Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus for PlayStation 2
- Online: No Online Gaming Support
- ESRB Descriptor: Violence Mild Language Use of Tobacco
- ESRB Rating: T - (Teen)
- Publisher: Square Enix
- Genre: Action
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227
Excuse me sir, I seem to have dirged my cerberus.
Pros
Combat is fun.
Cons
Dull graphics and sound. Repetetive. Sometimes overly easy
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
Everything has been done better in this genre. I wouldn't buy unless you are a huge fan of FF7, and even then it's only worth a rental.
Final Fantasy 7: Dirge of Cerberus is the first final fantasy game of its kind. Instead of being the usual RPG game, this game is a pure action game.
Story
Like the Final Fantasy 7 movie, the story is going to be hard to understand for those who didn't play the FF7 on the Playstation 1, and even those who did play it on the Playstation 1, the odds are that you haven't recently beat it so you will still have a hard time figuring out what's going on. You can usually understand what's going on in the game, but the references to things on the Playstation 1 will have you trying to remember what happened, and if you didn't play it, you will have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Ok so to the story.... You are Vincent Valentine, and it is three years after Final Fantasy 7. A group of soldiers suddenly appear, on your planet making things a little more hectic. These soldiers were trapped under the ruins of Midgar and they have finally broken out. As Vincent Valentine, you must put a stop to these soldiers.
Gameplay
I'm going to get straight to the point, Dirge of the Cerberus is a very generic shooter that has been done hundreds of times before. The game puts you straight into the action where you have to go through a set path that is constantly the same and shoot hundreds of guys that come towards you that look exactly he same. After the first 5 minutes of the game, you've pretty much had most of what the game has had to offer. There aren't any branching pathways, you just go straight through the level, as you recieve and abundance of potions for your health, and shooting not very powerful guys as they do little damage to you. The surplus of potions really takes away from the difficulty of the game and it really needs a boost in difficulty. So Dirge of the Cerberus is pretty much the definition of a run and gun shooter, that may be fun for newcomers of video games that want an easy game to beat, but those who are hardcore gamers will think is extremely mediocre.
The puzzles in FF7 were good, the puzzles in Dirge of Cerberus require no skill. What the puzzles almost always are is to kill a group of people to get a keycard to get into a place you couldn't get into. Come on Square-Enix! You can do better than that!
The aiming in the game is very similar to the Star Wars Battle Front games. You press R1 to take out your weapon, and then a giant crosshair fills the middle of the screen and then press R1 again to shoot your weapon, or L1 when you want to shoot your materia shot. The game has auto aim, which really takes away from the skill to the game. A materia shot is a special shot that you customize that shoots a bullet that explodes, it is very useful, but limited.
Aside from the weapon attacks there are also melee attacks that are basically just fast kicks and punches. The melee attacks are probably just as powerful as the guns, which is pretty unrealistic. You won't be using the melee attacks that much in the game because you rarely get close enough to the enemy to need to use them.
There is something in this game called a limit break. When you use this, you transform into a powerful Galian Beast. When in this mode you are more powerful, you can take more shots. This is an item that you get, and they aren't all too common in the game.
You're going to be jumping around, shooting and kicking all over the place, and the combat system overall is executed very well. It is similar to Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox, but the auto aim in the game really takes away the skill that the game could have had.
So all in all, this game has been done so many times before, and this rendition of the genre isn't even that good of a game. The game is so repetetive and after a few minutes of playing, you are likely to get bored, and then trying to play it around 9-10 hours to beat it, you will be really bored towards the end.
Graphics
The graphics in the cutscenes are amazing. They are almost equivelant to that of the FF movies. There are amazing texture both in the faces of the characters and their surroundings. Then when you go to the actual gameplay your level will have the same repeated textures over and over again, and they didn't even look that great to begin with. Ten minutes into the game I was saying to myself, "Haven't I seen that box about 50 times before." Boss battles in the game are rare, and when you aren't doing boss battles you are shooting the same guys over and over again and it starts getting really old right away.
Sound
The music in the game starts off being intense and moving and then when the gameplay hits, it's dull instrumental music that plays pretty low. The voiceovers in the movie sequences are terrifically done, but you rarely get any voiceovers during the actual gameplay. The game really feels like the focused on the cutscenes and when it got to the gameplay they used dull graphics, dull music, and rare voiceovers. I didn't know I was paying $49.99 for a movie.
