Zack Fair has five combat stats in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion. Those are as follows: Attack, Vitality, Magic, Spirit, and Luck. Attack dictates the amount of damage dealt physically, while Magic does the same but for (you guessed it) magic.
Vitality controls the amount of damage Zack takes from enemies who use physical attacks; Spirit is its magical opposite. Luck's the odd one out, increasing the chance for rare items and critical hits. All five sound important, and indeed, they are — albeit unequally. In this guide, we're going to break down why some numbers have greater value than others.
Magic Maketh A Zack
Some Final Fantasy games have done magic dirty through the years. Take Final Fantasy 8, for example. Magic's fantastic in that game... for junctioning to improve the party's stats, mind you, not for casting. This makes the practice of actually using that game's spells, beyond a core few like Aura, actively inadvisable.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is not Final Fantasy 8. Zack's quest makes spellcasting even stronger than the original Final Fantasy 7 did, where it's already pretty handy. For much of the game, you will find that Magic Materia will see you through all but the toughest scrapes, as many enemies are weak to various elements, plus plenty of spells can stagger powerful foes to prevent them from going for the kill.
This applies to most foes, but we like to use specific examples to drive home the point. At the beginning, when you're infiltrating Fort Tamblin in Wutai, note the four-legged creatures with clawed feet called Foulanders. A quick casting of Blizzard does them in before they can surround you and potentially overcome you.
Further on but still fought in the first half, Demons can cast Death and slay Zack in a single hit, but you can stagger them to blazes with repeated castings of Fire-elemental spells (which are fast and multi-target). Common to certain missions right alongside those Demons, Hedgehog Pies come in packs and can easily overrun players — but an immediate casting of Quake at the start of the battle will often kill them instantly.
The Spirit Within
Conversely, it's an open secret to the denizens of Crisis Core that magic is good, because many opponents wield magic quite well, themselves. Hence, in addition to seeking Materia and accessories that boost Magic, it's a good idea to look around for Spirit as well. Disclaimer, however: earlier on, fewer foes use magic, so Vitality is the early game's bigger picture.
As that shifts, balancing between the two is our minimum advice, with a heavier emphasis on Spirit being our top suggestion. Magic is also often (though not always) more difficult to dodge, and blocking isn't usually quite as helpful as it is against physical attacks. That's a one-two pitch of good reasons to keep your Spirit high.
Costly Punch Breaks The Game
There's actually a reason we chose Final Fantasy 8 as our seemingly random comparison earlier. It's a prime example of a Final Fantasy installment where players can break the game's difficulty outright if they know what they're doing. Equipping magic in that game can crank stats to the max as early as the first disc. In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, the attack called Costly Punch can shatter the difficulty ceiling entirely.
We mention this because Costly Punch's damage calculation formula doesn't have to take Zack's Attack stat into account in order to deal the maximum damage per hit, which (when equipped with accessories to break the four-figure cap) is 99,999. That means, with either Brutal or Genji Glove equipped, Zack can really let loose with Costly Punch, which is neither physically nor magically based.
Since this is the case, Costly Punch will become your go-to for every situation sans the few in which enemies are too rapid in their assault for the attack's brief charge-up time, in which case you can return to spells like Quake. In other words, there's no pressing reason to fixate on raising Zack's Attack stat prior to obtaining Costly Punch, nor is there just cause to obsess over it afterward.