FF VII Crisis Core - Big swords and big hair, it's like the 80's all over again
 

This game just hit Japan with this bundle:


Anyone already playing this? One guy apparently finished the game in 14 hours and the Internet is up in arms about it. Crisis Core got pretty good scores in Japanese video game magazines and it sure looks like a solid action RPG.

Subtitled Intro FMV: Gametrailers.com - User Movies Contests, User Movie Contests

Official site with lots of useless crap: CRISIS CORE -FINAL FANTASY VII-

Chrono Trigger was 15 hours, give or take a few, and it was a great game。

I believe that they can make great RPGs that aren't too long, nor too short, if they believe that time is the essence。 Of course there's some truly brilliant RPGs which have 40+ hours of gameplay in them, but for a handheld PSP, 14 hours sounds perfectly acceptable。

Not bad periods Elixir :)

I absolutely agree.

It's all about the feeling you have at the end of the game. Do I feel satisfied?
ICO can take like 8 hours (not an RPG, but an example nonetheless), but it's one of the most satisfying game experiences of our time. Would all games do well at that time? No. But some can pull it off well. I think handhelds are especially likely to still be enjoyable at the sub-20-hour times. I don't mind a bit.

I just gave this game a try and got totally blown away. The opening sequence is already breathtaking but the combat system is really amazing. Materia is back, fuck yeah!

I wasn't expecting too much of Crisis Core, but after 10 minutes of playing, I'm already excited. Can't wait for the English version. Here are a few screenshots I took earlier (all in-game, no FMVs):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ero/ff7cc1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ero/ff7cc2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ero/ff7cc3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ero/ff7cc4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ero/ff7cc5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ero/ff7cc6.jpg

Note how these don't do the game justice at all. You absolutely have to see it in motion to appreciate the level of brilliance put into the animations and combat system.

God dammit.

Just one more reason to buy a PSP.

Although, i still need to actually play Final Fantasy VII. After i finish those, i'll spring for this, and Dirge of Cerberus.

Oh god damn. I swear whenever I see something FFVII related the little retarded fan boy comes out deep inside me and gets all giddy.

This game along with God of War are really going to boost some serious PSP sales. When is this slated for release in the states?

Holy shit this game looks good. This isn't goint to make my PSP explode or something right? lol

Can't wait. Is there a NA release date yet? Target or otherwise.

Yeah, It seems that it's an awesome game. I've just tried it and I'm shocked. I'm not a big fan of FF7, but this game is definitely a must buy for me.

It's just my first impression, but the battle system is totally awesome. I still don't get the roulette system though. But hey, I'm only 10 minutes into the game.

Have you listen to the music? The boss battle song is sooo good.

Tell us more when you play more of the import Dizzy!

Also, you can access a "secret video" if you beat the game TWICE.

Pictures:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=189699

Courtesy of Kouli from Gamefaqs.

Also the guy who posted this on NeoGAF has a Aerith CG avatar that I have never seen, anyone got a bigger image of that?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v38/kairi_li/av.jpg

OK, just finished the first mission of the game, took me a good hour to complete it. My impressions so far:

- Crisis Core is the best looking PSP game ever, hands down. Overall frame rate is rock solid.

- Gameplay is tons of fun, Materia customization and elemental strategies work very well, DMW system (the slots) is a nice and welcome addition (although I still need to get the hang of it).

- There are random enemy encounters, but the transitions in and out of battle are totally seemless, no loading time at all!
- Both FMV and in-game cutscenes are of very high quality with perfect lipsync and beautiful, motion captured animations.

- A lot of locations and characters from Final Fantasy VII make an appearance (first mission takes place in Wutai for example).

- Everything feels like a true prequel to Final Fantasy VII, from the look of menus to sounds and music.

- You can go off on missions at any time during the game. This really caters towards the portable aspect of Crisis Core, since missions are short doses of fun, while you can still sit back and enjoy the storyline if you wish. I'm also getting some good Monster Hunter vibes from this, which is awesome.

- Overall production values are very high (arguably the highest for a PSP game ever), you can tell that Square Enix is taking this one very seriously.

And this is coming from someone who has excellent taste in Final Fantasy VII.

Yep, pretty much what Rock said. I'm liking the voices so far and the lipsync really got my attention. Pretty well done.

I also finished th first mission.


About the DMW system. It looks like every action you make is connected to each of the slots. One slot reacts if you cast magic, the other if you roll or use any yellow materia (AP), but I'm not sure about the HP one. Maybe if you are hit or if there is any variation in your health.

The is also a shop in the menu. You don't have to look for shops in the game.

They also included a mailing system kinda like the Xenosaga one. It seems that you cannot respond to them though (at least for now).

I'm really liking the music. Those piano scores are beautiful. Also, expect a lot of heavy metal soundtrack in the battles.

