Brace yourselves..it ain't a good review!

[Setzer Gabianni]

"The worst spin-off of all time"

Final Fantasy VII - Dirge of Cerberus

The best RPG ever is used, abused, and transformed into one of the most dire shooters we've ever seen. Yeuch.

We're disappointed in you, Square Enix. How can you follow up Final Fantasy XII, Kingdom Hearts II, and Dragon Quest with this? Not even our love of the source material makes it bearable. Final Fantasy VII has become a tepid shooter with nothing to offer but pretty CG and fan-baiting references to the PSone original. Ok, we chuckled when Yuffie appeared in the intro, but we're easily impressed sometimes.
The control system is its biggest fault. There are three ways of viewing the action; first-person, third-person and over-the-shoulder like in Resident Evil 4. Neither work particularly well and, for some reason only the developers will ever know, both the vertical and horizontal camera controls are inverted. It's like trying to do a crossword in the mirror and the lack of a lock-on (in all but easy mode) makes things distinctly ball-tightening. While you're shooting, Vincent lumbers around clumsily and dodging incoming fire is an exercise in randomness. Even regular movement is irksome thanks to the clunky controls and cardboard cut-out levels. In the intro Vincent merrily bounds around Matrix-style, but during the game a waist-high fence is an impassable onject. Stupid.

Dull as ditchwater:

Depressingly, the developers have taken the rich, memorable world of FFVII and turned it into something that wouldn't look out of place in 50 Cent: Bulletproof. Empty streets, gloomy villages, featureless deserts and - this annoys us more then anything - a sewer level. Half an hour of trudging through bland, identical tunnels! It makes Without Warning look like Mardi Gras. Worse yet, every level follows the same formula - shoot men, find key card, pass gate, shoot more men, fight boss, end level. Dirge of Ceberus is overcast with cheerless tedium and playing it is a test of patience, even if you love FFVII.

PSM2 Verdict:

Gameplay

+The gun customization is a good idea
- Simplistic, predictable and no fun whatsoever

Graphics

+ Gorgeous CG and nice character models
- Flat boring, and charmless

Sound

+Excellent theme tune by Jap pop star Gackt
- Otherwise, a fairly weak score, rubbishly

Lifespan - If you're playing it online - and you probably won't be - itll last a while. Otherwise it's your average 10 hour adventure.

Final Comment: Terrible. Overblown, opportunistic nonsense. If you're a FFVII fan avoid Dirge of Cerberus completely - it'll only sully your memories.

It's better then..

State of Emergency 2

It's worse then...

DMC3

Overall % - 36%


(Main review of the game from the PSM2 magazine)


I also posted this at ac.net and ffxii.net

[~SapphireStar~]

Wow, worst spin-off of all time? FFX2s been let off!
After reading that, Im going to avoid this game like the Plague. Im not a fan of shooters, and I was going to give it a go, but Im going to keep my £30 in my pocket.

[Crossblades]

Is this the review for the Japanese version or the American version? Because supposedly the American version is gonna have changes that'll make the game more enjoyable

[Setzer Gabianni]

Import version, but I am not sure the language of which it's in. My guess - Japanese. Still, I doubt the improvements will be that great. If you ain't going to buy it, try renting it or something.

~Setzer Gabianni

[Crossblades]

Import version, but I am not sure the language of which it's in. My guess - Japanese. Still, I doubt the improvements will be that great. If you ain't going to buy it, try renting it or something.

~Setzer Gabianni

If it's import then yeah it's in Japanese. But still to be considered the worst FF spinoff, that's kinda low, but it's making me have doubts about playing it. I'll give it a rental

[Amaru]

I wouldn't worry too much. If you have a look at the listed improvements, there's quite a lot. They are enhancing Vincent's movement / speed / reaction, adding a new side-dodge manevour, adding a double-jump feature, along with 40+ levels in-place of online play.

[PontiusPilate]

Their redoing this game. I expect at least a 90% since they now had time to go over their mistakes

[Setzer Gabianni]

A 90%?! For a spin-off? I think not, it isn't going to have that much of a % jump, no way! Ridiculous. Er, we are not getting the Online play apparently. Sure, these improvements all look nice, and lovely, but we haven't seen them in action, we have yet to see if it is going to make the game 10 times better then the Jap one.

~Setzer Gabianni

[SephiRave]

Music is the worst?
I surely dont think so.
I think its music is the best out of all Final Fantasies.
The quality of the sound of the instruments sound as if they are all orchestrated(Many orchestrated piece inside) and i can say it is damn good.....and they were so dramatic!
Although I am a Uematsu fan,but i have to admit that DOC's sound is the impressive.You dont get much repetitive music styles in it.
Maybe they just write it like that just because they are not even used to Hamauzu composing ambient-music style.

why bother about the Japanese version's flaw? We still have NA version and they have made some tweaks to it.Just wait patiently.(Do you think that KH2 sucks that much when IGN gave it a rating of 7++ only?? It is surely biased)

If we are the not real ff7 fans,we would not have loved ff7 so much(considering ff7 at that time has poor real time graphics,poor sound quality,annoying traditional ATB......)

For the magazine thing,just let them say what they want.................

[DudeSon2004]

Just because it didn't get a good review dosen't mean it's a flop (we have to see for ourselves).
I have played games that got bad reviews & they turned out to be pretty good.
Go Vincent!!!

[Setzer Gabianni]

I love the bias here. Heck, you're accusing these guys of being biased, yet you are yourselves xD?

FFXII has a better soundtrack, orchestral too - thing is, even though that was a Jap review too, more effort must have been put into FFXII.

The reviewers aren't biased, they LOVED FFVII, they LOVE Vincent, they are FF fans -

They do credit the FMV's tho =P

~Setzer Gabianni

EDIT: BTW, though I do not like the look of DoC much, I wish to see English reviews also. But some of you make good points.

[LunarWeaver]

I never had very high expectations for this in the first place. I figured it would be good but not the best thing ever, and I'm cool with that. To be honest, anybody who thought this game was going to be so perfect they'd nerdgasm over it was just asking to be let down. Spin-offs aren't really notorious for making you do the awesome dance. Whatever that is.

[pyro psychosis]

i kinda wish i woulda read that review before i reserved the freakin game. i still have faith though. i think the people are having high expectations for DoC as a follow-up to FFVII but that doesn't mean it won't be a fun game.

[My Bloody Valentine]

i kinda wish i woulda read that review before i reserved the freakin game. i still have faith though. i think the people are having high expectations for DoC as a follow-up to FFVII but that doesn't mean it won't be a fun game.

Same here, I reserved it too. I still think that it will be a good game.

I own the soundtrack, and it's not just Gackt that sounds good, the whole soundtrack is pretty awesome. Gackt just makes it better.

I'm still getting it, despite the fact it has one bad review, and over ANY other reviews out there. I have faith in it as well.

[Setzer Gabianni]

Several other reviews gave it 3/4's but one gave it 76% - I'd have LOVED to see what they praised in there.

~Setzer Gabianni