I really should've played this game closely after I originally beat original FF7 back in 2018 since everything about me purchasing this game at all back in that time was because of how much I recall initally liking the former. Dirge of Cerberus was lying around on my shelf for so long and I also recently finished the Crisis Core remake and FF7 Rebirth is around the corner and also hopefully me eventually getting to the FF7 remake soon, I decided to finally play Dirge of Cerberus. I know its also a sequel to FF7 Advent Children which is yet another aspect that doesn't work in DoC's favor.
With all that said, in spite of me playing DoC without a whole lot of attachment towards the FF7 brand, what did I think of it?
It's a mediocre game, a textbook definition of one. I don't mind this since I feel I need to try these kinds of games out every once and a while in order to appreciate the good to great stuff. DoC is not the epicly bad game that I was lead to believe for so many years but it's no misundersood masterpiece by any means.
Here's the thing with this game, almost everything regarding the presentation of DoC is top notch, Square Enix were always the kind of developers to have cutting edge production values for their games and this game is no exception. The CGI cutscenes still look amazing to this day and the in engine cutscenes are nice to look at it even if it never matches how the CGI cutscenes look. The character models do look sharp and they have a nice stylized look without looking too realistic to the point of hitting the uncanny valley. The music is also great and has a lot of memorable tracks the tutorial music is great and the boss theme is also great stuff. The english voice acting is pretty solid and I like Steve Blum as Vincent Valentine even if the material he is given is kind of dull but everyone does a good job with the material they are given.
This almost has me feel sorry for everyone involved in the production aspect value of DoC so much hard work and effort put into a mediocre game that looks and sounds nice but is in a "serviceable at best" third person shooter.
I'll get into the negatives, the story, my memory of the original game isn't as great as it once was and the most I can do is mention how much Crisis Core uses "prequel tropes" for it's story but even CC had more things to about it's story I can be attached to. There was Zack's character development and his relationship with Angeal and it was sort of interesting seeing Sephiroth as a good guy before he goes full on villain.
DoC on the other hand it's hard to get attached to anything, the game has multiple long cutscenes, borderline Metal Gear Solid levels and a lot of the dialogue and character interactions feels like you have to be an FF7 diehard just to understand or get any investment out of. The villains are also as crazy and over the top as they are in an MGS game, Azul feels like so much like Vulcan Raven. The chaingun, the big muscular build, the fact that he gets killed somewhere below ground.
It also feels weird to see Cloud Strife get sidelined for Vincent after being the lead in FF7 and Advent Children. The late game reveal feels like you have to really be into FF7 lore to really get any kind of emotional reaction out of. I did sort of find it interesting, and it almost makes it seem like Hojo was more of the main villain of FF7 than Sephiroth was.
Story aside, how is the gameplay? It's functional but none of the game rarely ever goes beyond being serviceable. The guns except for the pistol sound beefy and powerful and enemy reactions to getting shot feel decent, at the very least enemies do react to getting shot in DoC.
You have a jump button but there is rarely ever any platforming, and it's unreliable when it comes to dodging enemy projectiles since it's slightly more reliable than the actual dodge command but it the camera tends to track Vincent as he is jumping so it doesn't do a good job at giving the player the proper cue to move out of the way last minute. The actual dodge or dash is too slow and the reticle disappears when doing it which is why jumping is better since the reticle is shown when doing the latter. The game should've just combined both into one and have Vincent roll around whenever the auto aim is tracking a target.
The game has Vincent doing this awesome acrobatic movement in cutscenes but gameplay is him being a tank where this is very much a hitscan shooter. It can feel jarring since gameplay and cutscene Vincent are two completely different characters.
Difficulty of the game is weird, while the game can be easy, it can be hard at times due to the game not explaining itself well. You can put points into gil or your level. At first I did the latter but then I realized that the former was far more important since you can buy items more and weapon upgrades are tied to gil. You need those weapon upgrades since fights will last much longer if you don't put upgrades into them.
The game also has a weird system where gil and xp will be awarded to you after a chapter is completed and they can be quite lengthy, but if you die you cash in the points you gained, I didn't die that much but at the same time, you'll need that gil. Bosses and many tough encounters which are bosses tend to have vending machines right next to them and this tells me SE knew their design was flawed so they tried to come up with a way for players to see the story of their game through to the end.
Enemy variety and level design is "okay" but it's only the bare minimum. The level progression can get rather montonous since it's just killing enemies until you get the keycard to progress and sometimes it's not always clear what is a side objective and what is the beaten path. But generally I had a clue where I was going, I did kind of use the map which is something I am not big on using in games.
Enemies mainly consist of Shinra soldiers, drones, snipers, animal enemies, bigger goons with rocket launchers, and melee enemies, it's just enough to not have the game not be too dull but nothing really stands out, like I said before it's the bare minimum since the game has all the basic enemy archetypes but nothing that can't be done by shooting them and occasionally using materia. The auto aim tends to trivialize most enemy encounters since you just need to aim in the general direction of them and hit fire while strafing and healing yourself and it's enough to get by most encounters, and generally speaking there is always a good number of shops close to each other when playing the game except for the chapter that takes place after Kalm.
The game does throw gargolyes and Shinra soldiers who can only be damaged through magic and melee but they show up too late in the game especially in a game that has the same enemies for so long from the 4th chapter onwards.
Materia and melee are both kind of just "there". I didn't upgrade materia much since it was only really needed for a late game boss with Azul and melee has the same issue as dodging where Vincent will unholster his gun when he is punching something and his melee attacks are super weak meaning you are better off not using them much.
Overall, Dirge of Cerberus FF7 is a mediocre game based on a game and it's mythology, I have a passing interest in. It's by no means "terrible" but I wouldn't call good or great game. If I was more invested in the story or if the gameplay had more going on, I would've enjoyed it much more.
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