Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion (2022)

Still enjoying myself with this game at about 35 hours in, with 7 chapters and 74% of missions completed.

It's got a strange almost nostalgic comfort to it despite the fact I never played the original. Borrowing from something I wrote about it on another forum earlier...

It has pretty bad production, but for whatever reason I just can't help but find it all weirdly charming. The way Zack repeats the exact same dialogue at the end of 6 different related missions, where he's surprised about each one playing out exactly the same way the last one did. The way he yells, "OH YEAH!" like the Kool Aid man when he wins a mission. The awkward pauses between dialogue and delayed reactions during cutscenes.

I feel like these things should be tarnishing my impression of the game, but IDK, they just make me chuckle. I get a kick out of shouting "OH YEAH!" along with him, and reciting any other dialogue that gets reused enough times for me to involuntarily memorize it. "Alright, Costa del Sol at last! This is the vacation I deserve! Huh? What the-!" XD

Maybe it's a general sort of nostalgia for an earlier era where a game like this, rough by today's standards, was nonetheless peak handheld gaming.

Got this on a whim during the holiday sales mostly because I never played the original, and I'd been surprised to find Zack getting so much more spotlight in the Retrilogy than he did in the original FFVII, so I figured I might as well play "his game" and learn a bit more about him before Part 3 comes out.

I went in with pretty low expectations knowing it was a PSP game, and it's been a good time so far. The production value is pretty low for a FF title, but there's a charm to it. Currently in chapter 4 out of 10.

Despite being mostly in it for the story, I've been doing most of the optional missions because they have some great rewards, and because it's Final Fantasy and I'm not the world's greatest gamer, so it seemed likely I'd need the extra levels to ensure I don't struggle with any of the main campaign.

There are moments when just doing back to back missions does start to feel monotonous and I question whether I really want to be playing this weird Final Fantasy where like 80% of the gameplay is basically a combat simulator where you just fight different enemies on the same handful of maps over and over again - and most times I beat one, it unlocks another, so "completing the available missions" is like this dangling carrot that I never quite get close enough to take a bite out of, and it can feel a little frustrating not knowing whether I really only have 3 unfinished missions to do, or if it's actually going to be 12 or 20 missions before I've done everything available up to this point in the story. Makes it hard to tell when I should just take a break from missions and go do story - if there's only a few left I feel more inclined to push through, but if there's 20 left I'd be more inclined to do a portion of them and save the rest for later.

That minor gripe aside, it's a been decent small-scale FF title so far.

I did not enjoy my time with Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Reunion, for the main reason that the game sucks. But the important thing about Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Reunion is that the way this game sucks is a completely fresh way that games aren't allowed to suck anymore. It really is a throwback to old games, in that it is full of ambition like having Gackt read terrible poetry to you, but the actual game is running down a hallway for 10 hours with Activating Combat Mode and Conflict Resolved happening approximately every 10 seconds. The combat is actually good, and it's a pretty huge update from the original which was barely playable. It's responsive and feels good, and a lot of the boss fights are pretty fun. There's just an ungodly amount of it. There should never have been this much. The encounter rate is ridiculous.

The story is just laughable. It's closer to a porn parody of Final Fantasy VII than anything actually coherent. It has one of the worst antagonists ever put to the screen, and the whole point of the game which is "give Zack character development" to backfill on what was missing from FF7 isn't really accomplished at all. It's not even really attempted, he just does squats while Sephiroth 1, Sephiroth 2 and Sephiroth 3 monologue in his general direction. Updating the voice cast with the current Compilation/Remake actors really shows how terrible the voice direction is too, with Aerith being an absolute star in Rebirth and sounding AI-generated here. Every line seems to have... pauses in the middle for seemingly no reason. It often makes the game... completely maddening to play and listen to... for absolutely no reason. The game will also constantly grind to a complete halt so that you can do even more mind-numbing tasks like spend 45 minutes trying to get your wallet back. Or do a bunch of really bad side-ops to build a cart for Aerith that doesn't matter.

The only exception to this is the ending of the game. The final ending sequence and cinematic are actually terrific and artistically interesting, and nearly make the entire experience worth it. Nearly! It's worth watching on its own, especially in the context of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth.

It's not even on the same planet as a good game, but I did play it for 10 hours straight in one sitting. So that really has to stand for something. You can play this game. You really can. It's really easy to play all of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Reunion. In one day. You just should never do this.

