What does it take to impress a Final Fantasy fan? For over a
decade, Square Enix chose not to revisit Final Fantasy VII. When they did, Advent Children got mixed reviews and
almost everyone agreed that Dirge of Cerberus got sticky vanilla all over the
place. Crisis Core, the prequel to Final Fantasy VII and the series’ second PSP
venture (Advent Children also had a
UMD form), is the next attempt. It is a third-person RPG that shares a lot of
mechanics from other similar games.
Still, Crisis Core has been bombarded with equal skepticism
and hype. Final Fantasy fans have been looking forward to living the story
before Cloud met Aeris, before Sephiroth started taking over the world, and all
hell broke loose. This is definitely addressed, so anyone hoping to learn more
about the world of Final Fantasy VII will be satisfied.
Background story is hardly a reason to justify purchasing a
$40 game, though. Crisis Core utilizes a unique but strange gameplay concept
that not everyone will receive nicely, but overall, it works. It is a game
built effectively around the idea of being portable, handheld, and random—due
to simple and quick missions, smooth transitions between exploration and
combat, and a general addictive quality, Crisis Core is a lot of fun to take
with you on-the-go.
Grab your buster sword; it’s time to visit Midgar.
If you didn’t already know, the story of Crisis Core focuses
not on Cloud, Final Fantasy VII’s protagonist, but Zack Fair. Zack becomes a
SOLDIER operative after leaving his home in Gongaga, a story most Final Fantasy
VII players are already familiar with. He campaigns with SOLDIER alongside
Angeal and Sephiroth, going about the Shinra Corporation’s bidding without
questioning his loyalty. Eventually he meets Aerith (that is her actual name,
look it up and get over it, purists), runs around familiar FFVII locations like
Sector 5 (the slum market), and goes up against a crazy rogue named Genesis. It
is definitely cool to see characters like Professor Hojo, Tseng, and Rude
again. Jenova makes an appearance, too. There also isn’t a shortage of Bahamut,
which is a treat.
The combat system (cleverly titled “Combat Mode”) works well
and is simple to use. Zack is controlled with the direction buttons or the
analog nub, and his movement feels similar to Sora’s in Kingdom Hearts. He
cannot jump or fly, though, so ditch those high hopes. He can kick a lot of ass
with just the X button, though—and unless you are selecting a different attack
or an item, X is the only button absolutely necessary to get through the game.
Commands are chosen actively, and fighting feels quite like a mix between Final
Fantasy XII, Knights of the Old Republic, and Kingdom Hearts.
The most unique aspect of the game is the DMW slot reel,
which passively spins in the background while Zack battles. Generally, the reel
will randomly align and form a certain combination of numbers that gives Zack a
temporary status effect in battle—invincibility, infinite MP, all-critical
hits, etc. Sometimes the character portraits on the reel will match on the left
and right reels, and when that happens, Zack enters a “Modulating Phase”. The
purpose of the Modulating Phase is always to level up Zack or use a Limit
Break—when certain pairs of numbers pop up, a certain Materia equipped to Zack
will level up. With a combination of 777, Zack levels up. When the pictures
match up, Zack performs the Limit Break. This system is very random, and it
definitely feels like it. Sometimes Zack will grow two or three levels in just
a few battles, and other times it will take hours of clearing missions before
you get a Modulating Phase and Lucky 7’s.
If the Aeris picture was a Cloud one, Zack would enter a Modulating Phase.
There are other perks to the DMW, like the random activation
of summons that you have collected throughout the storyline. Each of the
familiar beasts, like Bahamut, Odin, Tonberry, Ifrit, and Cactaur all perform a
special Limit Break. Usually these are joined with a beautiful CG cinematic
that leads to the battle screen being filled with explosions and pain. My
favorite summon, surprisingly, was the Moogle one—whenever you activate the
Moogle, all of your equipped Materia are fully mastered and receive awesome
stat boosts.
I guess this would be the perfect time to follow up and talk
about the Materia. Crisis Core does Materia differently than Final Fantasy VII.
The magic orbs can be equipped to Zack—four initially, and eventually six—and
they not only allow him to cast magic, support abilities, or increase stats,
but they also have stat bonuses attached to them. Whenever the Materia levels
up randomly in a Modulating Phase, it levels up the stats of the Materia
similar to when Zack levels up. This is
important in Materia Fusion.
Materia can be “breeded” with the Materia Fusion system,
which is simple but very effective to use. If you combine different kinds of
Materia together, you end up with a new Materia. It is simple, but furthermore,
the stat bonuses attached to the Materia can change and grow. Forming the
perfect Materias suited to your battle style is a strategic and fun way to
deepen the game exponentially. With some work, I had an HP-Up++ Materia that
gave Zack 300% more HP whenever he equipped it. This made him quite a tank
alongside a mastered Attack-Up Materia that also made him quite a killer. Zack
can also equip items and accessories that make him stronger, and with all of
these, there is a huge amount of flexibility in the way you fight everything.
It would not be worth all of the effort to level up Materia
and customize Zack if the Missions were no fun, and fortunately, most of them
are. They are simple go-and-attack missions where Zack is deployed in a small
area and given an infinite amount of time to run around, kill enemies, and
collect whatever items can be found before fighting the only on-screen enemy
and finishing the stage. They are all
performed like this with no exceptions. Some of the on-screen enemies appear
very close to the start of the mission, so some missions can be completed in
less than a minute or two. Normally I would consider this a serious fault, but
Crisis Core is benefitted by the fact that it is a handheld game. Handheld
games are allowed to have short, quick bursts of fun. Although the missions
become very repetitive to see—eventually there are heavily-repeated
environments and enemies—they are rewarding. What is so bad about a handheld
game that allows you to pick it up, play it for ten minutes, and put it down
feeling like you accomplished something?
There is a lot of time spent fighting against Wutai.
Crisis Core also happens to be one of the most jaw-dropping,
beautiful handheld games I have ever seen in my life. The Kingdom Hearts art
style is great, and the character models look like they could have walked out
of Kingdom Hearts 2. The environments are detailed very well, and Midgar is
restored well in 3D—the park in the slums, Hojo’s laboratory, and the cell
block in the Shinra Building are all familiar locations. In battle, combat is
animated very smoothly—attacks like Jump, Assault Twister, and any of the
elemental-Blade attacks are very helpful, and look great. Attack spells are
also beautiful; why is it that the people who make Final Fantasies are the only
people who know how to make attack spells look interesting? Seriously, even
next-generation RPGs on the Xbox 360 fail to look as impressive with their
spell effects as Crisis Core. Don’t even make me talk about the CG sequences,
which sometimes even put Advent Children
back in its place, in 2006.
Okay, I'll admit, he's really only here before he's awesome.
Unfortunately, not everything is perfect. Even though there
is a LOT to do in Crisis Core, the actual storyline accounts for only a small
percentage of the game. The slightly-repetitive missions, then, make up most of
the experience. Playing through Crisis Core feels a lot like playing through
Oblivion in the way that the only reason you really keep playing is because you
want to keep feeling more and more powerful, earning more items and abilities
that become increasingly useless as you grow into a behemoth on the
battlefield. Not the real purple behemoth with the gold mane, just a figurative
one.
So, the final verdict is this: Final Fantasy VII
fans might want to watch out for the combat system, which is far from a
throwback to FFVII. Once that has been addressed, it is hard not to feel loved
by Square Enix when you are wrapped up in all of the fan-pleasing crap you
could possibly stomach. It is just too bad the bastards made us wait so long to
play the game, because it would have been even easier to overlook the flaws and
enjoy all of what makes Crisis Core great, otherwise.
Final Score: 8/10
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