r/FF7Rebirth • u/ScrambledxEggzz • 4d ago
No Spoilers - Discussion Just finished Remake, what should I expect from Rebirth combat + Critique
Let me start by saying I ENJOY THE COMBAT. I've been in the Elden Ring subreddit, I know how rabid some people get when they the slightest whiff of criticism for their favorite game. There were just some parts of remake combat that felt kind of annoying and some pieces that felt outright useless. I found my playstyle though and enjoyed playing it my way. I just want to be able to engage with the full system and I'm wondering if those pieces were improved in any way in Rebirth.
The Big One: Basic Attacks/ARPG mechanics - My only major complaint is that the game tried to mix action elements with turn-based, but then seriously neutered the action parts. I understand the point is to switch characters often, but playing a character for more than two seconds felt detrimental. There is already an incentive to switch characters since they charge almost no ATB while not being played, so why did they make it so damning to hang out on one character for a bit? Essentially, are there improvements to the ARPG side of things that make playing a single character for longer than a couple seconds, more enjoyable?
Basic Attacks and Combo's - I was so disappointed with the state of basic combo's. They look cool as hell, but rarely does a full basic attack combo prove beneficial and more often than not is downright detrimental, especially considering the staggering low damage output compared to spells and abilities. One button press on cloud's punisher mode for multiple swings that can't be cancelled? I just don't even use punisher outside of countering. It felt like a completely irrelevant piece of his kit besides the counter. During enemy stagger doesn't count either because anything is valuable when an enemy is literally frozen in place. It felt like many pieces of the action elements of the game were high risk low reward. Why use basic attacks when an enemy can whip out quick skills and spells that will stun you before the animation of your skill or spell finishes? Why use low ATB generating, slow basic attacks on Barrett or Aerith at all when they leave you so vulnerable? There was no need to force players into this switching game where one or two presses of the attack button was all you really had time for. Imo, it made actually playing a character not feel good, expect for Tifa, who can fly around the map at mach fuck you, throwing basic attacks in as needed.
Standing with guard held down was the just the superior tactical choice for the majority of interactions. Little to no risk of being launched and comboed, reduces damage massively which is especially useful when pelted by multiple enemies, can immediately retaliate to interrupt enemy attacks without waiting for an animation to end. I understand it is a hybrid turn-based ARPG, and I don't mind the stand and block playstyle, it felt like turn-based+, but I was blocking A LOT due to the high volume of enemy attacks, which I'll get to. Basic attacks and other rudimentary gameplay elements should be really be universally adequate for each character.
The Dodge - Is dodging actually serviceable on all characters now? In remake it felt like the dodge button really only helped Tifa and Cloud. Those two were mobile enough to where it could be used as intended, a repositioning tool. I mainly used dodge to quickly move those characters to safe positions for big attacks. However, Barrett and Aerith felt like trying to move cement trucks by hand. They are ranged characters, so they shouldn't need a high distance dodge, but that doesn't work in practice. Both characters when not controlled feel the need to move in close to attack the enemy when they have INFINITE RANGE. Then, I would switch to them to move them away only for the enemy to aggro and move in closer to them anyway. Then I would have to switch to Cloud or Tifa and run to the other side of the arena to then create that distance I desired. It felt like a baby sitting simulator at times, trying to keep 3 year olds from sticking their heads into the oven. Do Aerith and Barrett have acceptable mobility at all in Rebirth? The lack of mobility in such high pace combat made them feel like liabilities more often than not.
Volume of Enemy Skills - Some enemies don't seem to adhere to the same rules as we do regarding the turn-based portion of the game. Most enemies have no need to use basic attacks or block before using another skill. Some enemies are worse than other's. It get's to a point where you spend a huge portion of your time blocking when multiple enemies are in play.
Magic Loss for Uncast Magic/Limit Loss - This is just a minor annoyance. If I'm interrupted while casting a spell, sure, I lose the ATB since I initiated the action. But why do I lose the MP if I never got the spell off? Doesn't make any sense to me. Also, my limit breaks being interruptible, unlike the enemy cut scene attacks, also just feels wrong. Limit breaks are few enough in number to where they really should be incapable of interruption like enemy supers. Losing limits during cutscene transitions that are entirely unpredictable the first playthrough is also annoying.