I played the original on the psp when I was 9-10 years and loved it. 15 years later the only thing I really remembered when I picked this up for ps5 was the emotional ending. Since It had stuck with me so strongly for all those years I had fairly high expectations for the story of the game. I knew the gameplay would be pretty dated, especially since my interest in turn-based combat has waned to near-zero as I've grown up. I was happy to hear that this game would be straying somewhat from the turn based origins.

Full context: I have still never played FF7, or any of mainline Final Fantasy games. I intend to play through FF7 remake as it comes out after this, but my perspective is quite limited.

Long story short, the gameplay of this was probably never very good, and the improvements from the original didn't make a big difference. It's still a 2005 JRPG at it's core, and that is not a good starting place. The story ny contrast was a lot worse than I remembered. The dialogue is really poor, the beats are nonsensical and the pacing of the story is all over the place, providing insane whiplash at the end. Even the emotional finale that I remembered so fondly hit much less hard than I expected: likely because it was set up so poorly.

This game was great when you were 9 and it was all you knew, but compared to actual works of art , it falls tremendously short. I'm really hoping FF7 isn't written as badly as this game is.

I wanted to like this game a lot more than I actually did I think. It works well enough as a companion to both versions of FFVII but despite the fantastic ending sequence it falls short in many other respects.

To begin with, I just don't think the gameplay hit the spot for me. It felt clunky, especially after just having finished FFVII Remake which handles this combat style far better. Zack's attack combos just don't feel like they flow nicely in the way I'm used to from the aforementioned game and other peers like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta. It feels a little unfair to make the comparison between this reskinned PSP game and those others but I just couldn't help but feel underwhelmed with the way combat felt.

I will say that the materia fusion system seemed very cool but I found it difficult to want to interact with it much when the best fusions required me to give up my mastered materia and go train another up. In the end, that's the point, but I was happier to stick with my main spells and only occasionally dabble in fusing. I kinda robbed myself of part of the gameplay that way but I just didn't have enough interest in grinding for the mechanic, despite how cool it was.

I also felt that the difficulty balancing of this game was just... kind of awful to be honest. Around 90% of the time I'd be blasting my way through fights like there was nothing to it. Even some bosses. Enemy attacks maybe tickled a little sometimes. I'd even often make it through without taking damage at all. And then all of a sudden one rogue spell would hit me and whoopsie there goes 75% of my health bar. Once that would happen, I'd often get trapped in a cycle of healing myself so the next hit wouldn't kill me, getting hit on the tail end of the heal, and then going to heal myself again. Some of the late game enemies are ultra spammy, and make it hard to get back on your feet once you're down a chunk of hp, despite how quick the healing animation is. I especially felt this in the late game boss fight against Sepiroth when he's trying to knock you off the ledge. There doesn't seem to be any real way to get more breathing room or deal with him other than spam spells and hope you can DPS him down before the ledge mechanic instakills you. Actually a lot of the combat really comes down to spamming damage spells, it felt like. I wish the buster sword felt more worthwhile.

The mission structure was nice, though as I said in an earlier status update I wish I had bought the Switch or PSP version of the game because it's really tailored for short bursts of handheld play. I didn't do a ton of the optional missions. Just enough to get the item rewards I wanted and grind my level a little bit. But I could see how for a mobile game it'd be fun to pop in, do a few missions, then drop out. It just doesn't suit a console experience very well, at least for me.

And then there's the total mess of the story. I think the big issue here is the dialogue. With the way characters would just kind of talk past each other and say odd stuff out of the blue, I felt like I was watching an episode of a long running sitcom without any context. Which was frustrating, because I had nearly all the context you can have for this game, save for the Advent Children movie, which I haven't gotten around to watching yet. I found it really hard to care about Angeal or Genesis when they do such a poor job of explaining their motivations for anything they do. You don't even really get time to have their characters fleshed out before the game is telling you to be worried because Zack says they aren't acting right.

However despite all of this, there's some very great moments for the characters that end up appearing in FFVII. Zack is a bit of a dweeb, but he's a lot of fun. Aerith seems to get a lot of hate in this game from people, but I found her portrayal to align fairly well with the way she is in FFVII. Knowing more about her relationship with Zack also really adds a lot to her interactions with Cloud in that game. Speaking of Cloud, I really loved getting to see him as a fresh security officer here, as well as the events which shape him into the iconic FFVII protag.

