Customer Reviews

CRISIS CORE -FINAL FANTASY VII- Signature Series Guide (Bradygames Signature Series Guides) (Bradygames Signature Guides)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When it comes to crafting Final Fantasy guides, Bradygames has a shaky history. They have a few hits but also a few misses. Luckily, the Crisis Core guide doesn't miss. It still suffers from some of the follies of previous guides, but at least its a helpful tool in many respects.

The guide begins with an introduction to the storyline and then quickly jumps into the characters section. This brings us to the first and quite possibly only major problem with the guide, there are tons of spoilers almost from the moment you open it. The characters section explains more than it should about some characters. While it's nice that it refreshes your mind on some tidbits of Final Fantasy VII, it also gives away a bit to the plot of Crisis Core. There's nothing major here, at least.

After the characters section we get into the game basics. If you're confused on anything in Crisis Core, this guide does a great job of explaining and helping to understand the system of the game and it does it without wasting too much time. It's a well organized section that hits all the important points. On another note, the biggest attraction in this section is easily the coverage of DMW. If you're confused in anyway about this new unique system, the guide explains it very well.

Afterwards we get into the meat and potatoes of the guide. The walkthrough. This is where the guide has that major hit coming to it. If you don't like spoilers, this guide is full of them. The walkthrough is divided into chapters, and at the beginning of each chapter the guide feels the need to explain the situation. While it avoids spoiling a few major plot twists, it takes away some of the fun. There are also spoilers throughout the main text of the walkthrough. So far, there's nothing incredibly major, but there is enough to spoil some of the fun of the game.

Otherwise, the walkthrough is almost perfect. At the beginning of each chapter they give you a step by step run down of what it is you'll be doing throughout the chapter and then explain it in more detail throughout the main sections. The walkthrough is extremely organized and has maps to go along with it. The maps are too detailed. They were pulled straight from the game itself, but they do point out the location of items, save points etc. They also have some fairly good boss strategies listed here. In short, if you really need a leg up, the walkthrough helps out.

When the walkthrough is finally done with, there is a huge section dedicated to the missions in the game. Each mission has stats for the enemies, a brief description, a map and a strategy. Since missions are fairly small and straightforward, there's not much to say here, hence, the mission strategies are pretty short and small, save for the strategy for Minerva. While the mission section is helpful, there's quite a bit of page flipping in navigating it

Then we get into the Materia section. There's a breakdown of Materia fusing here, which can really help players out, and there's also a breakdown of each and every Materia. This is also a nice lead into all those charts that are pretty much standard in every RPG guide.

The Bestiary is fairly detailed, but much like the missions, will require a huge amount of page flipping. Thankfully the basic stats you need are provided for monsters int he walkthrough because the bestiary is also not in alphabetical order like it is in most RPG guide books. Rather they're divided by their families. Chances are you won't need the bestiary at least, but it's there in case you do

And after all this detail, we finally get into all the bonuses and secret goodies of the guide. The secrets chapter entitled "23 Wishes" serves to not only tell you a couple of secrets, but let you in on a bit of trivia as well. There are potential spoilers here, but once more, it's nothing too major. There's also an expansive art gallery if you're curious, as well as a doubled sided foldout.

Overall, this is a great companion to Crisis Core, as long as you keep in mind that you're getting a few spoilers along the way. If you can deal with that, you've found the perfect guide. If you can't, finish the game before investing.

When looking for a guide you look for a few things:
1. Be able to find things that you may miss if you don't look everywhere closely
2. Help you get through the game quicker
3. Help you achieve 100% on everything
4. Good tidbits that helps you play better and enjoy it more so you don't have to keep restarting from game overs

Well this guide has all of those. The guide helps with all the missions, and gives insight to the game. Much recommended

There are two main things that determine if I'll buy a strategy guide: Do I care about the game enough to go for 100% completion on everything, and would it be easier for me to achieve that if I'm looking at one book rather than clicking around between four different guides online? My other concern is, if the book isn't helpful, will I at least get lots of pretty pictures of my favorite characters? The Bradygames Guide's touted poster and Art Gallery section were definitely factors in my decision to buy.

If you're going for 100%, this guide will get you there, but I gave it a modest rating because I found the information poorly organized. As I was mid-way through my second play-through when I got this Guide, I've only used the walk-through for the end-game, and I found myself flipping pages more than I should have to. The Bestiary section is neither alphabetized nor indexed, instead enemies highlighted in the walk-through are listed with the page number they appear on in the Bestiary. So far I've found the sections dealing with Accessories, Shops, and Fusion Items comprehensive. The Materia section is also good at detailing how and or/where to get specific Materia. The leveling up section left one of my questions unanswered though, and that is HOW to level up Materia. Their explanation would have you think it's completely random, whereas my experience is that the more you use a particular materia, the more likely it is to gain a level. Since there's an invisible Experience point counter for Zack, I assume there is also one for Materia.

