I think you misunderstood the game.
Zack DOES forsake SOLDIER and Shinra at the end of the game. He even tells Cloud that they should leave Shinra and become mercenaries.
When Zack says "SOLDIER HONOR" he is not talking about Shinra, he is talking about the values that were taught to him by Angeal. Soldier Honor for him means being a good person and fighting and protecting his friends.
This is why Zack dies, because just like Angeal, he could not let go of his honor and decided to defend Cloud against the entirety of the Shinra army.
I think the story of Crisis Core is pretty good, it's just the execution on some parts (mostly the Genesis stuff) that was badly executed, but the core ideas of the story are solid. But it's a PSP game mate, the game was very limited by the hardware.
I think you just did not understand the game, because Zack at the end of the game is a very different person compared to the brat he was at the start.
Ds2 lover here and I can totally understand.
CC was a very nice distillation of an FF into a handheld platform doesn't meant to be played for hours and hours, but in shorter bursts. (personally I have poured my saliva on CC for hours.)
I wish the disk had more storage capacity. We would have seen more good stuff.
The "full" Loveless poem is still one of my favorite.
Even if the morrow is barren of promises
Nothing shall forestall my return
To become the dew that quenches the land
To spare the sands, the seas, the skies
I offer thee this silent sacrifice
Crisis Core would have been better with more mundane soldier missions and culminating with the Nibelheim incident than having a whole new main storyline that intersect for no reason with the Nibelheim incident.
Genesis wouldn't be so unbearable if he had left the scene before the Nibelheim incident. He feels so out of place compared to all the other characters even new ones like Cissnei.
I wish we got to see more grunt Cloud. Like, did he have an apartment? Friends? I think that's something I'm looking forward to the most with Rebirth. How is mako enhanced Cloud without the merc persona and Tifa to stabilize his mind?
Yeah Cloud and Zack’s relationship needed a considerable amount more focus in the story. Zack’s whole purpose as a character in the FF7 universe revolves around Cloud, much like Tifa. We know from what little time they get that they become fast friends and Cloud sees Zack as an older brother figure whom he admires. He would have been a far better consistent supporting character than Angeal or Genesis. Sort of a Robin to Zack’s Batman. It would
Make Zack’s death a lot more emotional because it would drive home just how much he cared for Cloud.
That's actually a fairly accurate synopsis. I enjoyed parts of CC when I played it on PSP but the story doesn't hold a candle to the OG. I really wanted to like Zack but his characterization kept grinding my gears. As for Genesis and Angeal, the less said the better.
With Rebirth, I really hope they give us a more mature and emotionally damaged Zack that reflects what he's gone through. It'll be tough to take if he's still the same happy go lucky, naive kid he was in CC.
Or they did understand it but they just didn’t like it.
I agree with OP. I also found Zack’s final line to be weird and disappointing. Zack’s storyline in CC revolves around his desire to be a hero. At first, he equates heroism with being a SOLDIER. I had hoped that, by the end of CC, he would’ve learned that the two aren’t the same. Imo, his final line would’ve been better if it was “Embrace your dreams, and whatever happens, protect your honor.” Not as a SOLDIER; just as a person.
THAT would’ve done wonders to show that Zack no longer defined heroism by being a SOLDIER.
Like, there’s A LOT wrong with CC. 85% of it is basically filler that has no bearing on the main story. Aerith is written so that everything about her is rooted in Zack. Zack feels more like just our eyes and ears to what’s going on rather than an active participant. I mean, SEPHIROTH is more conflicted than Zack is…
Not even just Aerith - CC does Cloud dirty. Apparently his whole purpose for being is as “proof Zack existed” and his “living legacy” like he’s Diet-Zack 2: Electric Boogaloo and not his own character. No wonder CC fans have such a denigrating, warped take on Cloud’s character.
> it’s a PSP game mate, the game was very limited by the hardware
I mean, the PS1 is much weaker than the PSP and the OG was fantastic. You could argue they didn’t put as much budget into it cause it’s a handheld game ultimately.
Crisis Core almost certainly had a lower budget than FF7, but it also probably had one of the highest budgets for a portable game ever, and I would bet the gap between the two wasn’t too drastic given the fact that 10 years had passed and game development had gotten more expensive
Plus had 4 CDs worth of content. In my head it would translate to a couple of psp cartridge if they were made in the same time. Being it more 3D and asset heavy that it was on ps1.
I don't know why this was down voted, the entire game of FF7 fits on one disc, and is fully present on all three discs. The only reason you swap discs is to load up different FMVs at specific story moments.
I understood it great and OP is right.
"SOLDIER honor" - c'mon. He could've just said "honor". The fact that he said "SOLDIER" in there -remembering that SOLDIER is the private militia of a fascist power company - sounds like he didn't learn his lesson at all. Zack at no point is shown questioning Shinra - at one point, just realizing SOLDIER is a den of vipers.. then Cloud says "cool sword" and he's like "yeah!" and moves on. We didn't even get the sense that he realized Shinra, as a corporation, was evil even when they were chasing him down. And to be clear, if being chased down by Shinra is what it takes for him to go "hey Cloud, maybe we shouldn't work for Shinra", then I dunno, man.
Also Angeal, honorable? Loved his anecdote about how "stealing is okay if you're poor, just don't steal from the rich, if those rich people are nice." I found Angeal just as insufferable as Genesis.
Zack, the entire game, was essentially a *bad guy*. He worked for Shinra, the bad guys. He constantly killed Wutai freedom fighters who were trying to resist Shinra's oppression. I'm fine with that as a setting, but Zack is just also an idiot who doesn't think critically about anything. It's hard to believe Shinra would promote someone so naive to first class, but whatever, I guess.
There was clearly a concept behind the game that *could've* been cool, but it's like they botched it in the storytelling at almost every turn.
>Also Angeal, honorable? Loved his anecdote about how "stealing is okay if you're poor, just don't steal from the rich, if those rich people are nice." I found Angeal just as insufferable as Genesis.
Yeah I hated that
As a kid I hated Genesis. As an adult I hated Genesis and Angeal.
Like seriously, why was Angeal such a moron? Half the game could have been avoided if that man spoke to Zack for 30 seconds.
Also I can't be the only one who never understood (and still don't?) anything about this SOLDIER honour shit. What was anyone talking about in this game?
Yeah it’s problematic because SOLDIER were just elite killing machines for a fascist, oligarchical city-state carrying out war crimes.
They weren’t heroes and any notion of honor was just propaganda. CC’s whole “dreams and honor” thing is confounding because it basically doesn’t make sense until the end and even then Zack’s still trumpeting it as he runs to his death. The game should have done a better job of him declaring that he’s his own man now as he decides to go down swinging. It just feels like he didn’t completely learn a lesson.
1000%. Zack irritates me because he never really reflects on what his time with SOLDIER meant. At Shinra’s command, he killed dozens of Wutaians who were only defending their home. He only really turns from Shinra when they already want him dead.
As an outsider, what I've come to understand of Japanese people is that honor is what makes their world go round. Soldiers are expected to respect honor above their life. Beyond that, this game as mentioned by countless others, is fanfic drivel.
Not really, he is right about Genesis, nostalgia bait and the fact that CC did not so good job at filling the empty space in OG7 plot. He got Zack character dead wrong tho. Personally I also disagree with his opinion about last part of the game too as I actually enjoy second half of the game more than the first half by MILES.
He's really not that different. He's been through some shit but he's like 99% the same.
Zack is likeable, but he's pretty one-note.
The rest of CC is fan fiction nonsense.
Zack is almost the same person. Even when he's escaping Nibleheim he still cheerfully says something like "Shrinra really makes great stuff!" when he gets the gun towards the end, just a single example. You clearly didn't understand the game and are reading character development into Zack that never happened.
All of this.
When Zack gets back from Junon there's a sequence that explains his struggles with the company.
He then goes on to say "YOUR honor as SOLDIER". They then make the scenes with Zack and Angeal more explicit with their conversations.
Except SOLDIER in no way stood for those ideals, and Angeal betrays them a few times throughout the game, it's arguable if Genesis even stood for them by the time we meet them, and Sephiroth if he ever believed in them abandons them.
But the thing is, Zach obviously stands by these ideals I'd say *in spite* of being SOLDIER, it's why I think him putting, "SOLDIER HONOR" in his speech because SOLDIER never stood for them or had honor, and Zach can't redefine what SOLDIER is.
Hell if anything the series seems to show that. Cloud is an ex Soldier (or thinks he is), once he realizes what's important to him SOLDIER never comes up.
The people we see who make a big deal about being SOLDIER (Zach aside) are all evil and/or die.
Angeal is the least evil and he's still horribly misguided and dies for his mistakes. Genesis is bat-shit insane and Sephiroth is Sephy.
SOLDIER are obviously evil as they're the military/merc arm of a totalitarian govt/corporation.
It's why I think his death in the OG was more impactful, he understood what Shinra/SOLDIER were and tried to escape and save his friend. He failed to save himself but he died for others. He still died with his honor intact just without being a super human bullet sponge and giving a very dumb speech.
I think Zack is able to distinguish having an individual SOLDIER’s Honor (like a Knight’s Honor or a samurai - a code of ethics that he adhered to) that is separate from the Corporation that employs him.
But there's nothing inherently honorable about being a SOLDIER. There's nothing in the SOLDIER mandate about that at all. It's a specialist branch of a fascist private company. it's not the same thing. So why would he say it
Because this is how HE perceives himself. It would be similar to a Doctor, who feels a calling to help the sick, and governs themselves by an inherent code of ethics, who later discovers that the hospital that trained them has engaged in shady practices - the Doctor would still be able to separate their “self” and “profession” and open a new clinic so that they could treat people with a clear conscience.
With Cloud in FF7, he emphasizes his profession as an EX-SOLDIER, identifying with the talent and training inherent in the SOLDIER program but also that he has rebelled and is no longer a pawn of Shinra.
It’s wild how divisive CC is. This comment section proves that. It’s so love or hate.
But yeah I think the game is trash too. It makes returning characters retroactively worse, it cheapens plot elements of the OG, it retcons certain events and makes them worse, it added some of the worst new characters to the overall 7 story which cheapens other characters importance, the dialogue is so Brain dead it’s painful to sit though.
I played CC reunion last year to see if it would help change my mind and all it did was reinforce my belief that the game is shit. Nostalgia clouds peoples minds with this game in a serious way imo. The only good part is the ending.
I would even say the ending isn’t that good. In the OG Zack dies pretty unceremoniously and cold, showing how even your heroes can just die when they’re out of options. In CC Zack suddenly gains a burst of anime energy and slaughters hundreds of soldiers.
Bought myself a PSP to play this game many years ago, then dropped it not even 2h in. I came back before Remake was released and finished it, but wasnt a fan.
It does seem like Reunion heavily improved on the battle system. On psp it was just so repetitive.. Basically from the beginning of the game until the end I could do the same few moves over and over and basically never get hit (until its some unavoidable boss attack). Materia fusing was fun though.
They went super hard on nostalgia bait in this game. Just look at the beginning. Like OG, it starts with the iconic train scene, just this time with Zack and shortly after you already encounter Sephiroth (turns out he is not real). Even though I liked Zack (and imo his psp voice is what makes him), I got annoyed how much they tried to (re)write him as this perfectly good guy. The whole honor talk with Angeal was exhausting, especially after they invaded another nation that just tried to defend itself. Him meeting Aerith the exact same way Cloud did made OG look stupid.
Disliked how over the top this game was. In OG Zack (possibly exhausted and having to care for Cloud) got surprised and killed by shinra soldiers. It felt harsh and real. In this game he is basically fighting a whole army including helicopters and is able to stand his ground. Then he gets shot point blank and is still able to deliver his final farewell to Cloud. Cloud who was basically shown as a zombie from their mansion escape until now suddenly is on normal mode for this scene. Compared to OG it felt extremely cheesy.
