Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core

I have to preface this by saying that I'm a /huge/ fan of Final Fantasy VII. This seems to affect other people's views on another's opinion for some reason. Now, I am not an FFVII "fanboy", but I do love the game. I loved it when it was released, I love it just as much now. I can, however, realize that the game has aged and not well. It is not the be-all-end-all of rpgs. But I think it IS a great game. One that I adore.

So that out of the way, on to FFVII:CC. It starts out with a scene that anybody who has played FFVII should be familiar with: A train rushing towards its destination, a man in blue clothing aboard. The direction of the game continues the over the top action that Advent Children began. Zack jumps off of a helicopter, lands lightly on his feet, and makes short work of some grunts that are shooting at him. When the train stops and Zack gets off, it sets up the major differences between Zack and Cloud. Where Cloud couldn't be bothered to say anything more than "I don't care." for the first 20 hours, Zack is talking on the phone when some enemies run up to him. He continues talking even when the soldiers show that they want to fight. He reluctantly hangs up his phone and pulls out his sword and you get your first glimpse of the combat of Crisis Core.

You get to move around in realtime with the D-pad or the Nub. Circle is attack, Square is dodge, Triangle is guard. You have 5 different slots for actions: Attack, 3 materia slots, and Item. You can not mash attack all willy-nilly. Actions seem to be timed, although it isn't very extreme: half a second at most between attacks. Magic has a little bit of charge, leaving you open to be hit by opponents. This WILL interrupt your casting, which I think is a nice touch for strategy. And enemies will move! Blizzard creates the typical block of ice that drops down on your opponent. The only problem is that it drops down on your opponent...and they move. In contrast, Fire and Thunder track the opponent. Maybe Blizzard will be better when I level it up. What I'm surprised by is how much skill that you can put into the battle. Enemies shoot a Fire spell, and if you're paying attention in between attacks you can easily dodge it. Fighting two big, slow, lumbering brutes I managed to defeat them with minimal damage due to smart attack management, guarding and well-timed rolls. I loves it.

The subsystem of this game is called "Digital Mind Wave" or DMW for short. This is the slot machine thing that's been seen in screenshots. It will randomly stop and give you a "Modulation Phase". If you get favorable faces lined up, three Sephiroths say, then Zack will unleash a special attack similar to limit breaks from FF7. Zack's skills make Cloud's omnislash look like a low level ability...and I've only got 4 hours. It's a weird system, though. It's completely random and seems to control everything from leveling to HP boosts. Not sure what I think of this yet.

The game is mission based. So far there isn't any type of world map. You can talk to people to progress the story or access optional missions. They show the assumed difficulty of the mission beforehand so you know what you're getting into. Since you can only access them from save points there's little risk to them except for the time you spend if you die. They net you items or materia, some of the summons are optional missions.

I'm shocked at how good this game seems to be so far. It looks amazing, topping MGS for the best looking portable game ever. The CG is advent children quality, the voices sound awesome. The music, most of it so far, is remixed FF7 tracks. Given the change in direction the kind of rock alternative really fits it. I love the new boss music.

If I have any complaints, it's that the camera isn't always the best. But I've yet to play a 3d fighter where the camera isn't a minor complaint.

Yuffie wins you.