Finally a Final Fantasy 7 spin off that is worthy of the name. I am floored. I don’t know if I have ever told anyone on my site what my favorite game of all time was. It’s Final Fantasy 7. The game that got me into RPGs. So, I bought a psp a while back, and it was pretty much collecting dust. Lets face it, most PSP games are pure shit. Lets see, god of war, burnout, ssx, those were good, but damn it, nothing mind blowing besides god of war for the system, well, until now. This game plays more like Kingdom Hearts. FF7 had this sad theme to it. It continues here. I wont get to into it or spoil it, but the first ff7 made me cry. Yes. Granted I was in a weird emotional state when I played it back then that may of contributed to it. This is heavy like the old ones so don’t worry.

This game is pretty! and I mean it. To me, the game play engine looks like ff 10 polished up a bit. Seriously, it’s damn good. You usually only fight 3 enemies at a time, sometimes a little more or less. It is simple. You wont be beating yourself up trying to figure it all out. Exploring is simple, there is no world map like in the old FF games. Instead you do side missions from the save point and the main story just kind of puts you where you need to be. You will explore areas, the city etc, but the scope of it seems kind anemic compared to the older games. This is the best looking hand held game I have ever seen. When you fight some of the summons this becomes very evident. But what really shines? The Video cut scenes. Man. It is like watching heaven on a cloud with a head full of hallucinogens. I love the characters. I love Sephiroth, The best video game character ever! EVER!

This is what I have been waiting for. I have waited about 5 years for a good RPG. To me, the last great rpg I played was grandia 2 on the sega dreamcast and final fantasy 10, not 10-2(the worst rpg ever). This is fun, Some of the dialog lines are cheese ball, but over all this is still pretty good in english actually. I still would prefer japanese with sub titles. This is a hack n slash. Don’t worry though because there are rpg elements, too bad you never get to mess with the sword, it always stays the same. Good thing there are materia, and materia fusion, this gets pretty deep and impressive and makes me feel like I am playing an RPG not some devil may cry hack n slash. You play as one(zack). You never control a team in battle. The DMV kind of makes up for this(more about DMV below). You use X to attack, and switch what X does by scrolling through commands with the L and R shoulder buttons. You also have a dive(avoid) button, and a block button. Zack is a little campy and kind of silly, but, I still like him despite all that.

The DMV is the new summon and limit break system. It works randomly kind of. The game kind of senses when you need a little extra edge in a battle. It works like a slot machine, and the DMV will fill up with summons and characters in the game that will grant you special moves. Like super healing, or helicopter attack, or super attack, or a summons. These DMV attacks look breath taking. Some of the stuff in this is mind blowing, some of the best in the final fantasy series. The enemies look cool, lots of cyber industrial machines and beings. I wont give anything away about the story. Lots of Sephiroth. If you only play the story mode (which is hard with out playing the little side missions), you can beat the game in about 12-15 hours. So that kind sucks. But if you play all the side missions(that seriously helps you level up and not die in the main story) it can get up to about 50 hours of game play. So this is a good bang for the buck! Below is the funniest final fantasy spoof I have ever seen!

9.2 Presentation
Amazing. Intuitive, Easy, Looks good. Familiar menu sounds :)

9.4 Visuals
I know the PSP can still do better, but in all honesty, this is pushing the system harder than any other game in terms of graphics and sound. The battle engine looks like the ps2 ff10 stuff polished. The Cut scene video story stuff looks better than the Advent Children ff7 animated movie. No joke.

9.0 Audio
The music is fitting, more modern, and in the cut scenes magnificent. Sound FX are top notch.

8.5 Game Mechanics
Very responsive, easy to use. Be careful not to over attack, if you start a combo, he won’t stop in time to block or dive.

7.0 Replay
No online, But this is a great game, in a year you will want to play it a again. This is a buy, not a rent.

9.5 Total Score.
(out of 10 / not an average)

This is the best game on the PSP hands down. I don’t care what genre you throw against it. It’s so polished and just amazing to look at. The story is good. The characters are great. Even the new ones, Genesis, and Angeal. I cannot recommend this enough. A 10 out of 5. If you don’t own a PSP, well now you have a great reason to go and buy one Click Here to buy a Sony PSP. Click Here to buy Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 for the Sony PSP.

Music Listened to while writing this review: b-52’s: Funplex and Tegan and Sara: The con.