Review: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion

A classic PSP game version for the current generation of consoles. how do you do that? More importantly, how do you ensure that the game is up to par with current standards? Square Enix shows exactly how to do this.

Square Enix is ​​pushing the boundaries of the term “Remaster” with Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, released this week for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Let’s say positively surprised. Especially when we look at Previous Final Fantasy improvements from Square. Especially if the original title was as old as the classic PSP. Did the Japanese RPG developer finally learn from its mistakes? Looking at this encounter on PlayStation 5, at least for now, we can say “Yes!” Say.

The essence of the crisis

Crisis Core originally appeared on the PSP. Sony’s first and penultimate handheld console. The game is quite suitable for this small device. It was a fairly compact Final Fantasy adventure, with just enough depth and plenty of story and backstory space. Crisis Core takes place before the events of Final Fantasy 7. Since Final Fantasy 7 is currently being completely retold through a trilogy, this is the perfect time to pre-explore the story (again), right?

Yes, of course. Because if you want to learn more about Midgar, Cloud, Shinra, SOLDIER, Mako, or anything Final Fantasy 7 related, Crisis Core has you covered. The story unfolds over 11 narrative chapters. Each chapter comes with multiple pre-render and in-game scenes. Among other things, we see a little cute Yuffie, but this time the star of the show is not Cloud, but Zack. Second class soldier. At least, that’s where it starts. Each chapter takes about an hour, but that doesn’t mean you get to go through the story right away in 11 hours.

Crisis Core contains additional missions that you unlock through the story as you play. For some, you have to ram a little here and there, but the vast majority of extra tasks are thrown right into your lap. It’s completely optional, but it greatly extends your playing time. Especially when you consider that there are no less than 300 missions in total. The missions themselves are not many. You are through a task with a maximum of 3 minutes. It consists of small lanes with fights here and there. They’re perfect bite-size missions on the go, but on a home console like the PS5, the missions were too short and simply not interesting enough over time. Too bad, because the missions are very useful. You can collect the most powerful items and materials here to perform and launch special attacks.

Smoother than ever

Fortunately, the missions are optional and that applies threefold this time around, as the combat itself works much better than on the PSP. The PSP had to deal with limited inputs. We simply don’t struggle with that with DualSense. Thus, Square Enix has also mastered the controls. Something is not clear in the Square Enix remaster. So we’ll say it a little bit.

Fortunately this time! And that really benefits Crisis Core. This puts less pressure on you to struggle through the endless bonus missions. With improved controls and improved combat made smoother, it’s now easier to launch special attacks. Dodge attacks and dodge enemies to get critical hits. As a result, you don’t have to grind endlessly to get higher stats, but you can finally win a little more easily because of the refined controls. It feels more natural and more like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, although the remake still plays better.

So don’t expect it to have received the same treatment as the remake. Where Square Enix came up with is Cloud’s story. Zack gets a little bit of middle processing pushing the edges of a remaster, just to get a new title. Exactly what this means for you is the following:

• Everything looks much better. Graphically it is a great improvement. It appears to be a fairly early PS4 game.
• It plays very smoothly compared to the PSP game.
• But it’s still the same game. No changes have been made to the story that we saw in the remake.
• Reunion also stays true in terms of gameplay. Not an open world, but still the small sized areas you travel through. On the other hand, they handle areas from the remake quite well (although that makes sense, too).

Come on dude!

The thing that didn’t get the necessary attention was the voice acting and the script. This is still very bad. Which is especially a shame because the story told in Crisis Core is really, really good. If you are not familiar with the game yet, you will learn a lot about the world of Final Fantasy 7 through this mod, as well as when you talk to various NPCs on the street or in the Shinra building. You learn a lot about the rich world that Square Enix didn’t.

Limit breaking special attacks are also still very random. I often find myself running back and forth in combat, hoping to break limits so I don’t lose MP or AP, for example, or simply to launch a super damaging free attack on an enemy. I would have liked to have seen this a little differently in the remaster, as it kind of interrupts the flow of combat that they have improved so much.

Rule

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is a very nice Remaster. Finally a quality one in the Final Fantasy remasters series. No doubt it has something to do with Final Fantasy 7’s popularity. If you’ve played the Final Fantasy 7 remake and were a little curious about what came before, this is a must-play. But even if you just want to play semi-old style Final Fantasy again, you’ve come to the right place. It’s a great blend of the fresh gameplay and charm of old titles, including semi-random encounters during gameplay.