There is a market for these casual, long-term grinds, and Ever Crisis does meet that bare minimum. However, I don’t think that’s necessarily fair. I bet at least one person will look at the score below and say that I rated this too highly. It’s tempting to look at Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis and say that because it’s a gacha, it’s therefore garbage. I know that The First Soldier technically is trying to do this, I just really don’t care about the characters there like I do for the original cast. Honestly, if the game just wholly focused on original stories like these, it’d make a much stronger case for itself. It’s 100% filler content, but I like seeing the game have fun with its cast and put them in whimsical situations. Even the silly beach event that went live as I type this features some decently charming writing with the Final Fantasy 7 cast. It’s not just the character stories either. The writing and cutscenes feel authentic to the original game, as if they were long-lost deleted scenes. For example, Cloud’s story details his reconnecting with Tifa and explaining how, exactly, he became involved with Avalanche. These are, no joke, quite good! They fill in implied gaps in Final Fantasy 7’s main story that are fun to see, even if they’re kind of unnecessary. I only really used Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith, and those were the stories I had the option to experience. These unlock quite a ways into the game, and I assume they’re linked to your characters’ levels. Co-op technically lays the foundation to let players work together as dedicated attackers, healers, stat buffers, etc. In single player, you must automate two party members even with manual play turned on. Given the way the battle system works, you could theoretically coordinate some neat strategies here. As of writing, teams can link up to take down three different bosses at several different difficulty levels, with a limited-time event boss also joining the mix as of writing. The other substantive option, which I imagine has the most strategic depth, is co-op. But I found this offered nothing more than “heal between battles and use buff items before the final boss.” To their credit, Criterion Dungeons do try to incorporate some item management. Many gacha games have experimented with these types of mechanics, and Ever Crisis doesn’t compete in any meaningful way here. However, these are ridiculously basic, like choosing whether to boost physical or magical attack. This does introduce very, very lite roguelite-style mechanics where you can select certain stat buffs after each fight. The crunchiest option here is the Criterion Dungeons, which task you with repeating the game’s occasional dungeons with boss fights that escalate in challenge. As long as there’s a substantive core driving the experience, I can enjoy incremental grinds like these. In my spicy opinion, games like this can still be fun. It goes through the same motions as any title in this space does, and its gameplay mostly devolves into consuming Stamina and watching numbers go up. Because lest you forget, Ever Crisis really is just a gacha game. In my review-in-progress, I explained my robust experience with gacha games. Look, I’m not above the experience that Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis offers. It’s only when games like Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis come along that I remember that the eternal wheel of capitalism lurks behind even my most precious gaming memories. Instead, I’m so swept up in the story, music, and gameplay that I forget about the cash I spent. With all-time classic titles like Final Fantasy 7, I often don’t think about this. If we were not willing to spend our money on video games, then companies would not make them. It is an undeniable fact that almost all games are, to some extent, commercial products.
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