Game Profile: Final Fantasy Crisis Core

Crisis Core is one of those games that was bandied around early on in the pre-release hype for the PSP, but which took ages to materialize. Its long lost brother, Gran Turismo, is still nowhere to be seen, but recent murmurings from Japan have confirmed that this portable extension of the Final Fantasy canon really does exist in playable form, and not just as a CG feature film.

Despite the massive public interest in this game, there has been precious little info on plotline, game mechanics, or release info from Square Enix, making us even more curious. To satiate our burning curiosity, we have scoured the internet to compile a list of everything that is curently known about this title, which promises to make a big splash on the PSP software library when it is finally released.

What? Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is an action RPG set in the Final Fantasy VII universe, and will serve as a prequel to the Ps1 game. Players assume the role of Zack, a young fighter in the Shinra Corporation’s SOLDIER organization. An early trailer for the game shown at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show contained cutscenes with familiar characters: Aeris, Tseng and Sephiroth.

When? The game is set to release in Japan on September 13, 2007. This means that we could reasonably expect to see it in North America as a Winter 2007 title, perhaps as early as January or February 2008.

Who? None other than Square Enix, and the same team that has been responsible for the other “Final Fantasy Compilation” series, which includes Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII for mobile, and Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus for the Ps2.

Even though Before Crisis and Dirge of Cerberus were mediocre games, hopefully the team will do a better job with Crisis Core. The fact that Yoshinori Katase, the deirector of Final Fantasy VII is heading up develoment of the PSP game gives us reason to believe it will be a quality title.

Lucky gamers who have played a Japanese demo of the game report that it combines action and turn-based elements during battles, which occur on the world map. Players move around freely and select attacks from a menu bar using the L and R buttons. Anoop over at IGN was fortunate enough to get his hands on the playable Demo of Crisis Core and had this to say about the impressive production values in the early build:

“Taken strictly on technical merits, Crisis Core is the most impressive PSP game I’ve ever played. In fact, with the PSP’s small screen providing an assist, I’d go so far as to say that Crisis Core looks better than most PS2 games out there.”

If the demo was able to elicit this much praise from a jaded video game journalist, we can’t wait to see what the final version looks like. From the gameplay screenshots below, the game looks like it is shaping up nicely, to say the least. [Update: Learn more about the game's fighting mechanics and impressions from the 2007 Square Enix Party HERE]

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