Uh oh, I didn't like Crisis Core: FFVII... First Time Reactions

[@flashparodox7612]

signal boosting this one 📈

[@Koustav_04]

Hatred for Genesis is absolutely justified. He sucks.

[@ravenmadd3895]

A rough abridging of a conversation I had concerning 'Loveless' in this game: "Loveless in this is supposed to mirror the game's story in some way, like the Opera scene in FFVI and I Want to be Your Canary in FFIX. In FFVII, in a conversation near the end of the game, Cid says he went to see Loveless at the theater but fell asleep because he was so bored. He woke up near the end and struggled to make sense of what little he saw, and he got more enjoyment trying to piece together nonsense than what he got out of the play. And so here, with Crisis Core, we realize Cid was pulling a meta-commentary 10 years early. That's some badass Nostradamus shit, with a cigarette."

[@cloudkitt]

One interesting thing is that the closing lines of the play that Cid quotes are actually still the last lines here. Cid says them in plain English, something like "I'll come back, even if you don't promise to wait." Which is pretty much the "even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return" bit

[@andreseh87]

That is so funny hahaha!

[@Sawngawkuh]

Back in 1997, Square actually had a book made called the Dismantled/Kaitai Shinsho guide that included some details about Zack's character, and a good deal of it was retconned, including how he and Aerith met. Originally, he just ran into her while she was selling flowers (which is also technically how Cloud first met her, so the whole falling into the church parallel seems especially redundant). Their relationship was also said to be a bit more rocky and not that serious, with Aerith getting jealous over Zack flirting with other women.

[@charlay23]

Remember, Cloud and Aerith didn't first meet in the Church. They met in Sector 8 top plate.

[@davidrich27]

She sold him a flower, they didn’t “meet”. Most people wouldn’t say they’ve “met” their cashier at a grocery store.

[@charlay23]

@@davidrich27 if you recognise them you would. 'hey, I know you from somewhere'. Also, they both do consider that they've met already previously when the church scene happens. So that's already the case.

[@ugh5281]

@@charlay23 still doesn't change the fact that they basically copied pasted a lot of cloud and aerith's moments and applied them to zack. honestly, would it have been so hard to just create a new story for them? i feel like it cheapens the OG story

[@charlay23]

@@ugh5281 what other moments besides the church? I wouldn't say a 'lot'...

[@ugh5281]

@@charlay23 they didn't copy-paste everything but they did a lot of cheap "call-backs" like the playground scene for ex, it's not the same scene but they still did a call back to the cloud and aerith scene in the playground plus the devs literally said they tried to attribute as many as aerith's lines and traits possible to zack in order to make her seem "less flippant". they basically stripped her away of her OG personality and gave it to zack. they claimed they did that in order to protect aerith (bc she had received sexist remarks back in the day since she was a very straightforward female character etc.) yet they ended up writing her in the most sexist way possible by making it seem like she had 0 personality before meeting zack and that the way she is today is all because of zack. maybe to you this doesn't matter but i personally dislike that a lot especially since it contradicts the OG bc as a kid she was already shown as a very extroverted kid.

[@strelitziamystery21]

Cloud: I won't ever forget you Zack Cloud 5 minutes later: ...Who?

[@advmx3]

Yeah, there's a lot with Crisis Core that makes no much sense. It's like the Mako Poisoning mess with his brain, and it comes and goes. It's weird. Still, I hope the Remake fixes it, I mean as much as it can fix anything with the situation we have now on Rebirth xD

[@zacatkinson3926]

you missed the point he affected by something that caused him t lose his memory, not by choice

[@strelitziamystery21]

@@zacatkinson3926 oh I know that all the mako poisoning, alien stuff, experiments and trauma made his mind an absolute mess and that he forgot all of that. I just find it a little funny.

[@TaydolfSwifter]

​@@advmx3the remake trilogy wont fix anything because it's a different story from og it's a continuation of the compilation with the scenario of og

[@tumitomas783]

Cc was a mistake! F game

[@gregtroyan]

By now you've noticed the significant dip in writing quality from the original FFVII to The Compilation projects like Dirge, Advent Children and CC. The reason so many people were skeptical of Remake was because of fear the writing would be closer to the quality of The Compilation than the original game, and the fact that some compilation elements are being included in the Remake is why many people are concerned it will become a giant dumpsterfire. The fact that FF7R was actually good makes people think that the Remake trilogy may attempt to redeem the compilation in some way. I'm glad you finally got the context to see why so many people have concerns over the direction of the Remake saga, not just because of blind nostalgia for a brilliant original, but out of fear because of the track record of other sequels. I'm optimistic for the Remake saga based on the quality of the first game, because they pulled that one off so well.

[@gregtroyan]

Also, now you can see why I was so disappointed your next venture in the FF series was going through The Compilation, hahahaha. It was great content for us viewers, but to see your wide-eyed optimism destroyed by The Compilation like the rest of us...I feel your pain. As a warning, VIII is kinda stupid like The Compilation but it's so over-the-top it's pretty fun. And then IX is back to being mind-blowingly good, unironically, on all levels.

[@danbrittain9530]

FF7R was NOT good, I absolutely hated what they'd done to it. Anything they moved around unneccesarily due to it now only being the first portion of the game, or added to pad the game out was the same calibre as CC, AC or DoE and so on. The bits of remake that were faithful to the original or complimented it were fine, such as the bit where you see Jessie's family, but there was too much utter shite dropped in all over the place. Anything to do with Roche, those stupid ghosts, how linear it now was, it even telling you where to go for each quest, etc. Modern games fucking suck at times, and it tried too much to be like one. One thing I can thank remake for though, is now I know not to even bother playing the rest of them when they come out.

[@Croyles]

@@danbrittain9530 Byyyeeee

[@FreeFlow__]

well put together

[@vincentgraymore]

FF VII remakes story writing that isn't the OG is on the level of the compilation or really modern SE including KH. And I don't even dislike the compilation, but I dislike the new narrative because of the whispers, both on a meta and in-game level. Remove the main party character writing, and consider that the events of the OG is just the front of the story that is actually about defying fate, what about the remake is good? I like many things, Jessie, new wall market, combat etc but the whispers, the new actual storyline that is about how fate prevents butterfly effects ain't good as it is not fitting in FF VII.

[@ravenmadd3895]

One thing that was truly shocking for me was just how many times I saw people play through FFVII for the first time AFTER playing Crisis Core, and the whole first half of the game going, "Wait, this isn't right! That's not how it happened, WTF is going on!?"

[@hunterhorsehelmsley7315]

It's even worse for the people who played Crisis Core straight after the Remake. Essentially spoiling themselves on Cloud's biggest arc.

[@advmx3]

@@hunterhorsehelmsley7315 Knowing that Square forced us to play Reunion, I believe they will change Cloud's arc.

[@udalix]

@@advmx3 No one forced you to play a remaster of a game released in 2007.

[@MaxUltimata]

Yeah, a staggering number of people don't understand that the Arbiters of Fate exist to enforce destiny. They're the literal in-universe canon police that pitch a fit whenever events threaten to have a different outcome, and by destroying them, you end up causing Zack to survive the attack where he should have died (other things changed, too). God, makes me wonder if peoples' frontal lobes are an atrophied evolutionary byproduct and exist now solely for decoration.

[@zacatkinson3926]

@@MaxUltimata yes and CC was amazing

[@SailorCetra]

There's so much about CC I love, and so much I hate in equal measure. Loved your bit on Sephiroth's autonomy and commentary on falling into Aerith's church. I do however love that ending. No ending has ever made me cry the way that one has! The dialogue is a nightmare in this game though. I am hoping so badly that Reunion will clean this game up, even though SE claims only the graphics and voices are going to be redone. I'm hoping they edit some of the scenes and the like.