With how big the FF fanbase is, I'm surprised there's no user videos on youtube of Crisis Core already。

I sold my PSP so I'm missing out on the action。 :(

I just started playing this and I must say I love it, the combat system is interesting (though I have NO clue what the D.M.W slots do, i just pray the all match and that something helpful happens!) and the story seems to be taking shape nicely.
Square-Enix definitely acted seriously with this and didn't just release something to cash in on the Final Fantasy VII brand.

Can anyone explain the D.M.W system though?
I get that certain combinations lead to different results but does the player have any control over these?

The boss theme definately kicks ass . Im just walking around getting to know my way around. The only drawback is the fact that I dont understand the japanese language but a few certain words. The cg scenes are incredible for a psp game. The in-game is more detailed than that of Metal Gear PO's graphics and the rest everyone else mentioned before. The targeting isn't that bad but I'm sure someone here will point out its balance. But so far so good.


I really hope NA releases the bundle cause I might consider in buying the bundle if its the slim psp.

Yeah, this was some 10th anniversary thing, a collection of new CG works. I saw a photo of a gallery, but I couldn't tell if it's an actual real gallery somewhere or some mockup virtual one that's in a game or a disc. Either way, I got a few of the CGs from /v/ (only saved the girls, naturally).










EDIT:
Haha oh whoops. Just noticed my Photobucket scaled them down cause of the max resolution limit :(
The real ones are 1134x1602 if anyone wants them.

I'm pretty sure that thoes were the CG image cards included in the collectors version of Advent Children which also came with "Last Order" and a copy of the movie script.

Does anyone have a link, torrent, or downloadable file of Crisis Core's OST? Thanks

Well I just did the introduction of this game and wow it was amazing! and yes I really like the battle system but I'm still confuse (like most people) about the slot machine thing. I manage (I don't know how) to make 3 power surge vs behemot.

Anyway now I see why I never imported a JP game... I just hate to not understand anything >.<

is there a website that have translate at least the menu or something?

You'll be getting it quite a lot. Hope for the lucky number 7. If all the slots are 7, you lvl up.

It's still a mistery though, sometimes in the middle of the slots I've got some flashbacks about Zack taking to someone and stuff...It's pretty weird.

The slots also changed one time. The character faces were replaced with Summon faces (or at least that's what I think I saw).

The menu is quite easy to figure it out anyways. It's something like (not literally translated, I have no idea how to read japanese):

- ITEMS (First sub-option to use an item, second to re-arrange them)

- EQUIP (To put the materia and accesories, second option to re-arrange, 3rd option to remove, and 4th I think the system configures your equipment to an optimal configuration)

- MATERIA (You can use your healing materias and stuff)

- ??????? (I have this option locked right now)

- D.M.W (Shows you the statics of the slot thing)

- MISSION (I've tried this in a save point. You can access plenty of sub-missions. You lvl up pretty fast doing these missions).

- MAIL (The mailing system which it might be some sort of tutorial database or something)

- SHOP (Buy all your goodies here)

thanks dizzy that's all I wanted to know for now ^^

?????? is "combine materia", it gets unlocked after a while

I'm pretty sure that official site stated that OST is coming on 10.10. But I wouldn't mind if someone managed to make a rip of the game, it would give me something to drool on, as I don't own a downgraded PSP, only normal one.

You guys are making me dying to hear the battle music :( I'd love to import the game so I can hear everyone in Japanese, but I don't see the point of playing a game in which I can't understand anything.

Glad to see that everyone is enjoying the game so far though! The only reason I wanted to play this in the first place was because it stars my fave FFVII character >_>

So can someone explain to me what exactly is so fun about the battle system? How does it work? From what I've seen, it's real-time ala Kingdom Hearts, no?

Good to see many GFI'ers are positive. I was a tad skeptical about it all since it looked like another promising FF7 venture gone awry, and Japanese reviews (Famitsu really) weren't as red-hot as I thought they would be. It's a shame that I now have to wait until next year until the localisation is complete :( Oh well, still got Zelda to keep me company at least :)

The Famitsu reviews were 9/9/8/9 wern't they? Nothing wrong with that.

ME WANT! I wanna try and edit them for wallpaper purposes! Bigger resolution the better!

Where were they specifically from though, an artbook? DVD? UMD?

You can set your limit to be 1 or 2 MB instead of Resolution limit on photobucket... But if its bigger than that, can you email me them? And is that all the girls there is or is there more?

About Crisis Core, is it stil turn based or more actiony like KH2? And has anyone figure out the roulette system at all? Seems like no one has, not even those who can read Japanese?

It saddens me that this is one of very few PSP titles I'm interested in picking up and there's no idea when it'll hit Europe (mid 2008 I would hazard a guess at). Still one I've got my eye on as it's looking like it could be great, and I'm a sucker for FFVII anyways.

