Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - QJ.net Review

Posted Mar 26, 2008 at 2:34PM by QJ Staff Listed in: Reviews, Titles, Games Tags: CGI, Chocobo, Kingdom Hearts, Square Enix, zack

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Before Master Chief and his brethren of first person shooter protagonists came along and stole our hearts, there was the epic RPG era. This era was started by none other than Square Enix's first foray in the world of 3D, Final Fantasy VII - a tale set in a dystopian future where magic and technology collide.

It was a very good game for its time, and now, after six not-really-sequels, a cellphone expansion, a full CGI movie that can only be described as hardcore AND a follow-up anime series, it's come back to haunt us in the form of a PSP game, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. This is our review, and we hope you like it.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Image 1

Alright. Soundtrack, visuals, gameplay. All cards on the table - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is truly a Square Enix title. Just like how Ready at Dawn's God of War: Chains of Olympus pushes the boundaries on just how good a portable game should look, hear and play like, Crisis Core looks, hears and plays like a masterpiece with a large helping of whipped cream and cherries and chocolate syrup.

The graphics are very sharp, very detailed, to the point that my saying that the in-game visuals reach almost the same amount of gobsmacking factor as the CGI sequences doesn't make me want to check myself into the loony bin. Yes, they're that good, only the in-game parts only let you play as Zack. From the ridiculous hair styles, to the armor, to the clothes, to the monsters themselves - everything is rich and vibrant in life and color.

Sonic-wise, the game also exceeds expectations. While we can all appreciate just how sweet the sound of Zack's fine weapon grinding against robotic armor or slicing into monster flesh, it's in the voice acting that Crisis Core definitely shines, and that's saying something.

From Angeal's deliberate musings to Zack's own brand of naive optimism, every line uttered in Crisis Core definitely bleeds emotion and aplomb. If you were worried about the localization being half-assed, then those worries are unjustified with this one. Even Sephiroth's voice actor manages to come across as the war-weary veteran-hero that he is, although sometimes it's hard to reconcile the Solid Snake-like voice with a svelte, silver-haired warrior in a black trenchcoat.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Image 1

So it sounds good and looks good. But does it play good? The answer is an audible, well-modulated 'yes' with no 'but' forthcoming. This is due to the fact that it puts an entirely new spin to the combat and materia system, in a way that it makes it easy for players to blast through the entire game without micromanaging everything.

You can still micromanage to squeeze every drop of damage out of your setup, of course, but having the option to blast through the game without worrying about stats or materia is quite considerate of the developers.

How does Crisis Core do this, you ask? Two ways: first is the Kingdom Hearts-esque real-time combat system. During the combat phase, your main and only character, Zack, is fully controllable inside an ample (but confined) field, with your enemies also able to move wherever they want to.

You can attack at any time, use any materia you have equipped, block incoming strikes or even roll out of the way - thus giving positioning and reflexes a lot more emphasis rather than just selecting the correct spell or move at the correct time. You depend more on Zack than you do on your materia.

The second way is through a newfangled system that adds yet another element to battle - chance - in the form of a slots-like system called the Digital Mind Wave. What it is, pretty much, is a trio of spinning reels of character portraits and numbers that govern nearly everything on your side of combat, from what sorts of random buffs you get, what Limit Break you'll pull off - it'll even decide when and where you'll level up.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Image 1

While this sounds a bit too arcane, it actually isn't - in fact, I could say that it's one of the better combat additions Square Enix has thought up. The Digital Mind Wave requires zero participation from the player - all you have to do is fight normally, and the Digital Mind Wave, depending on Zack's current state of mind, will pile on the benefits for you and make you an unstoppable killing machine.

Running out of MP? It'll buff you so that all your spells have no cost. Low on HP? Have a level up and points boost, courtesy of three smirking Angeal portraits! Have a boss battle? Wait for the DMW to do its magic, and it'll summon one of the franchise's signature beasties to come to your aid - full-blown world-destroying CGI attack animation included. It's almost unfair, and that's the second way that Crisis Core makes combat easy, even for the non-micromanager.

And FOR the micro-managing of us, yes, Crisis Core isn't going to hang you out to dry, oh no. Crisis Core introduces in the world of Materia yet another new feature: Materia fusion, where you can fuse two or more materia pieces together to form something just a tad more powerful than the original ones.

