14 DAY TRIAL // 
I must begin by saying that Final Fantasy VII is my all time favorite RPG, if not my favorite game. It's been almost ten years since I first played it, it still rules and I would play it at any time of the day. Of course I played all the sequels, but considering that they had nothing to do with the seventh installment, you can't really compare them. The feedback was so intense and lasted for so many years, that Square thought about making a movie out of the cult game. The movie rocked and the hype grew again, speculations were made, a sequel was produced, and its name...well it's in the title of the article. What's the deal with Cerberus?... you might ask yourselves.
A little Greek mythology couldn't hurt anyone and if you didn't already know, Cerberus is the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell. At least, that's what the Greeks thought. After creating the movie Advent Children, Square-Enix thought that Cerberus was a cool name for a ... gun. Yeah, that's right, they chose Vincent's symbol, the Cerberus, for a title. The gun and the pendant are the only things related to the hound of hell. I must say that Vincent stood out of the cast in Final Fantasy VII, as he had that je-ne-sais-quoi that made him so mysterious and fun to play.
Story The story in Dirge of Cerberus happens three years after the action in Final Fantasy VII, and one year after the Advent Children movie. Vincent Valentine is the main character of this game and he appeared in Final Fantasy VII as an optional party member, nevertheless a fascinating one. He was a brilliant scientist married to the mother of the bad guy in Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children: Sephiroth. However, this tough dude does not show his age. Theoretically he's Seph's father and sort of Cloud's grandfather, but he suffered a lot of mutations thanks to his former colleague, Hojo.
In Dirge of Cerberus, you'll be playing with Vincent and your aim is to save the planet, again, by trying to stop a group that wants to awake a huge monster. Called Omega, this creature is produced by the planet and it's a Weapon, a type of being that appears whenever the Planet feels that it needs to self-destruct in order to be cleansed and pure. Vincent must take this creature down by himself, with some sort of help from the characters we know from the previous movie and game. Cloud's here, Yuffie also, Barret too, but we'll meet a couple of new and fascinating characters that I won't tell you about, because those would be spoilers.
Concept Dirge of Cerberus is a third person shooter, and that's a weird thing when it comes in the same sentence with Square-Enix and Final Fantasy. The producers excel in making RPG-s and they try to prove that they also excel in making various other game genres. They succeeded in making the horror series Parasite Eve and now they're taking a chance with shooters. You will be able to switch to the first person view by pressing the R3 button. I found that view to be much more helpful as I controlled both the character and the camera better.
Square-Enix is famous for their long and well done cutscenes, but too much is too much. When you play 2 minutes and have 10 minutes of cutscenes and than this happens again and again, something is a bit wrong. Those short FMV-s may have the quality of the Advent Children motion picture, but they tend to fragment the game in a frustrating way. I bet that the good old fans will have nothing against this aspect of the game, but those who bought the game because it said "third person shooter" will be very disappointed.
There are some arcade features in Dirge of Cerberus that have nothing in common with the Final Fantasy series. For example, each new task is signaled by a very flashy and glowing window that tells you what the next mission is. Final Fantasy players are not dumb, you know! And when you'll reach the game over screen, a counter will show up calculating the damage you've done and the points you've earned. Vincent might be immortal, but when he'll die, he'll be able to level up. Isn't that freaky? You'll be able to exchange the thousands of points you'll get for ammo, weapon powerups or materia. I was talking about arcade, well Square-Enix, you might not have noticed that this is 2006 and we really don't like rotating, shiny powerups or ammo. The same items from the previous installments are here: the phoenix down, the ether, the potion and the hi-potion, but they're a little too big and annoying compared to the old ones.
Vincent won't be the only playable character and you'll get to play with Cait Sith, also, but he won't have much to do, as he's a pretty helpless...cat. When Vincent is done shooting the same bad guys over and over again, he'll maybe want to take a ride on truck and fire its huge machine gun. The controls are pretty intuitive for this genre, as R1 is the classical shooting button, but now you'll use the L1 to cast a spell. The soldiers are pretty easy to dispatch and a funny, but useful thing is that you'll see the damage you do to them written above their heads. When you're facing bosses their health meter will appear on-screen and it will be depleted pretty soon considering that all of them are pretty easy to defeat.
