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straightforwardly) wrote2025-08-31 08:22 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2025-08-31 08:22 pm
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314 | in which I replay crisis core & have many feelings
I seem to have fallen down a FF7 rabbit hole this past month—I’ve read so much fic (recs post at some point, perhaps?), and, in an attempt to get a grasp on my overwhelming amount of feelings, I also replayed Crisis Core—specifically, a new game plus file on my old PSP version, not Reunion. (I actually didn’t know that Reunion existed until I started my replay! I found out about it because I wanted to double-check how long Crisis Core and the original FF7 were on howlongtobeat, and then I saw the entry for Reunion there.)
One thing I was asking myself when I was making the decision to replay Crisis Core was, “why Crisis Core, when FF7 is the better game and you’re in equal desperate need of a canon knowledge refresh for it as well?” And the answer to that mostly came down to the following points:
1. My strong preference for portable gaming. I own FFVII on Steam, but don’t own a Steam Deck, while my copy of Crisis Core is the PSP version.
2. The fact that most of the characters I was (and am) having the most feelings about have a lot of screentime in Crisis Core.
3. Research into why I was finding Genesis so compelling in fic when I remember finding him absolutely insufferable in canon.
And with that last point, I want to segue into my thoughts on the game, how I found it upon a replay, and the ways in which my thoughts and feelings about the game have changed since the first time I played it.
Quite possibly the biggest difference between when I first played it and now is that I seem to have done a complete 180 when it comes to Genesis. The first time I played this game, I didn’t like him at all. I found him completely insufferable, pretentious, annoying—I cringed through most of his scenes, especially when he was quoting Loveless. When I looked back at the notes I took about my reactions to this game back then, I apparently only once found him bearable to have on-screen, and that was in his final scene in the game.
But this time—I really liked him, and deeply enjoyed all of his scenes. He’s a very flawed character—selfish, dramatic, and, yeah, at least a little pretentious (I laughed when he had that line about how there were many theories about the final act of Loveless, but only his theory was the correct one)—but it’s in a way I find both compelling and endearing.
I think… the first time around, I didn’t actually understand his story, or what the game was doing with his character and arc. I think I was looking at him through the lens of a typical jrpg villain, and was very ??? about what he was doing, how “weirdly” it slotted in to the game as a whole, and what he was even talking about at any given moment, but that’s because… he’s not a typical jrpg villain, and in fact the narrative of Crisis Core isn’t actually that kind of narrative.
Like… yeah, Genesis does have that line about how if he’s going to die, the world should go with him, but as far as I can recall, he never actually makes any world-destroying attempts. That line is just him being dramatic—expressing his sense of despair in a typically self-centered kind of way in a moment where he (imo, genuinely) believes he’s about to die. Ultimately, everything he does in the game, and every terrible act he commits is driven by his search for a cure—driven by the simple fact that he doesn’t want to die.
And while that quest of his is an important part of Crisis Core’s plot, it really is just a part of it. It’s fascinating to me, actually. We start off this game with the fracturing of a trio of friends—Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth—and then the game itself is shaped by the parallel journeys the three of them go on, with Zack’s own story being inexorably shaped by theirs. Each of the trio discover horrible truths about their origins, each of them grow to believe that they are monsters and, in doing so, become monstrous in the process, albeit in their own ways—and each time, it’s left to Zack to tackle the fallout.
But the thing is… none of them were monsters. Their origins did not make them monstrous. They were all human, achingly, heartbreakingly human; it was only because they believed themselves to be monsters, because of how they denied themselves their own humanity, that they ended up becoming monsters in truth. (...Some of them more literally than others, looking at you Angeal, lol.)
And the way Zack is increasingly affected by all of this really moves me. First there’s Angeal, the mentor he loves, respects, admires—but because Angeal believes himself to be a monster, he transforms himself into a literal one, and commits suicide via forcing Zack to kill him.
