Platform: PSP
Developer/Publisher: Square-Enix
I'm disappointed. I was all prepared to tear into Crisis Core's lack of substantial plot and dialogue; Ready to use my distaste with Final Fantasy 7 as a base for a lot of ranting and poking fun... And now I can't.
Thanks a lot.
If I wanted to review the game in general, I could tell you that the game is insanely easy, it has no replay value whatsoever, and the DMW is really irritating, but that's not what my blog is for. It's about game writing.
And the writing is actually good.
Well, at least plot-wise. There's still the mission writing and Aerith that I can have a rant-fest about, so it's all good.
Let's get to it, shall we?
Developer/Publisher: Square-Enix
I'm disappointed. I was all prepared to tear into Crisis Core's lack of substantial plot and dialogue; Ready to use my distaste with Final Fantasy 7 as a base for a lot of ranting and poking fun... And now I can't.
Thanks a lot.
If I wanted to review the game in general, I could tell you that the game is insanely easy, it has no replay value whatsoever, and the DMW is really irritating, but that's not what my blog is for. It's about game writing.
And the writing is actually good.
Well, at least plot-wise. There's still the mission writing and Aerith that I can have a rant-fest about, so it's all good.
Let's get to it, shall we?
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Mission Writing: 2/5
If you've played Final Fantasy 7, I doubt there's really any spoilers here.
Plot
All right, so you play as Zack Fair, Cloud's old war buddy. You know, the guy Cloud spent half of FF7 thinking he WAS. So you get to watch as Zack flirts with Aerith, watches Shinra go to crap, and gets shot in the face at the end of the game.
FF7 seems to have a large amount of mad scientists. In this game, mad scientists are busy cloning people's genes and sticking them into random people to make some sort of ugly army.
For FF7 fans, you get to watch YET AGAIN Sephiroth find out that he's a human experiment, go nuts, burn down the town, and stab a couple people.
After you kill some random character named Genesis, your friends die, and Cloud is out of harm's way, you get rewarded by getting shot numerous times by the army and then dying.
Good times.
Strengths:
--> Follows the plot of FF7 with no hiccups
--> Easily mixes two genres together seamlessly: fantasy and sci-fi. People who enjoy one but not the other, will still appreciate the plot
--> Emotional dialogue and strong character connections
Weaknesses:
--> Individuals not familiar with sci-fi plot complexity (or Final Fantasy 7 for that matter) might get slightly confused at what's going on. There's a whole lot of clones floating about which makes things complicated.
--> I have the army and all of Shinra after me and I don't even know why...
--> You mean to tell me that the entire army riddled Zack with bullets, but he still had enough time to talk to Cloud in a dramatic scene before dying? Unlikely.
Characters
Zack
Square Enix is actually doing a good job in keeping to the story of FF7. The character in those blocky FF7 flashbacks is the same character portrayed in Crisis Core: fun, loyal, hard-core, and squat-happy. Zack is a strong character, chasing after all the people who have betrayed him in order to help them.
I like this character for a couple reasons. 1, he shows his loyalty to his friends in a non-after-school-special sort of way (*cough*Sora*cough*) and 2, he's a little naïve and has normal weaknesses. I like a bad-ass character as much as the next person, but I am so BORED with characters that have no weaknesses, flaws, and have a plan for everything. You know, the guy that comes out of an explosion with a cleanly pressed suit and perfectly cut hair.
The great thing about this game is you get to see why Zack meant so much to Cloud. Other than an annoying giggle-fest about the names of their hometowns, Zack and Cloud have a pretty honorable relationship. Zack carries Cloud through half of this game (Tifa carrying him for ¼ of the game and Cloud amazingly walking for himself—or leaning against a wall or laying flat on his face-- for another ¼.) and takes on numerous amounts of enemies in order to protect him.
Improvements: I know FF7 is against emotions of any kind, but Zack lost all his war buddies. Can he show a little anger or resentment? Some agony? 13 hours of this game and I get 2 scenes of him upset? Can I at least get some inner thoughts?
Cloud
I know this comment is on the borderline of blasphemy, but I have found a new respect for Cloud. Probably because I got to see him try to hold down his lunch after a helicopter ride. He's human now! I got to see his wimpy little butt get kicked over and over again, with Zack coming to his rescue.
My only question: He gets car sick, but if Sephiroth stabs him he can unrealistically use the blade as a see-saw to throw Sephiroth into machinery? Huh?
I have to say, I'm glad the story cleared up the whole clone mess. I was confused on if Sephiroth was a clone of the original Sephiroth, or Cloud was a clone of Sephiroth, or if Cloud was a clone of Steve Burton's character on General Hospital...
