Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy as a series is one of the biggest gaming franchises to come out of Japan, and Final Fantasy VII as a game is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series. Its excellent mix of a well-narrated story with the kind of gameplay that's easy to get a hang of, and (for its time) brilliant visual effects that were ground-breaking for J-RPGs, made it one of the most memorable games ever. Too bad it had such crappy follow-ups till now!

The Advent Children movie as a follow up to the game's story was as brilliant, but as a standalone film it was lost on the new audience. Dirge of Cerberus absolutely failed with its clumsy gameplay. Now with Crisis Core, the game's gone back to its J-RPG roots but promises to spruce up the action with real-time fighting mechanics. Being a big fan of the original Final Fantasy VII game, I think this game will be the boost the franchise has been looking for.

Crisis Core is basically a prequel to the original Final Fantasy VII game, and narrates the story of Zack – a character fleetingly mentioned in the original game as Cloud's companion in SOLDIER. You, as Zack, are an ambitious SOLDIER second class, who wants to prove himself and win the honor of progressing to first class, while Shinra (the company that owns SOLDIERs) is facing a threat from their earlier first class rogue soldier, Genesis.

As the game progresses you get to meet a lot of characters that help you along the way in true Final Fantasy style, and the real kicker is that even Sephiroth is one of the good guys here. In fact he's one of the main characters you interact with, and shows a totally different side of him than what you're used to seeing in other Final Fantasy games.

Rest assured, the story of Crisis Core is well at par with the original classic. Though it doesn't have the epic Aerith death sequence, it does have enough of other moments that can stir your emotions a bit.

Experimenting with gameplay is the riskiest thing you can ever do with a J-RPG. Fans of the genre have gotten a bit too comfortable to accept anything that drastically changes the system without adding any real value to the gameplay. Though it's not perfect, the battle system here is a whole lot of fun. Firstly you fight alone, instead of the usual band of other characters contributing their skills. So all the leveling up and add-on purchases have to be done for you alone. Secondly the action is real-time. You get an auto-lock on the enemy and select the attack you want, and he'll pull it off. The action is not instantaneous, but it's fast enough to allow you to pull off combos with ease.

Materia is once again brought into the picture for magic, so getting your hands on the right ones is essential. The good thing is that a little after the beginning of the game, you get access to materia fusion, where you can combine two materia to create an all-new, more powerful materia – or simply upgrade your current materia.