Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7: Completed!
Spoilers and such below! Note that despite the game being a prequel of FF7, and its YET ANOTHER FF7 SPIN OFF, Crisis Core actually has a coherently written plot for the most part that can be spoiled and such, so yeah, this is actually needed.
Ok...where to start. Well, I guess the gameplay is as good a place as ever <_<
Crisis Core takes your standard Star Ocean game, and splices it with a Solo RPG. This actually works out pretty well. Like Parasite Eve (automatic response when I think of "Decent Solo RPG"), the game gives you a character with lots of customizability, lots of interesting options to work with (instead of just "build stats, spam this command!" you actually have a bunch of interesting kinds of moves to work with, most of them generally worthwhile!), and enemies are well balanced for a solo RPG. Some enemies have big uber attacks that could kill you...if you aren't set up properly. All big scary moves have obvious charge times and their name listed before the attack, long enough to give you time to heal. Yes, some moves can do more damage than your HP...but you should, at all times, either have some HP increasing Materia on, which is usually enough, or (M)Barrier Materia on (does Wall exist? I'd assume it does and I just never got it.) Some cases, you can survive on dumb luck if you get lucky with the DMW!
Actually, the DMW was a nice touch. Instead of forcing you into a Hack, Slash, Blast enemies, the game hands you random bonuses throughout. Normally, slot type systems have an obvious penalty...but not Crisis Core. Its purely beneficial, and constantly active. Some of these bonuses are cheap as hell, granted, but you don't rely on them as either they'll wear off before you realize it, thus get a beating, or they don't come and you get something lesser...if anything at all. But a nice touch. The way limits were handled were fun too. Though the SP system needed to matter more...maybe if I abused Materia fusions a bit more <_<? Whatever, probably just an incentive to not early game power level as I guess you could easily run out there if you prolong fights.
Game's a bit too easy, though sounds like Missions are what causes that. Hard Mode might change that, granted, so I should give that a whirl. I also assume some of the higher level missions are genuinely hard as well.
As far as actual options go? You have a max of 6 Materia Slots (and all the same kind of Materia but Summon, which is passive and ever present once you get them, exist. Support Materia, mind, was changed to "links to all equipped Materia at the moment" to compensate for less slots...granted, Support is by far the lowest amount, but then again, things like All or Added Cut just don't mesh with the system.), and 4 Accessory slots. Accessories are primarily stat boosts, which are significant mind (+10 Defense in Crisis Core is more noticeable a boost than the Tough Ring gives in FF7...but this says more about FF7's defenses.) Materia...is very varied. Command Materia give you all kind of neat options that are like Grandia Physical techs in running off a secondary MP stat, and even just the difference between Fire, Ice and Thunder spells were drastic (not only elemental, but Fire was clearly your basic projectile, hitting more times each version, Ice hit hard...but was a pain in the ass to use, Thunder was quick short range shot that has piercing, generally weaker than the other two.)
Though, you could stock up on items a lot easily, healing Materia felt unnecessary at times. Potions in this game heal about 30% of your MHP, instead of the usual fixed value, and such. Then again, having to scroll through items is harder than simply clicking Cure, and healing with that, so that's an advantage there.
...I could go on about the game play, but...yeah, there's a lot to it. It was just handled very well, and succeeded at the one thing that's outright a must, as far as I'm concerned, for a Solo RPG to truly work, that being your main character has to have plenty of options to work with (you have one character, you wanna be able to customize them to hell. Most games, sadly, try to get away with this by simply doing something like "apply your limited skillset!" or "decide your method of stat ups!" like Sword of Mana.), and Crisis Core had plenty of options and most of them were actually interesting and worthwhile. Game never felt really bland as a result.
Now, moving on...
