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Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

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Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Developer(s)Square Enix
Publisher(s)Square Enix
Designer(s)Takayoshi Nakazato
SeriesFinal Fantasy series
Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Platform(s)PlayStation 2
ReleaseJPN January 26, 2006
NA August 15 2006
PAL November 17 2006 [1]
Genre(s)TPS
Mode(s)Single player,
Multiplayer (Japanese Version only)

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII[2] (ダージュ オブ ケルベロス -ファイナルファンタジーVII-, Dāju obu Keruberosu -Fainaru Fantajī Sebun-) is a third person shooter developed and published by Square Enix, which is a sequel to the popular 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII, also developed by Square Enix. It is also part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series, a collection of video games and animated videos set within the Final Fantasy VII universe. Directed by Takayoshi Nakazato, the game's story centers on Vincent Valentine. The game was released in Japan on January 26, 2006, on August 15, 2006 in North America and on November 17 2006 in Europe and in Australasia. The original soundtrack and in-game music for the game were composed by Masashi Hamauzu. Two other songs, "Redemption" and "Longing" were composed and performed by Gackt.

Story

Three years after the events of Final Fantasy VII, an unknown group of powerful SOLDIERs appear, bringing a swift and bitter end to the peace enjoyed by the people of world. The members of this enigmatic group are the ones who were trapped under the ruins of Midgar for three long years; the Deepground SOLDIERs, their intention is to call forth the final WEAPON, Omega, before its time. However, to do that, the DGS need Vincent to lead the way to Omega.

Vincent Valentine finds himself pursued by several elite members of the mysterious organization. An unrelenting chain of events leads Vincent to the truth behind his past and forces him once again to be the key player in a battle for the planet itself and all those living in it.

Reeve Tuesti, former Head of Urban Development at Shinra (as well as the remote pilot of Cait Sith), is now the leader of the World Regenesis Organization, which looks after the planet and prevents people from damaging it further. Yuffie Kisaragi is another member of the organization, and several other characters from the original game provide the WRO with outside assistance.

The game begins with an FMV depicting the attack on the town of Kalm, an attack carried out by Deepground soldiers. Vincent thwarts the attack, but not before encountering Azul and Shelke, members of the Tsviets, Deepground's elite force of supersoldiers.

Sea of Flames

Vincent makes his way through Kalm, taking down the Deepground soldiers, and saving many of the Kalm town's people from being killed or kidnapped. As Vincent reached the town centre, a Deepground helicopter, called Dragonfly, attacks. Vincent fights it off, and makes his way into a nearby residence where he meets Azul, and an endless amount of soldiers. Vincent must now meet Reeve at the church, and heads back through Kalm, assisting the WRO on the way. As he reached the church the Dragonfly returns, this time known as Dragonfly GL. Once it is taken down, Vincent and Reeve meet, and the mission ends.

Showdown in the Wastes

As Vincent and Reeve speed across the desert to Edge, Reeve tells Vincent about the Deep Ground soldiers, and that they were a secret project that only President Shinra, Heidegger, Scarlet and Hojo knew about. When Rufus took over after his father's death, the ascension was so quick that he didn't have a chance to be told about the Deep Ground soldiers, and the deaths of the other Shinra executives eliminated all outside knowledge of the project, causing the soldiers to languish in the research facility for three years.

Reeve then tells Vincent that 1200 people disappeared from Junon. The conversation is then interrupted by a transmission from a mysterious figure that states his desire to 'cleanse' the world, and the tainted shall be killed. After the transmission ends, the van is attacked by Guard Hounds. Vincent saddles up on the machine gun and fends them off before making his way on top of the van, where he continues to defend it with his own firearms. With the van damaged, Vincent is forced to make his way to Edge by foot while under constant assault from more Guard Hounds and their pack leader, Crimson Hound. Near the entrance to Edge, he is confronted again, this time by several Deep Ground soldiers on bikes. After defeating the soldiers, he crosses the border into Edge.

