Image: Square Enix / MobyGames
During today’s Final Fantasy VII anniversary celebration, Square Enix announced that the game’s prequel, Crisis Core, will come out of a life of relative obscurity on a portable device that has long since died with a remake own.
Crisis Core was first released on PlayStation Portable in 2007. It followed Zack Fair, a mega-important (and very dead) Final Fantasy VII character with close ties to Cloud Strife and Aerith Gainsborough lovers. The action-packed role-playing game gave players a first-hand look at the major events dating back seven years before Final Fantasy VII itself, and most of it is remembered for its training in history and Zack’s personality.
“The dramatic irony of Zack’s default fate was the main reason he was chosen to be the star of the title,” Crisis Core director Hajime Tabata told 1UP at the time. “The most gratifying thing for me was to craft the story of Zack’s life into a story of succession and legacy that, through the Buster Sword, provides a heraldic sequel to Final Fantasy VII.”
Crisis Core was part of a campaign that Square Enix called Compilation of Final Fantasy VII alongside Dirge of Cerberus, a third-person shooter starring Vincent Valentine, a member of the vampire group Final Fantasy VII, and Advent Children, a computer animated film that acted as a live finale. Fantasy VII sequel. A full remake of Final Fantasy VII was also planned for the compilation, but it was obviously not carried out until the arrival of Final Fantasy VII Remake in 2020 and its limited reimagining of the original story.
As someone new to all of this Final Fantasy VII phenomenon, I look forward to all the media that includes the franchise being made for modern consoles again at some point. I don’t want to bother with the originals if that means taking my poor, sloppy PlayStation Portable out of any dusty box it has been confined to for years.