The Missions section is very good, giving all the necessary information. Unfortunately, I have found one annoying mistake in this part (a mistake repeated elsewhere in the Guide when referring to this), and that is that it incorrectly gives Fire as the second spell you need to cast on the Magic Pot in Mission 10-2-3. (It should be Fira.) Otherwise what I've read of this section seems great.

On the "pretty pictures" front, Nomura's illustration of the cast (not the one seen in the game's save screen) alone made the book worth it. There are also beautiful high quality CG renderings of the characters scattered throughout. However, the poster was disappointing: as the reverse is the Materia Fusion chart, the need for a long composition gets us a picture of Zack looking over his shoulder, the Buster Sword being the focus. The Art Gallery likewise was anticlimactic; space devoted to NPC's and gadgets could have been put to better use, and should have avoided inclusion of production art of settings already placed elsewhere in the Guide.

Lastly, me being the huge FFVII geek that I am, I was perhaps more disappointed than newcomers to the world of FFVII by inaccuracies in the Characters section. The biggest of these was that it says Tifa met Cloud during the events of Crisis Core; even if you haven't played the original FFVII, events later on in CC let you know this is not the case. That this assumption is restated elsewhere in the Guide makes me wonder if the writers truly are the "fans" they profess to be in the Introduction, and about the accuracy of info relating to characters who debut in this game.

Long story short, if you like playing with a book to guide you, go ahead and get this if these deficiencies don't override that desire.

I played the game all the way through 2 times before I got the guide. I was glad I did because it explained how to unlock missions that I couldn't figure how to get unlocked. I shows where all the Items are during the mission... Which is a big help not to waist time running where you don't need to go. There we're a few mix-ups in the mission parts, like where there are barriers that wern't marked and some that were marked that wasn't blocked.

My first guide that was shipped from amazon was damaged but not during shipping. I contacted amazon about this and they had a replacement out in no time free of charge. Great service... Great guide... AWESOME GAME!

This book is very helpful. chances are you can beat the game without it. however if u desire to beat it a 100% i say get this book

I am one of those people who must uncover every item, secret, and ending that's available in a game. And though this guide provides those options to me, the trade-off is having the story spoiled well-before I've earned it. Granted its the price to pay since I chose to use a cheat book, but I just wanted people to know what they're in for should they decide to purchase it.

Other than that it's an excellent enhancement to your gaming experience!!

A nice strategy guide for an excellent game.

The strategy guide is very informative, and makes sure that nothing is missed through the story-line of the game - with two exceptions. At a certain point, the story moves on to a new area of the game and it never goes back to the previous section. While the book does say to finish the tasks in the first section, it doesn't say that you will never have the opportunity to come back.

The other exception is an event where Zack (the main character) has to save a boy's mother from a fire. But this event will only happen if you have completed another task and reported back to the boy. The book specifically says that there is no need to report back to the boy, but if you don't, you don't get the "fire event". I had to go back to a previous save when I realized what had happened.

The above two exceptions are the only details that were deficient/incorrect though. The guide gives excellent instructions and tips for the rest of the story-line.

The best part of the guide is the mini-strategies for the 300 missions in the game. There were no errors, and the strategies were accurate and helpful.

The one big down-side of the guide, is the scant attention it gives to materia fusion. Part of it is the fault of the game itself, given that they made materia fusion so complex. But the guide could have shone here, by making it more understandable. However, it just provided explanations which were very basic, and difficult to understand. There was also a pull-out section that was nothing but horribly confusing. I had to get better instructions online. Even now, after I get the whole materia fusion thing, I still can't make head or tail of the pull-out fusion guide.

Even so .. I did not regret getting the guide. Apart from the materia fusion let-down, it was otherwise an excellent guide. I would recommend it to other people, without a doubt.

Oh, if anyone from Brady reads this ... you people have got to consider the over-40s people with your font-type sizes. I can't even see a lot of it with reading glasses, and have to resort to a magnifying glass. The over-40s demographic is fast being recognized as a major video-game consumer, so strategy guides are no longer the realm of "young eyes".

I bought this guide expecting nothing more than info. But, alas, the guide is a PIECE OF ART itself. It has every detail of the game pretty neat presented and even has a art gallery, a poster, and so on. Eye candy I must say.

This guide was invaluable while grinding through CCFF7. Although being a 100% gammer like I am I noticed that some of the maps were missing treasure chest locations. Thats about my only gripe. The book was easy to read, Just the maps needed a bit more attention.

This guide helps you get through all those hard to figure out puzzles and places. I was able to complete all the missions and the materia fusion guide in the back is awesome and helps to create the best weapons and accesories for Zack!!!