TOKYO--Western gamers are always intensely interested in the comings and goings at Square Enix's Japanese headquarters, located in the bustling Shinjuku district of Tokyo. In this virtual mecca of the RPG world, we had an opportunity to play Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII, one of the latest (and most controversial) chapters in one of the longest-running and most-respected RPG series on the market, at a Square Enix press event prior to the start of the Toyko Game Show 2004. This action RPG is being developed by Square Enix's Final Fantasy brain trust for the Foma i900 series of mobile phones on NTT DoCoMo's iMode service--a very specific class of handset on a carrier that operates only in Japan. If you've been following the game's progress, you may have heard some detractors across the Pacific preemptively criticizing Before Crisis for being equal parts greed-motivated misstep and monstrous crime of hubris, cursing Square Enix for forcing a huge part of its Final Fantasy-starved Western fan base to eat cake. After several hours of quality time with Before Crisis, we can safely say that there doesn't seem to be malicious intent on Square Enix's part. This game's level of technical accomplishment, which relies upon heavy usage of high-speed network streaming and camera-image recognition, would be more or less impossible to duplicate in the West at present, given our relatively backward command of cellular infrastructure.

In Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII, you'll don the businesslike attire of the Turks.

Our demo copy of Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII came installed on a black FOMA 900iV--the so-called "Cloud Phone," so named for its usage by spiky-haired Avalanche commando (and hero of Square's hit PlayStation RPG Final Fantasy VII) Cloud Strife in a recent Japanese advertising campaign. The game's title screen opens with a low-angle shot of the Shinra Corporation's headquarters in Midgar, panning gradually upward past the neon-red Japanese characters to the top of the skyscraper. At the start of each new game, you are offered a choice between four new Turk recruits, two male and two female. Fans of Final Fantasy VII will remember the Turks as a gang of sharp-dressed thugs--and, like in that game, your recruit character will be dressed in a very conservative black-suit-and-tie ensemble over a white, collared shirt. The first male recruit, a redheaded fellow who wields a spring-loaded baton in an underhand grip, is the only playable character who lacks a firearm at the outset. His compatriots--a blonde woman with short hair, a man with wild black hair who lacks a tie, and another girl with flowing brunette locks--all use guns of one sort or another. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses. The redhead, for instance, has a sizable advantage in hit points and melee damage but fewer magic points, while the brunette sacrifices hardiness for more magic energy and a shotgun that fires a blast in three directions. At a press conference yesterday, Square Enix personnel confirmed that Before Crisis will launch with only these four characters but also promised that more playable Turks would be forthcoming.

After selecting your character and creating an account on Square Enix's Before Crisis server, you are taken to an options screen, where you can change the game's network settings, view your character's available missions, and create "materia"--the crystals of congealed organic force (called "mako energy") that serve as foci for magic spells in the world of Final Fantasy VII. Materia generation and management are important gameplay elements in Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII. The Turks won't get far in combat without using offensive and defensive magic, so it's vital to outfit their weapons and armor with an assortment of materia before sending them off on a mission. Fortunately, the Turks are a part of Shinra's corporate hierarchy, so they have access to Shinra's advanced mako technology, which can synthesize materia in a laboratory setting. The game simulates this generative process via a brilliant utilization of the i900 series' onboard camera. Simply take a picture with the camera, and the game's onboard image-recognition software will distill the image down to its basic color and create a like-colored materia. Predominantly white pictures make white healing materia, while yellow and red pictures are good for lightning and fire magic, respectively. There appears to be no limit to the amount of materia you can create. However, the crystals gain power as they are used in combat--just as in the original Final Fantasy VII--so it's a good idea to keep a rotation going if you want to have access to a wide assortment of spells.

Once you've performed all these logistical tasks to your satisfaction, your newly equipped Turk can hit the mean streets of Midgar to crack some Avalanche skull. The advertising slogan that has been attached to Before Crisis in Japan translates roughly as "Turks vs. Avalanche: the night before the final battle." In this sense, the game is a true prequel to Final Fantasy VII, finally detailing the Turks' successful counterinsurgency operations against the Midgar-based Avalanche group, six years prior to Cloud's association with the rebels. The first game referred to this civil war only tangentially--here we learn that the Turks' victory over Avalanche was instrumental in establishing Shinra's hegemony over Midgar, allowing them an undisputed monopoly on power until the rebel army was resuscitated under a new generation of leaders that would include Cloud, Tifa, and Barret.

At the start of Before Crisis, however, the outcome of this secret war is still very much in doubt. Tseng, a commander in the Turks, dispatches your recruit to report on Avalanche's activities in a seedy part of Midgar characterized by storefronts and narrow alleyways. It turns out that one of the three principal leaders of Avalanche, a bandanna-wearing rebel named Sears, has prepared a strike against Shinra from the sewers. An in-game cinematic sequence shows the Avalanche band silently filtering onto the streets and overcoming several Shinra guards, at which point your character happens upon them. After a hasty consultation with headquarters on your cell phone, a confrontation ensues.