To Become a Hero, You need to have dreams

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is a Play Station Portable game that serves as the most expanded prequel in the compilation. It tells the story of Zack Fair as he makes his way through the ranks of SOLDIER, befriends Aerith, whose death would one day "teach gamers how to cry", and tutors Cloud who grows up to become the world's hero. The game play spans a period of at least seven years, and makes use of a new system developed specifically for Crisis Core as well as future PSP releases. Please note however that this section will describe just a few of the events in Crisis Core rather than summarize the plot of the game.

The goal of Crisis Core (aside from putting money in the Square Enix accounts) is to teach the fans valuable lessons are honor, pride, and dreams. The three themes are present throughout the story as Zack learns what they truly mean on his road to becoming a hero. Zack becomes entangled in the web of Shinra's science departments' experiments and eventually ends up facing his mentor's best friend and his mentor, Angeal as they become monsters. Zack has to learn the way of the world, and decide for himself what makes someone human. After defeating Angeal, Zack is promoted to First Class, signifying the full circle from apprentice to mentor.

Zack follows in his mentor's footsteps as he trains young cadets, including Cloud. Zack teaches them to always fight with honor and pride in order to fulfill your dreams. This portion of Zack's life is cut short by the Nibelheim incident, which ends with Zack and Cloud becoming experiments in the basement of the mansion. The boys are eventually able to escape however, Shinra catches up to them and Zack is put to death by hundreds of SOLDIERS and helicopters, once again leaving Cloud, his mentee to become a hero.

Overall, the complex storyline delves into the inner workings of human relationships and the ability to understand one another. The game shows how Zack's relationships with Aerith, Cloud, Sephiroth, Angeal, Cissnei, and Tseng affect his life. The game proves just how important Zack really was the development of the plot of Final Fantasy VII, something that almost everyone forgot, somewhere along the way. Overall it expands on the events leading up to Final Fantasy VII and explains Cloud's motivations against Shinra.

The shortcomings of the game are seen in the dialogue. While the Japanese version is able to save face (at least to a point) the English version could really use some help. The voice acting is forced. Another thing is that the game doesn't follow the pattern of most Final Fantasy games. While many become challenging, especially near the conclusion this game stays relatively easy throughout. The lack of challenge may lead fans of the series to find the game dull. As I stated in the Last Order section, there is a large discontinuity in the details of Zack's death. In the game he dies after fighting hundreds of his former comrades while in Last Order he takes a total of one bullet, of course both of these are inconsistent with the 16 bullets Zack takes in the game.