Final Fantasy VII Remake is actually a thing that will be released, what a time to be alive. Square Enix has revealed more details on how the brand new take on the PS1 classic changes its combat system. It’s all familiar mechanics from the original, now in the frame of an action-RPG.
There is a gameplay video of the boss battle against Abzu (or Aps as it was named in the original game). Which also has a great remix of the Final Fantasy VII battle theme. Take a look here:
https://youtu.be/R13Wx49ux5w
Normal attacks are done directly with button presses, but you build up your ATB bar. When the bar is full, you get to do skills, magic, call summons or use items, but during the command selection, time slows down. This is labelled as “Tactical mode”. There is also a way to map your favourite abilities to a dedicated button.
Similar to Final Fantasy XV with the latest updates, you can change to control other party members by hitting L2 or R2. If you just want to issue commands to party members and not take direct control of them, that can be done too. Open the command menu, then hit L2 or R2. You can see in the gameplay video around the 2-minute mark for this.
Enemies can also stagger in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Enemies have a separate focus bar below their HP bar. So when that focus bar is full, the enemy will be staggered, opening up opportunities to do extra damage. In the gameplay video, which uses Japanese in the UI, it is marked as “Burst”.
Of course, Limit Breaks are still in the remake. You can see Tifa pull off her Somersault move here. Summons are here as well, but works differently. Rather than just an elaborate cutscene, the summons fight alongside you, and can be issued commands. There will be gauge showing how long they will hang around, and will do a closing attack before they peace out.
Outside of combat, there are still familiar mechanics. The materia system is well and alive, where you slot in materia to weapons that enhance or add new abilities to your characters. Magic materia lets the character cast spells- two examples include Lightning (which grants you Thunder) and Time (Haste, Slow). There are also support materia which need to be paired with another materia. One example is the elemental materia, which imbues the character whatever element it is paired to. And of course, there’s the summon materia- Ifrit is being showcased here.
It looks like the combat system in Final Fantasy VII Remake is a more polished version from what we’ve seen in FFXV. But it still retains the mechanics and systems from the original, now with an action-RPG slight to them.
Final Fantasy VII Remake will be out on March 3rd, 2020 exclusively on PS4. This is only the first of possibly multiple games and focuses on the opening acts in Midgar.