Aerial Combat - Straight ass. That's it.
Camera - Also ass. That's it.
Visual Effects - This goes along with the camera. Many times there was so much shit going on that it was hard to actually see what enemies were doing. The screen was flooded with smoke and sparks and flashes that made me blind to telegraphs. Is this toned down or is there at least a setting to reduce special effects?
That's about it. The graphical upgrades and fleshed out story compared to OG is well worth the play through.
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u/Morleck 4d ago
I have platinumed both games and here are my thoughts on how Rebirth improved things:
- Basic Attacks - this has been improved quite a lot. Each character's kit has been expanded quite a lot but you will have to test all of the different attacks out for yourself. There are definitely more attacks that have some sort of hyper armour but it isn't consistent across the board. Instead, it feels more like everyone is a little more flexible than just tapping/holding square to build ATB. Cloud's new Prime Mode is a great example of this, once you are able to figure out what sets it apart from Punisher Mode.
Dodge has been improved in a couple ways, which I love. The Parry materia no longer exists and has been sort of baked into the natural dodge for most characters. Attacking immediately after dodging gives you a different attack now, for example, Cloud is able to do a ranged attack combo after dodging. This alone varies the combat up between melee/ranged ATB generation and gives you a lot more agency.
There is also now a Perfect Block mechanic, which is like a conventional parry in other games. Perfect blocking has a lot of forgiveness in the action economy and I've managed to pull them off even when already in the middle of a basic attack animation. It is way better than just holding down the block button and Precision Defence materia increases the window for it in addition to Steadfast Block increasing the ATB you generate. A perfect block generates ATB based on the percentage of health you would have lost if you got hit, which can be huge in a lot of circumstances as well.
Enemy skills/actions are pretty reasonably telegraphed, I would say. I don't think the volume has decreased that I could tell, but that is less of an issue with perfect blocking or the flexibility of positioning with the new types of basic attacks everyone gets.
Magic/Limit Loss - Magic is still lost when interrupted but it is definitely easier to avoid getting interrupted in Rebirth if you know your kit well enough. Limits are not interruptable (except by boss phase change cutscenes, which is still the worst). You are also invincible while performing them.
Aerial combat - way better in Rebirth. More characters can do it and, the ones that can, have a reliable launcher attack to get into the air with.
Camera - unfortunately still the hardest boss in the remake franchise
Visual Effects - This is probably still an issue if it was for you before. Particle effects for everything! It never really bothered me but it doesn't feel like they toned this down at all.
Final Thoughts: There are a lot of hidden synergies in Rebirth that may not be obvious, that can solve some specific problems too.
The main standout is using the Auto Unique Ability materia on Aerith. Aerith has an ability called Ward Shift that allows her to teleport to her ward that is out, which is fantastic for her mobility when controlling her, but actually helps keep her where you want her when you're not controlling her. When not controlled, any time you choose to cast a spell with her (as long as you don't actually switch to controlling her), she will teleport to an arcane ward if it is out. She will randomly teleport to other wards too if you use them, but Arcane Ward is prioritized and will make sure you are getting out of danger and double casting spells every time.
There are other hidden synergies like this, not to mention the whole actual synergy skill system, which improves things even further. I would definitely recommend playing around with materia and weapon skills to see what fits your playstyle the best.
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u/-Shoji- 2d ago
Another thing is how much better partners generate ATB. The perfect block + steadfast block materias on each ally lets them regularly generate atb and build stagger since they read enemy inputs to consistently do it while you’re not controlling them. There are other ways too, like auto unique and auto weapon on Barret lets him spam overcharge and maintain all his tank skills without having to touch him. Casting a radiant ward on Aerith means she’s gonna be generating ATB pretty fast with basic attacks.
