An interesting storyline with an okay game… that seems a bit backwards.
Dirge of Cerberus continues the story of FFVII and its sequel, Advent Children, but it chooses to focus mostly on Vincent Valentine, a shape-shifting nearly indestructible gunslinger. Not only will you explore what has occurred after the Meteorfall at the end of the earlier game but it will also delve into Vincent’s back-story. This is cool because it allows the players to find out exactly what the deal is with our ever so quiet and brooding hero and the odd woman he met behind the waterfall in the previous game; Lucrecia. As you can tell from reading the above breakdown it is very helpful to have played FFVII but not entirely necessary. Most of what goes on will be explained although you might not know who some of the other characters in the game are.
Lets just get one topic out of the way as quickly as possible: graphics. Ever since Final Fantasy X reared its little head people have expected more and more from the series. Well, all of the graphics in this game are top notch. The in game graphics look great and the animation is incredibly fluid, barring when Mr. Valentine is jumping. The actual cut-scenes look phenomenal and are evocative of the Advent Children movie, which looked great of its own accord.
I’m not one of those people who rants about how bad English voice actors are compared to the Japanese ones, but they are usually fairly embarrassing. Well I am happy to say that the voice acting in this game is top notch. Almost all of the characters sound believable when they deliver their lines and those that don’t are easily ignored. It never enters into the cheesy territory. Also praiseworthy is the soundtrack to this game. There are a number of simple tracks that seem like remixed tracks from earlier games but the ones that truly stand out are the songs that are contributed by J-Rock singer, Gackt. These are some pretty awesome songs and I really enjoyed listening to them. All in all, the music never really grated on my nerves like it can in games of this genre.
While having a good storyline, graphics and sound design are good places to start, you need to have good gameplay to make people care. This is, sadly enough, where Dirge of Cerberus falters a bit. That isn’t to say that the game is horrible, just that it’s not entirely up to snuff on what you would hope for from a game of this genre.
Let’s start at the most basic part of the game, moving around. While you can run in any direction, double jump and use a quick dash maneuver, your movements always feel very limited. Forget the fact that there are numerous invisible barriers stopping you from moving as you want, which leaves you unsure of if you can jump over certain walls, even when the game wants you to platform and move carefully along platforms it is really hard to do. The controls just aren’t tight enough, or responsive enough, to do fine movements. Luckily this doesn’t come up too often but it can still be a pain in the rear when trying to move around and dodge enemies. Sometimes it is simply best to just hunker down behind something, peek out a bit and start shooting. Oddly enough dodging works best against bosses since the hail of bullets that the basic enemies throw out seem to be harder to dodge than that of the bosses.
Speaking of the bosses, they are such a mixed lot that it is almost painful. Some of them are pretty simple to fight, just requiring you to pick the proper gun (from your pistol, machine gun and bolt-action rifle) and start firing at them while circle-strafing. But some of the others have to be the most obnoxious bosses that I have ever fought in any game I have ever played. With a nice mix of unstoppable ranged attacks, ridiculous combo attacks and a nearly laughable amount of hit points… well a few of these bosses are good for hair loss. And by hair loss I mean pulling your hair out. These sorts of fights are few and far between but when they come they are memorable and there is a sense of accomplishment when you beat them, so I suppose it is a mixed sort of blessing.
Other than that, the gunplay is basically what you might expect. You aim your gun and shoot at enemies that get in the sights of your crosshair. It is responsive enough where you shouldn’t have problems with the game not responding to your twitch reflexes and fighting off large groups of enemies is actually a lot of fun. Nothing makes you feel like a hero like gunning down large hordes of expendable grunts. It can be annoying at times due to the enemies near omnipotence, even at the longest of ranges, but you should still have little problem fighting off the enemies. Lastly for those who are fans of FFVII, don’t expect to see much use out of your materia. It is more of an afterthought in this game than it is a focus. You will use the Limit Break item to transform into the Galian Beast nearly as much as you will use your magic.
By the way, when you do change into the Galian Beast you really do beat the crap out of your enemies. There is little in the way of enemies that can stand up against you even when it comes to some of the bosses.
Honestly if this game had a bit better controls, and some of the boss fights didn’t feel so spastic, it would have rated a very high score. I’m talking about a score that could have competed with Final Fantasy VII itself. As it stands Dirge of Cerberus is a pretty good game and a solid buy if you like shooters. Then again, the game isn’t really all that hard to begin with so if you aren’t too good with shooters you can still gun down enemies in DoC with the best of them.
Score: 7