New coat of paint, same old foundation.
Like 2021's NieR Replicant, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion aims to revamp its dated original through a modern lens, bringing all-new visuals, mechanics, and tweaks to freshen up the 15-year-old original. However, unlike NieR Replicant, Crisis Core's origins hail from the far weaker and limited PSP hardware, and regardless of the wealth of enhancements provided here to considerably modernize the title, Crisis Core clings to its portable limitations just a bit too much.
Given the popularity and critical reception of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, it was only a matter of time before Square Enix would re-release the original’s companion game, Crisis Core. Released on the PSP back in 2007, this told the story of Zack Fair, a member of SOLDIER that impacted the lives of Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth, in a multitude of ways.
While the Final Fantasy VII Remake would fundamentally alter significant parts of the original’s story, especially with that ending, Crisis Core still is an important part of the narrative, given what influence Zack would have on some members of the cast. His connection to Cloud is a driving force for the story, and regardless of the changes made in Remake, that holds true more so than ever before.
Crisis Core Reunion is considered a remaster in the eyes of Square Enix, and honestly, I agree with them. This is similar to what the publisher did with NieR Replicant, and in many ways, what Microsoft did with the Master Chief collection. The bones of the original Crisis Core are there, they are just masked with new visuals that are very close to what we had in Remake without spending anywhere near its budget. Some assets are reused, sure, but it still falls short of being as visually striking as Square Enix’s masterful Remake. It looks good, it just doesn't always look "that" good.
Crisis Core Reunion also brings with it a complete overhaul to all of its audio. From fully voiced characters to a rebuilt score and audio mix, Crisis Core has never sounded better. While summons have had their cutscene attacks fully rebuilt from the ground up, the CG cutscenes present for the main story are identical to those found on the PSP, just in a higher resolution. While the cutscenes still look great, despite how CG faces used to look back then, some of the new visual tweaks to Crisis Core Reunion do contradict some design changes, such as the hilt on Zack’s sword, among other small details.
This is on top of almost entirely rebuilt combat, a new UI to match what was present in Remake, as well as taking full advantage of having more buttons and an additional analog stick, given the limitations of the PSP hardware itself. Nearly every system or mechanic present in the original Crisis Core has been updated and expanded to be more user-friendly, and more intuitive, making for a better experience overall, which is why it is even more disappointing that the game those systems serve didn’t get the same modern overhaul.
Within moments of beginning Zack’s journey to becoming SOLDIER 1st Class, the limitations of the PSP’s hardware are immediately felt even surrounding the lavish visual upgrade that feels right at home in the world of VII's remade aesthetics. Locations are small, restrictive, and incredibly linear, their minimal size and space leashed by the power of the PSP at the time. And, even if areas look visually connected, such as a certain street in Sector 8, you still have to engage a loading screen to access the path you could see from the prior location, regardless of how fast the game loads. Considering the massive boost in hardware capability from the PSP to what consoles currently rock, it’s a shame that these areas were not expanded to make its world feel bigger, even if these were solely just additional spaces for many of the game’s random battles to take part in.
With the PSP being a portable system to take on the go, Crisis Core had very digestible missions to tackle, some taking anywhere from a minute to maybe five or ten at most. These missions all take place in a small handful of areas, some sectioned off within the same maps, causing your time here to feel not just grindy, but immensely repetitive due to most missions feeling like it's the same objective in the same zone. Each mission has you searching for chests and then defeating the boss at the end, regardless of whatever narrative is loosely attached to them. Depending on your build and level, as each mission is ranked with a star-based difficulty, you can steamroll these missions in no time, but a large majority of them are just incredibly boring.
While I have minor issues with other aspects of the game, these missions are my biggest complaint as they are rarely fun, or even remotely engaging, and every single time you jump into the next, you'd swear you had already tackled the same objective over a dozen times in that same area several times over. Missions are unlocked as the game progresses, as you complete certain side quests, talk to NPC's, and complete each subsequent mission. Occasionally, you'll find challenge in some of them, but rarely will the game legitimately offer up any resistance other than maybe granting its boss a pretty spongey health bar, which is the only way the game tries to make these bite-size objectives feel meaty or challenging in any respect. Now that said, you can turn up the difficulty if you want, but that often just feels artificial.