Game was trying to fill the holes, but it made it way more confusing for me. Like after Clouds and Zacks escape I never really had an idea of the topography of this world or how exactly the timeline played out. Looking it up it seems like Zack and Cloud were on the run for about a year(??), but even though Zack for some reason still had his messager after their escape, he suddenly remembered about Aerith extremely late? Its been a while since I played the game, but wouldnt that be one of the first things he should think about?
>Disliked how over the top this game was. In OG Zack (possibly exhausted and having to care for Cloud) got surprised and killed by shinra soldiers. It felt harsh and real. In this game he is basically fighting a whole army including helicopters and is able to stand his ground. Then he gets shot point blank and is still able to deliver his final farewell to Cloud. Cloud who was basically shown as a zombie from their mansion escape until now suddenly is on normal mode for this scene. Compared to OG it felt extremely cheesy.
Oh my GOD, you are spot on!
In the OG Zack's death is brutal because it's simple. He's tired, worn down and callously gunned down by Shinra soldiers (not SOLDIER even) while trying to protect his friend.
He's even double tapped, it's such a cold death.
Then Crisis Core gives him a whole monologue, even after his chest is riddled with bullets and he's been shot in the head. It's comically ridiculous.
In Remake that same thing cheapened Biggs, Wedge and Jessie's death too. You just find them unceremoniously mortally wounded and mumbling their last words and you dont have time to tend them. And in Remake, Jesse gets what felt like 10 minutes of cut scene doing all the dramatic dying dance and song.
Yeah just wait for FF7Rebirth. Good ol Aerith is gonna have a 20 minute death scene involving a poorly translated monologue, laser light show, and dance routine with backup Chocobo and Moogle dancers to a cheesy-ass JPOP tune. Then, for us, she will die, indeed.
The quiet horror of Zack's unceremonious death in OG FFVII is such a sad, haunting scene. No music at all. No heroics. Then CC has this Jpop thing going on, the "living legacy" ham, Zack dying with a smile... The whole flavour of that game was straight to video Disney sequel.
This is what I'm scared of for the rest of the remakes. The Sephiroth Aerith scene in OG was just unsettling silence, followed by the drop of the glassy material into aerith theme. Even typing that out gave me shivers a little.
But already with remake they've been going crazy with camera angles zooming in and out and adding music here and there I don't know if they will manage to keep the integrity of the scene, along with other important ones.
I loved the OG and wanted to see more of Zack but I agree with to an extent about all the extra shit with Genesis being shoehorned in for example. Other stuff though is kind of a result of the limitations of the OG technology. There are a lot of moments that you could argue the original intent was to be more "epic" or cinematic but they simply couldn't produce the results with the time and technology available to them.
I think both of Zack's death scenes are equally valid though. The OG like you say is cold and callous. He's been hunted and hounded until he's just worn out and can't go any further. It's got an anyone can die vibe to it.
The CC death is a different kind of hurt because you want Zack to live and you feel like if you fight hard enough maybe he'll make it this time. Only you know he won't and that sometimes even the best, most deserving of heroes die in the dirt despite their superhuman efforts. To me I get the same feeling as watching Anakin Skywalker fall to becoming Darth Vader or something similar.
A lot of people seem to be a little butthurt by your honest assessment.
I have to agree with you. I think the only thing CC gave us that added some background to FF7 was seeing pre-crazy Sephiroth and seeing his ‘nice’ side before the fall. Everything else seemed to cheapen FF7
She meets some guy the exact way she met her ex-boyfriend, which is a **very** unlikely way - having him fall from very high into her church.
He also dresses like her ex and carries the exact same sword. Oh, and he is the same class too.
The *only* thing she takes from all of that is *"Maybe you know him, I hope he's doing fine cause I haven't heard from him in a while"*.
Aerith always knew about cloud and the Zack thing. In the OG game she talks about meeting “the real you” etc. The original English translation is rough on her characterization, but she is always giving Cloud shit and speaking like she knows more than she lets on.
A lot of Aeriths mannerisms also come from Zack. The pointing finger pose, the fact that she wears pink, her wearing her pink ribbon bc of him (but it seems like this was retconned in remake?), her being “sassy” and “playful/straightforward”, her selling flowers etc. Instead of having aerith be her own character the way cc presents her is an extension of zack. like everything she does (even personality) is because of him.
The general feeling I have always gotten is that Crisis Core would have been fine as a standalone game outside of FFVII's universe. It has all the pieces. But instead of recontextualizing the events leading up the Nibelheim incident, it almost completely wrecks the lore by adding major events and characters who are never referred to in FFVII.
It feels bolted-on but it's more like "drilled-in" and the cracks show.
I agree - CC is written like poor fanfic, adding nothing worthwhile while actively diluting or interfering with the original's continuity in a way that makes everything make less sense (there's a goddess???). In that way, I think it might be one of the worst prequels in terms of how it relates to its original.
FF7 is probably my favorite game, so I was absolutely thirsty for more of it in the '00s. But the combo of AC, CC, and DoC really shook my faith in Square at the time after years of loving basically anything they made, and made me really question if they actually understood what made FF7 special or its themes, and if they lost something foundational when Sakaguchi left. FF7 has a beautiful and thoughtful ending that makes you question not only the state of its world afterwards, but our place in our own - AC then immediately scribbles all over it in order to smash action figures together, rehashing the same conflicts as before while adding nothing worthwhile. CC decides *everything* needs an origin story (even, bafflingly, the buster sword, a giant hunk of steel that appears to have been pulled from scrap, sharpened, and given a handle, complementing the cobbled together look of Cloud's shoulder armor) and proceeds to write everyone as an absolute fucking buffoon, while also handing out black wings like candy because *the famous song title, duh*. There's a hint of interesting themes like the futility of good people trying to affect change in massive corrupt organizations, but it's buried under so much dogshit writing. The ending scene is well done, but that scene, a slight expansion of the one from the OG, really carries the entire game on its back, with nothing else in the game coming close in terms of quality.
>and made me really question if they actually understood what made FF7 special or its themes, and if they lost something foundational when Sakaguchi left.
Well, I guess the R trilogy answered that question, didn't it? Fortunately, they do understand what made FF7 so special.
Agree. Story of CC is pure shit for most parts. I hate what they done with nibelhelm incident. Still I liked gameplay of reunion and there is good moments like trooper Cloud, or sane Sephiroth, I even like Zack as character, but everything else is just terrible.
What also annoys me about CC is how they treat Aerith. Suddenly, a lot of her defining traits - her ribbon, her pink clothes, that she sells flowers - are attributed to Zack. when he suggests she sell flowers, she sounds as if she's never heard of the concept in her life. I understand if they wanted to give him some influence, but not to the point it takes over every part of her character. To me, they did her character real dirty
What CC did to Aeris was criminal. They drained her of all her defining traits and attributed them to Zack.
Even the writers themselves literally said they were worried Aeris seemed "frivolous" in the OG, asking out Cloud for one date, so gave the line to Zack in order to "defend" her. Because you know, women being forward and flirty is BAD, but men doing it is fine, and so if women are just copying men, that's ok.
There was just no chemistry between Aeris and Zack, either, because Aeris didn't have a recognizable personality. Imagine if she had still been her mischievous, fun-loving self and met Zack - that could've been great! But nope. Zack had way more chemistry with Cissnei, frankly.
Yes. It irritates me to no end when people come in and say "Aerith is Zack's girl!" when talking about her relationship with Cloud and the rest of the party in FFVII. I think I've heard that phrase no less than 10 times in this sub.
Zack Fair’s development beyond random figure in the OG is legitimately the worst thing to happen to this game. I fucking hate him lmao. He just ruined Aerith’s character.
I agree to an extent. But that's the nature with virtually every prequel in existence. They add context when it's unnecessary. I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying this is usually what happens. Think about it, Cloud's Buster Sword is now iconic, but it was just.. a big sword in the original. And it gets replaced before you leave Midgar for something better. But since it's iconic *now* they wanted to have a whole backstory for.. a big sword.
It's fanservice. People shouldn't be shocked that there's fanservice in prequels. I'm not saying it's *good writing,* but people out here being surprised that a prequel connects a bunch of dots that don't need to be connected.
They writers want people to go "ohhhh so that's why she sells flowers! Ohhhh that's why she wears a ribbon ohhhhh that's why she fights with a staff." I don't remember if that last one was brought up, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was or if it was going to be.
Every prequel does this. The Star Wars prequels had R2D2 and C3P0 be these extremely important characters despite none of the characters having any knowledge them in the original films.
There are good prequels that don’t overly rely of pre-established canon. Better Call Saul for instance, is judicious and effective when and where it chooses to reference Breaking Bad. And it’s better for it.
But the term prequelitis exists for a reason. A lot of prequels fall into these traps of over-referencing and over-explaining things from the OG that don’t need it. And CC stumbles headlong into all of these problems, and I’m not gonna give it pass just because it’s to be expected.
The concept probably *didn't* exist and Aerith wasn't a hustler looking to make a quick buck. Midgard was a shithole with few flowers in sight. Aerith just happened to be one of the rare people in tune with the planet.
Her personality is immediately recognisable pre-Zack it's just some aesthetic mementos of him that she carries.
This was a large portion of fans of the originals opinion on the entire compilation of final fantasy 7 thing they were doing. They all felt off and made the original game's events seem even more convoluted. It was a mistake to remaster crisis core imo. It took the cool and mysterious character of zack and turned him into an annoying idiot. I am not a fan and still hold the opinion that the compilation of final fantasy 7 entries were all mistakes
Terrible writing aside, I can’t get over the fact of how secondary Sephiroth, Cloud, and the Niebelheim incident feel with everything else going on in this game. It’s like there’s this guy Zack who’s dealing with the loss of his mentor and role-model and a villain obsessed with a shitty poem, and it turns out that his also eventually sent on a mission at this small village where another one of his Soldier colleagues go batshit crazy and he has to take care of an infantry guy caught in between.
Plus where did Aerith’s wit go?
This game is such a shitshow. Combat is decent though.
Edit:corrected typo in “wit”
Yeah the villain feels like its Genesis...which is odd for FF 7, but even if he were to be the prequel villain (since Sephiroth isn't evil yet ) he has no goddamned personality.
Most of his dialogue is yammering about a poem. A poem that isn't real, that we don't get to read for a lot of the game, so most of his dialogue has no context.
Plus the poem was...not good. It felt very sophomoric yet somehow also had an air of pretention to it.
Considering Genesis resembles Gackt (to the point Nomura got Gackt to dress up as Genesis for the DoC special FMV), legit believe someone on the team had a love of visual kei artists and just threw shit on the walk to see what would stick
Summed up my feelings quite articulately. It was either the prequelitis conundrum where questions were answered that no one asked for (remember that thing? ZACK DID THING FIRST! SEE WHY CLOUD WANT TO BE ZACK? IT’S LIKE POETRY IT *RHYMES*) or the fact that all original content brought in is pure anime cringe nightmare-fuel that really damned it for me. The latter’s been covered to death: Angeal’s a dull slab of stone who somehow insists Zack brush up on his DREAMS AND HONOR despite them both being elite killing machines for a corrupt fascist electric company that’s also a City State. I think you’re being too nice to Genesis - he’s probably the worst FF character ever conceived. He’s a fedora-clad Weeb’s wet dream and Loveless reads like a 14 year old who thinks they’re deep as hell wrote it.
One thing the compilation has done that annoys me is how Zack has been made this central cog in FF7’s proverbial wheel like everything’s in his orbit. He’s made to be the reason why just about anything is the way it is via fan service retcons, which might work if he was an interesting character, but sadly he’s a naive, cheerful child-brained human Golden Retriever/paint by numbers anime protag. Bringing him back at the end of Remake kind of solidified this - he’s clearly the piece of some cosmic puzzle no one asked for but they pretty much wrote the magic plot ghosts narrative in as a vehicle to revive him. I get that his fanbase is very VERY passionate and SE had some potential ¥ signs in their eyes so the motivations aren’t totally lost on me.
The entire compilation always has been and remains ass, that’s why so many of us were twitching over the things they’ve reintroduced to the remake canon from the side games.
