Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

Note: This review contains spoilers for Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

As part of my journey through Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, the next stop after Advent Children was Dirge of Cerberus, a sequel/spinoff game that puts Vincent Valentine directly into the spotlight. Oddly enough, this also happened to be the only piece of Final Fantasy VII media I didn’t own, likely due to its negative reception, so I borrowed a copy to reduce the investment. Now that I’ve played it for myself, it seems that its bad reputation wasn’t unearned.

Three years after Final Fantasy VII, and one year after Advent Children, a group of SOLDIERs known as Deepground have emerged with the intent of summoning Omega, a creature with the ability to destroy the planet. Their plans also involve obtaining the Protomateria from Vincent, the only one capable of stopping their plans.

The Tsviets want to summon Omega; L-R: Shelke the Transparent,
Rosso the Crimson, Nero the Sable (top); Weiss the Immaculate, Azul the Cerulean

I’ll admit that I liked the idea of expanding on the character of Vincent Valentine, since his optional storyline in Final Fantasy VII was interesting, but felt a little incomplete. However, the execution of this expanded story, in spite of its impressive scope, is questionable. For one thing, it involves the introduction of two new groups, Deepground and the WRO, who were not referenced anywhere else in Compilation of Final Fantasy VII up to this point, let alone the original game, and seem to come out of nowhere in spite of the time skip.

Due to the relative proximity of when I played Dirge of Cerberus, the most powerful members of Deepground, the Tsviets, reminded me of the Winds of Destruction from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but without the same charm that made the latter group memorable. What doesn’t help is that some additional backstory for the Tsviets was exclusive to the Multiplayer mode, which only existed in the original Japanese release of the game; though the US version got an Extra Mission mode to compensate, it didn’t include any of the Multiplayer mode’s story. As it is, the Tsviets seem single-minded in obtaining the Protomateria to bring forth a being capable of destroying all life on the planet, but without a very strong motivation to do so. That’s not to say none of them are interesting individually, as there’s a glimmer of something for Shelke and Nero, but they’re not very interesting as a whole.

The connection between Shalua (left) and Shelke (right) had promise.

As for the story itself, the plot takes a little bit to get going, since the early chapters are focused on building up the mystery with the Tsviets and how Vincent factors in. I felt more engaged once the pieces properly fell into place about halfway through, which is also about when the game gets increasingly “anime” in its tone and presentation. By this, I mean that though there is a serious story going on, it does indulge in some silliness and more over-the-top moments, especially towards the end. While some of the silliness is admittedly fun, like Yuffie getting carried away with a speech and then botching the finale, some of it just didn’t stick the landing.

Of the different elements used to advance the plot, however, I felt that the specific application of computer data was particularly ridiculous. Shelke having some of Lucrecia’s memories is interesting on paper, but the explanation is that computer data was placed into her mind for that to work. Then there’s the major twist that Hojo was able to survive the events of Final Fantasy VII by scattering his mind throughout the internet, then reassembling his consciousness when it came back online and transferring his computer data into Weiss’ body. As with Shelke, there is an interesting idea buried in there, but expecting computer data to carry the full weight of it makes it sound completely farfetched. Of course, Dirge of Cerberus also had to retcon what happened during the Hojo fight in the original game to try and make this work, which didn’t make sense in hindsight even though I went out of my way to view the optional interactions with Vincent.

Then there’s how the game handles Vincent himself besides his increased amount of self-loathing. His backstory is greatly expanded and made fairly convoluted by explaining how the Protomateria factored into his connection with Chaos and Omega. We also get to see him interact with Lucrecia outside of his secret story from the original game, but the way it’s executed made me unsure how to feel about Lucrecia’s character or Vincent's own feelings for her. I also got the general feeling that Vincent was retroactively made very important to the fabric of Final Fantasy VII, which only makes his status as an optional character in the original game more confusing. After a full ten-hour playthrough, I’m still not entirely sure what to make of Vincent’s expanded role, considering how I found him so interesting before.

Vincent's character is a bit rocky.

While I don’t think the story was the game’s strong suit, there were still some things I liked about it. In spite of the rough execution, the idea behind Omega felt pretty natural for the setting given what was established in Final Fantasy VII. I also liked that Reeve got an expanded role and was able to interact with the main cast more. Though the game never attempts to explain how Reeve and Cait Sith could be in the same room at the same time, it was still nice to see some sort of in-story redemption and acceptance beyond what little was in Advent Children.