[@xenotypos]

I hated that ending personally, my worst souvenir of the game. Probably because it's the antithesis of FF7 in the same scene. It's like it's totally another story, and also I found it very cheesy. But it's possible I'd liked it if I didn't know FF7 beforehand.

[@SailorCetra]

@@xenotypos hey to each their own. I can see why you would say that. I was 17 the first time I played so some of the cheesiness (brought on by some of the clunky dialogue and voice acting) went over my head. I think Zack's death is brutal and they did an amazing job of making sure that was properly executed. ... pun intended. It is my hope that Reunion helps with the dialogue and VAing so that the scene is as heart wrenching as it should be-- and as 17-year-old me thought. LOL

[@Koustav_04]

"No way, he just ate my hair" would never not make me laugh 😂

[@cloudkitt]

I've never understood why the Gongaga line became the meme when that line exists.

[@sorasgurlkairi]

Best line tbh

[@cloudkitt]

I agree with him pretty much across the board. But I think trying to speedrun the game in two sittings didn't do his impressions any favors, lol. Like, getting mad at having a boss fight against Sephiroth in the back room of the NIbelheim reactor is like the most reasonable thing they put in the whole game, lol. Of course Zack and Sephiroth had a fight in there. I just don't like that you game over if you lose when we already know Zack loses the fight.

[@cloudkitt]

And Nibelheim is FAR from Midgar. You have to cross an ocean. So the idea that something else happened besides a yellow pickup truck is reasonable. The problem is that that other thing that happens...is Genesis.

[@PeachBootyPoppin]

That’s exactly when I got annoyed lol. The other stuff… Pretty much everyone disliked, but the one obvious thing that makes sense, is ironically the part where he starts emphasizing how garbage the game is. That’s when I knew he ventured into insanity lol. What did you think Zack and Sephiroth did? Made frickin cupcakes together lmao! Then… add to the fact that he played Remake first… So yeah, fighting Sephiroth in a Singularity of Destiny before leaving Midgar makes MUCH MORE sense! 😃👍

[@RetroGhoulHQ]

@@PeachBootyPoppin remake is a whole different timeline though so changes are accepted because they aren't actually changing how the original game went. Crisis core actually does change the context and events of the original game and it's mostly in some atrocious ways.

[@PeachBootyPoppin]

@@RetroGhoulHQ I still think the Sephiroth fight in Remake is hype, but the irony here is hilarious.

[@RetroGhoulHQ]

@@PeachBootyPoppin lol its not irony. I'd rather have had a faithful remake to the original than shoving in extra stuff yeah - I think them trying to top the story of ff7 is impossible, but at least remake isn't trying to retcon the original experience. It's literally a sequel and they've established that the original still happened exactly the way it did, so I can get over it. 95% of crisis core just craps on 7 in the most protencious ways possible and trys it's best to force it's awful plot over 7s.

[@GothicEU]

I've recently played this game for the first time, and my feelings on it are pretty much the same as yours. I honestly didn't even like the scenes between Zack and Aerith, I just felt no chemistry there. The game just forced them to be together, because that's how it was in FF7.

[@zacatkinson3926]

it was fine man

[@Zakemaster]

I haven’t played Crisis Core since it came out (and am excited for Reunion to give it another shot) but this game is all over the place in terms of quality. I stand by the fact that Zack is almost the sole reason why this game works. Despite the hackneyed writing and monotonous combat system, Zack is such an endearing protagonist that he drags you through all the stupidest parts of the story. The game does also have an absolutely phenomenal ending, which I think paints our perceptions a bit looking back at it and remembering it as better than it is. Even now, knowing the game is a mess, I’m still super fond of the game and crazy excited for Reunion.

[@zacatkinson3926]

What stupid parts?

[@Zakemaster]

@@zacatkinson3926 I mean, not to be a parrot to most people, but Genesis on the whole is just an absolutely terrible antagonist. His only real character trait is being obsessed with Loveless, which he nearly exclusively quotes instead of saying anything of his own. Angeal as a character only exists as a person who Zack can emulate and aspire to be, but his actions throughout the story are all over the place. The Copy stuff, most of the last two chapters, almost all of the dialogue… this game is just messy and weird. And yet I platinumed Reunion, so it’s not like I don’t like the game. It’s just… a weird mess.

[@zacatkinson3926]

BS CC was amazing

[@judgeoftruth6058]

There's always that type of guy.😂

[@Armitaco]

I think the frustration with Zack falling into the church is a classic example of the sequel problem (which also applies to prequels) - the story has to hit these familiar beats in order to be recognizable as part of the same franchise, but the end result is that the world starts to feel smaller and smaller as the possibilities for what can happen in the story shrink. CC does this so often - with the opening, with Angeal dying and the Buster Sword getting passed on, a sword-wielding SOLDIER villain grappling with his non-human identity, falling into the church, a 1 v 1 battle at the end where the villain is absorbed into the lifestream at the end, giving Genesis and Angeal one wing, bringing in a new Hojo character, and so on and so on. FF7 has this unique relationship to this problem because so much of it is explained away with the whole "well Cloud is mimicking Zack" thing, but it absolutely shouldn't be as most of the scenarios that repeat have nothing to do with that at all. And for me these end up being some of the worst offences, even possibly over Genesis' insufferable dialogue, because it makes it really hard to keep the events of CC in mind without diminishing the experience of FF7 - characters like Cloud, Sephiroth, and Hojo just because archetypes that repeat across the series, for example. It's why putting out another game can't be driven by the desire to see the same thing again, you really have to have a new *kind* of story you want to tell, and I just really feel this game does not have that.

[@davidrich27]

Exactly. There is so many elements copy/pasted from FF7. Honestly, the one-wing feels like a particularly irritating offense to me. Before this, it really made sense for Sephiroth, like he shaped his Jenovah cells to his Will. The wing was a physical manifestation of Seph’s god complex and feelings of superiority. Now it’s just a default symptom of every fetus corrupted with Jenovah’s cells. Just like the church thing, the repetition just serves to undermine the original story.

[@Armitaco]

@@davidrich27 100% agree. For me the wing in particular has an added layer of frustration because in the OG the "one-wing" is in reference to the Safer Sephiroth form, whereas the one-wing that is now the more iconic one originated in KH. To me the original one-wing had a sort of eleventh-hour connotation to it, as if he was only one step away from being a god-like entity. That also felt very specific to Sephiroth's plan to me, and I agree with what you said about it perfectly representing his own god complex.

[@davidrich27]

@@Armitaco That's a good point. The one wing wasn't a conscious decision on Seph's part, it showed that his transformation was incomplete. Once he fully transcended into his god-form, it would've only made sense that he would've had two wings. But now the media has just adopted it as cool iconography, without any of the original context surrounding it.

[@TwistedSisler]

This is why I dislike most sequels to things, especially if it's been a LONG time since the previous iteration. It all ends up being nostalgia stuff and ends up feeling like you are just playing the same game again rather than it being new or an actual continuation of it. Diablo 3 gave me this feeling, Star Wars Episode 7 was basically just a rehashed Episode 4.. Too much time ends up being wasted on nostalgia gimmicks and it takes away from what the new story or adventure could have been.

[@Yurikon3]

This summarizes how I kinda feel of KH series' story. It is complied that they all have plot relevance, but I personally feel that making every part in the series just part of the plot just makes its world feel smaller and less interesting. Like there isn't something more in the world than the stuff which revolves around the certain plot.

