It's a little surreal that the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy is about to come to a close; this reimagining of one of the most formative games has had quite the journey from the PS3 tech demo and the long development cycle to its conclusion with the upcoming FF7 Revelation. And so, there's a lot riding on Revelation to tie up all the loose ends that've been set up while giving the trilogy an ending to match the impact we felt almost 30 years ago. But, those aren't the kinds of things you'd gather from a preview demo!
Instead, my hands-on time was pretty overwhelming with exploration through piloting the Highwind, skydiving from the deck onto any open region, and just learning how to play as Cid and Vincent before my time had run out. Although this was centered around the freedom afforded by Cid's airship in the open world, I also got a glimpse of how the story kicks off in Wutai, which is a real treat for those who remember how it was in the original. The predominant feeling I came away with from this demo, however, is that maybe Revelation is getting carried away with stuffing its world with side content for the sake of it (to the point of interrupting the gameplay flow). Perhaps that's a symptom of trying to pack as much as possible in an hour-long demo window, but at least I know that Revelation seems to be upholding FF7's title as having my absolute favorite action RPG combat to date.
Knowing my time was limited, the first thing I did was jump into a few high-level battles with Cid and Vincent in the party because, boy, I've waited a long time to see how their personalities and movesets would be adapted to this combat system. The map was littered with a near-incomprehensible number of side activities, but I dropped onto the field in the Mideel Archipelago region to lock in on the optional Combat Assignments. After just a few battles, I was thinking to myself, 'Why would I ever swap them out of the party?'
Cid's ability to close the gap and use range effectively as a melee character makes him a delight to use – that's that dragoon in him taking over. His halberds have decent reach, but if you can nail down the rhythmic timing of his attacks, you can either launch enemies into the air, hit a rapid combo, or rush down a target. It's also so satisfying to use his triangle ability, Mark Lance, that lets you build up to five charges to tag multiple targets to power up the Dragoon Jump for consecutive hits. And let me tell you, launching into the air off-screen to then smash down on an enemy at superhuman speed might've been the greatest little joy I got out of my time playing; it's the perfect rendition of the Dragoon Jump in action combat, and that alone made Cid worth playing.
Vincent is where Square Enix went all-out on style. He has his trusty Quicksilver pistol for quick shots as a normal combo, but you can cap it off with different moves depending on when you hit his triangle input. And many of his equipped abilities are fancy bullet barrages to tack on stagger, do AoE damage, or barrel down a single target. What's more, he can transform into the Galian Beast as a normal ability (as opposed to it being his Limit Break like in the original) and turn things into a melee-powered onslaught with its own set of combos. This transformation is quite unique considering how you can jump in-and-out of it, making Vincent both a ranged and close-combat beast.
I didn't get to dig too deeply into the new FITS system, which lets you equip one of four Jobs: Warrior, Knight, Black Mage, and Summoner. But my perception so far is that FITS doesn't necessarily change or override how a character functions, but instead gives you more options to complement how you want them to play. For example, Summoner sends out Egi versions of the likes of Ifrit, Titan, and others to attack almost like how a pet-based class would work, while Knight can provide some much needed defensive support, and Black Mage gives magic casters another layer by letting you build up elements from the spells you use and be a more aggressive caster.
While I'm on record in my Rebirth review saying it has the best action RPG combat, I also thought for a while that adding any extra layers on what's already a pretty complex system with many moving parts would overcomplicate things. However, I might be wrong in that Revelation is giving us new toys to play with that feel complementary rather than adding unnecessary layers for the sake of doing something different. Between Cid, Vincent, FITS, and everything I already know from the existing party, I can't wait to dig deeper on how to make the most of them and feel like a genius tactician again.
This preview started in Chapter 4 where Yuffie and the gang need to head to Wutai, and Cloud and Tifa were not in the party at this point in the story. One of the many things I was curious about coming out of Rebirth was how this game would handle Wutai, which was a fairly small part of the original. And remember, Yuffie was an optional party member back in the day, which is wild to think about considering how much of a focus she has in the remake series, especially with her essentially being the main character in this chapter in Revelation.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/final-fantasy-7-revelation-hands-on-preview-best-in-class-combat-but-needs-to-stay-focused-why-we-love-ff7
