My review of Crisis Core

April 3, 2008, 9:21 PM

Crisis Core begins in the Training room with SOLDIER First Class Angeal and SOLDIER second class, Zack. Zack plays the main character of Crisis Core, and Crisis Core is the prequel to the 1997 hit, Final Fantasy VII. Though Zack's fate is predetermined, a few times when you think you've reached the end of the game, you may be surprised you've got a bit longer to play.

With the creation of Crisis Core and the development team deciding that only one character was going to be playable throughout the entire game, they came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to break away from the Traditional ATB gauge Final Fantasy has been using for years.

The game features real time action combat, with a different battle system, and the addition of A new way to level up and execute limit breaks called the DMW. (Digital Mind Wave.) The DMW is not completely random, but can be nerve racking at times when you think you're going to have it match up just as you'd like it to.

The battle system is very similar to Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts series' battle system. The only minor differences are that commands are changed with L and R, and that you have three status bars, consisting of HP (Your life energy), MP (necessary for casting magic) and AP(this allows you to use command materia.), and the DMW.

While playing this game that just barely fits in the UMD's filesize by two bytes, you get to listen to quite a few songs, and view quite a few In-game Cinematic Sequnces. But just like most PSP games, the beginning is enjoyable, but the appeal drops somewhere in about the next few hours of gameplay. Though Crisis Core did have a small issue with this, the appeal to the game drops slowly.

Replay value is one of the things that ruins the appeal to the game. If you play the game on hard mode and beat it, that's really it. There's not much left to accomplish. The story is quite short, so it's disappointing that after you beat the game and have a game clear status, and restart the game, all your stats (HP, MP, AP, SP, ATK, VIT, SPR, MAG, Level, etc...) and materia are given back to you.

The soundtrack is mostly composed of Rock-ish genre. So if you loved Advent Children's rendition of One winged angel, your ears will probably orgasm while listening to Crisis Core's OST. While the soundtrack is mostly composed of Rock, there are a few Orchestral pieces, such as another One winged Angel rendition as well as a Rendition of the music that plays while bombing the mako reactor in the original Final Fantasy VII.

Since the story is so short, there are missions to engross the player. So if you're expecting a long story, you'll be disappointed, opposed to whereas if you're playing for the game itself, you'll be much more pleased. Completing missions are how you obtain rare items and get a lot of useful items. There IS the occasional rare item in area maps, but that's a very scarce occasion.

The equipment system consists of six materia slots and four equipment slots. In the beginning, you only have four materia slots and two equipment slots. To gain more slots, you must progress in the story and complete missions.

Crisis Core also introduces Matera Fusion. This feature lets you customize and create new materia, or combine materia with items to make it stronger. Fusion with items can only be completed once you've obtained the Item Fusion Tome, though.

It may seem as a bit of a laughing matter... but while playing the game, Zack recieves emails on his phone from friends.... and mysterious 'ninjas', if you catch my drift. Usually these emails are completely useless, but some of them trigger the activation of access to missions.

While this game has no Inn or area to sleep in which is somewhat disappointing, you will be able to buy items from wherever you are. All you have to do is access the menu, select 'shops' and away you go to burn your money on Potions, remedies, soma, ether, materia, ect... While completing missions, you may recieve address cards to shops as a reward, or find them in treasure chests.

Overall, Crisis Core is a great game for the PSP. Seeing Final Fantasy VII's landscape recreated is breathtaking, and absolutely beautiful. It's just really disappointing that you couldn't explore much more and visit locations from FFVII, as it would have definitely made it worth buying as a PSP game.

Feel free to point out anything I've missed/looks funky.

April 3, 2008, 9:27 PM

For the most part I actually do agree with you. For a PSP game, it's simply amazing. I was however, a bit disappointed when I saw the graphics were about the same between FFVII and C:C.

It did take me a bit to get used to the "360 fighting style" (like in FFXII) but it was easy to adapt to.

I would say the only thing that bothered me about this game was the DMW wheel. There is a wheel in the top left hand corner, like a slow machine, and whenever something matches up, it spins and depending on what you get, you can launch special moves, level, up, summon, ect...

