In most action games, speed and efficiency win fights, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is no different. Knowing how to get and use the Time Materia lets your party stay one step ahead of their enemies, and keeps those enemies moving at a snail’s pace.
What Is the Time Materia?
In Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Time Materia lets you cast up to three spells: Haste, Slow, and Stop. Haste doubles the rate a character’s ATB gauge builds. Slow halves an enemy’s ability to take actions, and Stop prevents them from taking any actions at all for the duration of the effect. Of the three spells, I almost always favored Haste, as I primarily would want to use Slow and Stop on bosses, and most are at least resistant to it.
Where to Get the Time Materia in FF7 Rebirth
As for finding Time Materia, in my entire playthrough of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, I came across only two sources, and both were in Chadley’s Combat Simulator. You first meet Chadley at Bill’s Chocobo Ranch shortly after leaving Kalm in Chapter 2. Once you can access his Combat Simulator challenges, you want to unlock the Grasslands Region Intel challenge by fighting five enemies in the region. They don’t need to be unique enemies: five Orcs is fine.
The challenge itself is a three-round combat trial where you fight Orcs and other weak enemies from the Grasslands. So long as you complete the challenge, you’ll get a single orb of Time Materia. Your completion time doesn’t matter, as there are no rankings to Combat Simulator challenges.
The second Time Materia is part of the final region in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, where you’ll need to defeat 20 individual enemies, then do another three-round trial against those same foes.
You won’t need to do anything else to get the Materia. It will go straight into your inventory, ready to equip to whichever character you want to put it on. In my experience, Cloud or Barret are two of the better characters for applying buffs, as it’s fairly easy to build ATB gauge with both of them, though I think Barret is the better of the two. His Overcharge ability and the fact he can apply constant pressure at range keep his damage and ATB buildup much more consistent.
How to Use Time Materia in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
Time Materia allows you to use the Haste spell at level one, Slow at level two, and Stop at level three. Haste doubles a character’s ATB charge rate, slow halves an enemy’s actions, and Stop… stops them for a duration. Haste has an additional effect: it counters both Stop and Slow. A Stopped character that receives Haste will improve to Slowed. A Slowed character will be at default speed.
All three spells cost one ATB charge to use, so they aren’t hard to cast. Their cast speed is also on the faster end, though Slow and Stop are a bit more sluggish than Haste (as you’d expect). Be aware that the Haste spell is single target, meaning you’ll need to cast it three times to apply it to the whole party. Red XIII has an ability called Supernal Fervor, which he can learn via the Amethyst Collar, that applies Haste to the entire party for two ATB charges. If Red isn’t in your party or you haven’t found or bought the Amethyst Collar, you won’t have access to the ability.
Finally, the Time Materia levels relatively quickly, and while it requires more AP to improve than, say, a standard Fire or Healing Materia, it’s faster than the likes of AP Up, Revival, or other high-power Materia.
Now you know not only how to get Time Materia, but also the basics of its use. If possible, I would recommend always starting combat with a casting of Haste on the whole party if you can. The effect only lasts a couple of minutes, but you can get a lot done in even that short a time.
For more Final Fantasy VII Rebirth content, check out our guides hub for the game.
