Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

"Is this Final Fantasy or Devil May Cry?"

Graphics: 10/10

Oh man, Another final fantasy? And of course the graphics are controversially the best graphics of this year. Both cut-scenes and game play graphics are. I mean how many times do you really find a game that when a person runs their cape and hair flies back like in real life and when he jumps the cape goes down and when he goes down the cape goes up.

Sound: 10/10

The same people that were the voice for the other games are still in the game. And again one of the best and longest voice acting this year. So forth to the music, its good but if you don't know Japanese or don't have a translator around than your gonna have a hard time figuring out what the words are. But the hard rock music is really good for a game like this an action packed game.

Controls: 10/10

First thing I gotta say about the controls is that; right after you read this review, surf the net and finish with your instant messages. You can unhook your keyboard and mouse through it into your ps2 and play Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII with the keyboard and mouse. More games need to do this so you can stop saying man I really wish that I was playing the pc version because it's the almost like the PC version except your monitor is a TV. But the regular controller is a little worse than the keyboard since there are so many buttons for this game.

Game play: 7.5/10

Ok like I said in my title is this Final Fantasy or Devil May Cry? I mean its kind of cool that. They tried to make a little difference in how the game play is. But like the famous quote says “don't fix anything that isn't broken” and that's what they tried to do. And Square Enix, you're good at RPG's not Shooter games. Anyways this game is an arcade third person RPG shooter since after every level you can experience that you use to level up or exchange it for Gil (Final Fantasy's currency/money). So you get the point of the game play but every 5-10 minutes you get a new cut-scene that is 5-30 minutes long. Even between the bosses there's a cut-scene going on and the last boss is as easy as the first boss. Vincent is running around the stage more than he is fighting. And the battles aren't as fun as the regular RPG style. Why is it always the cut-scenes getting to do stuff that the game play can't do? I mean if you want to put it into the cut-scene you might as well put it in the game play too, it might not look as cool anymore as it was if was just a cut-scene move but if you want it to still look cool just add that move right after the cut-scene is over. Now lets go back to the older days when characters would grunt whenever they jump well guess what Vincent jumps and he grunts and you do a lot of jumping in this game so be prepared to listen to GAR for about 4 hours. This game can be beat in 6 hours but this doesn't not include all the side missions there are.

Story: 10/10

Im so sorry…Vincent Valentine, you better like those two words, is the main character of this game. Those cloud fans are gonna be really disappointed because he gets a really minor role in this game. Anyways this game takes place a few years after the movie; “Advent Children” and Mr. Valentine's trying to find about his past while trying to save the world from this new world power leader know as Weiss, who is trying to get the power of Omega.

Weapons: 8.5/10

There is only one weapon in this game but that one weapon gets dozens of customizations and another major weapon is Vincent Valentine's other form. Who is like an were wolf, its really fun and does major damage on enemies from punching to dragonballz style fireballs.

Replay value: 10/10

The replay value is low on the actual story line other than getting the capsules you didn't get the first time. But there's an extra features part in the main menu which gives you side missions that has nothing to do with the actual game but its still fun to try and beat it the first time and try to beat your old time.

Rent it or buy it?

Rent it first see if you like it, if you do buy it. But I would just rent it since it's really not as fun as a final fantasy RPG game.

Pros: Story line
The graphics
All the extra features
Different approach to the final fantasy game play
Dozens of customization to the weapons
The music

Cons: trying to fix something that isn't broken, the game play

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06