Then, there’s Sephiroth. Who Zack also cares about—the two of them becoming friends in the wake of losing someone they mutually cared about. But then Nibelheim happens: Sephiroth believes himself to be inhuman, a monster, and goes mad—destroying Nibelheim, wanting to destroy the world—and once again, Zack has to fight someone he cares about, simply because they don’t believe themselves to be human.
And then there’s Genesis, who Zack doesn’t like, who has been a source of antagonism throughout the entire game. But when Zack goes to Banora—when we get through that final dungeon, and reach the final boss, he’s not going there with the typical jrpg protagonist goal of “kill the bad guy and save the day”. He goes there because he wants to help Genesis—because he wants to save him. Because he wants to save someone, instead of always having to kill them.
There’s this line during one of the cutscenes where Genesis refers to himself as a monster, and Zack immediately goes, no, no you’re not, you’re human. He tries so hard to reach Genesis, and when events progress, he’s agonized by the fact that he’s once again being forced to fight someone because they’re incapable of believing in their own humanity.
Because Zack clearly sees the truth that none of them were able to see for themselves. That there was nothing inherently monstrous about any of them. That they always, always were human.
And, of course, this all ties in so well with Zack’s character arc, and how he wants to be a hero—not in the self-aggrandizing way Genesis wanted to, but to genuinely help and save people. But again and again, he finds himself having to fight or kill people he cares about—Angeal, Sephiroth. The way he wonders if he’s capable of saving anyone at all as the game nears to a close really got to me, emotionally. And the final lines of the game, where he wonders if he ever became a hero…? Ahhhhh, Zack, bby, so many tears.
But he was—he did. Not through typical big battle heroics, but because—he fought so hard to try to save Genesis, even though he wasn’t someone important to him, even though he didn’t even really like him much. (And honestly, he didn’t fail, even if he probably thought he did when that final battle started. In the end, Genesis lived—believing himself to be a monster, he fell, like Angeal and Sephiroth fell, but unlike them, he came out on the other side of that abyss, made whole once more.) And also because Zack did save Cloud, in every way that mattered. For Cloud, that question Zack asks himself at the very end is no question at all—of course Zack’s a hero.
…I did not expect to write a mini-essay on this game’s themes, oops, but here we are!
Some of my other thoughts and reactions to this game, in bullet-point form to make things faster and easier:
• The pacing of events in this game, particularly the beginning, was so much different than I remembered. I was so surprised when Angeal defected—like Zack, I was all, “that can’t be possible”, not because I forgot that he defects, but because I thought he and Zack spent more time together than that before it happens!
• similarly, I was also surprised by how early it is in the game when Banora gets destroyed!
• I also find it so weird that Zack doesn’t know who Genesis is at the start of the game… like, him never having met him, sure, that’s believable, but not knowing who he is? It’s baffling to me. There’s some aspects of the start of the game (like him not knowing he can go into Midgar during his offtime, lol) where it’s obvious that it’s just the game explaining things to the player, and ofc he hasn’t spent the last few years not realizing that he can actually leave Shinra Tower sometimes, and my first instinct is to dismiss the Genesis thing as more of that, except… that doesn’t actually make sense? You can absolutely have the scene play out with Zack going, “wait, that’s Genesis, one of the First Class SOLDIERS. You mean he defected??”, and no information would be lost for the player. IDK, I found it so strange.
• my thoughts on why Genesis gets added to the DMW during the fake-out death scene: because, before then, he was just nothing more than the bad guy in Zack’s story. But in that moment, he saw Genesis’ vulnerability—how desperately he just wants to live—and in doing so, also sees his humanity for the first time—sees him as a person, not just a villain. And so it’s that point of connection that allows him to access Genesis’ limit break.
