Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion is a remaster of the game originally released for the PSP. It's an action RPG that tells the story before the events of Final Fantasy VII.

As a remaster, I can say it is a really well-done job. Even after 15 years, the developers took the original game and did a great job adapting it to modern days.

The visuals don't look outdated at all. It could easily be a game released today with a slightly smaller budget. It seems like they used some assets from the remake of Final Fantasy VII, although there's a significant difference between this prequel and the main title.

Regarding the gameplay, I can say that the combat is really enjoyable. The regular fights are quite easy, and you may encounter some difficulty with a few bosses, but nothing to worry about. It's almost like a 3D fighting game; you'll be walking through the stage and encounter enemies, triggering battles.

There are some RPG features that could make character development a bit more complex, but they're not necessary to progress in the game. You just need some basic knowledge about this system to enjoy the game.

As for the story, I really liked it. I never had contact with the original release or the original Final Fantasy VII. I only played the Final Fantasy VII remake before, and I can say that Crisis Core will be very important to the upcoming games of this remake era.

The characters are fun and charismatic, and the story kept me invested throughout.

I played on Nintendo Switch, and the developers did an amazing job with this version. I didn't encounter any problems during my gameplay.

In conclusion, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion is a great opportunity to introduce this game to a new audience, like myself. It's a really fun game and probably an important story for the next parts of the remake era of Final Fantasy VII.

so glad something like this can exist today. crisis core is probably one of the most expressively “edgy” mid to late 2000s games i’ve ever played - edgy in the sense that it’s filled with stylized teenage blood pumping action and nomura character designs fit for its audience - it’s so gratifying that this era of games can still remain relevant. in 2022 i’m watching a pre rendered fmv of smug long-sworded swordsman do battle on the edge of a nuclear cannon while the hardest drum n bass heavy guitar infused battle music beckons alongside. crisis core’s essence has remained untouched.
while the story is very clearly flawed in a handful of areas (specifically genesis’ handling), zack is still just such a joy to watch, despite the unfortunate decline in voice quality compared to the original. i can look past a lot of flaws because of how heartwarming the story and surprisingly great the gameplay are. every grievance i had with the original’s combat has been completely fixed to my shock. still has the bones of its psp blueprint but its a lot more fluid now and isn’t as easy to bore.

this is for sure the definitive version of crisis core to play with the visual and mechanical upgrades alongside some new bonus content and remixed music. but… i still do think the original is worth playing, being a bit of a time capsule for that era of the ff7 compilation and height of the psp; pushing the hardware to the limits alongside attempting the ambitious endeavor of further contextualizing one of the most beloved titles in the medium. nowadays there’s a lot less risk for square to do something like this, what with basically anything ff7 selling like hotcakes today lol. anyway i had a ton of sentimental fun reminiscing the compilation days while playing this, great remaster!

Use brings about wear, tear, and rust... So use Costly Punch :p

Man, as a huge fan of Final Fantasy VII and the remake in particular, I went into this with such deep skepticism. I already know the gist of the plot thanks to VII, and my love for the world and characters was amplified well beyond my expectations in VIIR, so it was important to me not to overhype this in my head for fear of sitting down to learn that it's "just a PSP spin-off and it shows"... Now, this isn't all to say that that isn't true per se, but I am so happy with how this turned out.

I’ve tried putting my thoughts down properly a few times now but they all turn into directionless rambles or I spend way too long praising the VAs for VII Remake, so this can be a short(er) one with possible expansion later.


I'm sure you can tell by now I'm a bit of a Final Fantasy simp. I haven't played too many of the games, but the ones I have all live in a very special part of my heart and can do no wrong, (even the ones that are bullshit and I hate them) - So of course this is coming from a place of bias. I do try to be fair, but also Tifa is wearing a cowgirl hat, it's hard enough thinking of anything beyond “I love it, this game is adorable, where is VII Rebirth? I am going to cry”

I really enjoyed this game, much more than I expected to. The combat proved to be simple but effective, with the DMW slot thingy making for an interesting way to make every fight different rather than the confusing mess I was worried it might be. The story is obviously restricted by the prequel-status, and the villains aren’t the most original ever written, but that doesn’t stop it from being an emotional journey at all. Also, being as easy-to-please as I am, even just spending short amounts of time in locations from Gaia that we haven’t seen yet in the remake had me giddily announcing to my gf that “!!! We’re in Junon!” and “Ayo! It’s Costa Del Sol!” with excitement that couldn’t be fazed by her cluelessness as to what I was talking about.

