CRISIS CORE –FINAL FANTASY VII– REUNION Is An Almost Perfect Remaster | Review | Retrospective |

the idea for crisis call came quite late into the development of the compilation of Final Fantasy VII project after the release of the first game in the compilation before crisis that game's director hajimi Tabata was approached by tatsunamora and yoshinori katarse to direct a game for the PSP according to Tabata the plan was always for it to be a game in the Final Fantasy series but after a chat with namora and katase it was decided it should be a new title in the compilation of Final Fantasy VII initially it was set to be a port remaster of before crisis as that game was confined to NTT the Como mobile phones severely limiting the player base the Morrison originally envisioned calling it before Crisis Core but with it turning out to be quite different to its mobile counterpart mostly due to the main character changing from the Turks to Zac Fair an important side character for Final Fantasy VII the before part of the name was dropped and Crisis Core was born Square Enix decided to go with the pre story because most of the groundwork had already been laid years earlier Zach was chosen as the lead due to his fate being predetermined and shown in ff7 and the rough story in character art was already in place since the late stages of that game's development so it just made sense to expand upon the work already done when Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII was released in Europe in June 2008 I was beyond excited one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite games now had his own game which was expanding upon his story it was a dream come true for myself and many others and a runaway success for Square Enix I'm not entirely sure about the total number it sold some sources say 2.6 million some say 3.1 million but either way it was Square enix's best-selling PSP game and was loved by fans and critics and that was it there was no PS2 port or HD remaster there wasn't even a digital version available on the PlayStation store and so a game held in high regard by pretty much everyone who played it drifted into cult classic status never really getting the audience it deserved there's a common theory that this lack of a much-needed remaster was down to licensing issues the character Genesis is visually based on the Japanese singer gact who also learns his voice to the Japanese version of the game and for a Time dressed like the character during performances I'm quite exciting though I wanted to confirm this costume fact and I learned an important lesson in correct spelling then in March 2015 just before the release of Final Fantasy type 0 HD tabata-san was asked by Digital Spy about a potential crisis called remaster to which she said no that game already had a worldwide audience whereas type zero was limited to Japan adding it's not enough for us to Simply want to do a remastered Edition because we like a game there has to be a stronger reason for it happening we'd go back and change everything from the graphics to how loading works and everything else to make it fully native to the latest generation of Hardware that might be worth doing but a remaster probably wouldn't but what I took to be the final nail in The Crisis Core HD coffee and turned out to be obvious foreshadowing because in June 2022 Square Enix released a trailer showing off Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII reunion according to nomura there were talks of making this Crisis Core remastered earlier but we were in the middle of developing the Final Fantasy VII remake so we felt it was appropriate to wait till the end of Final Fantasy VII remake before working on releasing Crisis Core reunion and in that same interview Namor Assan finally puts the gags licensing rumor to bed by saying the rumors aren't true there was nothing to do with gacts or a contract that was preventing a remastered version of Crisis Core then in December 2022 15 years after the original release on PSP Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII reunion hits door shelves selling 156 530 retail copies in its first week in Japan Square Annex has gone on record calling Crisis Core reunion something between a remake and a remaster and I completely agree with that the bones of the PSP game are there as is evident with character animations Etc but all the assets have been remade or voices re-recorded massive enhancements to combat completely read on FMV sequences and there's a list of quality of life improvements so long it could be a separate video but it isn't perfect being a pretty faithful remaster it also inherits a lot of the issues the original Crisis Core has issues that could have been fixed this way and explained a little harder into remake territory so my aim for this video is to compare both versions of the game and talk about why Crisis Core reunion isn't almost perfect remaster the improvements become apparent as soon as the game Begins for starters the quality of the four motion videos have been improved significantly they were redone by Square Enix image Studio division using AI upscaling to increase the resolution from 480 by 272 pixels and manual techniques were used to implement other changes like replacing the original Buster sword design with the one used in ff7 remake I've seen a lot of people complain about the end result of this upscaling but I think it's fine sure the fmvs look quite grainy in comparison to a completely new render but whether it's due to time cost or the fact Square Enix had a habit of losing source files they decided to go with AI upscaling and it does the job they've also updated the in-game cutscenes from the PSP which used slightly High Fidelity