Dirge of Cerberus shoots a few blanks, but is worth a look by Final Fantasy VII fans.
I must admit that my excitement over the spinoffs has withered over time. Although Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was fun to watch and brought forth great feelings of nostalgia, it still lacked the heart and soul that the original game was all about. And I personally feel that FFVII:DoC suffers from that as well.
In Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus you play the part of Vincent Valentine, the mysterious optional character from the original Final Fantasy VII. That is a very interesting decision, not only is he a cool character, but I also felt they didn't take full use of his potential in the original game, with him being an optional character and all. It also proved to be a good decision. He has an interesting backstory that is fleshed out more in this game. However, I would have liked to see more of the other characters that I grew to love as well, like Tifa, RedXIII, Cid, Barret and Cloud. These characters make only minor appearances throughout the game. On the other hand Cait Sith, Reeve and Yuffie have pretty big roles in this title. I liked them in FFVII, but they were not my favourites, and I am kind of puzzled by why they are given such big roles compared to the others. My biggest disappointment is Yuffie, I found her to be quite funny, spunky and charming in FFVII, but in DoC she is merely reduced to a silly klutz. They try to bring in some comic relief with her, but they fail miserably.
The story in DoC is quite good and interesting, but the question is: is the story engaging? Well, it definitely isn't on par with FFVII. I wont write much about the actual plot. But you will be digging into the secrets of Shinra and of course Vincents past, and ultimately save the world... again. A couple of questions will be answered, an example would be questions revolving Luctrecia and her part in the FFVII saga. And there are also several nostalgic moments that are worth the playthrough alone. To me though, the story at times lacked the feel and heart of FFVII. Also at times the whole thing feels a bit drawn out. There are a lot of cutscenes and a lot of story being told compared to the time you will actually be playing. I read a comment about how it feels more like a movie than a game, and at times that comment feels appropriate.
The gameplay is also pretty disappointing. I'm fine with the fact that it's not an RPG, but instead a shooter. But the fact is that it doesn't do a very good job at it. It's not abysmal by any means, but there are a couple of issues that hurt the gameplay severely. First of all the game feels very stiff and a bit clunky. The camera, aiming, moving and jumping suffers from this. The stiff animation doesn't help either. The save system feels a bit awkward. There are several checkpoints where the game will perform an auto save. Thankfully you can also make temporary saves. At any given time you can pause the game, tempsave, and you will be brought back to the title screen. However, when you load that save the data will be deleted, but with a second memory card you have actually solved much of the problem. The item selection during a fight is very cumbersome and annoyed me more than once. For most of the time you will be better off bringing up the menu screen and use items from there. An other issue is the lack of diversity in the enemies, and how they are overly anonymous.
The shooting action can be fun though. And there are at times diversity in the missions. Some of the bosses are very cool, and brings a nice change of pace. I also like the customisation system for the weapons. The game isn't very challenging, but the difficulty seems a bit uneven. Some of the later missions are way easier than some of the missions in the early/mid part of the game. 7/10
The graphics are pretty good. The characters look great, though a bit overdesigned. At times I felt like some of the characters would fit in more with Kingdom Hearts than Final Fantasy VII. I liked what Tetsuya Nomura did in FFVII, but I don't agree with all the designs in this game. Vincent however looks better than ever. Although the character graphics are good, the backgrounds are pretty bland. You will see a lot of the same over and over again, it just lacks in detail and personality. The animation isn't impressive either. The CG cutscenes are marvelous as you probably can imagine, but I wish there were more of them. The in game cutscenes are also pretty good and the animation is much better than when you are playing, but with the occasional overacting. The backgrounds are dull as I mentioned, and there are a lot of loading between scenes that can get a bit annoying. 8/10
The score is pretty descent, but lacks the FFVII feel all together if you ask me, and that was kind of disappointing. I wish there could be a little reference to the FFVII soundtrack. The game features a pretty good track or two by j-pop/rocker Gackt. The sound effects are nothing out of the ordinary. The voice acting is good overall, but with some over dramatic acting here and there, but still pretty solid. 7/10
The game is pretty short, but does offer a little replay value. There are several secrets and difficulty settings. As well as several side missions. But, I think most people will be playing this game because of its story more than the actual gameplay. 7/10
For me Dirge of Cerberus was a pretty fun game. In terms of gameplay it's a very mixed bag. But with the decent graphics and interesting story it should at least be checked out by Final Fantasy VII fans, just don't expect too much out of it.
My rating: 7/10