Zack himself is a great protagonist, I do feel as though his puppy-like dialogue and delivery from the early game leaks out into the later game a bit more than it should, but this was never enough to ruin a serious or sincere scene. Seeing pre-VII Cloud and Aerith in particular was really cool. I loved that a lot. Tifa obviously is great as well, if used a little less than I was expecting. Oh yeah and even Yuffie got some time to shine, her “questline” was cute.

Speaking of… At first I thought that 300 optional side missions was outrageous, nay, disgusting! How dare they populate this beloved game with a 70/30 split of mid copy/paste levels to the actual game. But then I started doing them, and I literally could not stop. They’re all the same maps and you can beat pretty much all of them using only 2 attacks over and over but my god they’re addictive. I beat them all, including the super mega ‘fuck you’ boss that has 10 million hp, I had fun :)
As I write this I’ve got the combat AFK downstairs, I’ve become so addicted that I burned through right up to the platinum and now all I’m waiting on is maxing the % for a couple of the DMW things, making my biggest complaint at the current time the reliance on RNG for a trophy. I’ve played the entire game, all 300 missions and then NG+ up to mid-chapter 9 and I still have 3 characters on the DMW board with 90%, 80% and fucking 10% to their names… I’ve gotten each of them so many times, how are they so low !?

Anyway ramble Jake is creeping back in so I’m gunna call it here lol. This was a surprisingly great time and only reinforced my love for the franchise and the VII-verse in particular. Definitely worth playing if only as a buffer between Remake and Rebirth. (Just maybe don’t bother with all 300 missions)

P.S. It's not that long either! It only took me around 30 hours to beat including doing 150+ missions, with another 6 hours to do the remaining missions. You could beat this in 20 hours with relative ease I bet.

Update: Finally got the DMW trophy after about 3 hours of letting it run with buffed odds, jeez. Platinum #89

Shin-ra is experimenting on hunks to make them hunkier-- somebody do something!!!

I skipped Crisis Core when it first released, having already decided to pass on the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII after "dilly-dally shilly-shally" entered my mind like a leucotome to carve out the part of my brain capable of giving a shit. I loved Final Fantasy VII but expanding on that story felt somehow wrong to me. It was fine as-is, I didn't need to see where the characters went after Meteor fell (I prefer the ambiguity and mystery of FFVII's ending), and I definitely didn't need to learn more about Zack beyond what the optional Nibelheim flashback provided.

But something is going on at Square, and it seems to me like their physical releases go out of print faster than any other publisher still pressing discs. I only wanted Crisis Core: Reunion for completionists sake, as a collector, but if I buy something then I'm also going to play it. So, fear of missing out made me finally take the plunge, and I gotta say... Think Zack might be my new favorite FFVII character. I've become Zackpilled and an Angealcel, it's fucking over for me. Throw my body in a pyre so the disease cannot spread.

Crisis Core did not make such a positive impression on me at first, however. The initial few hours feel pretty lacking mechanically, offering a combat system that's perfectly competent but somewhat weightless and dated. A roulette wheel constantly spins between character portraits depicting the people in Zack's life who are important to him, and while the game tries to convey what each possible combination will result in, it was way too much information for me to commit to memory. I gave up trying to understand it immediately. In the words of David Clayton-Thomas, sometimes you gotta just "let the spinning wheel spin."

Likewise, I opted to ride the painted pony through the rest of Crisis Core's ho-hum mechanics, its lackluster shops and Materia fusion system, and tedious missions that are clearly designed around playing the game on a mobile device. A lot of Crisis Core: Reunion reminds me of Peace Walker HD, you don't need to be told it was a seventh-generation handheld game. However, in Crisis Core's case I wouldn't call any of it bad, just dated.