in engine models to allow them to be more expressive some of these cut scenes were then rendered which looked fine when playing natively on the PSP but when using a PSP component cable to play on the TV or more realistically when using an emulator which is how the majority of people will experience this you can clearly see compression artifacts which gives these scenes an ugly look I don't know if it was done to save space on the UMD but most of the other in-engine cutscenes don't have this issue these cutscenes have all been completely redone with the new in-engine models which by themselves look good but it can be jarring when transitioning into full motion video because the two art styles just don't match the new look brings the game more in line with Final Fantasy VII remake which by itself is a smart move but the character designs in the full motion video are in line with Final Fantasy VII advent children and don't completely match seven remakes aesthetic and the look of the in-game models themselves never reach remakes level of quality or detail sitting somewhere in between that and crisis called PSP and even then the look is inconsistent with some shots looking great and others looking weird or just bad the fact that bones of Christ is called PSP are used pretty much one-to-one in character animations creates a weird issue with how certain scenes look when in motion the original art style looked a lot closer to nomura's more cartoony designs giving the original game an almost anime look to it which was reflected in characters often exaggerated and cartoony movements on the PSP it looked perfectly fine but in reunion having more realistic looking characters moving like anime characters feels off to me and it often pulled me out of the experience to be honest as good as reunion looks I do prefer the visuals of Crisis called PSP it looks a lot closer to nomorrah's designs and the exaggeration in the characters movements and facial animations makes them far more expressive the character's voices probably have something to do with that too but that's the topic we'll talk about later one area that I feel has been improved across the board is gameplay in crisis called PSP Zach felt heavy and kind of slow to control his movement was mapped to the d-pad and analog stick so sensitivity and accuracy were never a thing as anyone who's used a PSP knows how limiting that analog stick slider thing was and the camera was mapped to the shoulder buttons making it restrictive and clunky to use with a very limited visual window in reunion Zach is a lot nicer to control his animations are smoother making him feel quicker and more responsive and now there's a sprint button to make getting around even faster and the camera is mapped to the right analog stick allowing for full 3d control even in battle which makes a huge difference as during fights in the PSP version the camera would pull out in lock-in position as the shoulder buttons were used for something else the story still takes place over 11 chapters or a prologue in 10 chapters depend on who you ask and there's a ton of quality of life changes there's now a compass at the top of the screen pointing toward your objective pretty much ripped from Seven remake and the map now has Main and sub events clearly marked in blue and orange a feature that was frustratingly absent from the PSP game the menus have been given a complete overhaul and they look great compared to the PSP which is good because you'll be spending a lot of time looking at them one of the more annoying features carried over from the original is the male as the story unfolds Zach receives mail from the various characters and NPCs he meets some mail offers useful hints and tips some share bits of Law and backstory and others just waste your time but there's so much of it and you receive it so often it becomes an annoyance before long luckily reunion has streamlined the process of reading and sorting mail but it's still a feature I wish I could switch off as I don't think it adds anything to the overall experience annoyingly there's no trophies attached to mail making it something you can't ignore if you're going for that Platinum items can be purchased at any time outside of battle by using the shops from the main menu and more shops become available by finding their addresses in treasure chests as gifts from NPCs or as Mission rewards being able to access a shop anywhere at any time always felt weird to me especially coming off games like the original ff7 I felt that being able to buy items as and when you needed them made the game easier than it should have been items are no longer a commodity if they could just be replaced on a whim but the reality of it is it made no difference whatsoever as even with them being easily accessible I still found myself hoarding items like some kind of kleptomaniac squirrel it's also been funny seeing similar shop systems pop up in Final Fantasy 13 and 15. essentially making it The New Normal it's possible to get through the game with just the shops you unlock naturally as the story progresses but the items that become available with some of the Hidden shops make the effort to find them totally worth it on top of the inclusion of a generous autosave there's an abundance of save points scattered throughout the story chapters they are most obviously used for manually saving your game but also completely restore your hit points ability points and Magic points a feature that was sorely missing from the original game save points are also used to access missions this game's version of side quests completing missions will net you new and Powerful material and equipment and each Mission has a few treasure chests scattered throughout