Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (PSP) Review

The PSP is a fantastic little thing, in addition to porn, you can play games on it. Some of which are kinda good, this is one of them.

Crisis Core is another in the continued exploitation of money out of the Final Fantasy VII franchise that they refer to as the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII". This one is set years prior to the events of VII, and you play as Zack Fair. For those of you who didn't pay much attention to FFVII, Zack Fair is the guy that Cloud thought he was for most of the game. Where Cloud was never in
SOLDIER, Zack was. Where Cloud never actually got to bone Aeris, Zack hit that shit.

Through the standard exceptionally awesome psp movies, you get to see some fuckin SWEET cutscenes that were probably done by the same people who did Advent Children.

Zack starts off as a less than cool SOLDIER 2nd Class, which is pretty much the equivilent of the guys in the yellow or blue shirts on Star Trek whom just go with Kirk to the planet ENTIRELY TO DIE. Over the course of the game you see Zack rise up to SOLDIER 1st Class and hang out with much cooler people such as but not limited to everyones favorite female looking villain, Sephiroth.

Lets just please the fanboi population right now. Yes - Sephiroth is all over this game like herpes on a whore. Yes - Sephiroth is a boss fight in the 8th chapter "The Nibelheim Incident", Yes - You get to see how the whole shit goes down, again.

Many of the events have of course been seen before in various scenes in FFVII, in addition to the famous 'Nibelheim Flashback" in Kalm after you leave Midgar; You get to see Zack meet Aeris, Zack and Aeris fall in love, blahblah, Zack builds a Flower Cart for Aeris and gives her the idea to sell flowers, Wutai get their asses kicked in a war against Shinra, and uhhh a couple other little details, like the entire score of LOVELESS (that play on the billboard in Midgar).

Crisis Core also introduces some other new characters that havent been in other games: Angeal, who serves as Zacks mentor and superior officer in SOLDIER until all the shit happens. Dr.Hollander; who is behind Project G which was referenced a good amount of times in Dirge of Cerberus. And a new Turk named Cissnei; whom nobody knows dick about except that shes hot, and somehow doesnt die in Crisis Core, but doesnt end up in FFVII or any other later games - though she did appear in that shitty phone game in japan.

The other Character introduced is Genesis, whom first appeared in the hidden ending of Dirge of Cerberus to save Weiss in an underground cave after the credits roll, refering to him as "brother". Genesis being the main antagonist, since Sephiroth disappears from the storyline completely after the nibelheim incident. Genesis discovers that he is infact a result of Jenova Project G, and that his Cells are degrading, leading to his impending death. Project G being the pre-cursor for Project S, and well if you cant figure that one out you are pretty retarded. Genesis is rather key for VII story, since Sephiroth didnt just 'figure it out' and go raid the Shinra Mansion Basement, he was told - by Genesis, and then things go the way they did...

Graphics: Where its just the PSP, the graphics are pretty damn good, not even counting the movies, the movies are basically the same thing as Advent Children. In game graphics are probably better than Dirge of Cerberus, but that game was a hefty bag of shit really. Seeing the events of VII redone with ps2-quality graphics was just enough to give me a semi, but only when I see a true remake will I get a true boner.

Lemme put one of the better movies in here so you guys can see how sex they are.





Sound: This part shines, they got all the voices from Advent Children for the V/O, qualityyyyy. Cloud sounds like a homo because hes totally green, and it shows in his voice, even though its the same guy, Fantastic. The other sounds though are pretty much taken from various versions of FFVII - Even the beeping when you move around in the menus. The game has a more rock and roll soundtrack, including "One-Winged Angel" for the Sephiroth fight. Alot of the music is just remixed tracks from VII, and i noticed that the common combat theme was taken from the Ending Credits of FFVII: Final Order (the anime that never made it stateside).

Gameplay: OK soo.. this is where the game kinda.. loses some points. The combat system is made up of a basic hack and slash game, except when you hit the 'attack' command, zack actually runs to the targetting monster. This resulted in my doing entire fights by just hitting the X button over and over. Instead of experience there is the DMW (Digital Mind Wave), its a fucking Roulette wheel, constantly going in the top left corner of the screen. If 2 of the same face comes up all combat stops and the DMW takes up the entire screen, if 2 of the same number come up, the materia in that slot goes up a level, maxing out at 5. If you get 3 7's, Zack gains a level. If 3 of the same picture come up you do a limit break based on that person or summon. Example: 3 Bahamuts is Megaflare, 3 Sephiroths is Octaslash, 3 Tsengs is an Airstrike from Helicopter. This mgiht sound pretty gay as far as Materia growth, and I assure you - it is 100% homosexual. But upon a little research Zack gains levels pretty much independantly, there is an invisible exp counter and when you go above your Level up requirement the odds of you getting 3 7's is pretty certain.

The other thing I want to mention is that this game is FANTASTIC for Taking a shit, If we had a Taking a Shit meter this would get 5 out of 5. There is a rediculous amount of totally optional missions avaliable from any save point - each taking 3-8 minutes total. So you could pop your ass down to drop the kids off at the pool and do a couple missions easily and enjoyably from the comfort of your throne.

The Damage: Thirty hours, probably couldve done it in 20, i did alot of the side missions, theres a god damn TON of those. I throughly enjoyed it from start to finish.