The story, which focuses on Zack's favorite boy band breaking up and how that eventually leads to his death, takes a while to get going and at times feels disassociated from where it's headed. More than once I started the game up after taking a little break and felt like I was missing time. Why is Zack here now? I don't know. Either I failed to retain what literally just happened the last time I played or the story has leapt ahead by an indeterminate amount of time. Whenever something important happens, the story is quick to drop it and move to the next thing, with the in-world time between beats feeling at once prolonged yet brief. It lacks the presence of time and as such left me with this gnawing sense that none of this new material would matter, that it exists only to justify having a game based on a thin strip of plot from a 1997 RPG.

In a lot of ways, Crisis Core feels like it's trapped in an endless cycle of getting started. But then you finally get to Nibelheim...

SPOILERS FOR THE LAST ACT OF CRISIS CORE AHEAD:

Crisis Core isn't the Final Fantasy Remake, none of these characters are going to escape their fate, Nibelheim is as inevitable as Zack's final stand outside of Midgar. The assignment then is to make this climax as impactful a decade removed from the original game, and it accomplishes this by building upon Zack's character and getting the player more emotionally invested in his journey.

Through much of Crisis Core, Zack is portrayed as a try-hard goofball with an appropriately grating voice who views this whole SOLDIER thing as some kind of game. He wants to be a hero like his best bud Angeal or Sephiroth, but maybe not like Genesis because that nerd reads shitty poetry and is literally falling apart. Angeal's supposed betrayal and the revelation of Shin-ra's experiments shakes Zack, but he never completely loses faith that things will turn out ok. That he won't be a hero. By the time he sets foot in Nibelheim, he's still impetuous but has largely mellowed out. He's got a girlfriend back in Midgar (Aerith), has formed a tight bond with Cloud, and has befriended Tseng and Cissnei of the Turks. He has people to fight for, it's not just about his own glory. And then everything starts to rapidly fall apart.

Zack limps back home with a near comatose Cloud in tow, much as he does in Final Fantasy VII, only with a couple of detours to tie up loose ends with Genesis and Angeal. Closing the loop on these plot threads is not something I expected myself to become so invested in. By the time Genesis is nearing the last few passages of Loveless, my opinion of his character had mostly turned around, and the final scene shared between each of these characters is very touching. Despite being injected into the middle of an existing story, it doesn't feel out of place, and it makes good on some of the earlier moments in Crisis Core that I felt were listless.

This trek back to Midgar also feels more emotionally significant. In the original game, you got the sense that Zack was just trying to do the right thing. He's in SOLDIER, after all, he's not just going to leave someone behind. In Crisis Core, the context of Zack and Cloud's friendship is different. It's deeper. Zack begs Cloud to finish off Sephiroth, they nearly died together, they share something deeper than just being a subordinate and superior who had a handful of friendly conversations while on the job. Likewise, the deeper context of Zack's relationship with Aerith makes this journey more painful. The guy really has nothing left except her and his honor.

Even mechanically, any shortcomings Crisis Core has are made up by those last stretches of combat, where Zack struggles to lift his sword and the roulette wheel constantly glitches out on Aerith's portrait. It almost feels like someone had the idea in mind for that one moment and built everything backwards, for better and worse.

Zack never gets to revel in the popularity his heroic deeds bring, but that's not really what being a hero is about. Being a hero is really about getting filled with the most bullets to ever enter into the human body in recorded history It's about protecting and doing right by others, even at great personal cost. He doesn't get to see Aerith again, but he saves Cloud and preserves his legacy, and that at least brings him some comfort.

So, congrats Square, you got me incredibly invested in a character who was to me just a clump of ugly early-PS1 polygons as of a week ago. Was not expecting to feel "Big Boss saluting The Boss' grave" levels of fucked up over a game that starts with characters repeatedly asking if Zack's heard of "dumbapples," or that has a main villain that would unironically refer to himself as a thespian. Granted, a lot of Crisis Core is saved in its last act and it's far, far from perfect, but I had a great time with it and it's no doubt my best panic-buy of 2023.

does improve upon the original but it's still monotonous

it's just nice seeing more into how Sephiroth went insane, how Zack was involved in the events that set up Final Fantasy 7

Screw the Genesis stuff though, it's all pretty much unnecessary nonsense that adds to the dumpster fires of Advent Children and all other 7 Compilation trash

Crisis Core is one cool ass game. Crisis Core is also one weird ass game.