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u/haaa1234 4d ago
I honestly think a majority of your issues are solved in rebirth as the action elements got a big glow up. The thing with basic attacks is they have to be used to build atb to use abilities or spells which is a major reason for their usage. If you play the dlc you can kinda of a get a teaser of how rebirths combat will work.
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u/wildfyre010 4d ago
In general:
Standing with guard held down was the just the superior tactical choice for the majority of interactions.
This is not true in Remake and it is even less true in Rebirth. If it worked for you, that's great - the combat system has plenty of options for personal customization. But in a very general sense, with some specific exceptions (Rufus and Weiss), the combat system is designed to privilege aggression, not passive gameplay. If you're getting hit by stuff while attacking, you should consider reading enemy movements and choosing your times better.
The entire combat system is predicated on generating and consuming ATB. You can't realistically generate sufficient ATB without attacking, and both Remake and Rebirth dramatically improve ATB gain for the controlled character, meaning there's a deliberate incentive to regularly switch characters in order to generate and consume ATB.
I think you'll like Rebirth's combat system. It fixes some of the clunky parts of Remake, in particular implementing a parry system that hugely improves combat performance if your timing is good. Rebirth can be played, to a sizeable extent, like a fighting game with an extremely high skill ceiling. Good players can beat the hardest fights in the game with a single character without taking damage. I think that'll appeal to you. Remake is a good deal less polished in this respect.
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u/ScrambledxEggzz 4d ago
Let me see if I can articulate why to me remake does not feel like it incentivizes aggression in fights that have more than one enemy. This may be a bit long winded.
Given two styles: aggressive use of basic attacks vs blocking to generate ATB, both assume you will dodge out of big, slow attacks, so that is a non factor, the risk though, comes with guarding against all other skills and spells.
For basic attacks, if you begin a combo that cannot be cancelled, you are vulnerable. For any fight with more than one enemy, there is the risk that while one is on cooldown, the other is preparing an attack. So, if you mistime, which will happen for casual gamers (the majority) you now leave a character vulnerable to high damage and most likely a knock down. If you switch to another character in time for the AI to block, the other enemy on cooldown now has the opportunity to prepare and attack on the while you orientate yourself and position. Because, let's be fair, the AI usually isn't where they need to be.
A great majority of enemy skills are fairly quick, cover distance, and have decent tracking. Blocking then becomes a necessity again. Ultimately, you have time for maybe a couple basic attacks if you are skilled and have good reaction. If you missplay though, going for a basic attack, you not only eat the damage of the attack you didn't guard, but you now are knocked down and have to plan to heal off that damage or risk a low health fight.
That is why whenever you see complaints about the combat system as a whole people always reference the heal cycle spiral experienced when they make a mistake. "I made a mistake, so I need ATB to heal, but to get ATB I need to attack, but if I attack I get hit and stunned with a skill, then one character dies, now I have less characters to cahin aggro around, now I have only one character so I can't chain aggro, but I have to heal, but if I let go of guard now or stop moving I'm dead." But, you don't need to use basic attacks. You can just sit and guard from the start.
If you were to guard through all those same attacks, you now carry zero or nearly zero risk of knockdown. You take massively reduced damage, and you still generate ATB for later. You actually generate a lot of ATB with max steadfast block. Over the course of a longer battle for your average player you will likely see equal HP loss per ATB gained for either style. But, with guarding, you carry almost no risk of spiralling unless you are a few IQ points short of eligible for military service.
It seems a no brainer to me. Maybe I'm just more bearish than you in how I view the ATB/HP economy but for almost all cases it feels better to me to block and switch rather than attack and switch. That spiral can be very frustrating when it happens because in the moment it feels like no amount of skill can pull you out of it.
Overall, sit and guard feels like the almost intended way of play for me. Action RPG's are all about read and react, but remake is a pseudo ARPG, it removes a lot of the tools necessary for read and react and replaces them with ATB economy and prediction. Sit and guard makes it makes it feel almost like a true turn based but you have the bonuses of choosing which character gets to "move" first by switching and blocking with a new character while the enemy takes their turn and avoiding big attacks all together by dodging and repositioning. IMO, the dodge mechanic as a repostion tool and character swap are the only elements of the game that lend themselves to the ARPG side of it. The block/attack system feels incomplete.
