Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

This is a shoehorned prequel done right.

That sounds more insulting than it should be. I don't think Square ever intended for Zack to have too much of a story, other than what happened in VII proper. But Crisis Core sure makes it seem otherwise, because I legitimately enjoy what they came up with for him.

The story can be a bit nonsensical at times (would it be a Final Fantasy game if it wasn't?), but overall it's much easier to follow than VII, and still just as good even though you know going into it how it's pretty much going to end. And what an ending! I won't spoil it, but one of the central gameplay mechanics of the game is used to amazing effect at the end.

The gameplay is quite fun as well. Crisis Core is Kingdom Hearts done right, I think - a lot less running around, a lot more strategy and positioning more than just mashing X over and over again until the enemy is dead. Actually it's funny - that's possible in Crisis Core to an extent as well, although it makes the game quite boring and more difficult than it needs to be. If anything, the Materia system really makes Crisis Core better, because of the way it lets you customize Zack. It isn't just his available powers - your standard Fire, Fira, etc. - but also buffs and status protection that you can add to him. For example, I was getting hit with Stun and Stop quite a bit in the last half of the game, and it was driving me nuts, so I fused some Materia to come up with something that prevented me from getting stunned, as well as giving me quite the health boost as well (I had 9999 health by the end of the game with the boosts from my Materia and items). To be honest, I could have explored the Materia Fusion quite a bit more, but by the end, I didn't really need to. Because I did so many of the missions, I feel like I was pretty overleveled by the end, as the final boss was a cakewalk for me.

Those missions are addicting, though. I could easily have seen myself beating every one of them had I not wanted to get to the end of the story and see how everything played out, besides wanting to play other games. They are bite-sized, and aren't risky - if you lose a mission, you still keep the items and experience that you found, you only have to start from the beginning. That's not too big a deal since most missions are very short, mostly just a walk from one end of a dungeon to the other fighting enemies and opening treasure chests. The only time it is a big deal is if you happen to spend an hour and a half doing the 1000 man gauntlet fight and they kill you somewhere around the 850th man with the stupid dynamite move (you get hit with dynamite, it brings you down to 1 HP no matter what, so if you get hit with anything else before healing you're dead). After I lost that mission I decided to go beat the game (which worked out because I was in the last dungeon anyway).

It's too bad there weren't more levels like the last dungeon, actually. There's a lot of stuff Crisis Core did very well, that I would like to see expanded upon, and a game made up of dungeons like the last one would be fantastic. The game was a bit linear up to that point - do a story mission, explore the limited environs of lower Midgar (with seemingly diminishing returns), or do a side mission for items and gil.

Anyway, the scene everyone wanted to see - what happens in Nibelheim - is done extremely well, and was both incredibly fanservicey and yet tastefully done. If you like Final Fantasy VII at all - and I'm not its biggest fan but I had fun with it - you need to play Crisis Core. Had I played VII in 1997 and then Crisis Core in 2007, I would have been very satisfied with what they came up with. Now I'm just jealous that more of the properties I love don't get this sort of fanservicey goodness.

Of course, next on my plate is Persona 4 Arena, so we'll see if Atlus in 2012 can do Square 2007 right. (Also, why isn't Crisis Core on PSN, Square Enix? It's one of the PSP's best games, and people would buy it, judging by how many people continue to buy FFVII on there!)