While Dirge of Cerberus’ story is pretty rough, to say the least, the actual gameplay isn’t much better.

As a third-person shooter with RPG elements, there is an interesting framework in place. Some elements are reminiscent of Devil May Cry, including a jukebox-like item shop where you can buy and restock items or upgrade weapons, as well as an item shortcut. The most noticeable RPG elements, and one that helps this game stand out, is the gun customization. You can mix and match the type of frame, between Handgun, Machine Gun and Rifle, and short, medium and long barrels. From there, you can add options, like a sniper scope, or accessories that directly alter the properties of the gun, including Materia that add magical attacks. Different parts also alter other properties of the gun, including weight (how fast Vincent can run while the gun is drawn), firing speed, power and range.

Throughout each chapter, you earn EXP from defeating enemies. However, you don’t level up immediately. Instead, once you’ve beaten a chapter, you can choose to either level up or convert it to Gil, the in-game currency. This is an interesting system, which gets reworked a bit for Final Fantasy XV, and adds some degree of challenge in a risk vs reward system.

I also appreciated some of the quality of life mechanics. You can customize guns and use items from a menu at any time, even in the middle of combat, and some boss fights had a jukebox available in case you blew through your items. Needless to say, this game had some potential.

The general gameplay of Dirge of Cerberus.

Unfortunately, it’s very obvious that this was Square-Enix’s first crack at the genre. The shooting controls are clunky, since you have to enter Shooting Mode and then aim and fire the weapon. You can customize the aiming style at least, with the default semi-automatic showing a larger ring that you can then find targets through. Vincent also has a melee option, but it’s not much better than shooting, since it’s hard to quickly change your position and you have to be next to the enemy for the attack to land. He can also attack in the air, but I found this mostly situational and didn’t feel too motivated, especially given Vincent’s jump height.

The gameplay structure itself is also pretty boring. It does borrow a bit from the Devil May Cry series, mostly clearing a room full of enemies, but clearing rooms and grabbing keycards feels repetitive after a while. Due to a general lack of challenge, the game also feels rather dull. Yes, there are times when the game catches you off guard or cheeses you into wasting Phoenix Downs to complete uninspired stage challenges, but there are few times where the game felt truly challenging enough to reward any sort of catharsis.

This lack of difficulty, sadly, also applies to the bosses, including the elite Tsviets, whose strategy can boil down to strafing around the arena and whittling away their health with gunshots, as I did with Nero the Sable. Even the final boss of the game, Omega Weiss, sadly felt like a complete and utter joke, which made the ending feel anticlimactic. The only times I felt any trouble were from Bloodburst Rosso, Arch Azul and Weiss Empowered, but for the exact wrong reasons. Instead of having truly challenging patterns, they exploit the fact that Vincent inexplicably has no invincibility frames, meaning he can be stunlocked a little too easily. Arch Azul also has an odd gimmick of being immune to bullets, so you’re forced to use magic or the Limit Breaker item, but Vincent is still prone to stunlock either way.

There are also stealth sections where you get to play directly as Cait Sith. Though I liked the idea behind it, these sections felt unpolished. I’ll admit to some human error at play, but it seemed a little too easy for Cait Sith to get spotted at times even though the stealth element is purely line of sight. It doesn’t help, however, that the button to jump and the button to interact with objects are both Cross. In Cait Sith’s case, it felt a little too easy to accidentally jump when trying to push a barrel, resulting in him getting spotted and barely making it out alive.

Cait Sith is now (briefly) a playable character.

Of course, I had a couple nitpicky issues. Vincent has a rather slow climbing animation, which gets more noticeable with how many long ladders there are. To unlock any extras, even cutscenes to re-watch, you have to go out of your way to find memory capsules scattered throughout the levels, both from the main game and Extra Missions, and shoot them. This was more annoying than anything, considering the sheer number of them and the fact that this isn’t confined to the character, art and sound galleries. The Extra Missions themselves do provide a unique challenge, but are still fairly unremarkable.

