FFVII Remake was the first in the trilogification of 1997's beloved seventh entry in the Final Fantasy series - itself the quintessential JRPG series. VII's original release did introduce some new ideas, mechanically, as all the games have, but was still true to the classic JRPG formula in which most monsters you fight occur in random encounters, on a separate "battle screen" that abstracts the movement and action into a turn-based system.
VII Remake did what Final Fantasy games have been doing since XII (or I guess XI, but as an MMO, I kind of don't count XI or XIV as part of the core series, regardless of their numeral legitimization) and tried to break out of that old system and put a little more action and continuity with the overall game world into it.
But unlike the solutions I've seen in XII and XVI, I actually thought that they did an incredible job balancing this drive toward fast-paced action while retaining the strategic decision-making from the old turns-and-menus system of the past (I suspect I'd have liked XVI a lot more if it had just copied this combat system... and also made Clive's friends and allies into full-fledged, controllable party members).
Rebirth thankfully retains the basic premise of Remake's combat system. Once again, regular attacks build up ATB, which can pool into a maximum of two charges, and most spells, abilities, and using items take one of these charges. The character you have direct control over will typically build up ATB quicker, so if you want to keep it simple you can just focus on their abilities, but as you get more comfortable with it, swapping characters constantly starts to feel deliberate and reasonable.
Each character has a unique ability outside of the ATB-fueled "abilities" in their main menu that gives their basic attacks a different rhythm. Cloud, for example, can swap between a speedy single-target Operator Mode and a heavier-hitting AoE mode that makes you slower called Punisher Mode. Barret's arm-gun can fire a quick burst of damage, but then needs to recharge before you can do this again, the special ability button allowing you to spend a second or so speeding up that recharge time.
I think these are the same as they were for the previous game, though Aerith's might have changed, and post-Remake, Red XIII has joined as a full-fledged playable character with his own unique ability. I'm given to understand that Yuffie, Cid, and Cait Sith will join up later in the game, though Vincent Valentine, while appearing in Rebirth, does not appear to be playable in this part either (perhaps similarly to how Red XIII joined the party without being playable in the last part of Remake).
Materia appears to work the same way - you determine what spells and other bonuses you get by socketing these balls of magical energy into your weapons and armor (armor being more of a bracer of some sort). Materia will grow more powerful as the person wearing it fights battles, which unlocks things like upgraded spells (Fire becoming Fira and then Firaga). Note that the party starts at level 15 in Rebirth, so even if you had fully-maxed-out stuff in Remake, it doesn't carry over.
Each character of course has their own category of weapon, such as big swords for Cloud or Staves for Aerith, and like in Remake, each individual weapon has its own unique skill, but if you use the weapon enough and perform the actions to gain its proficiency bonus, you'll unlock that skill regardless of what weapon you're wielding - meaning that you'll want to gain that ASAP and then swap to any new weapon you've gotten to collect them all, and then when you've done that, pick the weapon with the stats you prefer.
Now, let's move on to the new stuff:
In Remake, most of your character progression was linked to various spheres in your weapon upgrades. Rebirth has kind of separated these out - the weapon unlocks new passive bonuses and materia slots as it levels up (meaning you might be inclined to swap them even after getting their proficiency bonuses, unless I'm misinterpreting something here - the weapon leveling might actually be character-focused rather than tied to the item). The other things, which include new abilities and passive bonuses, are now handled via a character's "Folio." Essentially, it's a bit like a book that charts the character's development, and you have to go to bookstores or little vending kiosks to spend skill points in your Folios. Still, this feels fairly similar to the weapon spheres from Remake, and it's free to assign the points you have and you can always reset them for free.
Probably the biggest mechanical addition is Synergy Attacks, which... I'll be frank, I don't entirely understand yet.
And that's in part because it's really two things.
While you're holding R1 to block, you'll get a menu of attacks to choose from. These attacks are unlocked in your Folios, but they're all tied to one of the other characters - for example, if you have one of Cloud's abilities that works with Barret, you'll need Barret in the active party to use it.
These can be helpful - Barret has one that gives him and an ally momentary damage immunity, for example, and there are some that launch Tifa in the air to punch flying enemies - as an alternative to your regular attacks. But they'll also build up a kind of bond over the course of a fight that will eventually allow Limit Break-like Synergy Attacks between two of your characters.
I... I don't really know exactly how these work. But boy, when they do, they land like a freaking nuke.
So, there's a pretty deep level of complexity to these systems. I honestly think that the Remake combat was close to as good as one could get, so while the Synergy stuff is cool, I'm still not 100% sold that it will make combat feel particularly better.
This is just scratching the surface - there seems to be a kind of "relationship level" that Cloud has with the other party members and I don't know if that's tied to Synergy attacks, story stuff, or what. I've already put 14 hours into this game and feel like I'm a substantial chunk into the game's second major area, but I suspect I'll have to be halfway through at least to really get the full feel of it.
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