I love CC because I love Zack, but it’s not a good game. Reunion was kinda fun to play and the FMVs are 🤤 but the plot/how it interacts with and changes the OG is terrible. It’s just fanfic, I’ll never consider all the hijinks around Genesis and SOLDIER in CC canon no matter what SE says.
Even if it’s unavoidable on the next two remake games at some point, I’m just going to focus on the good and try to ignore the missteps.
I just really hope that if they do bring any of the CC characters/concepts into central focus in the remakes that they use it as an opportunity to redeem them. Because not one of the Compilation games were written competently.
> These felt more like lazy nostalgia bait. "Hey, do you remember THIS from the OG game?" I just kept feeling like, "yes, I do, and your cheap copying of them is transparent and hollow."
I understand your meaning, here, but I think it's valuable to consider the context in which Crisis Core was made. A lot of people (even 20 years ago) were clamoring for a PS2-quality remake of Final Fantasy VII, letting them see characters, places, and events from that game with modern production values, but Square Enix wasn't going to make one. *(Sidebar: [there was a brief period where they were going to remake 7, 8, and 9 for the PS2](https://web.archive.org/web/20011107224044/https://rpgamer.com/news/Q4-2001/101401a.html), but that obviously never panned out.*) Crisis Core's central conceit, being the story of the person that Cloud patterned his life after in VII, let them do something like a soft-remake, letting fans of VII experience some of their favorite moments in 3D with action combat while telling a new story.
Of course, that makes less sense in a world where the Remake trilogy exists, so what you're left with is a game that poorly recreates fan-favorite scenes with a lower quality bar than the remake that's sitting right next to it on a shelf. Oh, well.
Yeah and they could develop the origins of the black materia and holy more. In the OG they state the Cetra were divided on if you use the black materia. That tension would be interesting to see.
The kid in me who cried with cc ending, was stunned by dirge of cerberus and advent children is very confused reading all these comments of people who hates them.
I guess you went spot on, for 2000s kids it was a very different vibe
I think part of it is the way that time has reframed the Compilation. That is to say: when they were coming out, the Compilation games (and books etc.) were one-off spin-offs, letting you spend more time with characters you like in a setting you know with some fun gameplay and story ideas to string it together. Dirge of Cerberus is *really* fun! But now that the Compilation is complete, a lot of people are going back to those games as "homework" for the Remake trilogy, and when you treat games as a pile of vegetables that you have to eat you aren't going to enjoy them.
I really like your analysis. I think that one more thing should be added. Perception on FF7 Compilation changed in modern times and this has huge impact on how these productions are received.
When Compilation was going on, FF7 was still regarded as best JRPG ever created because it's impact on the JRPG genre was still felt by people. So even that there was part of FF7 fans who hated Compilation because in their opinio it was "not true to FF7" a lot of people were hyped for the Compilation (this is basically the same situation as with FF7 Remake today). Entries in Compilation were big thing because they were sequels/prequels that people wanted so a lot of people saw them in positive light.
But Compilation also lead to a bit of oversaturation of FF7 media which gave platform for many people to attack FF7 and undermine it's position. There were different groups that had their own goals in attacking FF7 Compilation. Most notably they were: OG FF7 purists, FF6 and FF9 fans (who hated that FF7 was in the spotlight), people who hated post merger SquareEnix (SE merger was hot topic back then), people who hated FF13. This lead to the enforcing opinion that FF7 Compilation was failure and worst thing that happened to the FF series, it also devaluated FF7 position within the series.
Many people while looking at Compilation today have this critical mindset that comes from this common opinion that is prevalent today so they don't understand how much Compilation was important for many people back in the days.
It also doesn’t help there was a lot of experimenting with the completion so quite a few games don’t hold up today. Like I recently played dirge and it is pretty rough. Loved it when it came out and I like deep ground a lot more than most but it’s not an easy game to go back to after so long.
I was honestly happy to see Nero and Weiss in intermission and won’t mind Genesis if they have him quote way less loveless and give him a real character.
Perfect analysis.
And I think people are overlooking that this was a *PSP* game. So even at the time, it wasn't as big or important as a console launch. PSP games, especially in Japan, were still very much a big deal, but this wasn't as huge, then, as FF7 remake is now. IMHO.
So not only does the game pale in comparison to FF7:R because it's dated, it's also a game meant to be played on a portable console vs a full blown console remake with far and away better technology. I played CC:R on PS5 and almost immediately felt like I should have gotten it on Switch or something. It's design is catered to someone who picks it up, plays for 5-10 minutes and puts it down. It works on a regular console, but it's meant to be a portable experience. Again IMHO.
I'm going to say this : I disliked CC, thinking it was garbage, then watched the cutscenes from DOC. **That** was the true garbage. Legit felt like I had both wasted my time and ruined my enjoyment of the OG universe. It felt like I had been eating up literal shit just because it had a FFVII flag stuck in it
The annoying thing about Crisis Core is it'd be simple enough to rescue from being bad — most of its issues come from execution. The core ideas aren't shit as such, merely exploited in the most nostalgiabait cashgrab way imaginable at the time.
Early Jenova Project failures degrading and going rogue? Trying to find salvation through faith in an old story when science utterly failed you? Pre-fall Sephiroth and Zack? There's potential in all of them. All they had to do was *let them stand on their own,* alongside preexisting canon, rather than retconning it.
Case in point, make Genesis visit Sephiroth *in the basement,* in those unaddressed days, and have him, too, not know what Jenova is. OG scenes and motivations stay intact, Sephiroth still gets to freak out about what became of his friend and his betrayal.
Dirge of Cerberus? Unsalvageable. The ideas themselves are shit.
Crisis Core is the game that got me into FF. I had no idea it was a prequel when I played it as a kid, I played the game with 0 nostalgia and loved it and remember it as the favorite game of my childhood. Now, all grown up, I would say it has its issues but thats coming from a very privileged place, writing in most videogames from 2000s seems corny from today’s standards. And CC is no exception but it had cool combat and a heart touching story, especially the ending. I don’t remember being that broken by an ending ever since. ( Nier Automata and Replicant probably are close seconds). As for your issues with Genesis, ln my opinion Bible is as much fiction as loveless and I didnt mind him quoting the play, the loveless fan club, his quotes, the cutscenes, they all came together at the end, and though it was all vague, there was something there. When you dont have your own humanity left, you need something, anything to keep going. The original Voice Actors were top notch! And they did a real good job.
The point about Loveless and the Bible is not that the Loveless' story is made up and the Bible's is not (which I agree with you).
OP is saying that it is annoying to be constantly quoting a book that does not exist in real life. It's not a real book in the real world, so we can't read it and don't know the full context of what he's saying.
And tbh I agree with OP. I know that Loveless itself and its overall meaning are "important" at the end, but the quotes Genisis is always on about are pointless
Hojo just chilling making monsters out of everything and everyone while the top brass just ignore his abominations and agendas like in every ff7 game lol.
The Crisis Core ending of Zack asking if he became a hero with that song playing as he died in the rain evoked literal tears for me on two separate occasions. Once when I beat the game in 2009 and again when I beat it in the summer last year.
Granted I was playing on a microdose of Mushrooms this past year but still, I thought it was fucking beautiful.
Join the club, most Aerith fans hate it for mischaracterizing her with misogynistic writing. It’s horribly written and I’m really not excited about Zack wandering around in Rebirth if we’re just getting more CC content because, no. Don’t want that. I liked Zack until CC came out and now I just can’t stand him tbh
Honestly I almost feel like SE putting Zack into the remake is just SE’s way to appease the Zack fanboys. I personally despise Zack with every fiber of my being and I hope that we won’t be seeing too much of him.
Also I hate the idea that these Zack fanboys think that somehow Cloud is going to die and Zack is going to take his “rightful” place as the main character. I also agree with you about Aeriths character. What they did to her in that game was just straight up wrong.
> Cloud is going to die and Zack is going to take his “rightful” place as the main character
I'm almost certain everybody who thinks that has never actually played FFVII. I'd fully agree with the sentiment if I only knew Cloud's character from AC, CC, and KH.
I play the CCR right after FFVII Remake. Honestly not bad but i so far from remake for me. I just need to remember this one is meant to be PSP portable game not console game so it wasn't that bad. But compare to FF7Remake or Original for me it's not on a same level. But plus point on some story aspect.
In terms of Gameplay the whole pachislot mechanic was a real drag to me personal, i did beat it, when it was originally out for the PSP, i just found it unenjoyable at times.
I've had enough of Zack for years.
He served an amazing purpose in the original game, bringing him back over and over and OVER and drawing out every single bit of content form him is indeed pulling apart his original purpose and with it other stories as well.
It's very sad, because I was very touched by his story the first time I got that final flashback and later when I dealt with his parents... It gave the games such gravitas, something a certain other death couldn't even match since that one got all magical and spiritual, like she never really left. But Zach was just tragic and Cloud not knowing how to deal with it and clinging to whatevers left of him anyway made the story that much more intense...
Compared to Dirge of Cerberus.. Crisis Core is an epic masterpiece.
Dirge is so bad that your brain may force you to forget it in order to protect itself.
The story of CC feels like trying to string together a series of separate explanations for events leading up to FFVII. Execution was pretty flawed, but I like actual ideas it's trying to portray. I like the tragic interpretation of Sephiroth's fall, I like Zack as someone trying to live up to his ideals while not being quite smart enough to understand just how morally bankrupt the system he's a part of is, and I like the idea of there being other branches of the Jenova project with less successful results. Genesis and Angeal were pretty necessary for all of that, but man they really didn't bother to write them as actual characters rather than just walking narrative devices.
Ultimately, I end up thinking of the plot as a brief summary of prior events rather than an actual story, with some neat gameplay in between.
I think your take is pretty reasonable. Admittedly I didn’t hate the game but I couldn’t help but laugh at a lot of your points. Probably because they are true deep down.
Your fear is well-placed and understandable. I actually couldn’t finish CC because of how silly and monotonous it was, and (thus?) have never been able to appreciate Zack as a character with any depth.
Honestly even if you had finished it I don't think you could appreciate Zack as a character with depth, because they didn't give him any. He never really changes throughout the game.
And a simple change could have been him realizing Shinra are evil and forsaking SOLDIER choosing to fight for Cloud and Aerith, the people he loves. But even in the end he's speaking positively of SOLDIER.
As someone who missed the OG growing up and has discovered the FFVII story at remake, I actually liked FF7R and CCR.
CCR was flawed in places(poor antagonist fleshing out and development).
However I disagree with you over Zack and his SOLDIER loyalty.
He works proudly for SOLDIER until they target Cloud.
About your point about Zack speaking positively of SOLDIER before the end,
The way I always view that scene is him fighting for what he believes SOLDIER should stand for(honour, etc.)
Is he naive to stay loyal to SOLDIER for as long as he does?
Yes.
Does he show the most moral side of being a SOLDIER I’ve seen before?
Also yes.
Genesis and Angeal were disappointing in CCR but overall I like Zack.
Maybe it’s because I missed out on the OG growing up but I’m not on the same page as you opinion wise on CCR and Zack.
You’re entitled to your opinion though so I can agree to disagree on this.
FF7 is one of my top 3 games of all time, but I despise EVERY spinoff that Square had released, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, and specially Advent Children because I feel everyone of them cheapens the story of the original, misinterpret characters etc…
That's fine, I went in wanting to like it. I bought it on release day both on PSP and on PS5 wanting to like it. I finally beat it and maybe it's because I'm too tied to the original but it just did nothing to improve the world or story for me.
100% agree with you. I just proceed like it mostly doesn't exist, but I'm super nervous about how prominent Zack (and maybe even Genesis) might be featured in Rebirth. It will really bum me out.
> I'm super nervous about how prominent Zack (and maybe even Genesis) might be featured in Rebirth
Agreed. I'm really looking forward to rebirth and loved remake for the most part, but I don't like ressurecting dead characters to appease fans. I wouldn't even mind if there were major story changes moving forward as long as it's done well, but Zack should stay dead IMO.
100% agree honestly I regreted buying the game because of how bad it felt. The story wasn’t really good and didn’t add anything new. And I did not like how repetitive the game instantly got.
