Mastering the Coveted SP Turbo Materia – An Expert‘s Guide

As an avid Crisis Core fan diving back into the acclaimed RPG‘s remaster, the SP Turbo materia remains one of my personal favorites for dominating the game‘s toughest post-game challenges.

In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share extensive insights on acquiring this rare support materia and fully utilizing its incredible damage amplification capabilities.

What Makes SP Turbo So Coveted in Crisis Core?

The SP Turbo occupies a uniquely valuable niche in Crisis Core‘s materia system – providing temporary yet exceptional attack power boosts that can turn the tide of battle against imposing bosses or swarms of end-game enemies.

Here‘s a deeper look at what exactly SP Turbo does:

Activating SP Turbo

• SP Turbo Skill Costs:

• Provides a 30-second damage amplification buff

• Damage increase percentage scales with materia level:

  • Level 1: +20%
  • Level 2: +30%
  • Level 3: +40%
  • Level 4: +50%
  • Level 5: +60%

• Paired with bonuses from other materia, this creates a tremendous burst damage window

The temporary yet substantial attack boosts enable you to land devastating blows against imposing bosses like Minerva and Omega Weapon.

Passive Bonuses

As SP Turbo levels up, you also gain exceptional HP increases:

This syncs excellently with the materia‘s active combat purpose – the larger health pool allows you to survive longer to dish out more heavy hits during SP Turbo‘s damage amplification uptimes.

How Does SP Turbo Change Crisis Core‘s Combat?

Wielding a maxed SP Turbo materia enables you to take on Crisis Core Reunion‘s toughest post-game superbosses and demolished hordes of threatening enemies with greater confidence.

But what exactly changes with SP Turbo equipped?

Impact on Zack‘s Offensive Power

Activating SP Turbo unlocks incredible bursts of damage against even the beefiest enemies.

With bonuses from other notable materia like Attack Plus, Magic Plus, and Crit Plus equipped simultaneously, you can leverage SP Turbo‘s attack buff windows to:

• Land Limit Breaks dealing ~60-85% of enemies‘ max HP
• Hit weapon skill combos dealing ~250,000+ damage
• Trigger Magic spells hitting for ~100,000+ damage

Against end-game bosses with hundreds of thousands of HP, these offensive explosions can make shorter work of intense, drawn-out battles.

Enhanced Sustain With Larger Health Pool

Massed together with SP Turbo‘s exceptional HP passives are its in-battle regeneration capabilities:

So at Rank 5, you restore 7% of your health pool every second – further boosted by SP Turbo‘s +50% max HP attribute bonus!

This grants you tremendous effective health and sustain to endure devastating enemy attacks during SP Turbo‘s downtimes between activation windows.

Optimal Materia Combinations

While extremely powerful alone, the SP Turbo truly shines when combined with other notable Crisis Core Reunion materia:

Offensive Powerhouses

• Attack Plus – boosts base ATK for bigger weapon hits
• Magic Plus – increases magic damage for huge spells
• Crit Plus – improves critical hit chance for 150%+ damage spikes

Together, these heavy hitters stack with SP Turbo‘s attack buffs for tremendous damage potential.

Defensive Materia

• HP Plus – expands health pool to outlast enemy onslaughts
• MP Plus – enhances mana reserves for repeated spell casts
• Antibody – automatic Esuna effect removes debilitating debuffs

Defensive materia help you withstand devastating enemy abilities during SP Turbo downtime while charging up the next power spike.

Balancing offense and survivability materia with SP Turbo catapults Zack‘s combat powers to height rarely achieved in Crisis Core Reunion.

Routes to Obtain this Rare Materia

For materia collectors and power players alike, getting your hands on the game-changing SP Turbo should be a top priority.

Luckily, Square Enix implemented several opportunities to acquire this rare support gem.

Method 1: Finishing Mission M9-2-6

The first chance comes by advancing through Crisis Core Reunion‘s story until Chapter 9, then completing the assignment labeled "Signs of Materia" (M9-2-6).

This challenging mission tasks you with confronting various powerful enemies, including the intimidating Jabberwock boss.

Battling Jabberwock as part of mission M9-2-6

But with some battle-hardened equipment and leveraging Crisis Core‘s unique DMW mechanics to land critical strikes, besting this formidable foe proves very achievable.

Once mision M9-2-6 is fully completed, the coveted SP Turbo materia becomes yours!

Method 2: Discovering a Hidden Chest

Sharp-eyed veterans may recall uncovering SP Turbo inside a hidden chest early on during the assignment "A Fresh Start" (M9-4-3).

Rather than rushing to the end, meticulously scouring every inch of the mission environment finally reveals a chest tucked away in an obscured corner, yielding SP Turbo as the prize!

This handy alternative acquisition method still exists in Crisis Core Reunion for enthusiasts dedicated to comprehensive exploration.