The music is a major step down from both the original and remake, the voice acting is sub-par and leans into laughable at times, and the combat is pretty simple albeit enjoyable. I do think playing on a harder difficulty might have forced me to engage with the game's systems a bit more but it's still fun.

In my opinion, the story isn't even that great, the weird-ass stuff with Genesis and Loveless isn't all that interesting, but watching Sephiroth's transition into the villain he is known to be was super cool. On top of that, the extra bits of world-building you get through the mail system are pretty neat.

Although I knew it was coming, that killer of an ending still goes hard as fuck, and presenting the slow death of Zack through gameplay and the DMW was amazing.

As most of my reviews are, this review isn't very concise and neither are my thoughts on this game. Many things would put a lot of people off from playing Crisis Core, but I think there is a certain magic that comes with the characters, the worlds, and just the general atmosphere these games give off. Crisis Core is a mess made with passion, you have to play it.

Also, I've been listening to the OST while writing this review and I think I really undersold it. It's still a step down from the original but I think it has its own charm and style to it that I greatly enjoy.

It's shocking how much this spins its wheels. It could have added so much to the FF7 story by being a prequel but nothing is gained at all. At its worst it's ruinous to the intentions of FF7's narrative. It overexplains things that absolutely did not need to be explained. It attempts to make Shinra and the Turks more likeable and less scummy, which misses the point of them to me.

Zack is a terrible character. He has this generic Shonen protagonist persona and its insufferable. The terrible writing does not help this. It thinks it's so smart, that it has so much to say. But it doesn't, it's a mindless narrative about honor and heroism or whatever. The relationships that Zack makes throughout the journey are so insisted on in the narrative and the game mechanics but they are all so one dimensional. I feel like this game is trying so hard to pretend that it's such a beautiful and meaningful story rather than actually being that. We have FF7! It's right there!

I'm very mixed on the gameplay. It has a lot of really cool ideas, and as far as reunion goes, the action always felt really crunchy and satisfying. At its best it does feel like a good translation of FF7s mechanics into a KH styled action RPG. But what absolutely kills it is the structure and the balancing. This game was made to be played on the go, so it has to have all of these really small bite sized optional missions. They are SO boring. They are there to give Zack new materia and new items, but they all play out the same in the same like four areas each time. I think the idea is that when the main game gets really hard they encourage you to do them. But the problem with that is the game is so easy all the time! The roulette wheel feels so tilted in your favor all the time. The materia fusion system is so busted and you just get these crazy strong materia that deletes encounters and ridiculously buffs your stats. I understand FF7 was like this too, but finding the powerful materia and making them grow stronger has you put in the work to do so. In Crisis Core, it feels like everything is just handed to you immediately. It makes it's systems and enemy encounters so boring. Why should I do more missions if I'm already overpowered throughout the entire storyline? It's really silly how this game is on the cusp of some really unique gameplay but it has so many cracks that show their face the more you play it.

I really wanted to like this game. There is appealing things about its gameplay loop that could be great if it was more finely tuned. It is very ambitious and I respect some of the creative things it's trying to do within the world of ff7. It's really trying, but it never sticks the landing. It's yet another unnecessary addition to FF7s story.

Can’t rate this right now as I’ll need to come back eventually but I’m shelving this game as I have already played the original and the fact this game just changed the combat slightly doesn’t help it to deter from the main problems this game has. Stuff like the level design, poor soundtrack outside of the battle music and the fact every line of dialogue is now voiced is more of a hindrance than a help.

I do definitely plan to come back and blitz through the rest of the game as the ending to this game is phenomenal and seeing it on a home console is going to be incredible, but for now it’s going on the backburner

Facilmente o melhor remaster que já tive a oportunidade de jogar, tanto no quesito de melhorar o que já existia tanto em acrescentar novidades.

