Best Way to Level Up Materia in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (FF7 Rebirth)

No Final Fantasy VII remake project would be complete without a robust Materia system, and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth has tons of powerful options to choose from. As such, you’ll need to know the best way to level up your Materia so you can deal more damage and unleash more powerful abilities at your leisure.

How to Level Materia in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Fast & Easily

In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, you level Materia by earning AP, and you earn AP primarily by defeating enemies. Do enough fighting or just playing the game, and you’ll level your Materia naturally. I was able to get almost all of my green Materia to max level before the end of a single playthrough, though later-game options like two-star Revival eluded me. If I’d followed the advice in this guide, farming additional AP would be easy. Here are my tips for leveling Materia fast:

Farm Easy Combat Challenges at the Gold Saucer

Farm Easy Combat Simulator Challenges at Chadley

Like with the Gold Saucer combat challenges, in Chadley’s combat simulator, every enemy you defeat awards the same AP and EXP they would in a regular fight. And like the Gold Saucer, you can take on each challenge as many times as you please. The main difference between the two AP farms is that in the combat simulator, many of the challenges have five rounds instead of two, and while that does technically mean you’ll spend more time fighting, that extra time also means more AP per minute than anywhere else in the game.

Farm Groups of Enemies in the Open World

Short of going after specific World Intel challenges (we’ll get to those shortly), simply fighting every enemy you see out in the world is a much more natural way to level your Materia. There’s no best time to do it, but I’d suggest doing this kind of farm when you’re done with that region’s main story quest and before you go on to a new one. As you explore in search of additional World Intel, Remnawave Towers, and other open-world activities, if you see a group of enemies, don’t go around it. Instead, defeat them and every other one you come across for consistent, casual AP farming.

Farm Combat Intel Activities

Combat Intel activities, marked by a pair of crossed swords on your map, are probably the most consistent way to get tons of fairly easy AP. Once you complete a Combat Intel activity, you can hold the Triangle button within a certain radius, and you can repeat the fights as many times as you want. The fight against the Mandragoras in the Grasslands is great, as you get AP for each of them, and it’s both easier and quicker than most other Combat Intel encounters later in the game.

Farm Classified Foe Combat Intel Activities

If you want the most AP per single monster in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, you’ll need to farm the Classified Foes, which you unlock by clearing most or all of the basic Combat Intel activities in a region. The Quetzalcoatl in the Grasslands, for instance, awards 18 AP per defeat. Even with Dynamic Difficulty matching its level to mine, fights were rarely more than a couple of minutes long. The added benefit here is the rare crafting materials you get for defeating powerful foes. While these aren’t as useful right away, as you progress your crafting abilities, you’ll need more of them over time.

Link AP Up Materia

AP Up Materia does exactly what it promises: doubling the amount of AP you gain per enemy defeated. I’ve only found two in the entire game: one while plaything through and one as a reward for a Combat Simulator challenge from the third region you reach in FF7 Rebirth. That’s probably for the best, as double AP for every Materia in your inventory seems a bit much.

The last thing I’d recommend for leveling Materia fast is to use the Assess ability on every enemy you encounter. That ability shows you all the information you could ever need about an enemy, including its weaknesses and, most importantly for our purposes, how much AP they award. While the enemies I’ve listed here are great sources of AP, you might find an encounter or boss you prefer fighting to my suggestions. Knowing which ones have good AP values will make farming much simpler.

Those are my best tips for leveling up your Materia fast in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Like any game, farming is farming. You’ll find one activity with rewards and an encounter you enjoy, then you do it again and again. As I say, you’ll easily level up most of your workhorse Materia naturally, but if there are particular orbs you want to have at max level, using these strategies will help get them there.

If this article helped you in your Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth journey, check out our guides hub to the game for even more. We’ve covered the best weapons to get and all Moogle Mischief locations.