Crisis Core, Nibelheim scenarior...disappointed?

[RedCloud]

I versed Sephiroth in Crisis Core two nights ago. Don't read further unless you want to know what happens exactly.

Was anybody else disappointed by the whole scenario that happened in Nibelheim and the reactor? For example, they skipped heaps. They could have added that ride in the truck through the rain, where Cloud was feeling a little sick, and then the dragon attacks the truck and you and Sephiroth fight it.

Then the whole Niblheim thing was a little short lived in my opinion, and then you couldn't even travel to the reactor by yourself, it was all skipped. Then Genesis appears there? Surely, he should have left the story when he died, and the focus should have been directly on Sephiroth. It goes against the original telling from FF7 totally.

Then down in the mansion, that was a tad short.

Then, my biggest pickle with it, was the fight against Sephiroth in the reactor. The reactor didn't really look like the reactor to start with. There was no lifestream down below, no glowing green, none of those pipes or bridges over the lifestream.

Then when it came time to fighting Sephiroth he smacked you down into some lame area and summoned crystals to fight you. Crystals? Once again they make you fight some crystals. Fighting crystals really $#@%#$ me off in any FF game of late, Dirge of Cerberus was a big failure in that respect.

Then Sephiroth fights you one on one. It is short lived, still in a lame arena and he barely moves. Why didn't you just have one awesome fight with him up where you are supposed to fight him as displayed in FF7: Last Order?

Then when Zack is defeated and Cloud comes in, Cloud gets stabbed right away, then he pulls Sephiroth and flings him off the edge of god knows where and he falls into the darkness. He doesn't fall into the lifestream at all from what you can see, and more to the point, in Last Order he JUMPED off himself. So why didn't he?

They keep playing around with that same scenario, it is different across every FF7 game. Why can't they stick to their story? I thought Last Order would have been the real deal, so then in Crisis Core it would have told the story to the point as it was in Last Order.

Anyway, I've escaped Nibelheim and am in Gongaga at the moment. Genesis is still in the picture, which really annoys me. In my opinion he should have been out of the picture a LONG time ago so the story shifts to the whole deal between Zack, Cloud and Sephiroth.

Anybody else annoyed and disappointed by this bit in the story? Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but this part let me down.

[Lady Lamont]

I have to absolutely agree with everything you said.
I was expecting all of that and I was screaming at my PSP about the battle as I had just finished watching the Last Order episode on it and went back to Nibelheim (was like "It's too bloody small, why can't I go and talk to Cloud's mother like in the original?"), ANOTHER BLOODY GENESIS CLONE SHOWS UP.... seriously, was on the verge of throwing the PSP at the wall to small it out of sheer rage and then I find that I'm stuck walking on a little tiny pipe instead of having an awesome area that we saw in Last Order to fight Sephiroth. And then Sephiroth shatters the floor, then when Cloud shows up after Zack is beaten.... in the end Sephiroth gets flung into the Lifestream when he willingly jumped into it "To go to the Promised Land... with Mother....." argh.

Severely annoyed and disappointed. My own father was playing Crisis Core and when he got to that part he was annoyed and only continued playing it to see if it improved after. Sure about some characters, like Angeal, Lazard, Kunsel or some of the other SOLDIER guys being around but Genesis/"G".... just because Gackt did the songs in DoC doesn't mean he should have shown up as an annoying character throughout the gameplay (Hell, Gackt has another video game in which his character is the main character - Bujingai, I like Gackt and his music but Crisis Core with Genesis it's just.... overwhelming and is driving me insane!)

[RedCloud]

I know how you feel. It doesn't blend into FF7 as well as it could. In order to do so, they should have A: cut Genesis out of the picture a long time ago, perhaps when he actually died, or B: not have Genesis in it at all. It conflicts with Sephiroth too much. Sephiroth is supposed to be the central villain, the central antagonist. The fact that he shared the spotlight with Genesis annoyed me so much.

And also, the reason for them going to the Nibel Reactor, for Genesis copies or whatever...here's an idea S-E should have taken:

"You had the best game of all time to start with, why change the story?"

That whole part of Nibleheim destroyed the good game that was Crisis Core. There shouldn't have been so many new characters like Lazard and whatever. They should have just used characters like Scarlet, Hedeiggar, President Shinra and so on. They could have used the ACTUAL cast and some more original music and it would have fit much more nicely.

It's like Genesis and all those characters suddenly drop out as soon as Crisis Core finishes (even though I haven't quite finished it yet) and then new ones appear in the original game. The transaction isn't smooth. And Hojo is nowhere to be seen most of the time. He was behind a lot of EVERYTHING, so where is he?

In my opinion, in terms of story, they should never have made Crisis Core or Dirge of Cerberus. They could have written a better prologue to FF7 then what they did. It started out so well, but then gradually felt more uncomfortable as I went through, even though it is a fun game to play.

[Lady Lamont]

I personally agree with the conflict issues of the main Antagonist between Sephiroth and Genesis.

