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Crisis Core as a project is probably more than four years old now. It was announced – though we didn’t see much more than a logo then – all the way back in 2004, before the PSP hit shelves anywhere in the world.

Playing the finished product, one wonders what took the time. The FMV cut scenes, of course, are up to Final Fantasy’s typically high standard. Square Visual Works obviously put plenty of man-hours into their end of things. The script, on the other hand, seems like it was cranked out in a caffeine-assisted day-and-a-half or so.

The rest of the game, well…it’s somewhere in between. The graphics are gorgeous, that’s for sure, and there are flashes of compelling design. Unless you’re of the school that reveres Final Fantasy VII as a sacred text and views this follow-up as a sort of latter-day revelation, you can probably give it a miss.

Press The “Win” Button

Crisis Core is a cross between a traditional prequel and what comic-book nerds call a “retcon.” Short for “retroactive continuity,” it means giving new meaning to an existing story. Our hero is Zack Fair, a minor character from FFVII – the SOLDIER operative whose identity became part of Cloud Strife’s mixed-up memory.

Zack’s adventure takes the form of a 3D action-RPG. Imagine a less colorful, less spastic version of Kingdom Hearts and you’ll have a good idea of how it plays – you move and fight in real-time and use spells and items on the fly with a handy menu built into the GUI.

The combat system does an awful lot without being asked. Zack automatically locks onto a target, and he’ll automatically move in range if he’s too far away to hit it. It’s easy to clear many regular encounters by tap-tap-tapping the “attack” button with one thumb. No other effort required. There’s a balance to be struck between keeping a fast pace and making sure the player still feels a little challenge. Crisis Core leans too far in that first direction. When you can mop up several encounters in a row without even looking at the screen, you have to wonder whether you’re getting your money’s worth.

Oh Lucky Man

Boss battles occasionally demand a little effort. On average, they’re still pretty easy, though – sitting back and launching long-range spells often works just fine. You’ll regularly get some help from the Digital Mind Wave as well.

The DMW is…weird. It looks like a slot machine – three reels with character portraits on them constantly spinning away. When they match up right, something good happens. “Something good” might be free healing and magic points, some experience points, a special attack, or all of the above rolled into one. What makes it weird is this -- the player has practically no control over the DMW. It’s barely possible to influence the results with a few rare items, but otherwise it does its thing at random. It’s almost embarrassing to steamroll a boss battle for no other reason than a run of good luck.

Long, Strange Trip

Though it’s never very challenging, the quest is timed right for an action game – 12 to 15 hours, give or take -- and fanatical RPG completist types should enjoy all the extra content. Besides the usual bonus puzzles and optional side-quests (the Nibelheim area has lots of those), there’s a separate Mission mode with literally hundreds of short, simple tasks to clear. None of those are especially deep, but they’re good for beefing up your character, and some of them have interesting rewards at the end.

As for the challenges that make up the central quest, they’re mostly standard fare with a couple of unforgivable lapses into cliché. One area has a find-the-valve-handle fetch-quest, which should give you an idea of the level of invention on display. Another has one of those awkward obligatory stealth sections that every action game seems to have these days.

The dungeons aren’t actively aggravating until the last one, though. Crisis Core’s endgame is a tedious exercise in item collection, as you peer around the corners of a drab, dark cavern trying to find seven chests hidden in out-of-the-way places. It’s as much fun as a trip to the dentist, and it kills any momentum the story had going into its climax.

Don’t Be Another Sequel

How much momentum did the story have before that? Well, that’s another problem. At its best, the English script in Crisis Core is alright. Every so often, Square Enix’s editors work a minor miracle adapting to the awkwardly-timed Japanese lip movements and body language. At their worst, though, and their worst is more common than their best, the characters talk like a cross between mental patients and teenage poets. Genesis, the nominal villain of the piece, has some speeches so purple it’s a wonder his voice actor got them on tape without cracking up.

The dialogue frequently doesn’t make sense, then, and the plot often makes even less. Some characters (Zack’s mentor Angeal is the prime offender) rarely explain their motivations in detail, which makes you wonder whether they really have any at all. Why do they do what they do? Just because it’s time for them to do it? It’s also worth noting that the cut scenes cannot be skipped, which is painful if you get lazy and lose a boss battle – you’ll have to watch the run-up all over again.

Once again, if you just want a game that pushes your nostalgia buttons, Crisis Core will do that. Sephiroth is pretty, Aerith is cute and spunky, and some familiar locations look great in realtime 3D. For the fangirls, the homoerotic overtones are inescapable. For the guys, Tifa’s wearing a naughty-cowgirl outfit that belongs on the stage at the Crazy Horse Too.

If you want something more though, there’s not much else worth seeing here.

Review by: D.F. Smith