Yeah, you saw this:

Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary (fotos) - Nintendo Koppai

I'd kill for that Tifa poster.

The battle system is real-time all the time. You have to move and attack constantly. The game doesn't stop even when you cast magic or use items. The targeting system is automatic. You target the enemy which is closer to you. You can't control the camera either.

To use the materias and items you have to use L or R to select them (you can see them at the bottom right corner of the screen) and then use the action button to cast them.

You can also cast summons and limit breaks, but they look kinda random since they have something to do with the roulette.

You have green materia (Magic), light green (healing magic), yellow (special attacks or roll), and then you have the purple and blue materias which improves your status and such.

The AI is not very good though. You can smash an enemy constantly and the rest looks like they are waiting for their turn. It doesn't happen always, but it happens.

So far I'm liking the game. It doesn't quite feel like an RPG though. You go from one mission to the other and it kinda gets pretty repetitive (at least for now).

Yup yup, I saw this pic exactly and that was my only clue.

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/...31/ffvii22.jpg

Cheers for clearing that up.

Ditto. Along with the rest of the girls too while they're at it. And the one with Rufus and the Turks would be nice too. And maybe Zack.

Thats a nice model of Midgar by the way.

Is that a 2nd cover for Crisis Core I see on display? Which one's the limited edition?

So the battle system is like Kingdom Hearts/Chains of Memories then? Sounds sweet.

Yeah, I know realise that Famitsu gave CC a 9,9,8,9; but seeing as it's Famitsu + Final Fantasy + number 7 of all numbers ie. mega-hype, 35/40 just didn't seem to hot. Look at Vagrant Story and Nintendogs for example lol! It seems like fanboys are raving about the CGs, but honestly, they struck me as meh. I've seen Advent Children - that was already enough for me.

Nintendogs is one thing, but let's not start trashing Vagrant Story.

Anyone said......Music RIP???

I didn't rip this. Don't expect this to be as good as the OST since several songs are incomplete. Anyways, it gives you an idea of the game's sountrack.

Downloading now, fo sho'. Thanks for the link, Dizzy!

Crisis Core does look pretty sweet. It's been so long since any information on the game was released that I'd almost forgotten about it. Next thing I know it's out and selling thousands of copies. Kick ass.

If it becomes available for pre-order I'll post it in this thread.

woops wrong thread >.<

is there a plot synopsis or something available yet?

CCFF7 | English Translation

Well, that's somewhere around 80 points.

I like how this game's iteration of One-Winged Angel is actually creative.

Ditto that, it sounds symphonic and a bit operatic. Love the strings pizzacatos, and great engineering too, it sounds awesome and a nice change from the original.

Whoever gets the OST first, let us know who arranged it.

This game makes up for DoC is all that needs to be said. xD

I wish there was an option for skipping the cutscenes, though. Don't get me wrong, I love cutscenes and dialogue, but after dying to like SEVEN FRICKIN TIMES, I got tired of watching the same long cutscene over and over again. .___.

Btb, I got number 00913 out of 77777. :D

No one's talking about the game? I guess it's because there's no English version yet. I've been playing it since last week and am now at the

I've never liked KH's battle system, so I was very pleased with how CC improved it. It makes managing your magic and skills a lot easier than how KH did it.

I have no idea how summons work. I got the Phoenix materia and it rarely ever appears in the DMW. I think something triggers the summon DMV to appear, but I've no clue what it is. I want to see Bahamut's summon :(

My total is 54 squats. What's yours?

Oh, and I find this guide and this guide invaluable.

Update:

Okay what the heck does the Moogle and Cait Sith summon do?

More updates:

I won the game.

Speaking of summons, I didn't get to see Odin's summon because right when it triggered, the battle ended. Actually, that's happened quite a handful of times...

You can see Odin's summon here. I've never once seen Bahamut's summon. I NEVER get any matches with him. Ah well, I'll just DL the vid instead.



I'm doing the missions now and they're HARD.

I have all the direct feed FMVs in good resolution.

I need all directfeed cutscenes, any place to get them?

Price of freedom is jut superb.
Your friend or anyone cannot totally savor it, unless ofcourse they wont finish the game.
Every track fits perfectly and sets the mood of that particular situation.

Edit: Any where to order the potions from?
2nd pic in this
Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary (fotos) - Nintendo Koppai

Edit2:
Commercial for potions
YouTube - Commercial Potion FFVII and ACC

Also playasia says in stock in OCT, but only one will be shipped out of 16 and at random??WTF

Unable to find info about posters, the poster art and can art are same.

check last row

FINAL FANTASY VII POTION ƒLƒƒƒ‰ƒNƒ^[ŠÊ POTION ƒTƒ“ƒgƒŠ[
same one
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/...31/ffvii22.jpg

I need the complete pic of tifa and zack from front for wallpaper, even size is small.
if someone dig it please share it.

