Sunday.May.04.2008

REVIEW: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP)

By Marcus Beasley

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII along with Before Crisis, Dirge of Cirberus and Advent Children. Crisis Core provides a good amount of fan service and decent enough gameplay to actually entertain its main audience: die hard Final Fantasy VII fanboys (me). But I’m not sure if anybody outside of that demographic would actually like it.

Like a lot of people Final Fantasy VII ushered me into the realm of the Japanese RPG, which is a genre that you won’t see me criticize. It’s not because of blindness to its flaws, but out of respect and plain nostalgia. I remember the hundreds of hours spent playing Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX and X. Now it has gotten to the point where I actually took the time out to experience the past of Final Fantasy by playing VI (One day I’ll get to IV, V and Chrono Trigger). If anybody is wondering why I don’t just dive into the review it’s because I’m letting you know the stance that I take on JRPG’s, I like them…a lot and that the review is coming from somebody that respects the genre. It’s also because the fact that I’m not going to give this some sky-high score (it’s not a 9). Because while I enjoyed the game for the most part, it does have some problems.

Story:

You take the role of Zack Fair during his rise to Soldier First Class in the Shinra organization. During this time he starts off as a Second Class and you see him take part in his first mission. Which leads him to a nice little train ride that pays an action packed homage to the original Final Fantasy VII. This is when you realize that Zack is a lot different from your usual brooding Final Fantasy character. Zack is confident but later in the game you see him being uncertain as to what is going to happen next as the world around him slowly crumbles.

Zack isn’t alone in his missions. He is mentored by Angeal (Buster Sword owner #1): one of the highly respected members of Soldier along with Sephiroth. Eventually there is a revolt amongst Shinra, leading Angeal and friend Genesis to defect from Soldier. Genesis is another respected member of Soldier. He’s the more charismatic and poetic soldier member. A large chunk of the story revolves around him and his plight. What I found interesting about him is that he tends to quote the play called “Loveless,” which was briefly mentioned in FFVII. He’ll use it as a way to contrast and explain several parts of the main story.

Though I wish some parts of the beginning were told better or had a better sense of drama you eventually get your dramatic pay offs. And this is when you get to Nibelheim. Anybody that has slogged through FFVII knows that some serious events happen then and it is told rather well. After you finish the Nibelheim segment the game does a 180 and is no longer as light hearted. Even the music takes a more somber tone and as you root for Zack you eventually realize that your rooting is fruitless.

Aside from this you also find out how Zack met Aerith/Aeris and how he met Cloud as well. At first I thought Zack was too optimistic, but certain events happened and you can see why Cloud modeled some of his personality after him. Zack’s a hero tried and true and eventually you sympathize with him. You sympathize with a lot of the characters actually. You see a pre-insane Sephiroth and you can see that he has a sense of honor and respect and even dare I say friends. They show you what the Turks used to be like (for the first half of the game they seem to be a lot less evil in Crisis Core) and other things as well.

Ultimately I already know what happens to 80% of the cast and it felt kind of morbid. It would be like stepping into the portal of Being John Malkovitch, but the hole transports you into the head of River Phoenix on his last day alive.

Gameplay:

Crisis Core plays out like Kingdom Hearts and by that I mean you’re mashing down on the X button, dodging and blocking. Now I don’t block a lot in the game, I mostly just dodge or take the hit and then cure if it gets too bad. One thing I did notice is that positioning in the game matters. The moment a battle starts, you’ll find yourself racing towards the back of your enemy so you can do more damage to them. Also you will try to get as many enemies as you can within your hit radius so you can hit them at the same time. To throw some variety into the all too repetitive battles they employ something called the Digital Mind Wave (DMW). The DMW is like a rotating slot (resembles Setzers Slot mechanic from VI). Each character has their own icon and if the first and the third slots are occupied by the same character it goes into a mini-game requiring you to match the middle one. At times memories of the chosen character are infused and I have no clue what this does. Every character on the DMW allows for a specific limit break to be pulled off.