[@flippypwnage2789]

i love it when the guy that played the remake first screams: "No that wasn't in the original, they should have left it" "why did the retroactively add him to the scene?" 🤣🤣 jokes aside: I hate genesis. He's the worst part. considering we're getting deepground / weiss stuff in the remake somewhere down the line gives me the chills. But for one a reason i don't know myself, really like that we actually get to see how Zack and Cloud escaped from Nibelheim. Playing the Remake makes it quite obvious but if you only had played the OG part you could have easily missed what huge amount of time was between the Nibelheim incident and the opening Mission in Midgar. Also i like the tone of character they've provided Zack with. He's such a contrast to Cloud. All cheerful, happy go lucky and almost carefree. love your videos

[@cloudkitt]

It is a pretty funny irony

[@tatri292]

Remake at least is its own thing, the original is still there unchanged. With CC they just said "no actually this is how it happened", like you know it being presented as the canon prequel to the og. You can not like stuff like Sephi being shown much more but most changes in R had some thought behind them. Here it's because.... I guess they had to give Zack something to do?

[@flippypwnage2789]

@@tatri292 that was just a joke. I just noticed and drew parallels to me when i was playing the remake. Though I like to point out that Sephiroth didn't appear on Screen until Kalm. So he's not "shown more", he's simply shown way to early with way to much story input even retconning the story in the end. Ultimately this is undefendable taking the OG story into consideration and for me isn't much better than the stuff they did in Crisis Core. In Crisis Core they at least tried to flesh out the story while the only use for Sephiroth in the remake is fanservice plain and simple. I really like to take their intent into account when evaluating this. Crisis Core is the failed attempt to flesh out the story, while the Remake _could_ be considered cashgrabbing

[@tatri292]

@@flippypwnage2789 While I agree that not everything was handled quite how I wished, you can't even compare the quality of writing between the two. And no, I'm not looking to get stuck in a winding argument.

[@1993MovieMan]

I mean,Zack and Cloud were both naive countryboys at first. That`s kinda why they became friends so fast. The main difference is Zack is more stubborn and hotheaded like Kadaj,Sephiroth,Genesis,Aerith,Barret,Reno,Rude and Tifa whilst Cloud is more somber,stoic,guilt-complexed,lowkey uber-protective of his friends and cautious like Vincent,Lightning,Angeal and Noctis.Also,Zack`s more of a hipster,Cloud`s more of a dork or emo kid depending where you are in the timeline.

[@leviathan9842]

Just wanted to point out that even at the end cloud is still suffering from mako poisoning so by the time he gets to Tifa he reinvents himself with Zacks memories

[@mehdigeek]

I need Rebirth to ignore Genesis at Nibelheim

[@ItsLazBoi]

Considering all the attention they’ve paid to the compilation in Remake, Genesis will show up eventually and it’ll be so fucking funny 😭

[@tw4898]

The Cloud and Zack parallels in this game are a mixture of intentional context for Cloud's actions in FFVII and just lazy callbacks (like both of them falling through the church.) There's so much stuff like that in Crisis Core, where it's just a callback to make the player go "Hey I recognize that! Cool!" without regard to how it messes up canon events. There is also a lot of forced inclusion of stuff like the Square Enix flip phone that was being pushed at the time of release. But none of that really matters in the context of the game that came out in the mid-2000s. It does matter when SE releases a 2022 remaster with the purpose of it to give context to Rebirth (a game that seemingly heavily features Zack) and they don't adjust the CC's narrative/plot or dialogue in any way to make it more cleanly fit into the Remake/Rebirth story. The first time I played Crisis Core was the Reunion remaster, so I didn't have the nostalgia that a lot of people seem to have for this game. The plot is trash and detracts from the original game way more than it does add to it. With Crisis Core Reunion, SE had an opportunity to make changes that were beneficial without removing any of the charming aspects of the PSP game. Instead what they did was only update the graphics, adjusted the combat a little (it still sucks), and left everything else as it was. No seamless zones, and no changes to awkward dialogue (even the delivery is the same,) no removing or adjusting contrived plot elements.

[@Maninredcape]

Omg thank u I thought I was the only one that thought of this

[@Barry_Masterson]

The one thing I'll say for CC's story and some of your interpretations as well as the return of Genisis and the crew in future iterations of remake, is that Cloud is not present to directly witness much of the events, so things being different vs his memory and what we see in OG is all possible although obviously very clumsy. He's just going off of what he thinks happened, what Zack told him (or didn't tell him) and what he seen himself, all melded via trauma. It does add the interesting thought that the Turks know who cloud is all the way through Remake though and why Reno really doesn't buy his soldier first class bit, I like that if it's intentional!

[@Mitsu2040]

Yeah, Cloud is not a reliable narrator, which was made obvious in the original with the reveal at the end of the game.

[@Barry_Masterson]

@@Mitsu2040 this is it, and once he has his moment of clarity there are far more pressing matters than to go digging in to what else happened in his past, so there are gaps everywhere. Life happens beyond the protagonist 😅

[@mehdigeek]

this was a cathartic watch

[@ztdk]

I wish in advent children they would show a net installed over the roof, obviously the work spaces up there are unsafe if people keep falling through.

[@darksoultrey167]

44:05 I would not say it's a retcon, a retcon is a change that directly contradicts something or makes something different then when we last saw it, like Zack's death in this game IS a retcon but Genesis not necessarily, we know Cloud would only have Zack's story of the events, I would not even say it messed up 7 since Genesis only told Seph dog this to get his help. It's my opinion but if anything Genesis being there enhances Sephiroth's story and FF7 is not damaged I have seen this video and it explains Project G perfectly well how Sephiroth lost his mind kzbin.info/www/bejne/enjUh5irf9WqnKs Specifically at 18:28 of said video What ARE retcons are the Buster Sword(I still love the gold look but sadly it's a retcon) the solider and turk outfits in Crisis Core compared to the OG FF7

[@wadewilson4663]

I completely respect this opinion. Usually people would be so quick to hate you because of Zack and how he dies at the end and its "Oh, so sad". However, even as a HUGE FFVII fan, I can safely say that the game itself is heavily flawed. I always respect people with unique opinions who aren't afraid to voice them. Nice video👍

[@zacatkinson3926]

CC was the best

[@vanilla7981]

52:09 I always wondered as well why they changed the scene to happening in this room. And I think it was cause they never actually show the entrance to the reactor (they simply didnt bother making a model of it for some reason), Remake already corrects this (thank god) in the small tifa flash back we get of her picking up Sephiroth’s sword. So HOPEFULLY we get it in the correct room this time lol. Not to mention they dont even show the truck ride to Nibelheim!

[@wyguy_figs2943]

I like this game quite a bit. It's absolutely not amazing and some of it is absolutely bad, but when it specifically focuses on Zack and Sephiroth I think it's great. When Genesis and Angeal aren't the focus it's pretty cool seeing Zack bond with everyone we know

[@marklonergan3898]

Honestly, i'm surprised "activating combat mode" didn't become an editing meme for other games. So many videos (even non-gaming ones) that i think could be enhanced with an "activating combat mode" edited-in

[@zamaskowany12]

Bro i thought i was the only one hating on Crisis Core. Nothing more than one big retcon.

