FF7 Remake Enemy Skill Guide: Where To Get Each Enemy Ability

Working your way through Final Fantasy 7 Remake, you'll often get your best, most useful, or most interesting Materia from Chadley, the strange kid you meet in Chapter 3. Chadley gives you "Battle Intel" assignments, and unlocking each one lets you purchase a new Materia. Among those is Enemy Skill, a Materia that lets you turn the strengths of your foes against them.

Finding all the enemy skills in Final Fantasy 7 Remake earns you the "Master of Mimicry" Trophy, but nabbing it can be difficult, since very few enemies have skills you can learn with the Materia. Here's a rundown of everything you need to know about Enemy Skill, including where to find all the enemies whose moves you can master.

If you need more info, check out our huge rundown of FF7 Remake guides, covering everything from an spoiler-free walkthrough, to boss battles, to side-quests and secrets.

Where To Find Enemy Skill Materia

Complete Chadley's Battle Intel 16: Monster Bio Pt. 4, which you can unlock in Chapter 14. It requires you to use Assess Materia on 30 enemy types, but the total is cumulative--any enemies you've assessed before Chapter 14 will count toward the total. Just keep using Assess in every battle to clear this one, then return to Chadley to purchase your Materia.

How Enemy Skill Works

Enemy Skill is a Command Materia, which means it gives a character new options under the "Ability" menu in combat. While you have Enemy Skill equipped, you can learn a few specific abilities if enemies use them on that character. That means to get all the abilities for the Materia, you have to seek out specific enemies and get hit by their abilities. To get them all, you'll need to complete the game once and get access to Hard Mode on the newly unlocked Chapter Select menu.

Here's a rundown of each Enemy Skill ability, what it does, what enemy has it, and where to find them.

Algid Aura

Generates an aura around the character that does Ice damage to any enemies nearby. It's handy to use against fire creatures on a melee fighter such as Cloud or Tifa, since you'll get extra damage as you attack your foes.

What Enemy Has It

You can get Algid Aura from fighting Cerulean Drakes; you'll need to be hit by their Ice Aura ability.

Where You Can Find Them

• Chapter 3's "Just Flew In From The Graveyard" side-quest
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 15

Spirit Siphon

Creates a large area-of-effect aura around the user that drains HP from enemies and gives it to the character. Useful in fights when you need a quick health boost but you don't want to stop fighting, or you have multiple enemies surrounding a character.

What Enemy Has It

You'll need to get hit by a Phantom's Energy Drain ability.

Where You Can Find Them

• Chapter 14's "Missing Children" side-quest
• Chapter 16 Shinra Combat Simulator, in the "vs. 3-C SOLDIER Candidates" fights

Self-Destruct

Triggers a big area-of-effect explosion around the user that does a whole lot of damage, but incapacitates the character that uses it. Useful in dire situations when a character is surrounded or about to die anyway.

What Enemies Have It

• Smogger: get hit by its Self-Destruct ability, which it uses after you kill it
• Vaghidpolis: get hit by its Apoptosis ability
• Bomb: get hit by Apoptosis
• Proto-Trypapolis: get hit by Apoptosis
• HO512-OPT: get hit by Apoptosis

Where You Can Find Them

• Smogger
  • Chapter 8
  • Chapter 14, in the Sector 5 Slums
• Vaghidpolis
  • Chapter 13
  • Chapter 14, in the "Subterranean Menace" side-quest
• Bomb
  • Chapter 9, in the "Dynamite Bodies" side-quest
  • Fighting Fat Chocobo in Chadley's VR simulator
  • Chapter 17 (Hard Mode), in the Shinra Combat Simulator fight "Three-Person Team vs. Monsters of Legend"
• Proto-Trypapolis
  • Chapter 14, in the Collapsed Expressway
• HO512-OPT
  • Chapter 16

Bad Breath

Hits an enemy with just about every status effect in the game, all at once.

What Enemy Has It

Just one: Marlboro. You'll need to get hit with Bad Breath to capture the ability, but make sure you have a teammate on standby with Cleanse Materia and the Esuna spell.

Where You Can Find It

• Chapter 17 (Hard Mode), in the Shinra Combat Simulator fight "Three-Person Team vs. Monsters of Legend"