When I first read about this some time ago I was like “What the hell? It makes no sense.” Now I find myself torn. What I don’t like is that it makes certain things (especially boss battles) really unpredictable. There’s this one boss that I fought at least eight times because I couldn’t always get the appropriate DMW determined limit break to do enough damage on him. Normally I wouldn’t get too discouraged by this because I would just resort to the tried and true tactic of level grinding (works in Lost Odyssey). But the problem with this is that you don’t acquire experience points. Leveling up is determined by the DMW as well. It’s not like you won’t level up, but you have no real control over it, not only that you don’t feel like you’re being rewarded for winning a battle, which is what most RPG’s are supposed to do. I also don’t like how summons are handled, because after you get the materia for them actually being able to employ it in battle is left up to the laws of chaos. Because first you have to get a DMW reel and then you have to hope that you get access to the very specific Summon reel. When you only have one summon the odds of getting it are rare and your chances don’t increase until you get more of them. Aside from taking some things out of the hands of the player it does a really good job of mixing up the flow of combat.

Well to address the leveling situation; you will level up. There were actually a couple of situations where I leveled up two times in a row, which is good and you feel like you can take on the next boss or wave of enemies with confidence. Materia also levels up as well and you can fuse it to get different forms of materia. If I were you I would scour the net for guide so you can find out what the best combinations are so you don’t waste any materia, but the other option to obtain materia is partaking in missions. These can be accessed by going into the menu at save points. Though every mission I play just winds up being a kill the monster type deal you at least get rewarded decently. Sometimes you will get an item, but other times you will get a new materia or summon.

They still use random encounters and there are times where it really just gets irritating, especially when you take three steps or even half a step away from your last battle and then you’re immediately thrown into another one. On Normal the game is a breeze with the occasional hard boss. There’s a mode called Brutal, but I wouldn’t touch that one unless you’re on playthrough #2 with a supped up character or you just have a set of big brass ones.

The combat is rather repetitive, but the DMW gives it a good breath of fresh air. It’s definitely not a ground-breaking title, but I can think of many worse ways to spend my commute time.

Graphics:

This is a really nice looking game. Aerith/Aeris has a beautiful looking character model as well and you finally get to see Tifa and her cowboy suit in all of its glory. The CGI cutscenes are breathtaking and you get a more updated look at Sephiroth’s introductory scene (yes it’s still bad ass). The in game graphics are almost on par with some PS 2 games and further prove that Square can be technical power houses when they put their mind to it.

Sound:

Since Nobuo Uematsu left it seems like Square-Enix is having a hard time finding somebody to fill his gigantic shoes. Takeharu Ishimoto does a decent job using remixed versions of the original soundtrack and creating original pieces. The music does a good job of capturing the mood of the game. In the beginning the music is a little light hearted and optimistic, but towards the ending the music is really somber and has a sense of desperation and grief to it. The remixed originals are actually pretty good, with my favorite one being the remixed Nibelheim track. Regarding the battle music it has some kind of grunge metal vibe with crunching guitars and thumping bass. It’s pretty un-Final Fantasy and more Devil May Cry in some regards.

The voice acting is pretty good. The most notably approved voice is of Aerith, whom is voiced by Andrea Bowen. She does a good job of bringing Aerith to life because she sounded dull and dead ( I guess appropriately so) in Advent Children. At times Aerith can sound sweet and caring and makes knowing her fate all the more painful. As for the most bland voice goes to Angeal voiced by Josh Gilman. Angeal sounds like a cardboard stand in. Other than that it’s a good listen. It would’ve been nice if you had the option of Japanese dubs and English subs, but there’s only so much you can fit on a UMD.

Replay:

Well when you beat the game you can start over in a New Game plus file keeping your equipment, level and materia. You can try to collect all of the magic and summon spells and complete all of the missions if you wish.

Overall:

Crisis Core is one of those games that I have waited a good amount of time for. Though it didn’t quite live up to the hype it didn’t make me want to put the game down. At first some things bugged me, but over time I just stopped caring and got absorbed into the story. If you didn’t play through Final Fantasy VII there’s a good chance that you won’t catch some of the nuances. Action game wise it’s pretty entertaining and something that hardcore fans must play. There are some that might feel let down by it, but I for the most part wasn’t one of them. Now the only thing for Squeenix to do is get started on that long rumored guaranteed cash cow know as the Final Fantasy VII Remake.

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