• when the time came to go to Nibelheim, it was surprisingly difficult for me emotionally to actually pick up the game and progress with the story. Both because I love Sephiroth, and it breaks my heart to see him lose himself like that, and because I’m emotionally invested in Zack/Aerith, and seeing Zack make all those promises to come back, hearing Aerith tell him that she’ll be waiting for him, and knowing that they’ll never see each other again—knowing that Zack will fight so hard to come back, only to die just as Midgar appears in the horizon… ahhhh, I find it so incredibly agonizing. Leaving her church for the final time, and seeing the screen fade into white as it transitioned into the next area… I felt like I was going to cry.
• On a lighter note, I had to laugh at how the conversation between Genesis and Sephiroth in Nibelheim basically went like:
Genesis: you’re a monster, the most monstrous monster that ever was, even more monstrous than me, and also your mom is an archaeological find
Genesis, immediately afterwards: anyways, help me please?
Like… Genesis, bby, a bit more self-awareness, please… I just had to laugh. Also, this morning I came across this silly comic about that scene, which also amused me.
• Relatedly: maybe my feelings about this will change once I replay FF7, but I remember that the first time I played this game, I felt like the Genesis & Sephiroth conversation in Nibelheim was so awkwardly shoehorned in, but this time, I felt like it flowed pretty naturally?
• I got so emotional about Cloud and Zack’s conversation in the inn during Nibelheim. It’s also fascinating to me to see how much Zack has been shaped by Angeal—not only through his mentorship, but also through the way he fell and the hole he left behind—and how thoroughly unaware Cloud is of this core part of Zack’s emotional world.
• I really, really liked the aesthetics of that final area underneath Banora.
• I cried so much more this time around. Last time, I do remember being in tears at the ending, but I don’t think I cried much otherwise? But this time, I teared up during Angeal’s death, cried a little during Genesis’ final conversation with Zack (especially that moment where, half-talking to himself, he addresses a comment to Angeal—really making me feel the weight of that friendship, and the grief he must feel, ahhh, my heart). And ofc I cried again at Zack’s final battle and final moments—not weeping the way I did the first time I played through those scenes, but there were tears, and definitely a lot of FEELINGS and heartache. Zack, bby, ilu… ;_;
In general, I feel like (storywise) I enjoyed the game much more this time around! The beginning of the game was a bit rougher than I remembered, pacing-wise, but as a whole, it was much stronger, and held together far better than I remembered.
(...Still not the biggest fan of the gameplay, though, lol. The random encounters especially drove me mad… But at least new game plus meant that I could spend a good portion of the game killing most things in one hit!)
One thing I was asking myself when I was making the decision to replay Crisis Core was, “why Crisis Core, when FF7 is the better game and you’re in equal desperate need of a canon knowledge refresh for it as well?” And the answer to that mostly came down to the following points:
1. My strong preference for portable gaming. I own FFVII on Steam, but don’t own a Steam Deck, while my copy of Crisis Core is the PSP version.
2. The fact that most of the characters I was (and am) having the most feelings about have a lot of screentime in Crisis Core.
3. Research into why I was finding Genesis so compelling in fic when I remember finding him absolutely insufferable in canon.
And with that last point, I want to segue into my thoughts on the game, how I found it upon a replay, and the ways in which my thoughts and feelings about the game have changed since the first time I played it.
Quite possibly the biggest difference between when I first played it and now is that I seem to have done a complete 180 when it comes to Genesis. The first time I played this game, I didn’t like him at all. I found him completely insufferable, pretentious, annoying—I cringed through most of his scenes, especially when he was quoting Loveless. When I looked back at the notes I took about my reactions to this game back then, I apparently only once found him bearable to have on-screen, and that was in his final scene in the game.
But this time—I really liked him, and deeply enjoyed all of his scenes. He’s a very flawed character—selfish, dramatic, and, yeah, at least a little pretentious (I laughed when he had that line about how there were many theories about the final act of Loveless, but only his theory was the correct one)—but it’s in a way I find both compelling and endearing.