In fact, as my title hints, I think the ending is by far the best thing this game has to offer. It really did a great job setting up the characters for what comes next. Even though I was pretty annoyed with the game going into the final battle, all that followed still managed to tug at my heart and even got me to tear up a bit. So even with my criticisms, I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys Final Fantasy VII, whether it be the original or Remake. Just make sure you don't pay the full $50.

--

This ends my time with the games of the FFVII universe I guess. I'll watch Advent Children at some point but for now it's time to move on to Final Fantasy VIII.

The first thing to mention regarding Crisis Core Reunion is that it is a remaster (arguably a remake considering the game was moved to Unreal Engine 4 & some details like the Buster Sword were changed to fit with Final Fantasy VII Remake) of a game that was made for the PSP (and was initially conceived as a pre-smartphones mobile game before being moved to PSP; also that’s PSP as in PlayStation Portable, not the PlayStation Portal). So there are certain things about this game’s design & structure that, while they make sense on a handheld like the PSP (or the Nintendo Switch & Steam Deck I imagine), are at least a little more questionable on a home console like the PlayStation 5 that I played this remaster on.

That structure is a bit of a sticking point for me. Crisis Core has a small selection of main story chapters (11 in total if you include the unnumbered prologue) & a lot of side missions. This leads to the game being pretty short if you rush the main story and only do a few side missions (it took me about 12 ½ hours to finish it). The game was released at a bit of a budget price, though, so that helps a bit.

On a related note, the gameplay. Crisis Core was originally controlled in a manner similar to the Kingdom Hearts games where the game is technically Action-Combat, but in reality, you still mash on options in a menu. Not so with Reunion. This is real action combat… although it’s still not great. There’s some stuff ported over from FFVII Remake, but the end result is still just decent. Especially in comparison to something like FFVII Remake or Final Fantasy XVI. Although the boss fights can still be pretty engaging, especially towards the end. Doesn’t stop standard encounters from getting old after a while though… Not a fan of the randomness of the Digital Mind Wave system & how it overrides Limit Breaks though.

Speaking of things changed for Reunion, let’s talk about the graphics. The game looks pretty decent on PS5, but it’s pretty obvious that the areas that look the most impressive (that being those set in Midgar) were mostly reused from FFVII Remake. Meanwhile, some of the new areas made for this remaster… don’t look too good for a game running in Unreal Engine 4…

Now, for some rapid-fire thoughts before I talk about the story:

• The music, composed primarily by Takeharu Ishimoto, is pretty great. It mostly leans on guitars, but there’s some piano & orchestral music there too (plus a lyrical song in the form of Aya’s “Why” plays over the ending).
• The CG cutscenes, which have been left untouched aside from changing the Buster Sword model to reflect the in-game model & some AI upscaling being applied, are fine… but you can definitely tell that they were not originally intended to be seen on a 4K television as (even with the AI upscaling) they look kind of low-res and… off. It’s not a deal breaker or experience ruining, but it can be distracting at times.
• Much like FFVII Remake, Crisis Core Reunion recasts the entire English voice cast (some of which, like the VAs for Zack, Cloud & Sephiroth, are the same VAs that are voicing them in the FFVII Remake trilogy) while keeping pretty much the same Japanese cast as the original PSP game. Personally, I found the English voice acting to be decent, but it’s far from the gold standard set by other Japanese games like the Creative Business Unit III Final Fantasy games (XIV & XVI).

Now that all of that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what’s, in my opinion, the strongest aspect of Crisis Core: the story. While this game’s narrative isn’t perfect & the storytelling feels held back by the limitations of the hardware it was originally designed for, it’s still a pretty good prequel story to FFVII. Like any prequel, there are some retcons here (ex: Pretty much everything relating to Genesis), but Zack’s journey makes the whole affair worthwhile and I was a sobbing wreck by the time the end credits rolled thanks to the amazing ending.

Conclusion:

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion is a pretty solid remaster of an overall decent game. The story is good & makes the whole experience worthwhile, even if the combat outside of boss fights gets old rather quickly & the myriad of side missions reminds you this was originally intended as a handheld game. I’d recommend playing it if you like Final Fantasy VII and/or Final Fantasy VII Remake and want to learn more about the game’s story and world, but if you aren’t a fan of Final Fantasy VII… I’d suggest starting with the original or Remake first and then circling back to Crisis Core later.

