Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII thoughts

[Nice]

I just beat the game at around 1pm this afternoon and so I felt the need to post something about it.

I have to say, CC is the best compilation FF7 game released. I honestly never played DoC, but I don't need too. I saw Advent Children the week it came out and then I saw it again (Director's Cut). AC always confused me because of the pacing and the confusing plot regarding Sephiroth clones. It wasn't an expansion of 7 at all. In fact I don't see why 7 needs any expanding, all the loose ends got tied up.

CC however is a major expansion of the themes, characters and ideologies of 7 without too much recycling of plot, characters and locations. It felt fresh.

I love the missions and how they suited the PSP. I appreciate the story for what it is, but it's nothing new nor particularly mind blowing. I mean come on, anyone that's played 7 knows what happens to Zack.

The introduction of two new 1st class Soldiers (Genesis and Angeal) is interesting. Though I didn't give a about 'em. I wanted more Zack and Sephy. I feel like Seph needed more development, more time in the game for the audience to care about his fall. Instead it's the same old same old from him - which sucks since he's a Kefka knockoff. It would of been nice to see a more human Seph.

Cloud was worthless in this game. How many times did Zack rescue him? I mean honestly either he was sick or knocked out. How did he mortally wound Seph?

While I'm on this train of thought I need some answers (if anyone knows them). I'll put spoiler tags.

(SPOILER)What's Cissnie's name? Is she in 7?

How does Cloud forget the brutal murder of his friend and then goes on to imitate him? Was this explained in 7?

Why are the turks so nice in this game? Tsueg is so...so nice. It's creepy.

Yeah I'll post more of my thoughts later, but you guys can expound on your thoughts of the game.

[Wolf Kanno]

Cloud was worthless in this game. How many times did Zack rescue him? I mean honestly either he was sick or knocked out. How did he mortally wound Seph?

He caught him off guard, that's how he mortally wounded him. Though in both CC and the original he get's that ridiculous author god mode moment where he throws Sephy in the Reactor, despite Last Order changing that whole glaring fault in the original for the better...

Onto the rest of the questions, which don't need spoiler tags so rest a little easy.

What's Cissnie's name? Is she in 7?

No, she's from Before Crisis and her "mysterious name" is an in-joke cause you can choose to play as her in BC so her name is whatever the player chooses it to be.

How does Cloud forget the brutal murder of his friend and then goes on to imitate him? Was this explained in 7?

This was explained in VII, though Cloud does eventually remember even though VII doesn't have CC's last minute speech from Zack to Cloud, before Zack died.

It's because of the Jenova cells and the experiments Hojo did to Cloud at Nibelheim. He was trying to make Cloud into a "Sephiroth Clone" by making him go through the process that also happens to make SOLDIERS. If the person is not strong willed, Jenova corrupts their minds and transforms them into brain dead puppets, which Sephiroth later used to lead Cloud to him at the Great Crater.

Cloud's mind tries to fight off the influence of Jenova and Sephiroth's will but it leaves his mind screwed up and so he started to merge memories and thoughts together, Cloud spent most of VII thinking he did all the stuff Zack did and even took on many of Zack's personality traits and memories.

(SPOILER)Why are the turks so nice in this game? Tsueg is so...so nice. It's creepy. most likely cause you are on the same payroll, though I never felt the Turks were all that mean to begin with. Despite being the black ops team for Shin-Ra, they were far more friendly and more goofy than their bosses.
I didn't like Crisis Core and I'll leave it at that. It has some great moments but it was really hampered by some really bad elements as well.

[Nice]

What bothers me about this game and really the entire compilation series is that Tetsuya Nomura wanted to fulfill his ambitions of making VII darker -- which was "hindered by graphical limitations" on the PSX.

The games and movies of Compilation are supposed to be dark? Huh.

I'll admit that VII seems goofy at certain points of game play, but it is much more darker than any of those incarnations will hope to be. Better graphics has nothing to do with a game's substance. Sure they add to it, but mood is established by more than just one element and VII's graphics were pretty good. It was that character models that sucked. I would have preferred a CC with the original graphics.

Oh here's one of my favorite review quotes about FFVII.

"Before we continue, a few things: smurf Advent Children. smurf Before Crisis. smurf Dirge of Cerberus. smurf Kingdom Hearts II (just for good measure). smurf that cockteasing PS3 hardware demo that's got the fans clamoring for a full remake. smurf lunatic Sephiroth fanboys. smurf lunatic Sephiroth fangirls. smurf Square Enix for taking SquareSoft's most revered project and blatantly milking it for every last cent they can possibly squeeze out. And if you've ever been involved in a heated arguement with someone about why Cloud/Sephiroth deserves to beat out Mario/Link/L-Block/Mighty Bomb Jack in the latest GameFAQs Character Battle - well, quite frankly, smurf you."

