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.

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.