When it comes to the main path or the few side quests you'll encounter, some of these are a mixed bag. For every intense moment of taking on vast enemy forces in engaging combat, there are throwaway tasks such as exploring a series of rooms to solve a wall-safe puzzle or attempting to track down a half dozen spies in Sector 8. Some of the more action-orientated objectives have you performing a few mini-games or events such as trying to stealth into an enemy base, defeating waves of enemies, or swiping down a series of missiles. These activities are strangely only ever done a single time, and in the example of the missiles, the only difficult part of it is having the camera angle change to make the last swipe awkward for no legit reason, an annoyance that also is present in the squats competition.
With the general campaign lasting around 13-15 hours, the amount of the game that actually focuses on the story is about half of that length, at best. The struggle that Zack is put through as he attempts to understand why his mentor has suddenly turned against SOLDIER, as well as dealing with the attacks upon Shinra by a man named Genesis, is consistently entertaining, largely due to some well-directed moments and a solid voice cast.
While it’s a shame that Genesis's only personality trait was quoting the fictional works of Loveless, the fun encounters built around him, Sephiroth, and Angeal, lessened that particular annoyance and still managed to keep me entertained, to a point. For those who haven’t taken in any part of Final Fantasy VII, Remake or otherwise, the story has a lot of interesting beats, all centered around the energetic and hopefully Zack, a character that almost didn’t even feature in the original game until late in development. His positivity is often infectious, as he works towards his dream of becoming a hero, an aspiration that is eventually shared with a certain spiky-haired blonde.
Much of what does work in Crisis Core Reunion is the revamped combat, making encounters fast, chaotic, and immensely enjoyable. While combat can get a bit repetitive in using the same OP abilities over and over again, such as any jumping attack or some of the strong variations of thunder skills, the wide assortment of materia and skills available to you can certainly allow you to shake up your arsenal as you refine and play around with numerous build-types.
Unlike Final Fantasy VII Remake, you’ll be taking on this adventure solo as Zack. This means no companions or swapping to additional characters. This can cause additional repetition, which is why the game’s length as it is helps in the game’s favor. Though, as mentioned previously, the vast assortment of skills you have access to greatly works towards keeping several encounters fresh, especially as you can freely swap between loadouts between combat encounters to benefit from various weaknesses and advantages.
Combat has seen a massive overhaul when compared to the original, making it far more fluid and intuitive to engage with. Previously, combat was regulated to a single action bar at the bottom, containing your standard attack, skills, and items. Instead, Reunion separates this and while the action bar still remains, it only consists of your items, placing combat on its own, accessed via the LB button with its own collective of up to six skills or a combination of skills and passive buffs, all depending on what materia you slot into Zack’s equipment.
Zack can house up to six materia, as mentioned, all performed via the XYBA buttons as well as RB and RT when holding down LB. Now, this will all vary on where you are playing it, but the access and function is nonetheless identical. You can also hold onto four accessories, but you will only have two free slots at first, with the final two slots unlocked via rewards in two specific missions. These accessories boost certain stats like your HP, AP, MP, and prevent status effects like Poison and Silence from affecting you.
Combat generally is fast and frantic, as it all takes place in real time. Zack can attack, dodge, use items, and pull from his deep arsenal of skills. Eventually, Zack will wield the Buster Sword, and have access to a stance that produces more power at the cost of some AP. As mentioned, combat is rather fun and if you play around with the host of materia you have at your disposal, it can remove a lot of the repetition of relying only on the most powerful abilities, especially Poison Aerial and Hell Thundaga, which were two skills that I had that would downright destroy entire groups in seconds. In fact, I likely could have beaten the game just by relying on those two particular skills.