[Mo-Nercy]

I agree with you in saying it's the best FFVII compilation game. I liked how Sephiroth (and Cloud, for that matter) came across as a little more 'ordinary', but the new characters weren't anything special.

The gameplay was good. The mission-style format suited the PSP and the blend of frantic-ness and elements of RPG makes it one of the better PSP games I've played.

Oh, and you might want to play DoC after all. Genesis' backstory is explained a little more by finding 'G Files'. But if you're not going to do that - YouTube the game's secret ending.

[Wolfen]

Crisis Core was fun and let you have a nice look at the locations and characters introduced in VII, but I didn't really like that they added Genesis into the mix.

[Rostum]

After reading through the full compilation's timeline, it seems evident that they have tried to fit way too much into the world of Final Fantasy VII.

(SPOILER)You have the issues with the Cetra and Jenova; Jenova S (involving Vincent and Lucrecia) and G projects ( involving Genesis and Angeal); the original AVALANCHE being bat crazier than Shinra; Rufus trying to kill his father and conspiring with AVALANCHE to achieve that; Shinra's Deepground experiments; Chaos and Omega; and I'm sure there's more I'm missing.

They're just trying to shove too much in there, and I'm sure they could rewrite the whole compilation including the original to be a much more coherant and better telling story.

Oh, and if you play Before Crisis you'll notice that in general the Turks have a great sense of compassion. (SPOILER)Tseng gets himself into trouble quite a bit due to that, and only made it as the leader of the Turks because he was forced to execute Veld in order to save the rest of the Turks' butts. So while in the original game they tried to write them as being ruthless, I think their compassion that's been expanded on during the compilation really shows a nicer side to them.

[Shaibana]

i rlly liked Crisis core

seen AC too, though it confused me sometimes bcaus i didnt have played FF7 back then ..
like at a certain moment Reno says to cloud: 'yeah, together we can rebild Shinra', and cloud walks angry away. now that i have started ff7 i get it ^^

i didnt like genesis that much either, i think the way he talks is rlly anoying.

a big - point at Crisis core is that u cant skip the cutscenes... like the first time i was stuck at that angeal fight.. and everytime i died, and so everytime i had to go though that talking

[Jaffer]

I just beat the game at around 1pm this afternoon and so I felt the need to post something about it.

I have to say, CC is the best compilation FF7 game released. I honestly never played DoC, but I don't need too. I saw Advent Children the week it came out and then I saw it again (Director's Cut). AC always confused me because of the pacing and the confusing plot regarding Sephiroth clones. It wasn't an expansion of 7 at all. In fact I don't see why 7 needs any expanding, all the loose ends got tied up.

CC however is a major expansion of the themes, characters and ideologies of 7 without too much recycling of plot, characters and locations. It felt fresh.

I love the missions and how they suited the PSP. I appreciate the story for what it is, but it's nothing new nor particularly mind blowing. I mean come on, anyone that's played 7 knows what happens to Zack.

The introduction of two new 1st class Soldiers (Genesis and Angeal) is interesting. Though I didn't give a about 'em. I wanted more Zack and Sephy. I feel like Seph needed more development, more time in the game for the audience to care about his fall. Instead it's the same old same old from him - which sucks since he's a Kefka knockoff. It would of been nice to see a more human Seph.

Cloud was worthless in this game. How many times did Zack rescue him? I mean honestly either he was sick or knocked out. How did he mortally wound Seph?

While I'm on this train of thought I need some answers (if anyone knows them). I'll put spoiler tags.

(SPOILER)What's Cissnie's name? Is she in 7?

How does Cloud forget the brutal murder of his friend and then goes on to imitate him? Was this explained in 7?

Why are the turks so nice in this game? Tsueg is so...so nice. It's creepy.

Yeah I'll post more of my thoughts later, but you guys can expound on your thoughts of the game.

Cloud was worthless in this game. How many times did Zack rescue him? I mean honestly either he was sick or knocked out. How did he mortally wound Seph?

He caught him off guard, that's how he mortally wounded him. Though in both CC and the original he get's that ridiculous author god mode moment where he throws Sephy in the Reactor, despite Last Order changing that whole glaring fault in the original for the better...

Onto the rest of the questions, which don't need spoiler tags so rest a little easy.

What's Cissnie's name? Is she in 7?

No, she's from Before Crisis and her "mysterious name" is an in-joke cause you can choose to play as her in BC so her name is whatever the player chooses it to be.

How does Cloud forget the brutal murder of his friend and then goes on to imitate him? Was this explained in 7?

This was explained in VII, though Cloud does eventually remember even though VII doesn't have CC's last minute speech from Zack to Cloud, before Zack died.