One of the bigger issues, however, is a lack of New Game Plus. If you want to save your Gil for one of the biggest purchases of the game or watch the secret ending by finding all three G-Files, you have to do it in one go or, in the case of the latter, replay the last four Chapters of the game in a row if you didn’t find anything. This eliminates a lot of potential replay value, since playing through the game over again from scratch just to do something differently isn’t exactly ideal considering how dull it already is.

I will mention here that it’s also possible to play the game with a USB mouse and keyboard, as long as neither require a driver to work (so no gaming keyboards). Since it was rare for me to play a PS2 game with such a feature, I gave it a shot and found that while it works, it’s not as smooth as just using a controller. Consider trying it if you have a better setup than I did, but keep in mind that it has trouble with anything other than a very basic mouse (just two buttons and a normal scroll wheel).

The graphics look decent for a PS2-era game, with a generally dark color palette that fits the tone of the game. It was interesting to see this early interpretation of Final Fantasy VII’s world in a fully 3D video game, including the playable sections of Kalm and Midgar, among others, since they still fit the familiar setting. Advent Children was also an obvious visual influence, since returning characters use their designs from the film and Reeve receives an updated look to try and match the new aesthetic, plus there are FMV sequences that blatantly recycle film assets. This did, however, lead to one jarring moment where an in-game cutscene also included actual film footage, specifically the Advent Children interpretation of a famous shot from the Nibelheim Incident.

The returning cast takes their appearance from Advent Children; L-R:Cid Highwind,
Yuffie Kisaragi, Barret Wallace (background), Vincent Valentine, Red XIII (foreground),
Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockheart, Reeve Tuesti and Cait Sith

I also liked some of the visual effects, including a detail that I’ve often wished RPGs would actually use, in this case gun mods actually showing up on the in-game gun models, with the curious omission of the accessories. Some of the effects also felt reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts II, specifically the darkness effects used during the Arachnero fight. Gackt also makes a live-action appearance during the secret ending dressed as Genesis, though thankfully his inclusion into the CG via greenscreen was pulled off near flawlessly.

That’s not to say I liked everything, however. I encountered one physical smoke plume, meaning that for some reason I couldn’t walk through it, and I was bugged greatly by a visual inconsistency with weapon mods. More specifically, when I equipped the Gravity Floater, the Power Booster would show up on the in-game model instead. I also found the designs of the new characters generally awful, with some of Tetsuya Nomura’s worst work yet. Shelke came out the best, but all the other Tsviets have odd visual quirks that, at least to me, didn’t seem to fit the Final Fantasy VII aesthetic. For example, Azul the Cerulean looks like a Kingdom Hearts II reject and Nero the Sable looks like he’s wearing a jock strap on his face. Plus, Shalua has a completely impractical dress design. On a lesser note, Vincent has the exact same arm animation for every keypad interaction, even if he's not actually touching it or is using an elevator with only one or two buttons.

Shalua's dress is completely impractical.

If there’s one element that was truly on point, it would be the voice acting and music. The Tsviets are a little hit and miss and Paul Eiding really chews the scenery as Hojo, but all of the returning cast turned in a great performance. Considering Vincent is the main character, Steve Blum’s performance really doesn’t disappoint and in spite of the character’s self-loathing, he showed a great range of emotion when needed. The music by Masashi Hamauzu fits the tone of the game, especially the battle music, though I must say once in a while I was reminded of Yoko Shimomura’s music from the Kingdom Hearts series. Additionally, Nero the Sable’s boss music sounded close to a PS2-era Devil May Cry track.

There are also two songs from Japanese rock singer Gackt, “LONGING” and “REDEMPTION”. Both songs are the biggest highlights of the soundtrack due to their prominence around the end of the game. The former is used in a very “anime” way while Vincent, as Chaos, makes his way to Omega and the latter is played during the ending credits. It helps that they’re superbly done and fit the game’s tone.

Dirge of Cerberus is easily the weakest link of Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Expanding on Vincent’s character had potential, but the weak story and dull, repetitive gameplay bog down the experience. I would only recommend it to hardcore fans of Final Fantasy VII who really couldn’t get enough after Advent Children or people who find enjoyment in less than stellar games. If you’re someone like me trying to get the whole picture of Compilation, however, then this is simply something you’d have to endure.