And with the fact that the original content, although revamped would have been better instead of naming EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER in the game. Although there was no initial head/director of SOLDIER so it makes sense to include Lazard as that and there were also references to President Shin-Ra cheating on Rufus' mother with another woman in the original VII so that does make sense.

I mean, it was great when they had Yuffie appear and had a similar (but eventually annoying, repetitive scenario) to her meeting Cloud in VII... but in other moments it just screamed of something they just threw together with the constant reuse of areas, enemies and music.

But some of the new soundtrack did match alright, for instance - Burden of Truth, played when Sephiroth locked himself within the Basement of the Shin-Ra Manor.... but during the gameplay scenario I would have thought to have actually seen Vincent Valentine instead of getting:

Boy: "At night you can hear bloodcurdling moans in the night, coming from the catacombs of the old Shin-Ra Manor. Go investigate." (For one, how the hell would the kid know about the catacombs if the Manor was locked up and everything, especially if Sephiroth had the key to unlock the catacombs?)

Zack: *Opens Vincent's Coffin* "!!! S-Someone's.... sleeping in there?! ... I-I uh... better let him sleep..." *Closes the coffin*

Or even the additional scene in Before Crisis in which we see Cissinei (who was apparently a Turk in Last Order who was changed) open Vincent's Coffin, wakes him up and he talks a little before telling them to leave (like the scenario in VII) and a new Turk recruit asks who that was and is told that Vincent was like a legendary Turk figure and is also told somewhat that Hojo enjoys to ramble about him time and time again (as we saw in DoC).

Some parts of these changes made sense but on the majority just screwed up the storyline even more, this includes the Tseng and Aerith knowing each other since childhood conflict within the storyline and many other issues that originally arose from VII itself. I do agree that it DID start out well, Genesis shows up and the game goes downhill.

[RedCloud]

I did send a reply to this with much more content that could have been changed but it is gone for some reason. I don't know if I can be bothered writing it all again, but I'm sure you know what I mean, Lamont.

Some more problems I have is with the missions. They're all "Go kill this monster", no matter what they say in the mission brief, and they recycle the same map over and over again.

The music could have been a little bit more truthful to the original game in some familiar places, especially The Mako Reactors (they didn't feel like Mako Reactors) and the Slums. Even if they were remixed.

Anyway, I just fought Sephiroth in a mission yesterday, and it was less lame than the ACTUAL Sephiroth fight in the Mako Reactor. He actually used magic and used more sword slashes, and he didn't summon damn floating crystals.

I'd be interested in knowing your score for the game, Lamont. Based on these factors:

Story:
Gameplay:
Sound:
Graphics:
TOTAL:

Is it even worth continuing to do the rest of the missions? Do they get ANY better?

FINAL FANTASY VII: CRISIS CORE

Story: 6
The story started off good until the uniqueness of Sephiroth was shared with Genesis and Angeal. The Genesis story was too strong and dampened Sephiroth's significance in the whole game. The scenario at Nibelheim was ruined by its shortness and difference yet again to both the original telling in FF7 and Last Order.

Gameplay: 9
The Gameplay is great. The battles are exciting and still bring a FF7 element to it using materia. The way in using materia and equipping materia is great, though sometimes I wished leveling up was still based on experience points. The Dream Wave system was good although the Limit Breaks could have been integrated into the actual battle rather than a cutscene in a totally different, sometimes blank location. But overall, the gameplay is what made this game fun.

Sound: 7.5
No problems with sound effects. I was surprised you can hear people crouching, or Sephiroth's hand sliding down Jenova's tank. The music was good but started to get repetitive for me. Some more original music or original music remixes from FF7 would have been nice for some of the revisited areas such as the Slums and Mako Reactors.

Graphics: 10
No doubt these are some of the best graphics for a game on the PSP. I have no problems here as they look spectacular. The cutscenes also just blow my mind away as usual with FF cut scenes.

TOTAL: 8
Great game, but the story was the biggest disappointment. They should never have tried to change what was originally told in FF7 and what I thought would be the "true telling" of the events in Last Order. There was that time when you just want Genesis to die already because he's becoming just as big as Sephiroth, and so Sephiroth as the main antagonist in all the series is reduced and doesn't seem like the Sephiroth we see in the original FF7.

[Lady Lamont]

I had a longer reply before, forums must be mucking up a little...

Story: V - due to conflicts within the original idea of Final Fantasy VII, too many new introduced characters and seemingly sections of the story has mutilated the original idea of the game and it's plot itself. Some things should not have been introduced, for one - Genesis although the branching out of introducing new towns (such as Modeoheim which coincides with the Icicle Area in VII itself) and a basic scenario, however this is also ruined terribly by Genesis being featured as a main.

Gameplay: VI.V - due to the factor of the missions mainly bringing the score down as of their repetitive nature in all ranges (re-use of areas, ideas and to have such a fair amount of them becomes tedious and will begin to bore the player) however some of them were fitting - such as a couple of Yuffie's missions, the Wutai missions and another couple which were referenced to Final Fantasy VII itself. However, the battle gameplay itself could have been improved with the use of Limit Breaks or Summons being governed by the players' themselves instead of the useful Dream Wave system / DMW - which would have been more suited to giving extra effects to the player if lucky (as a Gambler's Gift somewhat based on their job class system's slot/reels in which effects could be added on ranging across a multitude of options) during battle gameplay. Overall the DMW has a similarity to some sections of Kingdom Hearts and it's following series with the design and final look of the scenes.