It's because of the Jenova cells and the experiments Hojo did to Cloud at Nibelheim. He was trying to make Cloud into a "Sephiroth Clone" by making him go through the process that also happens to make SOLDIERS. If the person is not strong willed, Jenova corrupts their minds and transforms them into brain dead puppets, which Sephiroth later used to lead Cloud to him at the Great Crater.

Cloud's mind tries to fight off the influence of Jenova and Sephiroth's will but it leaves his mind screwed up and so he started to merge memories and thoughts together, Cloud spent most of VII thinking he did all the stuff Zack did and even took on many of Zack's personality traits and memories.

(SPOILER)Why are the turks so nice in this game? Tsueg is so...so nice. It's creepy. most likely cause you are on the same payroll, though I never felt the Turks were all that mean to begin with. Despite being the black ops team for Shin-Ra, they were far more friendly and more goofy than their bosses.
I didn't like Crisis Core and I'll leave it at that. It has some great moments but it was really hampered by some really bad elements as well.

For starters, if Cloud felt weak, it's CC's fault in misportraying him. In FFVII, they had already used the incident in the ast with Tifa, where when they were little they fell off the same bridge that, in the Nibelheim incident knocked both Tifa and Zack out, this time put 7 year old Tifa in a coma for weeks and Cloud got off with skinned knees. This is reinforced in Before Crisis, where he takes on some genetically enhanced terrorist as a Shinra grunt with a sword and takes 'm down.

And Wolf Kanno, how is Sephiroth, seeing Mako (or something glowy) in Cloud's eyes and proceeding on suicide better? How does that make even remote sense?

[Wolf Kanno]

And Wolf Kanno, how is Sephiroth, seeing Mako (or something glowy) in Cloud's eyes and proceeding on suicide better? How does that make even remote sense?

Ignoring the Mako commentary, I prefer Sephiroth jumping into the Lifestream cause to me, it created a sense that he had all the events of VII in his head, and was actually pre-planning all this, which makes Sephiroth come across as a competent villain. As opposed to the original and CC, where he gets thrown into a Mako Reactor all because Sephy is too dumb to let go of his sword, the whole scene in question lasting long enough for Sephy to actually get some dialogue in before it happens, which just makes Sephy look dumb and his whole scheme involving Cloud in VII to be petty revenge, whereas a lot of the dialogue in VII gives the impression that Cloud was just a convenient pawn and not some special psychological obsession to Sephiroth.

LO gives credibility to Sephiroth and makes his "insanity" moment look more like fridge brilliance instead of Sephy having dumb luck (and plot device powers thanks to Jenova) and making lemonade out of the basket load of lemons Cloud handed him. I also never liked the idea of Cloud being a badass, but unable to join SOLDIER and still be one of the lowest ranks of the Shin-Ra army, cause it never made any good sense. That has more to do with VII's ineptitude to explain SOLDIERs screening process despite giving us two prequel games, one heavily involving SOLDIER. In any case, if Cloud was truly this strong and badass before getting the SOLDIER/SephyClone treatment, you would think he would have made a minor name for himself within the regular army, maybe not enough to get his name in the papers, but at least move up the ranks a bit.

Overall, LO's version not only makes Sephy seem less stupid and more of a frighteningly smart villain, it also made Cloud's eventual victory over him that much sweeter cause he was truly outclassed. Whereas seeing a "badly injured, normal human" Cloud overpower "super powerful alien super soldier Sephiroth who gains the ability to shrug off magic like it was a cool breeze and slices cities in half when he's not even trying in the Compilation (Sparring match with Genesis) who is somehow injured from a sneak attack and then physically overpowered and thrown into a reactor cause he was too stupid to let go cause of his ego" is a bit too far fetched and feels more like the authors trying to throw in some last minute credibility to Cloud instead of playing the "everyman" twist straight. It just makes the twist more stupid cause Cloud was pretty bad ass before the Jenova cells and mako infusion which makes his fears of not living up to his expectations feel more like he's whining about not getting his way and missing the obvious good qualities he already has, which in turn makes him come across as a angsty twit, which the Compilation has basically branded him in all of his incarnations thus far.

[Jaffer]

And why are you ignoring the mako commentary? Because it's there. Sephiroth talks about travelling to the Promised Land with Jenova, because he still thinks she is an Ancient and doesn't know what he finds out while in the Lifestream: Meteor, the Northern Crater, too say nothing of the fact that Cloud and the other Sehiroth clones that Sephiroth uses in FFVII are only created after this by Hojo. You're telling me Sephroth was depending on Hojo's genius?