[@kingbacon6563]

There are a lot of reasons why CC is such an embarrassment to the og. Square's weird insistence that Zack "as important" will always bother me because it misses the whole point of Cloud's entire arc and journey. But one of the biggest issues I have is with the handling of SOLDIER. The original games spends so much time showing you how SOLIDER is nothing but propaganda they use to manipulate the citizens of midgar. They market this image of masculinity to get young boys to enlist in their troops, selling them the idea of being a hero... but there's no honor to being a Soldier. You're just another puppet for Shinra so they can farm more mako energy (eerily similar to the real world military). Hell, there's a whole bit in this game where Zack warns a young Yuffie to get somewhere safe.... but HE is literally the danger he's warning her against. Shinra is forcibly moving troops into Wutai because they refuse to have a reactor set in the area. The original game makes it very clear that no matter the rank, every Solider is just a pawn, even Sephiroth was just a pawn.... and yet CC turns around to spew some nonsense about SOLIDER honor. Zack isn't protecting anything with his honor. He's basically throwing his life away for oil. And yet the big emotional core of the game is about having dreams and honor as a SOLIDER, because that sounds cool and like it's a lot deeper than it actually is. And I mean, people buy that shit hook, line, and sinker. People loooove Zack and talk about what a great hero is, but if you actually play the game, he's an afterthought. It's absurd how a "prequel" can show this astonishing level of misunderstanding it's own source material.

[@NessBrawl64]

I disagree Zack wasn't important in the OG. We saw that Zack dragged Cloud across half the world to keep him safe (and possibly get help with his mako poisoning) when it would have been far easier to just abandon him to his fate and try to live on his own. Had he done that, the plot as we know it literally wouldn't have happened. And with how Cloud takes his death and how much of him Cloud copies later, we can see that it all started with Sephiroth, but in the end, Zack was the guy Cloud really wanted to be. Hard to not see him in a positive light considering all this, it really felt like he was just another guy who wanted to make a name for himself like Cloud, but was a bit more successful. But other than all this, I get where you're coming from. And as an aside to add to one of the points you've made, a small thing I always liked about the OG is that when you're almost reaching Hojo during Midgar's revisit, you could find actual members of SOLDIER's 1st class as regular enemies. It not just proved how they were all pawns on this, it also proved how far the party has come. The same guys Cloud thought he was a part of for almost the entire game (and the game sure made a big deal out of it at the start), and now they were nothing more than a minor obstacle on their way.

[@thienphucn1]

Wholeheartly agree. SOLDIER in the world of FF7 is basically the "dying for an oil company" meme people make in real life. They are pawns that is ultimately used to make Shinra's balance sheet looks good. There is no honor in that and the original game made it quite clear

[@Maninredcape]

But that's how it is in here as well, you're just confusing it with Angeal and Zack's belief of soldier

[@slurplie]

your opinions are completely valid, dude. I feel a lot of people like this game because it’s their first exposure to ff7 in general. Zack and the ending are pretty nice, too. Probably the only redeeming factors. I’m with you, though. My first exposure to ff7 was the original, and seeing this afterwards is like… so jarring. It doesn’t feel like ff7, it’s not written the same and it relies too much on poetic storytelling to the point where everything has to be symbolic in some way. It’s honestly kinda annoying, but hilarious at the same time.

[@charlay23]

41:58 - This is meant to be actual event, kind of still a retcon, yeah. But. You're thinking Cloud's fake recalling, even of stuff he wasn't there for, was meant to be 100% accurate. The Nibelheim flashback was all part of Cloud's unreliable narrator arc. It's pieced together with lots of bs as well. That didn't even go down like that.

[@davidrich27]

Jenova purged Genesis from Cloud’s memory out of second-hand embarrassment. She was ashamed that someone as obnoxious as Genesis had Jenova cells in him.

[@gallarinas]

@@davidrich27exactly david

[@christianlopez707]

I personally enjoy CC but let it sink in that this is considered to be the best thing to come out of the compilation.

[@crashwithkirby6708]

Crisis core is a weird animal. I like Zack and Aerith and that’s about it. Sephiroth was cool and it was neat to see the story play out, but the writing was just weird.

[@yusufh7278]

One thing that is dumb(of many) is during sephiroth and genesis vr spat has the song one winged angel playing, which makes absolutely no sense givin its lyrics since its referencing him after his fall from grace

[@dakotaroberts5827]

Man I wish I just stuck to playing OG FF7 and remake instead of seeking out the compilation. 😢

[@budakbaongsiah]

The worst thing is that Crisis Core is the best thing that came out of the whole Compilation. It's just that bad. Fuck you, Yoichi Wada.

[@patsg1146]

- Boss, can I make a game about some dude with a slot machine in his head going after a Theater fanatic with an apple craving? - No, we'd like you to do a prequel to one of the best games of all time instead. - Okay, I think I could find a way to cram that in somehow...

[@FailroadExpress]

Zack falling into the church is too cheesy. Agree with you.

[@FailroadExpress]

Now that I've seen your entire play through, I'll agree that many parts of Crisis Core needed work. I don't know that they'll change much if anything for Reunion. A lot of people feel that the last half of the game is much better than the first half. And, though the dialogue could use work, many of the concepts were good with just a pour execution. If you're wondering why so many people like this game, it's partially because this was the first time we got to see Midgar in 3d and get a story expanding on Cloud the other's past.

[@Blag_Cog]

I haven't played crisis core but I did watch a playthrough of it back in the day and now I've watched this video... And I have to agree with you. It feels like its basically watering down many memorable moments from the original game at the very least. And thats besides the fact that the writing/VA and direction is overwhelmingly horrible. Hell even the final cutscene with Zack bleeding out turned to shit by the end there. He should have just said "Cloud you have to- Live" and then pass out. Adding in the "My dreams and honor are yours now, you'll be my living legacy" genuinely makes it so much worse because it was a lot more noble when Cloud's mangled Mako poisoned brain came up with that on its own. We already had the scene in the truck where Zack is squatting and he says (paraphrasing ofc) "Mercenaries, Cloud. That's what you an' me are gonna be." effectively establishing a team/bond between Cloud and Zack. That bond with Zack was special to Cloud because he took care of him and helped him escape. All in all I hope Rebirth and Part III retcons the fuck out of Crisis Core. I think Zack's story is a horrible way to trivialize many great and memorable moments from the OG. Oh well is what it is.

[@Shiftarus]

People exist that love this games writing and hate the remakes. Not like Bigfoot, they’re actually real and they even leave comments admitting it

[@hian]

CC was definitely terrible imo. I can see how people who're just really fond of the characters in that parasocial way love it, but between the cringy dialogue, stilted event-direction, ret-conning, janky combat and underwhelming OST, I just struggle to find anything to praise about it. It also just seems to get a lot of stuff fundamentally wrong in terms of the themes of the original.

[@rmunoz1994]

"it thinks it's being clever and it's not being clever". This is exactly how I view the plot ghosts and ending of FFVII Remake.

[@ItsLazBoi]

I agree

[@HirokiPlays]

At the time when Dirge, Advent, and Crisis Core came out we were all happy as FF7 fans to just be getting more love, we ate and we ate good. But after digesting the compilation, most of us who love FF7 FOR FF7, realized that the compilation stuff retroactively made us dislike FF7 as a whole. In retrospect, I wish we never got all that stuff. If someone tells me Dirge was good, Advent Children is the best movie, Zack's better than Cloud, or think of Cloud as the emo kid he was in AC or Kingdom Hearts, that's all I need to hear to know they like FF7 on a superficial level, and don't really love the actual game or narrative. I'm so glad Remake has been addressing references from the compilation, BUT actually writing them well. Without overdoing it, or over convoluting it, they're just nods to them, and the story and characters are SO well written. I'm so relieved that Remake is the way it is. I was really scared it'd be more of this, but they really nailed it. You're not wrong for disliking Crisis Core. I think Zack is a cool character, he's just stuck in a shitty play. And Genesis is hands down the worst thing that's ever happened to the FF7 universe.

