Battle system

[Deicidal Maniac]

What is the battle system like? Is it more the original, turn-based or is it action, fighting oriented? The video suggests the latter.

[Xengre]

It is turn based like the original with a facade of being an action game. To be precise, there actual action elements and you can hotkey the abilities to make it more seamless, but in truth the core combat is an ATB system similar to the original. You have a basic auto attack mechanic that can be used to build up ATB faster, damage certain components (like reactor scorpion boss' shield generator, etc.) while waiting on ATB as chip damage but like 80-90% of your dmg comes from ATB skills when properly utilized, hence actually being mainly an ATB system. Of course, on weaker trash mobs you can, indeed, kill quite a few with the basic attack similar to the original spamming attack for trash mobs.

However, quite unlike the original elemental affinities are far more meaningful. In the original, aside from something absorbing (aka healing from) an element (mainly Magic Breath & Kjata which were very high dmg but multi element attacks, and the slightly semi-common fire absorption that plagued Vincent's first limit break and in rare cases beta/etc. fire element skills) elements were almost totally irrelevant in the original. In FF7R almost every enemy has a weak element and using the proper elements can massively boost dmg, often ending fights immediately or making you do much more dmg against bosses.

It also has better tuned materia. HP Plus isn't totally overpowered like in the original. Enemy Skill is also not supremely broken (though it also is pretty meh here, hopefully improved in episode 2). Magic spells like Fire/Thunder/etc. are very powerful. Restore is useful but there are unique and often better alternatives like Chakra (single target % missing HP recovery with no MP cost), Pray (Int stat based aoe heal but requires 2 ATB charges and starts weak until materia is leveled up enough, and has no MP cost making it great for hard mode as long as you can manage that 2 ATB cost). Elemental materia is actually really good this time around... but only in hard mode unlike original using it almost exclusively to get Beta super early (it simply levels too slowly to be useful in normal, and its not meaningful usage for elemental dmg boosting tbh aside from robots due to their unique defensive stat mechanic). There are a lot more useful purple and blue support/utility materia which the original game lacked (and many of which it did have were meh or not until much later in the game, too late to matter). It only has a single Magnify materia (aka the All materia) in the game but this makes a huge impact on proper materia balance.

Each character plays very unique (though Aerith is clearly overpowered) and all are great to play actively as if you want, but also function well as AI partners. None are bad in combat in either role.

Complimenting the materia system the remake adds a perk tree to each weapon and a special skill per weapon (aka unique actions that require ATB that can be mastered and thus kept regardless of weapon used but are unique to each character). The perk tree system lets you have multiple weapon builds and specialize specific weapon growth/configurations for your needs and is actually very well done which is honestly surprising. Some unique skills though are not particularly useful, but most fortunately are.

Summons look cool but are wasted ATB/turns just like in the original game (tho many OG fans often don't know how bad summons are in FF7/8/9/12, they're typically extremely bad outside extremely specific cases... except Choco/Mog in FF7). They just aren't efficient use of ATB when you could use that ATB on more efficient character actions.

You can dodge in the game and block. These are fluid and enjoyable mechanics, but this isn't Dark Souls for those who aren't looking for that. It is still mainly a JRPG based on the original ATB combat system. Side note: with a certain materia Tifa has an OP slide which is kind of a balance problem/exploit that needs to stop in episode 2 and 3.

I'd consider this a clear upgrade to the original game's biggest weakness, combat balance woes.

[Katitoff]

Action combat paying homage for ATB given how you need to wait before executing special actions that are not basic attack for everyone.

[Mögbär]

For the most part, you block and attack with easy button commands, but it rarely requires any timing, so it looks like an action game, but doesn't really play like one. But by doing so, you make the ATB charge faster, which you can spend on other commands like using spells, items, skills etc. just like in the original game.

There are some deeper systems underlying you can make use of with some finesse in order to charge up ATB even quicker and you will have to learn how to play the somewhat more action-oriented aspects of the combat system properly if you want to make use of it, but it's not a must on Normal difficulty. You can play it like the original with the difference that you hold a button for attacking or it'll take too long to charge the ATB charges.

There's also Classical mode with supposedly does the attacking and blocking for you, so you only use ATB commands, but I don't know how well it works.

[Deicidal Maniac]

Thanks for the info! Really interested in this. Any info on performance? I have a pretty beefy system, the biggest bottleneck being my GTX 1080Ti.

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Deicidal Maniac:

Thanks for the info! Really interested in this. Any info on performance? I have a pretty beefy system, the biggest bottleneck being my GTX 1080Ti.

Outside of densly packed slums, runs at steady 60 FPS on steam deck.
No performance issues at all on my high end pc.

[Shucks]

The battle system is hack and slash with a turn-based element once you've charged your gauge. Blocking and dodging legitimately do not matter because it's so easy anyways, not necessarily a bad thing because I thought the combat was still very enjoyable.

I use a GTX 1080 and it runs flawlessly. Should be no problem with a 1080Ti.

Just a heads up though, this is 1/3rd of the original game, with a worse story, and the game purposely tries to waste your time over and over, which was insanely frustrating. I can see you logged insane hours in the original FF7, this one is not nearly as good as the original.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Shucks:

The battle system is hack and slash with a turn-based element once you've charged your gauge. Blocking and dodging legitimately do not matter because it's so easy anyways, not necessarily a bad thing because I thought the combat was still very enjoyable.

I use a GTX 1080 and it runs flawlessly. Should be no problem with a 1080Ti.

Just a heads up though, this is 1/3rd of the original game, with a worse story, and the game purposely tries to waste your time over and over, which was insanely frustrating. I can see you logged insane hours in the original FF7, this one is not nearly as good as the original.

^Personal take. Mine is that the game is actually better than the original, at least for the 1/3rd of the game it covers (Midgar) and does an excellent job of expanding and bringing the cast and world to life. I don't feel like it wasted a bunch of time as people often over exaggerate (perhaps not intentionally, its a mental trick they play on themselves) things like the amount of time side quests/crawling through a tight space take but they actually make up a very small portion of the game.

Imo, this game is a dramatic step up from the original and actually makes characters like Tifa and Barrett properly fleshed out while improving even more on already good characters such as Aerith, Cloud, etc. I only hope episode 2 and 3 are at least as good, if not better.

[Juan-Pedro Vidol]

Originally posted by Deicidal Maniac:

Thanks for the info! Really interested in this. Any info on performance? I have a pretty beefy system, the biggest bottleneck being my GTX 1080Ti.

So not beefy at all

[Xelane]

Why not just look up what the battle system looks like on youtube? I think that would tell you everything you need to know.