Ok, so this was something I didn’t think I was gonna do, but I was excited for it honestly. Ever Crisis was announced at the same time as Final Fantasy VII Remake INTERGRADE and Final Fantasy VII: The 1st Soldier in 2021 as a mobile game that would go over all of Final Fantasy VII Compilation, and it seemed pretty. It was released in September 2023, but in December 2023, it got a Steam release, and that’s the version I’ll be looking at. I’ll be looking at Chapter 1 of everything in the game so far, so spoilers are abounding, but these games are old, so most of you should be fine. Anyway, on with the blog post!
So there’s some story to go through, but I won’t waste too much of you’re time with it. FF7 and Crisis Core are recreated in the style of old-school Final Fantasy, or more specifically, the style of the 3D Remakes, with mixed results. For Final Fantasy VII, it works pretty well! Everything comes off as pretty well done, there’s not a lot wrong with how the game looks and is animated, and if they were to do a smaller-scale remake, I would like it to be like this, honestly.
Crisis Core on the other hand I think suffers from this treatment, as it feels like the presentation doesn’t help show Zack in the way that Crisis Core and Crisis Core Reunion do. One of the reasons that I think Crisis Core works is because of the performances and animated Cutscenes that show off who Zack is and the animations and Voice Acting that accompany them. It’s a nice thing to show off, but honestly, eh, I’m not the biggest fan of the story presentation in this game. Just buy Crisis Core Reunion.
Final Fantasy VII: The 1st Soldier is where things get interesting as there is a new story here regarding the origins of Sephiroth. We begin with Sephiroth and a man in a hood calling himself a here looking like they are going to clash, but it turns out to be a dream by the man in the hood, called Glenn Lodbrok, who’s actually talking to his friends Lucia Lin and Matt Winsord while on a helicopter ride. However, the front of the helicopter ends up cut off and they begin falling at a fast rate.
When the helicopter lands, only Glenn and Lucia are there, with Matt nowhere to be seen, however, after some wandering they find Matt, though it’s not clear if something has happened to him or not. After wandering the island they are on for a bit, they end up meeting a dog, and having to follow it away from danger. They end up meeting a boy and he takes them to a forest, but he ends up seeing through them, saying the fact that they want to stop war is a lie. Overall, I think this is good, but also I’m kinda not interested in the characters outside of Glenn honestly, maybe when Sephroph shows I’ll become more interested but not now I think.
So the stories are mostly the same, but how does the gameplay fare? To answer that, it’s kinda a standard turn-based game, but with a nice little variation to the the formula. To start off, while you do get the 3D remake-styled graphics those only apply to the over-world. In battles, you get something similar to the FF7 Remake style of graphics, but with turn-based battles, which is pretty neat to see something like that run on PHONES of all hardware.
You still have you’re limit breaks, and basic attacks are automated, but a big thing now is offence and defence meters. You press space to switch between the 2. Attack mode is used to charge you’re Defence mode, so switching between the 2 at the right times is pretty crucial to how you’re experience is gonna go, as staying in one mode isn’t gonna help you, trust me I tried that. While all the characters are simular, some are more fun than others. When I wasn’t in story mode, I mostly ran a party of Cloud, Tifa and Barret, Cloud for Power, he has some very strong attacks depending on you’re setup, Tifa for Speed because her limit break charges insanely fast, and Barret for range as his shots are also pretty strong. It’s a good combo that can get through most things. And just to be clear, this is also the combo you will probably use a lot during the story mode of FF7, as you have recommended parties there as well, though you play as just Cloud and Barret and Cloud with Aerith.
For Crisis Core, you’re recommended party is Zack and Zack alone. He’s plays pretty simular to Cloud, but honestly, it’s fine, the game is designed around the lack of teammates, though Ifrit is a pain in the ass. I ended up pairing him with Areith for event and daily quest tasks since well, Areith is a really good healer actually, so good back-up, and also shipping I guess. For real though, these 2 are very effective together.
I got more out of them than with the 1st Soldger characters, because. man, talk about a downgrade. Glenn is okay with his big axe, but Lucia and Matt are very focused on their gunplay and I don’t find that super interesting honestly. The free costumes are nice, but honestly, I just find the guns a bit more interesting. This doesn’t apply to what I’ve played of young Seproith, he uses Katanas, and I love his animations, can’t do anything without being stylish, now can he? I just haven’t played enough of him. Same goes from Red XIII and Yuffie, who just came out.
While there’s not a lot wrong on the gameplay front, the Gacha can be a bit weird, and well, let’s start with the Genshin comparisons. A thing that I don’t like about this game is that every time you start it up, you get bombarded with all the notifications and FMVs about what draws are happening and what’s in the Limited Time-Shop. While I understand you need to make money, it’s a bit annoying coming from Genshin, where I can boot up the game and then just play it.
Gacha here is for weapons and only weapons, and because this is more aligned to traditional Gacha, there is both Free and Paid Crystal Currency, and some Limited Time Banners, are locked to ONLY paid currency. Weapons do determine one or 2 of your special moves, so you want the best gear, but to be fair to the game, as someone who hasn’t spent money on it, I feel like the rates for 5-star weapons are pretty generous on both Standard Banner and Limited Banners. Plus, if you get a repeat of a weapon, you get parts for that weapon, and once you have enough parts, you can upgrade the rarity of that weapon and even over-charge it once you get to 5-star rarity, which is pretty neat.
I do admit I think I am luckier in this game compared to Genshin, but still, I’ll pulled for Tifa’s Christmas gloves and got them at 5-star rarity on the 1st try, that’s luck for sure, but also DAMN. It’s not hard to get things at a high rarity if you pull a decent amount, and I don’t pull on this game a lot(in fact I still have 150 standard banner tickets), so I feel like you will be fine.
However, let’s talk about Ever Crisis’ selling point, the costumes. Gonna be fully blunt here: THEY ARE WAY TO HARD TO GET. 1st off, some costumes are only avabile in banners, and to get them, you need to pull 100 time, but you can only use 10 pulls, because they are the only things that count as Stamps. You get enough stamps, congrats you have the costume, but if there’s 2 to earn, good luck as a free player unless you have saved a ton. My advice would to just skip the characters you don’t like, make things easier for yourself there.
There are also some costumes that are avable using costume exchange tickets, but there inlines another problem, the game doesn’t give you ways to earn these! Not even through events, which you would think would be the case. I did get one these free with the steam release, which I used to get Metalfoot Tifa, which is a pretty nice skin, kinda like a light armored costume for her, but it’s the only one I have outside of the 1st Soldger skins which they give you for free in the story, which are cool, I like that they give the characters unique looks, but also, I kinda want a costume for Cloud as well, but I guess I’m stuck till the next banners are revealed.
Ever Crisis is what I feel is a fun experience marred by it’s new elements and Gacha. While I love the way it presents it’s old stories, and the battles are very fun, I find the new 1st Soldger additions unintresting, and the Gacha feels very frustrating at time, and kinda takes away from the overall experence for me. Still, I would recommend this to people want to get an experience of FF7 before Rebirth comes out, or those looking to relive some FF7 memories.
Another one of these done, huh? Was a fun write up to do! Hopefully, I can keep interest in this, it’s pretty neat.
Next time, it’s the Steam Next Fest roundup! Can’t wait to play some fun demos. But for now, thanks for reading I will see you next time.
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