containing equally strong prizes unfortunately missions are where the majority of Crisis caused gameplay is focused due to the small size of the PSP UMD a dual layer disc Can Only Hold 1.8 gig less than half the storage of a single layer DVD a lot of space was taken up with music voices videos and a lot of compromises had to be made to save space this led to the bulk of the gameplay being padded out with 300 missions taking place over 5 or 7 environments that are repeated ad nauseum reusing Assets in this way is a great way to provide more gameplay with limited disk space but it doesn't stop them from getting real boring real quickly now In fairness they are mostly optional I finished my latest PSP playthrough with around 20 of the missions complete and that gave me more than enough levels and gear to beat the final boss and on my first PSP playthrough all those years ago I actually enjoyed the missions I'd play on the bus on my way to work and before they got tedious I'd have arrived at my destination and it was time to switch it off similarly I'd use my short break times to complete a couple more slowly chipping away at them over time they were designed to be played like this in short bursts on a handheld the problem with that is that style of gameplay Loop doesn't translate so well to a home console now I can't speak for the switch version or even the steam deck but being primarily handheld systems I imagine and they offer a similar experience to the PSP I however was playing reunion on the PS5 and due to wanting this remaster for over a decade you bet I was going to squeeze every last drop of gameplay I could out of it and so I did and oh my God it was a slog I will admit filing the material and equipment that absolutely breaks the game was a fun reward even if it does make the rest of the campaign fights trivial and fighting and defeating the hidden boss was gratifying even if the boss itself was a lesson in [ __ ] but I digress the missions as they are are a relic from a different time and a different platform that are not a good fit on the PS5 if there's one kind thing I can say about the missions in Crisis Core reunion it's that they allowed me to fully experience an experiment with a combat system which has been improved upon the PSP original in every way attacking the exact sword is now mapped to its own button and it can perform a quick and responsive five hit combo in real time unlike on the PSP where the melee attack was part of an overall command bar which also housed any equip magic and abilities as well as your items sword attacks were generally a lot slower with the option to attack again not appearing until after the current attack animation was almost finished cycling through the commands is done with the PSP shoulder buttons which work well enough but accidentally knocking the shoulder button would cycle to the next option in line breaking a combo and triggering an unwanted magic attack or ability if you didn't notice in time it would also remember what the active command was when the previous battle ended and would start the next battle in that position often leading to accidentally casting magic at the start of the next battle when he wanted to use your sword by you I mean me because I did that a lot battles in the PSP version also feel slower with enemies attacking less frequently than they do in reunion which is possibly to compensate for the fact commands are on a menu and scrolling through them takes time it was also much harder if not impossible to break out of attack animations using God or Dodge but in reunion everything is smooth fast and responsive it doesn't quite reach the Finesse of 7 remakes combat but it's a huge improvement over its predecessor Zach soft locks onto enemies they're carry over from the PSP which I actually like as it stops him from flaming wildly at nothing if a Target dies or is missed but now you can lock on properly at the click of a button for a more focused assault I wasn't a fan of the default controls which had X as the Dodge button but thankfully there is an option to completely customize the controls so I made cycle the Dodge button and had a much better time again the ability to customize control layout is a huge improvement over the PSP which had no options at all combat encounters take very little skill in Crisis Core reunion with most battles being a lesson in spamming your most powerful magic or ability until your MP or AP runs out and those particular resources are refilled so frequently that it never really becomes an issue any noticeable challenge against stronger enemies and bosses usually comes down to the equipment and material you're carrying a starting a fight with the wrong gear will put you at a noticeable disadvantage or see you wiped out completely luckily when you die in combat you're given the option to review your equipment and try the fight again giving you an opportunity to battle with the correct setup this removes any sense of punishment for failing which to be honest I'm not against a few years ago I'd have accused it of being too easy but now I'm pushing 40 trying to balance a job a home and personal life and this little YouTube channel so it's nice to be able to mess up and not lose hours of progress wasting my time and generally crushing my soul this is a massive improvement over a crisis called PSP which will automatically kick you back to the splash screen if you die during a story chapter losing any unsafe progress or kicks you back to the safe point if you die during a mission which is better as it only loses Mission progress but still not ideal also capturing this footage made me realize how difficult it is to die during the story in the PSP version it's honestly crazy and I