So I'm playing Final Fantasy: Crisis Core on my PSP now - and i's very nice, although it doesn't satisfy my want of a full blown sequel. I have becaome a "mission addict" with this game in the series. My main distraction is the missions, and any time I see that a mision is set to "normal" or "easy" I plod right in head-first! (I tried going into a mission on "hard" and believe me, they aren't kidding when they say hard...). As much as I would have liked to be playing a full blown party RPG FFVII sequel, on my TV, not the baby screen, this game is nonetheless very likeable and enjoyable. I don't even think I have completed 10% of the story - but I have done about 26% of the missions already. My next story based assignment is the infiltration mission, and I'm not going there until the game stops giving me easy and normal missions to do. The infiltration mission is tricky - but with a little help from a couple youtube videos I have confidence that I can complete it without to many restarts (hopefully none).
The other welcome return is my favorite system - the materia system. some of you love it, some of you hate it. I'm of the former group. Ever since FFVII I have craved for a more robust version, and FF:CC delivers that, somewhat. I like the finding, mixing and matching of the different Materia - only thing is that I think the item slots are a bit paltry, but then I don't have all items yet, so we shall see. It would have been nice to be able to create items as well as Materia too, but it isn't so bad that it hurts the game any. The spinning, out-of-your-control DMV is kind of stupid, I would have liked control over that (sort of like expanded summoning to me) but it isn't a game-breaker - as long as it doesn't do something dumb like call Ifrit (fire) to attack a fire-absorbing monster...
Oh, yeah, that being said - I LOVE the fact that the old summons monsters (Guardian Forces, Ancients, Espers, whatever) are in the game! It really sucked that Square tried to do away with them in FFX! Note to Square - WE LIKE SUMMONS MONSTERS, DONT YOU DARE TAKE THEM AWAY FROM US! Yes, we complain about how long the animations take (FFVIII), we don't like the stupid "boost" commands (FFVIII, again), but we do love the summons. Just give us an animation override and let us be on our way! And NO we don't appreciate you "minimizing" the summons monsters like you did in FFXII; make them grandiose and over-the-top like they are in most of the series - we love that!
Being a FFVII nut, the one thing that's sad about this game is knowing what Zack's eventual fate is going to be. Your playing with a character who has no future, basically, beyond this game. Too bad they didn't just create some other character so it wasn't locked into his dreadful fate. As good as you make him, he can never be as powerful as Sephiroth or Cloud, because Sephiroth kills him (easily) and Cloud kills Sephiroth... so that's a little fact that nags me the whole time I'll playing it.
Nevertherless, it's a good game and very addictive. i recommend anyone who likes Action/RPGs or has played FFVII to go ahead and try it out. After all, it may be a preview of the gameplay in FFXIII - has anyone seen any "party characters" in FFXIII YET?