And then they had this great idea: let's take one of the worst-told stories in game history, give creative control to the corniest storyteller in game history, and have him add in a bunch of extra crap to make a story-driven prequel. I wonder how this formula could have possibly gone wrong.
So you turn on this game and what is there? Zack, the guy previously known as Aeris's (now "Aerith's") boyfriend in Final Fantasy VII. Their romantic history is detailed greatly in Crisis Core; the chemistry was instant. How could they NOT fall in love? I mean, he was a cocky guy and she was carefree, cute girl. Especially after--get this--they met. How epic.
 |
| Underdeveloped, yet still decidedly lame. |
So Zack fights some stuff and he's guided by his latently homosexual friend "Angeal." The two high five each other and slap each other on the ass for a bit in between Angeal trying to act all like some tough guy. All the while, Angeal is also playing grabass with this dude named Genesis. (Yeah they don't actually have names, they have to take semisymbolic words and bastardize them anew.) Genesis's likeness is based on a Japanese pop star, so you'll get your lifetime supply of awkward, forced closeups all game long. Worse still, Genesis is always spouting off nonsense from a play called "Loveless," which the script writers saw fit to always CAPITALIZE even though that's kind of AWKWARD.
And oh yeah, speaking of fighting stuff, the DMW. Ah, the DMW. If you like levels being determined by the luck of a slot machine, this game is for you. Furthermore, there's sure nothing better than being one quick strike from defeating an enemy and then seeing, oh awesome, the slot machine starts going, and there's no way to stop it. So now you've gotta sit and wait for the numbers to pop up, and perhaps a repetitive scene to play out. That's way better than just stabbing the enemy and ending the battle.
 |
| Perhaps the worst character of all time. |
"The gift of the goddess will descend and be all like 'Whooooaaaaaa.'" -Loveless, ACT V
Yeah that's the kind of crap that gets old. Genesis, always with the Loveless quoting, and here's the thing: Genesis, the main villain, takes all of his inspiration from Loveless, which makes absolutely no sense. He's all like, "'When the friends reunite, the gift of the goddess will descend' ...which clearly means I have to make a bunch of clones of myself and overrun the world." *Clap...clap...clap* What a great villain. Gayer than Kuja, previously thought impossible.
And then, during the last parts of the game, one of the most emotional parts of the whole FFVII experience, BAM, insert an awful sniper-rife-based minigame for no good reason. Wow, that's exactly what I wanted. I didn't want to see this play out or anything, keep riding the feeling; no, I definitely wanted a sniper rifle minigame. "Hey Carl, know what needs to happen now?" "Zack needs to stop [spoiler censored] and play a mandatory minigame with a sniper rifle?" "Hell yeeeaaaaah." *High fives*
Gay, gay, gay.
This seems more like a Kingdom Hearts game than a Final Fantasy, really. The battle system feels vaguely KH, and the writers force a lot of "Follow your dreams!" "Yeah, it's the power of dreams!" into the story. It makes it feel just wrong. So the story sucks, the battles suck, the characters suck, and there's no reason to play this game.
