Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Is Better Than Your Mates Say It Is | Review | Retrospective|

a few weeks ago I was at The Crisis Core reunion launch party in London I was talking to a couple of friends about the compilation of Final Fantasy VII and I said something along the lines of the urge of Cerberus needs a remake and one of my friends scrunched up his face in disgust and said yeah that game sucks so I said oh have you played it and he said no and that was the moment I decided to make this video you see there's a lot of hate directed at durge of Cerberus and although some of it is valid criticism from people who have played the game there's also a disproportionate amount of hate and negativity coming from people who haven't they're just parroting what they've heard other people say over the years and then people parrot that and then people parrot that and then before you know it you have Final Fantasy subreddits full of comments declaring Dirge of Cerberus sucks I mean I haven't actually played it but I know it sucks and I hate that genuinely I don't understand how people can form such strong opinions about media they've never experienced another example would be the amount of people who hate the Twilight films despite never watching them or the amount of people who hate Nickelback despite never listening to them it's really dumb now I'll be the first to admit surge of cyberus is a weird game in fact it's weird that it exists at all so to understand that better we need to talk about the creation of the compilation of Final Fantasy VII [Music] the early 2000s were a troubling time for the company we know today's Square Enix Final Fantasy VII unquestionably changed the gaming landscape after its initial release in 1997. for many it was the first foray into the world of Japanese role-playing games and it opened the door to that genre for millions of people myself included whether you love it or hate it there is no denying the impact it had on the gaming World Final Fantasy 7 sold close to 14 million copies on the PS1 a number that its successes eight and nine wouldn't come close to only selling 10 million and 6 million respectively still great numbers but nothing close to the heights of ff7 but it was shortly after the release of seven that the company began work on one of the biggest mistakes they'd ever make Final Fantasy the spirits within in development for four years with a total budget of 137 million dollars almost doubled the rumored initial budget of 70 million dollars the spirits within almost bankrupt squaresoft worse still it bombed at the box office only making back 85 million dollars this failure almost caused NX to pull out of a deal to merge the companies and so need to buy an 18.6 stake in the company keeping them limping along through the release of Final Fantasy 10 Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 10 2. luckily 10 and 10 2 sold close to 21 million copies combined pretty much saving the company and according to the polygon article Final Fantasy VII an oral history it was this success that inspired the creation of the compilation of Final Fantasy VII squadronics president at the time I reichiwada was quoted as saying it's true that we had financial reasons for it when I joined in 2000 square was on the verge of going bankrupt and right before margin with NX Final Fantasy 10 2 contributed to our overall profit which was the greatest in squares history from the consumer side Final Fantasy has great stories and solid characters and people wanted to see where characters came from and what their backstories were and what happened next one thing I made sure of was that we had the same creators work on each of the spin-offs so if it's a spin-off for Final Fantasy VII I made sure that katasi-san in the Morrison were the key creators to do it or else it would turn into a different game enter the compilation of Final Fantasy VII a multimedia project created by seven director yoshinori kitase in seven character designer tetsuyunamora the compilation of Final Fantasy VII was set to expand upon the story of seven through books a movie an anime OVA and several games similar to how the story of The Matrix had been expanded through Comics video games and the animatrix which coincidentally had helped from animators from the failed movie The Spirits within although officially kicked off in September 2004 with the release of before crisis Final Fantasy VII an action RPG for mobile phones starring the Turks and set six years before the events of Final Fantasy VII this game was only ever officially available in Japan and way in the west wouldn't see our first entry in the compilation until almost exactly one year later with the straight to DVD movie Final Fantasy VII advent Children which released to a very mixed reception I personally loved it at the time or at least I managed to convince myself I did even going so far as to get a tattoo from it on my back re-watching it the other year I don't know the animation especially for the time is genuinely incredible the characters are designed in a way that perfectly Blends realism and Anime so they never fall into The Uncanny Valley and the set pieces and fights are amazing to watch but everything in between feels kind of hollow it's set two years after the end of seven and involves a disease with no known cure killing the population and a trio of antagonists trying to resurrect series villain sephoroth to finish what he started it reuses the reunion plot point from seven and at times comes across as little more than fan service but I'm not entirely sure which fans are being service because this doesn't feel like the world we saved in 