never realized you can't die against the behemoth at the start of the game until I try to do it for this video aborting failed fights also resets your items to what they were before the battle removing a rather lucrative item farming exploit from reunion at a certain point in the story Zac acquires to Buster sword and a new mechanic called Battle Stance gets introduced to combat pressing square and X together shifts Zach into Battle Stance changing his regular attack into a slower but stronger attack stops him flinching when hit by enemy attacks as well as giving him an automatic guard for as long as the stance is active whenever Zach attacks using Battle Stance or uses command abilities while in Battle Stance he gains a proficiency percentage which unlocks useful passive abilities over time such as gaining HP and AP from defeated enemies or ignoring an enemy's barrier effect and I know someone is angrily writing in the comments he also gets proficiency points by switching to Battle Stance just as an enemy attack is about to hit him but it gives you such a small amount it's not really worth mentioning so I'd save your energy if I were you so here's a hot take I don't like battle stands activating it by pressing X and square at the same time is clunky and would often use an item instead it only lasts for one combo hearing Zach repeat the same lines over and over and over while using it gets irritating real quick here we go thing taking you down shut up and for some baffling reason it costs AP to use I've seen people say they like it because it brings the combat more in line with seven remake and that's a fair comment but I would have much preferred it if they just nicked the operator and Punisher stances one to one that being said this too is a huge improvement over the original game in the PSP game One Second Twice The Buster sword his earlier quick five hit combo is replaced with a slower four hit combo and from what I can tell there's no increase to your attack power another New Edition in reunion is the casting phase large enemies and bosses have before using their special abilities when this happens an ability gauge will appear and attacking the enemy will lower the gauge and lessen the impact of the attack and if the bar is reduced to zero before the casting phase ends the attack is canceled I really like this some of the special abilities can be devastating so it's nice to have an option to lower the damage you'll take it also adds a sense of urgency to boss fights and feels like a mechanic from an MMO there's nothing wrong with the instant cast abilities in the PSP version adjusting breaking the ability gauge is more fun is that can equip Materia to use various abilities and magic or gain passive effects such as increased hit points and Magic points at first he can equip four but after a couple of story chapters he's able to carry six at a time the game throws material at you like it's going out of fashion and you quickly become the owner of many of the same types but not all Materia is created equally and many have different values these values affect Zach's stats so it's best to keep him equipped with the highest value material material also has the ability to level up and become more powerful eventually leveling up to master round I found it was a good idea to have a slot or two used to rotate material in and out of my setup to get as many leveled up as I could in case I needed them later which I invariably did each material slot has a face button designated to it and equipping a magical ability material to a slot will assign it to that face button it is then used in battle by holding L1 to bring up the material menu and pressing the button the material is assigned to similar to Quick ability hotkeys in 7 remake or combat and ff14 when using a controller so the new ability casting system and the true real-time melee combat make fights from reunion a lot faster than npsp which also means the enemies attack more frequently making the whole experience far more exciting it's also only the in-battle item menu That's cycled through using the shoulder buttons which feels much more natural and keeps combat at a Fun Pace but these improved systems also make combat a bit more chaotic and as I said earlier it doesn't take long for flights to devolve into a game of spamming your favorite ability or magic attack enemies are strong or weak to certain Elemental attacks and Crisis Core reunion is kind enough to highlight which elements enemies are weak against with an icon next to their name hitting an enemy with their weakness deals considerably more damage to them often killing them outright which is immensely satisfying using magic depletes MP and using abilities uses AP both of which can be replenished at save points or with recovery items that can be purchased from the shops and once Zak reaches the rank of first class in the story he will receive a combat evaluation after each battle meeting specific requirements such as finishing the fight with no damage or defeating an enemy with magic or a limit break Etc will reward a result bonus and restore HP MP AP or a combination of the three depending on how you did this is a new addition to reunion and I'm not sure I'm a fan it makes it very difficult to run out of HP MP and AP due to being able to farm fights for stat recovery which in turn makes the game feel a lot easier than the original I think it makes it feel more arcadey too which I don't like it's a weird complaint I know but whatever pretty early on in the story you unlock the ability to fuse two material together to create a new one there are all kinds of rules that come with it like new material usually being set to level one unless two of the same material you