[@goldengamerhd4469]

I honestly do love this game despite knowing how shitty it is and it’s only because of zack, but I don’t think angeal was that bad

[@zacatkinson3926]

it wasnt shitty

[@nerdalicos]

I love crisis core for the comedy, Zack & Aerith relationship, good boy Sephiroth, i do also like Angeal and Genesis and how they were a trio with Sephy, i am aware that at some points the story is kinda meh but honestly i love it so much and idc it made me cry and it is honestly my fav and love it more than ff7r! i’m more than excited to experience crisis core reunion and i can’t wait to get more Zack in ff7rebirth

[@gamerforlife3946]

You lost me in “like Angeal and Genesis”…. You are a fake fan i am assuming

[@nerdalicos]

@@gamerforlife3946 fake fan?? for liking characters? please. idk how that makes me a fake fan when i have played the games and seen the movie and spend most of my time engaging with the fandom. i also like other ff games not just VII… for example XV and XIV to name a few.

[@gamerforlife3946]

@@nerdalicos Imagine saying you are a fan who likes Genesis lol No wonder you like FF15. FF14 everyone loves. Btw you only stated new games. I am guessing you didn’t play any of the legendary games. And which fandom do you engage with? Because the fandom in twitter isn’t good anymore and most fandom left from there, hence why CCR didnot get support as SE wanted and didn’t sell like they wanted.

[@hunterhorsehelmsley7315]

@@gamerforlife3946 Bro, I've played every FF game to date, stop gatekeeping. You're not "a better fan" than him just because you hate a couple characters and games he likes. Like I said earlier, I've played them all and I shit you not but every single one has something about it worth playing. 15 gets too much hate too, I genuinely enjoyed my time with it, perhaps even more so than 7. But as for the best ? It's 10, 4, 6 and 9.

[@gamerforlife3946]

@@hunterhorsehelmsley7315 “genuinely enjoyed my time with it, perhaps even more so than 7”… Yeah, you shouldn’t have said that to make your point because that’s called “overrated”. I agree though 10,9,6 are among the best. But when someone says FF15 among their favourites. Either they are so new or their standards to Wake up

[@hasuchObe]

lmao, as a fan of the original ff7 but having never played the spinoffs, this review is amazing. at least we know you're honest.

[@SVTBert]

Soldiers full of mako being drawn to one of the only concentrated areas of nature somehow works though. And of course they survive, because they're super human.

[@KrakkaJax]

Genesis might be the worst character in the entire Final Fantasy universe. Square sat on the popularity of FF7OG for 10 years and then decide to cash in by creating a prequel heavily featuring a random Anime robot waxing poetic about some goddess... He really makes the FF7 world worse by way of existing at all. If he shows up in the next part of the remake I hope his pants fall down like a looney toons character while he's being ran through by the Masamune. I hate him. You are totally right about this game too.

[@max1311]

I just love how your reaction to crisis core is like the reaction of many of us to remake. I hated the changes as well back in the day but compilation was like its own stuff and not even canon really to the OG universe. Now they are making the compilation canon and OG the outlier, so yeah, im glad you see where we are coming from. Great stuff, I will keep seeing your other FF reactions.

[@rabidrobbie]

"The reaction to many of us to remake." Who? Who is the imagined "many of us?" No one reacted that way except maybe to the ending. Fuck off.

[@AdamW-eo2yq]

I think what happened is cloud makes his way into midgar and then passes out in the sector 7 station where Tifa finds him and wakes him up. When he wakes and has forgot Zack. I think that’s probably what happened

[@rabidrobbie]

Why did you play this version and not the Reunion version? It's actually fun gameplay wise and at least has the Remake cast. It's essentially the same though, but it's more enjoyable.

[@MrXMysteriousX]

90% of what you said is accurate, it's a flawed game, the gameplay/mission design isn't great (but was decent for a psp title) and Genesis's existence almost always makes the wider story worse. Much of the retcons make it worse as well. And I agree about the Church scene being contrived but since the rest of the Zack and Aerith interactions work I let that slide. Where I disagree is where you said "it's melodramatic" or "too much" at the end. I think talking over the scene didn't help and that the rest of stuff that's wrong with game impacted your ability to take the scene at face value. One of the reasons the game is looked back at fondly is how emotional that ending is. For as bad as everything else is, understanding that Zack looked up to Angeal, took on his dreams and hopes and made them his own, only to pass that torch to Cloud is a strong theme (even if it's not entirely earned) and people can over look a lot of the bad as a result. Some of the things you say about Cloud do happen btw, the flashing of various images of Zack serve as both a look back and commemoration of Zack, but it's also actually the moment Cloud starts taking on and incorporating Zacks memories as his own and then clearly as Cloud staggers to Midgar those changes start kicking in, messing with his memory, leading to him "forgetting" Zack when he passes out at Midgar Secror 7 and is found by Tifa. As he awakens he ends up as an amalgamation of both identities. Also, a lot of the things we do know from Nibelheim onwards come from Cloud's "unreliable narrator" moment so it shouldn't match 100% however, that said, I think the changes made at Nibelheim are nearly all for the worst. I was rather hoping we'd get a Remake that fixes the many issues it has as I think it can be salvaged but as it stands we are just getting a remaster with many of those issues there. Ultimately I don't blame you for not liking it and where we disagree it's just a matter of opinion. I think you'll be surprised that people won't hate on you as much as you think, provided they are capable of acknowledging it has flaws.

[@aaronhathorn3451]

The long paragraph alone says that you’re butthurt lmfao

[@davidrich27]

What are Angeal’s hopes and dreams that Zack takes on?

[@jenniferchough]

Not sure why your chat didn’t tell you or maybe it was missed but Cloud doesn’t create that SOLDIER persona (well, Jenova, really) until he is found by Tifa at the train station in Sector 7. When Cloud recognizes Tifa, Jenova reads her memories of Cloud, combines them with Zack’s memories/words and the hero Cloud had always wanted to be to impress Tifa, and the result is the persona created there at the platform that you see in OG where he gets the static and then stands upright.

[@xenotypos]

That would be the compilation projects' version at least. Not the original version, in which his state during the flee from Nibelheim to Midgard was lethargic, he couldn't bear the experiment. He was left as if he was dead by the guys that came to kill him and Zack, and stayed in that "half-alive" (though better) state until Tifa found him.

[@jenniferchough]

@@xenotypos - Yeah, he was definitely out of it between Nibelheim and Midgar (Zack dragging him around for almost a year) but even in OG there is no indication that his SOLDIER persona was created until the train station where Tifa found him. He was half-dead there until he recognized her and he perks up both mentally and physically and is able to stand. That is the indication we get from OG that a huge shift happened. The devs then explained this in greater detail in the Ultimanias how and why Jenova used memories from Tifa, Zack, and Cloud's idealized self to create his persona.

[@TwistedSisler]

I mean, Cloud literally says in the OG on the Highwind towards the end that he just made up the fact that he was in SOLDIER and put on a fake persona and it was more of a mental health thing. It never says in the game that it had anything to do with his Jenova cells. I had always more interpreted it as he was putting bits of things together due to lack of memory from the mako poisoning and as he started to realize that things weren't correct, he just doubled down on the act and kept playing the part rather than dealing with it. All the Jenova cells did (in the OG game at least) was allow Sephiroth to manipulate his fractured memory, but it wasn't the cause of it.