97. there was a new version called Advent Children complete released in 2009 that adds 30 minutes of new scenes which massively improve the original but due to the level of ambiguity of the plot the story still leaves a lot of fans scratching their heads and it is basically impenetrable to anyone who hasn't played the game first it would be another year until fans over here got their hands on a compilation game outside of the original and let me tell you the announcement of this game got me very excited in school Vincent Valentine was my favorite character in Final Fantasy VII everything from his design to his Moody character spoke to me and it's no surprise I turned into a goth shortly after the thing that's crazy about Vincent getting his own game is the fact he's an entirely optional character in ff7 he's easy to miss and not essential to the main plot of the game at all but he ended up becoming one of the most popular characters in the series and his backstory is so closely tied to sephiroth that for 25 years there have been theories that Vincent is Sephora's true father and I was gonna put a Shadow the Hedgehog joke here comparing the red and black design and the use of guns in their respective solo games but it couldn't quite work it out and I wasn't happy putting out something this shitty and half finished because I'm not saying they're just Cerberus did not review well when it came out with many describing it as a generic shooter and lambasting the lack of true RPG mechanics but I liked it I thought it looked great the story was wild and enjoyable and it was fun to play I also think it was ahead of its time and its blending of RPG and shooting mechanics that just one year later would be praised in Mass Effect is it as good as Mass Effect no but after my latest playthrough 16 years after the last time I played it I can say with some confidence that I still enjoy it and yeah they're just sober as Final Fantasy 7 is good actually Dodge of Cerberus begins during the finale of Final Fantasy VII with Vincent and yuffie helping with the evacuation of midgar before it's destroyed by meteor Vincent notices a faint life signature at the controls of the sister Ray where Cloud's party defeated Hojo for the final time and rushes over to investigate there he finds the lifeless body of Professor Hojo slumped across a computer console suddenly lightning from the approaching meteor storm strikes the platform causing an explosion and when Vincent looks over at the console again hojo's body is missing and as Vincent escapes the platform with the help of yuffie the word start fragment program appear on the console's monitor from there the story jumps forward three years and we find Vincent chilling out in the town of calm waiting to meet Reeve to esti former shenra executive and pilot of cat she we see a new story about a television crew and 38 members of an investigation team that have gone missing after opening a hidden door located beneath the now abandoned shenra building according to the investigative report there is evidence that thousands of people were brought here making this the likely location of shinra's rumored human experiments suddenly calm is attacked from the air and high-tech soldiers drop in killing innocent civilians and rounding up others into containers for transportation causing Vincent to LEAP into action I really like this setup it ties into the original game nicely and offers a loose explanation for why Vincent and yuffie might not have been a part of some people's teams at the end of that game oh they were here all along helping out in mid goal just ignore the fact you never found them initially it also does a great job setting up the mystery what did the message on hojo's console mean what was Unleashed when the door below the Shinra building was opened why are these soldiers kidnapping some people and not others Etc and so forth I'm going to talk about the full story and more spoilery detail later but for now I want to talk about the gameplay Dodge of cyberus is an action RPG emphasis on the action with a variety of different skills available to dispatch your enemies as was the case with Final Fantasy VII Vincent's weapons of choice are guns so instead of the hack and slash combat that is usually associated with action RPGs combat indulge of Cerberus plays like a simplified third person shooter what's interesting is The Game's use of two control types when his weapons are holstered Vincent controls as he would in any other 3D Adventure game with full 3d movement and a camera that can be freely rotated around him but when he draws one of his guns an Aiming reticule appears on screen the camera locks behind him and the control switch to that of an FPS with left and right on the left stick becoming strife and the right stick used to aim and holstering his weapon again will switch back to the 3D movement it's basically how the controls work in Luigi's Mansion only it's better here because the camera isn't locked into a weird side-on overhead hybrid so it's actually possible to aim accurately am I saying that Durga Cerberus is better than Luigi's Mansion yeah combat itself is surprisingly decent pressing R1 draws your weapon and pressing it again fires it this did take a bit of getting used to at first as I'm used to draw and aim being one of the left shoulder buttons but once I've got my head around it it became second nature there are three types of sight support available manual automatic and the default type semi-automatic when aiming at or near an enemy a red lock-on icon will appear and shooting toward the lock-on icon will hit the target you don't need to be precise once the lock-on icon is visible