I think… the first time around, I didn’t actually understand his story, or what the game was doing with his character and arc. I think I was looking at him through the lens of a typical jrpg villain, and was very ??? about what he was doing, how “weirdly” it slotted in to the game as a whole, and what he was even talking about at any given moment, but that’s because… he’s not a typical jrpg villain, and in fact the narrative of Crisis Core isn’t actually that kind of narrative.
Like… yeah, Genesis does have that line about how if he’s going to die, the world should go with him, but as far as I can recall, he never actually makes any world-destroying attempts. That line is just him being dramatic—expressing his sense of despair in a typically self-centered kind of way in a moment where he (imo, genuinely) believes he’s about to die. Ultimately, everything he does in the game, and every terrible act he commits is driven by his search for a cure—driven by the simple fact that he doesn’t want to die.
And while that quest of his is an important part of Crisis Core’s plot, it really is just a part of it. It’s fascinating to me, actually. We start off this game with the fracturing of a trio of friends—Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth—and then the game itself is shaped by the parallel journeys the three of them go on, with Zack’s own story being inexorably shaped by theirs. Each of the trio discover horrible truths about their origins, each of them grow to believe that they are monsters and, in doing so, become monstrous in the process, albeit in their own ways—and each time, it’s left to Zack to tackle the fallout.
But the thing is… none of them were monsters. Their origins did not make them monstrous. They were all human, achingly, heartbreakingly human; it was only because they believed themselves to be monsters, because of how they denied themselves their own humanity, that they ended up becoming monsters in truth. (...Some of them more literally than others, looking at you Angeal, lol.)
And the way Zack is increasingly affected by all of this really moves me. First there’s Angeal, the mentor he loves, respects, admires—but because Angeal believes himself to be a monster, he transforms himself into a literal one, and commits suicide via forcing Zack to kill him.
Then, there’s Sephiroth. Who Zack also cares about—the two of them becoming friends in the wake of losing someone they mutually cared about. But then Nibelheim happens: Sephiroth believes himself to be inhuman, a monster, and goes mad—destroying Nibelheim, wanting to destroy the world—and once again, Zack has to fight someone he cares about, simply because they don’t believe themselves to be human.
And then there’s Genesis, who Zack doesn’t like, who has been a source of antagonism throughout the entire game. But when Zack goes to Banora—when we get through that final dungeon, and reach the final boss, he’s not going there with the typical jrpg protagonist goal of “kill the bad guy and save the day”. He goes there because he wants to help Genesis—because he wants to save him. Because he wants to save someone, instead of always having to kill them.
There’s this line during one of the cutscenes where Genesis refers to himself as a monster, and Zack immediately goes, no, no you’re not, you’re human. He tries so hard to reach Genesis, and when events progress, he’s agonized by the fact that he’s once again being forced to fight someone because they’re incapable of believing in their own humanity.
Because Zack clearly sees the truth that none of them were able to see for themselves. That there was nothing inherently monstrous about any of them. That they always, always were human.
And, of course, this all ties in so well with Zack’s character arc, and how he wants to be a hero—not in the self-aggrandizing way Genesis wanted to, but to genuinely help and save people. But again and again, he finds himself having to fight or kill people he cares about—Angeal, Sephiroth. The way he wonders if he’s capable of saving anyone at all as the game nears to a close really got to me, emotionally. And the final lines of the game, where he wonders if he ever became a hero…? Ahhhhh, Zack, bby, so many tears.
But he was—he did. Not through typical big battle heroics, but because—he fought so hard to try to save Genesis, even though he wasn’t someone important to him, even though he didn’t even really like him much. (And honestly, he didn’t fail, even if he probably thought he did when that final battle started. In the end, Genesis lived—believing himself to be a monster, he fell, like Angeal and Sephiroth fell, but unlike them, he came out on the other side of that abyss, made whole once more.) And also because Zack did save Cloud, in every way that mattered. For Cloud, that question Zack asks himself at the very end is no question at all—of course Zack’s a hero.
