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Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus Review (continued)
More User Submitted Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus Reviews
Date: 2008-01-08
A Shooter Mostly for Final Fantasy Fans
If you liked the original Final Fantasy VII for the Playstation and liked it as much as to want to go back to the setting the story takes place in, I definitely recommend Dirge of Cerberus. Taking place 3 years after the events of the original, you now take the role of Vincent Valentine and go back to places like the Shinra Mansion, Junon, the wrecked trains area in the slums, and more to find out more about the story of this character. You'll get to see a few cameos from the other characters of FFVII, but don't expect to play as Cloud, Tifa, Barret, or any of your other favorite characters. Yuffie, Cait Sith, and Cid are the ones who appear the most along with Vincent.
People looking for ONLY a shooter or a "real" FPS, probably won't like DoC as much as I did, because the storyline is kind of out of pace with the rest of the game. Some sequences (which you CAN skip) last anywhere from 20 seconds to 20 minutes. This is "normal" for Final Fantasy players, but will probably seem like forever for people looking for continuous action. And even though the story is well-explained if you didn't play the original you won't understand what's going on as much as we do. Let's say that if you liked FFVII and FFVII: Advent Children and want more, than get this game. If you saw Advent Children and had no idea what was going on, this is probably not for you.
Date: 2007-11-13
Sorely Disappointed
I got this on the basis of it being a Final Fantasy Game. I was Disappointed to find out it was a FPS and not a RPG. I guess FPS games are Ok, I'm just not big on them. That having been said, The graphics are good as well as the story. The sound is good as well. I had to give it two stars only because it was a FPS. If you are a fan of FPS type games then you will enjoy this one. As for me, it will be going to the used game store, as I won't be playing it. Charlie S.
Date: 2007-11-11
Under-rated
This isnt a bad game. Admitedly I didnt expect a great game, following up one of the greatest RPG's ever made with a cheap looking time crisis style shoot em up. But from the moment the game started with an awesome sequence of taster clips and an emotive classical score, I knew that this would be an interesting adition to the FF7 storyline at least. The game takes place three years after the events of FF7 and immediately the story devlves into the neglected side story of vincent during the events of the storming of Midgar three years earlier. From then on the game takes vincent as the main character and explores his past and present following on from the vague introduction during FF7. The game play is fast and smooth, and feels like a cross between spartan warrior, metal gear solid and time crisis. As the game progresses, you level up and obtain further add ons for vincents guns such as materia and sniper scopes etc. The game is fun to play, but slightly unchallenging. It was the frequent storyline cut scenes that kept me interested rather than the often repetative gameplay action, as well the inclusion of the occasional FF7 character and location.
The downsides to this game are the inacurracy of the original locations, taking areas from FF7 and making them quite different. The shinra manor was bizzarelry about 9 times bigger than it was in FF7 for example.
The levels have interesting missions but do not provide much freedom. There is usually only one way to go, and in most cases is too obvious. Again, the game is relatively easy. With phoenix downs to keep you going even when you die, its quite difficult to lose which means less skill involved.
Also the storyline is often directly related to FF7 or advent children which is great, but means if youre new to the game you probably wont have a clue whats going on.
But on the plus side, the controls are easy to get the hang of making it a fast and adrenaline racing game. The story is engrosing, the original characters are in there and the graphics are decent enough. It was a bold risk going for a game of this style to follow on FF7, but for those avid fans out there this is an essential game for your collection. Vincent was probably the best character to follow up from the original.
Date: 2007-11-07
Somewhere Between a Shooter and an RPG...
I'll start with the bad. This game tries to incorporate RPG aspects into a shooter game, and doesn't do that great of a job of it. The gameplay itself isn't all that exciting as far as shooters go, except for a few enemies they decided to try to make challenging, though they're usually more annoying than anything. There's usually very little strategy involved in taking out any of the enemies, but I have come across two parts in the game where I had to take out a few snipers with really bad aim. Which is pretty much be the only break from the typical "run into the fray and shoot anything that moves" action that the rest of the game consists of, aside from the occasional turret gun you find that you can man. The levels have a good amount of detail, though the dark and gloomy aspect might get on your nerves after a while. Each stage is basically a big long hallway, in that there's really nowhere you can go most of the time other than forward and backward, aside from a few other paths that branch off and are usually a dead end. The enemies get pretty old after about the 4th stage, since about 85% of them are either soldiers or cyber-dogs (not counting bosses). The levels sometimes incorporate some small amount of interactivity, like jumping up on one box and then to a ledge to get an item, but I think I've been able to do something like that maybe twice in the whole game. There are constantly areas where you see ledges that you should easily be able to reach and small boxes and other objects you should easily be able to jump over, but for some reason you can't. You also watch Vincent do some insane acrobatics during cutscenes, bouncing off walls and flying through the air a la Mario, yet you never get the chance to do anything even remotely close to that cool.
Ok. Now for the good. The storyline is really the main reason to play through this game. It gives you a more in-depth look at the history of Vincent Valentine before you meet him in the original FFVII. There are also a lot of unlockable extras that can be obtained throughout the game, and a bunch of a extra missions after you beat the game. The simplistic gameplay can be fun when you just want to shoot someone in the face for no reason, so I guess I have to give it that. The weapon-upgrading system lets you customize your gameplay to suit your own preferences. There are different barrels designed for short, medium, and long range combat, and you'll have a pistol, machine gun, and rifle fun frame, and you can add accessories and/or materia to these. You can have one kind of materia on each weapon (fire, blizzard, or thunder), though you usually won't get more than 4 or 5 uses before you run out of magic.
All in all, there isn't much depth to this game, but it is good if you need something to entertain yourself for the weekend. Anyone who enjoyed Final Fantasy VII will probably want to play through this game just to watch the flashbacks and see the story of Vincent unfold prior to the original game, and you get a more in-depth look at his character and others that were involved with him during that time. And once you unlock the extra missions and extra hard move the game gets a little more interesting, so there's always that.
Date: 2007-10-24
Not what I expected
I was looking for a game like Final Fantasy XII. This is more of a one person, role playing, shoot 'em up. It is cool. The graphics are pretty good. But it is not what I was looking for.
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