Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - 3D Brawler Sephiroth (Pauseless)
0Disliked this minigame at first because its tutorial is awful imho leaving a lot unexplained (that should be communicated better to the player; for example, visual cues in the tutorial for dodging would’ve been nice). I was one of the many that didn’t get that both sticks were used at first. However, it’s simple but has some intricacies that reward player knowledge, and made this fight enjoyable to me.
My understanding (w/o looking things up):
If you press in the wrong direction on either stick for an attack, you’ll eat the hit generally. If you press in the right direction but mistime it, you’ll block, which raises the opponents limit gauge but to a lesser extent than a miss. Finally, pressing in the proper direction with correct timing fully avoids the attack.
As for specials, if you guard or miss on any attack, the special will end prematurely leaving you no opportunity to attack. On the other hand, if you make it through the entirety of the special, you’ll be granted a free attack at the end. These constitute the bulk of attacks you get on Sephiroth. You can occasionally get them otherwise (unsure exactly how it’s determined, but perhaps it is a certain threshold on a counter of dodged/blocked attacks or even just raw # of attacks), but it’s rare in this fight. In the non-special vulnerable states, it seems you want to attack from the side that their arm is lower.
Specials are telegraphed, however. Below are a list that I wrote down while testing around (and all appear in the video):
R⬆️,L⬅️,R➡️,L⬆️,R⬇️
L⬇️,R➡️,L⬆️
L⬅️,L⬅️,R⬆️,L⬇️
R⬆️,L⬅️,R➡️,L⬆️,L⬆️,L⬇️
These seem to go in order as the opponent’s limit gauge fills (with top being the first special thrown out, and bottom being the last special thrown out).
Audio cues kind of help in this fight, but not much. Sephiroth does have distinct soundbites for uppercuts, swipes, and downward punches, but half of the time Sephiroth is silent. I found Sephiroth to have one of the better sets of animations to differentiate visually, though.