Last Words
If you are a huge fan of Final Fantasy 7, I would say that you should rent it, but everyone else, there are much better games out there that this one doesn't even compare to. Definitely wouldn't buy this game.
Story
Like the Final Fantasy 7 movie, the story is going to be hard to understand for those who didn't play the FF7 on the Playstation 1, and even those who did play it on the Playstation 1, the odds are that you haven't recently beat it so you will still have a hard time figuring out what's going on. You can usually understand what's going on in the game, but the references to things on the Playstation 1 will have you trying to remember what happened, and if you didn't play it, you will have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Ok so to the story.... You are Vincent Valentine, and it is three years after Final Fantasy 7. A group of soldiers suddenly appear, on your planet making things a little more hectic. These soldiers were trapped under the ruins of Midgar and they have finally broken out. As Vincent Valentine, you must put a stop to these soldiers.
Gameplay
I'm going to get straight to the point, Dirge of the Cerberus is a very generic shooter that has been done hundreds of times before. The game puts you straight into the action where you have to go through a set path that is constantly the same and shoot hundreds of guys that come towards you that look exactly he same. After the first 5 minutes of the game, you've pretty much had most of what the game has had to offer. There aren't any branching pathways, you just go straight through the level, as you recieve and abundance of potions for your health, and shooting not very powerful guys as they do little damage to you. The surplus of potions really takes away from the difficulty of the game and it really needs a boost in difficulty. So Dirge of the Cerberus is pretty much the definition of a run and gun shooter, that may be fun for newcomers of video games that want an easy game to beat, but those who are hardcore gamers will think is extremely mediocre.
The puzzles in FF7 were good, the puzzles in Dirge of Cerberus require no skill. What the puzzles almost always are is to kill a group of people to get a keycard to get into a place you couldn't get into. Come on Square-Enix! You can do better than that!
The aiming in the game is very similar to the Star Wars Battle Front games. You press R1 to take out your weapon, and then a giant crosshair fills the middle of the screen and then press R1 again to shoot your weapon, or L1 when you want to shoot your materia shot. The game has auto aim, which really takes away from the skill to the game. A materia shot is a special shot that you customize that shoots a bullet that explodes, it is very useful, but limited.
Aside from the weapon attacks there are also melee attacks that are basically just fast kicks and punches. The melee attacks are probably just as powerful as the guns, which is pretty unrealistic. You won't be using the melee attacks that much in the game because you rarely get close enough to the enemy to need to use them.
There is something in this game called a limit break. When you use this, you transform into a powerful Galian Beast. When in this mode you are more powerful, you can take more shots. This is an item that you get, and they aren't all too common in the game.
You're going to be jumping around, shooting and kicking all over the place, and the combat system overall is executed very well. It is similar to Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox, but the auto aim in the game really takes away the skill that the game could have had.
So all in all, this game has been done so many times before, and this rendition of the genre isn't even that good of a game. The game is so repetetive and after a few minutes of playing, you are likely to get bored, and then trying to play it around 9-10 hours to beat it, you will be really bored towards the end.
Graphics
The graphics in the cutscenes are amazing. They are almost equivelant to that of the FF movies. There are amazing texture both in the faces of the characters and their surroundings. Then when you go to the actual gameplay your level will have the same repeated textures over and over again, and they didn't even look that great to begin with. Ten minutes into the game I was saying to myself, "Haven't I seen that box about 50 times before." Boss battles in the game are rare, and when you aren't doing boss battles you are shooting the same guys over and over again and it starts getting really old right away.
Sound
The music in the game starts off being intense and moving and then when the gameplay hits, it's dull instrumental music that plays pretty low. The voiceovers in the movie sequences are terrifically done, but you rarely get any voiceovers during the actual gameplay. The game really feels like the focused on the cutscenes and when it got to the gameplay they used dull graphics, dull music, and rare voiceovers. I didn't know I was paying $49.99 for a movie.
Last Words
If you are a huge fan of Final Fantasy 7, I would say that you should rent it, but everyone else, there are much better games out there that this one doesn't even compare to. Definitely wouldn't buy this game.
