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#1: DIRGE OF CERBERUS: FINAL FANTASY VII
At this point, I’m really glad the whole Compilation fiasco ended when it did. I think that really brought the potential damage down to a bare minimum. Considering the plot threads started in this game and Crisis Core, things could have gotten much, MUCH worse.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I can’t really speak much for the gameplay of Dirge of Cerberus, since I never really play shooters. I was confused throughout the whole game, frustrated with the saving system, and it took a miracle for me to beat it, but I really don’t know if it’s just because I suck at the genre, or if it’s a bad game. That said, I don’t think it’s a wise choice to suddenly shift the genre of a sequel to a much beloved RPG. Or am I the only RPG gamer that isn’t into shooters? Who can say?
What I CAN say, however, is that the story is a barely comprehensible, garbled mess that feels nothing like Final Fantasy VII. Say what you will about the fanficky story of Crisis Core, but at least there were plenty of callbacks to FFVII in it – they even brought back the weird squatting thing Cloud used to do. In this game, none of the locales looks remotely similar to anything FF, the main story involves some weird underground army that would really not make any sense in the context of Final Fantasy VII, and lots of atrocious villains, for whom the term “fashion victim” is a gross understatement. The only things FFVII in here are the characters of Vincent, Reeve, Yuffie, Hojo and Lucrecia, but really – they could have been replaced with anyone. Some other fan favorites make a brief appearance, but ultimately, it amounts to nothing and comes off as pure fanservice. Hojo’s goal is contrived, and while I do admit it kinda suits his established character, I can’t help but wonder, when he found the time to do all this when he was busy with all the Jenova business. And dear God, what have they done to Lucrecia. I mean, She was a huge jerk even in the original game, but here, it’s amped up to eleven. Not only that, apparently she’s a complete idiot now for some reason. And the most annoying things is that the game really tries to present her as this pure, innocent love interest for Vincent, even though she deserves to die in a fire for the sheer stupidity of her decisions. She has a doctorate, for crying out loud. Prophesies are not reliable empirical data, my dear Lucy.
Presentation-wise, the game looks really nice on the PS2. Too bad there was something either about the smooth textures or the motion blur that made me feel nauseous while playing the game. The music is your typical, astonishingly beautiful Hamauzu soundtrack, but what rubs me the wrong way about it is that not a single theme from FFVII makes an appearance. And I was really looking forward to variations on “The Nightmare Begins”. It kind of adds to the feeling I mentioned earlier – the feel of this game is so detached from FFVII, that I really think this game would have been better off as a totally separate title.
To finish this off, I really wanted to talk about the aforementioned “fashion villain” aspect of this game. Dirge of Cerberus has some of the worst character designs that I have ever seen. We’ve got Nero with a jockstrap on his face (is this a fetish or something), Azul with his humongous codpiece (yeah, it seems Nomura really tried to pander to the bara fandom with this one), and then there’s Shalua. I mean, have you seen her. She looks as if Cindy Lauper just decided to start an academic career, put on a lab coat, and went and got herself mauled by bears. And there’s also Shelke, her sister, who is totally a grown up, you guys, just trapped in a pre-pubescent body, just to make extra sure the bara crowd isn’t the only group getting fanservice from this game.
You know, even writing this was exhausting. I really consider Dirge of Cerberus the worst Final Fantasy. I only touched on the story, but even though Crisis Core had a similarly stupid story, Dirge of Cerberus had the one that actually made me feel more stupid (stupider?) after playing it. I guess you could play it for the gameplay, if that’s your thing, but it’s not for me. I’m really glad nothing like this will ever happen again. Dear Square Enix – please don’t touch FFVII anymore. You’ve done quite enough.