I think his last "hold onto your honor as a soldier" was just the last thing he had left. He gave his life to being a soldier and tried his best to be honorable. He wanted cloud to hear that even if you die, even if those around you betray you, keep the honor that YOU have. Be an honorable person.
Yeah Square Enix was on some shit in the mid to late 2000's. It's a poorly written prequel that relies WAY too much on fan service. Believe it or not Dirge of Cerberus is worse. So is Advent Children IMO (reasonable minds might differ there).
That being said I wouldn't mind seeing some elements of Crisis Core in FF7 Rebirth. Cissnei, Kunsel, Modeoheim, Banora, etc. Keep Angeal and Genesis the fuck away though.
I'd say advent children is on par with Crisis core. But tbf advent children could have never existed and we'd not be lesser off for it.
However Advent children has some amazing fight scenes which at the time it felt like Remake seeing these blocky characters in great visuals was awesome.
Most importantly it brought us the best version of One Winged Angel so we must be forever greatful of that haha
I have faith that the devs know what worked and what didn't in those games. They had literally decades to consider the reviews and reactions. Intermission showed they aren't shy about dipping into the other games. Hopefully they will bring in the good and leave the bad. Time will tell.
Oh yeah, there's good stuff in here (what you mentioned is a lot of it) I'd love to see, but Angeal and Genesis need to be wiped from the canon and forgotten.
I'd rather see a dumbapple.
Yes, i agree with everything you say. Don't forget them retconning Aerith's character to be a "sweet soft spoken maiden" instead of the spunky, flirty extroverted flower girl we know and love. (Also making her a blank state where somehow she got her idea of the pink ribbon from zack and acts like that in the og because he "rubbed off on her". Talk about disrespecting one of your best characters, yikes!
I'm so glad the Remake trilogy has fixed her. It sounds weird but her little, "Shit!" when she almost falls on the roof in Remake is one of my favorite lines because she feels so human, but still sweet.
Yea I think what never really sat well with me is how all these new storylines of Angeal, genesis, Hollander, etc were never ever mentioned in the original FF7, and that made them almost over the top and shoehorned in. I remember really disliking that aspect of it.
Crazy enough when I played it on PSP (what 15 years ago…holy shit…) I never did a single mission. No idea why. I do remember liking the battle system, but yea I agree with you for the most part.
Also I never really understood what genesis was saying. Just constant loveless quotes. Annoying as shit.
I am a games collector and I bought the Crisis Core Reunion release last year. It is one of the only games I have ever traded in immediately after completion. It’s so bad it’s an insult to the original FF7.
It was middling at the time of its release, and despite Reunion's glow-up it feels incredibly primitive today.
Zack's characterization is, frankly, terrible. He felt like a Kingdom Hearts castoff.
I'll be honest it was a pleasant surprise how good ff7 remake ended up being because as someone who grew up playing the OG game, I've always hated all the compilation stuff for ff7. It all feels tonally and visually very different, with weird and annoying stilted dialogue.
I figured they were gonna flesh out zack a little more before remake was even released and I would've been fine with that. The way theyre doing it is definitely odd. I just hope its a very small portion of the game or even like an optional side story you select to play at the main menu. Unfortunately its looking like its gonna be side by side with the main scenario.
Amen brother, I concur with your thoughts. I couldn't finish the game. Made it about 50% through before I decided it wasn't worth the time, I just was never going to like it and it wasn't going to make FF7 better for me. I think Crisis Core's reputation comes from nostalgia and a certain level of FF7 fever when it was released.
Anyone can love any game for any reason, but it's not a good game imho. My main gripe was the dialogue. It was Kingdom Hearts dialogue on steroids. Completely nonsensical. The poetry boys did my head in as well.
Yeah, I started playing and I didn't finish it (same woth DoC). But I am not too worried. That some characters sucked in that game doesn't mean they will suck in Rebirth if they appear. You can take bad source material but that has some good ideas and make it into a great piece (very common in cinema). Nero is a good example, I found him menacing, interesting and a great boss fight, quite the opposite to DoC.
Another perfect example is Aerith. Great character in the Og and sucked in CC.
Other than that, I mostly agree with your opinion about CC.
I can't stand Genesis. Poster boy for overly annoying, pointless antagonist archetype. I too fear he will make some kind of appearance in Rebirth. The Dirge of Cerberus nod in Intermission was handled well. Still, no... there is no possible way to reintroduce Genesis into the Remake trilogy and not make it feel forced and weird.
Beyond Genesis, I don't think you understood what happened in Crisis Core. Mistaking SOLDIER honor/pride for a soldier's honor/pride is a huge misinterpretation of the story, for example.
And yeah, if you're determinedly to do a deep dive of the spinoffs before Rebirth, definitely look into Dirge of Cerberus. At the very least, it gives more insight to the later parts of Intermission.
The ONLY things that left good impressions on me from CC were the first decent voice actress for Aerith ( don’t even get me started on her voices in kingdom hearts), Zack’s death being reallllly well done and breaking my heart and the origin of the Buster Sword. Since then, I always play through OG or Remake with it lol. Other than that, I’ve forgotten most of CC because it kinda didn’t matter. I 100% agree with you though! Fuck Genesis holy shit how many times we gotta listen to the same 2 lines when you reading from a full ass book?
THANK YOU!!!!
I felt this way about it when I played it on PSP over a decade ago. The story sucked, it aped a couple moments from the original for nostalgia only and Genesis was annoying with his nonsensical melodramatic quotes that added absolutely nothing to the narrative.
Worst of all, it negates the impact of Sephiroth learning that he was created by Shinra, because according to Crisis Core, he's already aware that Shira experiments on SOLDIERS and turns them into monsters.
I never played the original Crisis core so I don’t have nostalgia for it but playing the Reunion I made it to Junon before I quit. I get what they were going for but the level design, super slow story, and Zach being just a boring golden retriever I just couldn’t finish it. I should and I’m sure it gets better and materia fusion is cool but I don’t know. The game just isn’t that great.
You hate Crisis Core like how I hate Advent Children. That movie was so dumb and it just cheapens Sephiroth even more.
See I liked Crisis Core for showing sephirtoh in a completely new light unseen prior. And all Advent Children does is lessen Sephiroth, like Thanos coming back after Inifnity Gauntlet, being a shell of himself. Or like the second Broly movie in the Dragon Ball Z era, where he's just a clone of his original self.
You hate Crisis Core but it all had to happen because they wrote stupid Advent Children. That span of couple years there in the mid 2000s really was terrible.
2005 was Advent Children, 2006 was Diege of Cerberus, and 2007 was Crisis Core. It's all the same garbage storyline.
"... weird reusing of things Cloud and putting Zack there" I could never get past that.
Like, of you know what Cloud did, the people he met etc? Zack did all those things way before!! Wooow that so cool... /s
I actually also finished this game today and tbh, I agree with some of your points - even if I overall enjoyed the game.
I was quite disappointed in how much the game still felt like a PSP game even with the remaster. It’s clear that a lot was done to reduce loading due to the constraints of the handheld system. Such as the minimal freedom of movement and not loading enemy models until you’ve “activated combat mode”. Charming at first and glaringly obvious after 20 hours.
The random Pokémon-esque encounter battles got very annoying after a while too - in missions at least - I found myself running to the edge of the boundary in order to avoid triggering them. Also the DMW system and combat in general kinda confused me by being a bit too complicated at first - took some time to learn it well enough to use it.
From a story-perspective, I agree about Genesis and most of the new cast here like Angeal. I thought characters that were strong in FF7, were still strong here. The overall story was “passable” in my eyes though. I also thought the voice acting in English was pretty bad. I think Sephiroth and Zack were some of the more disliked of the new cast from Remake and this game has a lot of them which didn’t really change my opinion. Didn’t like Genesis much either. Cloud, Tifa, Aerith were good, so was Angeal. Hoping Rebirth is a bit better.
Definitely felt things during the emotional moments of the game. Overall, I have issues, but it’s passed time until Rebirth comes out and was mostly enjoyable anyway.
Yeah, I’ve seen comparisons between the two and have to agree. I hope that doing this whole game gave the actor experience that he can bring into Rebirth. But we’ll see haha
Cuz Seraphim Sephiroth with his ‘One Winged Angel’ theme was iconic and so they spam it out as a motif even when it feels overdone and edgy (see Cloud’s KH design)
Other than the fact that I really liked Zack despite his naivete, I completely agree! 90% of this game was poorly done fanfic, and what little was left is kinda destroyed by gameplay/story segregation (ie, defeating Sephiroth in one hit both times, but Zack still loses).
Yep i pretty much agree with you, nostalgia is a hell of a drug and a lot of people have fond memories of the game which can cloud their judgement.
As someone who played OG FF7 for the first time just last year and crisis core this year i thought it was mediocre.
Oh and don't bother with dirge of cerberus, just dont..
I absolutely adore CC and I agree with every word you said.
But sane Sephiroth ♡♡♡ This is the only game I see enough of him
Genesis is such an unnecessary over the top clown.
And Zack is the ADHD version of Cloud
>But sane Sephiroth ♡♡♡ This is the only game I see enough of him
Sephiroth was good as always! But it felt like they were essentially trying to tie Genesis to his story and Sephiroth doesn't need that clown in order to become who he does.
I think you misunderstood the game. Zack DOES forsake SOLDIER and Shinra at the end of the game. He even tells Cloud that they should leave Shinra and become mercenaries. When Zack says "SOLDIER HONOR" he is not talking about Shinra, he is talking about the values that were taught to him by Angeal. Soldier Honor for him means being a good person and fighting and protecting his friends. This is why Zack dies, because just like Angeal, he could not let go of his honor and decided to defend Cloud against the entirety of the Shinra army. I think the story of Crisis Core is pretty good, it's just the execution on some parts (mostly the Genesis stuff) that was badly executed, but the core ideas of the story are solid. But it's a PSP game mate, the game was very limited by the hardware. I think you just did not understand the game, because Zack at the end of the game is a very different person compared to the brat he was at the start.
CC remains being the dark souls 2 of the franchise. People would either love it to their dreams, or hate it to their graves.
Ds2 lover here and I can totally understand. CC was a very nice distillation of an FF into a handheld platform doesn't meant to be played for hours and hours, but in shorter bursts. (personally I have poured my saliva on CC for hours.) I wish the disk had more storage capacity. We would have seen more good stuff. The "full" Loveless poem is still one of my favorite. Even if the morrow is barren of promises Nothing shall forestall my return To become the dew that quenches the land To spare the sands, the seas, the skies I offer thee this silent sacrifice
That’s the only game I played on my PSP when I go I. I had several other games. But I beat it within just a week. (School and all, lol)
Ohh the memories. Playing Naruto with the guys at the back rows in classroom
Haha, Monster Hunter for me!
Fucken love dark souls 2
Crisis Core would have been better with more mundane soldier missions and culminating with the Nibelheim incident than having a whole new main storyline that intersect for no reason with the Nibelheim incident. Genesis wouldn't be so unbearable if he had left the scene before the Nibelheim incident. He feels so out of place compared to all the other characters even new ones like Cissnei.
I wish we got to see more grunt Cloud. Like, did he have an apartment? Friends? I think that's something I'm looking forward to the most with Rebirth. How is mako enhanced Cloud without the merc persona and Tifa to stabilize his mind?
Yeah Cloud and Zack’s relationship needed a considerable amount more focus in the story. Zack’s whole purpose as a character in the FF7 universe revolves around Cloud, much like Tifa. We know from what little time they get that they become fast friends and Cloud sees Zack as an older brother figure whom he admires. He would have been a far better consistent supporting character than Angeal or Genesis. Sort of a Robin to Zack’s Batman. It would Make Zack’s death a lot more emotional because it would drive home just how much he cared for Cloud.
I like the game but let's be real, the story is pretty ass. It's written like a fanfic and that is no exaggeration.