Nunca tive a oportunidade de jogá-lo no PSP (apesar de ser meu console favorito, eu não era muito fã da franquia quando mais novo) e para mim, ir conhecendo a história do mundo de FFVII começando pelo remake e voltando para essa prequela, foi uma experiência incrível no quesito historia.

Durante o começo do game senti uma pequena quebra de expectativa, pois esperava uma gameplay mais parecida com a do remake e logo no início uma narrativa conectada com o que vimos de Cloud. Apesar disso, depois entendi que aqui se trata da jornada de Zack e que Cloud é apenas mais uma personagem, algo que achei muito interessante e até "ousado" pelo hype que o personagem tem. Também reconheci que a gameplay, apesar de ainda ser um pouco limitada, ainda possui uma evolução gigante comparada com a versão original, o que deixa o trabalho de remaster ainda mais bem feito.

Nunca jogou a versão de PSP? Pode jogar essa aqui sem medo, é uma excelente porta de entrada para esse mundo gigantesco de FFVII.

''Embrace your dreams. And whatever happens, protect your honor as SOLDIER''


One of the most interesting premises a story can have is building a main character with heroic ideals & righteous beliefs in an environment that downright rejects, denies & is thoroughly incompatible with said ideals due to its cruel, unforgiving nature & that being Crisis Core's premise & main theme communicated through Zack's character is what makes it so poetically beautiful especially with the symbolism behind the concept of wings in this game & how it ties to its theme of freedom & heroism where Zack is forced to undergo challenges that make him question the crux of his ideals so much so he begins to doubt himself.



Now to focus on the symbolism behind wings for a bit, wings are defined differently by Crisis Core's cast, Genesis and Angeal believe them to symbolize monstrosity, Cissnei believes they're a sign of freedom, & Zack's own personal discovery of what wings mean is his entire character arc. From time and time again, Zack constantly gets betrayed by what he believed in, whether it be Angeal, the cruel reality of what SOLDIER really is about, or the dark side of Shinra & what always brings him back on his feet & keeps him going is his sense of honor & ideals that are shaped by his relationship with the cast. When his sense of honor was breaking apart & he pleaded to Angeal for help, what brought him back to his senses & reminded him to stay loyal to his honor even if the crux of what he was fighting for turned out to be worthless, was Cloud's words & the reason why that moment stood out to me so much, is that when both Zack and Cloud were wavering in their respective games, what brought them back on their feet were their memories & love for the people dear to them. The emphasis on bonds & their importance to who you are as a person in both games was tied perfectly, all while pushing the main idea of Crisis Core, & it's that freedom & honor is something you decide yourself & define on your own terms instead of letting external factors shackle you down. Whatever your environment tells you, protect your beliefs & fight for them for a brighter tomorrow.



"If you want to be a Hero, you need to have dreams... and honor''


If there was a moment that ever strongly expressed the notion I just mentioned, it's Zack's sacrafice & what it meant for him to go against Shinra, the company he dedicated his entire life to serving & dreaming of saving to become like his ideal hero Sephiroth. To fight the physical manifestation of everything that rejects his ideals, to fight the crux of what he previously admired, & to break through the cage & shackles holding his wings back for a tomorrow with no regrets, Zack defined his own personal belief of what wings are & instead of fearing them & viewing them with resentment, he used them as a way to empower himself, pay his price of freedom to become an unspoken hero & entrust his legacy to Cloud.

this one is a pretty interesting story about a “hero” – i.e, a military that joined the army believing that he would be a hero but is actually just helping a multi billionaire company/imperialist state in their dirty path – slowing realizing how shitty his job is and how much he is more of a “tool” and a “product” rather than, actually, a hero. the game has this theme of “honor” and what that really means and i like how it never really prestiges shinra for anything, even with the romanticism in SOLDIER and all, is more of an individual discourse. the genesis plotline (and kind of the main plotline lol) is interesting too¹ and questions a lot about the usefulness of SOLDIER, their purpouse as individual and if they aren’t just monsters used as weapons for a company to do their jobs. even zack not being as modified as angeal, genesis or even sephiroth, he’s still just a shinra’s dog, you know? pretty funny how genesis is just an edgy gay that reads too much poetry! love the 2000s aesthetics on it, the flip-phones, the FMVs, how beautiful the boys are! like. seriously. final fantasy vii may be the final fantasy with the most beautiful boys in any of them. anyway. i dislike how the missions work! to be more exactly, i hate the level design on it, is just flat and boring and what really makes you want to do the missions is getting new items to fusion or to just have a better build and because of how good the combat is. not excellent, though! fire trivializes a lot of fights and some encounters that could be excellent are just you spamming fire and running and sometimes hitting the enemy while he’s just there still attacking you and not really reacting to any of your attacks. but you know, psp game etc etc. the ending of this game pays for pretty much all of its sins, i cried like a bitch. also reno’s in it and he’s handsome. and zack is a cute too. good game!