The possibilities are endless with this feature, as you can literally mix-and-match your most powerful materia to make one end-all, be-all piece of magic that scores damage in the thousands. Even the most strategy-minded of Final Fantasy players will no doubt spend long afternoons trying to figure out the best combinations.

What about the controls, then? Simple as can be. Out of combat, you use the analog nub to move Zack around, X as the overall context-sensitive button, Circle as cancel, Triangle as the menu. In combat, it's the same story - analog nub for movement, Square for dodging, Triangle for blocking, X to execute action, and the shoulder buttons to select just what action you want to perform.

The entire setup makes sure that you have everything at your fingertips, and even while playing on the commute, suffice to say that it's one that ensures you have a good grip on your handheld.

What are we forgetting here? That's right. No Final Fantasy can ever be Final Fantasy without a certain element being discussed - story. How is the story of Crisis Core, and how does it jibe with the original? How is it handled, and what's the general feel of the game?

I'll answer these questions in one fell swoop: Crisis Core's story is not something you will forget for a long, long time. The conversations between the characters, the interactions, the cutscenes, the voice-acting - all of them deliver what feels and reads as a legitimate set-up to the epic Final Fantasy VII storyline with enough aplomb that you can't help but appreciate all the hard work that's been put into it.

There's even an in-game Mail system that lets you receive correspondence from organizations and characters you meet along the way. It certainly doesn't impact the gameplay, sure, but it adds just one more layer of immersion to the already deep and layered storyline.

You feel like you're actually Zack, and Shinra has just sent you your promotional letter to SOLDIER 1st Class. It almost made this writer want to jump for joy when that particular message appeared, if the situation it was given in wasn't already distressing.

In short, it's everything you'd expect a Final Fantasy VII prequel to be.

What happens after everything's over, then, you ask? After you've finished the game - and seen Zack's untimely, yet ultimately inevitable demise - you can either opt to start the game over in Hard Mode, or New Game Plus. Usual bog standard RPG fare here - you get to keep your items, levels, materia, accessories and so on. Which is not too bad, if you want to plow through the game without having to grind.

Did we miss anything else? Well, just one more. As Crisis Core is a game on the Sony PlayStation Portable, so we have to cite how you can play it while on the go. In a rather smart move, Square Enix has compiled all the sidequests any completist would go completely nuts about into a neat, easily-selectable list that you can undertake at ANY TIME, so long as you're near a save point.

Called Side Missions, these are simple, bite-sized pieces of action that you can select, hack away at and then shut down in at the drop of a hat. And these missions aren't anything particularly hard, either - they usually involve exploring a subsection of a larger map, hunting down treasure, fighting enemies or even a boss you earlier fought against.

Not only does this break up the monotony some, but it's definitely a treat that you can easily access Crisis Core's core (no pun intended) gameplay without having to sit through long cutscenes or conversations. Thus, we commend Crisis Core on a job well done on being portable-friendly.

And now for our verdict. I was, in all honesty, dubious at first when Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII came along. No matter the series or genre, a prequel of an already-existing IP almost always never turns out the way you'd hope it to be. Crisis Core is not one of those games.

It's a whole many things - a love letter to the loyal fans of Final Fantasy VII, an obvious labor of love by the folks over at Square Enix, a tribute to one of the best RPGs to ever make it into mainstream - but most of all, it's a GOOD game that's worth your hard-earned cash and your attention.

With that, I bid you this last message: it's time to finally come back to Midgar and enjoy the memories once more, no matter how bittersweet they are. Go ahead - you've earned it.

54 Jumps Another PSP exploit found, works on firmware 6.20 and all PSP models

34 Jumps Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars announced for Autumn 2010

31 Jumps Square Enix profits up almost 50 percent, FFXIII sells 1.8M units in Japan

29 Jumps God Eater has extremely customer-friendly shops

29 Jumps Nomura to make Kingdom Hearts III a reality 'as quickly as possible'

28 Jumps Kojima: Peace Walker will retain classic MGS fun

27 Jumps PSP homebrew - PMPlayer Advance v3.0.8

24 Jumps Spike TV casting call for God of War reality show

22 Jumps PSPlayerMT For PSP - Direct AVI Player Works On All the PSP

19 Jumps Custom Firmware 5.50GEN-D3 final released

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Comments

# Good? YES! — Keith K 2008-03-26 04:00

This is the best game Square Enix has put out in a long long long time.. Since FFXII in my opinion. In many ways I'd say this game even surpasses FFXII, even visually.

