Released by Square Enix in 2006 on the Playstation
2, directed by Takayoshi Nakazato who previously directed a Dragon Ball Z game, and written
by Hiroki Chiba, the sequel to Final Fantasy 7 would come almost a decade later in the
form of a third person shooter action RPG. The game would take the three least developed
characters in the main game, Vincent, Yuffie, and Reeve as Cait Sith, and feature them as
the main protagonists in this game. For story, the entire game is now voice acted,
and Vincent is the primary character used, though Cait Sith is used for a stealth segment. For gameplay, 3rd person shooting and melee
combat are used, as well as isolated turret and stealth sections. In addition, weapons and stats can be expanded
and improved, a mouse and keyboard could be used as controls, and Vincent retains his
ability to transform per a Limit Break. The story only gets larger from here, so let's
cut it down to size with a RECAPitation. The game begins during the meteorfall of Final
Fantasy 7. Yuffie and Vincent are working together to
evacuate Midgar, when Vincent has a feeling to doublecheck the corpse of Hojo after the
party just killed him. Yuffie is shocked to verify he's still alive,
and Vincent dashes towards him, planning to ensure he stays dead with his signature triple-barreled
revolver, Cerberus. However, lightning strikes the platform he's
on, and when he looks again, Hojo is gone. Yuffie retrieves Vincent before the whole
cannon explodes, though we see Hojo has activated a certain program before leaving. We cut to 3 years later, 1 year after the
events of Advent Children, where Vincent is still brooding over his past as he looks over
the crystalized body of Lucrecia in her isolated cave, and is now in the town of Kalm as they
host a festival. The town is suddenyl attacked by a well-armed,
highly advanced, and well-organized army, and dozens of people are selected and captured,
while the rest are slaughtered. The group seems to also be seeking out Vincent
in particular, as he sets out to meet up with his old ally Reeve, the puppetmaster behind
Cait Sith. A brutish man named Azul and smaller woman
name Shelk ambush Vincent, demanding the protomateria in in his possession, but they are soon forced
to retreat. Reeve comes in tow with the WRO, the World
Regenesis Organization, which he now leads with the task of helping the Planet's rehabilitation. Vincent notes its nice to see him out of the
suit, and Reeve explains the attackers are an elite group called the Tsviets, but Vincent
explains he doesn't want to help Reeve with his new endeavor. Reeve asks him to reconsider, but is suddenly
shot from behind. Vincent retaliates, and rushes to Reeve's
side, but it turns out he was just a Reeve suit being worn by his main puppet, Cait Sith. He coyly catches Vincent's concern, stating
there really is a good heart beneath that cold shell. Conceding, Vicent agrees to help run the invaders
out of town. Vincent breaks through their front lines,
but his work is far from over as foes are starting to rise up elsewhere. Reeve now explains that the army is called
Deepground, once a shadow military arm of Shinra, and certain members like Azul are
members of an even eliter group called the Tsviets. Reeve doesn't have much information on them,
as he was kept out of the loop between the former president, Heidegger, Scarlet, and
Hojo, even as a Shinra executive. It was so secret not even Rufus was informed
when he assumed command. For now, Deepground seems to going from town
to town abducting hundreds of people almost instantly, and the investigation by the WRO
is still ongoing. Suddenly, Weiss, the leader of Deepground,
sends out a broadcast, in which he declares their will to cleanse the world by sparing
the clean for another purpose and destroying the impure. En route to the city of Edge, the new city
built literally on the edge of the old ruins of Midgar, he fends off pursuing Deepground
beasts and forces, and in the city, he meets a scientist for WRO, Shalua, who shares the
eerie phenomemon of there being no trace of the 500 people living in the city, the Deepground
forces that attacked them, or the WRO forces sent to defend them. Investigating, he encounters a member of the
Tsviets named Rosso, who reveals the protomateria Vincent has is the key to controlling Omega,
and is remarkablly strong in her own right. Vincent is forced to assume his most powerful
Limit Break form, Chaos, which pushes her back but exhausts him completely. As he passes out, he thinks again of Lucrecia,
and his past, but when he wakes up, he's really in Shalua's lab in WRO headquarters. She learns he harbors the Chaos gene, which
was an aspect of Lucrecia's research of Chaos. She theorized Chaos was a new life form hiding
somewhere in the world, but the rest of her thesis was never recovered from Shinra Archives. Vincent shares that Rosso stated the Promateria
