This is genuinely one of the most baffling blind spots I've had as a huge fan of JRPGs. I've heard time and time again about how revolutionary this game was for the genre, and I kept trying to pick it up and failing each time. I think initially, nothing really grabbed me about the game save for its' setting. Don't get me wrong; the opening isn't bad, but I have attention problems when it comes to games, if I'm not drawn in instantly, I have to really push myself to get to a point where playing comes naturally. Very glad that I ended up doing that this time around.

For reference, I played this game LOCKED IN this time around; I was playing in a pitch black room off my CRT with no background noise, save for a space heater because landlords are useless parasites. The atmosphere of this game is addicting, which is something I never noticed until I played this way. Midgar's oppressive, looming city contrasted with the dismal and cozy slums that lie underneath are such fascinating settings for the first segment of the game. You really start to get a sense for this world that you're in, you start to get immersed in this setting, almost in a way that you start to believe nothing is outside of this place. Which is why when you finally leave after a half-dozen hours, it's overwhelming. You can go anywhere in this colorful, lively world that starkly contrasts the setting you just got so comfortable knowing. This is genius, because you would think that the characters would react to this in an awestuck way, oohing and aahing at the new scenery, but instead they barely react at all, and instead the burden of those emotions is placed onto you, the player. This is how masterfully the world of FF7 is crafted and woven into the story, it almost makes you forget it's a PS1 game.

The gameplay is rather interesting too. It ranges from really easy, to extremely frustrating depending entirely on one thing; materia. Materia, no pun intended, is the lifeblood of FF7's systems, as it replaces skills and classes from other more traditional RPGs and turns FF7 into a wildly customizable experience. How you use materia what dictates how well things go for you in FF7, and I would argue is what defines it in the genre. Every spell/ability that is commonplace for other RPGs is squished into these slottable gems, meaning you can mix and match playstyles, meaning characters don't fall into one niche and that's all there is to say about them; rather you can choose whatever the hell you want them to be. For instance, I opted for Cloud to be a melee attack bruiser, giving him materia that allowed him to take hits for frailer party members, but he would also launch a counterattack when he endured these hits, allowing him to dish out more melee damage, regardless of if it's "his turn" or not. I gave Tifa a good mix of support abilities and healing, while still allowing her to hit pretty hard, making her kind of like a war monk in other games. My last party member was a pure caster, I gave him plenty of powerful spells and summons to empower him from the backline, whereas some other people opt to make him a physical bruiser. You really can do whatever you want, and it will usually work out pretty well, as long as you have a plan.

The soundtrack is superb, I really don't have much more to say about it than that. There is such an insanely wide variety of tracks that you would be hard pressed to not find something you absolutely adore from this game. The main theme is so fucking spectacular, too. I never got tired of hearing it.

In terms of critiques I have for this game, I would say that I was getting a little frustrated by the gimmicky stuff. If you've played, you know what I mean. Some dungeons are pretty straightforward, but other have some weird shit that kind of just draws you out of the game for a little bit. Nothing that really took away from my experience, but just frustrating to have to learn a new minigame/gimmick for a dungeon every hour or so. I will lend to its' credit, this did keep me on my toes for the duration of the game, but some of the minigames were wildly frustrating if you just didn't jive with the concept well. I would also say that the pacing of the story is a little wonky in Disc 2, I felt like there was a big lull in the middle, especially compared to the breakneck pacing at the start and the end of Disc 2, doing little side-fetch quests felt a little bit like the Triforce Quest from Wind Waker, albeit much much less tedious.

Final thoughts, I am a stupid idiot moron for not playing this sooner. This was one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had in a long while, I felt like a kid again, as that was the last time I've felt such wonder for gaming. I can confidently say that this game rightfully deserves it's place among the monoliths of gaming as a truly influential, masterpiece title now that I have finished it. It is super fascinating coming back to it after playing dozens upon dozens of JRPGs that drew inspiration from this monumental title, and drawing my little thread from those games back to here. This is just one of those games that every gamer has to experience at least once, just to see what all the hype is about.

Just to get the superficial shit out of the way; wow, this game looks awful on Switch. The FMVs are untouched, they look great. But holy hell the sacrifices they had to make for this game to have a decent locked framerate is crazy. It's kind of a miracle this version runs on Switch, so props to them, but damn I kind of wish I played on PC if I didn't prefer the portability.

The gameplay itself is actually quite an interesting change up from the standard FF formula, I found it refreshing... for a little bit anyways. I think the materia fusion system and the gearing is actually quite awesome in this game, but still not quite good enough to fix the greatest issue this game has which is repetitiveness. And this game is one of the worst cases I've seen from a AAA release, even if it was on the PSP intially. You will play the same exact maps at least 20 different times if you are doing a good chunk of the optional missions like I did. I ended up being like level 48 at the end of the game because I did so many optional missions, but I didn't even get 50% clear on the optional missions because there's just so damn many. This was a problem, because I absolutely STEAMROLLED the final bosses with little-to-no challenge, and I also endured dozens upon dozens of tedious little side missions, which granted, they take like 5 minutes tops, they're still the same exact thing; walk over here, kill a boss/bosses, a handful of chests/random encounters along the way. It is a fucking slog, which is why I would only recommend doing a few side missions here and there, as some of the questlines are actually quite cute, but man are the just generic missions so exhausting after a while.

The highlight of my time playing Crisis Core was the ACTUAL boss fights. I had an amazing time fighting Bahamut when I was like 5-6 levels under what I should have been, it felt a lot some of the Summon fights from FF7R with Chadley. These fights are the absolute peak of Crisis Core, and unfortunately they were a high I only got a handful of times, due to how quickly I got overpowered. After doing a ton of side missions, which the game told me I should be doing, I was 1-shotting bosses left and right, and I feel like I was a little robbed of what the game should be like. I didn't even break a sweat on the game's final boss. In the game's defense, I didn't really look for a difficulty setting after I realized how OP I was, I kind of just wanted the game to be over.

Crisis Core's story is really fascinating. I didn't know hardly anything going in, except that I was pretty sure about how things were going to end. I found the new characters like Angeal and Genesis to be pretty hit or miss, but what ground was covered with already existing characters and their relation to Zack was super interesting. Overall, it's a pretty just decent story. What absolutely broke me was the ending. I don't know what it was that hit me so hard, but the last time I cried this hard was at the ending of XC3: Future Redeemed, which is like the emotional zenith of my favorite trilogy of games ever, so that makes sense there. But Crisis Core wasn't the most insane story or anything, so I found myself quite caught off guard. I guess the writers just really knew how to hit you where it hurts.

At the end of the day, I think there is a lot of value in Crisis Core's story, even if the pacing is bizarre. I wish I could replay the game with less of the side shit, as I think I'd like the game better, but given what I did experience, I thought this game was a super solid beat em up in world of FF7 that links Cloud and Zack's story in a super heartfelt way. I am very glad I played.