Crisis Core

I've finally finished the game tonight. This post will obviously contain spoilers about Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core. If you can't relate or don't want to be spoiled, come back next week for my new posts.

[start spoilers. start running if you're against spoilers]

I played Crisis Core because of two things. One, I wanted to see the FF7 world remodeled as a playable environment minus the popeye- looking figures and the blurry shit fixed backgrounds. Two, let's be honest here, that whole "Sephiroth goes crazy, Cloud goes gay enough for Zack and steals his life" fiasco was just too vague to be worth the twist value. That part just had to be cleared up.

For the first objective, I think I got what I wanted. Several times I was going "HOLY SHIT THIS THING DIDN'T LOOK THIS GOOD 10 YEARS AGO!" I was referring Aerith's hotter (i.e. not a polygonal sack of shit) body most of the time when I use that phrase, but also among other things - like the Shinra building. As an added bonus, seeing Square add some "lol here's what it was before" elements like a young Yuffie and a man planning to open the Seventh Heaven bar makes the atmosphere of CCore very nostalgic. Also, Aerith. Did I say Aerith? Yeah, I thought I said sexy Turk. (fuck you square:enix for exploiting the fanboy in me)

As for the second objective, as Cloud was only pretending to be Zack in FF7, like many pretenders on the internet, details get lost or convoluted. Crisis Core was a very good way of telling the story from Zack's perspective (i.e. sans Cloud's bullshit haxxor story to impress Tifa and make her go to bed with him). Speaking of Cloud, this game proves he was a douche, even before FF7 started. I won't be spoiling much, not that there's much to spoil since we all know what happened to Zack (became a footnote in history) and what happened to Cloud (became the videogame cosplay character equivalent of Naruto).

The add-on characters were, I don't know, obviously geared to the newer set of fans that FF7 never had 10 years ago - fangirls and fanfags. The result? Genesis. The emo-poet counterpart of goth Sephiroth. So yeah, there were lots of scenes where goth and emo were pitted against one another. I felt I was the only one who lost by watching those two. Why is Genesis so retarded anyway? LOVELESS was like half a page of poetry long and he kept on quoting it AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. He barely gets long exposures and I still get tired of his dialog. No wonder everybody secretly wanted him dead.

In keeping with fanservice, lots of gay innuendos were provided for the yaoi lovers. I was half expecting the director to force Cloud to drown just so Zack can mouth-to-mouth him or something. I'm not saying it should have happened. I'm just saying if it did, I wouldn't be half surprised. For the straight guys, to see Aeris actually hot and not like an old hag is already a good service. Cisnnei and her inevitable swimsuit scene was a good plus too. Tifa looked like shit, which is kinda nice. She's had her turn in Advent Children - and she's probably the only good thing to ever come out of that eyecandy bullshit.

Gameplay was kept really light. It's like a poor-man's RPG with very minimal customization and quest running requirements - perfect for a game you'd most likely be playing on the go (or while sneaking away from office work, like me) Crisis Core is relatively easy and short but with enough frustrating challenges becoming of its original game. On a more minor note, what the fuck is up with those Wutai Troops and their death missiles? They're not missiles and I still don't get why, in the world of RPG, a single bullet would ever kill a hero. Ludicrous.

So okay, the additional elements to the story gave further flesh to the main plot. Nostalgia got me playing this game until I finished it a couple of days later. I'll even forgive the fact that they included emo poetry in the game. Many years in the future our kids will say "Oh that's so 2000's!" I wont lie when I say I enjoyed the game. I say it's canon-worthy. That much I'll admit, but fuck it. Advent Children is still a cock shoved down any fanboy's mouth - and I won't accept it as something that really happened after FF7 main.

And I still won't play Dirge of Cerberus. Fuck Vincent Valentine.