After over 15 years, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 is finally making the leap from handheld to consoles in the form of a new and improved remaster. Boasting better visuals, improved performance, and some quality-of-life improvements, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is certainly going to make many fans happy, as well as serve as a perfect way to get new players started with the Final Fantasy 7 series. 

To Become a Hero

As far as the story goes, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 has always been a mixed bag amongst fans. I loved it back then and still do today, but I can understand why fans of the original Final Fantasy 7 weren’t so big on some retconning. There are some areas where the writing goes off the rails too, and if you were hoping to see any alterations or changes to make it more in line with the original release of FF7, prepare to be disappointed. 

On the other hand, we know that the rerelease of Crisis Core will supposedly play a significant role in the new FF7 trilogy. So while fans may not have liked the changes originally, the story told in Crisis Core may better fit the new version of FF7 than it did the original. Of course, that’s speculation.

Nonetheless, Crisis Core is a great starting point if you’re new to the franchise. As for the gameplay, it has aged surprisingly well, least in most areas. 

For the longest time, fans of the Final Fantasy franchise have known the series for it’s incredible turned-based combat. When Crisis Core came out, it was such a drastic change that many didn’t know what to think of it, but in retrospect it certainly was one of those games that helped shaped the future of the franchise. 

The game plays similar to recent Final Fantasy releases like FF7: Remake, FF15, and even the upcoming FF16 if looks are anything to go by. Albeit not quite as robust, but it was an action role-playing game at its core. It felt great, though the PSP lack of a secondary joystick and odd control schemes for the game did somewhat hamper the experience. Well, with it releasing on modern day systems, Square Enix has touched up on those controls, utilizing the second joystick, and overall improving the controls. 

It plays, and looks fantastic. 

But like the originally, seeing the DMW (Digital Mind Wave) system return isn’t one I’m too fond of. For those who don’t know what the DMW system is, it’s basically a slot machine like system where during combat it will keep rolling until it hits three matches. Those matches are all based on existing characters, and the reward for getting all three on a specific character varies. 

The game’s summons also work on this system. It’s not the worst thing I’ve seen, and it does work fine, but I’ve disliked the RNG element of it. You never got to select what kind of summons you wanted to role, or which special attacks. It was all based on luck, and facing off a really hard and challenging boss and winning could all depend on what the system rolls.

Enemies also show up in predetermined spots. You can’t see them, which I wasn’t expecting them to add, but I was hoping they’d be tweaked a bit more in the remaster. Running into an enemy, beating them, and having to backtrack a few steps because I noticed a chest, only to be locked into another battle can get annoying at times. 

These are pretty small complaints though, as the general combat, gear, and Materia system all flow nicely, and makes those nitpicks easy forget about, as you’ll probably be too busy having fun.

A “Remake” Fans Have Dreamt About

Alright, so to be clear, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion isn’t a remake in the veins of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. In fact, the game’s director, Tetsuya Nomura, has stated that it’s closer to a remaster than a remake. I can understand, as outside of the visuals, sounds, and a few other quality-of-life improvements, the story remains exactly as it initially did on the PSP in every way. As a fan of the original PS1 release of FF7, Reunion feels like the kind of “remake” that fans expected out of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, in that it remained the same, only rebuilt for modern-day gaming. 

While not as detailed as the FF7 Remake, to say the least, the visual facelift that Reunion received is an impressive one.

It looks like something from this era of gaming and goes above and beyond the standard remastering that we’ve become accustomed to, where it’s simply increased resolution with a performance bump. 

Lighting, textures, shadows, and even reflections have all been overhauled. And sure, there are some rough edges here and there, with some of the textures appearing to be muddy and low res, but for the most part, you’ll be happy with the visual lift and the buttery smooth 60 frames-per-second that accompanies it. Plus, revisiting some of the areas in Reunion that FF&: Remake missed out on gives us a small tease of what’s to come in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. 

Unfortunately, Reunion suffers in one area, and that’s from the video cutscenes. Like everything else, the cutscenes have been redone with brand-new models and textures, giving them that top-of-the-line Final Fantasy CGI quality that fans know and love. Or at least it should have, as these cutscenes play in a low-quality video format. It’s like someone uploaded a standard-definition video, and you’re trying to play it on a 4K TV set. They’re blurry and filled with pixelation. 

Seriously, what’s going on there? I’m puzzled by this because the game is superbly clean during combat and in-engine cutscenes. I know the actual models are drastically better than the PSP version, but because they’re so pixelated, you could mistakenly pass them off as direct rips from the PSP. I’m hoping there’s a patch down the road to fix this, but as of right now, this is probably my biggest issue with this remaster. 

A Welcomed Reunion 

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is a splendid remaster of a classic PSP game, that feels and looks like a modern-day video game. It’s combat brings some much needed quality of life improvements, and the visuals, outside of the video formatted cutscenes, are pretty top notched for a remaster that could have taken the easy way of just given us a resolution and frame-rate bump. There are some places I do wish were changed, but as far as staying faithful, Crisis Core does just that, and I can’t help but appreciate it even more than I did back then, as it certainly is a title that has aged surprisingly well. 

If you’re new to the world of Final Fantasy 7, then Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is the perfect place to start your journey. 

Score: 8.5/10

Pros

• Visuals are impressive for what is being called a remaster.
• Combat is fun, and exhilarating, and aged well when compared to other recent Final Fantasy entries.
• Although the story has its issues and at times suffers from poor writing, it is nonetheless an entertaining one.   

Cons

• Cutscenes’ video quality is rough compared to in-game. You know you’re watching something pre-rendered as it looks pixelated and grainy compared to the clean and sharp in-game visuals. 
• Random enemy encounter could have used better tweaking. 
• Still not a fan of the DMW system.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion (PS5) code was provided by the publisher for review purposes.  You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.