NYCC: Square Enix Brings Crisis Core and Forspoken to the Big Show

Square Enix has been surprisingly busy with role-playing game (RPG) releases this year. The Japanese publisher—renowned for its legendary Final Fantasy series—released Valkyrie Elysium in September and plans to drop Star Ocean: The Divine Force later this month.

However, Square Enix has even more RPGs coming this winter, with Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII– Reunion (PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S) and Forspoken (PC, PS5) arriving on shelves Dec. 12 and Jan. 24, respectively. We got playtime with both games at New York Comic-Con, getting a feel for what these hotly anticipated games offer from a visual, performance, and gameplay perspective.

Play These Upcoming Square Enix RPGs

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion (Pre-Order)

Crisis Core Reunion Is a PSP Classic, Reborn

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII– Reunion (referred to as Crisis Core Reunion throughout the rest of this article), is a high-definition remaster of the PSP prequel to Final Fantasy VII. You play as Zach Fair, a young warrior working his way up the ranks of the prestigious spec ops force called SOLDIER. Final Fantasy VII’s world is a fantastical, pseudo-futuristic dystopia ruled by the Shinra Electric Power Company. This global conglomerate has its hand in many businesses, including energy production, weapons technology, and military engagement (to say nothing of the more nefarious evil science its company heads do behind closed doors). Zach becomes embroiled in the nightmarish horrors Shinra unwittingly unleashes, setting the stage for the events that come to pass in Final Fantasy VII.

As an HD remaster, Crisis Core Reunion’s graphics are touched up. This includes refreshed 3D models and backgrounds. The soundtrack has been rearranged by the original composer, Takeharu Ishimoto, and the game is now fully voiced in both English and Japanese (the PSP version only had limited voice acting).

Crisis Core for the PSP was decidedly more action-focused than the original FFVII’s turn-based affair. Crisis Core Reunion takes things even further, introducing a notable rebalance of the combat that brings it closer in-line to the action seen in Final Fantasy VII: Remake. Zach now has proper combos that match Cloud Strife’s speed and cadence in Remake, rather than oddly torpid, single-strike attacks. You can supplement your melee combos with special abilities and spells via Materia you equip, which you find while exploring. These unlock new skills, including area-of-effect attacks and enemy-tracking fireballs.

Crisis Core Reunion
(Credit: Square Enix)

Crisis Core’s biggest oddity, the Digital Mind Wave (DMW) is still present in Crisis Core Reunion, and still holds plenty of weight during combat. Do you like pachinko? Does earning super attacks and bonus buffs through an utterly arbitrary slot-machine system sound like fun? Like it or not, it’s here, and it’s just as jarring as it was back in the day.

In essence, the game has slot reels spinning at all times in the screen’s upper-left corner. This happens automatically during combat, and while you can influence it somewhat based on your performance, the system is largely random.

When matched to a specific number value, you get bonus buffs, including physical immunity, magic immunity, zero MP/AP skill cost, enhanced critical attacks, or even outright invincibility. When matched to a character portrait, a Limit Break super attack based on the pictured character becomes available. Sephiroth gives you Octoslash, for example, while Aerith gives you Healing Wind. Summon spells are also tied to the DMW and function the same way. The only notable change made to DMW in Crisis Core Reunion is that you now have the option to skip the lengthy animations.

Unfortunately, Materia Fusion was not available in the demo I played, nor were the optional combat missions you undertake at save points. These systems have not been changed significantly from their PSP counterparts. Likewise, the story has not been altered to reflect the changes made in Final Fantasy VII: Remake. We must wait to see what’s in store in December. Get ready to cry in HD this winter.

Forspoken Is a Mixed, Magical Bag

Forspoken
(Credit: Square Enix)

Forspoken is an open-world RPG developed using Square Enix’s Luminous Engine (the same engine that powered Final Fantasy XV). In it, down-on-her-luck New Yorker Frey Holland gets dragged into an Isekai adventure when she falls into the mysterious fantasy world of Athia. Armed with a magical, sapient bangle, Frey must rescue the ruined world from a corrosive blight called the Break, which mutates and destroys anything it touches. Once benevolent matriarch rulers now lord as maddened sorceresses, further escalating the world’s spiral of decline.

What is immediately striking about Forspoken is Frey’s superb mobility. As an open-world game, Forspoken expects you to run around its expansive zones, taking down enemy haunts, undertaking side quests, and unearthing treasure. Frey moves via superbly animated, magical parkour, letting you dash, leap, glide, and teleport with an ease and grace that quickly becomes second nature.

Frey’s fighting kit is also surprisingly comprehensive, with magical arrows, stone darts, water barriers, explosive geysers, fiery spears, and more, Frey can devastate hordes of enemies and elite warriors alike with her impressive skill set. It’s not often you get to play a sorcerer-style character that has as many viable and powerful skills available at any given time, making Frey’s unique playstyle particularly appealing.

Spells have a quick-tap attack, as well as a longer charged version you perform by holding the trigger down for a second. Pressing both triggers at the same time performs a devastating super-spell, though this attack has a notable cooldown. You can cycle between pre-assigned spell kits by tapping left or right on the D-pad, giving you more abilities to cycle between on the fly. In addition, holding L1 or R1 opens a radial menu with even more spells.

Forspoken
(Credit: Square Enix)

That said, Forspoken is notably clunky. Her movement is slick and impressive, but controlling her in-game feels imprecise and not nearly as satisfying as it looks.

Worse still, the camera doesn’t properly track the action. To remedy this, Forspoken offers a warning arrow whenever attacks are coming in from off-screen, but this is a cheap band-aid that doesn’t correct the much larger problem. Neither Frey’s soft lock-on or hard-lock on ability influence the camera enough to be functional. If an enemy zips off screen, the camera stops tracking it. If you move past an enemy while attacking, chances are the camera also stops tracking it. All too often I found myself fighting blind. When combined with the clunky controls, the combat experience devolves from fascinating to frustrating very fast.

The open-world setting shows promise, but is also quite sparse. There are enemies to fight, materials to collect for upgrades, and spell upgrades to amass, as well as challenges missions to undertake. These are satisfying enough, but traveling in between points of interest is a bit generic, saved only by Frey’s awesome movement kit.

Hopefully, Square Enix tightens up the camera before launch in January. A bland world can be forgiven if the underlying combat remains fun. However, an obtuse camera can easily ruin the overall experience.

Grand RPGs for the Winter

Crisis Core Reunion and Forspoken are promising titles launching this winter. Naturally, Crisis Core Reunion uses its acclaimed PSP predecessor as its framework, so fans of the original are sure to enjoy the impressive graphical overhaul. The tighter and more expansive combo system is also an easy sell for newcomers, as well as FFVII: Remake fans.

Forspoken, on the other hand, is Square Enix’s dark horse. It has surprisingly rich and polished magic combat system, paired with impressive parkour and expansive areas to navigate. It just needs some work done to fix its camera and imprecise movement. Be sure to check out PCMag for reviews of these upcoming games.

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