Game Breaker / Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII

• This game offers the all-powerful Knights of the Round summon. Combine it with (almost) any of the game's support materia for massive fun. W-Summon makes it do a quarter of a million damage. MP Absorb makes it practically free to cast. HP Absorb plus Counter makes you completely invincible. With enough work you can build a whole character around it. If you know what you're doing in regards to Chocobo breeding, you can get it as soon as you acquire the Highwind midway through Disc 2. The only balance? It takes a full minute to watch every time it's cast. However, the Quadra Magic materia works with every other summon and magic to make it be cast four times over, albeit at reduced power each time.
• There's also the mechanics for learning limit breaks. Once you figure out how they work, it's really easy to find a good spot and just crank everyone's limit breaks up to the highest trainable level and watch the carnage.
  • Not to mention the mechanics for actually acquiring limit breaks in the first place. Killing large groups of lower-powered enemies can unlock your characters' higher level limit breaks earlier than you would otherwise. When it comes to the limits that you can only unlock by using other limits, equipping characters with crappy armor, inflicting them with fury (which reduces accuracy, but doubles the rate that the limit gauge fills) and fighting enemies with high attack power (such as Capparwires in the forests in the Junon area, which also appear in large groups) causes them to suffer much higher damage than they normally would and allows you to learn the limits faster. This process can be sped up faster still once Aerith learns her Fury Brand limit, which automatically fills the rest of the party's limit bars.
  • Speaking of Aerith, she is considered the single best party member until her death at the end of Disc 1 due to her extremely strong magic attack stat and her limit breaks. Her magic lets her use Summons and Enemy Skills with impunity, allowing her to obliterate waves of enemies and do major damage to enemies, and also have the ability to massively heal the party with curative magic. Her limits include the very useful Fury Brand, as described above, and Breath of the Earth, which cures the party of all debuffs. But the Gamebreaker part is once she hits her Tier 3 limits: Planet Protector and Pulse of Life. The latter completely heals the party, so in essence is a free Megalixir, but the former grants the Peerless buff to the party. Peerless makes the party immune to damage and status effects for a short time. And should you manage to find her Tier 4 limit Great Gospel, this does both of the Tier 3 limits simultaneously! And since you only need her to kill 160 enemies to get her Tier 3 limits, you could have her invincibility powers by the time you reach the first town!
• This game has one of the single greatest Game Breakers for obtaining money in RPG history, considering the fact that all you have to do is master an "All" materia and sell it. A single star "All" materia sells for nothing, but a five star master "All" materia sells for 1,400,000 gil at any store which should provide enough money for the rest of the game. The real kicker is the fact that "All" is an extremely early and easy materia to find, as well as levels up considerably quicker than most other materia. On the downside you can only buy it in one place (Fort Condor), and at 20,000 gil it's the second most expensive buyable materia (behind Ultima, though this only has to be bought if you screw up the Corel huge Materia quest), but the downside pales in comparison to its pros. It gets better considering the fact that when you master a materia, you get a fresh one star copy of the five star materia allowing you to master it all over again, which means you can repeat the cycle as many times as you want, and considering that "All" is undoubtedly of the most essential and fundamental materia to master, it's a safe bet that you have a mastered "All" materia pretty soon in the game.
  • As a nod to this, the Steam PC port of the game has an achievement ("Master of Gil") that is awarded when the player maxes out their Gil count at 99+ million amassed. It becomes clear that the devs expected that players would take full advantage of this broken economy.
• Vincent's ultimate weapon deals damage based on the number of enemies he's killed with it. Kill 65535 enemies and it's an instant kill on anything due to its damage formula overflowing so that it ends up doing negative damage, which triggers a failsafe script that instantly kills anything he hits with it. Due to this, it can even one-shot Sequential Bosses at their first stage.
  • To a lesser extent, every other ultimate weapon can do something similar. They each have the ability to do 9999 damage, when most melee attacks will only do ~1000 damage when you first get hold of the easier weapons. These weapons all have methods that power them up, such as having high MP or HP, and are weaker when unpowered; but it's usually absurdly easy to satisfy these conditions so that you always hit for 9999 damage, invalidating all spells that don't do multi hits. Special note goes to Barret, Tifa, and the aforementioned Vincent, whose ultimate weapons stay at full power once powered up and can never grow weaker. And that's before equipping people with a mastered Double Cut materia so they can attack four times in a single turn.
• Like most Final Fantasy games, the spells you learn from your enemies could be the most game-breaking of all:
  • Beta is available very early on in the game, courtesy of the Midgar Zolom. If you're good or lucky, this nuclear chainsaw will cut through the rest of the first disc (and a good chunk of the second disc) without any effort. It's three times more powerful than the second-strongest attack you'll have at that point.
