Final Fantasy VII Rebirth takes everything that made Remake’s combat system great, and turns it up to eleven to make each enemy encounter fun and engaging.
Unfortunately, one of the best mechanics of the series’ combat system, the Shortcut system, did not get any evident improvement, as each character can only assign four different actions to be performed on the fly without opening up the Commands Menu. There’s a way buried in the Options menu, however, that allows you to expand the Shortcut Options, improving the combat experience considerably in the process.
How to Expand Shortcut Options in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
To expand shortcut options to a total of twelve, you need to enter the Options menu, select Gameplay, and then change the Issuing Commands option from Commands Menu to Commands Shortcuts. With this option, you can hold the L1 button and then either the R2 or L2 buttons to access the Shortcuts of the party members you are not controlling. By enabling this option, the combat system becomes even more action-focused, as you do not need to enter the Commands Menu, and thus slow time to a crawl, or switch characters to use certain abilities.
While this Final Fantasy VII Rebirth option may not sound like much, its many applications improve the combat experience considerably. For starters, you can command any character to use any ability while your controlled character is performing one of their own, thus allowing you to perform combos without switching characters or slow down combat by opening the Commands Menu. You can also command characters with the ATB Boost Materia to use the ability without switching to them, or you can command them to use any ability while performing a Synergy Ability.
While having all of the party members Shortcut options available at all times doesn’t allow you to do anything that is impossible otherwise, it really improves the flow of combat. Used in conjunction with other Materia that let characters use their unique abilities on their own, such as Barret’s Overcharge or Yuffie’s Thrown, the expanded Shortcut options allow you to focus on using a single character without missing out on damage, Synergy Ability charges and so on.
