If you were to remake a game, would you change everything? That's the kind of question I asked when they announced FF7R. Over 2 years ago, releasing with acclaim and more sales, Square Enix finally got the reason they needed to get a part 2 on the way. So, what about in-between? Enter Crisis Core remake remaster. And this draws that line about remaking games pretty well.
It is a beat-by-beat remake of the original game with major changes; the levels are bigger, it's a huge upgrade in terms of visual fidelity, the game feels fun to play with integration of both FF7R and the original PSP version. Finally, it was a Crisis Core game through and through. Except for the English VA.
That's not the only thing it falls short on, it does so as well on numerous areas. But no one does Final Fantasy like Nomura does, really now, especially with part 2 coming on the way. This was Square Enix's best way of keeping me and anyone fans of FF7 in general invested. And am pretty much all in.
As sly as he is, Jack makes his entrance after a train heading to the Shinra capital in Midgar by daring Wutai invaders to come at him. I usually somewhat scuff at Final Fantasy characters for being cheesy, but Zack's charm and charisma carries the story half the time. For him, being cheesy is never bad. He's the most likeable character in the FF lore. However, I played this in Jap dub, after hearing how bad the Eng one is.
While slashing Wutai soldiers and their monsters, playing this feels exactly like the old Crisis Core game, but at the same time having numerous intricacies and design philosophies borrowed from FF7R. In fact, all the cool stuff from the original feels more realized here.
And call me really impressed this time, the game runs without even pushing my hardware past 25%. They did an amazing job with making the game looking gorgeous, all using UE4. But there is that one issue where just by making it so similar to the early game, they made the backdrops, the levels feel mostly vacant. Like, FF7R changed that entirely by adding things to create certain atmosphere within certain spaces. This one sort of falls short on that.
And make no mistake, assuming this is an open-world game, it isn't. The areas look large enough for exploration, but so did the original, it's more visually enhanced here is all. Surprisingly, the side content is good and kept me busy in the game as I wanted to take breaks from the main story.
There are short missions on the save point, where I have to finish off enemies, seek loot or battle summons to unlock them. They're like 3–4 minutes short each. And as expected, they are the same as the original ones, even ones having Yuffie whereas a child, she tasked me to help her find treasures. Both her and Zack are goofy children, but it's funny to see the offset because of their age differences, and just good to see SE not screwing this one up.
Combat is where the meat of the game is, Zack is a versatile fighter, being able to equip 6 different Materia abilities same time. But the best aspect of the game is the DMW, just by playing really well, creates these limit breakers out of thin air. Like, he is the jack of all trades when it comes to fighting.
Getting more Materias to fuse them and turn them into more powerful abilities help to make fights easier. But even in the first few hours run, understanding the stats, how they determine the power factor is something I had to look into. And that also involves playing with the same Materia equipped to master them, increasing rank to increase overall damage effect.
This game wants you to play hard and well, with the outcome of getting the best DMW roll and winning the fight with bonus rewards. I won several fights at first without a single damage and I got extra HP, AP, and SP. Exceeding my capacity even. Playing so good to even level up faster.
I do have some gripes, and that is I keep running out of AP later on. Just attacking and dodging constantly while being attacked across all corners gets old fast, and the camera is a little too close at times.
I don't know how to explain the story without making it sound dull, because there are no major changes of that here. A few extra missions maybe, but every aspect of the main story is very much the same. And that also goes for the ending, in a sensible way, it works because it legitimizes the fact that there are now two different timelines.
The other thing they've sort of pasted are the FMVs, just upscaled them for modern gen systems, but I can see how shoddy the quality looks, they haven't aged that well. Yet, there are mo cap scenes in-game, they're done so well, a nice way to zone out of some of the cheap experiences.
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Compared to how long it takes to beat the PSP game, this one's mostly shorter. But in doing the extra activities and such, it would take the same time to beat as the PSP game or longer. There's even the mini-games, one of them involves squatting, and man, I've never had a character squat so hard before.
And I really miss the combat system from FF7R, just providing me other good reasons to fight, does kind of add content value. Sadly, for a game priced really close to regular AAA games. I hope they introduce new things into Rebirth, the upcoming part 2 of the remake series. Then again, maybe if it isn't broke, don't change it much too.
I do also hope that Nomura doesn't go too off the rails, it just seems like his involvement had made certain adjustments that sort of made it unbearable to watch certain times. He makes choices that make or break the game, regarding the story, that is.
I think you should buy this in sale, but if you're a hardcore Crisis Core fan, then you should really give this a go. It falls short on modern contemporaries in other areas, but the combat is really fun and engaging, and I wanted to keep playing because of the DMW system most of all.
Lastly, the voice actor for Zack. I did not like him, at all. He lacks the genuine inside softness, and emotional capacity that the original did. He just came off as rough, and maybe tryout. And that sucks, because the English dub helped me to understand all the characters more than the Japanese does.
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