  • If the above is too much for you to handle, there's Matra Magic, which can be acquired right when you leave Midgar. While not as strong as Beta, it's non-elemental, hits all enemies and still hits hard, making it valuable against the random encounters all the way to disk 2.
  • Once you get the buggy, you can learn the Aqualung ability, which does similar amounts of damage compared to Beta, but water-based, making it useful for killing anything that Beta wouldn't work on.
  • White Wind, which can also be obtained really early in the game, is basically all of the healing materia in the game, except for revive, mashed together for less MP than any one of its weaker cousins. It recovers your teammates by however many health points the caster has, so if the caster has 9999 HP when they use this move, their allies both recover 9999 HP also. Just keep the caster's health high, and your team is in good shape. And as an added bonus, its status-restoring properties make it functionally an instant death spell when used against undead. The one downside is you need the Manipulate Materia to force the enemy to use it on you, but it is well worth the effort.
  • Big Guard puts Barrier, MBarrier, and Haste on your whole party (effectively halving all incoming damage and doubling party speed), in one turn, for 56 MP. And it's insultingly easy to obtain, if you know where to get it.
  • Trine, which has an absurdly low cost for the damage it does; for comparison, the summon Ramuh (which deals damage with exactly the same properties as Trine) does half the damage for double the cost. And Trine is powerful enough to wipe out entire swarms of mooks in a single shot until around the end of disc 2. You know, around the time it's possible to get W-Item and after the time it's possible to get Knights of the Round. The only downside is that you can only get it from three monsters in the entire game, two of which are bosses, and the third is in a dungeon that can't be revisited.
  • Goblin Punch, which is incredibly easy to obtain if you know where to find it, and does an obscene amount of damage for 0 MP.
  • Magic Hammer, which gives you 100 MP for the cost of...3 MP, effectively making it impossible for you to ever run out as long as you're willing to take turns casting the spell. And that MP is drained from the enemy target, with nothing in the whole game immune to it - resulting in many spellcasting bosses becoming incapable of doing anything at all.
• The W-Item materia. It's supposed to just allow you to use two items in one turn, but thanks to a glitch it allows you to infinitely clone any item that you can use in battle...such as the normally rare Hero Drinks, which increase all your character's stats for that one battle. After using four of these, no boss in the game without Weapon in its name can stand up to you and the arena becomes a complete joke. Or Megalixirs, which in mass quantities completely remove the need for MP conservation, allowing you to replace the aforementioned Trine with uber attacks that until then had been Awesome, but Impractical due to MP cost. It even includes the greens you use to power up your Chocobos, allowing you to basically put your Chocobo on steroids and win everything.
• Like V above, Mime returns to screw the game up.
  • Command Counter. When hit the character would Counter Attack with a mime of the last action your party performed. Naturally, this can lead you to miming a double summon of Knights of the Round and then on your actual turn repeating it. This was especially notable with enemies that dealt physical damage to all characters in the party because each one of them (if equipped with Command Counter+Mine), they would Mime the Mimed Knights of the Round. This reduced even the strongest enemy in the game to putty.
  • Even worse: Barret with Ungarmax. After loading him up with a few Hero Drinks, let him do this, let the enemy attack him, and watch as Barret unleashes up to 144 attacks each worth about 5000+ damage apiece.
  • A great place to use mime is in the Battle Square, because you can actually mime limit breaks like Omnislash. Go in with a full limit break and just keep mime-ing. This is especially useful because you can then take some on the high scoring penalties and they will not affect you, like all green materia breaking. Do this early enough (along with getting the free Ribbon from the Temple of the Ancients, before heading back out and to the Gold Saucer) and you can unlock the Omnislash on Disc 1, which not only trivializes the aforementioned, but will one-shot the final boss in the Temple in one round.
• If a character's HP hits exactly 7777 on the dot, they will start automatically attacking enemies for 7777 damage. 62 times. The Mini spell, normally a Useless Useful Spell, reduces all physical damage caused by one enemy to 1, but there's nothing stopping you from using it on your own characters. By using enough HP Plus materia for 9999 HP, the Demi spell (deals 1/4 max HP in damage) will leave you at 7499 HP - attack with the Mini-ed character 22 times, then use 3 of the lowest level healing potion to heal 100 HP each, and we have instant overkill of any non-Superboss enemy in the game. It helps that Emerald Weapon has an attack that deals 1111 damage for every materia on your characters - you can see where this is going.
  • Go into Emerald WEAPON with 9999 HP and two materia on one character. Let Emerald use Aire Tam Storm, which inflicts 1111 damage for each Materia equipped. Instant Lucky 7s.