¹just an edit to say that is not flawless tho! genesis is a big "?" since, while it does brings some cool questions and is a narrative trigger for sephiroth's downfall, it's existence throught the game as well as the whole g project, s-cells etc. plot feels like a big nothing in the main picture (The Final Fantasy VII Compilation, I Mean). still, genesis as a character is pretty fun to watch!

I’m going to be honest right out of the gate. My rating on this game may be biased because while this game has its flaws, I love Final Fantasy 7 so much that I can’t help but just smile and have a great time when I see or play anything related to it.

I knew the story from Crisis Core but never got to play it until now with the Remake. The story, while limited due to knowing how it will end because of FF7, does a tremendous job of not only setting the stage for FF7 but also expands the universe and several FF7 characters in a major way. You get to really see why Tifa hates Shinra so much, why Cloud is the way he is and who he was before FF7, different sides of Sephiroth and the Turks, and learn so much about Zack and Aerith.

I wish the main story in FF7 showed a little more into what a hero Zack was. He is maybe the most like-able and heroic figure out of every Final Fantasy game to date. He is an ultimate warrior who lives by honor even when almost everything is falling apart and most around him are evil. Zack is impossible not to root for and love. Crisis Core left me wanting to play more as Zack and even though I knew what the end game was going to be it still punched me in the face. His dream was to be a hero and he achieved that in spades several time over.

I really enjoyed the gameplay which I hear is a major improvement from the original. I wish Materia choices mattered a little more though. I feel like there are a few materia that are so good that once you get them the rest become dead weight in your inventory. This also makes the game a bit repetitive as you just bombard your best two or three attacks over and over again.

My main downside to this game is the 300 optional missions. They are virtually the same thing 300 times but progressively get slightly harder. They all boil down to find a random enemy that’s been buffed to hell on 1 of 5 maps and kill said buffed enemy. Not only is there 200 or so to many of them but if you do them before really getting to far into the story a lot of the main game becomes a joke difficulty wise. I decided to do aroun 150 of the missions about a third of the way through the story. Unfortunately that led me to one or two shoting enemy’s all the way until the end of the game.

The graphics are not up to par with FF7 but they are still beautiful and do a mush better job and background graphics and textures. The music is, well, Final Fantasy music so..it’s spectacular.

If you like Final Fantasy at all please do yourself a favor and play this game if you haven’t. It’s not as well known as most of the numbered titles but it definitely should be.

É um bom jogo com uma ótima história, mas com vários problemas notáveis por conta do jogo original, ele não envelheceu tão bem e muita coisa não foi refeita, mesmo com o combate melhorando bastante e lembrando o FF7 Remake, essencialmente ainda é o mesmo combate do jogo original e você vai escutar "Activating Combat Mode" e "Conflict Resolved" do início ao fim, a variedade no gameplay é bem baixa e mais pro final você vai acabar só usando as mesmas matérias e ataques. O jogo acaba sendo carregado puramente pela história, que mesmo assim possui um ritmo bem quebrado graças aos vários minigames inúteis e trechos onde você só fica correndo por aí coletando itens pra avançar na história, no geral, é um jogo bem legal e com um remaster muito bem feito graficamente, mas que acaba sofrendo com os problemas geracionais da versão antiga, principalmente nas animações, um remake completo teria sido muito bem-vindo.