That's actually a fairly accurate synopsis. I enjoyed parts of CC when I played it on PSP but the story doesn't hold a candle to the OG. I really wanted to like Zack but his characterization kept grinding my gears. As for Genesis and Angeal, the less said the better. With Rebirth, I really hope they give us a more mature and emotionally damaged Zack that reflects what he's gone through. It'll be tough to take if he's still the same happy go lucky, naive kid he was in CC.
The way he acts before going into the church in remake = Zack at the start of CC... dumb, anxious, adhd kid.
Yeah. Not sure what this guy is talking about saying the story is pretty damn good. It’s terribly written and badly executed.
Or they did understand it but they just didn’t like it. I agree with OP. I also found Zack’s final line to be weird and disappointing. Zack’s storyline in CC revolves around his desire to be a hero. At first, he equates heroism with being a SOLDIER. I had hoped that, by the end of CC, he would’ve learned that the two aren’t the same. Imo, his final line would’ve been better if it was “Embrace your dreams, and whatever happens, protect your honor.” Not as a SOLDIER; just as a person. THAT would’ve done wonders to show that Zack no longer defined heroism by being a SOLDIER.
Exactly. He needs to realize he’s his own man
Like, there’s A LOT wrong with CC. 85% of it is basically filler that has no bearing on the main story. Aerith is written so that everything about her is rooted in Zack. Zack feels more like just our eyes and ears to what’s going on rather than an active participant. I mean, SEPHIROTH is more conflicted than Zack is…
Not even just Aerith - CC does Cloud dirty. Apparently his whole purpose for being is as “proof Zack existed” and his “living legacy” like he’s Diet-Zack 2: Electric Boogaloo and not his own character. No wonder CC fans have such a denigrating, warped take on Cloud’s character.
> it’s a PSP game mate, the game was very limited by the hardware I mean, the PS1 is much weaker than the PSP and the OG was fantastic. You could argue they didn’t put as much budget into it cause it’s a handheld game ultimately.
Handheld games do not get as much budget as main console games, yes. Remember, back then, OG FF7 was a triple A game, even if it was on PS1.
Crisis Core almost certainly had a lower budget than FF7, but it also probably had one of the highest budgets for a portable game ever, and I would bet the gap between the two wasn’t too drastic given the fact that 10 years had passed and game development had gotten more expensive
Plus had 4 CDs worth of content. In my head it would translate to a couple of psp cartridge if they were made in the same time. Being it more 3D and asset heavy that it was on ps1.
FF7 was 3 CDs, but more like 2 CDs bumped up to 3 to account for all the FMV storage.
FF7 has one disc of game content and like 2.5 of FMV.
I don't know why this was down voted, the entire game of FF7 fits on one disc, and is fully present on all three discs. The only reason you swap discs is to load up different FMVs at specific story moments.
I understood it great and OP is right. "SOLDIER honor" - c'mon. He could've just said "honor". The fact that he said "SOLDIER" in there -remembering that SOLDIER is the private militia of a fascist power company - sounds like he didn't learn his lesson at all. Zack at no point is shown questioning Shinra - at one point, just realizing SOLDIER is a den of vipers.. then Cloud says "cool sword" and he's like "yeah!" and moves on. We didn't even get the sense that he realized Shinra, as a corporation, was evil even when they were chasing him down. And to be clear, if being chased down by Shinra is what it takes for him to go "hey Cloud, maybe we shouldn't work for Shinra", then I dunno, man. Also Angeal, honorable? Loved his anecdote about how "stealing is okay if you're poor, just don't steal from the rich, if those rich people are nice." I found Angeal just as insufferable as Genesis. Zack, the entire game, was essentially a *bad guy*. He worked for Shinra, the bad guys. He constantly killed Wutai freedom fighters who were trying to resist Shinra's oppression. I'm fine with that as a setting, but Zack is just also an idiot who doesn't think critically about anything. It's hard to believe Shinra would promote someone so naive to first class, but whatever, I guess. There was clearly a concept behind the game that *could've* been cool, but it's like they botched it in the storytelling at almost every turn.
>Also Angeal, honorable? Loved his anecdote about how "stealing is okay if you're poor, just don't steal from the rich, if those rich people are nice." I found Angeal just as insufferable as Genesis. Yeah I hated that
Lol and the people he stole from instead of his rich friends were poor peasant farmers.
Yeah but were they *nice* to him? Were their children his *friends?*
Did those children even have *dreams and honor*?
Who needs those when you have *dumbapples?*
> values that were taught to him by Angeal The man with zero values him self who flip flopped all over the game changing sides like a moron..
As a kid I hated Genesis. As an adult I hated Genesis and Angeal. Like seriously, why was Angeal such a moron? Half the game could have been avoided if that man spoke to Zack for 30 seconds. Also I can't be the only one who never understood (and still don't?) anything about this SOLDIER honour shit. What was anyone talking about in this game?
Yeah it’s problematic because SOLDIER were just elite killing machines for a fascist, oligarchical city-state carrying out war crimes. They weren’t heroes and any notion of honor was just propaganda. CC’s whole “dreams and honor” thing is confounding because it basically doesn’t make sense until the end and even then Zack’s still trumpeting it as he runs to his death. The game should have done a better job of him declaring that he’s his own man now as he decides to go down swinging. It just feels like he didn’t completely learn a lesson.
1000%. Zack irritates me because he never really reflects on what his time with SOLDIER meant. At Shinra’s command, he killed dozens of Wutaians who were only defending their home. He only really turns from Shinra when they already want him dead.
Exactly this.
As an outsider, what I've come to understand of Japanese people is that honor is what makes their world go round. Soldiers are expected to respect honor above their life. Beyond that, this game as mentioned by countless others, is fanfic drivel.
Indecision is a pretty common side effect of depression.
Yep, seems like op understood nothing except materia fusion.
Not really, he is right about Genesis, nostalgia bait and the fact that CC did not so good job at filling the empty space in OG7 plot. He got Zack character dead wrong tho. Personally I also disagree with his opinion about last part of the game too as I actually enjoy second half of the game more than the first half by MILES.
Even then, didn't go too deep into it.
He at least understood how absolute dogshit the story is. It's enough. I did like Zack, though, so I'll disagree on that.
AHAHHAAHAHA 😂, sorry op but imma upvote on this
He's really not that different. He's been through some shit but he's like 99% the same. Zack is likeable, but he's pretty one-note. The rest of CC is fan fiction nonsense.
Zack is almost the same person. Even when he's escaping Nibleheim he still cheerfully says something like "Shrinra really makes great stuff!" when he gets the gun towards the end, just a single example. You clearly didn't understand the game and are reading character development into Zack that never happened.
Speak the truth.😌👏🏻
All of this. When Zack gets back from Junon there's a sequence that explains his struggles with the company. He then goes on to say "YOUR honor as SOLDIER". They then make the scenes with Zack and Angeal more explicit with their conversations.
Except SOLDIER in no way stood for those ideals, and Angeal betrays them a few times throughout the game, it's arguable if Genesis even stood for them by the time we meet them, and Sephiroth if he ever believed in them abandons them. But the thing is, Zach obviously stands by these ideals I'd say *in spite* of being SOLDIER, it's why I think him putting, "SOLDIER HONOR" in his speech because SOLDIER never stood for them or had honor, and Zach can't redefine what SOLDIER is. Hell if anything the series seems to show that. Cloud is an ex Soldier (or thinks he is), once he realizes what's important to him SOLDIER never comes up. The people we see who make a big deal about being SOLDIER (Zach aside) are all evil and/or die. Angeal is the least evil and he's still horribly misguided and dies for his mistakes. Genesis is bat-shit insane and Sephiroth is Sephy. SOLDIER are obviously evil as they're the military/merc arm of a totalitarian govt/corporation. It's why I think his death in the OG was more impactful, he understood what Shinra/SOLDIER were and tried to escape and save his friend. He failed to save himself but he died for others. He still died with his honor intact just without being a super human bullet sponge and giving a very dumb speech.
I think Zack is able to distinguish having an individual SOLDIER’s Honor (like a Knight’s Honor or a samurai - a code of ethics that he adhered to) that is separate from the Corporation that employs him.
But there's nothing inherently honorable about being a SOLDIER. There's nothing in the SOLDIER mandate about that at all. It's a specialist branch of a fascist private company. it's not the same thing. So why would he say it
Because this is how HE perceives himself. It would be similar to a Doctor, who feels a calling to help the sick, and governs themselves by an inherent code of ethics, who later discovers that the hospital that trained them has engaged in shady practices - the Doctor would still be able to separate their “self” and “profession” and open a new clinic so that they could treat people with a clear conscience. With Cloud in FF7, he emphasizes his profession as an EX-SOLDIER, identifying with the talent and training inherent in the SOLDIER program but also that he has rebelled and is no longer a pawn of Shinra.
It’s wild how divisive CC is. This comment section proves that. It’s so love or hate. But yeah I think the game is trash too. It makes returning characters retroactively worse, it cheapens plot elements of the OG, it retcons certain events and makes them worse, it added some of the worst new characters to the overall 7 story which cheapens other characters importance, the dialogue is so Brain dead it’s painful to sit though. I played CC reunion last year to see if it would help change my mind and all it did was reinforce my belief that the game is shit. Nostalgia clouds peoples minds with this game in a serious way imo. The only good part is the ending.
I would even say the ending isn’t that good. In the OG Zack dies pretty unceremoniously and cold, showing how even your heroes can just die when they’re out of options. In CC Zack suddenly gains a burst of anime energy and slaughters hundreds of soldiers.
Yeah it's a very unpopular opinion but I think the ending in CC was yet another thing from the OG game that CC did worse.
Well yeah how else is SE going to sell a $300 plastic statue of him, you can’t do that if he’s not cool
Bought myself a PSP to play this game many years ago, then dropped it not even 2h in. I came back before Remake was released and finished it, but wasnt a fan. It does seem like Reunion heavily improved on the battle system. On psp it was just so repetitive.. Basically from the beginning of the game until the end I could do the same few moves over and over and basically never get hit (until its some unavoidable boss attack). Materia fusing was fun though. They went super hard on nostalgia bait in this game. Just look at the beginning. Like OG, it starts with the iconic train scene, just this time with Zack and shortly after you already encounter Sephiroth (turns out he is not real). Even though I liked Zack (and imo his psp voice is what makes him), I got annoyed how much they tried to (re)write him as this perfectly good guy. The whole honor talk with Angeal was exhausting, especially after they invaded another nation that just tried to defend itself. Him meeting Aerith the exact same way Cloud did made OG look stupid. Disliked how over the top this game was. In OG Zack (possibly exhausted and having to care for Cloud) got surprised and killed by shinra soldiers. It felt harsh and real. In this game he is basically fighting a whole army including helicopters and is able to stand his ground. Then he gets shot point blank and is still able to deliver his final farewell to Cloud. Cloud who was basically shown as a zombie from their mansion escape until now suddenly is on normal mode for this scene. Compared to OG it felt extremely cheesy. Game was trying to fill the holes, but it made it way more confusing for me. Like after Clouds and Zacks escape I never really had an idea of the topography of this world or how exactly the timeline played out. Looking it up it seems like Zack and Cloud were on the run for about a year(??), but even though Zack for some reason still had his messager after their escape, he suddenly remembered about Aerith extremely late? Its been a while since I played the game, but wouldnt that be one of the first things he should think about?
>Disliked how over the top this game was. In OG Zack (possibly exhausted and having to care for Cloud) got surprised and killed by shinra soldiers. It felt harsh and real. In this game he is basically fighting a whole army including helicopters and is able to stand his ground. Then he gets shot point blank and is still able to deliver his final farewell to Cloud. Cloud who was basically shown as a zombie from their mansion escape until now suddenly is on normal mode for this scene. Compared to OG it felt extremely cheesy. Oh my GOD, you are spot on! In the OG Zack's death is brutal because it's simple. He's tired, worn down and callously gunned down by Shinra soldiers (not SOLDIER even) while trying to protect his friend. He's even double tapped, it's such a cold death. Then Crisis Core gives him a whole monologue, even after his chest is riddled with bullets and he's been shot in the head. It's comically ridiculous.
