[This will contain spoilers for both Crisis Core, and the original FFVII]

Something I don't see a lot of people talk about is how much that disc 3 super-secret Zack flashback cutscene in the original VII rips. Squaresoft's brazen over-dramatism manages to enrich a character with life in such a short time.. Zack is just a peppy boy who loves the sound of his voice so much that he can have a conversation with a comatose dude, and walk away from it satisfied. His death goes on to leave a paralyzed Cloud idolizing his lost friend, subconsciously glamorizing a life that ended without fanfare the moment he tried to escape the system.

Coming off of Crisis Core, the main thought in my head really was...
Did Zack even improve as a character after all of this?
There's some additions I do like here and there; the way Zack is afforded no agency by the plot - aimlessly hovering between the military he serves, and the war against it. The envy he feels for those who have the option to stand up for themselves; it's sooooo almost there. But the plot is just unwilling to express these feelings in anything less than an artsy cutscene. Like..."Those wings, I want them" is coooool but please, let these characters express some mundane natural emotion for once. Maybe I'll regret asking this sort of thing one day; disliking the vision of developers who perfectly capture angst both unspeakable, and awkward when spoken aloud. But every Kingdom Hearts game I've played has the clarity of sincerity somewhere in there. This game's just less well written than Kingdom Hearts

All of this game's problems stem from the way its narrative economy is distributed like the dril candles tweet. There is not a single chapter in this game that spends its time in the right places. When I streamed this to my friends, some of them joked about how often Zack says "huh?" - but it began to become a serious problem that despite playing a reactive role in the plot, Zack doesn't really have reactions. Zack's moment to moment dialogue never quite breaks out of just being another spunky Final Fantasy protagonist pastiche; it becomes obvious this is the spin-off none of the creatives daydreamed about on their lunch breaks. Nojima's side hoe. It's distressing seeing them show us the truth behind a moment like how Zack and Aerith began dating - telling it like the same military boy out of water love story that Cloud went through - and realizing that whatever vague idea I had in my mind was more creative than what this story had to tell. Cloud's entire arc is about him learning that he doesn't need to be Zack, so why do all of their life events have to parallel?

what's up with that one monologue from aerith about hating things that aren't normal. what the fuck lol

But the ending is good. I could nitpick it for sure. I'll at least acknowledge that leaving off on Cloud saying "I'm your living legacy" totally sucks ass, it's the exact opposite of what he needs to learn; he needs to stop trying to be other people. I still like Zack’s death in the FFVII scene more - the rawness of three lone officers gunning him down hits harder for me - but yeaaah, it's iconic. The scream into the fucking Zack AMV rules. But what gets me the most is that this scene isn't even better with the contents of the game. Crisis Core is not a good game, CRISIS CORE FINAL FANTASY VII FULL ENDING & CREDITS (HD) on youtube dot com is. This game was never even about Zack, it was about some other guys.
I think I would hate this game if I saw nothing in Angeal or Genesis. The entire narrative's run-time is cashed in on them, consistently choosing them over meaningfully expanding the few core details we knew about Zack. I think I got close to "getting" Angeal - obv a lot of commentary on wanting to follow the footsteps of flawed idols and the stuff - Genesis was just kinda funny, though. hes gackt up. i laughed rly hard when the game posited that genesis was in the room when sephiroth went crazy at the nibel reactor. But no matter how good of a time I can have watching some fun 2000s Square Enix cutscenes, there isn't a sense of fun in the moment to moment, to give the game any flow; the gameplay SUCKS!!!!!

in our heart or hearts everyone going into this knows at this point that the compilation is the equivalent to those netflix star wars spinoffs. most people are aware of this, and most people also seem to like it anyways. the truth is that what makes square enix unique is that they can't help themselves from imbuing all of their projects with heart. anyone who has ever cried to one of their mickey mouse games should know this. crisis core was always going to be a story about salvaging good human artistic passion from a game assigned to be trashy from birth, and i went into it with the most hopeful mindset i could.
and i dont know if i got anything from it


im still gonna be nostalgic for it in like 5 months





guys im going back to 7 rebirth and i still dont know what cissneis deal is im so fucked