I mean, come on. There's even a girl with two kids that Burton's character is in love with, but can never seem to get together with. (If you didn't know, Steve Burton IS the English voice actor of Cloud.)
So as it turns out, Sephiroth is the “perfect monster” and once Cloud gets stabbed, some mad scientist injects him with Sephiroth's cells in order to create another monster like him. It's just too bad that Cloud is too weak towards the Mako and spends half the game as a zombie. Until his friend is shot, in which he magically snaps out of it for the dramatic end of the game. The dude can't walk for half the game and then all of a sudden he can pick up the Buster Sword and head towards Midgar. Yeah. That's how that works.
I have to say, watching Cloud go from motion-sick-dork to what he is in Advent Children is an interesting transition. I actually found him more interesting in Crisis Core, due to the fact that it shows his depth. When he complains about not being able to save anyone in Advent Children, you realize that by playing Crisis Core, he's sort of right. He gets in a couple good shots and that's about it. Which I like better. It's more realistic.
Improvements: Cloud is anti-emotion as well. His best friend dies, he does the usual “noooo!” that everyone in every game does, and then he thanks his dead friend? Confusion. Maybe he's not emotionless...just bipolar.
Aerith
Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate Aerith. But after playing Crisis Core and getting to know her character better, I have realized that I had good reason. She's irritating. Not to say that she's a badly developed character. In this game. In FF7, she still sucks.
The sweet and shy princess-like character is more annoying to me than the bad-ass emo characters Square Enix likes to recycle, and Aerith takes the cake when it comes to that genre.
Here's what bothers me about her: my friend dies and she talks about flowers, I make her a flower wagon that is perfectly suitable and she wants a do over, she writes Zack about the flowers... GET OVER THE STUPID FLOWERS.
Improvements: She lives in slums and she's watched constantly by Turks. Can't she have a bit of an attitude? Some spunk? Something OTHER than an obsession with flowers?!
Sephiroth
Sephiroth is actually one of my favorite villains because the dude is insane. In this game, he's perfectly honorable and loyal, until he finds out that he was a scientific experiment and then everything hits the fan and he goes berserk.
However, I do hate the whole “the universe is MINE!” crap, and it seriously needs to stop. He was betrayed by his father and a bunch of scientists, not the universe.
Improvements: The rule the world thing. I'm done with that.
Other Characters
Genesis: I love the whole poetic sort of character, mainly because they're so rare. Genesis has this crazed obsession with the Gift of the Goddess, like a seriously disturbed religious person. I'd like to know why he's so interested though.
Angeal: He's like the sweet uncle you adore. He pokes fun at you and tells you stories about life. And then he manipulates you into killing him and then after he dies, his clone protects you. Just like in real life.
Missions
All right the missions in this game were lame and I'm going to tell you why: They were all the same.
No, no. Seriously. I get a mysterious letter or someone wants to challenge me, I go to the middle of a field that has 2 boxes, and I find one lone monster by itself, kill it, and I'm done.
Square Enix seems to have put missions in this game to make it longer. (And maybe to show off Yuffie a little bit more.) That really seems to be it. They went to great lengths to describe what I'm doing, but they don't give me any info into why I should care or what happens after I'm done.
FINAL SAY
If you're a FF7 fan, you won't be learning more than you all ready know, but it's a good look into character development over time and relationship chemistry. If you're not a FF7 fan, I don't think you'll get much out of it. The characters won't have any real depth to you. I'd take a look into this game if you're either a sci-fi nut or a FF7 fan, but that's really about it.
Other notes: What is with Cloud's relationship commitment issues? How long do the fans have to wait before Cloud FINALLY gets together with Tifa? I mean, really.
Characters
Zack
Square Enix is actually doing a good job in keeping to the story of FF7. The character in those blocky FF7 flashbacks is the same character portrayed in Crisis Core: fun, loyal, hard-core, and squat-happy. Zack is a strong character, chasing after all the people who have betrayed him in order to help them.
I like this character for a couple reasons. 1, he shows his loyalty to his friends in a non-after-school-special sort of way (*cough*Sora*cough*) and 2, he's a little naïve and has normal weaknesses. I like a bad-ass character as much as the next person, but I am so BORED with characters that have no weaknesses, flaws, and have a plan for everything. You know, the guy that comes out of an explosion with a cleanly pressed suit and perfectly cut hair.
The great thing about this game is you get to see why Zack meant so much to Cloud. Other than an annoying giggle-fest about the names of their hometowns, Zack and Cloud have a pretty honorable relationship. Zack carries Cloud through half of this game (Tifa carrying him for ¼ of the game and Cloud amazingly walking for himself—or leaning against a wall or laying flat on his face-- for another ¼.) and takes on numerous amounts of enemies in order to protect him.