• A comparatively lesser one, but the Morph ability can be used like this. The morph ability does little damage, but if it kills an opponent the opponent will be morphed into a specific item, with each monster having a specific item it morphs into. The end game has a sunken plane where every monster is absurdly powerful, but morphs into a stat boosting item. This by itself isn't too much of a game breaker, given the effort of cherry tapping the game's hardest foes to death is so extreme that you deserve the boost you get. That is until you explore the sunken plane a little and discover Yuffie's ultimate weapon which can do full damage attacks when using morph, making it absurdly easy to collect these stat boosting items. Then the game starts to get a bit more broken.
• On the PS4 port, clicking R3 makes HP regenerate faster than the enemies can damage you, MP regenerate faster than you can use them, and the Break Meter fill up so fast that everyone can have a Limit Break nearly every turn.
  • This becomes even more broken with the realization that Limit Breaks will always get initiative. With some clever usage of the ATB system you can effectively stunlock even Emerald Weapon!
• Tifa's Powersoul is weak to begin with, but doubles her attack power if she's in critical health or in Death Sentence status. However, thanks to a programming oversight, the effect stacks, meaning her attack power is quadrupled if she's in both. When you first discover this effect on the first Disc, it's already broken - hit Tifa a couple of times, have an Enemy Skill user cast Death Sentence on her, and unleash her Slots to take the damage through the ceiling. On Disc 2, when you can get the Cursed Ring - an item which hugely boosts a character's stats in return for automatically putting them in Death Sentence at the start of battle - it becomes hilariously broken, and it's really easy to discover since Tifa is the party leader at the point when you can first obtain the ring. Messing around with the rest of her Materia can allow you to negate the problems with her sturdiness caused by this strategy - and you can load her up with Hero Drinks and have someone cast Berserk on her.
• The Regen spell. Unlike in every other game in the franchise, which regenerates a fixed small amount of health between turns, VII's Regen spell is always healing quite quickly while in effect.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Crisis Core

• Costly Punch is perhaps the game's signature materia. For 1.5625% of your current HP, it deals damage proportional to how much damage you sacrifice. It doesn't take much HP for it to consistently deal 9999 damage, and it's made worse if you equip the accessory "Brutal"^note Or the Genji Glove that ups the damage limit to 99999. That is, unless you get you HP above your current maximum after a certain threshold, then Costly Punch will do ZERO damage.
  • Received a buff and a nerf in the Reunion version, where Costly Punch will now take 15.625% (10x as much as before). However, it will no longer deal 0 damage above 111% of max HP and will continue to function as normal, meaning it's no longer necessary to keep your HP around 100% and no more, but it's still encouraged to max your HP out to max out the damage output.
• With enough time spent using Materia Fusion (expedited significantly if you know what you're doing), you can get Zack's stats to absolute perfect levels, and with the right equipment, make consistently perfect use of them.
  • And that same Costly Punch can be upgraded to raise your max HP to 1099% of its natural value, provided you have an accessory^note The Adaman Bangle or the Genji Armor to break the HP limit.
• For multiple enemies, where Costly Punch becomes less than effective due to its attack delay, Darkness can be an excellent substitute. It's basically like Costly Punch, only it costs a lot more HP to use - but it's an area of effect attack with a very wide area of effect, and very high damage output, particularly if it's mastered. It also raises your max HP by a considerable amount when equipped, which helps with the cost of using it.
• Vital Slash, a materia that allows you to do a critical attack that is much more powerful than a normal critical attack. Level it up and it does 9,999 damage pretty much every time, with just a couple seconds' delay. Equip an item or materia that gives Endure, and you can basically just brush off most attacks and smash tougher enemies' faces into the floor in about a second and a half. And if you equip the aforementioned accessory to raise the damage limit...
• There is a very popular method of economics exploitation which ensures that you will never run out of Gil and SP, which in turn gives players the resources to maximize Zack's stats. Note that this only works in the International release of the original Crisis Core; the original Japanese version gives you a Game Over if you die in a mission, and Reunion patched this by preventing you from keeping items you get from a mission if you abort.
  • When you have access to the Minerva Mission (9-6-6), equip Brigand's Gloves and a Steal/Mug Materia, and enter the battle. Brigand's Gloves make sure that you'll steal with a 100% success rate. The very first thing you'll want to do is steal from Minerva, which should be no problem if it is your very first command. 99 Phoenix Downs are now yours. Watch how Minerva slaughters you, and return at the Save Point.
  • Sell the Phoenix Downs for nearly 500000 Gil at any Shop.
  • Repeat the process until you've gotten a few millions.
  • Go to Net Shop Shade (you should have it, since you have access to Minerva as well; It's in a chest in Mission 9-5-4). Buy yourself a load of Dualcast Materia. For one run (500000 Gil), you can buy 16, nearly 17 of these.
