Following up Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a tall order, but Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth looks up to the challenge. Breaking out into the open world outside of Midgar, the second entry in Square Enix’s remake trilogy is set to add even more when it releases on February 29 for $69.99, exclusively on Sony’s PlayStation 5. Most notably combo attacks, or “synergy abilities” as they’re now called, will be getting a welcomed boost.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which was released in 2020, did an amazing job at updating and expanding upon the 1997 original’s opening act, fleshing out a single part of the game into its own 30+ hour story. Real-time action, expanded characters and quests, and of course, a gorgeous graphical update introduced with 2021’s Integrade, made the remake shine.
At the time, reviewers praised its fantastic real-time combat, even if switching between party members could sometimes feel sluggish or meaningless outside of specific circumstances. I mean who wouldn’t want to just swing around the buster sword as Cloud the whole time?
Thankfully, Square Enix improved its combat even more with Integrade, the enhanced version of Remake made for the PlayStation 5 that included a new Yuffie-focused story titled Intermission. Namely, the improvement came in the form of Intergrade’s synergized attacks. These let Yuffie and Sonon combine their powers to unleash new special attacks and even a joint limit break.
FF7 Rebirth looks to be going all in on this mechanic, with the new synergy abilities and synergy skills. Square Enix posted new info about these mechanics on Tuesday to the official Final Fantasy VII account, along with some screenshots. We have seen them in action in some of FF7 Rebirth’s trailers but this explains some of the changes from Intergrade in more detail.
The first thing of note is that synergized attacks from Intermission are being expanded upon by the introduction of abilities and skills. According to Square Enix, abilities “are powerful attacks in which two characters team up to turn the tide of battle,” while skills “allow two party members to team up to activate useful abilities without consuming” their other attack abilities. “These commands can be executed while blocking, and provide a wide array of beneficial effects.”
This means that abilities fall into the more traditional combat attacks we saw in Intermissions, while skills focus more on potentially buffing the party in some manner.
Perhaps most important, Square Enix is also significantly expanding synergy abilities and skills by allowing you to use them with more characters. Intermission only had Yuffie and Sonon, meaning only one set of synergized attacks. FF7 Rebirth is set to bring back the entire party of Remake (Cloud, Tida, Aerith, and Barret), promote Red XIII to a full-fledged party member, and untie the main cast with Yuffie.
In the X post on Tuesday, Square Enix highlighted a few specific combinations. The first is Tifa and Cloud’s Relentless Rush ability and the second shows Barret and Red XIII’s Overfang ability. For Synergy Skills, Square Enix showed off Cloud and Aerith’s Spell Blade, which releases a charged magical attack as well as Barret and Cloud’s Mad Dash, which lets the team charge forward while guarding against oncoming attacks.
The synergy abilities and skills look like fascinating evolution of Intermission’s synergize attacks, ones that bring another level of strategy to real-time combat. With the likelihood that Rebirth offers players the chance to choose their party and switch out members, picking party combinations becomes even more interesting. Now players will get to mix and match teams, taking advantage of a multitude of synergy abilities and skills.
