Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

I am one of those people who was never able to get into RPG's like the final fantasy series, all the characters to manage and tedious micromanaging gameplay just isnt for me. Back in the day however my brothers played Final Fantasy 7, and over time I caught onto the story and enjoyed it for what it was worth without playing. That being said, Recently I got my hands on this game, and with only a limited knowledge of Final Fantasy and several negative preconceived notions, this game simply blew me away.

Most of what I knew about Final Fantasy was that Sephiroth was a very very bad man, and the reason I starting playing it was to find out why. However, an hour into the game i found myself finding new areas of interest, mainly Zack. The story follows his ultimate ending, and his journey along the way. This journey made for one of the coolest video games i have ever played. I found myself caring about the characters in this game more than in any other game, and when the ending finally came i even found myself getting choked up. Story aside, the game is perfect as far as gameplay is concerned. It has just enough complexity to not burden you, yet offers alot of depth and options as to appeal to the hardcore people out there. For people who enjoy action games like Devil May Cry or God of War, the gameplay and combat will bring you right at home (although nowhere near as fast or as complex... but thats also a good thing)

I have played many videogames since my NES back in the day. Many were decent, some outright bad, and afew necessary of mention. This is one that deserves mention. If you own a psp you should own this, if you dont... its certainly reason enough to look into getting one

So in the US version of the game, bad voice acting replaces the Japanese version, but no worries because the addition of hard mode in the US version makes this superior. Plus, it's good to know what the characters are saying, haha.

Basically, Crisis Core is a very solid companion piece to FFVII, and while the story has some glaring inconsistencies with the original game (such as, while Genesis seemed like an incredibly important character in Crisis Core, he's not mentioned once--by Sephiroth, Cloud, or anyone at Shinra, in Final Fantasy VII, which is unbelievable considering all he does here), the gameplay helps make up for it. On Normal mode, the game's too easy, and the player need only press X most of the time. But on Hard, the challenge increases tenfold, meaning fast reflexes and good strategy are necessary to win, especially early on.

It's true the game's a little linear for an RPG, but Crisis Core is perfect for the PSP because the missions are great to do while on-the-go. And for the story's faults, Zack's character is infinitely more likable than Cloud's which makes the events surrounding him all the more interesting.

For those of you who are saying this game was too easy, you are dead wrong. All you did was play through the story, that's it. That's the easy part. Once you get to missions it starts toughening up. Let's put it this way, when I completed the final mission which was only a boss with 10,000,000 HP my character was so strong that I defeated the final bosses of the story in 1 and 2 hits. But the final boss of the mission took me well over 15 minutes with constant healing, constant uses of Phoenix Downs, and each hit of mine dealing 99,999 damage. And that wasn't even the hardest part of the game. There were missions before that that were much harder. Yes, the missions are kind of boring since almost all of them are exactly the same (fight to the final enemy of the mission and beat it) but the enemies in the later missions are amazingly strong. I'm talking about if you don't have the costly punch materia (99,999 damage) it will take you about 10 minutes to kill one enemy.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that if you venture PAST the story you will find this game to be quite difficult.

It has Young!Sephy. Enough said. Yes, I am a huge Sephiroth fangirl. Thank you for asking. I loved this game.

First off this game is great pre-quel to FFVII. Does a great job telling you the mystery of Cloud and why he is the way he is. At the same time explains all the events leading up to what happens in FFVII. On that note the story line did a great job, but i fell it was a little to short. You can breeze threw this game somewhat easily if you don't feel like doing the sidequests or "missions". Which makes the game go by fast. Honestly the entire game I feel if you break the gazme down from 100% is like 30% of the game is storyline/normal play, and 70% is missions. The new battle system is great I really enjoyed it. But after a while the "activating combat mode" voice when entering and when the battle is complete "conflict resolved" gets really old and annoying.
I wish SE made the storyline longer and more of the entirity of the game, instead of making up about 70% based on missions which has nothing to do with the story, just to collect items and materias.
Also leveling up in this game is quite hard. Since its random based on your DMW wheel spinning its quite a pain. Sometimes you'll get like 5 level ups in a row others you can go hours without a single level up. I found myself sitting in a mission just letting mobs hit me hours and hours just trying to get my DMW wheel to get me a level up.
Other than that the game is great. Excellent graphics, storyline, character interaction and cutscences. A great game to have just expect to be doing about 20+ hours of missions and about 8-10hours of storyline .