[@Sawngawkuh]

@@TwistedSisler That scene is very much meant to show that the cells are having an influence there, as the moment he comes into contact with Tifa, the familiar static pops up and Cloud abruptly comes to after being catatonic just seconds before. With that said, it's true that the original source of that persona was the stories Zack told him rather than taking Zack's memories. I think this little discrepancy is a byproduct of the train station scene not even being in the original version of the game when it first came out in Japan, nor was the Zack flashback for that matter. Both those parts were added later for the global release (and then Japan got them in their International version re-release), so it's possible that they just changed ideas in-between those releases and we are expected to hand wave the inconsistency. Alternatively, maybe it was just originally intended to be Tifa's memories that were read to fill in certain gaps, while the rest was his own mind recovering itself using the stories Zack told him while he was out of it, just as Cloud indicated.

[@lloydnorval1989]

In my humble opinion, as a fan from the age of about 8 at the time i got the copy of FF7 my grandparents bought me, the only thing they did do right, just like you said, was the chemistry between Zack and Aerith, but I believe that the ONLY way Genesis coming back in the Remakes could be a crowd pleaser would be that he starts to read the first line of "Loveless", and Barret tells him to "Shut that shit up, RIGHT now!" And you battle him, and he's a literal one-shot kill.

[@FreshMetal80]

THANK YOU!!! Everyone goes on about how great Crisis Core is, but I've always thought that the story was beyond stupid. It's a convoluted mess of nonsense on top of unnecessary retcons with a metric shit-ton of pretentious made up poetry thrown in for good measure. I said it in another one of your videos (either Advent Children or Dirge) but the FF7 compilation was a huge mistake, and I hope they keep this crap away from the Remake.

[@KeRmiTaKilla]

I think the only reasons it was popular were, ff7 starvation. Zacks untold story, and being on psp

[@ItsLazBoi]

The stars aligned perfectly

[@thienphucn1]

And that Crisis Core is a lot of people's first introduction to FF7 and its world. But if you played the original, this game is horrendous

[@ianredcliffe1192]

Just watched your run ff7 games, great to see someone play the original and see how great it is, and then see how much of a dive the compilation is, it’s crap. Couldn’t agree more with your analysis of CC and dirge, look forward to gettin to your ff9 playthrough, good game that

[@gareths]

I hope to god, since Square seems to be piggy backing off of CC Reunion, that they don’t put genesis in the flashback in Rebirth and part 3

[@ItsLazBoi]

They 1000000% will… with Dirge they sort of brushed it under the rug, but they seem genuinely proud of Crisis Core, so looks like Genesis will be a vital part of Rebirth and beyond

[@TwistedSisler]

They said in an interview that they were going to be acknowledging existing characters from the compilation, but they won't have a huge role which is why they handled Weiss and Nero the way they did. Genesis was referenced in Remake by Hojo (He mentions S and G-series SOLDIERs), so I'm not sure how much more they will add, but he's already been acknowledged.

[@lakedentist4819]

You're based as hell for not liking Crisis Core. I feel so vindicated by this video and (most of) the comments section. Some people praise this game and I have no idea where they're coming from.

[@tennyoAMV]

It's such a shame they didn't Keep Rick Gomez's performance for the remaster.

[@the-NightStar]

No it isn't. It's not a shame at all. The new Zack was miles better.

[@Sawngawkuh]

One line did accidentally make it in during the scene where Cissnei confronts Zack when he's with Cloud lol.

[@tennyoAMV]

@@the-NightStar Yikes, dude. The new Zack is horrible.

[@gallarinas]

@@the-NightStarno

[@tennyoAMV]

@@gallarinas Yes

[@okitasan202]

24:39 yeah that's exactly what I feel when I saw this scene. I had known cloud and aerith meeting in the church in my childhood and it's very special, then this happened. And I really don't like aerith personality here. She so different from OG and the rest of compilation. She so weak here and downgraded, always relying on Zack 😂, they make everything about Aerith related to Zack (I'm happy that Remake aerith child wore pink bow). While I understand that Aerith OG personality will not go well with Zack's personality and Zack is the main character in CC, I still don't like Aerith in CC or the game itself haha. And it's actually different from Aerith in Before Crisis - she is more adventurous in Before crisis. And my other complaint is Sephiroth knowing about Jenova through Genesis?? Whattt haha. Sephiroth should be doing his homework, knowing it through his readings and research haha. The only things that makes my sister bought CC during its released was because both of us excited to see cloud and aerith in non-polygonal design again after advent children hahaha. Wow. You're the first new ffvii fan streamer that I watch who play CC and don't like the retcon in it 😂.

[@metal-rpg8306]

Agree Crisis core is a terrible game. Cheap copy of og ff7. Almost everything Zack does is copied from cloud og ff7. Even devs admitted that they had no time to create an original arc for Zack and Aerith, they just copy and pasted cloud and Aerith interactions. The train scene of Zack in the beginning straigh up copy and paste from og ff7. Unnecessary bs with Genesis a cringe villain jealous of the superior villain(Sephiroth). Hardly any interactions between cloud and Zack to emphasize their friendship. The game was only worry about making Zack as a shonen protagonist. Zack: pRoTeCt yOuR hOnOr aS SOLDIER. Like sir didn’t you learn lesson? stop taking pride of being part of a division from a company that is trying to kill you, keeping the girl you supposedly like captive and waiting to use her as an experiment, and destroying the planet.

[@nachofilament294]

It's a whole game written to be the backstory for the starting weapon for FF7 - the weapon you ditch very quickly in the original game. More JRPGs should make bloated sequels/prequels to explain something that doesn't need to be explained.

[@bcross9109]

why are you booing him, he's right!! (Zack giving a tearful final conversation to Cloud and cutting to the jpop song while he's pulled up to heaven is SOOOO bad - I can't believe you're the only streamer I've seen make this case lol)

[@davidrich27]

Not to mention, floating up to heaven analogy doesn’t make sense in this world. Spirits don’t rise up into the clouds, they flow into the earth and rejoin the lifestream.

[@thienphucn1]

@@davidrich27 It's pretty clear that the compilation completely misses the point of the original game

[@willw6504]

Yeah, I didn't like the Church thing either. Or really any of the Aerith stuff - they did her character dirty in Crisis Core. Which was disappointing because that was the aspect of the story I was the most looking forward to. Although, now that you bring it up, maybe Aerith doesn't react because people fall through the roof all the time - it's just that only the two SOLDIERS, Cloud and Zack, actually survived. The rest are buried in the flower patch. They're the 'secret ingredient' why the flowers grow so well in that spot.

[@geeklore8528]

The bow might also been seen in Advent Children, I noticed in your video about the movie that Marlene was seen wearing the pink ribbon.

[@Juice_Tortuga]

I’m surprised the umbrella fighting scene wasn’t here!! That part was greatly absurd

[@sinewave6483]

As much as I enjoyed playing this back on PSP, the Kingdom Hearts fanfic characters always sucked. Can't believe some of the dialogue here... "If humans had wings, they'd be monsters" Jaysus Christ lmao.

[@RetroGhoulHQ]

It's so tacky and tasteless lmao

[@TwistedSisler]

Some of this was due to the fact that dialogue on the PSP had to be very short few word lines at a time, so a lot of the meat of conversations probably got cut out for development reasons. Honestly, I don't think this game was ever meant to be taken as seriously has it has been. It was clearly made just to be a fun little nostalgia trip time waster, with some loose story connection. I don't think the original intent was for this to be hard cannon by any means. That sort of happened over time.

[@madstrawberrygrrl]

I know it's been a year since you did this, but thank you for sharing your honest take on CC. I laughed until I cried because you pretty much summed up how I felt about it - some really good moments drowning in a lot of pretentious, overwritten nonsense. But Zack is great in spite of it all, and the Zack/Aerith relationship is touching. Cheers!

[@KeRmiTaKilla]

How did he do that (limit break/the anger) Thr attack actually looks like climhazard. Even if it fails on the likes of sephiroth.