This is the definitive way to play this game. It retains almost every single aspect from the original apart from the combat and graphic overhaul but also adding dialogue to every cutscene in the game. That doesn't mean this remake is free from issues. Zach's voice actor while not bad is definitely a downgrade from Rick Gomez in the original, a lot of the animations are stiff and recycled and not nearly as fluid as the animations in the Final Fantasy VII Remake. With all that being said, the pros definitely outweigh the cons here. The combat and gameplay loop is great, I never found myself bored out of my mind with the combat and missions as the combat system is fluid, sharp, fast-paced and all of the animations and effects while in battle are very good. Soundtrack while good, does tend to get a little annoying due to how much they are recycled throughout the game; The main theme is by far the most recycled. The best aspect of this game is by far the story. It beautifully expands upon the secret backstory cutscenes you could find in the original game from 1997. Zach is a charming character who never fails to put a smile on your face. Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth are all good supporting characters and Cloud is awfully wholesome to see as a shy dork before he turns into an edgelord in the first half of the original. I'd highly recommend playing this version over the original as it offers everything from the original with the enhancements to the combat and graphics. Me? Gongaga.

Embrace your dreams and protect your honor... as SOLDIER.

This is a really hard title to review because it really felt like two different games to me. A prequel to FF7 and 7R, while also telling its own self contained Crisis Core story. As always with my reviews, I keep conversation on the story pretty light because I don't like including spoiler content, so I'll continue to avoid that here.

Crisis Core as it's own game is a little... weak. Genesis is not a very believable villain, Angeal isn't quite the captivating mentor figure that he's portrayed to be, and Hollander just kinda sucks. I don't know too much about the writing/directing history of the game but it felt really, really Kingdom Heartsy to me in all of the worst ways. Dialogue was weak across the board, even Zack who was the shining star had some really awful lines (see: Monsters and Angels,) and overall was a detriment to the story. The gravity of what was at stake for Shinra and the world at large felt deflated because that epic speech was never there, that interpersonal dialogue had me cringing most of the time. In theory I really wanted to like actually playing as a SOLDIER under the Shinra banner, doing missions on behalf of the orginization to uncover the mystery behind Genesis' dissapearance, but as mentioned above the lack of dialogue or intrigue behind Genesis made for a very underwhelming experience. Everytime he shows up in the story he's monologuing some faux-Shakespeare which comes off more like a morose teenager than what he's actually supposed to be. The story of Crisis Core felt like Advent Children to me, where I was legitimately only happy to have experienced it to get more of the rest of the cast... and that we did.

Before I get into the FF7/R part of Reunion, I should go over other elements of the game that I found to be lackluster. The first, and this was my issue with Peace Walker when I played that, is that Crisis Core all in all, no matter where I play it, feels like a PSP game in its design. Rooms no matter how small or large feel oddly... empty. Zones in the side missions are barren and tonally monotonous. The world is really nothing special, and almost an unfair critique after playing 7 Remake doesn't even begin to compare in terms of population/material density.

And oh man, speaking of those side missions... There are approximately 459304953049350 of them in the game, and they feature the exact same loop of maps in which you run from point A to point B and kill monster/group of monsters. The unfortunate thing here is that they are extremely beneficial to do, meaning that the player, even though they are displayed as optional, almost should do as many as they can before progressing. The reason these are so helpful is because of the plethora of beneficial DMW (I'll get to this in a second) summons and materia/materia slots that they provide for completion. I found myself in the first two days of playing Crisis Core almost exclusively doing these because I figured I could rush through them all and then progress like i did with 7R. Lo & Behold I found that after these first few days of doing almost exclusively side content that I had notched an 18% completion rate on side missions that I was going to give up. Why are there so many??? It would be one thing if they had even a smidge of variety... but outside of enemies that you fight they are literally all monster killing missions. This wasn't even remotely fun and destroyed a lot of interest I had in the game.

