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Crisis Core was a groundbreaking JRPG back when it was first released almost two decades ago—not only being a very strong title in and of itself, building on one of the most influential Final Fantasy games, but also being an impressive leap for handheld games in terms of technical fidelity. Reunion, as a remaster, manages to provide this same experience with a very modernized feel and is a good experience for people who have already played the original. Sadly, Crisis Core itself, however, has not aged very gracefully, and today feels very lackluster in both story and gameplay at large.


🟩 Pros
🟥 Cons


✔️ Strong graphical upgrade, managing to improve a PSP game to look like a genuinely modern JRPG while also keeping very faithful to the original design.
❌Voice acting has gotten worse. Considering that the original performances, while iconic, are also not very good, the game still suffers from some shaky performances for noticeably Zack, as well as side characters now being voiced, showcasing some fairly bad writing.


✔️ Very strong character progression due to a myriad of varied skills and the Materia Fusion system, allowing for surprisingly diverse builds as players progress through the decently well-balanced story and side missions.
❌ Crisis Core features some of the most generic dungeon design across all of Final Fantasy, coupled with an atrocious slog of 300 side missions that present the majority of challenging content for players that want to delve deeper into those same progression systems.


✔️ The limited additions to Reunion over the original Crisis Core noticeably improve the flow of combat and further support the aforementioned character progression. Buster Sword proficiency especially adds an entirely new playstyle for Zack, even if it suffers, like the side missions, from being overly grindy.
❌While thematically surprisingly strong, Crisis Core’s story suffers from pacing issues and being overly theatrical when it comes to its supposed main plot surrounding Genesis, which often clashes with the more straightforward growth of Zack and the prelude to FFVII’s story with Cloud.


Technical Issues and Performance
Crisis Core Reunion ran perfectly well and was stable across my roughly thirty hours of playtime, which also got me to 100% completion. I did not experience any crashes, glitches, bugs, or otherwise.
Graphics and Sound
CCR is a perfect upgrade from its predecessor in both graphics and sound. Character models are incredibly detailed, and combat has a lot more weight to it due to added effects. There is still some distinct stiffness in many animations, which becomes very obvious during dialogue sequences. Similar to the original Crisis Core, CCR seems to simply have a large gap in animation quality between characters such as Zack, Cloud, and Aerith—who are all very expressive—and characters like Tseng, Cissnei, or even Angeal, who may as well have the same facial animations of 2007 despite being just as important characters.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3253749047
Likewise noteworthy is that the cutscenes of the original PSP have not been altered. Sequences such as the iconic Nibelheim incident or the training between Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth feel barely upscaled, which results in a noticeable crunch to the image quality.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3253379945
The soundtrack is as phenomenal as it was in the original Crisis Core, despite the voice acting, both in Japanese and especially in English, not being ideal. This is not merely a symptom of new voice actors who may not feel like they fit the character as much, most commonly criticized for Zack, but is also a victim of the simply overall very theatrical writing style, which is often poorly translated into a genuine voice performance.
Story and Setting
Crisis Core Reunion is the prequel to Final Fantasy VII, covering the origin story of Cloud’s mentor figure Zack as he progressed through Shinra’s SOLDIER hierarchy. It is as much a story about Zack and his personal development as he is confronted with betrayal, trauma, genuinely good romance, and, however, unbelievably cruel circumstances, as it is about worldbuilding and fleshing out the setting of Final Fantasy VII through really exploring the experiments of Shinra that led to Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth.
That is to say, rather than merely being a prequel and a vector for Square Enix to flesh out Cloud’s character more, Crisis Core can very much stand on its own two legs as a standalone story. However, Crisis Core also suffers from some bad writing. This is in large part due to the decision to push Genesis’ story into the forefront as to how the player is exploring Shinra's experiments. His monologues consisting of Loveless quotes are already a bit of a meme, and while they are thematically strong, tossing in-universe poetry at the player isn’t exactly a very productive way of storytelling.
Wherein Shinra, the Jenova experiments, SOLDIER, are all a bit obtuse, Zack’s personal growth is very strong. Crisis Core expertly crafts a character that is, himself, a bit simplistic but thoroughly defined by his morals and the characters he interacts with, and eventually culminates in an absolutely fantastic ending sequence.
Gameplay
Crisis Core, unlike most Final Fantasy games, is not a turn-based RPG. Instead, combat consists of a small-ish battle arena that can be freely navigated as Zack. Players are given the option to dodge, block, attack, and cast spells, which are determined by Materia and double as one category of gear players can acquire. There is some lingering handheld DNA in how combat feels in CCR, but overall it is a fluent and genuinely fun experience.
Materia can not just be acquired by loot but also fused with other materia and items to create other spells or strengthen passive stat bonuses they give the player. Ultimately, this progression allows Zack to become extremely overpowered but also requires a decent amount of time spent doing optional side content.
A more unique part of combat is the DMW, essentially a slot machine that, by pseudo-random chance, offers the player summons and other effects. Thematically, it reinforces the idea of Zack’s relationships leading to how the story plays out, but gameplay-wise, it introduces a level of randomness that may be a bit off-putting on occasion.
Between the main story, players can engage in various minigames—all of which, in typical Final Fantasy fashion, are absolutely atrocious. Dungeons, likewise, in typical Final Fantasy fashion, are equally badly designed. In Crisis Core’s case, it is due to the sheer repetitiveness and monotony they consist of. Hallways. Endless, very short hallways that repeat ad nauseum across both the relatively short main story and its hilarious amount of side missions. There is no variety in objectives either, and instead, each dungeon merely culminates in a selection of fights again and again.
Final Thoughts
I don’t regret replaying Crisis Core after over fifteen years. However, this is also the only reason I would be able to recommend Crisis Core Reunion. Nostalgia. As it is still at its crisis core, a modernized PSP game that has simply been left behind by titles doing what it does vastly better. The frankly ludicrous price point does not really help its case either, nor does the lackluster story unless the player is already somewhat familiar with the world, or otherwise they risk getting lost by the mire that is hopeless exposition on Shinra over the decently presented story of Zack. Ultimately, Crisis Core simply does not hold up to modern standards, and even new additions to Reunion serve to underline the severe weaknesses the original title already suffered from.