Finished it tonight. My thoughts.
- it's a very shallow game. It's like there's very little under the surface. You move along with the story, and you rarely get a chance to deviate, look around, explore or any of that.
- the missions are also very shallow. There's 300 of them, but they're pretty much all the same, cycling through the same half dozen environments, giving you different enemies to find. It seems like there could have been some variety to these missions, but they're all combat based, and even treasure hunts revolve around killing monsters until you kill the last one that ends the quest (opening up treasure chests on the way). It does reinforce the SOLDIER being good for fighting only, and leaving the thinking to others, a point that is touched on in the story.
- Very interesting story. It fleshes out the character of Zack, who becomes very likable, and that only makes it all the more sad, because anyone who's played FF7 knows what happens to him. The ending is incredibly well done.
- I got chills playing the Nibelheim sequence. It was the payoff for all the build up earlier in the story.
- The game tries to be very cinematic, and it achieves it most of the time with beautiful cinematics, quality voice acting, and an excellent soundtrack. However, the scenes that are not voiced seem fairly arbitrary. One moment you're watching a beautiful cutscene, then you're pressing X through text boxes. This would have been better if the whole story had been voiced, because these moments really took me out of the story, killing the cinematic quality.
- The battle system works fairly well for a one-man party. A few changes are made to make it work better (such as using a phoenix down before you die to auto-raise).
- Not so keen on the slots. This is so random. You could be fighting a boss and struggling because it gives you nothing. Then you might play it again and it'll keep giving you limit breaks and leveling up Zack and his materia. Leveling up being so random is something I did not like. Sometimes I wouldn't level up in ages, then I'd go up 2 levels in a single battle.
- Battles aren't random. They happen every few seconds - as long as you aren't hugging the walls (and even then!). Sometimes an enemy would spin me around and I'd end up going the wrong direction after the battle. Other times the enemies would draw me back the way I'd come, so I'd need to cross the same area again to continue on after the fight (and risk another encounter on the same spot).
- Despite being a fairly shallow game, and with flaws that are quite noticeable, Crisis Core was a very compelling game to play (and for me, finishing a game means something). However, I did stall for about a week on the final dungeon. That was needlessly confusing.
Crisis Core is an 8/10 7/10. It makes me want to go and replay FF7 again, and also makes me want to watch Advent Children... which is quite a feat since Advent Children doesn't make me want to watch it.
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zippdementia - November 01, 2009 (09:16 AM) You should try out the new Blu Ray Advent Children. 45 minutes more film meant a lot better film in this case. I personally couldn't finish Crisis Core. I know the ending has to be amazing, but I can't stand the battle system or the music. Music is pretty important to me and Crisis Core's pseudo-alternative-rock is bullshit. |
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jerec - November 01, 2009 (01:22 PM) If I ever get a PS3, I'll give the blu-ray version a go. |
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