Final Fantasy VII Remake: how to get the materia behind the fan and in the church

As you progress through Final Fantasy VII Remake, you'll constantly be picking up new materia to help build out your characters. While we've listed where to get every type in our list of all materia locations in FF7 Remake, there are a couple of pieces of Materia that we've seen a bunch of you asking about: materia that's hidden in plain sight but difficult to get. 

We figured we'd break these down on a separate page just to put minds and ease and make sure you all don't miss anything. The first is in Chapter 6, 'Light the Way', where there's a piece of summon materia behind a fan. The second appears in Chapter 8, 'Budding Bodyguard', when a piece of shiny yellow (command) materia is in the church, but unreachable.

Remember that if you want help with more stuff in FF7 we have full item lists and locations including a full weapons guide and armor guide, plus how to unlock the level 2 Limit Breaks and get all manuscripts for weapon upgrades. If you're more worried about missing something due to story choices, we've got a full FF7R story choices & consequences guide and a separate page on how to get all the Wall Market dresses. 

How to get the Summon Materia behind the Fan in Chapter 6

As you progress through the upper plate during Chapter 6, Light the Way, the party will have to shimmy across a narrow ledge while fans threaten to blow them down to their death in the slums below. As you do that, the camera will deliberately move to show you a collectible you can't reach: a piece of red summon materia that's chilling behind one of the fans threatening to blow you down.

If you've hit google or the site straight after first seeing that materia, don't panic: you can't get the materia behind the fan straight away. Instead, continue on with your chapter 6 objective. Just beyond where you first see the fan is the elevator you'll be taking down into the Mako Reactor that's your ultimate mission objective - but there's not enough power, so the elevator is non-operational.

There's two similar cable car style device close to this larger one that leads to the Mako Reactor - one is non-operational due to the power, and the other leads you deeper into this dungeon environment. Following the latter will allow you to turn off more of the Sun Lamps that point down at the slums - and doing this frees up power to make your route to the Mako Reactor work.

Once all the lamps are off and you return to the platform that'll lower you down to the Mako Reactor, now powered, don't get on it straight away. That leads to Chapter 7! Instead, now take the other cable car that you couldn't before. This will lead to a new room where there's a missable music disc to buy as well as a terminal that ultimately leads to the other side of the fans.

To access the red materia behind the fan you'll need to shut the fans off, which means interacting with one terminal, running through the newly-opened door, defeating enemies and then activating a second terminal to shut the fans off, all on a strict time limit. You can retry this as many times as you need to, mercifully.

Once you've done this, you can simply walk through the stopped fan from that same newly unlocked room to grab the Chocobo & Moogle summon materia. For more information on that and all of the other summons in the game and how to get them, check out our full FF7 Remake Summon Materia list & locations page.

How to get the Yellow Materia in the Church

Once you get to Chapter 8, you'll find yourself in one of FF7's most iconic locations - the ruined church that Aerith likes to hang out in. Story events in Final Fantasy VII Remake play out a little differently to in vanilla FF7, as the strange ghost-like beings that have appeared a few times before rear their heads again, and chances are as you walk around the church you'll see a doorway where there's clearly a piece of yellow command materia that you can't reach.

Here's the bad news: you won't be able to access this materia for a moment. The ghosts won't disappear while you're at the church, and once you leave you won't be able to return until later.

Here's the good news: you actually already have access to this materia, as it's 'Chakra', a move that you will have acquired via Tifa's pre-equipped materia when she first joins your party.

To access the yellow materia in the church, which is one of the few other copies of Chakra in the game, you simply have to remember to return to the church later in Chapter 8. At the point you begin undertaking sidequests in Sector 5, you can go back and grab it unimpeded. You can also return when Sector 5 is available to explore in Chapter 14. Chakra is one of the rarer moves - you can only get three copies of it, the one from Tifa, this one, and another in Wall Market in Chapter 14. On subsequent chapter select play-throughs, it's replaced with simple healing materia.