There's also a customization part that allows the player to tweak Vincent's weapon, add a sniper scope, a more precise one, a longer barrel and God knows what else. The scope will grant you the sniper mode that will help you take aim better and fire even from the most distant spots. I played the normal mode the first time and it seemed way too easy, so I selected the hard level of difficulty to find out that there aren't many changes. Dirge of Cerberus is a pretty easy game to play, because the AI isn't a real challenge for the die-hard gamer.
Gameplay Dirge of Cerberus is a whole new game, that shouldn't even pertain to the series, because of its genre. It brings a couple of new features, if you compare it to the modern third person shooters. I found it to be a little bit similar to the Devil May Cry game, but I bet that Square-Enix didn't intend that. Vincent is able to shoot while jumping, or should I say jump while shooting, because he'll rather shoot first and ask questions later. A double jump is also available and it will be very useful when facing large groups of enemies, because when you're firing from above they don't quite stand a chance. The good old limit breaks we've known from previous Final Fantasies are back, and you can trigger them by using items that you can collect throughout the game.
If anyone remembers Final Fantasy VII, they can imagine what Vincent's limit break means. He'll become some sort of beast with new and better powers, but that will only last a minute or two, enough to smash anything with only one hit. He'll become a blue ogre, a purple dragon-like creature and many more, each with different abilities and powers. The materia system is a fun thing to use and you'll attach the little glowing sphere to your weapons by placing them into free slots. Look at the top of the screen, on the right to see your hit points or your magic points. They increase with every level you upgrade and you'd better watch them, because you'll run out of hit points easily if you don't heal. There are too many potions available in the game, too bad you can't carry more than 4 small ones at a time.
When you're tired of shooting, you can dash and hit the enemies or kick them in the face. I showed Dirge of Cerberus to a friend of mine and he was astonished by the huge green crosshair. He had a point considering that the crosshair was half of Vincent's height, and he's no shorty. Hitting a target perfectly is not very hard to achieve, when the enemies sit in front of you preparing to prepare to take aim in the preparation of a possible shootout. If you hit enemies and kill them with one single shot you'll be able to start chains, a system that reminds us of Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII. What will these chains get us? Points, glory and more damage. A quicker way to finish off large groups of enemies is by shooting inflammable barrels placed conveniently right next to them. Speaking of the opponents, I must mention that 70% percent of the game you'll be fighting the same soldiers and hounds, that can be pretty boring sometimes. A helicopter will pop up now and then, a lizardman also, but that won't save the gameplay.
Video The first 10 minutes of the game were cutscenes and it's normal for a Square Enix game. However I was kind of disappointed by the in-game graphics having played Final Fantasy XII a couple of weeks earlier. The producers shouldn't have ventured in the shooter land so early, as a good RPG starring Vincent wouldn't have hurt anybody. The background is done pretty well, but some screens sure look like I've seen them before and I bet that the producers used the same environments a couple of times. The helicopters and bosses look very good and you'll be able to tell between the two types of cutscenes. There are the Advent Children-like cutscenes, and those with the graphics similar to the looks of the gameplay. While the first one is the reason I played the game in the first place, the second one made me want to kill myself as they popped up in the most interesting shooting parts of the game. Character design is at its best and it's surprising to see that such a charming character (I'm talking about Vincent) lasted for almost ten years getting more and more fans.
Sound Each Final Fantasy game till now has had an excellent soundtrack, worth listening to even when you're not playing the game. Dirge of Cerberus is not an exception and I suggest you buy the orchestral score as soon as possible, because the music is really good. The shooting is a bit off and the materia spells aren't quite noticeable from an audio point of view. I never cared much about the characters' voices in Final Fantasy, but Final Fantasy X had quite good voice acting. I'm a subtitle man myself, preferring to let the music play louder than the dialog. The guy who does Vincent's voice is way off, because the vampire-like sensitive character has a Rambo voice. The other characters sound bored and pretty emotionless. The explosions, the helicopter effects and usually the roar of the engines save the game's soundtrack from becoming boring ruckus.
Multiplayer The Japanese version of the game had a multiplayer and this could have been fun, but when the new and bug-free version came out, it had the multiplayer out as well. Too bad, as it would have been nice to shoot other guys and prove them who's the Final Fantasy master through the online play.
Conclusion Dirge of Cerberus is what I expected.....from a chain of cutscenes. I would have been more satisfied with a pack of FMV-s from it, than the dull gameplay and the bad voice acting. You can't blame Square-Enix for trying, but hope they'll do better next time, and that's pretty soon, because Final Fantasy Versus XIII will be an action game and that's an unexplored territory for Square too. Keeping my fingers crossed for that one over here!