Method 3: Superboss Emperor Sahagin

For confident players eager to grab SP Turbo sooner, defeating the extremely challenging optional boss Emperor Sahagin during mission "Nibelheim II" (M2-2-4) also rewards this materia.

While entirely voluntary, toppling this towering enemy who easily exceeds 60,000 HP even on normal difficulties will earn you a bonus SP Turbo for your efforts.

Just be ready for an intense bout testing your combat abilities and equipment to their very limits!

Upgrade Guidance – Journey to Max Rank SP Turbo

Upon finally acquiring the fabled SP Turbo materia, the next imperative step becomes ranking it up to Level 5. This fully unlocks both its incredible damage amplification effects and substantial max HP passives.

Clear Story Missions Granting Big EXP Payouts

Crisis Core Reunion dishes out generous materia EXP for completing story missions, especially marathon assignments with numerous enemy waves and bosses.

Chains of side missions in a chapter also prove an efficient source of materia EXP through combat. So regularly running these can rapidly level up equipped gems.

For example, Chapter 9 is densely packed with lengthy, high EXP missions befitting SP Turbo upgrade efforts:

• Healin‘ Heartbroken Mercenaries – 30,000+ EXP
• Who‘s the Best Merc? – 40,000+ EXP
• Top of the Food Chain – 50,000+ EXP

Stringing together big EXP item missions like these will swiftly accumulate materia EXP for our upgraded SP Turbo.

Craft the EXP Plus Materia

Very helpfully, Crisis Core Reunion also lets you create the extraordinary useful support materia EXP Plus by fusing Luck Plus and Gil Plus gems.

• Provides bonus materia EXP gains scaling with its rank!
  • Rank 1: 10% EXP increase
  • Rank 2: 20% increase
  • Rank 3: 30% increase
  • Rank 4: 50% increase
  • Rank 5: 100% increase!

With a maxed EXP Plus equipped, leveling our SP Turbo becomes vastly more efficient. Now we gain double materia EXP from all battles!

Harness DMW for Random EXP Doubling

Crisis Core‘s iconic slots-like Digital Mind Wave (DMW) battle mechanic also frequently triggers bonuses doubling EXP gains. Specifically:

• Level Up bonuses double standard EXP
• Limit Break bonuses double standard materia EXP

So by intentionally building up the DMW with repeated blocks or hits until these effects activate, you can trigger surge periods of SP Turbo rapidly ranking up during combat!

Taking advantage of built-in EXP acceleration systems makes the journey to a maxed SP Turbo materia much faster and highly rewarding.

Mastering Battle Strategies With SP Turbo

Fully upgrading SP Turbo offers a tremendous power spike through both its exceptional damage amplification and considerable survivability passives. But wielding SP Turbo effectively requires adapting your core combat strategy.

Here are my best tips for dominating Crisis Core Reunion‘s enemies with a maxed SP Turbo equipped:

Optimize SP Generation

• The SP Turbo skill costs significant SP to activate, from 10 SP at Rank 1 to 50 SP at max rank
• Battles start with 0 SP, so restoring it quickly is vital
• Land repeated hits and blocks to fill the DMW gauge
• Fill the Limit Break bar to trigger 2x materia EXP bonuses
• Activate SP restoration DMW effects ASAP

Rapidly regenerating SP allows more frequent access to SP Turbo‘s incredible buffs.

Balance Offense and Defense Materia

The ideal materia loadout includes:

• Offensive – Magic Plus, Attack Plus, Crit Plus to stack with SP Turbo‘s attack buffs
• Defensive – Vitality Plus, Antibody, HP Plus to survive enemy onslaughts between SP Turbo activations

This setup overwhelms enemies with extreme burst damage while resisting attacks during SP Turbo‘s downtime.

Leverage Buff Windows Fully

• Once enough SP is restored, activate SP Turbo!
• Unload ultimate attacks like Limit Breaks or maxed out spells during its uptime.
• At Rank 5, it amplifies damage by a whopping 60% for 30 seconds!
• Time additional abilities like Braver or Quake to land inside the window.

Optimizing the damage dealt across SP Turbo‘s entire uptime is key to defeating enemies rapidly.

Closing Thoughts – SP Turbo‘s True Value

Through both first-hand experience unlocking SP Turbo across Crisis Core playthroughs and research into optimized strategies utilizing it, I rank this materia among the most game-changing acquisitions possible.

The sheer attack and defense bonuses it contributes separates SP Turbo as an almost mandatory piece of equipment for confronting and crushing Crisis Core Reunion‘s imposing post-game superbosses.

I hope this extensive guide to obtaining SP Turbo and fully harnessing its capabilities proves helpful to fellow fans revisiting Crisis Core or discovering it for the first time in Reunion.

To me, the journey culminating in finally unleashing SP Turbo‘s immense strengths against end-game enemies and bosses remains an incredibly rewarding and gratifying experience unmatched elsewhere in Crisis Core Reunion.

Let me know your own adventures mastering this incredible materia in the comments below!