as long as you're aiming in the general direction of the target you will hit it this does de-skill the game somewhat and is one of the reasons the normal difficulty is painfully easy at times but I get why it's the default option third and first person shooters are by most accounts heavily skill based games they require quick reactions and the ability to aim precisely most jrpgs on the other hand do not need quick reactions and precise aiming and since the vast majority of people playing the urge of Cerberus will be coming from Final Fantasy VII making the game more accessible to players who may not play or may have never played Shooters makes sense barrier to entry is a lot lower than other Shooters and that means more people can enjoy this pseudo sequel to Final Fantasy VII add to that the fact that PlayStation 2 controller wasn't the best to play Shooters on due to the analog sticks being super stiff and inaccurate so yeah I appreciated the extra help even if it does make most encounters a walk in the park similarly automatic instantly locks onto the closest Target and holds steady while you fire it's funny because during my playthrough one of my complaints was there was no way to lock onto individual enemies but it was there I was just using the wrong setting but really this is absolutely for people who don't play Shooters at all and just want to experience the story with minimal trouble and finally there's a manual which completely gets rid of Target locking and soft locking and allows you to play it as a standard third person shooter I've got to be honest I didn't know about this until after I'd finished the game and was reading the manual to help with my notes there's a pretty comprehensive tutorial mode and the first couple of missions throw up hint boxes along the way but at no point did it mention I could switch to fully manual aiming which seems like a bit of an oversight oh well I left it default and played it the way it was intended so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad pressing R3 will switch into a first person mode for more precise aiming and doing so when aiming a gun with a sniper scope attached adds a zoom feature just keep in mind this is an RPG at heart so how accurate your shots are is affected by the accuracy of your equipped weapon I seem to remember this being a point of contention for some people at the time missing headshots and that but it makes perfect sense to me and I didn't have a problem with it back then and I certainly don't have a problem with it today Vincent can also use three magic spells fire blizzard and thunder but only one spell can be equipped to each gun at any one time magic can be used in combat by tapping L1 and each Works in a different way a fire cause is an area of effect explosion Thunder hits in a straight line and blizzard homes in on the selected Target using magic depletes Vincent's magic points which can be regenerated using items or by running over Marco points scattered throughout the levels magic is so useful in in this game and it makes short work of pretty much everything you're fighting and I'd consider it overpowered if it wasn't for the fact Vincent's M People is so small and only good for a handful of castes so the power of the magic and the cost to use it kind of balance out Vincent also has a basic three hit melee combo that doesn't do as much damage as his guns so it's best used when surrounded to knock back enemies or against bullet resistant types during the late game but it's quick to pull off in a pinch and hits feel impactful so it can be satisfying to use he can also jump double jump Crouch and Dodge and hitting the jump or Dodge button when he's knocked down will make him recover quicker but the window for this recovery is so small that I quickly found myself spamming the Dodge button whenever I was not back and hoping for the best two mixed results and when it did work he would Dodge into the enemy which seems counterproductive in a game focused on ranged weapons of course this being a Final Fantasy VII adjacent game Vincent has a limit break limit breaks are triggered by using an item called limit breaker that can be found around the levels when he transforms into his Galleon Beast form he fully restores his hit points and increases his defense and physical attack power he can't use his guns while in this form by pressing the fire button will unleash a fireball that homes in on the selected Target but melee attacks are without a doubt the king of this form they are just so unbelievably powerful he can hold up to three limit Breakers at once and if you sparingly you'll never be without them in your inventory apparently in the original Japanese release the limit break was connected to your magic points instead and activating it would drain them forcing you to decide between using the limit break or magic which honestly sounds awful to me so I'm glad they changed it for the Palm US release my only issue with the limit break is it makes all but the aerial boss fights absolutely trivial like it's a joke how easy most of the bosses in Dojo Cerberus are but I'll get to that later consumable items are displayed on a quick menu on the bottom left corner pressing left on the d-pad Cycles through them and pressing right on the d-pad uses the selected item it's a pretty good system but accidentally scrolling past the item I want and having to to cycle through the whole inventory again instead of just tapping right to go back they'd get frustrating at times and more than once I found myself accidentally using an item when trying to scroll back overall combat is fine verging on good it doesn't break any new ground but it's far from the