Review- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion

• Play Final Fantasy VII Remake

• Fail to understand Final Fantasy VII Remake

• Play original Final Fantasy VII

• Play and finally understand Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

• Watch the trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

• Change all my wallpapers to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

        Guess there’s only one thing left to do.

  o   Play Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion

The path most taken when making a prequel is making something to be experienced after the original that explains how everything happened and how all the pieces fit into place. An example of this is the Star Wars prequels, where it’s a major story revelation that Darth Vader is actually Anakin Skywalker in Episode 5, and in the prequels, specifically Episode 3, the story shows exactly how that happened both physically and mentally. Episode 3 was never meant to be seen before Episode 5, and the same can be said for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion. This game exists as a prologue but can only be properly experienced as an epilogue, showing how impactful Crisis Core’s main character, Zack Fair, really was to the original Final Fantasy VII. This makes it an interesting recommendation, because on its own, I think the game has many really great qualities, but taken out of that vacuum I’d say it’s very important to play the original Final Fantasy VII before playing this, since a lot of that games intrigue will be lost with the peak behind the curtain that Crisis Core gives you.

 

The beginning of Crisis Core starts off really strong with its updated presentation and combat.  Regarding visuals, the 2008 PSP game’s in-game graphics have been updated in this remaster to look almost as good as Final Fantasy VII Remake’s graphics. This might actually be the first game I’ve played where the in game models look leagues better than the prerendered cutscenes. Another update is to the voice acting, as the voice actors from Remake for characters like Zack and Sephiroth have returned to their roles here, allowing for better continuity. These updates are welcome ones, but no update makes the game feel as modern as it does than the update done to combat.

 

There are three different types of attacks you can engage an enemy with in Crisis Core. The first is your regular sword swings, that can occasionally be a critical hit with extra damage if you attack an enemy from behind. The second is your special attacks, where you either use a Materia ability that drains MP or special combat attacks that drains AP. The third has to do with the DMW system, AKA free gambling. The DMW system has character portraits and numbers and operates like a slot machine. If certain character portraits and/or numbers match up then combat bonuses are given to the player, such as negating damage or being able to do a limit break. I never played the original Crisis Core as I was too busy at that time being 9 years old and getting into major car accidents, but after looking up some footage of the PSP game, I was very surprised by how different the gameplay appeared. All the combat elements I mentioned earlier were present in the original, but the main difference is a UI difference, where the UI of this remastered Crisis Core is redesigned to be more in line with Remake. The update to the UI isn’t a complex update in theory, but in practice and implementation it makes some portions of the game feel incredibly modern. This is great but can sometimes lead to a drop in immersion a bit when the game looks so modern but is still designed like a 2000s PSP game.

 

The original Crisis Core is very much designed to run on the PSP. This means lots of loading screens, small zones to walk around, small numbers of animations per characters that are often reused, as well as most of the games content being very small and compartmentalized combat missions. It’s a design decision that most likely came from a limitation of the hardware, and now that those limitations have been basically decimated by current generation consoles (even portable ones), the games design feels about out of place compared to other, more modern releases. I’m not saying this is some damning flaw the game has, it’s more of a quirk from a different time.

 

The story, while not changed at all, mirrors this remaster as a whole, where some sections feel very modern, and other sections have this awkward quirk to them. Some minor spoilers ahead. The “modern” sections of this game are anything that relates back to the original Final Fantasy VII, where Zack’s relationships with people like Sephiroth and Aerith mirror Cloud’s dynamic. There’s a flashback in Final Fantasy VII where child Cloud talks about his dreams of joining the SOLDIER program to be just like Sephiroth the hero and there’s such an endearing energy to what he’s saying. Zack is the embodiment of this childlike energy. He is always excited and energetic, always eager to please his mentor Angeal, and just wants to be the ideal hero. Anything with Zack and these elements is the best part of Crisis Core’s story. The quirky sections involve other members of SOLDIER, chimera monsters with human faces attached like ornate jewels, and something called a dumbapple. These sections of the story involving any of these areas feels tonally inconsistent, like a third wheel on the bike of Zack’s personality juxtaposed to the cruelty of the world around him. This part of the story feels like it exists to keep things moving and add runtime to the game. I didn’t dislike the story overall, but there were most definitely sections that felt far less important than others, and at the end of the day I just wish the game was more focused squarely on Zack and his connections to Cloud’s journey and not a separate, mostly unrelated threat.

 

Aside from a few dumb difficulty spikes, the combat is fun and engaging, lifted up by the DMW slot machine system that adds a lot of random variety to keep encounters from getting stale. Although the story can be a bit uneven in what it wants to accomplish, this is still a really interesting look on a character that mattered so much to Final Fantasy VII but was only able to be seen, at that time, for a brief moment. And thanks to this remaster, the game looks and mostly feels brand new. I recommend that you play Crisis Core, though I recommend you play Final Fantasy VII just a bit more.