SE is giving too much love to the DS when they obviously have so much potential to create absolute blockbusters on PSP.

I cant wait for Birth by Sleep!

GET THIS GAME!

# Indeed. — SomethingX 2008-03-26 04:08

I can't wait to play this game already!!!

This is one of the best, exciting game that I've been waiting for since FFXII...Though SE might as well release KH: Birth of Sleep.

# Great games this year. — Chris C 2008-03-26 04:10

I think it's safe to say the PSP is really on a roll in 2008.

I just hope Birth By Sleep doesn't take forever to get done.

# A FF7 Fan Says: Boo — Nezumi 2008-03-26 06:04

Unhappy with the game a bit here. The adding of characters to the FF7 world, while yes, it is before the actual FF7 game, yet unmentioned in FF7. Characters that important would have been known. If they had 3 high-ranking people + Zack at this point in time, having more powerful soldiers would have been in the FF7 game to counteract a lot of the issues they had, rather than just the Turks trying to. Also hitting on that point, Rude and Reno's voice actor's suck. Game control/fighting system: SUCK. I know there is a neat 'Level Up' system, but c'mon. I kept my same materia and accessories from when I hit 1st Class rank in the game, stopped caring enough to even add 3rd and 4th accessories, while finishing the game with no effort and under level 30. True, easy mode, but there would have to be an Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard Mode for me to play again from Easy onto Very Hard at the lack of gameplay needed. Now for the 'Random' Battles. They are all picked out areas, 100% avoidable. Why avoid them? Well you finish them so quickly, the game takes more load time and processing the start and end battle voices than you actually do fighting them. You don't have time for your casino leveling system to even roll around in those battles, only boss battles entertain it enough for a chance there. Even in large open areas like the fields with the chocobo farm, you can avoid all the battles just by walking in the pattern. I was not very pleased spending money on this tripe. I know Genesis is in the 'After FF7' games as well, but still doesn't change the fact that he's straight from a bad FF7 Fanfic forum. There were tons of those 'Failed Sephiroth' characters, being the other 'One-Winged Angel' with the wing on the other side, wearing all red. There were better ones with the white demon wing wearing all white that would have been a better Genesis.

# On the whole worthwhile... — NA1NSXR 2008-03-26 14:45

I was disappointed more by the lack of different equipment options, especially swords.

# Agreed — Nezumi 2008-03-26 15:25

I agree on that part as well, didn't mention it much because of the fact that they are at least keeping Zack on the track to being what he was in FF7, so he has to be stuck with the Buster Sword.

# :-) — _ME_ 2008-03-26 16:40

Ordered mine from Circuity City for $39.99 w/free shipping and $10GC (making it $29.99). BUT, it hasn't shipped. :-(

# Only FFVII fanboys can say something bad... — The Frenchman 2008-03-26 17:30

About this and Advent children.... really IMO it made FFVII a more complete story and really gave dept to Sephirot.

Dirge of Cerberus truely sucked though.

# I so far am not pleased — death69 2008-03-26 18:55

Yet I have only played this game for abotu ten minutes as the battle system is somewhat I will say change before I say crappy ...Ill have to give it more time my son loves it but he also loves Spiderman friend or foe lol

But I will play it more and give it a chance didnt like ff12 fighting at 1st either

# But- — Nezumi 2008-03-26 23:16

But you can't just add story to what was already set in place. Scene in FF7 that were changed. It'd be like if they made an Aliens 5 movie and threw in a new character, a human who was infected by the queen and following Ripley around the entire time. The whole movie just being flashback of Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection clips from that new person's PoV, yet of course not explaining how they survived many of the things.

# Masterchief? — Daedalus13 2008-03-27 00:49

Halo was NOT what started the FPS genre. Before halo, before FFVII, there was a game called DOOM. I don't know if you heard of it but look it up.