Ratings:

Creative score (story, gameplay, voice acting, art direction): 7.5/10

Technical score (graphics, audio, performance)): 7.5/10

Business Practices score: 6/10 (nothing downright offensive, but nothing special either)

Overall score (my thoughts on a game’s overall quality, does not consider the business practices unless they are detrimental to the experience): 7.5/10

This will be a somewhat shorter review for me, for the simple fact that I had a blast with this game but frankly, I have a hard time pinning down why I did, so I have a bit less to rant about. This is a remake of 2007's Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for the PSP, sort of done in the style of the more recent Final Fantasy VII Remake. I say "sort of" because whereas Remake totally revamped and modified the combat system of the original for a remake treatment, this remake seems much more graphical and maintains a combat system and structure that still very much feels like a typical PSP game in some ways. I did play the original on PSP for a bit, but I kind of hated it and didn't get especially far. Accordingly, I didn't really expect to like this one but thought I'd give it a try as I did like Remake a lot and figured it would at least be fun seeing these familiar places and characters again with the fresher look and feel.

And that's probably one of the biggest pulls of the game, it's got a lot of nostalgia and fan service. As Zack, you get to explore Midgar at a much more laidback, slice-of-life pace, despite the missions you go on to progress the plot. The main plot itself I found to be okay. There were some parts I really enjoyed, exploring some of Sephiroth's history and development and Zack's relationship with Cloud, but these moments were held back significantly by the fact Angeal and Genesis just feel like generic Kingdom Hearts characters and are central to a lot of the main story. However, the more slice-of-life segments between missions and not involving those losers were much more enjoyable. Getting to explore several sectors of Midgar not available in the main title is nice. Spending quality time with Aerith was a big highlight and there are lots of endearing scenes and moments with her. I also appreciated the addition of Cissnei and it's a shame she never shows up in the main game. Midgar has always been one of the more distinct and iconic locations in FF7 (and even of the wider series), so it was cool getting to spend more time there, even when (or perhaps because) you're just doing silly mini-games or going on dates. You also go to the beach, of course.

Zack as a character was one of my bigger sources of hesitation with this game. He seems like an archetype I just always find irritating: the overly-enthusiastic, kind of dumb, genuine good guy without a lot of depth. I typically just can't stand those types of characters. I also don't like how he says 'Gongaga.' However, I was surprised to find that he did kind of grow on me as he started showing a bit more depth as the game went on, which I didn't really expect. It may also be because wow, I never realized how right the people shipping him with Cloud are and how much canon support there is for this pairing. The later chapters of the story are practically yaoi fan fiction and you can't convince me otherwise. Anyway, that also got me to like him more.

The gameplay is yet another area that, on paper, I felt I should hate, but had me hooked. There is a weird...slot machine (called the "DMW") that is running the whole time you're in combat featuring the faces of the different characters close to Zack and if it lines up on a match of the same character you can activate their limit breaks and aligning the same numbers will have other effects. Occasionally, battle will pause to display a scene between Zack and the character you rolled that demonstrates some moment of their relationship in some way. While a little jarring in the middle of combat, this was at least an interesting way to stress that the DMW is supposed to be Zack's being empowered by his various relationships with other people, which emphasizes that theme more and these aren't scenes you see elsewhere in the game so they add a bit more development from otherwise off-screen scenes. What's even weirder is that the DMW is actually how you level up, by getting enough experience, then getting the right slot result to actually get the level. It's extremely bizarre. I didn't love this feature but somewhat to my surprise, it didn't really bother me.

The combat itself is very simple in most respects and seems based heavily on the original with assigning different materia and abilities to different buttons, allowing you to use them in combat and level up whatever you have equipped. It looks a good deal flashier with the touched-up remake look, but it definitely feels like an older system you wouldn't otherwise expect from a recent release. The structure of the game is also heavily mission-based with most of the main quest's combat sequence's just being running through a level fighting enemies to get to the next plot point. There are also a whopping 300 side missions you can do on your own time. I did all of these on my way to the platinum trophy and yet again, that is a laundry list I expected to hate, but actually found pretty enjoyable given the challenge continues to ramp up and test your understanding of the game's systems. Though admittedly, part of the reason 300 missions isn't quite as burdensome as it sounds is that many of the early ones are extremely easy and go very quickly.