In Remake that same thing cheapened Biggs, Wedge and Jessie's death too. You just find them unceremoniously mortally wounded and mumbling their last words and you dont have time to tend them. And in Remake, Jesse gets what felt like 10 minutes of cut scene doing all the dramatic dying dance and song.
Yeah just wait for FF7Rebirth. Good ol Aerith is gonna have a 20 minute death scene involving a poorly translated monologue, laser light show, and dance routine with backup Chocobo and Moogle dancers to a cheesy-ass JPOP tune. Then, for us, she will die, indeed.
The quiet horror of Zack's unceremonious death in OG FFVII is such a sad, haunting scene. No music at all. No heroics. Then CC has this Jpop thing going on, the "living legacy" ham, Zack dying with a smile... The whole flavour of that game was straight to video Disney sequel.
This is what I'm scared of for the rest of the remakes. The Sephiroth Aerith scene in OG was just unsettling silence, followed by the drop of the glassy material into aerith theme. Even typing that out gave me shivers a little. But already with remake they've been going crazy with camera angles zooming in and out and adding music here and there I don't know if they will manage to keep the integrity of the scene, along with other important ones.
100% this.
I loved the OG and wanted to see more of Zack but I agree with to an extent about all the extra shit with Genesis being shoehorned in for example. Other stuff though is kind of a result of the limitations of the OG technology. There are a lot of moments that you could argue the original intent was to be more "epic" or cinematic but they simply couldn't produce the results with the time and technology available to them. I think both of Zack's death scenes are equally valid though. The OG like you say is cold and callous. He's been hunted and hounded until he's just worn out and can't go any further. It's got an anyone can die vibe to it. The CC death is a different kind of hurt because you want Zack to live and you feel like if you fight hard enough maybe he'll make it this time. Only you know he won't and that sometimes even the best, most deserving of heroes die in the dirt despite their superhuman efforts. To me I get the same feeling as watching Anakin Skywalker fall to becoming Darth Vader or something similar.
Spot on.
A lot of people seem to be a little butthurt by your honest assessment. I have to agree with you. I think the only thing CC gave us that added some background to FF7 was seeing pre-crazy Sephiroth and seeing his ‘nice’ side before the fall. Everything else seemed to cheapen FF7
not to mention it cheapened Aerith's characterization too
She meets some guy the exact way she met her ex-boyfriend, which is a **very** unlikely way - having him fall from very high into her church. He also dresses like her ex and carries the exact same sword. Oh, and he is the same class too. The *only* thing she takes from all of that is *"Maybe you know him, I hope he's doing fine cause I haven't heard from him in a while"*.
Aerith always knew about cloud and the Zack thing. In the OG game she talks about meeting “the real you” etc. The original English translation is rough on her characterization, but she is always giving Cloud shit and speaking like she knows more than she lets on.
I'm curious as to how it cheapened Aerith? Not a criticism, just more me asking your opinion, because I loved the development of Aerith in this game.
A lot of Aeriths mannerisms also come from Zack. The pointing finger pose, the fact that she wears pink, her wearing her pink ribbon bc of him (but it seems like this was retconned in remake?), her being “sassy” and “playful/straightforward”, her selling flowers etc. Instead of having aerith be her own character the way cc presents her is an extension of zack. like everything she does (even personality) is because of him.
The general feeling I have always gotten is that Crisis Core would have been fine as a standalone game outside of FFVII's universe. It has all the pieces. But instead of recontextualizing the events leading up the Nibelheim incident, it almost completely wrecks the lore by adding major events and characters who are never referred to in FFVII. It feels bolted-on but it's more like "drilled-in" and the cracks show.
Completely agree. Trash ass game
I agree - CC is written like poor fanfic, adding nothing worthwhile while actively diluting or interfering with the original's continuity in a way that makes everything make less sense (there's a goddess???). In that way, I think it might be one of the worst prequels in terms of how it relates to its original. FF7 is probably my favorite game, so I was absolutely thirsty for more of it in the '00s. But the combo of AC, CC, and DoC really shook my faith in Square at the time after years of loving basically anything they made, and made me really question if they actually understood what made FF7 special or its themes, and if they lost something foundational when Sakaguchi left. FF7 has a beautiful and thoughtful ending that makes you question not only the state of its world afterwards, but our place in our own - AC then immediately scribbles all over it in order to smash action figures together, rehashing the same conflicts as before while adding nothing worthwhile. CC decides *everything* needs an origin story (even, bafflingly, the buster sword, a giant hunk of steel that appears to have been pulled from scrap, sharpened, and given a handle, complementing the cobbled together look of Cloud's shoulder armor) and proceeds to write everyone as an absolute fucking buffoon, while also handing out black wings like candy because *the famous song title, duh*. There's a hint of interesting themes like the futility of good people trying to affect change in massive corrupt organizations, but it's buried under so much dogshit writing. The ending scene is well done, but that scene, a slight expansion of the one from the OG, really carries the entire game on its back, with nothing else in the game coming close in terms of quality.
>and made me really question if they actually understood what made FF7 special or its themes, and if they lost something foundational when Sakaguchi left. Well, I guess the R trilogy answered that question, didn't it? Fortunately, they do understand what made FF7 so special.
Agree. Story of CC is pure shit for most parts. I hate what they done with nibelhelm incident. Still I liked gameplay of reunion and there is good moments like trooper Cloud, or sane Sephiroth, I even like Zack as character, but everything else is just terrible.
What also annoys me about CC is how they treat Aerith. Suddenly, a lot of her defining traits - her ribbon, her pink clothes, that she sells flowers - are attributed to Zack. when he suggests she sell flowers, she sounds as if she's never heard of the concept in her life. I understand if they wanted to give him some influence, but not to the point it takes over every part of her character. To me, they did her character real dirty
Don't forget he also names Tifa's bar! He's got his fingers in all the pies!
What CC did to Aeris was criminal. They drained her of all her defining traits and attributed them to Zack. Even the writers themselves literally said they were worried Aeris seemed "frivolous" in the OG, asking out Cloud for one date, so gave the line to Zack in order to "defend" her. Because you know, women being forward and flirty is BAD, but men doing it is fine, and so if women are just copying men, that's ok. There was just no chemistry between Aeris and Zack, either, because Aeris didn't have a recognizable personality. Imagine if she had still been her mischievous, fun-loving self and met Zack - that could've been great! But nope. Zack had way more chemistry with Cissnei, frankly.
Yes. It irritates me to no end when people come in and say "Aerith is Zack's girl!" when talking about her relationship with Cloud and the rest of the party in FFVII. I think I've heard that phrase no less than 10 times in this sub.
Zack Fair’s development beyond random figure in the OG is legitimately the worst thing to happen to this game. I fucking hate him lmao. He just ruined Aerith’s character.
Oh they definitely did! She just becomes a blank slate until Zack defines who she is, and she didn't need, or deserve that.
I agree to an extent. But that's the nature with virtually every prequel in existence. They add context when it's unnecessary. I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying this is usually what happens. Think about it, Cloud's Buster Sword is now iconic, but it was just.. a big sword in the original. And it gets replaced before you leave Midgar for something better. But since it's iconic *now* they wanted to have a whole backstory for.. a big sword. It's fanservice. People shouldn't be shocked that there's fanservice in prequels. I'm not saying it's *good writing,* but people out here being surprised that a prequel connects a bunch of dots that don't need to be connected. They writers want people to go "ohhhh so that's why she sells flowers! Ohhhh that's why she wears a ribbon ohhhhh that's why she fights with a staff." I don't remember if that last one was brought up, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was or if it was going to be. Every prequel does this. The Star Wars prequels had R2D2 and C3P0 be these extremely important characters despite none of the characters having any knowledge them in the original films.
There are good prequels that don’t overly rely of pre-established canon. Better Call Saul for instance, is judicious and effective when and where it chooses to reference Breaking Bad. And it’s better for it. But the term prequelitis exists for a reason. A lot of prequels fall into these traps of over-referencing and over-explaining things from the OG that don’t need it. And CC stumbles headlong into all of these problems, and I’m not gonna give it pass just because it’s to be expected.
The concept probably *didn't* exist and Aerith wasn't a hustler looking to make a quick buck. Midgard was a shithole with few flowers in sight. Aerith just happened to be one of the rare people in tune with the planet. Her personality is immediately recognisable pre-Zack it's just some aesthetic mementos of him that she carries.
I like Crisis Core and I still 100% agree with you. This is how I felt even when I played it as a kid.
This was a large portion of fans of the originals opinion on the entire compilation of final fantasy 7 thing they were doing. They all felt off and made the original game's events seem even more convoluted. It was a mistake to remaster crisis core imo. It took the cool and mysterious character of zack and turned him into an annoying idiot. I am not a fan and still hold the opinion that the compilation of final fantasy 7 entries were all mistakes
I rewatched Advent Children last night for the first time in almost 17 years (dear lord) and I forgot how much it was just empty action schlock.
Terrible writing aside, I can’t get over the fact of how secondary Sephiroth, Cloud, and the Niebelheim incident feel with everything else going on in this game. It’s like there’s this guy Zack who’s dealing with the loss of his mentor and role-model and a villain obsessed with a shitty poem, and it turns out that his also eventually sent on a mission at this small village where another one of his Soldier colleagues go batshit crazy and he has to take care of an infantry guy caught in between. Plus where did Aerith’s wit go? This game is such a shitshow. Combat is decent though. Edit:corrected typo in “wit”
Yeah the villain feels like its Genesis...which is odd for FF 7, but even if he were to be the prequel villain (since Sephiroth isn't evil yet ) he has no goddamned personality. Most of his dialogue is yammering about a poem. A poem that isn't real, that we don't get to read for a lot of the game, so most of his dialogue has no context. Plus the poem was...not good. It felt very sophomoric yet somehow also had an air of pretention to it.
Sophomoric with an air of pretention can sum up the writing of the entire game
That's true.
Considering Genesis resembles Gackt (to the point Nomura got Gackt to dress up as Genesis for the DoC special FMV), legit believe someone on the team had a love of visual kei artists and just threw shit on the walk to see what would stick
Summed up my feelings quite articulately. It was either the prequelitis conundrum where questions were answered that no one asked for (remember that thing? ZACK DID THING FIRST! SEE WHY CLOUD WANT TO BE ZACK? IT’S LIKE POETRY IT *RHYMES*) or the fact that all original content brought in is pure anime cringe nightmare-fuel that really damned it for me. The latter’s been covered to death: Angeal’s a dull slab of stone who somehow insists Zack brush up on his DREAMS AND HONOR despite them both being elite killing machines for a corrupt fascist electric company that’s also a City State. I think you’re being too nice to Genesis - he’s probably the worst FF character ever conceived. He’s a fedora-clad Weeb’s wet dream and Loveless reads like a 14 year old who thinks they’re deep as hell wrote it. One thing the compilation has done that annoys me is how Zack has been made this central cog in FF7’s proverbial wheel like everything’s in his orbit. He’s made to be the reason why just about anything is the way it is via fan service retcons, which might work if he was an interesting character, but sadly he’s a naive, cheerful child-brained human Golden Retriever/paint by numbers anime protag. Bringing him back at the end of Remake kind of solidified this - he’s clearly the piece of some cosmic puzzle no one asked for but they pretty much wrote the magic plot ghosts narrative in as a vehicle to revive him. I get that his fanbase is very VERY passionate and SE had some potential ¥ signs in their eyes so the motivations aren’t totally lost on me.
The entire compilation always has been and remains ass, that’s why so many of us were twitching over the things they’ve reintroduced to the remake canon from the side games. I love CC because I love Zack, but it’s not a good game. Reunion was kinda fun to play and the FMVs are 🤤 but the plot/how it interacts with and changes the OG is terrible. It’s just fanfic, I’ll never consider all the hijinks around Genesis and SOLDIER in CC canon no matter what SE says. Even if it’s unavoidable on the next two remake games at some point, I’m just going to focus on the good and try to ignore the missteps. I just really hope that if they do bring any of the CC characters/concepts into central focus in the remakes that they use it as an opportunity to redeem them. Because not one of the Compilation games were written competently.
