Crisis Core is one of the most frustrating games Ive ever played because for 90% of the game I thought it was mediocre, and then the last 30 minutes made me cry some of the hardest tears I ever have at a video game.

This was always a game I was curious about because I always heard mixed to bad things about every aspect of it except its characterizations of Zack. After playing it, I can't help but 100% agree with those takes.

Crisis Core is a very confused game. It doesn't know whether it wants to be a prequel to the events of FF7, or its own separate story within the FF7 universe. This is a massive problem because it tries to do both, and it just doesnt work for me. I honestly really enjoyed when they stuck to just being a prequel, as the added character depth to Aerith and Cloud really made me respect and love them as characters even more. But when the game ends up switching over to being about new characters like Genesis or Hollander, I check out so hard. I don't find them interesting at all, and they sadly take up around 70% of the focus of the entire game. Angeal is a nice addition though and I thought he worked as a nice motivator for Zack.

The gameplay is also just fine. Its originally a handheld game so a lot of the design is mission based and very repetitive. The DMV was an interesting idea but I really didnt find myself paying attention to it much in combat. Honestly, there isnt really much for me to say about the combat. It is just there and its mostly boring. That is also my honest take on the music as well. Most tracks in the game are just exceptionally bland, and it sucks because Zack's theme is the most repetitive song in the entire game. I genuinely thought about muting the music multiple times.

Genuinely the only thing that kept me going through this game was Zack. When the game took away the boring Genesis or Hollander plotlines, and just focused on building Zacks relationship with characters like Cloud, Aerith, or even Angeal, I was incredibly onboard. He is an exceptional character that you can not help but root for the entire game, and its a shame his game was bogged down by so many problems.

The conclusion to his story in the last 30 minutes legitimately had me crying some of the hardest tears I ever had at a game. Crisis Core goes out of its way to both use gameplay and cutscenes to fully develop a scene that was only barely shown in the original game, and it is some of the best shit I have seen in a Final Fantasy game

It really left me yearning for a game that was that good the entire time, and not one that just felt like it was meandering and wasting its time until it needed to lock in at the end. I have yet to play the Remake or Rebirth, but I really do feel like they should spend more time with this character.

As it stands now, Zack deserves a better game.

What was it with Tetsuya Nomura in the late 2000s and tragedies?

God, I fucking love Zack Fair. This game is very fun. It's also very sad. I think it has a little too much repetitive content for its own good - it eventually gets tiring killing the same 5 enemies on the same 5 maps - but the story itself is incredibly strong, well-paced, and fun to play.

Unfortunately, the final chapter implements my favorite game design philosophy, which is what I like to call "putting a really ridiculously complicated, overdesigned dungeon right at the end". It's the slowest part of the game and a little tedious.

But really, I did enjoy this game a lot. And while Zack's new voice actor definitely sounds a little goofy in parts, he absolutely nails the final scene, which I have rewatched maybe 200 times. I love you Zack Fair.

Oh Crisis Core, how you ooze your time period throughout your entirety of your game. For better or for worse this game feels like a modern PSP game. Which can be both a blessing and a curse depending on how you look at it. While the combat is ok there’s not a lot of room for variation. Sure, you can use different materia for some different abilities, but considering how long it takes to upgrade materia it’s a lot more enticing to just find what you like and use it (along with whatever upgraded version you can get later on) throughout your play through. Most boss fights are pretty samey with little variation on how to approach. The DMV system is pretty neat albeit gimmicky. I think the biggest missed opportunity is not having the option for multiple loadouts while in combat to swap between. I know some people would probably find it would make the game too easy (which is a whole other conversation), but I think it would help spice up your encounters if you could swap between a mage style or an aggressive melee style. Grinding out missions is a pretty integral part of this game, and really dictates how easy or difficult it will be later on. A lot of the good materia along with just experience is locked behind the missions, so if you want to just play through the story it will be a real challenge. However, missions have a funny side effect where if you just hug the wall you can skip all of the extra encounters and just find chests/ fight the stage boss. Anyway, an above average game that really highlights who Zach is, but more importantly who Cloud is not.