refused in which case the new material will carry over the highest level of the two that made it and fusing Master Level material creates higher level material then there's parameter carry over and to be honest I don't understand the minutia of any of this the in-game tutorials talk about percentages and conversion rates and my brain just isn't wired to understand any of it and to be honest it made a simple thing seem needlessly complicated I personally found that just searching through all the possible combinations and fusing the ones with the biggest numbers got me exactly what I needed this improves on the PSP in a couple of minor ways firstly you can now see what the newly fuse material will be without confirming your choice of the second material second you can now fuse material that you currently have equipped which saves a whole lot of faffing about and the material menu now has categories to cycle through making searching through your trove of magic balls much easier there is still far too much material though and annoying me it can't be sold it can however be turned into SP which is used for material fusion and spinning the DMW it's also possible to use items to boost material Fusion once a certain key item has been found using items raises specific parameters and the soon to be fused material and can give huge Buffs to your stats taking Zach to game breaking levels of power luckily reunion hands out material like treats at Halloween so you're never in danger of blocking your progress if you fuse the wrong thing by accident if anything it encourages experimentation and the game will often send you hints on how to create certain material add to that the fact the PSP Crisis Core is 15 years old there are countless Fusion guides if you get stuck and if you feel like using guides is cheating but asking for help isn't The Crisis Core Community itself is pretty great and very helpful as far as I'm saying so crisis caused big gimmick is the digital mind wave or DMW the DMW is that slot machine looking thing in the top left of the screen and its job is basically to hand out Buffs it spins automatically and costs a small amount of SP each time it does but you don't need to worry about that as you get SP for winning fights and certain wins on the dnw and unless you spend it off using material you'll never run out the DMW consists of numbers from one to seven and portraits of characters that makes throughout the story with new characters being added whenever he meets and makes an emotional connection with someone when three identical pictures line up you get a limit break which you can trigger at any time by pressing triangle to do a special attack heal or receive a buff depending on which character the limit break is associated with you'll also recover some HP MP and AP you can only hold one limit breaker at a time so if you're holding on to one and the DMW gives you another the one you're holding will be replaced and limit breaks can't be carried over between battles this is different and better to how they work in the original in that game limit breaks trigger automatically whenever they occur whether you want it to or not I love the limit breaks in Crisis Core reunion and they are so much more useful than just attacking or healing as firing went off at the right time will cancel or ignore an enemy's special attack and using this tactic saved my life on many occasions especially against the hidden super boss when the DMW matches two images one on the left on the right it enters a limit Verge State all that means is you're on the verge of a limit break as in you just need to match one more picture but while in a limit verch state if any numbers line up one of your material will level up for example drawing a limit Verge if you get two ones the Materia in slot one will level up once or if you get three fours the material in Slot 4 will level up twice and if any numbers line up while the dnw isn't in a limit verch State Zach will gain Buffs such as no MP or AP use invincibility stuff like that but most egregiously the DMW is also used to level Zach up despite what many people think you do actually gain experience points in Crisis Core however there is no way to see them and no way to track them you just have to take it in a good faith that they're there once a certain amount of exp has been acquired the DMW will unlock the chance to line up three sevens and whenever this occurs as that gains a level and gets a little stronger I'm honestly in two minds about this on the one hand not having three sevens locked behind an exp will would make leveling way too easy to exploit but on the other hand if there's exp why not just level up the traditional way there are times when I wouldn't level up for hours as the fights I was in would be over before the BMW had time to reward anything then I'd have a period where I'd level up three or four fights in a row I don't hate it I just don't think it's as well optimized as it could be I'd even be happy if I could see the EXP counter at least then I'd know if I had a level upcoming it doesn't even fit thematically with Zach randomly getting stronger like with his limit breaks because he's thinking about his friends or whatever because it isn't truly random at least reunion improves on the PSP version by allowing a level up to trigger at the end of battle anyway the limit gauge has five stages that range between light and Heavenly and the higher the stage the more limit verges occur rewarding you with more frequent limit breaks as well as speed leveling material the BMW is essentially a representation of Zack's unfocused mind as it races during battle occasionally settling for a second that he thinks about someone important to him