Silent Edge

Rosso sits on a crate in a factory laughing to herself about Weiss' talk, then the camera zooms out to show dead WRO members surrounding her. Vincent is peering around a corner, when a woman wearing a labcoat points her gun at his head, but he turns pointing his gun at hers. He notices a WRO badge and puts his gun down. She introduces herself as Shalua Rui. Shalua says that Edge is too quiet, and that the WRO troops and 500 townspeople are nowhere to be seen. She then walks off talking about finding her 'reason to live.' Vincent fights his way through town, and finds a dying WRO member, who mentions a soldier in red and a warehouse at the edge of town, before dying. Eventually, he makes his way into a central area, where he takes down many snipers around the area, and saving a child, who leads him to someone who has a card key to get into the warehouse. In the warehouse Vincent must fight a Heavy Armoured Soldier. Rosso is outside, and calls Vincent the 'Keeper of the Protomateria.' The two fight, and she smashes Vincent into the wall, where he begins to glow red and transforms into Chaos. He knocks Rosso away, and then falls to the ground, Shalua coming up behind him.

The scene switches to a flashback, with Vincent in Lucrecia's cave, she keeps saying 'sorry' and Vincent questions why. The scene then goes further back to when Vincent was a Turk, and is arguing with Hojo. It ends in Hojo shooting him, and then muttering to himself about experiments. When Vincent eventually awakens, he stumbles, and falls before it fades to black, Vincent screaming. The final flashback, shows him in regenerative tube, with Lucrecia looking in on him.

Gameplay

File:Vincefps.jpg
First Person View mode.

The game is a third-person shooter. The player can switch to first person view mode and utilize a cross hair to shoot enemies. Vincent has an HP Bar, as well as mako points (MP), which resemble magic points. There is also a value for Level, where Vincent can level up and increase his statistics by completing a chapter or dying during the chapter and spending points accumulated through play before continuing. Vincent can also choose weapons from a large library, primarily guns. The option of transforming into his Limit Breaks is also available, the first being Vincent's first limit break, the Galian Beast, and the second is Chaos. However, one cannot use a Limit Breaker for Chaos; it is automatically given in the final chapter of the game, Omega and Chaos.


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Overview

Director Takayoshi Nakazato said that he was a big fan of the PC game Half-Life and wanted to turn it into an RPG, and he has done so, in the form of Dirge of Cerberus.[citation needed] This is the last game in chronological order in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and is often referred to by the staff of the game as "the ending finale to Final Fantasy VII". However, producer Yoshinori Kitase has recently stated in an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly that it's not necessarily the end of Final Fantasy VII's story, but will provide resolution to Vincent's personal story, just as Advent Children resolves Cloud's. The game's secret epilogue also leaves the door open, introducing a mysterious character named Genesis, or "G", who speaks in a cryptic fashion that suggests the story is not yet over.

Reception

Upon its release in Japan, the game received mixed reviews. Gaming magazine Dengeki PS2[3] rewarded the game with a 313/400 while Famitsu scored it a lower 28/40[4]. The Famitsu review wasn't made available until three weeks after Dirge of Cerberus was released, contrary to the Dengeki score. Speculation arose that Square Enix had perhaps forced Famitsu to delay its review in an attempt to avoid discouraging gamers. Nevertheless, the game managed to ship 392,000 units in its first week[5]. Though sales were moderately successful, they paled in comparison to sales of other games in the Final Fantasy series.

Dirge of Cerberus received similarly mixed reviews from American critics. Though popular gaming review sites IGN and Gamespot scored the game with a more forgiving 7.0[6] and 6.0[7] (respectively), 1UP.com gave the game a 4.0[8] while Electronic Gaming Monthly collectively scored the game with a 4.6 average from three reviews (with one score of 4.0 and two scores of 5.0)[9]. G4's game review show, X-Play, gave the game a 2 out of 5 due to poor level designs, weak gunplay, a tremendous amount of cutscenes (Adam Sessler cited this as "The game is so in love with it's story, it won't even let you play the game") and bad AI[10]. Similar reviews also cited poor gameplay as a major criticism.