[@catarena8031]

I've watched gameplay and cutscenes of just about every ff7 game, so I guess I've gotten so accustomed to the the cringey weirdness of the stories and dialogue that I just don't see how aweful it truly is, even if I can understand it's not good. I will say though, I'm so sick of seeing the Nibelheim reactor scene where Sephiroth breaks down/fights Zack and Cloud changed with every. Single. Rendition. It changed in crisis core. It changed in the ff7 Last Order short Anime. It changes again in Before Crisis- (instead of genesis being inserted into the scene, it's your main character who is a Turk chick) it will undoubtedly change in Rebirth too (yes that's taking into account that Clouds recollection isn't reliable). They can't make up their minds on what they want to stick with. Also I'll add that my reaction to Zacks death was about the same.

[@zacatkinson3926]

its not awful

[@ES-kw7hq]

Honestly, I remember liking the game…but I’ve come to realize what I liked/remembered was Zack and Aerith parts and the ending.

[@squall0833]

Exactly!

[@shazardify]

I had the same reaction to Crisis Core. Production wise, the OG came first so technically Cloud fell from the upper plate into Aerith’s church first, then the writers were like let’s do that again with Zack. It really downplays Cloud’s experience and story. And to think Zack would drag a comatose Cloud around the world to have his final boss fight (in which Geneses didn’t even die) just doesn’t make sense to the story and his character. And the addition of Genesis and Angeal also ruined Sephiroth’s uniqueness as a character and villain. And because it’s a PREQUEL you can’t brush of these retcons as its now canon to the OG… sighhhhh Crisis Core just sucks!

[@jen_eks2163]

This. I agree with everything. I also really dislike how Aerith is portrayed in CC. They took away her sassy and outgoing personality from FF7 and turned her into this shy, innocent girl - only to highlight Zack's personality!

[@RetroGhoulHQ]

This 100%. The journey with comatose cloud would be great if it wasn't literally half of the game- they had so much happen that it throws the tone off incredibly. And half the stuff in the game actively damages the experience of the original. People are complaining because he doesn't have an issue with remake changing things - but it's totally not the same since remake is a different timeline lol, this game just retcons the og horribly. Surely this isn't what the writers actually thought the original should have been like???? They didn't seriously think this cringy weak plot was an improvement?????? I pray genesis isn't in rebirth haha

[@budakbaongsiah]

54:30 he's a mod of r/lostmedia I'm glad I found someone that disliked Genesis almost as much as me. Crisis Core's best part is Zack and things that are closely related to the story FFVII told. Everything else outside of it sucks. Angeal, the honor stuffs, Genesis, Hollander, Cissnei. Even the ending felt over-the-top, especially compared to what happened in the original.

[@udalix]

The events at Nibeheim in the original are recalled by, and told by Cloud. Would it not make sense that from Zacks perspective, you see more of what went on? Cloud was not with him the whole time. Even Genesis being there.. originally Sephiroth just ends up in the basement of the shinra mansion reading up on history, because he seen a monster in the pod up in the reactor, and for reasons, like a switch going off, he just assumes thats his own origin? And that made him head down to the basement? If you ask me that scene helps explain it better.

[@TequilaToothpick]

It's clearly a retcon. If Genesis was in any way important he'd be mentioned in the original game.

[@squall0833]

@@TequilaToothpick or they never even exist until crisis core story is created

[@hian]

It's important to recognize that Zack's character was fundamentally changed for the comp because Nojima was given the freedom to go berserk on him. Turning Zack into your average plucky shonen character is actually a massive retcon. For example, if you remember, Cloud's persona during the first bombing mission is supposed to be derivative of what he knew about Zack, and Cloud acted like a cold-hearted merc until Tifa confronts him about it afterwards. In the original, especially in the Japanese, before localization butchered it, wasn't even supposed to have had a relationship with Aerith. Both in the park and in Gongage, Aerith reiterates that she never dated or had a serious thing with Zack(he was just her first puppy crush), and that Zack was a playboy who had girls all over the place. On the back of the truck in the OG, in Japanese, he is not talking about Aerith. He's actually speaking in plural and says he has girls all over. He literally takes Cloud to Midgar to be a merc without even stopping by his parents in Gongaga in pursuit of cold, hard cash. Basically, OG Zack was a womanizing opportunist, which is in tone with the questionable personality of everyone else in Shinra, but they turned him into a "nice boy" just for the sake of the melodramatic ending so people would feel all sad when he died.

[@MrInuhanyou123]

I loved crisis core and advent children but they are divisive for some reasons

[@tiamod]

Zack could have just had a Redbull :/

[@ourfamilyaccount]

I didn't like Crisis Core too. Some aspects were okay... The fan girls segment made me chuckle. I really loathed how Zack fell into the church though... That was Cloud's moment-- stop making these two boys alike. I sorta understand why but it feels very unrealistic. I'd have Zack meet Aerith at the playground, it's still a place that Cloud went to as well and then it's not a rehash of the same thing.

[@DidTheMarinersWin]

I might be misremembering quotes but I believe the devs didn’t really know how to write Zack/Aerith stuff at the start so they just copy and pasted what they had in the original FF7. It’s really dumb.

[@TwistedSisler]

From what I remember, there was originally going to be WAY more with Zack in OG FF7 and the original intent was for those events to happen between Zack and Aerith, not with Cloud and Aerith, but the Zack content got cut so you went through it all with Cloud as a parallel. That might not be completely accurate, but I do know that Zack's story with Aerith was written prior to Cloud and Aerith. They just didn't know how to fit it into a prequel game after having had to adjust the OG story, especially one where dialogue lines could only be a few words at a time due to hardware restrictions.

[@gamerforlife3946]

@@TwistedSislerWell this was false 100%. Zack wasn’t made until they decided to at the very end of the project. They didn’t even want to make him at first.

[@TequilaToothpick]

Ignore the haters. Your complaints about the game are completely valid. You even says his excited you were at the start of this reaction. It's clear that you sent into it with high hopes. I hate this game. It retcons so much of the story and even removes Aeris' agency as a character. Zach bought her the ribbon (which you like admittedly), Zach bought her the flower stall, Zack stopped her being afraid etc. People think Aeris of this weak girl who needs protecting and this game portrays her exactly like that. The Aeris in the original is strong, confident and brave and this game says that was just because of Zack. It's very disapointing. As you said they also took away Sephiroth's agency. Even Hojo is weakened by there being other evil scientists. Sigh.

[@ItsLazBoi]

It’s wild how much they just devalue their characters to make Zack feel important, and to what end anyway? What’s the point in discrediting FF7 just to make Crisis Core feel more important? So strange.

[@aeaf123]

Didnt like it either. Also, the characterization of Aerith was a massive injustice... She is not really her own character at all. Its just she is there because of Zack, really.

[@trajic9204]

Thank you! You're Nebelhiem sentiments mirror mine exactly lol, only other thing I nit picked was Tifa's eye colors being wrong. That drove me crazy when this came out. They basically teardown Sephiroth, to build up Genesis who sucks as you said lol.

[@swaswj414]

Church situation theory: it's survivorship bias. Everyone that falls from upper Midgar ends up falling into the church (due to flower magic), but only the SOLDIER and pseudo-SOLDIER survived. That is why Aerith isn't that shocked when it happens, just mildly surprised that they lived. The rest get buried to feed the flowers.

