Crisis of Conscience
Is Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII awesome because of nostalgia, or awesome because it's just good? Either way, it's plain awesome.
Published: April 20, 2008
You need only look at what a frenzy the darker corners of the internet get whipped into whenever there's even a whisper of a rumor that the Final Fantasy VII Tech Demo that was shown off at E3 a few years back may actually be a real game to see how much of an impact Final Fantasy VII made when it was released 10 years ago, and you need only look at Dirge of Cerberus to see why it's the original game that people still latch onto instead of the myriad projects Square Enix has created around the game's anniversary. Yes, the game -- just one game -- in a series that's already one of the most powerful in gaming, has the power to turn normal people into complete raving lunatics at just the mention of it.
Until now, it wasn't entirely clear if Square Enix knew or even cared that they were at times repeatedly crushing the hopes of a particular group of gamers with the less accomplished releases in the whole "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" multimedia blitz, but again, that was until now. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII not only finally delivers an experience that's as much reverential as it is technological, it's a damn fine game in its own right. Yes, you'll want to have played Final Fantasy VII before playing this because all the little in jokes, references and updates to that game will be otherwise missed (and honestly, if you haven't played the game by now, you probably aren't going to), but as a straight Action RPG, the game does plenty to stand on its own merits. It's just that... y'know... Final Fantasy VII, man!
Yes, fine, I'll admit it: I'm a fan. I'm a superfan, even. I bought the original PS one for the game, as many, many people did, and while I'll fully admit that the game hasn't aged very well (not many PS one games have, to be honest, which may be one of many reasons why people are chomping at the bit for a proper remake), the music, the characters and the world were absolutely stunning. That you spent a good few hours running around in what at first appeared to be a rather expansive, oppressive, dirty ubercity, only to have that pulled away with a triumphant, "nono, you get to explore the whole planet" gesture was something no game had really done before. Sure, there were world maps, but this was in 3D, and even with an at times painful translation and slightly incomprehensible storyline, the game resonated with me (and many others, clearly) in a way no game had done before.
Crisis Core, or really any other games in the Compilation, likely can't ever re-capture that same sense of awe and wonder. From a technology standpoint, with what Square Enix was doing on the PSP, the kind of detail and scale meant that this world that's being revisited will never be as open and massive as the original game, which left the whole experience feeling just a touch hollow, but the strides made in presenting parts of the original story that, at the time, left me rather confused, not to mention the progress the company has made at localizing the games means Crisis Core is in some ways even more accomplished.
There's only so many cataclysmic events and main characters' surprise deaths that can happen in the span of a decade or so of game time and Crisis Core wisely chooses to update and flesh out that original story rather than trying to just clone the more emotional or impactful parts of it. Sure, there are certainly some parts that will get some all weepy-eyed, including a truly satisfying ending that finally closes out this chapter of a greater over-arching story and actually manages to help humanize and even justify some of the actions of characters in Final Fantasy VII, but it's done without trying to ape the original's scope and actual events. You know what's going to happen to most of these characters, and yet it still ends up having some gravity to it, which is probably the best complement I can give to the storyline.
Until now, it wasn't entirely clear if Square Enix knew or even cared that they were at times repeatedly crushing the hopes of a particular group of gamers with the less accomplished releases in the whole "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" multimedia blitz, but again, that was until now. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII not only finally delivers an experience that's as much reverential as it is technological, it's a damn fine game in its own right. Yes, you'll want to have played Final Fantasy VII before playing this because all the little in jokes, references and updates to that game will be otherwise missed (and honestly, if you haven't played the game by now, you probably aren't going to), but as a straight Action RPG, the game does plenty to stand on its own merits. It's just that... y'know... Final Fantasy VII, man!
Yes, fine, I'll admit it: I'm a fan. I'm a superfan, even. I bought the original PS one for the game, as many, many people did, and while I'll fully admit that the game hasn't aged very well (not many PS one games have, to be honest, which may be one of many reasons why people are chomping at the bit for a proper remake), the music, the characters and the world were absolutely stunning. That you spent a good few hours running around in what at first appeared to be a rather expansive, oppressive, dirty ubercity, only to have that pulled away with a triumphant, "nono, you get to explore the whole planet" gesture was something no game had really done before. Sure, there were world maps, but this was in 3D, and even with an at times painful translation and slightly incomprehensible storyline, the game resonated with me (and many others, clearly) in a way no game had done before.
Crisis Core, or really any other games in the Compilation, likely can't ever re-capture that same sense of awe and wonder. From a technology standpoint, with what Square Enix was doing on the PSP, the kind of detail and scale meant that this world that's being revisited will never be as open and massive as the original game, which left the whole experience feeling just a touch hollow, but the strides made in presenting parts of the original story that, at the time, left me rather confused, not to mention the progress the company has made at localizing the games means Crisis Core is in some ways even more accomplished.
There's only so many cataclysmic events and main characters' surprise deaths that can happen in the span of a decade or so of game time and Crisis Core wisely chooses to update and flesh out that original story rather than trying to just clone the more emotional or impactful parts of it. Sure, there are certainly some parts that will get some all weepy-eyed, including a truly satisfying ending that finally closes out this chapter of a greater over-arching story and actually manages to help humanize and even justify some of the actions of characters in Final Fantasy VII, but it's done without trying to ape the original's scope and actual events. You know what's going to happen to most of these characters, and yet it still ends up having some gravity to it, which is probably the best complement I can give to the storyline.
