Yes it is a review of Final Fantasy Dirge of Cerberus! I am going to get right to it!

Okay so the story is that their is an organization called Deepground and they are located under the Old Shinra Power company! They were a secret program that in my opinion went horribly wrong! Before the members of Deepground were with Deepground they were regular people leading ordinary lives until Shinra Kidnapped them and turned them into fighting machines, but their judgement and humanity was lost somewhere along the way! The Action actually begins in I think in Kalm where they are celebrating some kind of event with a festival! Vincent Valentine is also in the City of Kalm when Deepground shows up and kidnaps alot of the people in the city!

Okay so I will start with the Graphics part of this review! Well the Graphics are pretty amazing in this game But that is what you expect from a Final Fantasy game right? Some of the cut scenes look just like a CGI movie and that made me really happy! Overall the Graphics are perfect and I give it a 10 out of 10!

 Next is the story! Okay so if you haven’t guessed you take the role of Vincent Valentine and play through his story of his journey and find out what happened to him all them years ago in the Shinra manor and what he has come to become! So It all starts at the Mako Cannon at the end of Final Fantasy VII in which they are clearing everyone out around the cannon but they see that someone is on the cannon itself so Vincent investigates and finds the person dead or unconcious either way and Vincent pulls out his gun to finish him off but then he just disappeares which it turns out that the person is actually Hojo (Crisis Core reference)but then it skips 3 years and continues with Deepground’s appearance in Kalm in which Vincent intervines and saves as much of the population that he can! This game leads Vincent to find out that he actually has something sinister inside him……..Chaos! I give the story a 10 out of 10 also!

Next comes the controls and how well the game handles! Okay so I loved how the game handles and the controls that were chosen for this game, they worked so well with the controller I couldn’t have done it better myself! There is actually a jump button in this game which was awesome because I haven’t seen a jump feature in a Final Fantasy Game before it was nice to have that added in this game! I give the controls a 10 as well!

I love the soundtrack to this game it is amazing! Most of the songs are performed by Gackt which I have never heard of them but they are very good with their featured song Redemption which is extremely good! and the voice overs for the characters was just incredible if I do say so myself! I give the sound 10 too!

Over all this game is perfect I love it and all I hear about this game is positive comments! This is a 10 out of 10 game it is perfection!

Well I hope you enjoyed this review of FFVII DoC and if you are willing to go the distance you will unlock a secret ending that is awesome *Hint Hint* it has something to do with Crisis Core and a Continuation of the FFVII series!

(written by Cloud7 member of FFU forum, RESPECT)

 

The story was amazing, the star of it is Zack, obviously… It mainly tells about his past, life, inspiration, hopes, love, friends… Angeal, his mentor, plays a big part in the story as he shows him to have honour and dreams, and to live by them. Angeal is also one of the 1st class soldiers with Sephiroth and Genesis. Small parts felt like they were a bit “pushed in” but it made it have more meaning and sense. Nonetheless, it’s a very appreciated addition to FF7’s storyline since it fills some missing parts of the story and, without spoilers, it’s the second Final Fantasy that was able to make me emotional.

Sepiroth (Middle) Genesis (Right) and Angeal (Left)

Gameplay-wise, it was great. The game works in chapters, where you have the main story and missions but anytime at a save point you can do optional missions that give you some nice stuff. Like items, mako stones, materia and you can level up with some luck.

There aren’t random battles, you get into an enemy encounter in specific areas without getting into a battle screen. Since it’s an action RPG, you can attack anytime you want unless the enemy does a limit break (in-game cutscene). The battle system gets a little time getting used to (like the reels, I’ll get into details a little later) and level up system isn’t great… You gain a level if it stop on 777. So it’s somewhat random though the chances for you to have a 777 increases if your level is lower than X when you’re at X part of the game.

 You have commends on the bottom right of the screen; attack, materia and items. You switch between them with L and R. You can also press O to return to attack. You also have reels with numbers and characters you meet through the game on it. If three of the same match, you can perform a special attack, get status effects or healing. Sometimes it changes into summon or other character mode (chocobo, as example). They each do different things, like Cait Sith gives you a “Courage Boost” that makes you have more critical hits. You have to find a special materia or item to get those special characters, though.

The numbers give you status boosts and effects, they can also give you limit breaks on health, mp and ap (points used for special attacks materia, talk about it later). They can also level up your materia or level Zack up.

You have few equipment… Most of it is materia and the rest is accessories cause you see, Zack is so badass that he doesn’t need new gear or weapons. XD Okay, seriously…

Now let’s talk about materia. You have magic, status change (ads atk, hp and so on) and you have attack ones (like jump). In this game though you can modify them by combining them to create unique materia, like dark firaga (poison+fire). You can also combine items with them like mako stones that ad up +1 attack power.

Like I said in the reels part, summons are made when they match on a reel. So you can’t use them anytime you want (well makes sense once you play the game). You have to fight them, then you obtain their materia, so they can appear on the reels. I haven’t them all but you have a few of them, like Ifrit, Phoenix, Bahamut…

The music, though not made by Nobuo Uematsu but by Takeharu Ishimoto, catches every moment’s feelings with the Crisis Core’s main piano theme remixes using other music styles, beats and instruments. It has also some FF7’s and, to my surprise, The Last Order’s (anime) music remakes. The soundtrack has a nice variety; pieces that are very delicate and could soften anyone’s heart and others with drums, guitar and violin mixed in, with a theme that would inspire pride, honor, freedom and courage. Some are even simple piano themes… There are many I like but those that got to me the most are “the Burdened”, “Night of Seclusion” and “The Price of Freedom”.

The graphics are really awesome, especially for a handheld game. They’re easily comparable to PS2 games. The cutscenes are gorgeous (like when you summon) and some of them just blew me away. This game was made by S-E so this kind of quality is expectable but it’s still amazing.

The voice acting was good, imo. They used the same people as in Advent Children and it works well. Zack is voiced by Rick Gomez, or as some of you might recognize as Gippal in FFX-2. He fits well the character’s personality and makes the emotional scenes credible. The most important characters have voices (like Cloud, Aerith, Sephiroth…) though this isn’t an aspect I find the most important but it is a nice feature.

It isn’t a huge game if you don’t do any side quests but I would reccomend doing them as you might find the game a bit harsh. You have a game plus option when you finish it: You can play it on hard mode, complete it 100%, collect stuff you forgot and such. So it makes it worth your money.

Anyway, it is truly a must buy for any RPG fans who own a PSP or consider getting one. You don’t need to have played through FF7 to enjoy it since it happens before it but there are some few fan service like some music remakes, scenes and secrets in it (like the tomb where Vincent sleeps in Shinra mansion basement).

In my own conclusion, I liked Crisis Core. It has a good gameplay and story. Zack is an awesome character and if you ask me, he’s a true hero, perhaps the greatest.

Oh and sorry if it was a long read, I tried to make it with the least amount of words as I could.

(written by lolita, member of ffu forum) Respect!!