Improvements: I know FF7 is against emotions of any kind, but Zack lost all his war buddies. Can he show a little anger or resentment? Some agony? 13 hours of this game and I get 2 scenes of him upset? Can I at least get some inner thoughts?
Cloud
I know this comment is on the borderline of blasphemy, but I have found a new respect for Cloud. Probably because I got to see him try to hold down his lunch after a helicopter ride. He's human now! I got to see his wimpy little butt get kicked over and over again, with Zack coming to his rescue.
My only question: He gets car sick, but if Sephiroth stabs him he can unrealistically use the blade as a see-saw to throw Sephiroth into machinery? Huh?
I have to say, I'm glad the story cleared up the whole clone mess. I was confused on if Sephiroth was a clone of the original Sephiroth, or Cloud was a clone of Sephiroth, or if Cloud was a clone of Steve Burton's character on General Hospital...
I mean, come on. There's even a girl with two kids that Burton's character is in love with, but can never seem to get together with. (If you didn't know, Steve Burton IS the English voice actor of Cloud.)
So as it turns out, Sephiroth is the “perfect monster” and once Cloud gets stabbed, some mad scientist injects him with Sephiroth's cells in order to create another monster like him. It's just too bad that Cloud is too weak towards the Mako and spends half the game as a zombie. Until his friend is shot, in which he magically snaps out of it for the dramatic end of the game. The dude can't walk for half the game and then all of a sudden he can pick up the Buster Sword and head towards Midgar. Yeah. That's how that works.
I have to say, watching Cloud go from motion-sick-dork to what he is in Advent Children is an interesting transition. I actually found him more interesting in Crisis Core, due to the fact that it shows his depth. When he complains about not being able to save anyone in Advent Children, you realize that by playing Crisis Core, he's sort of right. He gets in a couple good shots and that's about it. Which I like better. It's more realistic.
Improvements: Cloud is anti-emotion as well. His best friend dies, he does the usual “noooo!” that everyone in every game does, and then he thanks his dead friend? Confusion. Maybe he's not emotionless...just bipolar.
Aerith
Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate Aerith. But after playing Crisis Core and getting to know her character better, I have realized that I had good reason. She's irritating. Not to say that she's a badly developed character. In this game. In FF7, she still sucks.
The sweet and shy princess-like character is more annoying to me than the bad-ass emo characters Square Enix likes to recycle, and Aerith takes the cake when it comes to that genre.
Here's what bothers me about her: my friend dies and she talks about flowers, I make her a flower wagon that is perfectly suitable and she wants a do over, she writes Zack about the flowers... GET OVER THE STUPID FLOWERS.
Improvements: She lives in slums and she's watched constantly by Turks. Can't she have a bit of an attitude? Some spunk? Something OTHER than an obsession with flowers?!
Sephiroth
Sephiroth is actually one of my favorite villains because the dude is insane. In this game, he's perfectly honorable and loyal, until he finds out that he was a scientific experiment and then everything hits the fan and he goes berserk.
However, I do hate the whole “the universe is MINE!” crap, and it seriously needs to stop. He was betrayed by his father and a bunch of scientists, not the universe.
Improvements: The rule the world thing. I'm done with that.
Other Characters
Genesis: I love the whole poetic sort of character, mainly because they're so rare. Genesis has this crazed obsession with the Gift of the Goddess, like a seriously disturbed religious person. I'd like to know why he's so interested though.
Angeal: He's like the sweet uncle you adore. He pokes fun at you and tells you stories about life. And then he manipulates you into killing him and then after he dies, his clone protects you. Just like in real life.
Missions
All right the missions in this game were lame and I'm going to tell you why: They were all the same.
No, no. Seriously. I get a mysterious letter or someone wants to challenge me, I go to the middle of a field that has 2 boxes, and I find one lone monster by itself, kill it, and I'm done.
Square Enix seems to have put missions in this game to make it longer. (And maybe to show off Yuffie a little bit more.) That really seems to be it. They went to great lengths to describe what I'm doing, but they don't give me any info into why I should care or what happens after I'm done.
FINAL SAY
If you're a FF7 fan, you won't be learning more than you all ready know, but it's a good look into character development over time and relationship chemistry. If you're not a FF7 fan, I don't think you'll get much out of it. The characters won't have any real depth to you. I'd take a look into this game if you're either a sci-fi nut or a FF7 fan, but that's really about it.
Other notes: What is with Cloud's relationship commitment issues? How long do the fans have to wait before Cloud FINALLY gets together with Tifa? I mean, really.
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