PS2: Dirge of Cerberus – Final Fantasy VII
May 31, 2009 - 10:18 pm - Posted by Luke C.
Sometimes a successful series has a spin-off that, while strange, turns out to be fun and successful in its own right, like Phantasy Star Online or Secret of Mana. On the other hand, sometimes you end up with Dirge of Cerberus.
First, since Cerberus is a spin-off of possibly the most controversial game in the Final Fantasy series and the pleasure you can get from it probably depends at least partly on what you think of the parent game, I should come clean: I don’t like FF7. I think that at its core it’s a mediocre RPG with a few interesting ideas, but also that it sparked off negative trends in the genre. I also watched but didn’t really like or dislike the movie sequel, Advent Children. (I did like Tifa’s redesign, though.)
Now we’re up to Dirge of Cerberus. It’s an action game (specifically a third-person shooter) starring Vincent Valentine, who as I understand it is the good optional character in FF7. While aiding the cleanup efforts after the disasters that strike during FF7 and AC, Vincent is apparently targeted by Deep Ground, special forces from Shinra that have not been able to surface (literally) since the Meteor event of FF7.
Now, the bad: The gameplay itself is pretty rough. Hit detection can be wonky, invisible walls abound where there’s little need for them, and it often felt like I was wrestling the controller to get Vincent where I wanted him. Additionally, there’s a stealth level where you play as Cait Sith; mix the cat’s inability to defend himself if seen and the hostile controls and you have an even-more-irritating-than-most random stealth sequence.
The story was largely ignorable (not enough Tifa, for one thing), but bring a magazine if you do plan to ignore it – cutscenes are omnipresent and long. Also, in the one or two cutscenes where he deigns to appear, Cloud just has to show off and show up Vincent. It kind of made me playing the game feel pointless if Cloud could just pop up out of nowhere and win the war on his own.
The good: There’s plenty of tense battles that still feel winnable. I found equipment and item management to be challenging and fun rather than a chore. Limited gil means you can only upgrade your guns so far, and a different playthrough means you have a good chance to play with a different style. The magic system is simple and easy to understand. Boss fights are each unique and different from standard gameplay without being a whole new game. The game is as pretty as you’d expect.
The controls for this game are a bit complex, but not too difficult to get down. It would have been nice if they allowed you to switch your quick item slot in more than one direction – if you miss the item you want the first time, you have to scroll through the whole list a second time. It’s a minor quibble (I still used the menu for most of my items anyway) but with an unused button on the d-pad it just seems like a headslapper of an omission.
The weird: Vincent’s trademark tri-barrel pistol really does fire three bullets at once, giving you three chances to hit (and get critical hits!) with each shot but also draining your ammo three times as fast as you expect. The grade you get at the end of the level goes up when you use more magic, the opposite of what I expected. Vincent doesn’t flinch when he takes damage, which helps you maintain your focus but also means he can take huge amounts of damage without the player noticing. Replaying a level overwrites your status at its end, so you can basically replay each level in sequence and never notice a thing, but playing the levels out of order can confuse things; it’s not a bad way to do things, but it can be hard to understand at first.
My overall verdict? Dirge of Cerberus is not a good game. It suffers from drama bloat and being made by a company that’s not really sure how to make this kind of game. However, deep inside Cerberus is a good game, a fast-paced, often exhilarating third-person shooter full of unique encounters, struggling to get out. Cerberus often feels like the love-child of FF7 and the Devil May Cry series; if that sounds like fun to you, don’t feel ashamed to give the game a spin.