Setting was decent. Take the Final Fantasy 7 world, back up 7 years, and be part of Shinra on the inside. Finally we get to see actually some inner workings of Shinra, rather than just "evil corrupt corporation that rules most of the world!" and stuff gets cleared up. Actually being able to compare the Slums directly to the city above the plate was nice. FF7, you got to see very little of that; Crisis Core, you can actively go to the Sector 5 Slums and the Sector 8 Plate. Speaking of Sector 5, the game did an excellent job of portraying the areas we already saw in FF7. Everything was really consistent with FF7's layout, instead of adding more random BS around it, then you come up to the area you're familiar with purely for an "OMG I REMEMBER THAT!" scene. No, it just said "Yeah, that's all there is to it! Its an RPG, we can't be realistic damn it!" Even minor things details were kept. It was something that made me say "wow, they actually did their homework for this game!" The one thing that was changed, though I can see why, was the Nibelheim Reactor. Granted, didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things; all it did was change the scenery of where Cloud throws Sephiroth into the Lifestream (yay for Deretconning! *punts Last Order*); by this I mean he did it in the Jenova Room, instead of the large bridge. It still worked due to the way they altered the layout of the reactor, and probably was a bit more sensible a design ("Uh, ok, so how are we going to build this?" "I know! Lets have a LARGE BRIDGE, with pipes you have to climb down to ANOTHER large bridge, with no handles, hovering over a pool of Mako (which remember is poisonous and probably has fumes!), that leads to a large room perfect for random pods!" "...BRILLIANT"!) at that. Granted, that's minor; all that mattered there, as far as I was concerned, was that Sephiroth got tossed into the Mako, not JUMPING IN THERE ON HIS OWN ACCORD...did I mention Last Order needs punting? The added "Sephiroth gets electrocuted cause he conveniently got tossed into a live wire!" touch was silly, but obviously tossed in for random dramatical effect...and for all I know, that may have been in FF7 and I'm not remembering (I just remember Sephiroth hits the wall, or a pipe near the wall, and goes falling in...eh, not important one way or another)
Also did a good job of portraying SOLDIERS as being the actual badasses FF7 hyped them as. As I said once before, a good way to show them:
3rd Class: Above average fighting capabilities and all that, but nothing really worth noting.
2nd Class: They're capable fighters, strong enough to take out fairly sized groups, and last a while in battle, but their abilities are still conceivable.
1st Class: Complete freaks of nature who can take down waves of grunts, and still want more, complete with pulling off usual Shonen Physics Defying feats.
FF7 never felt like they actually portrayed that well; all we had to work with was Sephiroth (who the booklet says "The best of the Elite" so that doesn't really say much about anything barring himself), and Cloud who...wasn't really one. Also Cloud's line of "if we were fighting any, we wouldn't be here!" Granted, that line Cloud says now holds far more water, having seen just what 1st Class actually requires (also made it clear that 1st Class is...very elusive. We see only 4 of them in the game, and based on other minor hints, it sounds like those are the only four at the time.)
The plot was surprisingly not bad. I figured it'd just be filler to lead up to the Nibelheim sequence, and the lack of retconning to me meant "so random useless nonsense that doesn't contradict with FF7, but also DOESN'T MATTER." Wasn't the case; they tried to weave it into FF7's story some, by explaining some things with a bit more light, in addition to it being its own story. Generally worked cause the way they worked it in didn't feel forced either. Well, ok, I suppose Genisis abrupt appearance in the Nibelheim Reactor was a bit weird, but...it fit the theme of the game, and was mostly filling in a gap that was originally a scene fade out (happens just after Sephiroth throws that little "What the hell am I?" thing in the Pod room, right before the Shinra Mansion stuff, if you care.) The way it starts off with the Wutai War, then segues into actually explaining the Jenova Project more than just "Project using Jenova's cells to create Super Soldiers!", and then ends with Zack basically resolving things (or at least, so he thought; from his perspective, Sephiroth was dead having been tossed into the Lifestream <_<), then going out with a bang right as he reaches Midgar...yeah, it flowed nicely.
No, its not an amazing plot, but it was enjoyable enough. The fact that its related to FF7 actually helped it, in this case, as it as a stand alone plot isn't much, but with the FF7 connection, makes you wonder how things are going to connect, and it generally didn't fail at connecting things.
Also, the game has one of the best endings I've ever seen. THIS IS DESPITE KNOWING EXACTLY HOW THE GAME WAS GOING TO END (Zack dies OMG?) Just really pulled off the emotions damned well in that scene. Normally, when a main character dies and becomes a martyr, the reaction is generally "oh, how sad." in a very superficial sense. But Zack's death was turned into something that was actually genuinely sad. The build up to it, the stuff surrounding it...yeah...
ONTO CHARACTERS!
...in the next post to avoid glitching.