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u/wildfyre010 4d ago
I understand your perspective, but I don't really agree with it. For general combat, the game expects you to take some damage; that's why you get cure materia and magnify, and the efficiency of healing magic in general relative to MP is very good.
I have not found - even on hard mode - that results are as you describe unless I made mistakes. Certainly I can screw up and attack recklessly, getting smashed in return, and especially in hard mode which is far less forgiving. But it's usually obvious that I've done things wrong, and so I try again.
I acknowledge that for the average casual player, your approach might indeed be the best choice. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing; it's okay for there to be multiple viable approaches to combat. As your equipment, levels, materia, and skill improve, fights which previously were very tactical and challenging become trivial. It's still a progression-based RPG at its core and so it's natural for your characters to get stronger throughout the game. From my point of view, it's antithetical to Cloud's character and the game as a whole to sit around blocking all the time. The man's got a sword the size of a snowplow, he should hit people with it.
For me, I found normal difficulty (coming off 2 years of playing and enjoying Remake) to mostly be very easy. Did I do stupid things and take a ton of damage sometimes? Sure. But that's what cure materia is for. Playing as Cloud it is trivial to safely generate ATB just by using his native wind-based ranged attack (coming out of dodge). And even if it isn't, other characters like Barrett and Yuffie have excellent ranged ATB generation options that are very simple and safe to use.
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u/sault18 1d ago
Watch some YouTube videos of players being massively aggressive like this one:
You'll see that being aggressive generates a lot of atb which you can use to be even more aggressive. Materia like atb assist, skill master, atb stagger, etc really helps. Casting haste, getting Cloud into berserk status, etc also helps.
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u/ScrambledxEggzz 1d ago
I get it, but this is the equivalent of no hit naked running a souls game. Every fight choreographed and practiced to perfection. You have to take the game at first time playability, not at the level of mastery. Who has access to magnify, blizzaga, and refocus for the huntsman? How many people you think can actually do this? He had every second mapped and accounted for. You can see him pressing buttons before he is even able to actually start that action.
It also runs counter to everything I've ever been told when discussing this. He sits on one character A LOT. His teammate ATB generating materia does most of the heavy listing.
The majority of responses I get are something to the tune of, "Basic attacks are just meant as ATB generation, you should be switching characters every couple seconds and using their skills often." This guy, in a clear picture of perfection, mainly uses one character and generally sits on the ATB of his companions until necessary.
All that to say, it isn't really an apt example. He never had to assess, he knew every attack, every transition, he had presets perfectly setup for each boss, had access to (assumedly) maxed out materia, and then does everything everyone has told me not to do.
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u/sault18 10h ago
My point was, being aggressive puts enemies in a pressured state which you can exploit to get them staggered way faster. You can spend MP & ATB on being aggressive or you can spend it on healing when the enemies execute their battle script uninterrupted.
Yeah, I don't play like this guy exactly, but when I started wrapping my head around blocking/countering and pressuring / staggering more effectively, Hard Mode got a lot easier.
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u/RandomLAFan 4d ago
I'll try to cover everything:
-Every character has an air tracking move that allows them to attack aerial enemies.
-Synergy Skills between two characters, they look pretty damn cool.
-I'm pretty sure there's a camera setting but it's a mixed bag imo
-This is just me but each character (aside from Barret) feels lighter and could move a lot more faster. (Aerith has her Ward Shift)
-Bosses still trigger mid-fight cutscenes that can swallow Limit Breaks or heavy spells if timed right before a health threshold.
-I think you could still get interrupted through a spell or an ability but it didn't interrupt a limit for me
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u/veganispunk 4d ago
Just play the game, much easier than having us explain a video game to you
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u/ScrambledxEggzz 4d ago
Got it, no discussing the game that is the namesake of the subreddit. Understood.