disaster you've been led to believe it is each weapon has a distinctive feel and shots feel impactful as does melee combat magic attacks are insanely effective and fun to use I'm pulling out a limit break when surrounded by enemies in an enclosed area or during boss fight is beyond satisfying if I have any complaints is that the combat encounters themselves don't feel particularly well executed in regards to enemy placement and Arenas you can tell it's been developed by a team who had little to no experience making a shooter before but to be honest I've played worse by devs who knew exactly what they were doing [Music] a big element of the just soberis is its limited but effective weapon customization system when Vincent starts the game he's carrying three identical guns which over time can all be customized and transformed into three separate types as you find the relevant parts and what type of gun it is is determined by its frame at first these are all Cerberus which makes the type a handgun which is best for mid-range Hydra which transforms into a rifle for long range in Griffin which changes it to a machine gun for close range combat you can also add short normal or long barrels with each being more effective with their respective frames for example a long frame on a Hydra Barrel creates a more powerful rifle however any frame can be used with any barrel and it wasn't until writing this part of the script that I realized I had mismatched barrels on my pistol and machine gun and could have been dealing a lot more damage if I had actually read the barrel descriptions Scopes can be attached for an added effect when aiming in first person optional attachments can be added to increase the performance of weapon functions and finally there's a slot for accessories which is where material for Magic Use is equipped as well as a selection of stat boosting items like the frames the barrels can also be upgraded for a price you can spend money at the end of stages or vending machines to modify frames and barrels to make them stronger and after a couple of upgrades you're given the choice of three possible frames you can evolve it into each with its own strengths and weaknesses I was only ever able to upgrade my weapons so far as Gill is a limited commodity unless you're willing to use certain exploits to farm money in exp but that seems like a lot of work and this video is already massively behind schedule the villains of durge of cyberus are a group known as deep ground a secret army of superhuman soldiers created by former president Shinra the only other people to know of deep ground were the president's lackeys Heidegger scarlet and Hojo any knowledge of shinra's secret army died with the four of them for the most part they're just Cannon father but there's a decent variety of soldiers snipers and armored Warriors as well as various vehicle soldiers and mechanical enemies and a whole bunch of wildlife that's out for your blood none of the enemies are particularly difficult to take down with the exception of the elites towards the end of the game who are bullet resistant but susceptible to a good kicking that being said I did manage to get swarmed a few times in my playthrough and died a few more times than I probably should have within deep ground there's an elite unit called the sviets and these are the main antagonists and bosses there's shulk who is without a doubt the creepiest design of the Spheres seeing as she's a 19 year old girl in a 10 year old's body her powers are the ability to dive into virtual networks and she wheeled your lightsabers as though the Cerulean is a seemingly indestructible absolute Powerhouse and uses the cannon of a tank as his main weapon Rosso the Crimson wants to see all human life on the planet destroyed and is one of the most annoying boss battles in the game Nero disable is the younger brother of the leader of the sviets he wields darkness and is the absolute epitome of an immoral design character with his what if an insane asylum was a bondage dungeon aesthetic and then there's Vice the immaculate older brother to Nero in commander of deep ground I love these guys they're completely over the top and their designs and personalities feel like they've been ripped straight out of a metal gear solid game we never got but as I mentioned earlier the urge of cyberus has a boss problem and that is they're just not fun to fight first off if the arena is too small and the boss you're fighting doesn't Jump Around popping a limit breaker and spamming male attack will end the fight in seconds without much trouble every single time if however the arena is large and the enemy moves about a lot the fight quickly becomes a slog as you mindlessly empty your magazines and spam heels when needed this is true for all the repeated helicopter and walking tank bosses of which there are many and they're all mind-numbingly dull but sadly it's also true for this Fiats things get a bit more interesting when fighting the second in command Nero and the final boss itself as they both have other targets to hit and actual things to do that isn't just stand there shooting but other than that they all go out like whims for how badass they look and how much smack they talk every encounter is so anti-climactic it's painful and left me feeling like I'd somehow cheesed the game deep ground in the Spheres are a really cool enemy and a great replacement for Shinra and Soldier is the big bad and it's a massive a shame they were wasted due to subpar boss encounters the level design in Dodgers is pretty basic with a linear path forward and lots of offshoot corridors to explore for Secrets there's a decent Variety in locations such