At Game Rankings, the combined reviews for the game are currently 60%[11]. The combined score from Metacritic is currently 58 out of 100 based on 50 reviews[12].

Characters

Template:List to prose (section)

Returning Characters

These are all the characters in Final Fantasy Dirge of Cerberus

New characters

Main article: List of Dirge of Cerberus Characters

Voice cast


Crew

Localization

The North American and European releases of Dirge of Cerberus received a major overhaul due to the fact that the developers were not satisfied with the final Japanese version; the developers also wanted to make the game more single player oriented.

  • Vincent's running speed is 1.2 times faster, and he can perform a double-jump and do ranged and melee attacks in midair. Also, his dive-roll dodge move is supplanted with a dash move.
  • Vincent's weapon can be customized to make it lighter, so there is no sluggishness when drawing his weapon.
  • Limit Breaks no longer detract from the magic bar; instead, a single-use item can be used to perform the attack.
  • "Easy Mode" has been removed, replaced with an "Extra Hard" mode. This new mode includes unlockables such as 40 special missions, a character-model viewer, and artwork and sound galleries.
  • Online Multiplayer support was removed due to the poor popularity of PlayOnline in America, and lack of PS2 HDD support in the U.S. Missions from the Online Mode were reworked into some of the missions that can be unlocked in "Extra Hard" mode. However, this contains none of the additional storyline presented in the Japanese Online mode.
  • The game retains support for mouse and keyboard peripherals for PC First-person shooter-style gameplay.

Soundtrack

Main article: Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack

The soundtrack for the game was composed by Masashi Hamauzu. Vocal tracks were performed and composed by J-Rock singer, Gackt Camui for the theme songs, "LONGING" and "REDEMPTION". The soundtrack was released on February 15 2006 in Japan with a price of ¥ 3,300 bearing and the limited edition of the soundtrack will be released on the same day with a price of ¥ 3,900 bearing the catalog number. The CD consists of 2 CDs with 53 tracks. The limited edition of the soundtrack includes a "Cerberus Complete Case" deluxe box which is designed to hold the soundtrack along with the Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII PS2 game and the limited edition of Gackt's single for the game, "REDEMPTION".

The CD single for Gackt's single for the game, "REDEMPTION" was released on January 25 2006, with a price of ¥1,200 (roughly USD 10.17). A limited edition was also released featuring two "REDEMPTION" video clips, one being Gackt's promotional music video and one being set to animation from the game, with a price of ¥1,950 (roughly USD 16.53).

A supplemental soundtrack was released through the Japanese iTunes service and the SQUARE ENIX MUSIC Download page on August 22nd, 2006, for the price of ¥1,500. Titled "DIRGE of CERBERUS: Final Fantasy VII MULTIPLAYER MODE Original Sound Collections", this album consistes of 27 tracks, including a handful of songs from the single player game which weren't included in the OST, as well as all of the original music composed for the multiplayer mode and two new songs composed by Ryo Yamazaki for the North American release of the game.

References

  1. ^ "Dirge of Cerberus headed for Europe". [Club Skill]. 2006. Retrieved July 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Square Enix (August 15, 2006). "DIRGE of CERBERUS: Final Fantasy VII EXPLODES ONTO RETAIL SHELVES". Square Enix North America. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  3. ^ Famitsu/Dengenki Review Scores - Dirge of Cerberus, Tourist Trophy at Games Are Fun
  4. ^ Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending February 5 at Gamasutra
  5. ^ TOP 10 Weekly Software Sales (January 23 - January 29, 2006)
  6. ^ Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Review at IGN
  7. ^ Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII for PlayStation 2 Review at Gamespot
  8. ^ Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus review at 1UP.com
  9. ^ Reviews: Dirge of Cerberus EGM Review at 1UP.com
  10. ^ X-Play review
  11. ^ Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Reviews at Game Rankings
  12. ^ Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (ps2:2006): Reviews at Metacritic
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