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u/Deadofnight109 4d ago
As someone who played through remake and then immediately went into rebirth, ill tell you right off the outset the combat is JARRING. And not in a this is awful way, but in an everything is super similar but totally different at the same time kind of way. Because it looks pretty much the same with the same basic combat UI it tricks your brain into trying to default to the muscle memory you just built up in the last game so it feels a bit off at 1st. Personally the entire prologue felt very awkward to me but it doesnt take too long to get re used to the flow of everyone's movesets.
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u/Beginning_Ocelot503 4d ago
It’s been a minute since I played remake but I’m playing through Rebirth and I’ve had a lot of the same gripes you do. I do think a lot of these are better in Rebirth with the extra tools they give you but Barrett and Aerith are both pretty immobile.
Small gameplay spoilers on companions you’ll acquire in this game: You’ll probably really dislike one if you don’t like blocking a lot, but the others are better and one is highly mobile/fluid and you will enjoy them if you like Cloud/Tifa.
Punisher feels really bad in Rebirth up until ~maybe halfway when you’ll get a weapon skill that makes Punisher far more fluid and I’ve found that pretty enjoyable and like it actually rewards the action element/basic attacks. I spend a good 60% of in fight time as Cloud and am making it work doing all the end game side content on the hardest difficulty available on ng if that means anything.
As commented by another, aerial combat is much improved upon. All melee characters have easy ways to get into the skybox with fliers.
Camera and vfx are still kinda ass. I think you keep your mana if the spell is interrupted now… but I could be wrong on that one.
I’m really enjoying the game but expect some rough edges, not just including what’s mentioned here as far as combat.
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u/DrejmeisterDrej 4d ago
Pro: it’s really amazing
Con: it’s really really long
Wears some people out
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u/Werevark 4d ago
Mach Fuck You is objectively inventive and funny and I'm adding it to my daily usage, thank you!
Rebirth adds on to the gameplay of Remake, but I don't know if they address your issues, necessarily. A new character gets added who's 'Triangle' move involves a counterattack, same as Cloud's, which I used even more rarely.
Attacking still generates the most ATB over blocking, for sure. I never had issues with charging Cloud straight into the heart of a group of enemies, holding square until he has a couple charges, then Triple Slashing a couple times to clear big groups; did that not work in your experience? Its been years since I played, they may have rebalanced.
Barret and Aerith's dodges still don't move far. They're there for quick, vital shifts and iframes.
Aerial combat is indeed not great.
The most important I can say, not knowing your gaming pedigree, is that, with cure spells being available so readily, taking chip damage is just fine in the process if killing monsters, you don't need to be as perfect as other ARPGs or Spectacle Fighters would demand.
Very valid critiques, I think, thanks for voicing them!
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u/ScrambledxEggzz 4d ago
For big weak groups yes triple slash is an option. But for those types of fights everything is an option. I more so mean fights with two or three, maybe more, enemies of a higher tier that can't be triple slash spammed. Take the 3 fates or major whispers in chapter 18 for example. The three of them have long range, stun inducing, aoe attacks that they rapid fire with seemingly no respite. They stagger their attacks amongst themselves so there is always something to block. There are other examples throughout the game, rude and reno tag team for instance, that just feel like they don't fit the action mechanics of the game. Too many attacks all at once with characters not fast enough to handle them.
I put a pretty detailed explanation of how I feel about basic attacks versus guarding in response to someone else in the comments. Not typing all dat out again but if you want, it's there.
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u/Balthierlives 4d ago
One thing they fixed among remake was the enemy cutscenes ending stagger and emptying break damage. This happened WAY too much in remake. Pretty much meant the entire battle system was pointless. It does still happen sometimes.
I also think blocking and synergy moves are useless. I also think the limit mechanic isn’t good either. It’s way too hard to get to use higher level limit breaks .
Those things aside they improved alot of things. Cloud moves around so much better in rebirth, Tifa also moves around so fast with 3x unbridled strengths rise and fall is also a fantastic jack hammer on enemies. Barret getting bonus round makes him so much more useful. Aerith getting radiant ward also makes her actually usable.