Some of the HARD ones are difficult. So addicting, though.

Maybe I'm just a sucky player then. I even find some NORMAL missions hard :D



By the way, what the hell is that status effect that basically cripples you? It's totally EVIL. It's not Stop though. Any idea what it's called and what item blocks that?

@Sexninja, is this what you're looking for?

Sorry, dunno where to get DLs for cutscenes, just the FMVs.

@Sexninja or Freelance
Where can I get HQ direct feed FMVs? I assume you're not talking about youtubed ones, right?

Ah I think I know what that status effect is now. Think it's Groggy.

I did a lot of missions and I'm only 27% done. That's quite a lot...

Does anyone find those 'cute' summons (Chococo, Moogle, etc) funny/amusing? I just got Cactuar's yesterday. I wish someone made a video clip of that :D I'd love to get some vids of some non-FMV cutscenes too. Some parts are funny.

Got any tips/combos for Materia Fusion? I'm completely clueless about it. I probably wouldn't be struggling with the missions if I knew how to do fusion.

I fooled around with Materia Fusion and got better HP+'s and things. I unlocked the method to add items to the mix to make better things.

I'm very close to being 40% done with missions. Getting stronger :D

Anyone have a Crisis Core ISO that works on 3.40 OE-A?

EDIT: D'oh, I am dling the ISO... but its divided in to 2 parts? Is this common?

Plenty of rars are split into multiple parts.

I just saw that there's a patch to translate all the menu in English. I guess I,ll give this game another go before the NA release XD

Well, anyone can help me out with my problem? *points to above post*

well any iso of FF:CC should work on 3.40 OE. so I guess all you have to do is go on a torrent website to find it. It's really not that hard to find :\

I DID download it ages ago, and it didnt work. Can't even play the intro FMV. Blackscreen, sound keeps repeating and glitching like a broken record. Also Mininova doesn't have any and google did not help.

Can anyone link me a torrent that has confirmed to work on that firmware?

I am pretty sure you need higher than 3.4... but maybe I read it wrong

Okay, now how do I put these 2 parts together now? .______.

oh I know that "bug". You can't play the FFCC iso with the "no-umd" enable. Just go in the recovery menu and disable that feature and you'll be able to play it fine (with at least an umd in the slot thought XD)

You just made it worse, now there's no sound or music AT ALL. Its like it can't even read the file. The Square Logo won't even pop up.

Can someone who is actually playing CC off 3.40OE-A tell me what to do?

well I'm on 3.40 OE-A and like I said I have no trouble playing it >.> Are you sure that you have a umd in your psp? because when you're not using the no-umd feature you must have one in it.

but anyway it seem more like your ISO is corrupted or something.

when i search for any torrent I got to : Torrent Search - ScrapeTorrent.com

try to download an iso of the game again, and if this doesn't work then I really don't know what's wrong...

Do you remember WHICH torrent you got it off from? Cause if I end up downloading the same corrupted one again...

And yes, I followed your instructions. What you told me to do made it worse, not even the working PSP ISO of another game worked when you told me to disable NO UMD.

Those torrents are either private or not enough seeders. I have a download limit with my ISP, and I like someone to please upload the ISO.

kairi li the game is 1.7go it's not something you upload just like that for one person >.>

anyway here's the torrent that is public and has the exact same files as the one I downloaded

Crisis_Core_Final_Fantasy_VII_JPN_PSP-pSyPSP Torrent - btjunkie

if this doesn't work then sorry I can't do much...

Thank god for my Blackcats account. ^^ I started playing this recently. It's good, but certainly not great. I'm amazed at the cut scenes though. It's pretty much like watching advent children all over again.

Still won't work, and after browsing some Chinese PSP forums, apparently I am not the only one.

Final_Fantasy_VII_Crisis_Core §Úª±.ø¨ì - PSP±M·~°Ï - PSP¹CÀ¸¾÷ - HKCC ¤¤°ê.»´ä¹CÀ¸¾÷¸ê°Tºô PSP | NDS | NDSL | XB360 | PS3 | Wii | Sony | Nintendo | Microsoft | ¹CÀ¸¾÷ | §ð²¤ | µû´ú | ¹wÄý | ·s»D - Powered by Discuz!

Some of the solutions worked for some, but there are still people who cannot play it, getting blackscreens after the Square logo like I did.

Inhert, can you please post exactly how your entire Firmware config is set to?

If it still doesn't work with whatever config I mess with, then it might be the PSP itself, perhaps motherboard?

well first I have the first generation of US psp and I installed the CFW 3.40 oe-a with the lumines exploits.

beside that all I did was put the FFCC iso in the iso folder and play with it the first try without any problem...

beside that I can't think of anythings else I did differently...