The most embarrassing thing I can say about myself is I cried during the ending.
Despite knowing how the game will end if you are even slightly familiar with the original it was still a beautiful scene.
Fun combat, The story kinda jumps the shark with genesis imo, but I was still invested
I don't see myself replaying this like I do ff7, but I do recommend playing it if you enjoy ff7
It's probably the best final fantasy spin off

I can't stay mad at this one, man. For all its weird lore inclusions, stilted dialogue, injecting Genesis into one of the most pivotal scenes of the original game, etc., I can't get mad at it.

Zack is still such a fun and endearing character, I think his his interactions with characters like Aerith, Cloud and Sephiroth are all really good. And man, I forgot how much they really hammer home that this game's ending was gonna be heartbreaking.

Combat here is surprisingly nice, too. Not nearly as good as Remake or Rebirth, but I clicked with it way more than the PSP original. Even if I eventually got a really disgusting build with Darkness going on where I was nearly one-shotting everything in my path on Hard mode, but hey, I think more RPGs should let you find ways to one-shot enemies as a hilarious joke. Zack is both the strongest Dragoon AND Dark Knight in the whole franchise even if he's technically neither, it's messed up.

Don't go into this one expecting the exact same level of quality as Remake or Rebirth, though. This is very much still a side project and it stays true to the spirit of the original PSP game, like... shockingly true. At times I like to joke around and call it "Crisis Core Kiwami", as it reminds me of how the Yakuza Kiwami games have a ton of new gameplay features that weren't in the originals, but then you look at stuff like cutscene animations and it's lifted directly from the original game it's remaking.

While we're talking about this still being a PSP game in spirit, expect to do a lot of missions if you wanna unlock the really fancy shit that lets you turn Zack into an overpowered sicko. I only managed to complete 50% of all side missions before I beat the game in my ~20 hour playthrough, there's a LOT to go through.

Anyways, game's a mess, but I can't stay mad at it. It's an endearing mess, it'll probably make you chuckle and smile about as much as it'll make you groan and facepalm. Pick it up on sale if you need more Zack in your life before that third FF7R game drops.

I had an urge to play more FF7 related stuff after finishing Rebirth and i picked this one up and wonder how much different it was from the original PSP game which I played way back and boy, this one is this a blast. The game already looked so good for a portable game from the 00`s, but they made it look and play even better now.

Honestly, this remaster changes very little from the story; the bulk is still there, but the voice cast has been updated to feature the same actors from the Remake sequence (and they hit the jackpot with the casting selection, dear God) and the game now is fully voiced, so it`s even better to play.

It`s in the combat that you`re gonna feel that they made a lot of changes, if you played the original version. In this remaster, the combat feels way more smoother and it is much more refined - the DMW limit`s animation doesn`t interrupt the gameplay anymore and it seems like you`re playing a whole different game now.

The graphics look and sound much better, although i ran into some tearing and slow loading textures - granted I played arguably the "worst" version, which is the Switch one, so if i had to guess, these issues won`t bother at all if you play this on PS5 or PC.

If you just got introduced to the FF7 lore and universe through the Remake and Rebirth games, this one is a must play if you liked the characters. You see so much backstory from most of the cast - Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, the Turks and especially the main protagonist, Zack Fair, which is just delightful to accompany. You still have to deal with some repetitive gameplay and awkward transitions, as this is still an old game from a portable console, but at it`s core (yeah, I just did that), this is still an amazing experience.

Embrance your dreams
Eu não gostei muito do sistema de batalha, entendo que o jogo original foi lançado para PSP, mas para quem vem do FFVII Remake naturalmente irá gostar do sistema de combate do jogo, basicamente você spawna um ou outro botão e espera ter sorte para conseguir o DWM.
Embora eu considere uma história interessante, muitos detalhes acabam infantilizando toda a narrativa e particularmente acho que acaba prejudicando o universo de FFVII, acho que apreciaria mais se tivesse sido jogado quando mais jovem, no lançamento em 2007 a versão de PSP.

I didn't really like the battle system, I understand that the original game was released for PSP, but for those who come from FFVII Remake, you will naturally like the game's combat system, basically you spawn one or another button and hope to get lucky to get the DWM.
Although I consider it an interesting story, many details end up infantilizing the entire narrative and I particularly think it ends up harming the FFVII universe. I think I would appreciate it more if it had been played when I was younger, when the PSP version was released in 2007.