is the key to controlling Chaos, though the alarm goes off that Deepground is now attacking
WRO headquarters. Reeve gives the orders to defend, while Vincent
is sent to handle the Tsviets, and Vincent is followed by Shelke when he is met by Shalua
again, who is shocked to see her. Shelke draws her twin beams swords on her,
but Shalua urges her to remember that she is her sister gone missing for 10 years. Shelke actually admits she remembers a little
of the past decade, but mostly the torturous existence of constant experimentation that
has left her with the body of a 9-year old, despite being 19 years old, and in need of
daily doses of mako or else she'll die. She moves to kill them, but Reeve comes in
and points out Shalua has sacrificed a lot to find Shelke, emotionally as well as physically,
like her arm, eye, and half her organs. Quickly, he provides a distraction and gets
them away as Shelke is still left in thought, and Vincent receives tranquilizers to take
Shelke down safely. Vincent defeats Shelke nonlethally, but now
Azul comes in to capture Vincent. They resort to stronger firepower to even
break past his resiliant barrier, but Vincent manages to edge out a win. As Deepground falls back, Vincent decides
to trek to Nibeheim, particularly Shinra Manor, and along the way he reflects again on his
past. He recalls the first time he met Lucrecia,
when he was a young Turk, who was shocked to learn of his last name, but they ultimately
got along well enough. At the same time, Reeve sends Cait Sith to
infiltrate where Deepground is taking the abducted civilians. He learns they are being fed in mass to a
creature being grown there called Omega, though Cait Sith is caught by another of the Tsviet
leaders, Nero. Meanwhile, Vincent is in the basement lab
of Shinra manor, where he finds a hologram of Lucrecia, and she shares that her research
of Chaos and Omega began when she discovered their mention in scriptures by the ancients. Omega, as its name suggests, is meant to be
an end to all life on the planet and return it to the Lifestream, where it can be collected
and brought to another planet. Life with be born again on a new planet while
the old one will die. After collecting some data, Rosso suddenly
appears, explaining the bloody origin of Deepground, but then ambushes him, stabs him and plucks
out the protomateria from within him. Without it, the wounded Vincent begins struggling
to contain the Chaos beast within him. Rosso moves to finish him off now, but a swift
sneak attack catches her off guard and blinds her long enough for the wutai assailant to
escape with Vincent who blacks out. Another flashback shows how Vincent confronted
Lucrecia and Hojo about using their own child for the Jenova Project, but is assured that
as they are both scientists, they know what they are doing. Afterwards, he was turned into the creature
he is today. He wakes up to see the person who saved him
was none other than Yuffie, who was helping Reeve out and poking around Nibelheim at the
time. Vincent thanks Yuffie, as they are both recalled
back to headquarters. At this time, Azul wakes up, as does Shelke,
thought Shalua has no intentions of letting her go back to Deepground, prepared to fight
and reminding her she never won any over their fights as children. Next, Deepground launches another assault
on WRO, Vincent's transport is attacked and Yuffie is knocked out, and Azul turns into
a giant Behemoth monster, rampaging in the facility. As vincent arrives with Shelke and Shalua,
he bats them all away and informs Shelke she is no longer needed by deepground, per order
of their leader Weiss. Her main use for deepground was her ability
to mentally connect to any digital data, which helped them find Vincent. But how that they have the protomateria, and
she has been captured by the WRO, she is to be terminated as a loose end. They can't beat Azul for now, so Shalua sacrifices
her artificial arm to hold open a door for them to escape through, and ends up sacrificing
herself to ensure Shelke's survival. After the attack, vincent encourages Reeve
not to give up, and it turns out Shalua survived as well, albeit barely. He also encourages Shelke to realise how much
her sister cares for her, while also remembering fond memories of Lucrecia. Somehow, Shelke finds she is able to mentally
link to Vincent and view his memories, to both of their surprise. Now, Reeve comes in with the news the data
Vincent brought is fragmented and incomplete, and Shelke brings up that most of Lucrecia's
research was actually uploaded into her mind. This was all to help her find the protomateria,
but had the odd sideeffects of Lucrecia's consciousness interfering with Shelke's own
mind. She volunteers to upload Lucrecia's reports
from her mind onto their network and perhaps patch the holes in the report they already