I feel like if I were to have read my own review above before playing the game, I still wouldn't expect to like it as I have a hard time selling it, even as someone who quite enjoyed it. The nostalgic fan service factor is definitely part of it, but I don't think that needs to be a shallow or "bad" thing about the game as its sometimes painted. The story isn't awful and does flesh out some important characters and events, even if there's a lot of tangential nonsense too. And the slice-of-life aspect in a Final Fantasy VII game I found very welcome. While I definitely have some issues with several of the ways the game is structured, I think these basic elements I liked were enough to carry the game significantly. I give it 5 stars because despite my on-paper qualms, I just had a really hard time putting it down and was always excited to play more. This is even more significant for a game I didn't even hear about getting released and wasn't all that excited to start at the outset.

What I liked The "Mission oriented" formatting, the weapon customization, that it respects the remake aesthetic continuity.

What I didn't like: The gameplay is kinda meh, plot is messy, narrative isn’t at its best, disjointed experience.

This was a fun game to play, so on that side there’s not much to say. The customization is nice, but I found that with some early combinations you can basically break the game and most of it will stop being a challenge.

I liked and disliked the mission-oriented dynamics – I liked it because it is easy to play and reduces a lot of complexity. However, I disliked it for the same reason, as it basically has the main plot… and then a bunch of random missions.

As a Final Fantasy fan I struggled a lot with characterization and how plot was designed. Most of it didn’t make ANY sense, and was just there for the sake of saying “Hey, we are a Final Fantasy 7 game!!! Look at us!!”. Aerith was basically transformed into a braindead moe character, and I don’t feel Sephirot’s character was coherent with what we see in the main game. And yes, I know it is supposed to be a prequel, but it just doesn't add up to me.

And Genesis… ugh. That’s all I have to say.

Final comments The game is definitely enjoyable – to me it offers a disjointed experience product of its era, but on the good side it means you can go through without putting too much thought into it.

The original Crisis Core was released on PSP in 2007. I was a lot younger then and picked it up because I was obsessed with FF7. I was hooked. I played through it multiple times huddled up under my covers trying not to let my dad know I was awake. Definitely one of the most enjoyable PSP games.

So with that, I was a bit excited to play the remake. The review below will start with talking about the improvements first since the story remains largely unchanged.

The remake takes the original game and slaps some beautiful graphics on it and a ton of improvements ranging from small to major. The list is long so I won't delve into it all. However, I can say that some are terrific, some not so much, and a few I wish they did but did not.

The graphics are great. Not as detailed as the remake of FF7, but what they did was very impressive. I enjoyed the visual updates to make it look closer to the remake.

The IMPROVEMENTS. The game is blazing fast now. I played on a PS5 and loading into missions was so quick. I was completing missions so much quicker than the PSP version. It was so fast that I thought I would finish the game in under 30 hours. I looked at HLTB and the original has a 100% set at 77.5 hours. However, with this one, you can do it in 46.5 hours. That's 31 hours less to complete the game. This brings up the issue where I found the game was too easy. Despite playing hard, I never felt challenged. It may not seem like faster load times can make a game easier but let me tell you how it felt then VS now. Before load times were long so I would complete missions slower and start out by picking the missions that gave the rewards I most needed. Now it loads so quickly into the maps I can complete a mission in about 15-20 seconds and move on quickly to the next one. I was leveling and boosting my materia so fast that none felt challenging. This doesn't mean the game was bad just a bit disappointing that I completed it without breaking a sweat and I would rather play the PSP game even with the fewer controls and QOL upgrades. The last thing I would like to say is why did they not remove the "Activating Combat Mode" and "Conflict Resolved." This was grating before and it's worse now since fights are over quickly and you are activating it so much faster. TIP: If you hug the walls in the maps most battles will not trigger and you won't have to hear those words all the time.

The STORY. The story is unchanged as far as I can tell/remember. The game focuses on Zack Fair a member of the military organization SOLDIER, who is assigned to look for the missing SOLDIER Genesis Rhapsodos. It takes place 7 years before Final Fantasy 7. The story is engaging and gives a much-needed backstory to Zack who was featured in FF7. I did not enjoy the new voice actor that portrays Zack at first but as I played through I changed my mind as he grew with the character.

