Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Battle Director Teruki Endo Discusses Combat Design and Challenges

Teruki Endo, battle director of Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth, played a key role in shaping the modernized combat system. During an interview with Inverse, Endo explained that he approached the design without heavily referencing previous entries in the series. Instead, he built the system from scratch, focusing on capturing the essence of a command-based battle.

"I didn’t really look at different Final Fantasy titles, as I felt like if I leaned too much on them, it would prevent me from pushing the envelope. I tried to look at it from a very sort of flat and non-biased way."

Endo combined his experience from working on Monster Hunter: World with Square Enix’s technology, which he described as a “chemical reaction.” While the combat system shares similarities with Final Fantasy XIII, he clarified that this was coincidental rather than intentional.

"I wanted to take the feeling of fun of a command-based battle, that feeling you get, not necessarily the system itself. So I built the system from scratch, and it might have been a coincidence that parts of it felt similar to other games."

One of the biggest challenges was balancing the ATB system, ensuring it neither filled too quickly nor became too restrictive.

"You need to look at, for example, how much the ATB gauge accumulates. Because you might be taking damage, and still having it accumulate. Or blocking. You need to balance how the gauge fills up, and how the player uses ATB charges."

Endo also detailed how each playable character was assigned a role from the beginning. Cloud was designed as an all-around damage dealer, Barret as a tank, Tifa as a stagger specialist, and Aerith as a magic user and healer. According to Naoki Hamaguchi, these roles remained consistent across both titles.

"All of the playable characters implemented for both Remake and Rebirth were structured according to the initial directions we set for titles."

Designing Cait Sith presented additional challenges due to his luck-based mechanics, which initially clashed with the action-oriented combat system.

"With Cait Sith and that element of luck being a very strong component, versus this being an action-based combat system – those two elements seem almost contradictory to each other."

Regarding the final boss battle in Rebirth, Endo revealed that the initial difficulty was lower to avoid disrupting the emotional experience, but adjustments were made following player feedback.

"There was some thinking behind making the difficulty a bit less than a typical boss battle, but as we were building it and receiving feedback, there were comments that we wanted more bite. So it ended up becoming difficult."

Endo also emphasized that he focuses on each game individually rather than long-term planning, ensuring that every installment stands on its own.

"I don’t really give too much thought in terms of long-term planning, but put my all into whatever I’m working on. If I think too much about what’s supposed to come ahead, I get too tied up in that thinking, feeling like whatever I put in the moment will be incomplete."

Source:

inverse.com

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