have. She also believes doing so will help her regain
her mind back. At this time, Cid comes in with a fleet of
airships to help reinforce the WRO and prepare them for a counter assault on Deepground. In the meanwhile, Shelke prepares a Synaptic
Net Dive in order to project her consciousness in the digital world, as is her specialty,
or communicate subconsciously with other beings. Moving along, as the operation begins, more
olds allies join the effort, as Barrett, Tifa, and Cloud act as the vanguard on the ground
as they move towards the battlefield of old Midgar. At the same time, Shelke enters her Synaptic
Net Dive and shares with the group in the airship what she sees. It's more of Lucrecia's report, in which she
proposed that just as the lifestream is a part of the cycle of the world, so too is
the world a part of the cycle of the cosmos. Anything created will one day end, and the
same is true for this world, as right before the world should end, the entire lifestream
will converge at a single point. There an entity called Omega will collect
all life on the planet, and leave to find a new home in space. Meanwhile, the vacated world will crumble
and die. It turns out Omega is a Weapon, like the previous
ones before it, though it was made for this specific purpose as a failsafe, and will only
appear when the end of the world is imminent. Normally, there's nothing to worry about with
Omega. However, Deepground is trying to wake up Omega
early. By capturing and killing thousands, they are
falsifying a doomsday in order to trick the planet into summoning up Omega. Powering their massive salughterhouse is Mako
Reactor 0, underneath Midgar, and fueled by channeling the other reactors of the city. Per the plan, Cloud and the ground teams are
handling the reactors, while Vincent is tasked with handling the Tsviets. In the downtime before, it turns out Cid has
married Shera, and this fleet is funded by Reeve, though he wonders where he got all
the funds. When Reeve speaks on the matter, he actually
doesn't know who is writing the checks, but since the WRO is so crucial, he doesn't press
the matter, but he suspects its someone rich who feels they owe the planet a debt. With Shelke, Lucrecia's report is defragmenting
within her mind, so she needs to rest, though while it happens, she can see a lot of Lucrecia's
memories with Vincent as well. By himself, he's alarmed that he cannot control
the unchecked Chaos within himself, but the vision of Lucrecia he sees when he sees Shelke
calms him down for now. Meanwhile, the Tsviets and Deepground stand
ready as Cid readies the air battalion. Shelke hands Vincent his phone modified by
her to contact her directly and Net Dive to wherever he's at, allowing her to be his operator
and guide. She's actually a bit embarassed when Vincent
thanks her directly for the help now and will rely on her going forward. The group takes position as the attack begins. Deepground hunkers down in defense, as Yuffie
leads the aerial troops. Cloud is intercepted by Rosso and they break
off from the main group to duel on their own. Vincent launches from the Shera just in time
as they sustain light damage from Azul's attack, and skims through the anti-air fire to land
safely on the outskirts of the battlefield with Deepground HQ before him. Moving in, he encounters Rosso again, and
while Vincent wins their final match, she refuses to acknoweldge his strength, choosing
instead to end her own life by her own hands. Aftwerwards, when he has another lapse of
Chaos, Shelke informs him without the protomateria, his condition is very unstable, and delves
more into Lucrecia's report on Chaos. Chaos, while existing within Vincent, is actually
its own separate outside entity, that is also summoned before the end of the world and works
in tandem with Omega, by ending all Life on the world so it may rejoin the lifestream. Lurcrecia and Shelke both urge Vincent not
to give in to Chaos, and don't want him to die. Suddenly, her link is cut off, and investigating,
finds that Nero has snuck onboard to destroy the Shera's engine room. At this time, she makes the choice to stand
with Vincent and the others and fight Nero and Deepground. Next, Vincent faces down against Azul, who
pulls out all stops, turning into a giant Behemoth, and pushes Vincent to the edge. However, Vincent's Chaos form erupts out and
overwhelms Azul, impaling him with his own cannon and blowing him away. Now Nero appears, opting not to fight Chaos
Vincent, but rather drop Shelke's phone nearby. He has another flashback to when Lucrecia
worked on Vincent after Hojo already experimented on him after he was shot in in a dispute over
Lucrecia. Lucrecia and Hojo are no longer on the best
of terms, and Hojo long recognized Vincent loved Lucrecia and is amused she's using him
as an experiment for her thesis. When he wakes up, he's back to normal, and
