Unique character abilities.

Most people praise Final Fantasy VII for having one of the most flexible ability systems. Personally though, I find that to be a little blase, since outside of some stat differences, the characters are interchangeable. True, each character does have certain strengths, such as Aerith being a magical canon, Barret being a damage tank, and Cloud being broken, mostly these differences fall away at higher levels and with better materia combinations. Even the limits tend to all mirror each other in damage formula.

But what about vanilla combat? Would it be a good thing of each of the characters had abilities that gave them unique strengths?

Cloud: I think its already obvious they've set the standard with Dissidia; Cloud's abilities will probably lead to quickly clearing the field, or dispersing large groups with knock-back abilities. As the main default, he also will probably continue to be broken magic wise, although I'd prefer it if they at least made him less magical than Aerith and Vincent.

Tifa: I really actually like the Feint ability that Tifa has in Dissidia, and I think it'd be a great way to screw with AI, and interrupt attacks for extra damage with a back attack.

Aerith: I get the feeling she's probably going to get bonuses to healing. I hate how much she's shoe-horned in other media to be the Mother Theresa of Final Fantasy, but if so, she could probably receive extra bonuses for white-magic. I remember they wanted to give her Geomancy in early concepts. Perhaps giving her magical bonuses based on the environment might also work?

Barret: It already seems to be confirmed, but having an machine gun means constant fire, which would be good for turning clusters of enemies into swiss cheese from a distance, similar to how Blitz works for Sahz in XIII. While others may be melee, it should be an option to choose between bursts or holding the attack button while moving to pepper the field with bullets.

Red XIII: I'm drawing a blank on how to make him unique. I half think perhaps he should have the ability to latch onto enemies, and drag them around, the way an actual predator might run down it's prey. Since AOE seems to be a potential battle mechanic, using this ability can set up attacks of opportunities for other characters.

Yuffie: Ninjitsu is an obvious go to, but there's a variety of ways this could manifest. She's not a katana user, so the classical Dual Wield isn't an option. But they could perhaps give her other abilities that Ninjas in media have: The ability to briefly vanish, climb walls, move lightning fast. She could play a very good game of evade-and-counter, using the element of distance and mobility to her advantage.

Cid: Jump should be an ability he should have by default, as a dragoon. Give it an AOE ability to keep enemies from grouping up too much. With a spear, he should also have the second best weapon reach after Cloud, or even longer if he's allowed to throw it.

Vincent: Vincent is a glass magic canon in the original, and I feel like that should carry over. Since we know cover is a thing, he should have the ability to snipe enemies for extra damage at the cost of needing to aim without interruption. Keep him out of the main fray, and use him to critical enemy parts, perhaps even with a bonus for attacking weak points as a sniper?

Cait Sith: Big plush body, and already something of a damage sink in the original. It's obvious that Cait should have the ability to soak up damage and serve as an obstacle against enemies; If he's in their charge line they're not allowed to go past him to finish an attack on other characters.

I propose Cait Sith be used like the moogle dolls in XV

My take:

Cloud: highest strenght stat with magic being among the lowest in the group (but not the weakest). Has the second fastest moves in the game after Tifa (covering this below). His gameplay style is agressive, with skills that helps in overwhelm and punish foes as fast as possible. As far as magic goes, he´s only limited to the basic levels of magic (so no -ra or -ga tier spells for him)

Tifa: Her strenght stat would be somewhere on mid end of the scale. Her magic stats would be on the middle point (she would the benchmark to separate strong magic users from weak ones), she would have up to -ra tier level spells. As martial artist she would have the fastest moves in the game, her fighting style would involve in making long combos as much as possible, the longer her combos are, the higher her dps becomes. In other worlds it Tifa´s gameplay would be something akin to Vergil in Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition.

Barret: Long range fighter with his machine guns with mid-low dps to balance out his long range attribute. Highest HP of the group and highest def stat. Low magic stat like Cloud. Barret has only buff type spells (like Protect, Haste, Shell and more).

Will write more later, maybe.

So, while having characters specialized is interesting, I'm HEAVILY against putting them into a niche that's too restrictive (e.x. restricting spell types/levels to particular characters). That's absolutely not the type of thing I want where you're essentially required to play with certain characters to play certain ways, and there are inevitable party combinations that get massively overpowered compared to others.

Weapon types, HP/MP levels, and basic abilities (and Limits) alone go a long way to making character feel and play differently enough, and FFXV is a good example of that.

FFVIIR will need to put a little bit more emphasis in who has strengths with whatever Materia & who doesn't: Aerith not having good/swift physical attacks, but being able to eke out a much bigger chunk of damage with any Magic Materia will be good despite how much MP she has compared to other characters, since you'll want to keep magic on her but also balance that with healing (sort of like how Ignis can be used in XV).

To that point, it'd be interesting if some characters have a minor advantage with different types of Materia (Support, Command, Independent, Magic, Summon, etc). that would emphasize benefits with certain characters, but nothing that would fully restrict or compartmentalize them too significantly.





X

The original game has a system that was hidden and went nearly entirely unused where weapons and enemy physical attacks were assigned an element from "Cut", "Hit", "Punch" [although it's more like Pierce], "Shoot", and "Shout". The Ziedrich does half damage from the physical elements (except Shout), and some enemies are set so certain physical elements can't miss (e.g. the crab "Ceasar" is always hit by Punch attacks), but aside from that it doesn't really see any use.

Actually utilising this system and having certain enemies be damaged more/less by different attack types would be an easy way to make characters different. No character has access to weapons of all types. And they could use the system in other ways, like having Protect Vest (Bulletproof Vest in Japanese) be more protective specifically to Shoot attacks.

Besides that, since the recent screenshots seem to suggest they're adding more character unique abilities, that's an easy way to set characters apart.

I want the breast physiques for Tifa to be given as much love and care as the ass physiques in Nier: Automata

I think the original games did follow this, but the problem was certain stats might have been higher or lower for particular characters, but it was not enough to really make much difference on the field.