Current location:	Nottingham
Current mood:	Full (again)
Current music:	Why by Ayaka (Crisis Core Theme Song)
Entry tags:	crisis core, video games

Crisis Core Gameplay
So now that more than two weeks have has passed since I finished Crisis Core, I finally feel at peace enough to do an entry on it. I can never seem to do justice to the games I love - I did attempt to blog about Tales of the Abyss and Xenosaga III previously, but ultimately gave up because I'm just not able to put into words just how wonderful I found those games. But I'll try my best. :p

One gripe of the games is that I found the sidequests in the game overly monotonous since they pretty much follow the formula of "Get into a bunch of random battles and open a few treasure chests along the way before you come across the final boss of that area and kill it to complete the mission". The overall gameplay,though, was definitely very fast-paced and loads of fun despite its relative simplicity. In fact, I was actually surprised at how I continued to find the battle system so fun since some might consider it a bit TOO simple. But I think that's why the DMW (Digital Mind Wave) system works so well, since it counterbalances the simplicity with an uncontrollable element of luck. For those who don't know how the DMW system works, it's essentially a set of facial portrait reels at the upper left hand corner of the screen which constantly spin. If you manage to line up three of the same facial portrait together ala jackpot, Zack will execute a "limit break" depending on whose facial portrait it is. So due to this randomness, it makes you hold your breath every time the DMW reels activate in battle as you wait to see if you'll be lucky this time or not, which adds an element of freshness to what would otherwise be predictable and boring battles. Not to mention the DMW system itself has a rather poignant symbolic meaning, which is implied throughout the whole game but is only confirmed at the end. (Yes, go ahead and break my heart in the final non-true fight, why don't you. -_-)

In any case, the gameplay is pretty much perfect for the hack-and-slash type of gamer I am, although it was possibly a little TOO easy. I think the only time I ever gameovered was at the last boss battle, and that was because I hadn't realised it was the final fight and had equipped Zack with mostly inappropriate materia. Which brings me to a major point of irritation for me - the materia leveling system.

In the game, materia leveling is totally random and depends again on the DMW reels. Whenever the three same facial portraits line up, the numbers below the face portraits will also spin randomly and if you get two of the same number, the materia placed in the corresponding numbered slot gets leveled up. So you have absolutely no control over how fast or which of your materia actually levels up. However, the random materia levelling SUCKS because then it makes materia fusion that much harder. The way the materia fusion works is that it basically lets you combine two different materia together to get a new type of materia. BUT the clincher is that in order for a materia fusion to actually be successful, the materia generally need to be at LEAST of level four or even master level to be effective. If the levels are too low, its pretty much useless to bother with the fusion system since there are either no benefits to using it or the benefits are so low to be not worth it. (Eg. you end up making a materia you already have, or it only adds +1 to a certain stat) So often I found myself equipped with all sorts of materia I didn't actually want to use in battle just because I wanted to level them up for use in the materia fusion system. And it didn't help that the DMW system often levelled up the materia that I DIDN'T particularly want levelled up.

To be fair, though, it's possible to get the Moogle summon on one of the sidequests, which is really helpful since it helps level up all your materia at one shot if you're lucky enough to trigger it in battle. And depending on the level of the summon itself, which ranges from 1-5, you can have your materia levelled up to various levels, with 5 effectively mastering all your materia. Sadly, I only ended up getting that materia near the end of the game, since I didn't really bother with the sidequests that much and this particular sidequest pops up only after you've done a whole bunch of others. Not to mention that the summon materia is in a random treasure box that is really easy to overlook if you're not careful. (I would have missed it if I hadn't rotated my camera.) So I only got to reap its benefits about once or twice in the game. ^_^;;

Speaking of summons, the Chocobo Mode summons in the game are so darn cuuuuuuuuuute. The Moogle summon is probably my favourite because of its materia levelling benefits, and because in the animation, Zack's little cock of the head and his "tanomu!" action at the beginning, followed by his eager waving goodbye to the moogle just makes me go MOE. Not to mention the Moogle makes such ADORABLE sounds.

And whoops, I think I'm going to have to break up my entry again since this one has gotten too long (as usual). It's amazing how I can find so much to ramble on about, really. ^_^;; Anyway, next entry will be mostly about Zack and the story itself. Be prepared for lots of Zack fangirling. XD