Two Final Fantasy games in a row? You are damn right. I simply love Final Fantasy, and it stands as my favorite gaming series of all time. Luckily this review will be for a game on a different system than the PS2. What is unlucky is that it is on a PSP which is still a Playstation. Get used to it. I fucking love Sony. This game was released for the PSP in 2007. This game is the prequel to what many consider the best game of all time in Final Fantasy 7. Will the game live up to the hype that its previous installment set? Let's find out!
This game mainly focuses on a young man named Zack Fair. Zack works for Shinra in a department named SOLDIER. SOLDIER is what the name makes it seem. Pretty much Shinra's military. Shinra is a mega-corporation which produces electric. Zack starts out at the lowest rank of SOLDIER, and is sent to a planet to find a missing SOLDIER 1st class named Genesis. Pretty badass name right? Zack is accompanied by another Soldier 1st class named Angeal. In a nutshell, while on this planet Angeal betrays Zack. After this point, everything takes a dramatic turn for the worse. I probably spoiled a part of the game by telling you about Angeal, but this won't ruin the game by any means. It is just a tiny, yet important detail. The story of this game isn't one of it's many strong points. You're just a kid searching for the truth. I will say though that this game's ending is completely unexpected. Probably the most shocking turn of events in video games since FF7, and Aerith.
While the story isn't much of a strong point of the game, the battle system is. This is to be expected though. It's a Square Enix battle system, and it is what they are known for. Pretty much you only fight as one character for the entire game. You never get any new party members, and you never get any help against bosses, or enemies. You have complete control of Zack, and you can dodge or block attacks with him. it's a pretty basic battle system at first. You equip materia and use the equipped materia in combat. Seems simple right? Well we're just getting to the good part. What really makes this battle system is the use of the DMV, or the Digital Mind Wave. Pretty much it is a slot machine in your upper left hand corner of the screen. You receive two pictures of the same person, and as long as you have SP the third wheel will spin. If you land on the same person as the first two pictures, you perform a limit break which is an incredibly powerful attack. The second part of the DMV are the numbers. There are numbers on each of the pictures from one to seven. If you get three of the same numbers the materia in that slot levels up. Say you get three fours. Whatever is equipped in your fourth materia slot will level up. The way to level up your actual character is to get three sevens. It really makes the battle system very good, and makes you actually battle to level up. Another good thing about the battles in this game are, each battle has a set place to engage. There is no "take one step, and battle something" you have predestined battles on every map.
One of the most awesome parts of the game is the sheer number of additional missions you can participate in. Holy fuck I have never played a game with the amount of side missions as this game. There have to be at least 100 side missions which really involve chasing a certain enemy through a map, and killing them. There are also treasure hunting missions, and a few more. Doing these missions help you level Zack, and your materia. It is necessary to do some of these missions as one of the last bosses will wreck you if you aren't over-leveled. They are pretty repetitive, but again there are so fucking many of them, and they each contain many items and valuable monsters to level on.
The graphics and sound are also awesome. The graphics in the cut-scenes especially are amazing. This game actually hold my favorite cut-scene of all time. If you haven't seen it, go watch it on Youtube! It contains Sephiroith, Genesis, and Angeal fight. It's stunning. I may be biased because they made Sephiroith look amazing, and he is my absolute favorite video game character of all time, but it really is fucking awesome. The voice acting is pretty good as well, but nothing to really stay on. It really is the best looking PSP game that I have ever played.
I really like this game. I mean I REALLY REALLY like this game. It may not have the whole amazing story that I always love in a game, but for what this game was meant to be, it was fantastic. It actually stand as my favorite hand held game of all time. It is easily worth the buy especially if you are a huge FF7 fan. It offers tons of insight on the events that went on before 7. Not to mention this game has the cut-scene where Sephiroth is standing in the fire in Nibelheim. If you are looking for a great hand-held game, or just a great game in general than I recommended you give this one a shot.
Final Score: 9 It is a great game no doubt. Only reason it gets a nine is that its story is less exciting than I really love. Everything else about this game is great though. I can't exactly fault it to much for the story seeing as it was meant to be a prequel. The rest of the story is FF7.
