CRISIS CORE -FINAL FANTASY VII- is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation Portable. Directed by Hajime Tabata, written by Kazushige Nojima, composed by Takeharu Ishimoto, with executive producer Yoshinori Kitase and creative producer Tetsuya Nomura.
The game serves as a prequel to FINAL FANTASY VII, set seven years before the events of the classic RPG. Many key members of the original development team for the game returned to work on the prequel including director Yoshinori Kitase, scenario writer Kazushige Nojima, co-base story writer & battle visual director, Tetsuya Nomura and others.
Similar to LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII, you'll be controlling just one character for the duration of the game, Zack Fair. Zack is a SOLDIER and is early in the game promoted to the highest rank.
There is an interesting story here that sets up the world as players would know in it in FINAL FANTASY VII. You also meet key characters from VII including the great ninja, Yuffie as a child along with Aerith (No, it's no Aeris), Cloud and even Tifa. One of my highlights of the story was Sephiroth. We're so used to just seeing him in patches and when we do he seems one dimensional and all he's there for is to fight Cloud. Now with great voice acting I might add we see more depth to the character and get to hang with the one of the most popular villains in RPG history.
The battle system at the time was a massive change for the series with the staff used to turn-based and active-time battles, and it holds up well in 2015 but it can get repetitive. And the slot reels are very random and at times annoying but I can't argue with the boosts they provide,
The music is well done but nothing's impressed me, where Ishimoto did later on with FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0 HD.
The optional missions are odd. I feel like there's too much repetitiveness to them and just feel tacked on. The missions get seriously boring after awhile and there's little to gain from them
I've quite enjoyed Hajime Tabata directed games before. I gave TYPE-0 HD 9/10 and The 3rd Birthday 8/10.
My past experiences with FINAL FANTASY VII are limited to the wrong experiences. I gave DIRGE of CERBERUS a 7/10 and Advent Children Complete a 9/10 and of course I've played the various FINAL FANTASY spin-offs and KINGDOM HEARTS games. I've also watched all the FFVII content on the ACC Blu-ray. I've only ever played a little of the original.
I was annoyed at the amount of text-only scenes. Maybe if they didn't use a bunch of random FMVs and tack on 300 pointless missions they'd have more room for voiced cutscenes.
The load times can also get very annoying. There should have been a data install option.
You get to choose between Normal & Hard difficulty modes which is nice but there's always room for more. It's very easy on Normal, I never lost a battle.
There is no option to skip or replay cutscenes. There is a New Game+ mode though.
There is a quality story here and tons of fan service. The ending is also quite sad. Graphically it's very impressive for the PSP. The gameplay is nothing to get excited about though.
Edited by Sora96