Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

"Vincent returns... without the Active Time Bar."

Meteor is gone, Sephiroth is dead... SEPHIROTH IS ALIVE!!! ...And he's dead again. Cloud is happy! But wait! Vincent's not! Enter Dirge of Cerberus--a game starring Mr. Valentine himself. Sure, he saved the world, but in Final Fantasy VII we never really got to know him all that well. All we got were little hints here and there--Lucrecia's cave, Shinra Mansion, and Hojo were about it. Dirge of Cerberus has arrived to fix those mysteries. We will finally find out who Vincent really is, learn about his past, and determine what happens in his future.

STORY:
As expected from Square-Enix, Dirge of Cerberus presents us with a very invigorating plot. This game takes place a few years after Advent Children. In the beginning there is a celebration in the town of Kalm, when all of a sudden countless soldiers ambush it, killing, capturing, and injuring anyone they see. Vincent immediately recognizes that citizens screaming bloody murder might mean that something in the celebration has gone wrong. So he goes out to investigate, only to find out that the soldiers are looking for him. What do they want with him and what do they plan to do if they ever catch him? You must play to find out!

Along with bringing back many familiar FF7 faces (Reeve, Yuffie, and that one guy dressed in red who has the gun and claw... what was his name?), DoC also introduces new people to the story. Luckily, they're not just excuse-type characters to satisfy newcomers who don't really know much about FF7. They actually have pretty deep personalities, and you may become attached to them... even the villains.

I am very happy that Square-Enix didn't just make some lame story and just relied on a "Vincent is COOL!" factor to convince buyers. You find out so much more regarding Vincent's past, and he slowly but surely begins to grow on you again. They really do answer the great questions that they presented to us in our first adventure with Vincent.
STORY: 9.5/10

GRAPHICS:
DoC is a pretty good looking game in many aspects. Most obvious is how amazing the detail in Vincent looks. His red cape and long hair wave beautifully as he runs with fluid grace. The other characters also look fantastic, with some of the nicest graphical details I've seen on the PS2.

The environments also look pretty good too, though after awhile they get pretty bland. Many of the rooms look too similar to other ones, and you will often times get confused as to where you are on the map because so many of the places look the same.

Lastly, the FMVs in DoC are spectacular. Though not quite up to par with Advent Children, for a PS2 game, DoC in movie motion looks exceptional. Hair, clothing, water, pavement... everything looks so great during the FMV sequences.
GRAPHICS: 8.5/10

SOUNDS:
Musically, DoC is not nearly as impressive as FF7, or any other Final Fantasy for that matter. Though the tracks suit the game nicely, they probably won't stay in your memory when you turn the PS2 off. It did make me glad that they reused some of FF7s songs in this game... well, how could I have doubted Square anyway? Of course they would bring them back!

The voiceacting in DoC is spot-on. Vincent sounds like the badass that he is, Reeve sounds like the intellectual that he is, etc. The dubbing when people talked was pretty good too.

Last and least, the sound effects. You will mostly hear footsteps and gunshots, and neither of these sound bad at all.
SOUNDS: 8.5/10

GAMEPLAY:
DoC is NOT an RPG like FF7. It is a shooter, with you playing as Vincent. That said, the gameplay is not nearly as deep as before. You play mainly in third person, pressing R1 to bring up your reticle, and pressing it again to shoot. That's basically it--shoot the bad guys with your gun. Luckily, you can also jump, dodge, perform melee attacks, and do a quick-recover maneuver, each of which help add strategy to your battles.

Thankfully, Vincent isn't just stuck with one gun. He can use a shotty, a rifle, or a machine gun. These can also be customized to your liking at any point during gameplay. This is very fun-- add some fire materia to burn numerous enemies to a crisp, add a defensive accessory to redue damage, add a sniper scope to let you kill baddies from afar, the list goes on and on. A nice treat is that you can quickly change customized guns with a simple press of a button (this is also possible with items).

But remember, most of the game is shooting, shooting, and more shooting. It doesn't necessarily get repetitive because of all the different ways you'll need to take out enemies, but you may only want to play this game for short amounts of time before you get tired of it.

Another problem I had was that, while I love watching cutscenes, they come up too frequently and sometimes last way too long. I'm in the middle of a shooting frenzy, hot on the enemies' trails, when all of a sudden the screen goes black. Time for another cutscene!! ...Wha'??? B-but.... I was just... ermm... fine.

Something else that bothered me was how I often found myself completely clueless as to where the enemies were. Whether they looked similar to my allies from far away or were just blending in with the environment too well made me feel that they had a somewhat unfair advantage over me (though the AI wasn't the smartest)--I could be getting shot at from five different directions, and still have no clue where I should aim.

One last little frustration was playing as Cait Sith. Now unlike most, I love the little guy, but the cat just doesn't do stealth very well. Playing as Cait Sith might seem cool at first, but the sneaking around he had to do was boring and frustrating.

Despite these problems, there are two aspects that I really loved--one is the boss fights. Each boss is so unique, with his/her/its own crazy attacks, at times I wanted to purposely lose just to fight the boss again. They seriously are a really good time. The other thing I loved was that you got to revisit old locations from FF7. Shinra Mansion, for example, was one of my favorite levels. It looks so much different now, yet I still knew my way around it because it was so familiar. It's really nice of Square to bring old memories into this new game.

Overall, DoC is mainly a shootfest. Most of the time it's fun, but it may get too tiresome quickly and need to be turned off for the day.
GAMEPLAY: 6.5/10

LASTING APPEAL:
The main game lasts a nice while, and in addition to probably wanting to play through it multiple times, there are TONS of secrets to acquire when you reach certain requirements. Not just that, but there is more than one ending to be viewed upon completion. This game is one to buy, for you'll be spending quite a bit of time on it.
LASTING APPEAL: 9/10

OVERALL:
I love Final Fantasy. I love Final Fantasy 7. Do I love Dirge of Cerberus? Hm... no, but I really really like it a lot! While not nearly as original, inspirational, moving, or complex as FF7, Vincent's latest journey is still a good time. Unlike FF7, you may not get hooked for hours and hours a day, but it'll nevertheless provide you with some decent gameplay, a magnificent story, and some beautiful cutscenes. Plus it has Vincent, who will kill you if you don't play his game. I mean... isn't this game's star reason enough to buy and play it? Dirge of Cerberus is great in many ways, but it's also far from being a masterpiece.
OVERALL: 8/10

Thanks for reading =)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/17/06, Updated 08/18/06