as a couple of towns and Facilities outdoors and of course the sewer they're all easy to navigate thanks to an easy to understand map but their layout just isn't that imaginative there are a lot of laser fences that need a lot of key cards to open to move forward and the whole thing just feels very 90s and subsequently makes the level design feel sloppy and dated but that's not to say they're all bad for example by far the best location and my absolute favorite place in the game is the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim I know that Mansion like the back of my hand and getting to experience it fully rendered in 3D and open to explore was a dream come true it's changed a bit since ff7 obviously but it's mostly accurate and finding Vincent's coffin room was just as cool now as it was in 2006 and I know you get to explore in crisis called but they're just Cerberus did it first and unlike crisis call it isn't split into sections you actually get to run around the entire place in real time if I had to pick the worst Mission it would be the one where I spent 30 minutes on an Airship just running around and talking to people I'd say it was nice to see Sid and yuffie again but in a game that is primarily a shooter the last thing I want to be doing is nothing I think they were going for a kind of Calm before the storm with it but it completely destroyed any momentum it was building up to this point Luckily everything that comes after more than makes up for it a few of the levels are broken up with sections where you get to sit on a minigun and unleash hell for a few minutes which can be fun but they go on a little too long and outstay their welcome and there's a couple of unreal set pieces that aren't much fun because aiming while moving its speed is awkward and imprecise one where you're standing on top of a moving van shooting guard hounds is more manageable when when using Auto targeting but it's so early in the game you barely have any upgrades and firing your pistol is just so slow there's even a mission where your players catchy it's meant to be a stealth Mission but the mechanics aren't really there for it to be fun or good but there are no real consequences for being seen so I just ran through it like a maniac there are tons of items lying around and dropped by enemies that are easy to understand at a glance with backpacks being healing items ammo boxes for ammo and item cases being various random items and although I would sometimes run out of ammo for the gun I was favoriting at the time my other two were usually full and available so I never found myself wanting for Firepower and the same can be said for consumables too at no point did I find myself reaching for a heel that wasn't there every level has extra missions to do that flash up on the screen whenever they're triggered and there are these memory capsules to find and destroy in each level I'll I'll be honest I kind of hate these collecting them unlocks a cut scene in the extra features menu but unless you find them all you can't view all the cut scenes I'm a firm believer that if you're going to offer a cutscene viewer they should be unlocked after that scene has been viewed in the game not with a hidden collectible that feels like it's been too horned in so the devs can say and we have Collectibles to find one collectible that does have a purpose however are the G reports there are three to find throughout the back end of the game and collecting them all are not the secret ending I'd say they're absolutely worth finding just to be a completionist but sadly the ending itself won't be as impactful as it teases a possible story continuation that we never got and gives us a first look at a character who is now well established in the series but back in 2006 I cannot tell you how confused and excited I was at the end of missions you receive a ranking on how well you perform during the stage and receive Gill this game's currency as a reward for how well you performed in the extra you can then choose if you want to convert the EXP you earned into Guild to upgrade your guns and restock your items or if you want to add it to your exp title and level up personally I always took the EXP as I found there was enough get in the game to upgrade my weapons to a good level but I was never able to Max them out okay now that the actual game is out the way I want to talk about the story some more because to be honest I kind of love it I've seen a lot of hate directed toward it online people writing it off declaring it non-canonical because they don't like it all that stuff whether it is official Canon is still up for debate Nemours and made some comments regarding seven remakes with French magazine people misunderstood those comments and now everyone's confused personally I still count it as Canon it is and always will be to the original Seven everything else related to the compilation and with Crisis Core reunion being released and certain characters turning up in the intermission DLC for seven remake it's a pretty safe bet and Amora and Co still count it as official Canon and until I see an official statement saying otherwise I'm gonna treat it as and refer to it as such also spoilers for Dojo Cerberus and seven remaking to Mission DLC so the story is tied quite heavily into advent children but it's a lot more connected to seven then people give it credit for at the end of Final Fantasy 7 when the live stream emerges to stop me to your fall parts of it were infected with the sephiroth gene this causes a worldwide plague as people become infected with a sickness that becomes known as geostigma at the end of Advent Children the geostigma is cured and everyone's