Is there any sort of English patch for FF CC that works?

there's only 1 patch now and it's only the translation of the menu (just the menu and nothing else, so no item and everything :\)

there's a group of people, I think, that are trying to translate the whole game, but they have technical difficulty, the patch seem to freeze the game :\

I guess we'll have to wait for SE to announce the english version which doesn't seem that they are really in a rush to release it >.>

Just a quick update -- Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is now available for pre-order at GameStop. It has a release date of March 25th, 2008.

Square Enix: Crisis Core Comes To North America This Spring

USA release date is March 25th 2008, officially confirmed.

Official website

CRISIS CORE - FINAL FANTASY VII - | SQUARE ENIX

I prefer the JPN voices so I'll be skipping the NA release.

Can someone do me a favour? It'd be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to convert one of the FMVs to MP4 format and the PC keeps locking up before it's done. It's being an ass today. Can someone do it for me? It's the Seph/Genesis fight. The vid can be found here.

If you are using XviDPSP, then use the following: Video bitrate: 992. Size: 36. Audio bitrate: 96. Aspect 16.9.

Of course, if you actually know a site that has them, let me know.

Update: Oops looks like someone is going to help me so disregard my request. Now I have a new one :D

There's two screenshots I want if someone wants to help me. Both scenes are in Chapter 2 I believe. When Zack gets promoted to 1st Class, he has an uber happy look on his face. I want a shot of that. The other shot is when he infiltrates Wutai. There's a part where he is on the roof of a building and looks down. Love the expression on his face. I want that too.

I really wanted to like this game. I hadn't heard much about it before it shipped so maybe they were making a decent plot, you know, aside from shoehorning new characters in.



You broke me, squeenix. I was as faithful as someone who doesn't purchase your products can be, and you broke me.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...0L._SS500_.jpg

HELLO FORCINGGAME FORUMS HERE IS THE AMERICAN BOX ART IT'S JUST LIKE THE JAPANESE ONE EXCEPT IN FULL SURROUND SOUND COLOUR. SEE YOU LATER. RATING PENDING PERHAPS IT'S AO. :gape:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y50...ms/ccstuff.jpg

^ I love the shoe box that this bundle comes in.

You know, that box art is simply terrible. Let's fade the environment of the game into the background and focus on the character. But! Let's only focus on him from the lips down. Christ, are they seriously depending on the buster sword to sell the game to oblivious customers?

Edit: Hold on a second, it comes in a shoe box. Mystery solved. I'm buying it, and I don't even own a PSP.

Damn I want that bundle!

Don't worry, the promotional posters solve the mystery!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13...inalgtishd.png

Any word on if a special PSP system + game package like the Japanese one will be available in NA?

While it'd be cool (I need to buy a PSP anyway, and gettign a bundle would be, well, worth it), I somehow highly doubt it. While the rabid FF7 fan masses would eat it up, I assume Square-Enix only finds the rabid Japanese FF7 fan masses worthy. I mean, giving their record with their other, what I like to call "fan service" games (KH2 Final Mix, FF10 and FF12 International, other crap I don't remember), I doubt it.

But, hey, who knows. That's only my opinion, after all.

Seconded, they never really 'fed' us with these kinda of bundles.... :(

A-ha! So I assume most of you are playing the game now, just as I am. Definitely enjoying the heck out of it. So why have I stopped playing the game to post in this thread?

Simple. I keep hearing the Mission Complete theme (remixed from FF7's "Fanfare") and I went to search for the OST and download it. Problem is, the fanfare's not on it. Has anyone seen or heard of that song being ripped?

Victory fanfare, and other non OST audio files can be found here.

SilentTweak | Crisis Core Translations Guide - Crisis Core Subs - YouTube - Free Downloads

Oh, I can see why it wasn't included in the OST. It's not even 30 seconds long.

Gah Zack's voice is really putting me off, sounds like the person who didn't get the role of Tidus.

Battle system is enjoyable I must add, and the cutscenes have beautiful detail. Any other thoughts will come as I play along.

Somebody is likin' it, and I don't even like action-RPG's. I like how I can just focus on choosing attacks and Zack will run around by himself; that makes it playable for me.

How the hell did that missile-blocking mini-game thing work? I thought I was smashing every one of them, hitting it when I heard that noise the game said to listen for, but then Turk-face was all, "That was atrocious," afterwards.

So I just got the game. Big surprise right? I'm having a decent time so far. The combat is enjoyable and the voice acting is no slouch either. Zack might seem like a Tidus rip-off because unlike Cloud, he's not emo. The missions are pretty neat, although they usually boil down to "Defeat X" or "Defeat Y to get X". Music is a bit generic sounding but nothing to complain over. I'm not quite sure how the DMW thing works, but its been giving me neat status effects in battle so whatever! Overall its not the best game, but its well presented for a handheld game and the graphics are about what I'd expect from Squeenix.