Una proeza técnica y jugable de la época de PSP que profundiza en la historia de Zack Fair, creando por el camino uno de los mejores personajes de la saga Final Fantasy e incluso me atrevería a decir de la historia de los videojuegos.

El problema viene cuando el juego se sale de la línea marcada por la historia del Final Fantasy VII original, ya que no puede evitar añadir elementos de cosecha propia que se sienten como restregar un puñado de boñiga sobre la Mona Lisa, algo ya marca de la casa de Square Enix.

Es disfrutable, pero si lo vas a jugar te recomiendo tomarte toda la mierda de Loveless, Genesis y esas polladas como fanservice barato que casi puedes ignorar para así centrarte en disfrutar el orgasmo que es ver los eventos del juego original mejor desarrollados y representados.

Y si crees que estoy exagerando diciendo que ignores todo lo que añade el juego de cosecha propia, una vez te lo pases haz un ejercicio de reflexión y pregúntate a ti mismo qué coño pintaba Cissnei en esta historia, por ejemplo.

Lo dicho, para qué escuchar si realmente no tienen nada nuevo relevante que contar.

Nota del remaster Reunion: Es increíble el trabajo que le han metido a nivel gráfico y kinestético, parece casi un remake más que un remaster de lo bien hecho que está, pero por dios, si tienes intención de jugarlo juégalo en PC con un mod para poner las voces originales de la versión de PSP, porque las nuevas voces dan ganas de meterse una turbomix oxidada por el ojete.

Weriddd game

Plot and all the new characters felt like a whole lot of nothing for most of the game, the gameplay while at its core decent, is super easy to break and unbalanced (last part especially with the super sudden difficulty spike on the last chapter)

the saving grace of this game for sure is zack as a character, and seeing all the events surrounding him and cloud after the nibleheim stuff happens which peaked alotta my intrest compared to the rest of tge story of the game tried to tell

also it was neat getting to see Sephiroth be a normal guy for most of the game

the original characters from this game (gensisi or angeal) didnt do it for as much as i hoped it did. alot of the highlights for me was zack's realtionship with the few characters from the original ff7 (aerith espcially).

the combat took a bit to get used to but once you get the hang of things it can be fun to mix and match different materia/skills. having characters/story being mixed into the dmw system was quite fun, even if cutscenes can be kinda repetive after a while (thank god you can skip them).

speaking of repetive, most the side missions you can take on can be pretty dull. only a few i found to have some sort of meat to them but they moslty consistof defeat this thing and not much else.

still, this game made me care alot about zack which was probably the primary goal here lol so mission accomplished. shout out to the really sick summon animations as well.

played the game on switch and didnt have any hickups. a few stutters here and there but nothing that bothered me.

Wild that in 1997 Square released one of the most beloved video game stories ever made, only to spend the next 20 years trying to ruin it with every new addition to the canon.
Do you like Aerith's personality? Guess what, Zack did that.
7th Heaven, cool name for a bar? Zack did that.
Aerith selling flowers and offering Cloud a date as payment? You guessed it, Zack did it.

The Nibelheim flashback? Actually Genesis, maybe the worst character in any final fantasy game ever (And what a title that is in a post XIII and XVI world), was just out of screen at all times reading fucking 5th grade poetry.

The soundtrack is incredible to a point where it almost tricks you into thinking CC's cutscenes are emotionally resonant. The combat is very playable, and how the wheel of fortune ties into Zacks thoughts and memories, and how that informs his combat abilities, is a really cool idea. But the writing, especially for Zack and Genesis, is so bad that I kinda wish I hadnt played this.

Je n'ai pas joué au jeu en entier... Le gameplay est mou et demande du farm, ce n'est pas pour moi. Sachant que le jeu m'intéressait principalement pour son histoire. Donc je l'ai regardé en film! Est-ce que l'expérience fut foncièrement euhhh comment dire que c'est très mal écrit et que les pics du jeu sont les passages qui reprennent directement ff7. Le jeu est très inégal dans son écriture (genesis je te déteste) et malgré des moments de bravoure et un final étincelant, n'arrive pas à se démarquer de son géniteur restant une oeuvre sympathique pour ce qu'elle nous fait revivre et étendre du jeu original.