full disclosure: the only experience i have with the og crisis core is trying it out years ago on an emulator & dropping it early on as i just could not stand the gameplay. i also ended up watching max dood’s playthrough of it a couple days ago after finishing reunion to be able to form a more informed opinion on the whole zack va debacle. so i have absolutely no attachment to zack’s voice actor or anything else from the original crisis core, really.

that said, considering that i willingly put around 30 hours into reunion to 100% it in less than a week, i’d say that it at least to me personally does literally almost everything better than the original & that it’s easily the version i’d recommend people to play if they’d ask me. there’s a shitton of quality of life improvements to the general gameplay, but especially combat. it’s actually fun now! and not a chore! you can knock missions out in a heartbeat & completely lose your sense of time for some hours! the gameplay being enjoyable also truly uplifts the story & writing - specifically parts that aren’t that great or borderline awful. i still rolled my eyes or grimaced during some writing/story bits, but everything surrounding them being great just made them way more digestable.

and man, when the story hits, it fucking hits hard. don’t want to go into spoiler territory, but i especially enjoyed everything past the timeskip. also cried like crazy during the ending. zack is a wonderful character stuck in anime land, surrounded by damn weirdos & it’s fucking endearing. he’s the purest form of a himbo. younger cloud is also adorable & i really enjoyed pre-ffvii sephiroth as well! seeing both of them emote more just adds a lot to their characters in ffvii/r.

now to the much debated situation of zack’s va - rick gomez in the psp game was clearly superior. hell, i’d say he was the perfect fit even. so finding someone who’s equally as good would’ve always proven impossible. despite feeling no attachment to his va, it’s obvious that he fit the character of zack perfectly & did everything in his power to make the writing work for him. but despite zack’s new va being inarguably worse, i wouldn’t say it’s awful, that it’s emotionless or that the game is unplayable due to it. you literally wouldn’t even notice that it’s worse if you never played the psp version or looked at comparisons! and he still does a fine job, especially past the timeskip! personally, i think the thing that held him back was the fact that he had to voice the lines in the exact same way they were voiced in the original. there was no room for better writing, experimentation, giving reunion zack his own character, or otherwise anything that would’ve diverged from the original voice acting. so due to that i think he did the best he could. if you listen to what he sounds like in remake & ep yuffie, it already sounds way better, so i think with rebirth we’ll get a much better voiced zack that’s less a worse imitation & more a new version equal to cloud, aerith, etc.

the only other thing that imo can be argued on being better is the original’s artstyle. while i personally prefer reunion’s look as it goes well with remake & rebirth, i do think that the psp game’s style has it’s own charm. i specifically like zack’s design a lot, even if it wouldn’t ever be a big enough reason for me to put up with the combat.

overall, it’s still very much a psp game at heart, but they really did a lot with the gameplay & graphical overhaul to make it feel more in line with ffvii remake. i feel crazy fawning over reunion when i had no love for the psp game, but i’d really encourage people to play this if they enjoyed ffviir & are interested in crisis core or zack's story.

also big shout-out to aerith’s va. she did everything she could with the lines she had - which at times felt incredibly weird & like they were written by a damn ai - & i can’t wait for aerith to actually form proper sentences again in rebirth lmao.

sorry if this is borderline unreadable & all over the place, this review is honestly just more for myself to come back to as my memory is dogshit & i wouldn’t want to forget how much i enjoyed reunion.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

You are a lone boy. With only your trusty steed by your side, you take on a quest that will ultimately lead to a grim end for yourself.

You convince yourself that it is all worth it, in order to save the girl. Nothing else matters.

You enter the empty, isolated wasteland. An unnamed region lacking any other sort of true sentient life, besides that of the Colossi.

These massive, diverse beasts are the only beings standing in the way between you and your goal.

You slay them, with full force and brutality as their black blood spurts out in a pure violent display.

Accomplished, you do not feel. You have killed a creature that was simply minding its own, living a life far removed from any conflict before you arrived and toppled it.

You notice that your arms, legs, and face grow darker and more smudged the more you kill, your clothes more soiled and worn.

This pact with the voice from the heavens is slowly corrupting you from within, as with every colossi you slay, your heart darkens as their souls seep into your own.

Shadow of the Colossus is the purest form of "The ends justify the means." With how after every Colossi dies, there's a sad, ominous choir singing a haunting melody, as if every fight was a funeral procession, or how the emptiness of the world results in this pure "I only care about what I need to do" mentality as you desperately hunt down the beasts is expertly put forth through the cinematics, and world design.

For a 2005 PS2 game, this game is gorgeous, and its visuals help to show a world that has been battered and beaten, but still alive.

I still wind up with at least one complaint however.

As much as I am well aware that the gameplay isn't really the most important aspect here, that would be the presentation, I do think the controls in this game feel very clunky and unnatural. I can understand it for when you're climbing the Colossi, since that makes sense, but even basic platforming or even getting on the horse is an incredible fucking hassle at points.

Other than that, this game is a thematic masterpiece with an underlying narrative that begged to ask gamers if killing these creatures was the right thing, an entire decade before Undertale even came to be.

Personally, I thought that killing the Colossi brought no satisfaction, and it shouldn't. They were mostly just doing their own thing before I came and slaughtered them.

How you perceive satisfaction in combat is what will ultimately define your view of this game.



P.S.

Agro is Best Horse!