April 5, 2008, 8:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by data

For the most part I actually do agree with you. For a PSP game, it's simply amazing. I was however, a bit disappointed when I saw the graphics were about the same between FFVII and C:C.

It did take me a bit to get used to the "360 fighting style" (like in FFXII) but it was easy to adapt to.

I would say the only thing that bothered me about this game was the DMW wheel. There is a wheel in the top left hand corner, like a slow machine, and whenever something matches up, it spins and depending on what you get, you can launch special moves, level, up, summon, ect...

But the emotional payoff that the DMW offers at the end of the game makes it more than worth it. That sequence was so emotionally staggering.

April 8, 2008, 5:05 PM

dude how do you figure that it had the same graphics as vii? and i say its way better than xii hands down, i love this game so far and i hope they can crank out more games like this

April 10, 2008, 2:34 AM

"While playing this game that just barely fits in the UMD's filesize by two bytes, you get to listen to quite a few songs, and view quite a few In-game Cinematic Sequnces."

And almost each byte is worth it, well, maybe only except parts of the summon sequences, XD...

Overall the game is interesting and long enough if you complete most/all missions, but then the story itself turns too easy, and gets boring, :S

April 17, 2008, 3:18 PM

I can agree with what has been said to a point. I felt CC was a great game with the storyline that I have been dying to see since I first heard of it in the making. My only drawbacks was the main story being short

, The complete RANDOMNESS of the DMW. Though sometimes its works in my favor I have crapped out at the wheel way too much.

In conclusion I hated the part when you had to drag Cloud around at the end. I just knew that "THE END WAS NEAR!!" and I was sad...

But all in all a great game that totally rocked my PSP!!

June 24, 2008, 9:24 AM

The biggest disappointment that I can lay at the game is that it is essentially one big teaser to a Final Fantasy VII remake. From glimpses of recreated locations from the original game (and a lot that you were restricted from), to character appearances, to a much decent materia system inclusion than DoC, to the excellent new character development for all parties involved ... just one big tease. The lack of movement and being able to go around the world hurt, as you wanted to see more, wanted that freedom. The battle system itself is engaging enough, however, they should have had Limit Breaks be personally activated. Further to this, the game should have been much much harder.

The story is excellent, and like I mentioned, the development of the characters (both new and old) was superb, shedding new light on various instances. The ending, and all it's lead up, was amazing to play.

So yeah, on the whole, a great game, but in the end, a finally decent reason for the Final Fantasy VII Compilation, and certainly doing it's job in leaving you wanting the full VII experience...

August 14, 2008, 10:52 PM

I'm assuming we're all meant to post reviews about Crisis Core, here.

Ahh, I wonder where to begin. The opening sequence was brilliant, particularly due to the inclusion of revamped versions of The Bombing Mission and Those Who Fight Further, which immediately hits you with a wave of nostalgia. Cheese-factors aside, I was smiling all the way through the beginning of the game. The entire soundtrack is just amazing and the best part of it is definitely hearing the old, popular pieces of music being modernised, such as 'The Mako Controlled Organization' [Shinra's Theme], 'A Flower Blooming in the Slums' [Aerith's theme], 'The World's Enemy' [One-Winged Angel] and 'The Summoned' [Those Who Fight Further]. It made me feel welcome into the game straight away.

In reference to the post above, which covers the lack of freedom between areas, I wasn't too bothered by that - essentially, this story has already been told; we're only re-living it. On the topic of areas and places, it was a great feeling to say - hey, I know which way to go!

The graphics ... bloody hell, I had to look twice during some scenes and consider whether or not we were watching real people. The only comment I could possibly make on this is how Sephiroth's hair during in-game scenes was more of a giant lump, as opposed to everyone else. The CGI cutscenes made up for this, however.

