Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Preview – Sephiroth’s mystery, Chocobo & Synergy

thesixthaxis.com:

Sometimes it’s nice to just get out of the big smoke and into the countryside, isn’t it? Maybe visit a little seaside town and relax by the ocean? That’s…. kind of what Avalanche get to do in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and we got to go hands-on with a couple of demos that Square Enix prepared for Tokyo Game Show 2023.

Whether you loved it or loathed it (or were somewhat indifferent to it), Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth continues with the same action-first combat style of Remake. You’ll run around in battle areas, doling out light attacks in real-time to build up the ATB meter and then let you use skills and spells, and swapping between characters to make use of their respective ATB meters and abilities.

Rebirth expands on this, though, with Synergy, bringing two characters together for a powerful attack to unleash on an enemy or combined ability. Synergy Skills are used while guarding and don’t use up ATB charges, giving you two options that change depending on your battle buddies, which could be a charged up and more powerful attack or a more defensive counterstrike. Then there’s the confusingly similar sounding Synergy Abilities, which are equivalent to the ultimate Limit Break attacks.

We used the first half of our demo, with The Fated Mt. Nibel Mission, flashing back to a time where Sephiroth and Cloud were partners within SOLDIER, heading up to a mako reactor at the top of the mountain. It builds up to a battle with a Materia Guardian, with Sephiroth’s raw abilities very much on show.

You can switch to play as Sephiroth during this time, slashing with Masamune and with branching finisher moves available to cap off a combo attack, and with fun attacks available under the Commands menu. With Cloud and Sephiroth combined, they