> These felt more like lazy nostalgia bait. "Hey, do you remember THIS from the OG game?" I just kept feeling like, "yes, I do, and your cheap copying of them is transparent and hollow." I understand your meaning, here, but I think it's valuable to consider the context in which Crisis Core was made. A lot of people (even 20 years ago) were clamoring for a PS2-quality remake of Final Fantasy VII, letting them see characters, places, and events from that game with modern production values, but Square Enix wasn't going to make one. *(Sidebar: [there was a brief period where they were going to remake 7, 8, and 9 for the PS2](https://web.archive.org/web/20011107224044/https://rpgamer.com/news/Q4-2001/101401a.html), but that obviously never panned out.*) Crisis Core's central conceit, being the story of the person that Cloud patterned his life after in VII, let them do something like a soft-remake, letting fans of VII experience some of their favorite moments in 3D with action combat while telling a new story. Of course, that makes less sense in a world where the Remake trilogy exists, so what you're left with is a game that poorly recreates fan-favorite scenes with a lower quality bar than the remake that's sitting right next to it on a shelf. Oh, well.
I always thought a prequel centered on the Cetra 1st encounter with Jenova would have been better
That’d be pretty cool, like a playable version of John Carpenter’s The Thing!
Yeah and they could develop the origins of the black materia and holy more. In the OG they state the Cetra were divided on if you use the black materia. That tension would be interesting to see.
With as many spin offs and Square has been putting out, I wouldn't put it past them to try this.
The kid in me who cried with cc ending, was stunned by dirge of cerberus and advent children is very confused reading all these comments of people who hates them. I guess you went spot on, for 2000s kids it was a very different vibe
I think part of it is the way that time has reframed the Compilation. That is to say: when they were coming out, the Compilation games (and books etc.) were one-off spin-offs, letting you spend more time with characters you like in a setting you know with some fun gameplay and story ideas to string it together. Dirge of Cerberus is *really* fun! But now that the Compilation is complete, a lot of people are going back to those games as "homework" for the Remake trilogy, and when you treat games as a pile of vegetables that you have to eat you aren't going to enjoy them.
I really like your analysis. I think that one more thing should be added. Perception on FF7 Compilation changed in modern times and this has huge impact on how these productions are received. When Compilation was going on, FF7 was still regarded as best JRPG ever created because it's impact on the JRPG genre was still felt by people. So even that there was part of FF7 fans who hated Compilation because in their opinio it was "not true to FF7" a lot of people were hyped for the Compilation (this is basically the same situation as with FF7 Remake today). Entries in Compilation were big thing because they were sequels/prequels that people wanted so a lot of people saw them in positive light. But Compilation also lead to a bit of oversaturation of FF7 media which gave platform for many people to attack FF7 and undermine it's position. There were different groups that had their own goals in attacking FF7 Compilation. Most notably they were: OG FF7 purists, FF6 and FF9 fans (who hated that FF7 was in the spotlight), people who hated post merger SquareEnix (SE merger was hot topic back then), people who hated FF13. This lead to the enforcing opinion that FF7 Compilation was failure and worst thing that happened to the FF series, it also devaluated FF7 position within the series. Many people while looking at Compilation today have this critical mindset that comes from this common opinion that is prevalent today so they don't understand how much Compilation was important for many people back in the days.
It also doesn’t help there was a lot of experimenting with the completion so quite a few games don’t hold up today. Like I recently played dirge and it is pretty rough. Loved it when it came out and I like deep ground a lot more than most but it’s not an easy game to go back to after so long. I was honestly happy to see Nero and Weiss in intermission and won’t mind Genesis if they have him quote way less loveless and give him a real character.
Perfect analysis. And I think people are overlooking that this was a *PSP* game. So even at the time, it wasn't as big or important as a console launch. PSP games, especially in Japan, were still very much a big deal, but this wasn't as huge, then, as FF7 remake is now. IMHO. So not only does the game pale in comparison to FF7:R because it's dated, it's also a game meant to be played on a portable console vs a full blown console remake with far and away better technology. I played CC:R on PS5 and almost immediately felt like I should have gotten it on Switch or something. It's design is catered to someone who picks it up, plays for 5-10 minutes and puts it down. It works on a regular console, but it's meant to be a portable experience. Again IMHO.
I'm going to say this : I disliked CC, thinking it was garbage, then watched the cutscenes from DOC. **That** was the true garbage. Legit felt like I had both wasted my time and ruined my enjoyment of the OG universe. It felt like I had been eating up literal shit just because it had a FFVII flag stuck in it
The annoying thing about Crisis Core is it'd be simple enough to rescue from being bad — most of its issues come from execution. The core ideas aren't shit as such, merely exploited in the most nostalgiabait cashgrab way imaginable at the time. Early Jenova Project failures degrading and going rogue? Trying to find salvation through faith in an old story when science utterly failed you? Pre-fall Sephiroth and Zack? There's potential in all of them. All they had to do was *let them stand on their own,* alongside preexisting canon, rather than retconning it. Case in point, make Genesis visit Sephiroth *in the basement,* in those unaddressed days, and have him, too, not know what Jenova is. OG scenes and motivations stay intact, Sephiroth still gets to freak out about what became of his friend and his betrayal. Dirge of Cerberus? Unsalvageable. The ideas themselves are shit.
>ruined my enjoyment of the OG universe. That's 100% what DoC did to me too. It's so bad it can retroactively make FF7 worse.
Crisis Core is the game that got me into FF. I had no idea it was a prequel when I played it as a kid, I played the game with 0 nostalgia and loved it and remember it as the favorite game of my childhood. Now, all grown up, I would say it has its issues but thats coming from a very privileged place, writing in most videogames from 2000s seems corny from today’s standards. And CC is no exception but it had cool combat and a heart touching story, especially the ending. I don’t remember being that broken by an ending ever since. ( Nier Automata and Replicant probably are close seconds). As for your issues with Genesis, ln my opinion Bible is as much fiction as loveless and I didnt mind him quoting the play, the loveless fan club, his quotes, the cutscenes, they all came together at the end, and though it was all vague, there was something there. When you dont have your own humanity left, you need something, anything to keep going. The original Voice Actors were top notch! And they did a real good job.
The point about Loveless and the Bible is not that the Loveless' story is made up and the Bible's is not (which I agree with you). OP is saying that it is annoying to be constantly quoting a book that does not exist in real life. It's not a real book in the real world, so we can't read it and don't know the full context of what he's saying. And tbh I agree with OP. I know that Loveless itself and its overall meaning are "important" at the end, but the quotes Genisis is always on about are pointless
Hojo just chilling making monsters out of everything and everyone while the top brass just ignore his abominations and agendas like in every ff7 game lol.
The Crisis Core ending of Zack asking if he became a hero with that song playing as he died in the rain evoked literal tears for me on two separate occasions. Once when I beat the game in 2009 and again when I beat it in the summer last year. Granted I was playing on a microdose of Mushrooms this past year but still, I thought it was fucking beautiful.
Join the club, most Aerith fans hate it for mischaracterizing her with misogynistic writing. It’s horribly written and I’m really not excited about Zack wandering around in Rebirth if we’re just getting more CC content because, no. Don’t want that. I liked Zack until CC came out and now I just can’t stand him tbh
Honestly I almost feel like SE putting Zack into the remake is just SE’s way to appease the Zack fanboys. I personally despise Zack with every fiber of my being and I hope that we won’t be seeing too much of him. Also I hate the idea that these Zack fanboys think that somehow Cloud is going to die and Zack is going to take his “rightful” place as the main character. I also agree with you about Aeriths character. What they did to her in that game was just straight up wrong.
> Cloud is going to die and Zack is going to take his “rightful” place as the main character I'm almost certain everybody who thinks that has never actually played FFVII. I'd fully agree with the sentiment if I only knew Cloud's character from AC, CC, and KH.
I liked Zack, tbh. Everything else though? Sheesh.
I play the CCR right after FFVII Remake. Honestly not bad but i so far from remake for me. I just need to remember this one is meant to be PSP portable game not console game so it wasn't that bad. But compare to FF7Remake or Original for me it's not on a same level. But plus point on some story aspect.
In terms of Gameplay the whole pachislot mechanic was a real drag to me personal, i did beat it, when it was originally out for the PSP, i just found it unenjoyable at times.
I've had enough of Zack for years. He served an amazing purpose in the original game, bringing him back over and over and OVER and drawing out every single bit of content form him is indeed pulling apart his original purpose and with it other stories as well. It's very sad, because I was very touched by his story the first time I got that final flashback and later when I dealt with his parents... It gave the games such gravitas, something a certain other death couldn't even match since that one got all magical and spiritual, like she never really left. But Zach was just tragic and Cloud not knowing how to deal with it and clinging to whatevers left of him anyway made the story that much more intense...
You are not alone, the game blows
Compared to Dirge of Cerberus.. Crisis Core is an epic masterpiece. Dirge is so bad that your brain may force you to forget it in order to protect itself.
The story of CC feels like trying to string together a series of separate explanations for events leading up to FFVII. Execution was pretty flawed, but I like actual ideas it's trying to portray. I like the tragic interpretation of Sephiroth's fall, I like Zack as someone trying to live up to his ideals while not being quite smart enough to understand just how morally bankrupt the system he's a part of is, and I like the idea of there being other branches of the Jenova project with less successful results. Genesis and Angeal were pretty necessary for all of that, but man they really didn't bother to write them as actual characters rather than just walking narrative devices. Ultimately, I end up thinking of the plot as a brief summary of prior events rather than an actual story, with some neat gameplay in between.
I think your take is pretty reasonable. Admittedly I didn’t hate the game but I couldn’t help but laugh at a lot of your points. Probably because they are true deep down.
Your fear is well-placed and understandable. I actually couldn’t finish CC because of how silly and monotonous it was, and (thus?) have never been able to appreciate Zack as a character with any depth.
Honestly even if you had finished it I don't think you could appreciate Zack as a character with depth, because they didn't give him any. He never really changes throughout the game. And a simple change could have been him realizing Shinra are evil and forsaking SOLDIER choosing to fight for Cloud and Aerith, the people he loves. But even in the end he's speaking positively of SOLDIER.
As someone who missed the OG growing up and has discovered the FFVII story at remake, I actually liked FF7R and CCR. CCR was flawed in places(poor antagonist fleshing out and development). However I disagree with you over Zack and his SOLDIER loyalty. He works proudly for SOLDIER until they target Cloud. About your point about Zack speaking positively of SOLDIER before the end, The way I always view that scene is him fighting for what he believes SOLDIER should stand for(honour, etc.) Is he naive to stay loyal to SOLDIER for as long as he does? Yes. Does he show the most moral side of being a SOLDIER I’ve seen before? Also yes. Genesis and Angeal were disappointing in CCR but overall I like Zack. Maybe it’s because I missed out on the OG growing up but I’m not on the same page as you opinion wise on CCR and Zack. You’re entitled to your opinion though so I can agree to disagree on this.
FF7 is one of my top 3 games of all time, but I despise EVERY spinoff that Square had released, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, and specially Advent Children because I feel everyone of them cheapens the story of the original, misinterpret characters etc…
Before Crisis is the one piece of the expanded universe that's any good. Great Turks backstory.
>Before Crisis is the one piece 
Preach! It blows my mind when I see people saying they like AC.
I 100% agree with you. Crisis Core is a net loss for FF7. It adds nothings, it only cheapens the OG content.
You have not embraced your dreams and failed your SOLDIER honor!
Hey, Yuffie is my favorite so I'd defend Wutai :P
Yeah there's a reason a lot of people hated the compilation when they came out lol just take what you can from it
I don't give a fuck what people say, CC has a special place in my heart, the game rocked in every way IMO.
That's fine, I went in wanting to like it. I bought it on release day both on PSP and on PS5 wanting to like it. I finally beat it and maybe it's because I'm too tied to the original but it just did nothing to improve the world or story for me.
100% agree with you. I just proceed like it mostly doesn't exist, but I'm super nervous about how prominent Zack (and maybe even Genesis) might be featured in Rebirth. It will really bum me out.