The caveat of doing as many of those side missions as I did was that when I resumed the story, I was reeeeeeeeally strong. For as long as possible, only needing to change for the final boss, I ran a full oonga-boonga strength/vit build into the end game abusing my fused Twister Attack combo to kill groups of enemies and bosses alike in one fell swoop. I almost appreciate how easily it is to break the game like this on normal, but it did remove a lot of the challenge. Unlike 7 Remake, which I know comes much later after the original Crisis Core, you don't need to put too much thought into Materia in this game once you've found what works for you. I assume magic builds work fairly well but you can legitimately speedrun the game on melee alone (took me maybe eleven hours with the side content included.) Combat is pretty bare bones overall, attacking with melee is mostly reduced to a one button normal but you can augment your arsenal with materia that enhance this. Abilities with materia were actually really convenient, and I'm glad they utilize this DNA in 7 Remake, allowing the player to hit Left Bumper then a/b/x/y/rt/rb (using xbox scheme) to select whichever spell they have attached to each slot. This made casting my twister attack and curaga seamless in combat and un-frustrating like some of Square Enix & Final Fantasy's action titles do.

Now as a lore fiend I really am glad to have played Reunion, which is probably exactly why this title got re-released. Not only was it extremely popular at launch, but I'm glad Square Enix was able to capitalize on the people who wanted to explore the multiple routes they see the FF7 franchise taking with 7 Remake. I've seen the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Orchestra live, own Advent Children, have played the OG FF7, 7 Remake, and Intermission DLC, I am a complete sucker for this series and the world its built. I love the characters, themes, environments, score, you name it. I spent the entierty of Crisis Core connecting the dots between it and 7 and 7 Remake, and I'm glad it was rewarding in that regard. I enjoyed seeing characters like Cloud, Aerith, Sephiroth, and the Turks in a completely different light, with everybody's favorite villain being shown in a period in time we never see in the OG/Remake title, a SOLDIER. You get to see the war hero from a direct spectator, and that was really neat. I wept internally at the ending, despite having qualms with the Angeal/Genesis storylines, it really did move me and appreciate the story of Cloud Strife even more than I already did. For a lore junky, Crisis Core is a must play due to how it sets the stage for one of the greatest stories in the medium's history.

In all, I was not a fan of the "Crisis Core" part of Crisis Core, but did love how it expanded on a story I was already very interested in, that of Final Fantasy 7. Nothing in gaming has captivated me quite like FF7 has, and I'm not sure anything will again. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 - Reunion succeeds at what it clearly was meant to do, hold the hype for Rebirth, and it aces that for me. I would recommend this title for people just like I who are looking for more to hold them over until the next part of the Remake saga releases, or want to experience the origin story of Cloud Strife and Zack Fair. While the game itself wasn't great, I had fun and it most definitely was worth it.

Really wanted to play Crisis Core cause I wanted Zack's story (FF7R SPOILER)(especially after the ending of FF7R), and Zack is cool! I like him, he is so genuine and warm. It is kind of mind boggling to Cloud and Sephiroth acting normal; Cloud is a little wimpy guy and Sephiroth is kind of a cool dad. And Zack/Aerith's relationship is so sweet, like goddamn it was cute as hell. I don't think I got the exact catharsis I wanted out of the end, but it was good. Still kind of confused about some of the Zack/Cloud stuff. ALSO the ending thing with the slot machine memories, COOL.

The gameplay seems like FF7R Lite, no command menu, just all shortcut buttons. Kind of braindead but fun, until you get to like 6 star missions, then the game asks a hell of a lot of you. I tried to get to the end game content, but I feel like its just bashing your head against shit until you finally get the end game build. I wanna see that shit, but its just too much effort for something that was probably designed for people to do on the train to work.

Some are saying Crisis Core is the CUNTIEST game of the century!
The flip phone mid-2000 tech aesthetic? cunt
Genesis as a character? serving
Genesis reading poetry? yes
Gackt? hes there too
Turk suits? CUNT

folks lets be honest with ourselves here....Nomura can do no wrong!!!

Crisis Core is a poorly aged game with a real messy script. I was not high in expectations, but I expected at least a steady narrative, given the reputation of the game's story. Sadly, it looks like they did not show any effort to improve any part of it after all. Besides the story, also the animations in cutscenes(?), and controls are nothing more than a disappointment. It is harder to overlook the mistakes of a game when the graphics are renewed entirely while the controls and animations play clunky as hell. What this game needed was not a remaster, but a remake.