life goes on for around a year now remember I said deep ground was kidnapping some civilians but killing others it turns out they were killing Moe's infected with geostigma this is interesting and could mean a couple of things mainly after the events of Advent Children geostigma wasn't completely cured and if it was cured there are still remnants of the sephiroth gene in the population who were cured this is huge as far as the possibility of future Final Fantasy VII stories though because within the sephiroth gene or Genova cells and the main Crux of ff7 and Advent Children is the Genova Reunion where all of Genova's cells in different hosts try to reunite and reform and it also means sephiroth can return and maybe already has what if the ff7 Remake Trilogy is actually a sequel to The Urge of Cerberus and the sephiroth we see in that is a newly reformed sephiroth who's lost to cloud and his friends twice already so he's gone back in time with knowledge of his mistakes to try and change his own fate and that's talking about deep ground was also kidnapping people who weren't infected by geostigma people they perceive as clean why to awaken Omega and destroy the world if you've played the original Final Fantasy VII you're already familiar with weapons but for anyone watching who hasn't played the original weapons of these huge Kaiju created by the live stream to protect the planet from danger similar to how Godzilla is depicted sometimes Omega is the Ultimate Weapon but unlike other weapons who are the Protectors of the planet Omega is the planet's Last Resort it's basically a self-destruct mechanism tasked with collecting up the entire planet's live stream it will then leave the planet and embark on a journey through the cosmos to find a new world and start life again leaving a dead empty husk of a planet behind it so in order to awaken Omega deep ground are rounding up his many untainted people as they can find and committing mass murder by throwing them into Marco reactor zero tricking the planet into thinking a world ending event is occurring now the planet does have some protection against Omega in the form of the Proto material a special material that can control it and the spietz a hunting Vincent because they believe he knows where the Proto material is and it turns out it is literally inside him why because Omega isn't the only thing it controls it also controls chaos which many of you will remember as Vincent's final limit break from the original ff7 so when Rosso reaches into his chest and rips it out it's going to be a bad time for everyone you see chaos exists to kill all life on the planet in order for Omega to collect the live stream and leave so the reason this being that Vincent is connected to exists is to murder everything on the planet for the being that Vincent is trying to stop I think that's awesome sure it's just a Twist on the classic Jekyll Hyde or Wolfman Trope but here the stakes are so much higher and this lack of control is a theme carried over from ff7 because in that game once Vincent transformed for his limit break the player had no control over his actions until he changed back so the fact the player can now control his Galleon Beast form shows how much stronger Vincent is now than he was in seven and the fact he still can't control chaos shows us just how powerful that Beast is and now it gets weird when Vincent finally finds and confronts Vice it turns out Vice is actually Hojo remember about 30 minutes ago I said the word star fragment program appear on the console's monitor what it turns out that as he was dying Hojo distributed his data his mind his knowledge his inner being across the worldwide Network and so with his body gun he was able to survive in virtual reality and when the network was restored the scattered data regrouped and he was reborn in a so-called neo-reunion during the events of Final Fantasy VII Hojo saw Vincent transformed into chaos and realized if chaos exists so must Omega and if Vincent could become one with chaos then Hojo could become one with Omega he also realized that the reason Vincent can contain chaos inside himself is because of all the experiments Hojo did to him while he was a Turk realizing that he too would need an invulnerable body Hojo injected himself with Genova cells but he was mutated and the cells began to take his mind and soul and he was ultimately defeated by cloud and his party and so after his scattered Consciousness reformed he realized he'd need a strong body and that's when he remembered deep ground how Hojo managed to possess a vice is unclear the game says he managed to manipulate Nero into helping engineer his rebirth but it doesn't clarify how and after doing a lot of searching online most of the wiki say it happened while Vice was doing a synaptic net dive after the events of the play online story which was completely removed from the US and European versions of the game but no one is citing a source but out of all the crazy stuff happening in this story that seems like it makes sense so I'm gonna go with it anyway Vice who is actually Hojo unleashed the army of deep ground upon the world to collect and contaminated humans to sacrifice and create a stream of refined Marco to awaken Omega inside himself and why does he want to become Omega destroy the planet and travel the cosmos science that's literally the reason it is so stupid and so perfectly in line with hojo's character that I can't help but love it but wait there's more after absorbing the live stream and being defeated by a chaos enhanced Vincent Nero appears out of the darkness and also possesses vice's body contaminating the Pure Life stream within him and expelling