# WTF did that come from? — Nezumi 2008-03-27 01:05

Seriously? Post in the wrong area or something? What does FF7 have to do with FPS at all? You even know what the FF Series are? much less the origin of video games? I can't say for sure, but know that Doom was no where near the games that first started FPS. I may not be a FPS fan, but Wolfenstein 3D was out before that, and I used to play them back on my Atari console. Asked around and a friend has a copy of Maze War, which is considered the first. I have the Midi Maze one myself still for the Atari.

# GFX GFX and more GFX — SolidXnake 2008-03-27 01:38

FF is now about GFX and not gameplay - Nothing beats FFII, FFIII ( SNES ) and FFVII ( PSX) - After FFVII I saw a big change in gameplay since developers dedicated their time to grfx so I stop playing it. FFX looks very nice but gameplay it's kind of sucky, same applies to the rest of them after FFVI. Now I wont even look at Crisis core!

# ....AWESOME..... — org3rulz 2008-03-27 01:52

i got the game yesterday n i havent put id down!!lol. The cgi cutscenes are amazing especially the special attacks that the summons have i was too young to play the original ff7 but i think i can piece a little bit of the original story from this. I guess it was worth the w8.

p.s. Nezumi i think Daedalus13 is referring to the little para at the very top...

# Let's see...why would they change gameplay... — thefinalhero 2008-03-27 02:13

Oh yeah, because if you have more than 3 games in an RPG that are pretty much perfect clones of each other there is NO way that it will sell. You have to change things up. And Square, even though they worked more on CGI/graphic stuff they never let up on a great game ever (though personally X-2 ticks me off). Hell, the only reason Lost Odyssey isn't as critically acclaimed as it could be is because it's pretty much a perfect Final Fantasy clone, without adding much that's that revolutionary. The only games that can maintain the same gameplay all the time and still sell are FPSs.

# This game is great, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. — thefinalhero 2008-03-27 02:20

It's not perfect, it's VERY hard to make a perfect RPG, in fact I worship the Final Fantasy series, but I wouldn't call any of their games "perfect" they come milipoints for me in terms of perfect because they're that good. I love that it's real time, because turn-based with one character wouldn't be fun, DMW throws some interesting situations into battle, as explained above by NA1NSXR I'm not too happy with the lack of equipment, but everything else is great. Materia is still fun after all these years and fusions throw some more fun into the mix. Squenix still manages to impress me even now with it's amazing CGI skills. And of course, making comparisons with events from Final Fantasy VII while playing this is very enjoyable.

As far as perfect games the only game I've played that I find, "perfect" is Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare.

# True — Nezumi 2008-03-27 03:22

Agree very much so. I still give some a try, I played CC:FF7 to the end just to day I did... Also in hope it got better.

# Ah... — Nezumi 2008-03-27 03:26

I feel a bit dumb now on that, can't delete... well guess it can stand to show that there is even older proof.

# ok look — Daedalus13 2008-03-27 06:53

Before thinking you have the internet and everyone on it figured out, I suggest you take a look on my FF collection @ http://igorbov.com/pix/clue.jpg

Pardon me for the crappy jpg quality but I'm sure that gets the point across just fine. I do have to point out that it's only missing 2 Final Fantasies.. Origins and XII, which I do have but my brother is playing my FFXII collector's edition copy with a bonus DVD and metal casing. I also possess the FFXII limited CE guide book with an additional FFXII artbook of summons, characters, air ships, weapons and just about everything. At any rate, I'm a little disappointed by FFXII to say the truth, it didn't manage to keep me into it's world like the other FFs did. In my opinion FFs started to go downhill after FFIX.

The loss of a world map that you could explore just makes those Final Fantasy worlds linear and limited. You don't have the sense of exploration that you used to have in the former FF titles.

Take FFVIII for example, this was my first FF and probably my favorite. I loved the story, the characters, the battle system(junction + most complex and wicked battle system ever IMO). What else was so wonderful about this game? Well first of all the fact that you could run around the world map and get all sorts of cool GFs, items, weapons etc. Same goes for FFVII, and especially for FFIX with the whole chocographs quests and different chocobos.... man that was awesome.

Now I didnt play DoC so I won't comment, but CC FF7 gave me that awesome good old Final Fantasy feel, That's why I must agree that it's a good game. A 9/10 from me. Only thing it could use to be more awesome is a world map like FF7 did, then it would totally pwn.

