Reviewed: October 2, 2006
Reviewed by: Mike Colgan

Publisher
Square Enix

Developer
Square Enix

Released: August 15, 2006
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

6
10
9
7
7.0

Supported Features:

Since its creation nearly a decade ago, fans have been begging Square Enix to remake the classic game with modern graphics, voice acting, cleaned up dialog, and possible multiple endings. Realizing just how deeply loved Final Fantasy VII is amongst Final Fantasy fans, Square Enix has delivered several projects to satisfy their pleas to revisit the Planet, including the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which takes place three years after the Final Fantasy VII story. They have also included characters from the original game such as Cloud Strife, Sephiroth, Yuffie Kisaragi, Aeris Gainsbourough and Cid Highwind in the highly successful Kingdom Hearts games, as well as adding Cloud, Sephiroth, Tifa Lockheart, and Vincent Valentine to the roster of playable fighters in the PS1 fighting game Ehrgeiz.

Recently, when showing off the graphic quality for the upcoming release of the PlayStation 3, Square Enix remade the stunning opening sequence of Final Fantasy VII. Fans, understandably, went crazy, and rumors of Final Fantasy VII's re-release on the Playstation 3 spread like wildfire.

Most recently, Square Enix has released the much anticipated offshoot of the Final Fantasy VII story, the third-person shooter, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. This time, the story focuses on the mysterious and aloof fan favorite, Vincent Valentine. Once an optional character, Vincent now takes center stage as the hero, and his strange back-story as a former Turk and victim of the insane scientist Hojo is at long last revealed. Fans should be rejoicing, right? Well, Dirge of Cerberus does offer some satisfaction to the legions of loyal Final Fantasy VII fans, but unfortunately, not quite enough.

Don't get me wrong: the storyline is awesome. Set three years after the end of FFVII, some elite troops known as the Tsviets surface from deep beneath Midgar, and begin to terrorize the recovering Planet. People mysteriously disappear, and their faint screams can be heard on the wind. Vincent finds himself a hunted man, for reasons that are not clear, until the story unravels the details of Vincent's past as a Turk working for the Shinra Corporation.

His love interest, Lucrecia Crescent, was a scientist who eventually gave birth to Sephiroth, the uber-villain we all loved to hate from the original story. She also seemed to be researching something known as Chaos (a beast that Vincent can turn into, thanks to her fellow scientist and father of her child, Hojo) and sentient forces that dwell within the lifestream that could cause the ultimate destruction of all life on the Planet.

The Tsviets are an elite force of soldiers created by the now-defunct Shinra Corporation who were at one point human, but after being subject to experiments similar to the ones Vincent suffered, they are now bloodthirsty killers without conscience. They look for Vincent, hoping to gain control of Chaos and awaken these forces as an ultimate act of revenge. You know the drill, Final Fantasy fans. Time to save the world.

New characters as well as old appear. The hateful Rosso the Crimson, the monstrous Azul, the distant and serious Shelke, and the very creepy Nero make up the roster of new enemies (though, they are not as they all seem, especially Shelke). The familiar faces that we all came to love from the original are also there, rest assured, most notably Reeve and Yuffie. The character development of the new characters are superb, and added insight to old characters, especially those that weren't as much of a focus in the original, such as Reeve, are also a real treat. The RPG element is prevalent when it comes to the characters and story, which is exactly what fans want to see.

So what's the problem? Well, despite all the wonderful story and awesome character development, Dirge of Cerberus is not an RPG first and foremost. It's a third-person shooter. While there is nothing inherently wrong with taking FFVII's storyline and setting it to a non-RPG format, the controls are the first issue that gamers will encounter. It's pretty clear that Square Enix feels most at home making RPGs rather than shooters. Dirge of Cerberus uses clunky dual analog controls, and shoulder buttons are used for shooting and selecting items. It takes a lot of getting used to.

Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with complicated controls, but one should be able to master them after about an hour or so of gameplay, rather than find them frustrating throughout the entire game. The controls are frustratingly awkward. There were too many occasions, even after I got into the meat of the game, where I found myself looking in the wrong direction of where I should be shooting, simply because the layout of the controls still felt so unnatural. Vincent doesn't exactly move very quickly with his gun aimed either, so it was difficult to turn quickly and face targets, especially bosses who move very quickly.

What's worse, is that the targeting system isn't responsive enough. Even when you have an enemy in your crosshairs, or even better, an enemy's head in your crosshairs (which increases Vincent’s critical strike chance), you still miss more often than you should. There were some enemy battles that I had to try over again and again, simply because I just couldn't hit the damn guy when the game indicated that I could. Poor controls made the gameplay feel tedious at times, and if I wasn't so interested in advancing the story, I would have lost patience, and just thrown my controller across the room at some points.

Vincent can also use melee attacks at close range, but like the controls of the gun, melee attacks were also much tougher than need be, considering half the time, Vincent will miss an enemy directly in front of him and swing aimlessly in the air. When enemies hit him off his feet, Vincent can supposedly avoid lying on the ground like a moron for several seconds if you can press a button just before he hits the ground for a quick, and smooth recovery. This is only possible, as far as I can tell, ten percent of the time. You are more likely to be bombarded with enemy attacks that knock you right back down to the floor before you even have a chance to move several times in a row. Needless to say, this is damnably frustrating! Enemy A.I. is also shoddy at most points.

A good example of this are the several instances in which I found Vincent getting knocked to the ground, only to be met with a burly man holding a rocket launcher standing over him, and inevitably getting knocked to the ground again before I could even move. All gamers HATE that. We don't mind challenging enemies. We do mind the inability to not even be allowed enough time to move to counterattack and being thrown around like a helpless rag doll until the Game Over screen shows up.