Gameplay could be a bit deeper, or perhaps more control over the DMW. A proper review later on might follow.

Jochie: I don't know, that mini-game seemed completely... pointless? and completely easy too. I just hit X when the thing turned red. Tseng (Turk-Face) said great work or something like that. He gave me 900 Gil and
mentioned something about how I got paid well for destroying Shinra evidence.

Am I the only one who finds the battle system unappealing?

I'm going to try it sooner or later, but having the core system of an action RPG as a slot machine seems really... stupid. I always avoided slot machine mechanics in RPGs (more specifically FF games) so I'm not entirely looking forward to having it as a main integrated system.

Get 777 to level up? I suck at slots, so does that mean it will be hard for me to level up?

Er, not at all. Unless you're playing hard mode, you'll get 777's on a regular basis. You'll level up when needed. You'll never feel you're underpowered. The DMW is only needed for summons, limit breaks, and to give you specific abilities like no AP for a limited time and such.

The core gameplay is still hack and slash. I think it's a better system than what we got in Kingdom Hearts.

I must agree with Dark Nation about the missions, they are just defeat X and Y. It would be nice if we had some cheeky character interaction or were given the chance to explore areas to develop sidequests; at least proper mini-game.

Good thing is if you do them at the Shinra building you can go downstairs and drink one of those potions from the woman near the entrance, it gives you Auto-Life fully heals and removes any bad status effects. I've done most of the game so far under Auto-life which does help in some of the missions.

I finished the game last weekend, and I have to say it was better than I thought it'd be. It was a rather short game, and the main story bosses weren't hard at all, I managed to finish the game in just 15 hours, but that's only with 25% of the missions finished. I've since then played to 23 hours to end at around 65% of the missions finished. But I don't really feel like finishing the rest, not when I have other games to play at least. The missions were a nice add on, they could however have put some more variety in it than just the same areas over and over again with just different enemies in them. I think they could have made the game a bit harder and given more length to it if they had made the last boss in the game much harder so that you'd have to clear more of the missions instead of leaving them to the side with not much reason to do them after finishing the game. It also feels kinda stupid when most of the small enemies in the game's missions are harder than the last boss.

Fighting system was good, it felt fresh and it was very easy to play, but I thought it was somewhat lacking in some aspects. I thought the DMW was a nice addon at times, but I'd rather have a fighting system that you'd get to control and customize more by yourself than just some randomized system giving you strong attacks or some bonus of some kind. I would have wanted more dynamics in the game overall, like, more than one controllable character. Also, the games different skills were VERY unbalanced. Some of them suck real bad and are practically useless while some skills KICK ASS like there's no tomorrow. As soon as you get the Quake magic there will be not much need for other magic I tell you (unless you are facing any aerial enemies. In that case I keep my Vital Slash and/or Darkness skill ready to kill any of the enemies that's left). Also, dodging is essential while the guard option is practically useless. Most attacks are easily dodged and you can dodge out even when the attack animation has started while the guard is clumsy and you won't be able to use it until the attack animation is over.

The story started out kinda boring IMO, but it got much better at the end. Not gonna go much more into that now since it seems you guys haven't finished the game yet.

Overall, it was a good game, on a scale of ten I'd give it 8.5.

You are not alone in that department. I beat the game in about 12 hours, and the only true enjoyment I got out of it was the ending. (which was very well done) The DMW epicly failed on me for the last boss fight. Nothing like getting a lvl 5 Lucky Stars only for it to land on Aerith over and over again... I did have a horrible materia set up though. (no AOE magic = LOL GG!!)

I played a game that has a very similar combat engine to this. (minus the DMW) It did have multiplayer though. It's called Valhalla Knights. That game was shitted on by the general public for the dull gameplay, yet this game is getting praised left and right for it's even more dull battle system. Why should this game get any favoritism? Oh, that's right! FFVII! Silly me!

Okay yeah I did play it for a few hours.

It's even worse than I thought.

I'm trying to collect my thoughts to express how much I hate the "Modulation Phase" of the DMW. The effects that occur randomly throughout battle though doesn't bother me as much, I feel that's a welcome addition to help spice up gameplay in any RPG, such as defeat this enemy and get SP to that thing will keep spinning. It's nifty.

But oh god, the modulation phase. Why did they do this? Since when was it that players wanted even less control over their development and attacks? Isn't this a step in the wrong direction? Every time I see the modulation phase I think to myself, "Oh mighty Crisis Core engine, is it time for me to become more powerful? Am I worthy enough of a level 3 Blizzard materia? Or perhaps a level 4 Cure materia?" It doesn't even feel random any more, it just feels so... Pre-determined, like they hard coded when I'd gain a level.

I find it hilarious how these reviewers simply write this phase off as a bad design decision, but forgive it. Where as like you said Manny if it was any other franchise then it would be a score killer.

Bleh.

