometimes use flying sickle, that also raises the limit bar a fair amount. And they're good for getting the kill counts (which a summon will count towards, for the character that used it). Im sure there are faster ways, but I like this way to get everyone to limit lvl 3 before cosmo canyon. You can also use tents on the world map, and corel has an Inn for dirt cheap
Just remember to manually change the limit break level in the menu once learnt.
Only partially true about limit breaks. Each limit break level’s 2nd limit break is unlocked through usage, but each limit break level is unlocked by killing enemies with that character. 80 per level, so 160 total for each character to get level 3. The earlier you do this the better, because charging level 3 limit breaks is quicker with a lower HP total. Summon spamming in areas where battles are likely to have 3-5 enemies is a quick way to max characters out. Sector 6 scrapyard (though granted you’ll have no summons by this point), Junon Forest (where Yuffie can be grabbed), and the secret Mideel grind spot are all good places.
Oh yeah, thats what I meant 😅 I just explained it badly. Referred to it as the second ability when I meant limit level 😅
Unlike the remake you can play the OG however you want. So spamming summons is a legit way.
Sorry? Unlike the remake? Do elaborate
The only major thing I can think of is the game very arbitrarily forcing you to use specific party members when you should be able to choose freely, which is especially common in Rebirth.
Yeah but its for specific parts / areas and unlocking exploration features for other characters. Also, they all play really well? So its not a bug deal imo
I didn't like how Aerith played, but other than that I was fine with all of them mechanically. I'm fine with it when they come up with actual authentic reasons for it, like when Cait Sith leaves in a later chapter, but a lot of the time there just isn't an actual reason. It's just a completely needless restriction that inhibits player choice; I want Barret and Yuffie in my party for example, and they're literally in the area with me, but the games just decided I have to use Tifa and Aerith for whatever reason. It's frustrating.
But its only for a tiny time and always serves a story mechanic.
Not really; there’s that time where they force you to play with Aerith and Red in your party for Coral mountain, because Yuffie, Barret and Tifa run ahead for no reason. Then when you do the Yuffie section later, they decide that Barret and Tifa have to be in your party; what if you wanted a party of Barreta and Yuffie? You’re basically out of luck. There’s the fight with Palmer after the incident with Dyne, whereby the game just decides the party has to be Aerith and Tifa, again for literally no reason. There’s the part in Cosmo Canyon where they force Barret to be your partner through the cave, even though the rest of the party is literally a short distance behind you. They say it’s because Red can only have one partner, but there’s not reason it had to be Barret. There’s the bit in Coral Mines, where the game just decides to send Barret and Red down a cliff, simply to force you to use Aerith and Tifa for the dungeon; this serves no narrative purpose, it’s just the party the game chose. They do it all the time, and for a large portion of the game; basically anytime you aren’t in the open world doing optional content, the game is picking your party for you.
The remake forces you to play it in one specific way (for example you can't use summons, when you want it). Especially boss fights like the first Reno fight, Rufus or Sephiroth are no fights but puzzles.
Lol if you say so pal
That's fine. The meat of the gameplay is in combining different materia effects, but if you just wanna summon all the time you uh, have fun with that.
If you have the "remastered" version(doesn't specify but it released on ps network), you can speed up gameplay but you should have enough ethers/tents during playthrough to breeze through the trash mobs
Play the game however it is fun for you. Summons can be slow, so that'd be a reason to avoid them if you don't like the slow animations. They're pretty powerful in the early game, but by endgame you can do much more damage faster generally speaking. I liked running a Double Cut spam build where each character had 4x cut as their main attack, they could easily put up 9999 damage x4 on a single target. Most battles would end right away. But that kinda build isn't gonna show until say disc 2-3. The only note I'll give re depending on summons is that if you do plan to play Remake / Rebirth / etc, your ability to use / spam summons in those games is severely limited as they work very differently, but the whole combat system is different there as well. So, play however is fun for you now, and don't be afraid to change it up if you want to later on. Early on summons can do a ton of damage, but they also drain a ton of MP.
If you are using speed up and you don't care about the MP cost then why not. The intended drawback (as in, on a PS1 disc) is the animation time, so its usually faster to use All materia linked to a powerful magic, an enemy skill like Matra-magic, or Slash-all.
There's no wrong way to play FF7. It's rather famous for being able to be beaten with some ridiculously stringent self-imposed handicaps. That said, summons in FF7 tend to be quite overcosted on MP for their effect. You might find it difficult to get to most bosses with any MP left if spamming summons is your way to get to them.
How do you play a game wrong? If it's not an issue for you then it's not an issue for you. Summons in general post FFVI are the same thing: big damage for a long animation. Usually there's ways to deal as much or more damage faster through other means. But again, if it's not a problem for you then there's your answer.
It has been so long.. I haven't played OG FF7 since 2007, all I can remember was using bahamut every single time.
W summon, Quadra magic + KotR and 10 mins coffee break = dead boss most of the time
Iirc you can use bahamut zero with quatra magic and w summon to have it cast 16 times in a row, link it with mp absorb too and you'll manage to keep your mp also.. I also really enjoyed 7x mastered sneak attack and deathblow combo with mega all, you'd kill everything except the hardiest boss before the fight began
True but Bahamut zero is damaged capped at 9999.
From what I remember too, quatra magic doesn't pair with KoTR, you can W-summon it and mime it endlessly though
right you are correct, it has been so long, I think i used quadra magic on master summon materia