Calling anything “perfect” is bound to upset every negative Nancy on the planet, because God forbid we are ever optimistic or positive about anything, but I digress. Nevertheless, Final Fantasy 7 Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi said of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s combat in a recent interview with Eurogamer that the team believed they had already “perfected” the game’s hybrid combat system. However, he then wisely balanced out that sentiment with the understanding that, for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation to essentially copy that system without any meaningful improvements would result in something that undoubtedly felt “stale…not offering anything new or refreshing.” To his point, he’s absolutely right, but that’s also why the team behind Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is taking the final entry’s combat to a place that, I feel, the trilogy could have been in from the get-go.
While the rhythm and flow of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s combat does indeed feel incredible, there is always room for improvement—even in things that, in our eyes, are already perfect. That’s where Final Fantasy 7 Revelation‘s Function Integrated Tactical Suitwear, or “FITS,” system comes in, which is humorously almost exactly what it sounds like. No doubt patterned after Gen Z’s iconic lingo, FF7 Revelation‘s FITS system is based on the outfits characters are wearing at any given time. Even at a glance, that already sounds more liberating than anything Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth offered in combat, despite it being great as is.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation’s FITS Combat System Unshackles Rebirth
Before getting into how Final Fantasy 7 Revelation improves the Remake trilogy’s combat, it’s at least worth acknowledging what FF7 Rebirth did so well that Hamaguchi was willing to call it perfect. Rebirth took the already impressive hybrid system from Remake and made every member of its party feel like an entirely unique tool built for a specific situation. Cloud was the obvious all-rounder—as usual—Barret could safely pressure enemies from a distance, Tifa could turn a staggered opponent into a rapidly depleting health bar, and characters like Yuffie, Red XIII, and Cait Sith each brought their own strange little combat mechanics to the battlefield. Constantly swapping between them never felt too taxing or unnecessary, either, because building ATB across the party naturally encouraged players to use everyone rather than selecting Cloud and pretending the other two characters were simply there for moral support.
Put the consoles in the correct order.
The addition of Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth only strengthened that design by making party composition all the more important. There was a satisfying rhythm to blocking, dodging, exploiting weaknesses, pressuring an enemy, and then unloading every available ability once the stagger gauge finally broke, and Rebirth somehow allowed all of that to feel tactical without forcing the action to come to a complete stop every few seconds. It was flashy, strategic, and wonderfully chaotic all at once, which is probably about as close to “perfect” as a real-time Final Fantasy combat system has ever come. Still, perfection doesn’t necessarily mean finality, and Revelation‘s FITS system appears to be giving Square Enix an opportunity to preserve everything Rebirth got right while making character builds and experimentation considerably more flexible.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation’s FITS Combat System Is the Definition of Freedom
According to Hamaguchi in the Eurogamer interview, one of the main reasons Square Enix chose to adopt the FITS system in FF7 Revelation is because of a flaw in Rebirth‘s combat—despite the fact that it was “perfect” in his eyes. The flaw was that, because playable characters in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth already fulfill specific roles, players were essentially less free to choose the party composition they wanted when encounters demanded something a little more curated. “I guess you become guided to select certain characters in certain situations,” Hamaguchi stated, emphasizing that the system, as good as it truly was, “didn’t truly offer that freedom of choice when it comes to the character choice.” Final Fantasy 7 Revelation‘s FITS system is the answer to that problem.
The way it works is that each character in FF7 Revelation has access to four unique outfits that, when worn, change that character’s role and abilities in combat. Classic Final Fantasy games called these “Jobs”—a system that has gone down in history as one of the series’ most consistently praised mechanics. Entries like Final Fantasy 5, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy X-2, and Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age are frequently celebrated specifically for how much experimentation their Job systems allow, and now it seems Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will be offering that very thing.
Revelation‘s FITS system appears to be giving Square Enix an opportunity to preserve everything Rebirth got right while making character builds and experimentation considerably more flexible.
That doesn’t mean every implementation of the Jobs system has been perfect, but the basic concept is enormously popular because it makes equipment, abilities, and party builds feel transformative. A character isn’t simply gaining better numbers, as changing Jobs can fundamentally alter what they contribute in combat. In essence, that’s how Final Fantasy 7 Revelation‘s FITS system works, where the outfits effectively function as a modern, character-specific interpretation of Final Fantasy‘s traditional Jobs, changing combat capabilities while preserving the action-oriented system Rebirth already established.
Now, if Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is able to pull this off well, then longtime fans of the series who are constantly asking for it to bring back the classic Jobs system are going to have the best kind of hey-day—I know I will. Experimentation in an RPG is something I always want more of, because it makes me feel like I actually have a say in the way that I play, which is, of course, one of the most important characteristics of a role-playing game. Plus, as someone who is practically obsessed with cosmetics in games, it’s just a bonus that the appearance of my characters will also affect their combat role in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is scheduled for release in Spring 2027. It will launch simultaneously across PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Rebirth may have perfected the flow of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy’s combat, but Revelation‘s FITS system could finally perfect the freedom surrounding it, allowing players to bring the characters they actually want into battle rather than the ones an encounter seemingly demands. At that point, Square Enix wouldn’t necessarily be replacing what worked in Rebirth, but simply be removing the restraints that prevented its combat from being as flexible as it was fun.
- Released
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2027
- Prequel(s)
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Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