  • Go to Materia in your menu and convert these 16 Dualcasts into nearly 290000 SP! It turns into 18040 SP per Materia, so it's quite efficient! Money is no issue either, so it's infinite Gil and SP for you!
    • If you want to maximize the value, buy the Silence Materia instead. It costs 1000 Gil and is worth 1010 SP. The only downside to this is that it more tedious as it will no doubt overload your inventory.
• Changes made to Reuinion have changed several abilities for the better, as well as introduced new ones.
  • Buster Sword Stance. As a way of making an analogue to Cloud's Operator/Punisher stances in Final Fantasy VII Remake, "Buster Sword Stance" was introduced after Zack receives the titular blade from Angeal after Modeoheim. Entering the stance makes Zack locked in place for a few seconds, but buffs any Command materia used, and makes Zack unable to be toppled or interrupted while attacking. The more Zack uses it, the more abilities with the stance he will unlock, including the ability to break the damage cap while in Stance mode without any accessories, and any Stance Mode attacks being able to go through Barrier.
  • One of the added changes to Reunion is that you can now use Abilities as a combo finisher, giving them a damage boost. Normally, you have to complete a full normal attack combo before you use an Ability to get the maximum benefit, but one of the other advantages of Battle Stance is that any Ability you use with it always gets the maximum damage bonus. This lets you circumvent the need for Costly Punch and the like by virtue of being able to make any Ability hit for 5x the damage, including multihit attacks.
  • Assault Twister+ now deals one extra attack's worth of HP at the same rate, for the same AP cost, making it much more viable for crowd control.
• The Energy Materia. A quick spell that homes in on enemies and hits multiple times a single target, even some next to them if close enough and deals massive amounts of damage per hit that quickly adds over time that. Combined with Dualcast and it's reliable ability to stagger enemies, watch as many boss's health bars melt away in seconds.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake

• With the right setup, Barret becomes the most efficient spellcaster in the game, especially as a support+white mage with Big Bertha and the accessory that boosts healing by 25%. Have him cast Haste on himself and his shots keep his ATB gauge for Pray and Magnified Barrier spells full in seconds.
• The Magnify materia; similar to the All materia in the original game, when it is connected to any spellcasting materia, the associated spell can target all enemies / all allies on the screen simultaneously. It's so overpowered that the entire game only has one. It's slightly a Magikarp Power at first though as spells cast with it only have about 20% of their normal potency at rank one. By rank 3 it's 60% though which is really close enough, and even at 20% potency, spells meant to stagger enemies will still be effective.
• Cloud's Counterstance skill. It allows Cloud to counter an attack made towards him by striking and ignoring being stunned from hit, and momentarily stuns the enemy. Not only does it only cost one ATB bar, but it also will work on almost every single enemy in the game, meaning Cloud can easily overpower most enemies using it. Combine it with an elemental materia, and Cloud can stun an enemy momentarily, deal strong damage, and help build the stagger gauge quickly. It makes fights on Hard mode much easier as a result.
• The Elemental materia at level 2 or 3 allows you to respectively nullify or absorb a linked element when inserted into a character's armor. When going up against a boss or strong enemy that uses them, this turns what can be a difficult encounter into an easy victory.
• Warding materia when mastered grants immunity to a linked status effect, such as poison, sleep, or instant death. This is more situational but in certain circumstances completely eliminates enemy mechanics.
• The Deadly Dodge materia. When leveled up, it allows the user to deal slight AOE damage after dodging an attack. On paper it sounds weak, but it can easily combined with the Elemental materia to allow the player to cheese certain fights. In particular, Barret wielding both an Elemental materia and Deadly Dodge materia can clear waves of enemies with the Big Bertha, and this can work on bosses too. It's like casting a spell with Magnify, except you are just dodging and not using MP!
• Aerith's Ray of Judgement skill. It costs two bars and has a brief wind-up, but once it goes off, it's a blast of raw magical power that hits the enemy quickly and hard. What makes it so powerful is its power when used on a staggered enemy; it's one of two skills that raise the enemies' stagger percent meter, but unlike Tifa who can only do so using her uppercut, Aerith's can be used to rapidly increase the meter. Combined with Tifa, and you can quickly get the stagger percent incredibly high, all while Aerith is doing enough damage to make it worthwhile.
• The Synergy materia becomes this in Integrade. When the party leader uses a command, then any ally with this materia equipped will cast a spell (based on the materia linked to their synergy materia) for free, without using ATB or MP. It removes one of the main challenges of Hard mode, the need to conserve MP. It can also be combined with Arcane Ward to cast even more spells!