As you progress, you’ll unlock and earn new materia, which can be enhanced through combat and then fused into other materia to create more powerful versions or entirely new skills that you haven’t had before. One change from the original game is it is now easier to see what concoction you’ll make as you fuse materia and items together. As you level up your materia, five-star materia can produce better results when combined with other materia, so grinding away to enhance something for a future fusion can work wonders.
Another mechanic brought forward from the original and enhanced to work better here is the DMW. No, this isn’t where Midgar takes their driver’s test, this is a slot wheel of random buffs and attacks that constantly roll out their outcome during battle. As Zack meets new characters, unlocks new summons, and increases the bonds between him and his castmates, this will affect how the DMW works and how it affects each combat encounter.
This Digital Mind Wave rolls a set of three slot wheels, each combined with a number and image of a character. When the images match, you have access to that character’s limit break, such as calling in an air strike or issuing out a much-needed heal. When the numbers match, various perks and bonuses become available to Zack, such as 444 granting unlimited AP or 222 doing the same for your MP. The DMW has a lot of deeper systems and mechanics that work towards leveling Zack and his materia up, producing summon attacks, and offering up memories of Zack and his friends.
One of the nice changes made from the original is that the DMW doesn’t take up the whole screen when the slots have started spinning to produce its result. The DMW here in Reunion stays in the top left and is unintrusive regardless if you have rolled a summon, limit break, or other additional perks. This system causes combat to often provide a freshness to break up most of the repetition, but in some ways, most simple combat encounters don’t last long enough to benefit from the DMW in the first place. Also, since the outcome of the DMW is random, you can often not get the rolls you want during certain fights.
Another aspect of combat is being able to guard attacks to prevent some incoming damage, a benefit that increases once Zack has access to the Buster Sword. You can also take advantage of various stat effects like Silence, Curse, or Stun, resulting in making some encounters a cakewalk. There are also some magical attacks that grant weakness bonuses, such as using a fire skill on an ice-based foe. Some enemies also have an ability gauge, and should you destroy it in time, you’ll prevent that foe from using a powerful attack. While this sounds easy, you rarely have any time to even react to many of these time-sensitive openings.
As you explore each zone, whether through a mission or quest, you’ll experience random battles at predictable locations on the map. One interesting thing is that if you run along the outside of the typical combat area, you can usually bypass the fight since you are not stepping on the trigger point that initiates these fights. This is great for missions when you simply want to collect the chests and B-line it for the boss. The boss, however; is not a random battle and will be physically there on the battlefield, allowing you to find any remaining chests in the area before you continue.
Apart from combat, Zack has access to a mail inbox that relays information about certain characters, conversations with his friends and colleagues at Shinra, and more. As you complete certain missions, you’ll also have access to a variety of shops, but apart from a few, most of the items they offer are beyond common and you likely already have a ton of them.
I’ve mentioned before that the voice acting is really great here as most of the game is fully voiced, many returning from the original game, but all fully re-recorded. Characters who were present in the Remake are here taking on those characters again, creating cohesion between the different games. That said, there are a few audio issues I wasn’t too keen on. First, each fight begins with “Activating Combat Mode” and then ends with “Conflict Resolved!” This gets tiring when you’ve done dozens and dozens of missions, each with a half dozen combat encounters within each one. There are also standard sound effects for using each skill or it being not ready which can get a bit tiresome, but these are small nitpicks really.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion is both an incredible remaster and a disappointing release. The aspects of the game that have seen massive changes, enhancements, and additions are superb and should certainly be applauded for what they’ve all done to make this the definitive version to play; however, the level design and mission structure drastically hold the title back as the limitations of the PSP are here in full display, regardless of how pretty the game looks or how fluid its newly approached combat is. I enjoyed most of my time here, but that was largely towards the main story moments and Zack’s struggle to become a hero. Apart from that, I found Reunion to be disappointingly repetitive, limiting, and a game that could have benefitted from the Remake treatment to really reach its true potential.
Developer - Square Enix. Publisher - Square Enix. Released - December 13th, 2022. Available On - Xbox One/Series X/S, PS4/PS5, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows. Rated - (T) Blood, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion was purchased for review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.