Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis impressions

You’d be forgiven for forgetting that Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis existed, let alone had already been out for a week, until Square Enix, uh, “warmed up” the crowd for the new Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth trailer by showing an Ever Crisis trailer first.

You’d also be excused due to the game having been announced at the same time as the since launched and end-of-service’d battle royale, Final Fantasy VII: The First SOLDIER. As for the still-existing mobile game: It launched on September 7th which, not coincidentally, is the 26th anniversary of the North American release of Final Fantasy VII.

As you might gleam from the trailer, Ever Crisis is a collection that breaks down the entire Compilation of Final Fantasy VII into bite-sized chunks of gameplay. My personal interest in Ever Crisis is to see if it covers enough of Before Crisis to be an adequate substitute. I don’t rightly know just how much story was actually involved in Before Crisis, what with it being a Japan-only 2004 feature phone game and all. Nonetheless, I would at least be able to evaluate if enough was there to bother whether it was missing material or not.

But Ever Crisis had different plans. As soon as you tap the title screen, Ever Crisis opens by dumping you straight into a Zach vs. Sephiroth fight to serve as a gameplay tutorial. …and also because, as with Final Fantasy VII Remake before it, SquareEnix cannot help but blow their Sephiroth load immediately. After this quick introduction, it dumps you straight into the begining of Final Fantasy VII.

Functionally speaking, the in-game graphics are lovingly reminiscent of the super-deformed character models of the original Final Fantasy VII, though of much higher quality. The music has all been remixed (but much more cheaply that Remake‘s lovingly crafted dynamic orchestrations). There are some voiced lines in battle and in the fancier cutscenes, but they were not redubbed in English.

While some “missions” are just some sit and get some story, the bulk of them give you some action. You’ll walk around maps as one normally would in a Final Fantasy game, find treasure chests and fight both random and scripted encounters with enemies. Those battles themselves are a breezier take on the active time battle system. Regular attacks happen automatically, with your ATB gauge filling up segment by segment as time goes on. Your magic and command skills can be used only when you’ve accumulated enough ATB segments to pay their activation cost. Defending has its own button that can freely be toggled on and off at any time, though it takes a short while to reach its full effectiveness.

Things finally open up for real once you’ve cleared Mako Reactor No. 1. You can continue on to meet a Flower Girl, or go see what else the game has to offer. …And what’s on offer is all the live services shit that I’m beyond sick of. Stamina. Limited time events. Gatcha draws. Battle passes. A real-money material store. Daily login bonuses. Rewards for ad views.

Also, Before Crisis isn’t even an option. The only stories I can choose from are Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core and The First SOLDIER (lol). Also, they’re locked behind a lot more progress than just meeting the Flower Girl in VII.

I suppose playing one game from start to finish in order was too much to expect from this. After all, the ongoing content drip demands things be incomplete at launch and drag out as long as humanly possible. Given SquareEnix’s track record with keeping live services games going this past year, however, I worry that Ever Crisis will close down before Before Crisis even gets added, let alone completed. I was rather hoping this would be something that endured. This way, the missing parts of the Compilation are doomed to return to the void someday.

Doomed, doomed, doomed.