[@crashwithkirby6708]

I agree with you about… I can see how the opening could make sense, zack riding in on the train, then years later, cloud, having heard zack tell that story at some point, internalizes it and decides to recreate the scene when they’re doing the mako reactor bombing mission. Falling through the roof was a bridge too far though, and actually makes the original worse in retrospect. It just pulls it down, sadly. I could have done without Zack falling through the roof. It was overdone in the name of fanservice. I hated it too. I loved the ribbon too, that actually made sense and gave deeper meaning. I’m with you 💯 so far ( I’m only 30 mins in so far though lol)

[@Koustav_04]

They should have came up with new ideas to show genetic mutation other than wings. Like, why not mutated ears or teeth or legs? Why wings? That was so dumb.

[@Mitsu2040]

I think that they should have kept that as Sephiroth's thing. Mass-producing it so that every unnamed soldier had one cheapens that look. If they HAD to have wings, I would have made them have two and different colors like white for Angeal sure, but red or crimson for Genesis. Anything to keep it different from Sephiroth.

[@Reshapable]

Because his song is called one winged angel! Obviously that was supposed to be literal and not metaphorical! No. Really.

[@Koustav_04]

@@Reshapable I'm talking about Genesis & Angeal

[@Reshapable]

@@Koustav_04 I know. Thats how stupid they were. Parasitism at it's finest, stealing not just Sephiroth's supersoldier baby origin, but also his cheap reference to attempted ascension... that they never attempted themselves.

[@XavierDarkhand]

Don't get me wrong; I think this story is a contrived mess that doesn't make much sense, is ham-fisted and forced, as well. But there is one point to make for around 55:00 mark. Sure; the original showed Cloud and Zack get out of Nibelheim and then get on a truck headed for Midgar. However...how did they get to the Midgar's continent? The truck can't cross an ocean. That was a big hole they hand-waved in OG FF7.

[@TheNightofWalpurgis666]

I remember Max Dood streaming this game and he's gradually losing brain cells as he went on.

[@Civilchaos]

Damn, I totally missed this

[@jenniferchough]

That was Dirge of Cerberus lol. He’s okay with Crisis Core; he didn’t hate it. But he really does dislike DoC. His play-through of it is definitely worth watching for the LOLs.

[@TwistedSisler]

@@jenniferchough It was mostly the dialogue that Max lost his mind over. How everyone in the game but Zack acts like a robot.

[@MegaMagicalMegan]

0:11:26 if you like it then you should’ve put a wing on it

[@dearthofdoohickeys4703]

The game definitely has some serious issues. Calling it melodramatic is a bit rich coming from a _kingdom hearts_ fan though 😜 It’ll be interesting to see how they use Zack moving forward in Rebirth. I hope they don’t bring back Genesis though. He’s just the worst.

[@ItsLazBoi]

I think the difference between this and KH is that KH has always been melodramatic and it earns that. FF7 wasn't, so Crisis Core feels entirely out of character for the FF7 universe, if that makes sense.

[@zhen3142]

I played OG first, then remake, then crisis core reunion. I agree with pretty much all your criticisms. CC was disappointing in every way from plot to dialogue to gameplay.

[@Nina9er]

The problem is that you had an image of Zack from KH and the Remake, it hit differently when it first came out.

[@Reshapable]

I mean... no that wasn't the problem because his reaction is near identical to what mine was when CC was first released. This game like all parts of the compilation was not representative of what they were derived from, and retroactively made the original experience worse by association. I liked Zack in CC but it was in spite of the game he was in, and it's fair to say a HUGE part of even that affection stemmed from the performance of his VA. The only difference in how it hit back then was "Oh my god, this is what they're gonna do with 7?" with no remake to show that all was not lost.

[@xenotypos]

I had an image only from the original FF7 and I still hated CC. For various reasons.

[@patriotsfan122480]

Nah, I don’t think that’s it. He clearly still loved Zack as a character. He can just separate the character from the game and see it was bad lol

[@davidrich27]

Zack wasn’t even the problem. It was all the plot going on around Zack.

[@Nefusk4n]

Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus feel like were written by a 14 year old boy trying to be deep and edgy.

[@shazardify]

At least Dirge of Cerberus doesn’t mess with OG’s core story elements.

[@MegaMagicalMegan]

0:41:42 streamer voice acting dub here was actually super cute and good tbh tbh

[@MegaMagicalMegan]

0:43:04 and there’s a lot of FFVII energy in Twilight Town I think, like the Wonders & the Shinra Manor feeling like where Namine meets Roxas etc etc, it’s fun to connect things, it’s fun to dive into the nostalgia, I cherish it

[@lovesgibson]

On a separate note, have you played final fantasy 10? That’s actually a good game

[@zacatkinson3926]

This was amazing CC is fantastic

[@DutchDread]

I personally love Crisis Core for the good it brings, but I do hate some of the stupid stuff it does. It really is a mixed bag where I like Zack and the concepts they were going for, but feel like it could have been done so much better. Genesis sucks, adding him to Nibleheim is downright insulting. But Zacks overal journey from naive youth to hero is great and his relationship with Aerith is perfection. I just wish it could have been done without weird plot points about cloned one winged angel monster everywhere and people randomly going evil. Would have liked to see a stronger bond with Sephiroth as well. I think that would have been a better use of time rather than focussing on Genesis. Have Zack, Angeal, and Sephiroth go through the Wutai war, focus on that and how it changes them. And give me more Zack/Aerith of course because there was not a weak moment there. It helped that it was a handheld game btw, made you expect different things than you expect from a full fledged console or pc game. "I hate ret-cons dude" congrats, this is why I hate remake.

[@rod9527]

Génesis is the worst, and he has such a Big role because Nomura was a fanboy of Gackt, he Made genesis in his image , Square-Enix loved the idea of having a Big jrock Star in their games that they forced him in Dirge and crisis core, Even tho it Made no sense.

[@jay9368]

ItsLazBoi - First of his name, Defender of Ribbons 🎀 and the Obsurdity of a Conveniently Placed Church, Master of Activating Combat Mode Announcements, Lord of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and Protector of the Realm.

[@hian]

Also "how about dem dumbappples?" Sorry. Just had to.

[@ravenmadd3895]

"To be a hero, you need dreams...and honor." Yeah, but what is honor? No, I wasn't being rhetorical or philosophical, I'm actually asking: What is honor? Every definition I've looked up is more vague and opaque than the term Fascism.

[@davidrich27]

Well, being that Zack and Angeal are obsessed with their “SOLDIER honor”, despite learning that SOLDIER is the military arm for a totalitarian corporate state, conducting unethical scientific experiments to breed supersoldiers, it seems that Zack and Angeal have no clue what it is either.

[@ravenmadd3895]

@@davidrich27 And that's the only bit of writing brilliance in this game: the writers had such an incredible lack of understanding of what they were doing that the writing quality looped back on itself and transformed into an unintentionally brilliant piece of meta-commentary: Zack, Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth, just like the writers, had no idea what they were doing and was thus a neomodern example of life imitating art...oh Christ this game screwed me up more than I thought!

[@TwistedSisler]

Honor is basically just conviction. not going against your values.

[@lailanashim274]

1:02:20 "That's... horrible!" I saw dozens of gameplays' endings, but have never heard this line. Its worth a like 😆

[@tylercafe1260]

36:11 Super based opinion. Kingdom Hearts has it's twists but so does every story in existence. The twists are fun and are so emotionally impactful it'll make the fans cry. Crisis Core is so over complicated I'm not sure what it's even trying to say. I think, this is a bit of a theory, the term "monster" is referring to them not being "purebloded" they're "mixed". I think literally about genetics and being ashamed of not having a pure background. I can't think of any other angle of why they'd be so upset especially to the point of trying to destroy humanity it's because they hate themselves. Which is just not told well and I have no idea if that's what's happening. It's such a chaotic mess and the gameplay is just awful ACTIVATING COMBAT MODE