TEST Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis, gacha of shame or real mobile RPG?

While all eyes are on Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Square Enix had a curiosity to offer us before that: Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisissupposed to bring together all the stories of the saga Final Fantasy VII in the same mobile game. If you haven’t yet taken the time to try and understand the title, rest assured, we were able to test the content available at launch in the free-to-play.

Neither the charm of the 1997 original, nor the beauty and richness of the 2020 version.

Free with in-app purchases to accelerate your progress, and entirely in English at this time, Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis firstly revolves around 3 scenarios. It allows us to rediscover the history of Final Fantasy VII Remake in broad outline, with shortcuts and ellipses which do not allow neither to rediscover the charm of the 1997 original, nor the beauty and richness of the 2020 version. We can only advise you to test one or other of these old versions if you want to appreciate the universe in its best light, but if you want to discover an express, simplified and free version, it’s a good one. way to do it.

It also allows for the moment to discover the beginning of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, a simple act of presence for the moment, but which will hopefully be developed in future updates as the story continues. We finally have an original storyline called The First Soldier (without direct link with the Battle Royale eponym), featuring soldiers lost during a crash Glenn, Matt And Lucia : it lacks rhythm and is not very interesting, except during its conclusion which promises interesting things around youth Sephiroth by the future updates. And if we also have the right to the content of Rebirth or scenarios taken from Advent Children, Last Order, Before Crisis Or Director of Cerberuswe are not going to spit on it.

Although the depth of the scenario and the universe is not there, artistically, there is still an idea. In addition to a few original cutscenes or taken from the most recent games, we are treated to a mixture of combat with an aesthetic as realistic as Final Fantasy VII Remake And Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunionand narration and exploration sequences in isometric view with characters chibireminding Final Fantasy III Or IV on DS. A mix of cute and impactful, which pays homage to the different eras of the saga. The most beautiful music is still there, accompanied by new effective all-purpose themes, which strongly encourages you to put your headphones on during the narrative passages, even if they are not dubbed.

For the gameplay itself, based on real-time confrontations and skills to be launched via a gauge that fills itself, we have two approaches: one classic, tactical and where we control the moves of the main character of our choice, the other with automatic combat, which only requires triggering special attacks at the right time. Keys allow you to accelerate the action on the battlefield at any time, or to switch it to automatic or semi-automatic mode.

We lived our entire gaming experience in the second configuration, with the impression of playing a idle RPG interspersed with sketches. No regrets: the repetitiveness of the combat would certainly have tired us if we had had to be behind our screen and ready to press the keys at every moment. Tactics are, however, completely absent in this setting, while it is possible to choose the best equipment for our mission in one click, and the most effective skills and spells at the moment are launched automatically in a very consistent manner. Progression is thus very easy, while still taking the time to regularly farm resources to improve the statistics of our characters, our weapons, our Materials and even our invocations.

Even if it is sometimes as dull as a clicker, finding the addictive side of an idle RPG with the decorum of Final Fantasy VII is enough to make you want to come back.

There are several methods for collect lootincluding dedicated secondary challenges, with increasing difficulty and during which it is possible to use characters from all the stories. They make it seem like we’re always unlocking new content, when in reality we’re just reliving almost the same fights over and over again. The followers of gameplay classic will perhaps succeed in passing certain stages of difficulty with manual gameplay, but why want to inflict such a routine on yourself when the game puts all the tools on our side to make the farming less painful? The fact of having to move manually in the rare levels in dungeon format, the triggering of Limit Breaksthe back and forth in the menus and the constant improvement of our units gives a virtual impression of influencing our progress, when in reality, only time and grind are the engines of our progress. If you like this aspect of RPGyou will be served.

At the end of the game, once the scenario is over, there are a few short secondary scenarios to discover a little more Cloud, Tifa And Aerithor even tougher dungeons and challenges, but it will still only be a matter of tirelessly replaying the same type of fights without strategy. Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis then becomes a simple game of patience to develop our characters by making them go to the right challenges to get the right one loot to progress and achieve similar challenges, but of greater difficulty. And yet, even if he sometimes appears as stupid as a clickerrediscover the addictive side of a idle RPG with the decorum of Final Fantasy VII enough to make you want to come backeither to improve our heroes and their equipment, and certainly to discover the rest of the stories told in this mobile experience.

And let’s remember, Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is completely free, and we were easily able to complete the current scenarios in around ten hours (including a few hours with our phone turned on next to us to farmer of loot) without ever having a shadow of a need to put real money To advance. The boosts are really secondary, and if there are consumables necessary to launch the secondary challenges, free items given in mass allow us to regularly refill our stocks. It is possible that the end game makes us more inclined to checkout, but we haven’t felt that way at the moment. The mecanic gacha is otherwise very in the background, serving simply to unlock weapons and weapon upgrade items, and we quickly had what we needed in our arsenal to survive without worries in all modes.

No, Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is not the gacha penny-pinching that some feared, nor the faithful mobile adaptation of the saga that we could have dreamed of. This is’a discounted version of Final Fantasy VII Remake and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, without the flavor of these, but with the main aesthetic and narrative lines. Good opportunity to rediscover or discover these universes, it also allows you to appreciate the unpublished story The First Soldier, which could be of interest in future updates. Simple to access and can be played both as a RPG serious scripted or a idle RPG with daunting challenges of increasing difficulty, it at least has the merit of recognizing its faults with accelerated and automatic modes which avoid many lengths, and more. And yet, the charm of the license, the absence of compulsory payment and the constant progression makes you want to return to this role-playing game regularly ultimately without depth, but which perfectly uses the addictive codes of the genre. Like the opium of role-players, it will make us come back with pleasure for farmer again for a few sessions, and also during the next content updates.

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Auxance Editor
Favorite editor of your favorite editor since 2009, passionate about boom-boom music, fan of comedy series of all kinds. I’ve played a little too much Pokémon in my life.
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