Dirge of Cerberus follows the Final Fantasy VII timeline of following FF7: Advent Children, which follows the original FF7, which followed.... you get the point. Anyway, Dirge of Cerberus plays a far different role than that of the other games and movie. This follows around Vincent Valentine, that vampire looking guy that was a Turk that joined the party from the OG game that you barely cared about (unless you used him extensively because good on you.) This game showcases him as he faces.. let's just say his past and helps him gain into the future? Yeah, let's go with that. Let's see what this game does well, not well and what I would rate it.
Positives:
1. Vincent's backstory is key here. THANK GOD they FINALLY told something of the guy from prior to joining the party in the OG game. The backstory of his leads into the current present, but its so good to see Vincent FINALLY get something for what fans probably clamored for for years (at least that's what I thought when this game came out in 2006.)
2. Graphics and music are good in this game. It's a good combination overall. It's a good look into what the PS2 could do, especially with a lot of the pre-rendered materials that they use in this game. Something that Sony kinda struggles with today honestly.
3. It's a quick enough story. It's filled with action, but there's more honestly a straight forward story of what you need to do and I appreciated that for a game that is more or less an extension of preceding factors in the FF7 story.
Negatives:
1. The lock-on and combat are miserable in this game. The lock on is not a good one, and the combat is subpar at best. All it is is Vincent just running around and hoping that he gets the aim correct or morphs into his galian beast to help him overall. It's just honestly below average on all accords.
2. While the story is straight forward, a lot of the missions are just.. confusing and again lackluster. It's just eh at best and the story also paints a very much different picture of Lucrecia (while continuing to revile Hojo) and you have nothing but to feel for Vincent on this accord. It's not his fault or anything he did wrong, it's something that happened to him.
3. It just feels like this could have been explained in full with his part of the story but added the game after but that's just me. A lot of his backstory doesn't take long to talk about, and in fact just covers small parts of the game itself. The other part of this game is the fact that so many other characters like Reeve just feel so forced to be in the game. It just feels awkward overall.
Rating:
At best this game is a 6 out of 10. It doesn't wow you which a Final Fantasy should at least do that. It has a good story, but is put back by the missions being lackluster. Vincent's story overall is good, but is offset by how bad Hojo and Lucrecia are. It just felt like more could have been done here.