allowing him to focus for a moment because of this if Zack interacts with someone special during the story and his emotions become heightened they will be on his mind more than anyone else and he has a higher chance of entering a limit Verge with that character whenever this occurred with the character whose limit breaks were super powerful or useful I'd end up spending a few hours doing missions to exploit the hell out of it in addition to the regular BMW there are some extra modes that are knocked through doing missions namely summon mode and truckerby mode some of my unlocks when you acquire your first summon this will cause the BMW to occasionally enter summon mode where all the real portraits change to summons and if three of the same portrait match a corresponding limit rate move will be added to your stock to use when you need unlike regular limit breaks summons are triggered by pressing L3 and R3 so they won't replace whichever limit break you're holding on to the summons are great and their pre-rendered attack animation videos look amazing and a fun to watch occasionally but they can drag a little too long sometimes so the devs were nice enough to include a skip video button then there's chocolate bar mode which unlocks after requiring a special item this is the same deal as summon mode but instead of monsters it adds fun creatures like mughals and Cactus to the DMW once they've been acquired and not all of the BMW wins are attacks some of them will buff you and some of them will even level up your material however these limit breaks are also triggered with L3 and R3 so if you're holding on to a summon it will be overwritten I'd always be happy when Chocobo mode activated especially if I was grinding material levels and got a Moogle limit break there's another mode that unlocks too but I don't know if naming it counts as a spoiler so I'm not going to talk about it the DMW in reunion is a massive improvement over the one in the PSP being able to save limit breaks to use later in battle is a great addition and the whole thing is far less intrusive in the PSP game whenever you'd enter a limit Verge the action would stop as the BMW takes up the entire screen spinning and spinning in as it decides if you get a limit break or not it constantly breaks the flow of combat and makes battles take far longer than they need to and they're unskippable you're just trapped there like a prisoner to fate it feels just like Vegas the summon fmvs have also been completely redone in reunion and not just upscaled with AI like the rest of the cutscenes why Square Enix opted to animate new summon cutscenes for the summons and upscale cutscenes for the story I don't know but I imagine it has something to do with time and money as the summit animations are considerably shorter than the story cut scenes either way they look great then there's the general UI overhaul making the screen look more modern and tidy compared to its predecessor which looks like a Pachinko parlor and most importantly every single memory image and video is skippable from the moment it begins some scenes are skippable on the PSP but the event and limit scenes aren't so this is way better interestingly they were meant to be skippable on the PSP but by the time the devs realized the feature hadn't been added it was too late to implement the BMW's fine it's a fun gimmick that constantly rewards and Buffs you which does make the game easier at times but it keeps it fun the thing that's annoying about it is all that stuff I just explained about how it works ultimately doesn't matter it's out of your control you can equip Materia to skew it more towards certain outcomes but other than that it's random which would normally be fine but this time around there's a trophy attached to completing the BMW and the randomness of it makes it a nightmare and a Time sink I'm also not a fan of not being completely in control of a combat situation in an RPG even an action RPG there's a level of strategy that you lose with Randomness and I feel like it takes something away from the experience but that could just be me I just want to talk about the music for a moment and I can't think of a way to slot it in naturally so I'm gonna talk about it here the music in this game is awesome one of the main motifs of the soundtrack is a song titled succession it's a beautifully Melancholy piano piece that perfectly captures the underlying sadness of the events to unfold and often appears at tragic points in the story Marco City with its Reverb electric percussion swelling scent and piano break sounds like something from a Faith No More album Vigilant Knight oozes the feeling of a film Noir and acts almost like a precursor to the Turks theme from Final Fantasy VII and the battle themes all of them go way harder than they have any right to with break beats and wiggling electric guitar roaming in the afternoon sun sounds like a summer's day in the 90s with its layered guitar and exciting Tempo I could do a video just talking about the sound strike along I won't because describing music isn't one of my strengths but I could I've listened to this soundtrack a couple times a year since 2007 and every time I put it on I'm Blown Away by how good it is I honestly don't think there's a bad song on it I'm a rock fan metal grunge industrial and this soundtrack just takes everything I love and mixes it up into this big emotional journey and I absolutely adore it it's my favorite Final Fantasy soundtrack so the chance to experience it again in High Fidelity honestly meant the world to me there's just so much good in here the price of freedom is one of the best songs to Grace a game living Legacy is the perfect end credit medley and the song Why by Japanese artist