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IDENTITY CRISIS: FF VII Reunion

5K View2022-12-14

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion (Reviewed)

Developer: Square Enix

Publisher: Square Enix

Released: Dec 13th, 2022

Price: $49.99 USD

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion follows the story of a promising young operative in the Shinra military's elite unit named Zack Fair, who wants nothing more than to become a well known hero, that's it.

It's called FF: Crisis Core but honestly feels like an Identity Crisis with what it wants to be, and how it comes off as a (Remake/Remaster) as they call it.

I would highly recommend starting with the Original FF7, then moving onto Crisis Core, but really the order doesn't really matter, this is a prequel to FF7.

This game was originally for the Sony PSP released back in 2007.

A few concerns

This isn't a complete remake or a remaster

This game originally was released for the Sony PSP back in 2007. While it isn't exactly a complete remake, it certainly looks more polished and clean, however, there are many scenes with bright lights that absolutely blind you, along with glossy floors and walls that reflect everything back like it's been buffered and polished quite literally too much. It can look more futuristic than it actually is.

They have completely re-casted the English voice actors

It may have been too difficult to round up the original crew, maybe because they weren’t available, or their asking price was too high. Perhaps their research suggested that the fandom for the original cast just wasn’t strong enough. Whatever excuses that may have been used brings some concern for nostalgic fans of the series. The Japanese voices, however, have not changed.

Upscaled video cinematics look terrible

Upscaled 480p videos for cinematics look grainy and bad. They are full of noise and look way worse than actual in-game rendered graphics. The developers didn't bother recreating them. From cutscene to in-game cutscene to actual gameplay, the graphical consistency is so different that it becomes an eyesore.

There are different versions of how Zack looks within 20 minutes of gameplay with each one looking vastly different from the others due to poor lighting and inconsistent use of visual assets.

There are a few hiccups in mirroring

When you leave training ending up in the briefing room, you notice something minor by looking at the sliding door. It's reversed because it is only applied to the other side, effectively mirroring it the opposite way as if you were looking into a mirror. It would have been in my opinion a better idea to have a normal non-transparent door leading in and out to avoid this kind of disorientation.

Combat

Has set encounters

Meaning when you cross a threshold area, a fight will initiate. You can not avoid these fights, however, you can run from them if you desire to do so.

Can become annoying

Reunion's combat is a little more forgiving compared to the PSP version. This makes it possible to focus on the main story, rather than having to rack up experience / skills through optional side-missions to keep up.

However, it does feel rather repetitive and tedious after a while with every combat starting with "Activating Combat Mode!" and finishing with "Conflict Resolved!" this is something you can not disable, it becomes slowly annoying.

Hack and Slasher, unless playing on Hard Mode

If you enjoy mindless hack and slash with tons of cutscenes in between each fight, you'll enjoy this game's combat. If you're looking for something really in depth and challenging, you can play on Hard Mode, but it doesn't change much.

Can feel random at times with the DMW

The DMW is essentially a random and automatic variable. You don't control it, but can influence it sometimes. Low, Normal, High, Sky High, and Heavenly. The higher it is, the higher chance you have of it activating. It'll also improve the chance of the pictures lining up to get a "limit break" letting you do cinematic take downs, equip Materia to get your desired outcome later in the game.

The Story

Is the same as the original

Square Enix made extra care to not change anything about the story of Crisis Core, outside of the voice actors for English. All the story elements and events are the same as they were for the original release. They decided not to change the story in order to preserve the original experience for nostalgic reasons.

It's cheesy (probably a bit too much), satirical, and nostalgic.

Is quite slow and drawn out

This may be on purpose in an attempt to get more of a cheesy old-school feel to the dialog, or a slight oversight. But you'll spend the majority of your time in cutscene after cutscene, listening to characters talk about backstory, etc.

The only problem is that there are very long pauses in between some sections, where the main character is asked a question only to stare aimlessly for a few seconds before replying, and vice versa other NPC slowing their dialog down.

This became exhausting and the desire to skip all dialog was incentivized.

Extras

It wouldn't be a classic FF experience without mini-games. There are a total of 8 different mini-games you can choose from throughout the game. I won't go too much in detail, but completing said mini-games grant many rewards for your effort. It's not mandatory to do them, but more or less a fun pass time.

Would you recommend this game?

No get it on sale

The game feels like it was polished with the bare minimum and pushed out, due to the high success of FF7 remake as a way to milk the franchise rather than offer a quality product.

On one side, the combat was mindless and fun to a degree, but the constant spamming of entering/leaving combat was a bit annoying to listen to.

The long, drawn out story cutscenes taking up so much time and taking me away from the action / control of the character started to exhaust me.

If you prefer slow paced gameplay with some decent combat, it's an alright game, but the price tag of $49.99 is not worth the price, considering the issues.

I would definitely recommend the original if it were possible outside of emulation.

This concludes my review of this game, while my opinions may be met with criticism, that's what makes gamers unique, you don't have to like the same things that others do, nor do you have to agree with them.

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- Pawkt

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