This game was very enjoyable and you should play it. I just wish they beefed up the challenge in the gameplay. The rating of this game would have been raised by another level if that had been included.

I haven't played Crisis Core since its initial release on PSP. I was eager to go back to it and I couldn't have been more excited when I first heard the announcement that is was getting remastered.

And boy oh boy what a Remaster this is. Could even be dubbed as a Remake! A real Remake mind you not any of that fake shit like VII Remake that wasn't a Remake.

I loved this game so much more than I remember! Almost from the first moment I turned it on I had fun from beginning to end. I had so much fun that I decided to do everything in this game and ultimately got the platinum trophy on my PS5. The only thing that even moderately dragged was when I got to the end of the 300 missions.

The story is great. The characters are fun. And the ending, to me, is beyond amazing. Anyone who has played FF VII knows how this one ends before you even start it. And even knowing how it is going to end, it still manages to punch you right in the gut.

I love this game. And I'm thankful for this re-release. I'm glad I got to revisit it, and I truly hope people find and enjoy it as much as I did.

Welp, I dropped this without finishing and never wanted to go back. I’d already written some notes though, so I figured I’d post a review anyway explaining what I didn’t like since no one else reviewed this remaster yet.

I would sum up Crisis Core by saying it's better as a piece of fan-service than it is as a game. Seeing iconic locations and characters years before the events of Final Fantasy VII is fun, simple as that.

Square-Enix have done a fine job here putting a 2022 coat of paint on this old PSP game, even if you can definitely still tell it’s an old PSP game. Animations and simplistic environments are a bit distracting, actually, when the characters otherwise look so nice—much better than no visual upgrade at all, though.

Most of the story told here is not particularly gripping or essential-feeling to the original FFVII story, but has some potential merit for fans. It lets you be in this great world for a bit longer, gain more appreciation for the dynamics between iconic characters, and get involved in the drama of the "new" ones who weren't in the original game.

Sometimes though it just seems like they’re forcing in references whether they make sense or not. Scenes involving iconic characters can feel totally superfluous, and scenes involving the ”new” storyline are often actively cringeworthy in their dialogue. It’s a shame especially because there are some cool character designs and cutscene direction moments. Zack is a fine protagonist with fun moments, even if his whole character schtick can get a bit old.

Moment-to-moment action gameplay feels pretty good. The mix of sword-slashing, limit breaks, and different types of spells all flow well enough. The game's weird gimmick is this slot machine system, where different effects may activate at random in battle. I get where they're coming from, but I think it needed some greater player agency to be truly interesting or satisfying.

It's the context in which you're doing the gameplay where the game becomes more of a drag. The levels are pretty boring, and as you walk around, you're interrupted by combat far too often compared to how much ground you cover. This freezes you in place as the enemies pop onto the screen out of nowhere. It gives levels a very weird, disjointed flow that doesn't fit the action RPG style. The basic enemies got old very fast. Side content is totally forgettable stuff too.

I see no reason to play this if you haven’t played the original FFVII or learned its whole story. Even if you have, just know that you’re getting into something that’s not a guaranteed hit for all fans. At least it captures some of the great atmosphere of the original game, and offers some smiles here and there—far from a total waste of time.

About halfway through the game I think. It's okay...? I expected a bit more from the story side, but it's had some rough sections, particularly just with some of the dialogue feeling subpar. Even though combat is mechanically fine, I don't like the slot machine system tacked onto it, and the constant stop-start way it's paced throughout the levels warps it into more of an annoyance. Though there's no mistaking that it's a shiny coat of paint on a PSP game, the visual upgrade is at least nice to look at. I think the game's greatest strength has just been the obvious one: fan-service. It's a fine way to revisit the great world of FFVII from a fresh point of view, and Zack can be a fun character to do that through.

I might write a full review later on, but I just wanted to give initial thoughts on the "should I buy this?" question for people who haven't played it before. If you have not played the original Final Fantasy VII either, I'd say the answer is just no. Even if you've played Remake (pt. 1), just play the original first to get the full picture of the story. As you might have heard, it's a pretty good game... While this is a prequel, it's quickly obvious that it's meant to be played after the original. If you HAVE played the original FFVII, I think I'd still recommend waiting for a sale based on my personal experience of this game's quality.