As an epic RPG, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has a ton of fights. Sometimes the battle doesn’t go your way and it’s clear you’re headed towards a “game over” screen. But don’t worry, Rebirth has a handy feature that can reset nearly all fight sequences in the game, bringing you back to the start for a neat little redo. The only problem? The fight reset menu has some of the most confusing language in all of Rebirth. Yeah, even the ending’s easier to figure out than this.
You probably know what I’m talking about: the dreaded “Retry From This Battle” vs “Retry From Before Current Battle” confusion. Well, I don’t blame you for being perplexed—it’s a very weirdly worded feature, and should be a top-of-mind problem for Square Enix to iron out in a future patch. But until such a time comes, here’s how this feature actually works and what this screen means.
Retry From This Battle or Before Battle, Explained
In my time testing out exactly what the battle restart options do, I’ve learned that the game is not entirely consistent with how it applies each choice to various encounters. And how Rebirth defines a “Battle” doesn’t help, as it seems to use the term to refer to two or three different kinds of gameplay features.
If you’re fighting a boss and there’s a pause for a cutscene halfway through and after that cutscene you continue fighting the boss with a diminished health bar in a new combat sequence, you’ll see two options when hitting the menu button and selecting Retry Battle:
- Retry from This Battle
- Retry from Before Battle
Selecting “This Battle” will send you to the beginning of the fight, with combat engaged, meaning you’re immediately thrust into in the start of it. This is a great option if you just want to wipe the entire Battle and start from the beginning, with the intention of still fighting.
Choosing “Before Battle” will send you to the moments right before you engage in the fight, meaning you’re out of combat and must do whatever that sequence requires you to do to initiate the fight (such as walking past a certain point). You should choose “Before Battle” if you want to back out of fighting altogether to go do something else (assuming you’re not at a point in the story that doesn’t let you go out and traverse the world, such as the game’s concluding series of boss fights).
Retry from Before Current Battle, This Battle, or Before Battle, Explained
If you are fighting a boss who shifts into a new form and has an entirely new health bar, or there are waves of enemies all contained within the same fight, the Retry menu gets confusing, as you’ll now have three reset options:
- Retry from Before Current Battle
- Retry from This Battle
- Retry from Before Battle
The best example of this is the final fight of the game, so to avoid spoilers I won’t mention who you’ll fight (though you can probably guess). Let’s say you’re fighting Monster 1 in a series of battles, followed by Monster 2, then Monster 3.
Let’s say you’re fighting Monster 2 after besting Monster 1. “Retry from Before Battle” works the same as before: You’ll go back to a non-fighting part of the game. “Retry from Before Current Battle” will send you to the beginning of Monster 2’s fight sequence. Meanwhile, “Retry from This Battle” will start you at Monster 1’s fight sequence.
“Current” is a key word here. That’s referring to the current battle you’re fighting. The problem with the second option is the “This Battle” language might sound like it’s referring to the very fight you’re engaged in right now, but that’s not the case.
While I remain incredibly curious about many facets that went into Rebirth’s development, the language of the retry battle screen is probably my number one question Did this confuse people in playtests? Is this a translation issue? Are other people confused? Regardless of why this is the way that it is, just know that “Before Battle” takes you out of combat entirely, “Current Battle” resets a specific phase of combat, and “This Battle” resets the entire fight.
I wish I didn’t need to write a guide for such a thing, but here we are. Have fun!