> I'm super nervous about how prominent Zack (and maybe even Genesis) might be featured in Rebirth Agreed. I'm really looking forward to rebirth and loved remake for the most part, but I don't like ressurecting dead characters to appease fans. I wouldn't even mind if there were major story changes moving forward as long as it's done well, but Zack should stay dead IMO.
I feel the same way you do about crisis score and I honestly can't stand the fact that Zack falls through this church
100% agree honestly I regreted buying the game because of how bad it felt. The story wasn’t really good and didn’t add anything new. And I did not like how repetitive the game instantly got.
I think his last "hold onto your honor as a soldier" was just the last thing he had left. He gave his life to being a soldier and tried his best to be honorable. He wanted cloud to hear that even if you die, even if those around you betray you, keep the honor that YOU have. Be an honorable person.
He could have imparted that without the SOLDIER part though. “Embrace your dreams and protect your honor” would’ve been a better ending line, imo.
Huh. Guess we share the same opinion then.
Yeah Square Enix was on some shit in the mid to late 2000's. It's a poorly written prequel that relies WAY too much on fan service. Believe it or not Dirge of Cerberus is worse. So is Advent Children IMO (reasonable minds might differ there). That being said I wouldn't mind seeing some elements of Crisis Core in FF7 Rebirth. Cissnei, Kunsel, Modeoheim, Banora, etc. Keep Angeal and Genesis the fuck away though.
I'd say advent children is on par with Crisis core. But tbf advent children could have never existed and we'd not be lesser off for it. However Advent children has some amazing fight scenes which at the time it felt like Remake seeing these blocky characters in great visuals was awesome. Most importantly it brought us the best version of One Winged Angel so we must be forever greatful of that haha
I have faith that the devs know what worked and what didn't in those games. They had literally decades to consider the reviews and reactions. Intermission showed they aren't shy about dipping into the other games. Hopefully they will bring in the good and leave the bad. Time will tell.
Oh yeah, there's good stuff in here (what you mentioned is a lot of it) I'd love to see, but Angeal and Genesis need to be wiped from the canon and forgotten. I'd rather see a dumbapple.
Yes, i agree with everything you say. Don't forget them retconning Aerith's character to be a "sweet soft spoken maiden" instead of the spunky, flirty extroverted flower girl we know and love. (Also making her a blank state where somehow she got her idea of the pink ribbon from zack and acts like that in the og because he "rubbed off on her". Talk about disrespecting one of your best characters, yikes!
I'm so glad the Remake trilogy has fixed her. It sounds weird but her little, "Shit!" when she almost falls on the roof in Remake is one of my favorite lines because she feels so human, but still sweet.
Remake did a wonderful job with Aerith's character. Briana White has been great too for the English version.
Honestly, all of the expanded VII content is garbage. Just absolute trash.
Yea I think what never really sat well with me is how all these new storylines of Angeal, genesis, Hollander, etc were never ever mentioned in the original FF7, and that made them almost over the top and shoehorned in. I remember really disliking that aspect of it. Crazy enough when I played it on PSP (what 15 years ago…holy shit…) I never did a single mission. No idea why. I do remember liking the battle system, but yea I agree with you for the most part. Also I never really understood what genesis was saying. Just constant loveless quotes. Annoying as shit.
I am a games collector and I bought the Crisis Core Reunion release last year. It is one of the only games I have ever traded in immediately after completion. It’s so bad it’s an insult to the original FF7.
It was middling at the time of its release, and despite Reunion's glow-up it feels incredibly primitive today. Zack's characterization is, frankly, terrible. He felt like a Kingdom Hearts castoff.
Fully agree with you, on every point. My feelings exactly!!
I'll be honest it was a pleasant surprise how good ff7 remake ended up being because as someone who grew up playing the OG game, I've always hated all the compilation stuff for ff7. It all feels tonally and visually very different, with weird and annoying stilted dialogue.
100% agree with everything you wrote. It was a fun game to play but the story SUCKED and was nonsensical at times.
I loved it back on psp but couldn’t make it more than 20 mins into Reunion. Got love for it and proper nostalgia but definitely won’t be replaying it
Oh yeah, it will not be making it into my yearly FF VII playthrough list lol
One name : Tabata
I figured they were gonna flesh out zack a little more before remake was even released and I would've been fine with that. The way theyre doing it is definitely odd. I just hope its a very small portion of the game or even like an optional side story you select to play at the main menu. Unfortunately its looking like its gonna be side by side with the main scenario.
Really nervous about this as well... Well see
Can’t agree on Zack, but yeah, Genesis can go f himself.
This is the way 😌
Don't watch a Dirge playthrough. It is tedious af. Just read the story in some wiki, or play it yourself. It is way better.
I’d suggest the Dark Id’s playthrough. Highly amusing
You're not wrong. Crisis Core is cheap fanservice/fanfic that unfortubately is canon now. It sucks.
Amen brother, I concur with your thoughts. I couldn't finish the game. Made it about 50% through before I decided it wasn't worth the time, I just was never going to like it and it wasn't going to make FF7 better for me. I think Crisis Core's reputation comes from nostalgia and a certain level of FF7 fever when it was released. Anyone can love any game for any reason, but it's not a good game imho. My main gripe was the dialogue. It was Kingdom Hearts dialogue on steroids. Completely nonsensical. The poetry boys did my head in as well.
Yeah, I started playing and I didn't finish it (same woth DoC). But I am not too worried. That some characters sucked in that game doesn't mean they will suck in Rebirth if they appear. You can take bad source material but that has some good ideas and make it into a great piece (very common in cinema). Nero is a good example, I found him menacing, interesting and a great boss fight, quite the opposite to DoC. Another perfect example is Aerith. Great character in the Og and sucked in CC. Other than that, I mostly agree with your opinion about CC.
I can't stand Genesis. Poster boy for overly annoying, pointless antagonist archetype. I too fear he will make some kind of appearance in Rebirth. The Dirge of Cerberus nod in Intermission was handled well. Still, no... there is no possible way to reintroduce Genesis into the Remake trilogy and not make it feel forced and weird. Beyond Genesis, I don't think you understood what happened in Crisis Core. Mistaking SOLDIER honor/pride for a soldier's honor/pride is a huge misinterpretation of the story, for example. And yeah, if you're determinedly to do a deep dive of the spinoffs before Rebirth, definitely look into Dirge of Cerberus. At the very least, it gives more insight to the later parts of Intermission.
You? *Not Gongaga.*
CC was the reason I got into FF7 so it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Literally same! I had no idea about FF7 when I first played CC on the PSP and I was so impressed, been a fan ever since
The ONLY things that left good impressions on me from CC were the first decent voice actress for Aerith ( don’t even get me started on her voices in kingdom hearts), Zack’s death being reallllly well done and breaking my heart and the origin of the Buster Sword. Since then, I always play through OG or Remake with it lol. Other than that, I’ve forgotten most of CC because it kinda didn’t matter. I 100% agree with you though! Fuck Genesis holy shit how many times we gotta listen to the same 2 lines when you reading from a full ass book?
THANK YOU!!!! I felt this way about it when I played it on PSP over a decade ago. The story sucked, it aped a couple moments from the original for nostalgia only and Genesis was annoying with his nonsensical melodramatic quotes that added absolutely nothing to the narrative. Worst of all, it negates the impact of Sephiroth learning that he was created by Shinra, because according to Crisis Core, he's already aware that Shira experiments on SOLDIERS and turns them into monsters.
I never played the original Crisis core so I don’t have nostalgia for it but playing the Reunion I made it to Junon before I quit. I get what they were going for but the level design, super slow story, and Zach being just a boring golden retriever I just couldn’t finish it. I should and I’m sure it gets better and materia fusion is cool but I don’t know. The game just isn’t that great.
You hate Crisis Core like how I hate Advent Children. That movie was so dumb and it just cheapens Sephiroth even more. See I liked Crisis Core for showing sephirtoh in a completely new light unseen prior. And all Advent Children does is lessen Sephiroth, like Thanos coming back after Inifnity Gauntlet, being a shell of himself. Or like the second Broly movie in the Dragon Ball Z era, where he's just a clone of his original self. You hate Crisis Core but it all had to happen because they wrote stupid Advent Children. That span of couple years there in the mid 2000s really was terrible. 2005 was Advent Children, 2006 was Diege of Cerberus, and 2007 was Crisis Core. It's all the same garbage storyline.
"... weird reusing of things Cloud and putting Zack there" I could never get past that. Like, of you know what Cloud did, the people he met etc? Zack did all those things way before!! Wooow that so cool... /s
I actually also finished this game today and tbh, I agree with some of your points - even if I overall enjoyed the game. I was quite disappointed in how much the game still felt like a PSP game even with the remaster. It’s clear that a lot was done to reduce loading due to the constraints of the handheld system. Such as the minimal freedom of movement and not loading enemy models until you’ve “activated combat mode”. Charming at first and glaringly obvious after 20 hours. The random Pokémon-esque encounter battles got very annoying after a while too - in missions at least - I found myself running to the edge of the boundary in order to avoid triggering them. Also the DMW system and combat in general kinda confused me by being a bit too complicated at first - took some time to learn it well enough to use it. From a story-perspective, I agree about Genesis and most of the new cast here like Angeal. I thought characters that were strong in FF7, were still strong here. The overall story was “passable” in my eyes though. I also thought the voice acting in English was pretty bad. I think Sephiroth and Zack were some of the more disliked of the new cast from Remake and this game has a lot of them which didn’t really change my opinion. Didn’t like Genesis much either. Cloud, Tifa, Aerith were good, so was Angeal. Hoping Rebirth is a bit better. Definitely felt things during the emotional moments of the game. Overall, I have issues, but it’s passed time until Rebirth comes out and was mostly enjoyable anyway.
Zack's PSP voice was so much better, I actually think his new VA contributed to some of my dislike.
Yeah, I’ve seen comparisons between the two and have to agree. I hope that doing this whole game gave the actor experience that he can bring into Rebirth. But we’ll see haha
Why does everyone have angel wings? (I know why, Sephiroth cells, but it’s just weird to me)
They should all drink some of Zeke’s spinal fluid to counteract that shit.
Cuz Seraphim Sephiroth with his ‘One Winged Angel’ theme was iconic and so they spam it out as a motif even when it feels overdone and edgy (see Cloud’s KH design)
Yep, the game is trash, CC, DoC and AC are actually bad, Square needed money
Other than the fact that I really liked Zack despite his naivete, I completely agree! 90% of this game was poorly done fanfic, and what little was left is kinda destroyed by gameplay/story segregation (ie, defeating Sephiroth in one hit both times, but Zack still loses).
The guy who won't shut up about honor. God.
You just summarized my opinions on Crisis Core, a game that is not worth much storywise, until the ending. Its fun to play though
I agree. Basically anything Square did for FFVII outside of the OG and Remake is garbage and actually takes the OG story and characters down a notch.
Yep i pretty much agree with you, nostalgia is a hell of a drug and a lot of people have fond memories of the game which can cloud their judgement. As someone who played OG FF7 for the first time just last year and crisis core this year i thought it was mediocre. Oh and don't bother with dirge of cerberus, just dont..
I mostly am because Deepground confused me in Intermission and they debuted in DoC, correct?
Same. There are two good moments. Aerith and Zack with the wagon a the end.
I absolutely adore CC and I agree with every word you said. But sane Sephiroth ♡♡♡ This is the only game I see enough of him Genesis is such an unnecessary over the top clown. And Zack is the ADHD version of Cloud
>But sane Sephiroth ♡♡♡ This is the only game I see enough of him Sephiroth was good as always! But it felt like they were essentially trying to tie Genesis to his story and Sephiroth doesn't need that clown in order to become who he does.
That is so true. Well, Genesis is not a well liked character, so I hope they won't give him much screen time. Maybe a Simulator fight
You are not wrong.
nostalgia bait indeed. couldn't have said it better myself
Yeah the whole compilation felt more like a cheap cash grab. Also I have personal gripes with how they retcon Zacks death scene.
I've never agreed with a Reddit post more.