Something that is nice about Dirge's gameplay mechanisms however, is the variety in weapon equipment and playing styles. Different guns, barrels, scopes, attachments, and even Materia (yes, Materia is back) can be equipped to Vincent's firearms. Some guns are designed for mid-range attacks, others for close combat, others for sniping. They have different speeds and firepower capacities that can be upgraded for gil (Final Fantasy currency, as fans will recall). The Materia equipped can cast magic spells, such as Fire and Blizzard, or be used as support for increasing stats and performance.

What is probably the most fun however, is executing Limit Breaks. That's right, Vincent can turn into at least some of his beast forms from the original game. During his transformation time, his hit points replenish, his stats increase, and he just looks really cool too. Limit Breaks are treated as items, and can only be used after a set amount of time has elapsed since the last one was activated.

At the end of each level in Dirge of Cerberus, your performance throughout the level is tallied up. Things such as your level's completed objectives, your accuracy rate, use of healing items and magic, and damage taken earn you both gil and points. When all of the points have been tallied, you can either trade them for experience or a bundle of extra gil. Experience points allow Vincent to level up, increasing all his stats slightly but permanently. However, the extra gil can often be put to good use buying sorely needed weapon upgrades and extra items. Sometimes the decision is a little hard to make, but overall, it is an interesting system that allows for a little more customization than the norm for a shooting game, which is always good. In between levels of shooting in Dirge of Cerberus, there are many cutscenes and story sequences. I appreciated this, and I think that other FF VII fans will also. After all, we're RPG fans. This is the main problem with Dirge of Cerberus, even more so than clunky controls. Final Fantasy fans tend to like RPGs, not third person shooters. Sure, some of them will enjoy the new format, but many will find the difficulty of Dirge's controls extremely frustrating. They are not used to them, but they really want to see Vincent's story. Because of this, on one level, FFVII fans will be disappointed.

The world is equally real. It looks like you could step right into Midgar, reach out and actually touch the characters. This is something that Square Enix does exceedingly well, and while I've never appreciated games that were all show and no substance, if a game like that did possess these graphics, I would be compelled to play it for at least a little while just to marvel at the spectacle.

In game graphics are also masterfully done. In fact, they are some of the best that I have seen on the PS2, and I don't believe we will see anything better until the PS3 comes out. Convincing facial expressions are still prevalent, as are complex texturing and smooth, seamless lines. Character designs are awesome, and there is nothing more satisfying to us FFVII fans than to see our favorite characters remade with such amazing graphics. While it's true that the graphics of the original FFVII were impressive for their time, they do look rather antiquated these days. Seeing Vincent's face in hi-res detail rather than the sharp, square-shape with cartoonish eyes that he once had all those years ago, is really, really cool.

Also worth mentioning (otakus will be thrilled about this) is that Japanese superstar Gackt, formerly of the goth-pop band Malice Mizer, lends his vocals to the soundtrack on the songs "Longing" and "Redemption." Very fitting of Dirge of Cerberus' dark overtones and hero, I must say. And Square Enix obviously know who their audience is.

Voice acting is also A-List in Dirge of Cerberus. Voice actor Steve Blum reprises his role as Vincent, whom he voiced in Advent Children. Blum's voice is instantly recognizable these days, as he's become a fixture in both English dubbed anime and video games, and it's easy to see why. His deep, subtly emotional voice sounds just as you may have imagined Vincent's back in FFVII had there been voice acting in the Final Fantasy series in those days. Other voices, most notably Reeve's and Shelke's, are perfect for the characters they portray. Dialog is smooth, natural, and expertly delivered. Almost.

The only problem I had with the voice-acting department is probably more of a matter of personal taste, but Rosso the Crimson's fake Russian accent is very, very grating. She sounds like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle. Needless to say, it doesn't exactly fit the feel of the rest of the game. Where is she from? Why is she the only person on the Planet who speaks with this ridiculous accent? It's bad enough that she's a snide, condescending, arrogant moron who talks about little more than how awesome she is, and how fun it is to kill people. But to give her a Russian accent? It's almost goofy, like we're going through the Cold War again, and the evil Soviet plays the villain. It doesn't help that she's a member of the Tsviets, which sounds suspiciously like a derivative of Soviet. If they would have simply dropped the ultra fake accent, Rosso's maniacal rants may have actually been tolerable. Hell, she is a villain after all. It would be best if she could be taken seriously when she opens her mouth to speak.

A lot of the extra content is there obviously for Final Fantasy fans, but who else was Dirge of Cerberus made for? All in all, there are a decent amount of extras that do a good job of delivering fan service. And like any action game that scores various aspects of your performance each level (such as Devil May Cry), there is always the challenge of beating your own high scores.

Shooter fans will probably be bored to tears and find that the cutscenes get in the way of the action, acting more as a hindrance to the gameplay than an aspect of it. In many ways, Dirge of Cerberus is a disappointment. FFVII fans will be thrilled with the story, but frustrated with how much the game lacks when it simply comes to being fun.

So, Square Enix, hear your fan's pleas: remake Final Fantasy VII on the PS3. I can't imagine a single FFVII fan (apart from the few sniveling, hardcore "real" fans who will complain about anything and everything that happens in the Final Fantasy universe since it's gone 3D from the depths of their mother's basements) who would not want to see this remake. Not a movie; not a third person shooter (not that we aren't grateful for those, don't me wrong).

We want to see an RPG remade with all of the gloss that it didn't have in the original, due to the lack of technology at the time. I sincerely applaud your efforts to give us something new (trust me, I've adored Vincent since I first found him in his coffin with Cloud an co. when I first played FFVII. Nobody was more excited than me when I heard about Dirge of Cerberus). But there are some glaring mistakes in Dirge of Cerberus that even your most hardcore of fans cannot overlook.