This review contains spoilers
This game could be best described as a Final Fantasy Warriors-like with one character. Zack has a pretty repetitive moveset and the combat is fairly quick and action oriented. Using the DMW (the brain wave slot machine of characters and numbers in the corner of the screen), Zack can get buffs, level up, watch story cutscenes, or use limit breaks at regular intervals.
The story is not that great - Zack is a lovable himbo that keeps everything surprisingly light hearted for the most part, but Genesis’s obsession and constant recital of the in-universe play LOVELESS gets tiresome. Sephiroth and Cloud have good arcs that flesh out their past. The ending of the game in particular is surprisingly bloody and visceral and might be the most gruesome sequence I’ve ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. The tonal shift at the end was a little odd. Going first person into Zack’s perspective, getting shot in the face point blank, and then seeing all the bullet holes in his body - then later seeing Cloud covered in Zack’s blood was a lot. Definitely left an impact though! Otherwise there’s a lot of weirdly stilted dialogue that gets increasingly confusing toward the end, like the game is trying to tell you a moral or theme but you can’t quite figure out what is happening nor what it’s trying to tell you.
The missions are where it most feels like a Warriors game to me. There are a few hundred missions to complete which is where the bulk of the game takes place, and they’re over only a handful of map varieties with mildly varying mission objectives. It’s a bit of a slog and can be fun if you turn your brain off, but there are quite a few to get through.
The materia system is good - you can master them, fuse them, and otherwise improve them to make huge improvements to your character. I’m effectively at the point where I melt any main story bosses and I was able to push past a soft barrier to deal incredible amounts of damage.
Visually, the upgrade has been quite nice in most scenes. Characters looks like the models from FF7 Remake, which is a good visual upgrade, and the menus are quite slick. Some cutscenes are still FMVs from the PSP era and they stick out quite a bit. Many characters also have very stiff animation which I assume hasn’t changed much since the PSP version.
Overall, it’s a game I can only play in doses but it has some charm and it was interesting to finally experience. Not sure I would fully recommend to everyone but for people who want the plot from this prequel it is a solid game to run through.
The story is not that great - Zack is a lovable himbo that keeps everything surprisingly light hearted for the most part, but Genesis’s obsession and constant recital of the in-universe play LOVELESS gets tiresome. Sephiroth and Cloud have good arcs that flesh out their past. The ending of the game in particular is surprisingly bloody and visceral and might be the most gruesome sequence I’ve ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. The tonal shift at the end was a little odd. Going first person into Zack’s perspective, getting shot in the face point blank, and then seeing all the bullet holes in his body - then later seeing Cloud covered in Zack’s blood was a lot. Definitely left an impact though! Otherwise there’s a lot of weirdly stilted dialogue that gets increasingly confusing toward the end, like the game is trying to tell you a moral or theme but you can’t quite figure out what is happening nor what it’s trying to tell you.
The missions are where it most feels like a Warriors game to me. There are a few hundred missions to complete which is where the bulk of the game takes place, and they’re over only a handful of map varieties with mildly varying mission objectives. It’s a bit of a slog and can be fun if you turn your brain off, but there are quite a few to get through.
The materia system is good - you can master them, fuse them, and otherwise improve them to make huge improvements to your character. I’m effectively at the point where I melt any main story bosses and I was able to push past a soft barrier to deal incredible amounts of damage.
Visually, the upgrade has been quite nice in most scenes. Characters looks like the models from FF7 Remake, which is a good visual upgrade, and the menus are quite slick. Some cutscenes are still FMVs from the PSP era and they stick out quite a bit. Many characters also have very stiff animation which I assume hasn’t changed much since the PSP version.
Overall, it’s a game I can only play in doses but it has some charm and it was interesting to finally experience. Not sure I would fully recommend to everyone but for people who want the plot from this prequel it is a solid game to run through.