Final Fantasy VII Sequel Preview Shows Off Tifa and Barret’s Powerful Attacks

Final Fantasy VII’s New Demo Showcases Powerful Character Abilities, Flashy Attacks, and Potential Changes to the Series’ Familiar Combat System.

Square Enix has released a new sample of the upcoming successor to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at New York Comic Con. The trial featured a narrative-focused segment that lasted approximately 30 minutes; however, it also provided us with nearly 50 minutes of gameplay exploration time.

This build was more contained, with narrower corridors, compared to the more open-world demo shown at PAX West. This meant that the focus was on the battle mechanics and character abilities, and there was less to worry about in terms of unwanted help and intrusive pop-ups.

The demo showed off some interesting battle moves and talents. What made Tifa’s Black Mage build distinct was having magical missiles as part of her attacks, enabling her to deal damage from a distance while keeping her trademark fighting style. They can also be used to strike enemies behind her, making the skill extremely helpful in group battles.

Unlike some other summons, Shiva also took part in battle. Instead of only seeming like she’s unleashing a physical assault, she breaks up Cloud’s combo string with magical blows and a devastating area-of-effect finisher. A single attack did about 1,600 damage on a staggered enemy.

Final Fantasy VII New Character Abilities Show Growing Depth of Combat.

Barret also had an amazing show, brandishing a sword that comes out of his gun arm. The dynamic movement provides another fashionable option for his fighting bag. Materia limits bring up issues of build freedom and combat freedom. It also demonstrated possible limits of the diffusion material system.

Testing combos with Lightning, Magnify, Auto-Cast, and Enemy Skill revealed that some materia effects did not function as expected in this build. Diffusion appeared to be spreading some elemental influence over the group, and Magnify continued working for the character with the proper combo. But some combinations did not work.

If these are part of the final version, these limits can limit experimentation. The demo also had difficulty levels such as Easy and Normal and altered difficulty settings of adversaries. Some of the ability slots seemed to be locked out for some characters, hinting that players might be allowed to customize skills more freely in the future.

Unlocking enemy skills sounds easier than in previous games. One major change is the way you acquire enemy skills. Unlike the strategy of earlier installments, the released description states that battling certain enemies in the universe opens up more accessible skills.

In the original Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake, you had to get hit by and survive certain attacks to gain specific enemy skills. Instead, the challenges of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth were built on a battle simulator. If the revised description is a true reflection of the final system, the main criteria for unlocking their skills could be battling certain enemies.

Changes to ATB and when summons can be used may lead to new fighting techniques.

This could make the powers more accessible but may also reduce the level of experimentation and risk to find them. People liked the old system and said the lack of a feature can make the process more interesting. But the demo doesn’t validate everything about how the final system would operate. 

It was a summon skill of some kind that charged ATB very quickly, letting you queue up more actions before the animation was finished. If this turns out to be true in the final game, then players may be able to prepare assaults for multiple party members more successfully. 

The presentation also offered a potentially big change in ATB management. However, summon timing can still be a restriction. Titan disappeared before it could make use of the intended Titanic Smash synergy ability, demonstrating how summon duration can interfere with well-planned combinations.

All in all, the demo hints at better character powers, more awesome combat animations, and maybe some more refined ATB strategies. It's interesting to monitor the seeming limitations on materia combos and the possible enemy skill tweaks as development moves further.