TGS 2005: Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Hands-On

TOKYO--Given the popularity of Square's Final Fantasy VII, it's almost surprising that it's taken the company this long to cash in on its classic RPG with a collection of spin-offs. But now, spin-off season is in full swing, and the latest entrant is Dirge of Cerberus, a shooting-focused action game starring the mysterious Vincent Valentine.

The game is only being shown in brief chunks at the Tokyo Game Show this year, but you definitely get the impression that the game is pretty far along. Cutscenes set up the action by showing Vincent skysurfing past a bunch of airships, firing shots at them all the while. The action featured in the TGS demo, however, is strictly ground-based and is focused on freeing children and other civilians who are getting trapped in a city that's under attack from a bunch of robotic troops.

As Vincent, you'll play the game primarily from a third-person perspective, complete with the ability to recenter the camera behind your character using the L3 button. Vincent has a melee attack combo that will land a few hits in a row, and he can also jump and execute tactical rolls, which leave him in a crouched position. While the melee attacks are fairly powerful, Vincent is also very handy with guns, and gunning down your enemies is the game's primary form of combat. Hitting L1 or R1 will drop you into a zoomed-in viewpoint from over Vincent's shoulder. It puts a reticle onscreen, letting you know precisely what you're aiming at. It also has a snap-to lock-on targeting system, so manual aiming is rarely necessary, and is only really useful when you're trying to hit something from a long distance or trying to shoot exploding barrels or other inanimate objects. While many of the enemies in the demo are similarly armed, none of them do much damage, and they all shoot rather slowly, giving you the jump on them almost every time.

You'll be able to equip multiple firearms in Dirge of Cerberus. Your primary pistol fires regular shots with R1, but L1 causes it to fire off slow-moving, extremely powerful projectiles. It might as well be a slow-moving rocket launcher. This is great for taking out groups of enemies with one shot. You'll also have to fight large airships in the game, and if you can lead your target properly, a few of these rocket shots will do the job nicely. You can also equip a powerful long-range rifle and a machine gun, which is as accurate as the rest of the weapons but does far less damage than the other guns present in the demo. Hitting R1 and L1 at the same time uses up your MP meter and transforms you into some sort of beast. In this state, your attacks become more powerful, and instead of firing a gun, you simply shoot very powerful fireballs out of your right arm. Doing this drains your MP meter, but the game has more than a few spots around that will fully recharge your MP.

The action in Dirge of Cerberus is very objective-based and straightforward. You're making your way through a city that's under attack, and your path is made very linear due to fires that block what could be alternate routes. Along the way, you'll be saving children and collecting key cards, which work to bypass security gates that will block your path in a few spots. In the early missions we saw, there seemed to be robots around every turn, giving you plenty of things to shoot at as you progress. If you take too much damage, you can access your inventory and use items to replenish your hit points, among other things.

Graphically, Dirge of Cerberus has a decent look to it. The portion we saw had a handful of in-engine cutscenes that looked pretty good, though the game definitely appears to have plenty of prerendered scenes to watch as well.

In addition to the game's single-player campaign, the game will have a multiplayer mode and an online mode, though these options aren't currently available for viewing. We'll have more on Vincent's adventure as it becomes available.