Zack fails, Cloud stabs him in the back, Sephiroth comes out of the reactor, is all "How dare you", Cloud tries to fight, fails, Sephiroth tries to finish him off and Cloud proves to suddenly be too much too handle, Sephiroth looks in his eyes, sees them glowing and then hauls ass to get himself into the Lifestream. In fact, the scene is even wierder then in FFVII, Cloud regains conciousness, he grabs the supersharp sword, pushes it down so he's on the ground again, he then pushes himself further up the sword, then he's randomly ejected two feet away then Sephiroth is like kthxbye.

Our great villian ladies and gentlemen.

We KNOW Sephiroth did not have FFVII planned out back then, Last Order doesn't change this. As for Cloud being badass, I don't know his rank. He's sixteen and between Before Crisis and Crisis Core we see him be the only grunt to survive half a dozen dangerous missions.

[Shaibana]

U say hes 16 in FF7...
that would meen if he aged in that experiment-tube-thing he would have been 11-12 in crisis core... that cant be right ^^
Shouldnt he be 21-22 in FF7?

time just goes on....

[Jaffer]

U say hes 16 in FF7...
that would meen if he aged in that experiment-tube-thing he would have been 11-12 in crisis core... that cant be right ^^
Shouldnt he be 21-22 in FF7?

time just goes on....

He's sixteen in Crisis Core. I'm saying Cloud wasn't weak of body as he was of mind. But even Zack needed more then two years to become First. So I don't think he would have been that high in rank.

[Wolf Kanno]

And why are you ignoring the mako commentary? Because it's there.

Sorry for the misinterpretation, I ignore it cause I know its a bad retcon and can concede that. I wasn't saying Last Order was perfect but I felt it handled the scene better.

Sephiroth talks about travelling to the Promised Land with Jenova, because he still thinks she is an Ancient and doesn't know what he finds out while in the Lifestream: Meteor, the Northern Crater, too say nothing of the fact that Cloud and the other Sehiroth clones that Sephiroth uses in FFVII are only created after this by Hojo. You're telling me Sephroth was depending on Hojo's genius?

Zack fails, Cloud stabs him in the back, Sephiroth comes out of the reactor, is all "How dare you", Cloud tries to fight, fails, Sephiroth tries to finish him off and Cloud proves to suddenly be too much too handle, Sephiroth looks in his eyes, sees them glowing and then hauls ass to get himself into the Lifestream. In fact, the scene is even wierder then in FFVII, Cloud regains conciousness, he grabs the supersharp sword, pushes it down so he's on the ground again, he then pushes himself further up the sword, then he's randomly ejected two feet away then Sephiroth is like kthxbye.

Our great villian ladies and gentlemen.

We KNOW Sephiroth did not have FFVII planned out back then, Last Order doesn't change this. As for Cloud being badass, I don't know his rank. He's sixteen and between Before Crisis and Crisis Core we see him be the only grunt to survive half a dozen dangerous missions.

Better than Cloud see-sawing to get back on the ground, lifts Sephiroth up off the ground while Sephy is holding the sword one handed, has enough time to exchange a few short words to each other before he launches Sephiroth into a wall and into the Mako Reactor. It just makes Sephy look stupid and makes it look like the author's pull a BS story point to give Cloud extra badass points.

Sephy jumping into the rector only meant Sephiroth knew he could survive, most likely in his delusions of being an Ancient, my point is that his twisted smile as he leaped in gave me the feeling he knew something and this was not the end. He smiles at Cloud grabs Jenova's head and just dives in clutching it with a bigger smile. The reports about the Ancients would talk about the Cetra's ability to commune with the Planet through the Lifestream so Sephy could have easily guessed he would be safe since he was an Ancient, he's half right but I felt it was better than the alternatives. I feel he knew something, which I appreciate more than being knocked into a reactor by an upstart cause you were too damn stupid to let go of a sword and then just luckily happened to survive being melted in the Lifestream cause you're genes have this amusing power to reconfigure. The original just makes Sephy look like an idiot and it's even worse when you know he's lost twice after that cause he refused to go all out and got killed cause his arrogance makes him underestimate your opponents. At least with LO, he has a bit of misguided clarity...

Also, it's obvious from LO that Cloud used all his force to move the sword to the left which allowed him to knock Sephy unbalanced and throw him to the side. All due to Cloud still being impaled on the sword. Course this is just nitpicky and I feel this was hell of a lot more realistic and far more bad ass than what Cloud did do in the originals.

The point is, I prefer LO's version of the story cause you have no idea how much I hated the original scene. It was just way too far fetched and really just felt like a terrible whitewash over the two characters.

[Jaffer]

Well I'm disgusted with everything Last Order so I can't say I'm objective either. FFVII's rendition looked wierd but being all legoy I could forgive it. CC did make Sephiroth pretty silly.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well I'm disgusted with everything Last Order so I can't say I'm objective either. FFVII's rendition looked wierd but being all legoy I could forgive it. CC did make Sephiroth pretty silly.

Lol, then agree to disagree?