after spotting Shelke's phone he soon sees Deepground's actual home base and the monsters
within. Nero's darkness attempts to take hold of him,
but Shelke, also in the darkness, urges him to stay in control, which helps keep his focus,
even though her magic is draining fast to maintain a neural connection to him and is
killing her. A new memory from Lucrecia within Shelke comes
out in which long ago, she visited the fated grotto with Vincent's father, Grimoire Valentine,
who said Chaos will one day awaken here. Lucrecia was passionate about their research,
but even Grimoire told her to pace herself. Some dark energy they were studying in relation
to the Protomateria bursts out from its container, and Grimoire shielded Lucrecia with his body. The energy blast was fatal, and as he surrendered
to the Lifestream, Grimoire told Lucrecia to tell his son Vincent he's sorry. Shelke now thinks of Shalua who's still in
critical condition, and begins to show emotion for the first time in a long time about not
wanting to lose her either. Nero now confronts Vincent, intent on protecting
his brother Weiss, and admiting to capturing Shelke within his darkness. They fight, and Nero casts Vincent into the
darkness again, though this time he doesn't fight it. He doesn't sucuumb to it either, and actually
intended to search the abyss for Shelke, finding her, and surprising Nero with their return. Nero prepares to unleash a deeper darkness,
but Yuffie appears and her unflappable cheer actually deters Nero away for the time being. They take Shelke to a nearby mako chamber
to revitalize her, and Yuffie splits off to shut down this last reactor while Vincent
confronts Weiss. With Shelke, her and Vincent's resonance brings
out the past again, this time of when he learned Lucrecia once worked closely with his father,
but never told him, which caused a rift in their relationship as she still blamed herself
for Grimoire's death but Vincent never blamed her. After that point, she began to distance herself
from Vincent and grow closer to Hojo. Vincent always told himself that if she was
happy, then he was happy, but that was always hard for him to swallow. Yuffie and Vincent power forward to Weiss
but are shocked to find him already dead, though Nero comes behind them to inform them
it's not for long, as a new life is rising up within Weiss like how Chaos is rising up
in Vincent. Vincent reads between the lines and understands
he means that Weiss will soon awaken as Omega. As they ready to destroy Wiess before that
happens, Nero retaliates, plunging them both into his abyssal darkness again, but again,
Vincent has conquered Nero's darkness and easily saves both of them. Turning to face Nero, Vincent is taken to
a plane of oblivion, where he duels the dark brother of Weiss, and defeats him once again. Limping away to Weiss, Vincent gives chase,
and they see the leader of Deepground is up on his feet. However, as Nero apporaches his brother, Weiss
impales Nero and casts his body aside. He gloats triumphantly before Vincent, and
states how they meet again. Vincent is a little confused, and Weiss explains
that 3 years ago he virtualized his mind and put it on the world network, so even when
his body died, his mind existed in a virtual reality. Eventually, the data of his mind eventually
all came together in a sort of Neo-Reunion, and suddenly Vincent recognizes Weiss for
who he really is, and that is the new body for Dr. Hojo. He admits he never took Lucrecia's reasearch
seriously until 3 years ago when he actually saw Vincent assume the form of Chaos as a
Limit Break. Then, he sought out Omega, as if Vincent could
manifes Chaos, then perhaps he could manifest Omega, the strongest Weapon. However, not just any body could host the
power of Chaos or Omega, and the reason Vincent can contain Chaos was because Hojo constructed
a near-indestructable body for him. In fact, the act of him injecting Jenova cells
into his original body was part of his effort to forge a proper vessel for Omega. However, he didn't expect Jenova to influence
his mind and exert its will over him as much as it did, so as a backup plan, he uploaded
his mind to the net. Eventually, he acknowledged his own body simply
wasn't durable enough, but then remembered the secret Deepground project in which the
elitest of the the elite soldier were grown and hardened. When Weiss was online, Hojo possessed him,
and then convinced Nero and Deepground to go along with his plan, without them catching
that he was taking over Weiss's mind. He then began working on his next experiment,
in which if Chaos could be born in a tainted Lifestream for Vincent, then perhaps Omega
could be grown in a pure lifestream. He then had the minions of Deepground capture
and sacrifice the proper-blooded citizens needed for the artificially refined lifestream
