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Materia Guardian is the first of many boss battles you’ll square off against inFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth. It comes at you hard and fast around the middle of the game’s first chapter, an extended flashback involving Cloud and Sephiroth some five years past.
It’s easy to assume the Materia Guardian will go down in a flash. After all, you can control Sephiroth throughout the first chapter, and Sephiroth is nothing if not mighty. But this boss actuallycanput up something of a fight, and besides, you may wish to knock it could in style. Here’s how to do just that.
Materia Guardian Overview
The Materia Guardian is a fairly massive six-legged beast thatregularly attacks with its forelegsat a rapid enough clip to deal some real damage over time. It has the following special attacks:
There are three distinctphasesto your skirmish with the Materia Guardian. Each of them carries a few aspects forward, but each has some wrinkles as well.
You’ll probably want tomake Sephiroth your actively-controlled character, and not only to seize the opportunity to take charge as the legend himself. He also has access to a wider array of spells and abilities and hisphysical attacks are faster,
Materia Keeper Battle Strategy
The first thing you ought to know about the battle against the Materia Guardian is thatit’s always safer to be behind it or to its sidethan to remain at the forefront.
This is sometimes easier said than done, as it willattempt to readjust its angle, but you’ll avoid its variousforeleg-centric strikes, includingDual Tail Lash, which can inflictover a thousand points of damageonce the combo is completed.
One way to avoid constantly getting stuck in front of the boss is to periodicallyswitch your active characterfor around ten seconds. Enemies in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth tend totarget the player-controlled charactermore frequently, so you can take a few hits and thenswap back to Sephiroth.
As long as you’re doing your best toevade the Dual Tail Lashand regular attacks, this first phase shouldn’t give you too much grief. Youwill seeSeizing Clawshere at least once, which will take its target out of commission for a while, leaving you with one party member.
In our experience, it tends totarget Cloud far more frequently- another reason to stick to Sephiroth
Of Forelegs And Flames
In the second phase, you will be introduced to the concept ofdiscrete enemy parts. The game will teach you about enemies with numerous ‘side targets’, so to speak, once theMateria Guardian has launched on to the ceiling.
You will now be able to targetthe forelegs and midlegsin addition to the Materia Keeper’s main spot (head and torso).Do so posthaste, because each one has low HP, andcrippling these works to your advantage as the boss will fall back to the ground.
This limits the amount of time that you’re exposed to thelong-range Mucous Shot, which sends narrow streams of high-impact spit at you, and dealsseveral hundred damage.
The Materia Keeper isweak to fire,and Sephiroth hasall three Fire-elemental spells. He also has nifty attacks likeHell’s Gate, which sends Sephiroth flying upward beforethrusting his sword in a downward slash. This is excellent as a last-second means ofevading attacks.
It’s a better idea to useFira rather than Firaga, since Firaga requires two ATB charges to Fira’s one. The Materia Keeper fight is fast-paced enough that you’llwant to strike it more swiftly.
Synergize To Wrap Things Up
Once the Materia Keeper has absorbed mako in the last quarter of the fight,its stats will improve, and its speed will increaseeven further. Another pesky round of Seizing Claws is highly likely.Staying to the sideis even more critical now.
Between the introductions toSynergy Attacks with Double HelixandLimit Breaksnear the end of the fight, you won’t have to handle the mako-charged Materia Keeper for long, sokeep whittling away that HP until they activate,and the battle will be won!