Hojo from his mind and body maybe defeating him forever Vice disappears and Vincent is pulled into the live stream and with that Omega awakens and Chaos takes over Vincent bursting free of the live stream ready to end all life on the planet I love omega's design it looks like an angel of death Tethered to the planet with chains made of live stream it's so cool and seeing it surrounded by midgar's Marco reactors emphasizes the sheer size of the thing it truly feels like the end before chaos can begin its worldwide Rampage shulk performs a synaptic net dive using the souls in the live stream as a network infuses Vincent with the Proto Materia allowing him to control chaos once again and Destroy Omega and the final confrontation in Dojo Cerberus is mental flying through omega's insides is an unreal shooter section while the song longing by Japanese musician gagged blasts out and it is pure anime cheese Vincent then bursts out of Omega and confronts it face to face before flying inside it again forcing Vice to reveal himself before merging with and revealing his final form Omega Vice and battling for the final time and even that isn't enough to stop omega as it sprouts huge angel wings takes to the sky causing Vincent to use all of his chaos powers and fly directly into it finally destroying it and clearing the sky above midgar as Redemption by gak rings out over the end credits then post credits reveals Vincent to be alive and we see the destroyed cell of Omega Frozen in Time above the planet and then there's another post-credit scene where we see a man appear out of a giant ball of energy and approach an unconscious but seemingly not dead Vice this stranger picks him up and says the words it is not yet time for slumber we have much work to do my brother before revealing a single giant black wing and flying into the night sky obviously now in 2023 we know that's Genesis the main antagonist from Crisis Core but when I and many others played this back in 2006 crisis call was still over a year away this blew my mind and it got me so excited for the future thinking there was going to be more to the story and then nothing crisis Court came and went and that was it the fate of vice and the future of the world of Final Fantasy VII was left on a cliffhanger in a game not many people liked in a cut scene not everyone saw sure Nero and vice had a brief cameo in Crisis Core but we wouldn't see them again for a while then in 2021 the trailer for Final Fantasy VII remake integrated was released and fans noticed a couple of things that specifically referenced the urge of Cerberus in a big way first of all there's yuffie's Mughal Hood costume it's almost identical to the one she wears in the urge of Cerberus this one has a nose and Pom-Pom in the ears around whereas indulged the nose and Pom-Pom are missing and he is appointed but there's three years between the events of these games it could be the same Hood just with three years worth of wear tear and repairs on it then there's these guys who look a lot like deep ground soldiers but the holy moment was the reveal of Vice at the end of the trailer sadly we don't get to see see much of deep ground in the actual DLC episode they only appear for the last hour or so but they're there and it is amazing we get to take out wave after wave of deep ground grunts we see Vice having his brain scanned to create a VR model of himself which appears as a super boss but also for Shadows Hojo taking over his body with similar science and Nero disable is the final boss and he is tough as hell this is the main reason why I believe not only is the desert Bristol Cannon but it's also very important and tied into upcoming events sure there are holes in my theory mostly youth you're not recognizing Nero who she fought three years earlier in one of the most stressful battles I've ever experienced in the game but we can put that down to her just acting cool so that's the urge of Cerberus Final Fantasy VII despite its flaws I actually really like it the story is great the character models on the main cast are all excellent the soundtrack is fantastic and seeing it being referenced so heavily in new Final Fantasy 7 projects gets me genuinely excited that we might actually get a continuation of the story one day and to bring my point back around to the conversation that inspired this video I think a lot of the issues this game has could be solved with a remake third and first person shooters are a much more dominant genre now than they were when this game was in development and there are a lot of teams out there who could absolutely smash a remake there are so many good ideas here they just weren't pulled off as well as they should have been and with some quality of life tweaks and the missing multiplayer content remixed and re-added to create a full package I genuinely think the urge of Cerberus could be something modern Gamers enjoy but this video has gone on long enough and I'm really bad at ending these things so I'm gonna pull the plug here have you played the urge of Cerberus what do you think would you like to see a remake let me know in the comments like And subscribe and I'll see you in the next video thanks for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Game Cupboard

Views: 75,842

Keywords: final fantasy, final fantasy vii, final fantasy 7, ff7, compilation of final fantasy vii, compilation of, dirge of cerberus, review, retrospective, preview, gameplay, vincent valentine, is dirge of cerberus good, is dirge of cerberus bad, is good, is bad, gakt, crisis core, remake, rebirth, who is Vincent

Id: glgR2rCSrgM

Length: 39min 54sec (2394 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 04 2023