Hey
there everyone. The flow of starwars posts has ended so welcome back to the extra long discussion of the
Final Fantasy VII remake's possible changes. We already got passed
the sights and sounds so its finally time to tackle a topic more
closely related to gameplay: combat.
Now
Tetsuya Nomura already revealed that we can expect 'dramatic
changes'. Whatever that is supposed to mean is anyone's guess as
apparently they are testing what combat system works best.
So
let's see what could work.
Now
as I mentioned before, I am not a great fan of VII's combat. Mostly
because the characters don't feal that different in combat outside of
the limit breaks. The game depends too much on materia for
abilities. As a result Yuffie doesn't feal like a ninja at all and
neither Barret and Cid have any fun tech abilities despite being a
gun armed man and a an engineer respectively. IV had a very bad
progression system but every character had mutliple exclusive
abilities which made the combat super fun. Incidentally there was a
time in VII's development when the characters had jobs assigned to
them. It was probably during this same time that Yuffie was a 25
years old ex-SOLDIER bounty hunter who is obsessed with money instead
of materia. We have no way of knowing but it seems that we could have
gotten a better combat system. Of course the definition of 'better'
depends on the individual.
If
you ask me, and if you are still reading this series of articles you
kinda did, the best of the turn based combat systems is the one in
Final Fantasy X. The characters feal different, you can costumize how
your limit break – well overdrive – gauge is filled up, the
overdrives are sort of interactive, summons don't leave after just
one attack, and you can switch your party configuration mid battle
which gives it a very dynamic feal for a completely turn based combat
system. I freakin love it. And to be completely honest I would be
totally okay with the remake getting the exact same combat system.
Okay, I don't want one character to hoard all the summon materia, but
otherwise it's perfectly fine.
However
it is quite obvious that combat in Final Fantasy is moving slowly but
steadily towards real time action combat. As loath I am to relinquish
control over my characters I still think that this move is probably
for the best as no series can stay relevant without innovation.
Depending
on how real time the combat becomes we might see a few more changes,
or perhaps a lot more.
Let's
say for example that remake will end up with the combat system of
XIII. Not quite turn based, but not fully action either. Now the
obvious change is that you can only control the party leader. I will
be really upset if this happens. If the uprgaded game has less
options than the original it wasn't a sucessful upgrade. Of course
everyone would still get the chance to be the party leader at one
point or another. At the very least in the Battle Square. The problem
is that either yourt party members will use their mana points,
summons and limit break automaticly instead of when you want them to,
or perhaps not use them at all. This raises the question of wether
you should equip them with materia at all. If the summons replace the
active party it is guaranteed that only the party leader will get to
summon them. Unfortunately summon materia also affect your stats. And
usually they affect your physical stats negatively. So giving cloud
all the summon materia is like the worst thing ever. Not to mention
that it takes the place of several neat support materia.
Okay,
let us assume we will have a fully real time combat system. Type-0
has one, Crisis Core had one, and XV will have one. Out of these the
one I like the most is the one in Type-0 because you can control a
whole party and you can switch your active character without
restriction. Of course even this would necessitate several changes.
As
I mentioned when talking about animations that we will likely have to
say goodbye to the cover materia. A real time fighting system would
also spell the doom of double strike. I mean how would that even
work? It wouldn't. And then there is Yuffie. Poor girl can't take a
break, I'm always bugging her. Problem is, her bigass shuriken is not
the most practical of weapons. It may still work in a XIII style
combat system, Hope had no difficulty with his boomerang, but in real
time combat she wouldn't last a minute. Her combat style consists of
throwing away her only weapon and being a sitting duck untill it
comes back. Cait Sith smacking people with a megaphone simply looks
stupid, but Yuffie's is actually counter productive. Maybe it is time
she used the two kunai in her hair. Maybe. I mean dual wielding
bladed weapons is kinda what ninjas do in Final Fantasy. And
ninjutsu. Miss Kisaragi does neither.
Okay
not let's look at the new combat from the perspective of the enemies.
A real time combat means that the players can dodge any attack
provided they are quick enough. So there really is no reason why
enemies have to play fair. Sephiroth has no abilities that are
guaranteed one-hit-kills. This might change if we can simply walk
away from AoE markers. We will also most likely get to see a larger
number of enemies in any given fight. The engine can take it and so
can we.
And
I think we can also take a break here before we discuss materia a
little.
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