Final Fantasy VII: Remake shows its Materia System

A few hours before yesterday's State of Play presentation, Square Enix put PlayStation fans' expectation to good use by releasing a bunch of beautiful screenshots and the official box art of Final Fantasy VII: Remake, which will finally release on March 3, 2020. Beauty aside, the sharp eye of a long-running fan will also notice some interesting gameplay details contained in some of the pictures.

They mostly have to do with the Materia System and how you can use it to add stat buffs to weapons, skills and abilities. Now, FFVII:R will ditch some of the old Materias while introducing new ones, but in the screenshot, you can clearly see Cloud wielding an ice-powered Buster Sword after using Elemental Materia.

The system has thus been shown for the first time, and the second screenshot actually shows the Materia Menu in full (as in Cloud's current status), including the more complex Materia Linking possibilities. Other than the isolation of the Red Materia (Summon), it looks pretty faithful to the original. Hardcore fans will surely be delighted as they can create intricate combinations by using subsets and Support Materia for better effect, even linking several instances of the same Materia.

How will you use this crystalised Mako in Final Fantasy VII: Remake? Leave a comment below.