ayaka is so powerful during that scene it gets me every time I highly recommend listening to it okay so up to this point Crisis Core reunion has been a pretty great remaster but one area that lets it down is the new voiceover I know it's a meme at this point to talk about Zach's new voice but it is bad I have nothing against Caleb Pearce the new actor playing zag I've never seen any of the TV shows he's been in so other than seven remake my only point of reference is a clip of a live-action Fairly OddParents I found when researching who he was headed out Zach now sounds like peanut butter gamer doing an impression of Zack's original voice actor Rick Gomez and it just doesn't work for me you're a Turk too I'm [ __ ] hey everybody peebs here the first time Zach opened his mouth my reaction was something like [Music] he has a weird delivery and it genuinely made me cringe at times but I'm not convinced it's his fault one of the biggest challenges reunion has over the original is now all dialogue is voice acted including regular NPCs and so much of it is unspeakably awful oh yeah if you are you can stay and watch us generate materia [Music] correct sadly our days of working together maybe coming to an end now and a lot of the important main characters too just don't sound as good as their PSP counterparts I thought I was just remembering the original game with a rose tinted hearing aid but after replaying it in its entirety for this video I can honestly say the old performances sound way better with the exception of Tyler Hoechlin who is killing it is sephiroth he's going from strength to strength as he becomes more comfortable with the character and I cannot wait to hear what he brings to seven rebirth personally I think these subpar performances come down to two reasons first off and this is just speculation on my part there's a very high chance these voiceover sessions were done remotely during covid times meaning Not only would the actors be unable to bounce off each other in a studio they wouldn't have been directed properly a poor performance from one actor probably their fault but from the majority of the cast that just screams director issues to me and I know I want to talk with my voice and an ability to read a script without sounding like a robot but reunion's voice over isn't good there are a ton of great videos doing proper comparisons and Analysis out there who do a much better job talking about the changes in voice performance than I do so I highly recommend checking them out I'm gonna talk story spoilers now so if you don't want anything ruined for you skip to the time on screen another area reunion could do better on is the story bear with me on this something about crisis course story always felt off to me but I pushed past it and enjoyed it and then ultimately forgot about everything up to the neighborheim incident but playing it again now I realized what that feeling was I don't like Crisis course Story the main stripped-down basic idea is great Soldier first class Genesis defects from Soldier and takes a bunch of second and third class Soldiers with him then during a mission to wutai Soldier first class Stan Gill goes missing Soldier first class sephiroth in Soldier's second class Zach are then tasked with hunting down and killing their friends and former comrades sephiroth refuses because they're his friends Zack goes all hell breaks loose comes home and is promoted to Soldier first class Q globetrotting Adventure to find the Rogue agents and discover what happened this stuff is great it's like an Espionage Thriller but it's padded out with so many half finished ideas it drags it down take Angel for instance we spend almost no time with him because he goes missing in chapter one we don't get to see how close he and Zach are or see what a great mentor he is we're given a little look and then we're told everything else the this is the opposite of show don't tell this is bad storytelling then there's Genesis personally I don't have an issue of the constant poetry and that hey guys look this is just like Loveless thing he does he's a rich attractive theater kid he's going to be annoying so it works what I don't like is that his story is a watered-down version of sephiros from Final Fantasy VII celebrated Soldier first class finds out he was experimented on with alien [ __ ] sounds bad Q globetrotting adventure to stop him and I really don't like the way he's shoehorned into the nebelheim incident it makes no sense for him to be there it's dumb similarly I don't like the whole a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to midgar situation where after escaping Nibelheim Zack takes a diversion to benora to fight Genesis and set up the events of the Durga Cerberus post-creditacy it feels like the idea for this game began with the neighborheim incident and the creators went okay we need to write something to get us there which they did but it was full of so much fluff that they ended up writing themselves into a corner then there's all the stuff with Hollander who is probably the least interesting character in all of Final Fantasy actually while I'm here I'm tired of this one Wing stuff One Wing sephiroth I get it safer saffron had a wing and he had One Winged Angel as his boss fight music which over time has become Sephiroth's main theme but in Crisis Core they're just handing out wings like Oprah hands out cars I mean come on I know it can be explained by Genova cells but the truth is the first time a human looking sephiroth appeared in a game with a single black wing and One-Winged Angel as his theme was Kingdom Hearts and that has infected Final Fantasy VII ever since and I don't like it at all I'm just glad they knit this in the bud or it