The characters, now. I wont say too much on Angeal and Genesis, since I intend on making a separate thread on discussing them. However, I have nothing but praise towards everyone else. Nothing was changed or otherwise basterdised - if anything, past thoughts on characters were amplified. We see Zack as a completely genuine guy - there's nothing you could fault about him. We see clearly, for the first time, just how pathetic Cloud actually was, as opposed to hearing his self-deprication throughout the original game. Sephiroth was probably the most interesting, however, and not because I've been reverted back to a fanboy. I've discussed this with a few people and we firmly agree on how amazing it was to see Sephiroth in such a different light - he's being depicted as evil to the core and it's being forgotten that he used to be a regular man. Cloud's flashbacks never really painted a clear picture of Sephiroth before the Nibelheim incident but Crisis Core clearly showed how Sephiroth was nothing but a genuine guy, who was polite and friendly - he just happened to be the best of the best. It was amazing to see his personality flip so drastically after the Nibelheim incident - it's astounding to see what a voice actor can do to a scene.
The only criticism I have on any of the characters is how USELESS Hollander was. He was added in for the sake of being there - it would've made sense, 100%, to say that Hojo was the scientist involved in Project G.

And so I come to the actual story - it was top notch. I still don't fully understand the whole relationship between Genesis, Angeal and Project G, nor any of the degredation, but as I say, I'll leave that for another thread. It was great to see so much of the story we've had to image actually come to life infront of us, such as the Wutai war and Zack's relationship with Aerith. Personally, I was on the edge of my seat throughout this entire game.

The battle system was impressive - the only thing I felt was missing was jumping [and not the actual ability, I mean the command, as in Kingdom Hearts, for example]. Abolishing the ATB was the best direction to take for a Final Fantasy battle system. I didn't particularly use Materia Fusion, nor any other kind of materia, save for healing and support [i.e. barrier]. I didn't use it much in the original game, either, so I'm not too bothered about that. Besides, it took forever to level things up by relying on the DMW.

As for said DMW, I thought it was epic. I never tend to use any gamblers in any of the FF games but the DMW made it a necessity and I loved the unpredictability of it - it might've been a different story if there were negative effects from using it, though. I wasn't much impressed by the fact that you could only see certain scenes through the DMW - wtf's the point in that?
I was maybe just overlevelled [and, jesus, I was overlevelled], but I felt that Summons were a waste of time and effort to acquire because the strongest attacks were only doing a percentage of my physical attacks, and they took forever to execute. I know I could press circle but it was still annoying to think that I missed a chance to use Octoslash when a Summon was forced upon me and ended up doing shit damage. The randomness of being able to use the Summons or any other DMW's was a bit irritating but I suppose it added to that unpredictability.

Receiving mail annoyed me. I felt that I was pressurised into reading mail because it was mentioned that I should check it immediately for important letters ... but all it did was summarise what people were speculating - I'm on about the news reporter, the fanclubs and ... come to think of it, even mail from Lazard only made me think ... I ALREADY KNOW THAT.

I can't actually think of much else to say other than how ridiculous it was to expect a player to do 300 missions before reaching the one and only secret boss of the game. That pecked my head in, it did.

Overall, though, it was a bloody worthwhile game and I'd definitely say it has the replayability factor.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention one thing about the Nibelheim incident. It left me feeling ... deflated, for some reason - as if it skipped the excitement to rush into a fight that never existed, anyway. Adding Genesis into the Mako Reactor ticked me right off because that just DIDN'T happen. Also, I noticed that the scene where you go into the Shinra Mansion and find Sephiroth spouting off his new knowledge was omitted from the game - Zack just narrated from the Inn. His coming out of the mansion was imperative in proving Cloud's memories to be illusionary and so I think that contributed to the lack of excitement. You're supposed to follow Sephiroth outside but, instead, you just appear outside anyway, and the burning town is a bit anti-climactic.

The battle with Sephiroth was far too easy, imo. I don't think I was too overlevelled by this point but Sephiroth just didn't DO anything in my battle. I was expecting him to be more dynamic when he was fighting, taking the battle from KH2 as my source. Again, I was left feeling a bit deflated.

EDIT II:
Similarly, the ending wasn't as epic as I thought it'd be, for two main reasons - 1) we should never have been forced to take part in those un-winnable/losable fights. The just detracted away from Zack's mortality and the end became a chore before it became emotional, for me. Also, being lifted up to heaven? Nahh, sorry, leaving him dead on the mountain would've done more for me tbh. >__<