Final Score: 9 out of 10. It does get a bit repetitive later on, but they give you alot of freedom to stop dicking around any time you want and continue the story to avoid any repetition, and the boss battles are rather easy. My second Playthrough is a New Game+ on Hard and i'm hoping that is a bit more challenging in the boss department. I honestly expected to lose to Sephiroth, but it wasnt even really that close. Overall a good addition to the world of Final Fantasy VII, but this doesn't stall the need for a remake or sequel anymore than another movie would.

Forgot to Mention: Its a prequel, so I cant say 'they left it open for a sequel' but Genesis appears in Dirge of Cerberus which is 2 years after Advent Children. So.... My feeling is that there will be one more game for the Collection of FFVII, and that it'll go back to basics with Cloud. Or it'll be FFVII-2 (hoping for that.)

Silent Hill: Origins (PSP) Review

Do you feel comfortable in the dark? Well if you get this game you better become pretty damn comfy with it.

Origins brings us to the source of the nightmarish world we have come to know as Silent Hill. By following the main character “Travis Brady” we (supposedly) find how this world was created and why it has been held back until this point. This game also allowed the developers to tie in many elements from the movie “Silent Hill.”

The cut-scenes in the beginning and end of this game are absolutely beautiful. I’m still amazed by the power of the PSP to create such great graphics in a hand-held. The graphics while playing the game however are noticeably worse. Although not horrible, they do remind me of the early PS2 days.

Game play hasn’t changed from the other Silent Hills. Find a weapon, smash, punch or shoot a demon, then run…fast. The dark is where you will be spending most of your time and your trusty flashlight is the only light to guide you through dark hallways, tunnels, and sewers. You will find your self constantly toggling between the “nightmare” world and the “regular” world to finish tasks and solve puzzles. If you’re like me, you’ll be doing a lot of exploring as well. Finding things such as health drinks, weapons, and clues to the storyline.

The storyline feels like a recycled version of the other Silent Hill Games. I was expecting a big “whoa” moment, but never got it. In fact I left the game a bit more confused then when I started. Origins really didn’t answer the questions I had. The only question it did answer was how the “little demon girl” was introduced to Alessa.

The camera angles were an absolute joke. The developers did give the option to center the camera, but it barely ever worked and it certainly didn’t work when a demon was hunting you down. The awkward camera made it so when you entered a new scene and held the joystick while changing scenes, the character would run back to the scene he was just in…what a fucking pain in the ass and waste of time. I did this dance a few times before I realized it was best to not hold the stick while changing scenes.

I only ran into one glitch while playing. At the end of the game, after getting the room 500 key, DON’T go back through the managers office. I took that route 3 times and each time it froze the screen. I could still hear myself turn the flashlight on and off, but the screen was black and the loading symbol stayed on the screen. I’m guessing the reason for this was the triggering of a cut-scene when Travis gets to room 500. So, if you’re not in the right place when you get to room 500, your game will crash.

Replay value was much larger than I had expected. There are more than ten different unlockables, which will supply you with costumes, weapons and accessories for your next trip through the game. Get the moon gauntlets and play around with them a bit, one punch will take out a large demon. You can also get night vision goggles, which are quite helpful in the never-ending dark. The game also offers 3 different endings. But these are just a few of things you can get.

Even though I am a fan of the series I will have to give this game a 6.5 out of 10. I really did enjoy this game, but I think it was my fanboyism that was causing the excitement and not the game. So, if you’re a fan of the series or you are new to it, then this game is worth a solid rent.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The war of the Lions (PSP) Review

This right here is why I bought a PSP.

I spent -alot- of time playing this game in highschool, -alot- of time. When I saw that they FINALLY remade it for the psp I think I violently deuced in my pants. Also seeing this finally gives hope that they will remake FF7.

For all intents and purposes it is exactly the same game as it was in 1997, the only additions were these kinda cool semi-cell shaded but not really cell shaded, more like pencil shaded in movies that replace some events in the storyline. Also they gayed up the language and replaced the 'normal' talk in tactics 1.0 with like, Shakespere to the fucking extreme. They added two new jobs, The Dark Knight and the Onion Knight, Dark Knight is pretty much the same as Gafgarion was before and Onion knight sucks balls (no abilitys but can equip everything). They added a multiplayer cooperate mode and a vs battle via the ad hoc, but good luck playing it unless some of your friends convinced you to buy a psp to play with them. NOBODY I know locally has a psp (this changed last night, but I doubt hes getting tactics) so I havent even had a chance to try this feature out. They shouldve handled it the same way MGS:Portable Ops works online, just playing online like everything else but using the wireless to do so.

The graphics on the units were sprites so those look the same, the geometry looks like crap because its psx quality, and the animations for the special moves (exception: the new DK skills) look like crap (IE: 1997).

But nobody ever played this for the graphics, they played it for the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF OPTIONS FOR YOUR DUDES. The customization options are still rediculous, new skills in almost all the jobs in addition to totally fucking up the names of the abilities you know and love. Accumulate is now Shout or something equally gay, All the monk names are completely different, etc.

If this was 1997 I would have to give Tactics a 9+, but it isnt. Granted this is for a handheld system I can give you a little as far as graphics, but still.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The war of the Lions manages to garner a 7.75 out of me due to the aging quality of the graphics and the fact that I doubt the multiplayer is 'amazing', in theory I get to try this feature out soon so i might bump the score up, but it wont go up more than half a point, if that. The gameplay is still everything it was back then, and awesome. The in depth story and all its twists and turns still holds up against the best written works ever made.

A Must have for any final fantasy fan, even if you have to get a psp to play it.