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Bury your PS2 quick
‘Dirge of Cerberus’ a bad ‘Devil May Cry’ clone
By Jeff Jones
All of Vincent’s sickest moves take place only in the CG cut scenes. What a game player is left with feels like a poor “Devil May Cry” clone.
I hate to see a favorite franchise down in the gutter. I remember when they first brought Sonic into full 3D with “Sonic Adventure.” What is this crap? I asked myself. They’ve butchered Sonic!
It seems to be a problem that game companies have when reviving a franchise after a number of years, and Dirge falls into the same trap.
Starring “Final Fantasy” favorites like Vincent Valentine, Yuffie Kisaragi and Reeve Tuesti/Cait Sith, the “Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII” looked like it would make all fanboys drool.
The game starts off with a gorgeous cinematic. There is a celebration taking place in the city Kalm, when suddenly the city is attacked by a mysterious group of soldiers called Deepground. Vincent leaps into action, jumping off of rooftops and helicopters and basically just blowing the crap out of everything. But don’t be fooled — you won’t have access to any of these cool moves once the actual gameplay starts.
All of Vincent’s sickest moves take place only in the CG cut scenes. What a game player is left with feels like a poor “Devil May Cry” clone. The game encourages gunplay, with three customizable main guns and several others hidden throughout the game, but poor camera angles and crappy auto aim take all the fun out of it.
As for close combat, there is no auto lock at all, so if you start into a combo and the enemy sidesteps the attack, then get ready to have Vincent’s ass handed to you.
These flaws would be forgivable, or at least tolerable, if the developers had made up for them in the rest of the game. Instead they gave us a million foot soldiers that are clones of each other, boring villains and bland level designs.
Everything from the FFVII world feels washed-out and wasted here. Even the supporting characters from the original game are the boring ones. I bet Cloud and Red XIII are off having fun during the whole first half of the game while we get stuck with Yuffie and that damn talking cat.
Square Enix had a huge opportunity with this game, and they blew it. But, despite all its flaws, they’re going to make a ton of money on it simply because it has “Final Fantasy VII” in the title, which guarantees that a million fanboys (and you know who you are) are going to spend money on it. Take my word for it, “Dirge of Cerberus” is for the biggest fans only. Everyone else go rent “Devil May Cry” and pretend you’re playing as Vincent.
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