would have ruined the franchise forever anyway there's also the clone army stuff which to me feels like it was written into the story because the devs needed an excuse for copy pasted enemy models to save space on the UMD and that's the rub a lot of Crisis course story issues come down to the fact that PSP UMD didn't have enough space plot points that needed expanding on were trim down or removed completely for example a whole section of game was cut that would have showed Zack and Cloud traveling to midgar after escaping niborheim that would have expanded their relationship instead of being told why they were closed we would have experienced it also Zach finds out from cisner that director Lazard was helping Hollander all along and has now defected it's explaining one of the most important events in the story so far and it's a throwaway line that if you not paying attention you'd Miss and did you know Lazard is the illegitimate son of President Shinra who infiltrated the company with the intention of bringing it down from the inside that would have been a fun subplot to see in the game instead of reading about on a Wiki at the beginning of this video when I mentioned reunion inherited issues from Crisis Core that could have been fixed had they leaned a little heavier into remake territory this is what I was on about Square Enix had the perfect opportunity to add story content that was cut from the PSP release due to space explaining plot points that were glossed over giving us more time with characters and more detailed World building not changing the story but enhancing it it's not like they don't have a precedent for this either Kingdom Hearts has its final mixed versions that add cutscenes and content enhancing those stories so why not this even the name of the game perfectly fits a director's cup a reunion of cut content reforming to make a complete and perfect version I realize I'm coming across as ungrateful now a little please sir can I have some more but I love Final Fantasy 7 and I love Crisis Core and as good as reunion is it could have been so much more and to be honest the fact that apart from the voice over the only complaint I have about the game is bad storytelling and all the stuff that isn't in it should say a lot about how good the game is the combat is excellent and the material Fusion allows a level of customization not even the original ff7 has the music is some of the best in the franchise and one of my personal favorite soundtracks and seeing the neighborheim incident play out as it happened is an incredible experience and as much as there's stuff in the story I don't like it had no effect on the stuff that mattered ultimately Crisis Core is about Zach fair in his relationships with the people around him everything else is just background noise and Zach is such a likable character and his relationships are so well portrayed that seeing the DMW do what the DMW does during the final battle is so effective and I'm not ashamed to admit that yes I did cry at the end a few times and I still get wet eyes when thinking about it to this day Crisis Core reunion takes everything great about the PSP P original and makes it even better apart from the voice acting and I think that's why the stuff that could have been improved but wasn't stands out as much as it does to me but everything said Crisis Core reunion is an excellent game and it's a must play for fans of Final Fantasy VII there's a question I see online a lot A variation of I've never played Final Fantasy VII should I play this or I've only played Seven remakes should I play this and a lot of the answers to those questions are usually no play ff7 PS1 first you'll be confused but I'm gonna go against the grain and say if you've never played ff7 or only played Seven remake then yes you should definitely play this you won't have a better or worse experience than people who have played the original Seven it will just be different like the kids who grew up watching the original Star Wars Trilogy then saw the prequels versus the kids who saw the prequels before watching the original trilogy it's the same story you're just experiencing it differently and maybe that's how you're supposed to experience it so yeah Crisis Core reunion have you played it what did you think let me know in the comments also I've put links in the description to all the interviews and articles I use for research in this one so I recommend you check those out if you want to know more behind the scenes stuff and if you think I'm spreading misinformation tell them not me and if you're still watching after this long thank you so much it genuinely means the world that you're choosing to spend your time watching these long ass videos I make and to my subscribers old and new thank you for your patience too this month has been horrible with software issues and then health issues and I'll be honest this one was an absolute struggle to get out so if you thought my voice sounded off at any point that's why and finally don't forget to like the video and subscribe if you're new I'll see you in the next one

Channel: The Game Cupboard

Views: 2,753

Keywords: final fantasy VII, final fantasy 7, FF7, FF VII, crisis core, reunion, crisis core reunion, ps5, switch, steam, deck, xbox, review, psp, gameplay, critic, voice acting, preview, is crisis core reunion good, worth buying, before you buy, worth playing, is crisis core reunion bad, comparison, compare, gackt, zack, the game cupboard, remaster, remake, final fantasy, final fantasy vii, ff7, compilation of final fantasy vii, compilation of, retrospective, is good, is bad, rebirth, who is zack

Id: C0tlPtG8z_w

Length: 47min 17sec (2837 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023