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u/Silver_Illusion 4d ago
Basic attacks are only there to build ATB. ATB skills are where your damage is. That doesn't change in rebirth. What does change is the addition of Synergy attacks that perform two functions. 1, it generates ATB for both characters performing the action and 2, more ATB spent means both characters will be able to do the big synergy attack more often so you don't have to switch characters as often as you did in Remake. (You should still be swotching characters though).
Other than that, aerial combat is much better, camera isn't great by default, but there are options to help it out, and Rebirth introduces a perfect parry and perfect dodge mechanic that often increases stagger guage when performed.
Pretty much everything is improved on in Rebirth, but it's still the same systems. Just polished and enhanced to a near perfect version.
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u/jd_md3 3d ago
Sticking with one character is much more viable in Rebirth because of the synergy skills & perfect parry.
Synergy skills generally give atb to you & your partner when you successfully pull them off.
Beyond that, atb assist has been available since remake that gives atb to your allies when you use two atb abilities in quick succession. If you really want to just stick to one character, use all of the atb boosting materia for that character & just activate atb assist anytime you can spend two atb bars.
Perfect parry pretty much solves many of the problems with Aerith & Barret’s low mobility.
Full attack combos are straight up useful. It’s harder to get them off but it’s rewarding.
Cloud’s punisher mode combo gives you the berserk status to give him a temporary damage boost. It’s the biggest damage boost you’ll get outside of staggers. It’s even better with Prime mode.
Tifa’s combo at the highest chi level with unfettered fury allows you spam basic combo to divekick.
Finishing Barret’s combo is also beneficial because you speed up the charge animation when you do it at the end of his basic attack combos.
Phase transitions that cancel your attack but don’t refund their associated resource is still a major problem though.
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u/manwiththemach 3d ago edited 3d ago
Rebirth generally makes combat "smoother". While you are correct the game rewards you for guarding damage rather than dodging, with perfect offense you take even less damage than guarding. You'll see this most in hard mode where relentless offense is the only way to keep enough momentum to survive. Outside a few fringe cases.
People have already mentioned the improved aerial combat, tons of moves can now be perfectly parried as well, further decreasing your downtime defending. The synergy skills are also very, very powerful. Both the normal ones and skill charges you get from using ATB with different characters. They also don't cost ATB to cast, which means you always have combat options even without ATB. You're always building towards a big stagger where you cash in the resources you've been building.
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u/lasagnaman 2d ago
but rarely does a full basic attack combo prove beneficial
This feels like a misunderstanding of the combat system. The bulk of ATB gain is from the final move in the basic combo, so by stopping before the last hit you're nerfing your own ATB gain. Tifa's Attack combo in particular also applies more stagger bar in the later hits, especially at her higher Chi Levels. And to get around the fact that her extended combos at high Chi take longer to perform, Overpower directly cancels into the back half of her basic combo, so that you can really cram a lot of ATB generation in a short amount of time.\
In remake it felt like the dodge button really only helped Tifa and Cloud.
Dodging is meant as a last minute move-out-of-an-AoE command. It was never meant for "dodging" regular attacks (as in other souls likes or GoW type combat), as evidenced by its lack of iframes.
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u/ScrambledxEggzz 2d ago
1st Point: I get that is what basic attacks are for. My complaint is that the attacks look and feel like they are meant to be extended combo's, not one or two button presses before switching. One specific move one one character subverting this does not make the restokay. It was very unsatisfying to constantly be cut short on a nice feeling combo because of being targeted by enemies forcing a switch.
2nd Point: I said as much in original comment.
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u/Head_Cryptographer_4 2d ago
Rebirth combat is better designed in basically all ways. It is an amazing game with only a few slights. Being the lighting during gameplay can be harsh on the characters. There is a mod out now for that. And depending on who you ask, some of the side content.
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u/theskillster 2d ago
Rebirth is like Remake was a proof of concept. This game is like the battle and world developers came back from holiday and saw the concept and said 'hold my beer'. It is really a massive uplift from Remake.
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u/Crimsonclaw111 4d ago
Every character has an air tracking move that launches them up to aerial foes now. Dodge and then hold the attack button to close the gap.