The Summons have been improved with their new and rather flashy cutscenes which do the job and do it well, however the Levels of the attacks can be rather annoying as for what it's worth the Summons have been noted to have a habit of appearing on the DMW on a time in which they tend to be fairly useless (i.e. when the enemy has just been defeated or with a Wait command of any form of attack which is then completed before the Summon is to be summoned and as a result is then Canceled).
To the side of almost all battles could be completely avoided by the player sticking to the sides of almost all areas in the game, but with adding in Treasure Chests and some seen characters/enemies and occasionally hidden items combined with the return of the Materia system and some mini games do make the gameplay fun. However it could have still used a lot of improvement on either selective mode (Normal or Hard) the overall gameplay is easy.

Another drawback is the voice and image interrupting gameplay to notify the player that they have entered battle. An option to remove this for clean transition would have been better placed (as we have seen in Final Fantasy XII or even Dirge of Cerberus) instead of a style of the old Random Battle system with "avoidance glitches" (i.e. player sticking to the walls to avoid battles - which is apparently a gameplay glitch) which features a eventually annoying voice, sound effect and image which has been a highlight of absolute annoyance among most players.

Sound: VI - Some initial use of new tracks for the Crisis Core soundtrack go over rather well until these tracks are repeated - with only minor changes either in the forms of: different instruments (or synths) or change of keys (notes) of which SquareSoft/Square-Enix would have originally listed as Demo or Alternate versions instead of separate songs.

The arrangements for the featured tracks from Final Fantasy VII tend to go over well, such as "The Mako-Controlling Organization" (The Shin-Ra Electrical Power Company Theme), "The Summoned" (Those Who Fight Further / Still More Fighting), "The Clandestine Dark Suits" (The Turks / Theme of the Turks), One the Verge of the Assault (The Who Fight / Fighting), A Flower Blooming in the Slums (Aerith's Theme), A Closed Off Village (Anxious Heart), The First Mission & To Be Continued (Opening ~ Bombing Mission) have been arranged nicely for their featuring for the Crisis Core soundtrack from their origins of the Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack...

However The World's Enemy (One Winged Angel) has been abysmally arranged and from all sorts of reviews - the choir is great to keep to the original BUT what lets this track down is the re-orchestration of the song itself - the choice of instruments and timing although is based on Nobuo Uematsu's original composition it appears to be greatly based on Yoko Shimomura's versions which were featured in the Kingdom Hearts series and this alone takes away the darkness and overwhelming powerful feel to Sephiroth and replaces it with a Disney-inspired attitude in comparison to the original themes for Crisis Core such as "A Beating Black Wing" is Genesis' battle theme seems to overwhelm Sephiroth's theme which also musically shows the discord between the original and new sectors.

Whereas some of the new tracks such as "A Burden of Truth" and "Melody of Agony" are fitting, the overall soundtrack is good but repetitive and does not completely fit the feeling of the game itself which is understandable as Takeharu Ishimoto was not involved in the original game nor really in it's film sequel - Advent Children. Whereas some of the compositions he provided for Last Order and Before Crisis were fitting, but seemed to only work for those scenarios. Crisis Core required a darker, more mysterious soundtrack without the use of repeated compositions which in my opinion could have been improved as there are better arrangements of some older tracks from VII's original soundtrack in the remixing community which would have fit perfectly in comparison.

Also in the terms for sound, the sound effects were great. Improved and many stayed true to their original versions from Final Fantasy VII and the Final Fantasy series which was outstanding to the addition of almost every small piece of gameplay had some sort of sound effect (even the Tumbleweed in the Desert areas).
Again, I will address as I did in the Gameplay section - the option to remove the notification sound of "Conflict Resolved"... etc would have improved the sound options and the gameplay.

Graphics: VIII - Beautifully rendered, some of the best seen on the PSP however it does have it's let downs with some of the models and areas having rather jagged and poorly rendered areas. For example some sections when clearly in a 3D view (meaning the player can move around it and see it from all angles) is clearly flat in an obvious 2D shape in which there has been no rendering effort made in comparison to the Cut Scenes of which they have stuck to their usual high-resolution graphics to make full use of the PSP and/or PSP Slim (providing the Crisis Core bundle, which I myself bought) LCD and Updated LCD screens to provide an amazing take on the quality/realism of their graphics which has become a standard for the company and for other companies to follow suit.

TOTAL: Well, from the fairly incoherent rambling I have just written I would give Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core an overall score of VII.

[Garland]

In the Last order, Zack didn't die by sniper shot either. The whole compilation was rehashed multiple times.

[WD Cecil]

I think the crystal fighting bit in that weird arena was lame too. I would of loved to recreate the scene from Last Order. And yeah, they should of done the driving in the rain bit and versing that Dragon, that would of been awesome. But regarding Genesis showing up I think that was alright, I like Genesis.