An interesting story that prefaces Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is a strong game; there’s no other way of saying it. It is part of the Final Fantasy VII compilation and the prequel to Final Fantasy VII itself, centring on Zack, who is referenced several times in the original game.
The odd thing about Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is that if you’ve ever played Final Fantasy VII, you go into it knowing exactly what the ending is going to be. In a sense the ending is unimportant, though you want to see it; the game is about the journey to get to that point… and, for the most part, it’s a well-told story.
Zack is a Second Class SOLDIER in the ShinRa company, and the game largely focuses on Zack’s ShinRa assignments – with many side missions available which help give the impression that Zack has done a lot of things – with the storyline going along quite healthily too. It’s interesting to watch Zack’s character develop as more things come to light, and Zack goes from being ignorant to wishing he was ignorant. What develops is an engaging tale.
For Final Fantasy VII veterans, there are numerous character additions that may be surprising (one of whom appears in a scene from the original game, where they were not initially present). How much of a worry this is depends on how attached you are to the original canon and how much you like the new characters… personally, I quite liked Genesis and disliked Angeal, but I didn’t mind too much about their sudden addition as it was quite interesting to look at the effects this had on the story.
Despite some changes to cutscenes, though, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core references the original game a lot. This is nice at first, and largely works well, but it does get a little silly at times. (“Zack named Seventh Heaven? Oh, come on…”) It’s also nice to see some characters from the original game making appearances, some of whom are expected faces, and some that seem like odd choices but ultimately manage to feel like they work in some way. You get to seem them develop as characters, too, alongside Zack.
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core’s battle system is real-time based and you’re free to run around instead of the traditional Final Fantasy turn based combat mode. This feels fairly natural and actually works out quite well, however the DMW system can be a bit distracting at times. The DMW constantly spins in combat, and you have no effect on what it’s spinning – sometimes you’ll find yourself wasting your limit break style moves in weak random battles, and on boss fights where you could do with a hand it’s not getting any matches. The luck based element, then, can be a little irritating, especially as numerous things depend on the DMW such as Zack levelling up; you can fight many, many things and still be a very low level, or fight few and be higher levelled if you get lucky in the DMW. It’s a little bizarre.
Additionally, the DMW activating itself for a “modulating phase” has a tendency to cut off your actions… something that isn’t so annoying until you’re running low on health and desperately trying to cure only to be interrupted by the DMW. I also found the items interface a little fiddly in that I struggle with it during combat; having to run around dodging attacks while flicking through an items interface that is all in images that look the same way as opposed to words is more stressful than it needs to be. I suppose this is a limitation of the PSP console, though, given the screen size.
Missions can be argued to be repetitive (they’re all fairly similar in terms of running around fighting things in a small area), but they’re also strangely addicting; if anything, I felt missions were too free at times as I wanted to continue with the story but was constantly distracting myself with the fact that every time I completed a mission, another one opened up!
All in all though, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is a recommended purchase if you liked the Final Fantasy VII story, or even if you’re unaware of it and just like the sound of the game. It’s certainly an enjoyable game for the PSP console.