But whats funny is that while you tried to be an ***** to me you've actually managed to reinforce my point. I can't help but disagree when people say that HALO was the game that pioneered the FPS series. You know why?? because games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on the N64 set a whole new standard for FPS games on consoles, and that was back in 1997.

So that's why I dislike when HALO fanboys kiss halo's ass so much and claim it as something special, when YEARS before it has been done AND better. I played and finished Halo, but not for the sake of the story or because the game was awesome, but to move on and play Halo 2. Which I found also a pretty disappointing game, althought slightly better than the first. The word I'm looking for is GENERIC. A copy of a copy, of a copy with faded out properties.

Please retort.

# Yes they all change.. — SolidXnake 2008-03-27 07:01

What I meant to say is that since developers are more worry about gfx they forget the gameplay and story of the game has to at least match or surpass the previous versions of the game - up until this day I had played for a few hours almost every FF game and still not found a good story - I guess for gamers that have not play the originals this does not matter. And even if you played the original you wont find it well crafted because of the gfx - it goes both ways! Now you have to give to Square Enix for the graphics is very impressive!

# re: ok look — Nezumi 2008-03-27 07:02

I apologize completely, misread your post while not considering the original text of the site. I do agree that Halo isn't the best of games, refused to bring my copy of the first Halo, and didn't bother buying the second, when I moved.

As for the FF series, I won't say I like FFVIII, but I have found people who like FFVIII a lot have usually played it as their first FF game. However, they usually hate all the older ones as well. I did enjoy FFIX myself, but the later ones, no.

# Response to your comment, Daedalus13 — Guest 2008-03-27 11:17

Daedalus13, when I mentioned Master Chief, I was talking about how Halo kicked-started the console videogaming scene into the FPS era. I didn't necessarily mean that it was the best. :) And yes, I'm old enough to know what Doom is. Gotta love the chainsaw!

If you'll also look at their respective Wikipedia pages, Final Fantasy VII came way, way later than Doom, and Final Fantasy RPGs were pretty big back then. Halo: Combat Evolved came last, and I mentioned it as the game that started off the current trend of FPS games booming on the console market.

As such, though, let's all just enjoy the games for what they are, and as they were meant to be enjoyed, okay?

# I NEED HELP!!! — enigmaticdude 2008-03-27 11:39

Ok for some reason, when I save in Crisis Core, my save file keeps corrupting no matter what i do. I I tested both of my memory sticks a 256MB and a 2GB, and none of them save my game correctly. Can someone please help me?

# Original UMD? — Nezumi 2008-03-27 13:34

Original or ISO? Firmware ver.? And did you try re-formatting your stick.

# ok — enigmaticdude 2008-03-27 14:20

It is the original US version.

My Firmware is 3.80 M33-5

And I already tried reformatting my memory stick.

# umm.. — kevin1003 2008-03-27 15:56

this game needs 3.90 firmware at least so upgrade to 3.90 m33-2

# no — enigmaticdude 2008-03-27 16:50

It says so right on the UMD that it needs firmware 3.73 so there is no point to upgrade.

# 3.80 you say... — Nezumi 2008-03-28 00:58

I had a lot of problems with 3.80 M33-X series, would suggest downgrading to 3.71 M33-4. Many of my UMDs didn't work and I almost fought trying to return them.

# .... — rhythm07 2008-03-28 04:14

i guess i liked this game but i like ffx and ffxII...

but i didn't like the part that you can't seem to see any changes on weapons and armors and stuff unlike in other ff versions... but i guess it's ok... hope there'll be more newer ff versions on psp... that'll tight,,, hehe^_^

# hmm — kevin1003 2008-03-28 10:00

its probably your psp. try reinstalling 3.80 m33-5 with pandoras battery

# Plug ins — Mar!! 2008-03-29 13:34

I had the same problem. I tried it on my 4gb and my 2gb and i couldnt run the cso or iso. So I updated to 3.80 m334 still nothing. Then I finaly realized that the problem was the Plug ins the whole time. Try loading it with no plug ins enabled it worked for me on 3.71 m334

# This game sounds awesome... — Metal Jody 2008-04-06 06:51

but would it still be great to play for someone who doesn't like to play RPGs??

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