Since Crisis Core is a Square Enix game, you should already know the game looks and sounds fantastic. The cinema scenes and summons will absolutely blow you away. and the game itself looks great during actual play. There is one cinema scene in particular (over five minutes long) that you’ll want to create a separate save file for, just so you can bask in its glory over and over again. The sound isn’t half bad either. The voice-overs never sound stupid or overacted, the musical score is great in some parts (mostly the parts that are remixed or reimagined music straight from FF7) and all the sound effects are good enough that you’ll want to consider playing exclusively with your headphones on. A lot of portable games skimp on the sound because developers figure that if a game is portable, people will play it in silence when surrounded by others. Crisis Core is not one of those games. That is all I’ll say about the looks and the sounds; its Square Enix – they have to be good.

The commentary on the actual gameplay is where the kudos begin to disappear. Like its predecessor, Crisis Core works on the “random battle” system, meaning that if you walk around for long enough, you’ll be attacked by an invisible enemy or enemies. Vanquish it or them and you’ll return from combat mode to normal, allowing you to explore the area further. This system strangles almost all of the fun out of exploring areas, you are forced to constantly be on edge, preparing for unseen and infinitely spawning bad guys. Even if you are strong enough to take care of enemies with one blow, it is still a jarring distraction to be constantly forced into battle. Random encounters should have died with the SNES; to still be using this tired method for battle is inexcusable.

Sadly, the problems don’t begin and end with random, invisible bad guys. The biggest problem is the game’s method for leveling up, enhancing skills and summoning various creatures. The DMW (digital mind wave) is a glorified slot machine that governs a good number of your available moves. As you defeat enemies, the three slots will spin and land on random number and character combinations. The results of this random system means that you have no control over when your summoned monsters appear, which is bad enough. Worse is the leveling up, skills and your character, by DMW. Zack will gain a level each time the slot machines come up a 7-7-7. I’ve heard tell that there is some kind of secret invisible experience counter that levels you up accordingly, like in every single other RPG ever made. I don’t believe it for a second. If that were true, why wouldn’t Zack gain a level after a boss fight? True story – I didn’t level up after one of the game’s toughest bosses, but I did level – twice – in a random encounter battle with enemies that required but one hit to destroy. I’m all for interesting new approaches to old systems, but this one just doesn’t work.

A mission system is also a big part of Crisis Core. When at a save point, you can undertake these bite-sized challenges, which almost always require you to kill a certain creature, at your leisure. There are two huge problems with this. One – If you run too many missions, especially in the beginning of the game, Zach will end up overpowered and overleveled. This makes the bosses a snap, but “easy” and “fun” don’t have the same definition. Two – There are way too many missions to undertake, just about 300 of them. Missions don’t supplement the story and rarely offer any reward that can’t be just as easily purchased in a shop. For no reward, no story and no fun (missions get seriously boring very quickly), these mini challenges seem to be more a waste of time than anything else.

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