I don't know why you guys seem to hate the DMW so much. I like that it's something out of the way and not one more thing I have to worry about. The game doesn't necessarily punish you for having weak materia either. There hasn't come a point yet where I feel like I'm severely handicapped because of the materia I have equipped. I've got several pieces that have already achieved Master status as well.

I don't know why the Modulation Phase bothers you so much Div, since it's just a screen that says "Hey, you've got a real chance at summoning something, performing a bigger attack, and/or leveling up. Watch closely!" It only interferes when the chance of you getting something significant is high.

Beyond the DMW, maybe this game's all-around score is slightly influenced by it being FF7, but certainly not all of it. Maybe if it were getting 9.5s and 10s, then yeah I'd agree. But it's not like Dirge of Cerberus was well-received, as it got pretty low scores across the board. Crisis Core's primary success points come from the characters and the story, which serve are more-than-sufficient prequel material to FF7, and they're developed really well throughout the game. I haven't beaten it yet, having clocked in about 15~18 hours so far, but I really like the game.

I've only started playing myself, only a couple of hours clocked in so far, though. The DMV doesn't piss me off as much as it used to, I just hate the complete random fact of it. I keep expecting to level up 3 times in a battle (and I have to admit though, I hate not leveling up on my own...) I think what really nerves me about this game is the continuing trend of all the characters looking like pretty boys. I don't know when or where that style of art got to be the FF standard, but I'm getting a bit sick of it. (Not to mention the in-game art of Zack reminds me of Sora and Tidus combined... ugh)

As for gameplay, I'm 50/50 on it. While it's definitely different, I think I like the ability tohave more than 1 person in my party. (I'm guessin that may change later on down the line? I don't want to know until I find out on my own, so shush! :P ) The battles remind me alot of Parasite Eve-style, too. (Which isn't a bad thing)

Like I said, I'm not that far into it and I think I can get a grasp of what's going on (I haven't really played Final Fantasy 7 since I beat it two weeks after it came out). Hopefully that DMV crap is going to be stuck to CC and it won't end up in the FF7 remake. (We all know it's going to happen, the only question is WHEN now. lol)

Point taken, but I'm getting more around the tired old fact that Square is cutting corners like usual. They force feed us this nonsense that they clearly didn't put much effort into. (as far as the gameplay is concerned at least.) The majority of the game was mash X with a occasional push of the square button and victory ensues. I never even had to touch the block button...

This post by Denicalis pretty much sums up my frustration perfectly.
http://www.gamingforce.org/forums/rp...tml#post552029

It does seem like they tried to make it an action game so it appeals to a more general audience, but then dumbed down the action parts so that people who are used to turn-based/menu-based games can handle the game. They should have just made it exactly like FFVII and nobody would be disappointed, though many would criticize a lack of innovation. I think that's all Squenix aims for these days: random innovation.

I'm still playing this game, though, because the story is interesting and the gameplay isn't quite too difficult or boring to prevent me from proceeding to the next cut scene.

That's the problem with such a rabid and polarized audience / fan-base. Any innovation they try will be more harshly criticized as being uninspired or not a true Final Fantasy title, and any return to their traditional battle systems will be panned for not being innovative enough. 'Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't', I think the saying goes.

Yeah, the game isn't perfect, but I'm enjoying getting through it and in the end, that is what is most important: Am I enjoying the game?

Hey, I would've been perfectly fine with gameplay that was close to FFVII. I enjoyed this battle system a little bit at first, but I found that the only reason I finished the game, was because it ended before I could get sick enough of it to stop playing.

On a side note, they have to make a FFVII remake at this point. At least if they want to keep CC as canon...

Today I experienced the dread of the combat system.

See, in these kind of games I can get by on storyline. They did the storyline scenes very well and I'm interested in seeing them. The battles are moreso hurdles that I need to jump over to get to the next storyline scene, and when I jump over too many in a short period of time, I get real tired of it. That happened today when I was playing and just shut it off, because spamming X to win each battle was just boring and I didn't care for it.

They should have just made it a movie imo.

Honestly these combat systems don't bother me much when theres a deep customization involved. But guess what? There isn't in CC. I'm a huge fan of action RPGs and this takes all the fun away from the equation and tacks on a nifty storyline.

Agreed. I started out on Hard Mode and I regret it now, because it shows off the flaws in the battle system even more and most boss battles are simply a battle of atrition (or luck of the DMW) rather than any skill or strategy. The cutscenes are nice, but the fact that you can't skip them and it seems that a 2-minute scene precedes every boss merely adds to my frustrations with this game...

I think you can skip scenes you've already seen by pausing and hitting triangle. I might be getting this mixed up with Rogue Galaxy though...

So I'm playing this game and everything's been going at a good clip. then I ran into this mess.