he would cultivate Omega in, and prepare the body of Weiss for Omega to awaken in once
he absorbed that lifestream. Naturally, Vincent won't allow it, and begins
his attack on the formidable Weiss, who is not only very durable, but weilding a custom
pair of pistol swords of his own. Despite bearing the mind of the scientist
Hojo, the fighting prowess of Weiss is still intact. He beats down Vincent and even tapping into
the power of Chaos doesn't help him much. Shelke, then connects and projects an image
of Lucrecia before them, speaking through it to urge Vincent to take control of Chaos
and use it without it using him. Hojo dismisses the projection and slashes
again at Vincent who stops the attack barehanded, now using the protomateria within Weiss to
summon the power of Chaos without losing his human form. Vincent is now able to move much faster and
stronger than before, putting him on the level of Weiss. As he beats Weiss away, Nero now comes back
from the lifestream and manages to cast out Hojo from Weiss's mind. The brothers fuse together, destroying Hojo,
and merging with their lifestream, and their lifestream erupts out, carrying Vincent with
them. Omega is now born, and within the Lifestream
Vincent is taken over by Chaos. Over with Shelke, she wonders if she can interface
with the lifestream, and attempts to do so while commenting how Lucrecia's thoughts and
wishes are still strong within her. Within, she manages to locate and seize the
Protomateria within Omega, and escape. She now dives into Vincent, returning the
protomateria to him, as Vincent comes to his senses, seeing Lucrecia's form among the lifestream
Shelke brought. More memories come out from their interaction,
this time of when Lucrecia was attempting to save Vincent after he was shot and experimented
on by Hojo, somewhat as an apology to him and also part of her repayment to his father
for saving her life. When Chaos was surging out of him, she found
the Protomateria was what could control it, though she saw very little success after that
point. Lucrecia became more and more distressed as
time went on, losing her mind to the Jenova cells injected within her, as well as being
driven mad at having her son Sephiroth taken away from her the moment he was born. While she still had her mind, she uploaded
a digital version of it, and then abandoned Vincent and her lab. Much later, Shelke was tasked to find and
download Lucrecia's digital mind fragments, and use them to find the protomateria, but
now Shelke wants to use it to connect Vincent to Lucrecia's heart. Lucrecia now speaks to Vincent in his mind,
first informing him the real her long crumbled away and this is just the data version of
her. She brings him back to the happier times together,
and while she realizes her true feelings, she knows she made far too many mistakes and
can only apologise for her messing up the past. In the end, she's happy he survived, and he
snaps to reality, saves Shelke, gains full control of Chaos, and forges a new gun out
of sheer will and power. He blows past the defenses of Omega, and withstands
the sheer power its putting out, though now, all of the ground teams captained by his allies
old and new succeed in destroying the last of Midgar reactors, cutting off Omega's power
supply and dropping its barrier. Diving into the depths of Omega, Chaos Vincent
tears out again to face down the last Weapon, and within it, Weiss. Facing down the rising forms of Shinra's most
elite Solider, Vincent triumphs, and leaves Omega. The weapon isn't down, as it grows wings and
attempts to leave the planet, but Vincent puts everything he has into ramming Omega
and detonating it in a cataclysmic explosion visible from space. As the dust clears, the stars are visible
for the first time in a long time over Midgar, as the Lifestream returns to the planet. As the game ends, it's been one week since
the clash, and Shelke is beginning to learn to live for herself. Vincent is back in the grotto Chaos first
came from where Lucrecia still stays crystalized for now. He thanks her not only for then but for now,
and as he leaves, she sheds a single tear from within her crystal. Outside, Shelke is no longer associated with
Deepground and greets a more at peace Vincent with a bright smile as they look up to an
even brighter day. At the end of the game, where Weiss has fallen,
nearby is where Genesis, a character from shinra's history as far back as the Crisis
Core game, wakes up ever since Deepground took him and asked for his help, and he refused,
preferring to sleep in isolation. He awakens, and picks up Weiss, telling him
it's not yet time for slumber and they have much work to do. Extending his one black wing, Genesis and
Weiss fly off into the night. Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy 7 has enjoyed
the success of selling almost 1.5 million copies worldwide.
