Activating Combat Mode
Sephiroth: Concentrate.
Zack: I’ll deal with it!Angeal: Prove your honor to me!
Zack: I got it!
Zack: Hai-yah!Genesis: Show me the true power of Soldier!
Zack: Mind your own business!Tseng: Is this the end?
Zack: I’m trying! I’m trying!Cissnei: You can do it Zack!
Zack: Yeah! I’m on fire now!Cissnei: You can do it Zack!
Zack: Yeah! I’m on fire now!Cloud: The power of Soldier…
Zack: Alright, here comes the big one!Conflict Resolved.
That’s my reflection of this game. These quotes are the most memorable things I can remember about it.
It’s not that Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is a bad game. In fact, the gameplay is great! Well, it could use a bit more variety with battles. You can dodge, run, or block, but mostly you’ll try to spam magic or attack. The strategy is much less in how you attack, and much more your set up. Enemies will one shot you if you aren’t carefully prepared.
The story isn’t that bad either. Of course, it’s about following your dream and becoming a hero. They mention this a lot. We’re learning more about Zack, but in a way, we’re learning about Cloud. Who Zack was, Cloud tried to be. Now we have a reference point for his character. Only, Zack wasn’t a jerk. It’s still odd seeing a man in his late teens act like a hyperactive child, though.
The music is pretty good too. The rock mixed with chill smooth jazzy like songs really added atmosphere to the game.
No, the problem isn’t the gameplay, the story or the music. It’s the repetition. That godawful repetition. I went to a Christian University. We had to say the Lord’s Prayer at Chapel at the end of every sermon. Good thing I knew it beforehand. How did I remember it? Through exposure and repetition. I can rattle the prayer off the top of my head the same way many other Christians can. No heart, no spirit. Just pure, mechanical route memory from the reptile brain. This should be offensive to God Himself. You can learn anything this way, divine or not. And guess what? That’s how I learned all of the DMV scenes. The only way to deactivate them is to wear the Cursed Ring. And even then, I can never escape that woman’s voice:
Activating Combat Mode
Conflict Resolved
Now imagine playing through the 300 missions. The missions are fun, even if they want for variety. You know what to do: run around the dungeon to the main boss and take ’em out. Easy enough. But you don’t hug the wall, you’ll get into a random encounter. Then you’ll have to listen to her say this for every enemy. Imagine, an average of ten random encounters each mission. You would have heard her say this at least 3000 times. Why would anyone need to hear her say this 3000 times? It gets old fast.
You can’t skip cutscenes either. If you die, you have to go all the way back and watch the same cutscene. That’s a punishment. So don’t die. Speaking of which, when Zack died, I didn’t know whether or not to feel sad or happy.
But Gary, he’s dying…
Yeah, I know. And now I don’t have to listen to this woman talk. I don’t even think there’s a theme to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII’s repetition. Just somewhere down the line, the developers left in the triggers for these lines. Now, at certain intervals, they repeat over and over, like the slots of a pachinko.
And don’t get me started on Genesis. Even he recites that godforsaken poem over and over…