I know Final Fantasy 7 is big on the hearts of the people. I know the lore is very extensive and most things relating to it are cherished and appreciated. I just wish that I were closer to that particular journey and perhaps more empathetic to the qualms portrayed on the story. There's something that irks me about Zack and his persona. I am not sure if it's the stiff voice acting and animations, the writing, the edginess of it all or what, but I cannot stand him. I cannot most of the characters in the game and that was def a red flag for me when I started it.

~ Estimated reading time is 4-5 mins ~

In the 13 hours of my life I gifted to this iteration of Midgar and its surroundings I found it really hard to not skip the cutscenes lol. I tried my best to get invested in its extremely vainilla story and the magnanimus member sucking that is always given to Sephiroth - a character that is really beggining to annoy the hell out of me. And to give you, reader, a bit of context; I became a Final Fantasy guy relatively recently. The first one I played was FF12 and I thoroughly enjoyed it! So much so that I thought about doing a full playthrough of the series. I've always been super finicky with older games, but I always heard everyone talking wonders of the series, so 
I decided to beat (and review) the whole Pixel Remaster series. This was a great success! Amazing characters, stories, gameplay - it seems like this series had it all. As soon as I hit FF7 though something changed. The edginess went OFF THE CHARTS. I mean I understand that they were trying to go for something different and a story that addresses very modern anti-corpo and pro-environmental topics. Things that aged beautifully and are more relevant than ever I must say.

In any case, right after leaving Midgar in FF7 I remembered that Crisis Core existed and at the time they had announced a remaster for PC was on the way. A prequel to FF7. So I decided to stop playing FF7 and give this one a shot. I honestly think this is somewhat on me due to my lack of attachment to the characters and story - In any case, like any good book or movie, I am a firm believer that the work should be able to stand on its own. I get making prequels that should be perhaps judged beside its complements, but I think this game is simply not fun.

The fighting mechanics felt good at first. It's definitely very influenced by the beat 'em up school. A lower numbered Devil May Cry if you will. With a more classicly aestheticd magic system. It sounds good and it can be very fun - but it feels really cheap in a way. It's just the animations man, they're SO stiff and I have NO idea why they would include a slot machine mechanic for limit breaks and other special moves. It feels incredibly out of place and awkward as heck. This game is such a mess, I feel like a mess writing about this and this review is really messy. Just a soup of complaints about a game that made me regret the time I spent in it. I feel sad about this because aesthetically the game kinda makes me feel good, but not really because the more I think about it, the more I just about the dead eyed, robotic characters in the world, the ultra repetitive and grindy side missions.

I know this isn't the worst entry in the series, but it's definitely the worst I've played so far. I will happily give it a 1.5 Sephiroth memberjobs out of 5 💨🍆

MISSION. ANOTHER MISSION. ENDLESS MISSION. THE LIKE IS FOR THE FF7 STORY ONLY.

relax ff fun

oh yeahh

⠀

9/10

Great fun game that tells the story of Clouds mentor and best friend Zack Fair and his struggles in working for SOLDIER under the evil corporation SHINRA , original is way better in terms of voice acting and art style. however where this game shines is its Gameplay, combat is smooth, fun and challenging which will have you grinding for levels, lots of extra in form of missions which are challenging at times but can get stale after awhile. Voice acting is not terrible and most actors are as good as original with exception of Zack's.
Even if this is your first Final Fantasy should still buy this a perfect starter game.