Marked for spoilers, just incase:



This is why I hate getting involved in games, I always come across something like this that blocks me and keeps me from finishing games. :|

The items you're wondering about -- they're nothing you won't get multiple times over by doing the missions. There aren't any Phoenix Downs or anything of any importance, so move past them.

I've finally found the one thing that's going to drive me insane -- the status effect "Death". I've done half of the missions (which is a shitload, fyi) and I just passed through Junon, and I still haven't acquired anything to null Death. Even the Status Ward materia and Death materia equipped doesn't deter it. And it's not a chance thing like it was in FF7 -- if you get hit with it, you're dead.

There are some winged bastards who can cast it outright and wipe you out no matter where you are, so you have to beat the shit outta them before they cast. And some of the Wutai guards and those weird dog-like things use skills with Death attached to it -- Death Missile and Death Fangs, respectively. On a more recent mission I did, I got in a battle with 4 of those damn dogs, and each of the charged me with Death Fang. Needless to say I could not avoid it, and wasted the Raise status I had on me because I ended up dying in that fight.

Anyway, so yeah. "Death" sucks ass.

I equipped a Hell Firaga with the Status Ward and it nulled Death.

I've had Status Ward + Death nullify it as well. I try to get the hang of dodging anything with Death attached to it though, because I just don't want to take that chance.

Death + Status Ward worked for you? I wonder. I have Hell Thundaga equipped, so maybe I should put Status Ward on again and go from there. I didn't think about that one.

I started playing the game this weekend and I have to say that most of the time spent has been in the missions. The first few missions unlocked was spent of the majority of the time and then afterwards during the story mode everything else became so easy since I leveled up so much. Opening treasure chest is sorta pointless since I have more than enough money to buy anything and since armor and weapons don't have a factor in this game then thats even more of the reason why I have so much money.
I really love the game tho, it's cool to see how sephiroth used to be and I don't mind any of the voices. Zack's upbeat attittude is more refreshing than seeing the typical emo who feels like he's too good for himself. I guess he kinda reminds me of the kid from raddiatta stories a little bit. Although once the missions start reaching very hard mode, thats where I just stop and wait later until I can actually accomplish them but then I soon realized that I kept mashing the crap out of X. Fighting system looses its edge

I went through this game once, already going through again. It's an absolutely beautiful game.

I really enjoyed FFVII, but I hated Advent Children. Is Crisis Core for me?

I'd be inclined to say yes. Crisis Core is a prequel, so you might enjoy seeing what happened before Cloud jumped off that train.

I just finished crisis core by skipping most of the damn annoying mission since I was in a high enough level to make everything easy.
Although, is it just me or,



anyways, the games story was very good especially the end but a lot of the gameplay involved rapidly pressing X. Once I got Cura early in the game I hardly ever saw the equipment menu. Plus I found the missions to be very tedious and weren't even necessary except for gaining some summons but even then do you really want the summons? You can't control when they come out and when they do it would most likely be in the most unnecessary times and you have to see the whole intro scene over and over again, although as beautiful as they are.
Soundtrack was amazing as well, i'm getting it right now. I just fell in love with the ending credit song

You do realize you can press a button and skip it, right? It did take me a bit before realizing it though, so I understand.

The 'little' summons (Cait Sith, Cactuar, etc) were awesome for the animation alone. Pretty darn funny and cute, I say.

Oh rearry now. I always pressed start but all it did was pause the game, I didn't realize at the time that pressing another button was an option ~_~
I didn't get some of the alternate summons such as cactaur so I'll just youtube them since I'm done with the game, although I do love to see the ending
"price of freedom" is easily going to be on my loop till I get sick of it =p

Tonberry (SP?) summon was one of the best things in the game.

Haha, he's so menacing for such a little guy. Murderous Thrust is the best name for a summon ever.

I'm kinda cheating right now -- trying to get a few dozen materia mastered, but I'm doing extremely low level missions with Lucky Stars and Moogle Power equipped to get a higher chance of Moogle Power hitting in the DMW, since that particular summon upgrades your materia by 1 level every time. Works pretty well so far.

That and the Cactuar summon. Oh gawd, we really do more funny summons in future games. FFVIII had some too, mainly Tonbery's (DOINK!) and the Brothers (Rock Paper Scissors) :D

So I just beat the game, and here's a question for those who have beaten it.



Additional Spam:
Oh and pray tell, what button lets you skip cut scenes? It's not even listed in the manual.

You know what, I looked up the VAs on IMDB and spoiled that part for myself. They've actually got those two characters listed. Oh well, incidentally solved my problem.

You can't skip cutscenes, although you can skip summon animations.

So I just got this e-mail:Is this a super rare thing to have? Can I sell it on E-bay for millions of dollars?

I lost interest in the game, but I think I'll play again someday. I definitely want to finish the story. Plus, any game with a shirtless Zack doing squats is worth a full playthrough.