…I did not expect to write a mini-essay on this game’s themes, oops, but here we are!
Some of my other thoughts and reactions to this game, in bullet-point form to make things faster and easier:
• The pacing of events in this game, particularly the beginning, was so much different than I remembered. I was so surprised when Angeal defected—like Zack, I was all, “that can’t be possible”, not because I forgot that he defects, but because I thought he and Zack spent more time together than that before it happens!
• similarly, I was also surprised by how early it is in the game when Banora gets destroyed!
• I also find it so weird that Zack doesn’t know who Genesis is at the start of the game… like, him never having met him, sure, that’s believable, but not knowing who he is? It’s baffling to me. There’s some aspects of the start of the game (like him not knowing he can go into Midgar during his offtime, lol) where it’s obvious that it’s just the game explaining things to the player, and ofc he hasn’t spent the last few years not realizing that he can actually leave Shinra Tower sometimes, and my first instinct is to dismiss the Genesis thing as more of that, except… that doesn’t actually make sense? You can absolutely have the scene play out with Zack going, “wait, that’s Genesis, one of the First Class SOLDIERS. You mean he defected??”, and no information would be lost for the player. IDK, I found it so strange.
• my thoughts on why Genesis gets added to the DMW during the fake-out death scene: because, before then, he was just nothing more than the bad guy in Zack’s story. But in that moment, he saw Genesis’ vulnerability—how desperately he just wants to live—and in doing so, also sees his humanity for the first time—sees him as a person, not just a villain. And so it’s that point of connection that allows him to access Genesis’ limit break.
• when the time came to go to Nibelheim, it was surprisingly difficult for me emotionally to actually pick up the game and progress with the story. Both because I love Sephiroth, and it breaks my heart to see him lose himself like that, and because I’m emotionally invested in Zack/Aerith, and seeing Zack make all those promises to come back, hearing Aerith tell him that she’ll be waiting for him, and knowing that they’ll never see each other again—knowing that Zack will fight so hard to come back, only to die just as Midgar appears in the horizon… ahhhh, I find it so incredibly agonizing. Leaving her church for the final time, and seeing the screen fade into white as it transitioned into the next area… I felt like I was going to cry.
• On a lighter note, I had to laugh at how the conversation between Genesis and Sephiroth in Nibelheim basically went like:
Genesis: you’re a monster, the most monstrous monster that ever was, even more monstrous than me, and also your mom is an archaeological find
Genesis, immediately afterwards: anyways, help me please?
Like… Genesis, bby, a bit more self-awareness, please… I just had to laugh. Also, this morning I came across this silly comic about that scene, which also amused me.
• Relatedly: maybe my feelings about this will change once I replay FF7, but I remember that the first time I played this game, I felt like the Genesis & Sephiroth conversation in Nibelheim was so awkwardly shoehorned in, but this time, I felt like it flowed pretty naturally?
• I got so emotional about Cloud and Zack’s conversation in the inn during Nibelheim. It’s also fascinating to me to see how much Zack has been shaped by Angeal—not only through his mentorship, but also through the way he fell and the hole he left behind—and how thoroughly unaware Cloud is of this core part of Zack’s emotional world.
• I really, really liked the aesthetics of that final area underneath Banora.
• I cried so much more this time around. Last time, I do remember being in tears at the ending, but I don’t think I cried much otherwise? But this time, I teared up during Angeal’s death, cried a little during Genesis’ final conversation with Zack (especially that moment where, half-talking to himself, he addresses a comment to Angeal—really making me feel the weight of that friendship, and the grief he must feel, ahhh, my heart). And ofc I cried again at Zack’s final battle and final moments—not weeping the way I did the first time I played through those scenes, but there were tears, and definitely a lot of FEELINGS and heartache. Zack, bby, ilu… ;_;
In general, I feel like (storywise) I enjoyed the game much more this time around! The beginning of the game was a bit rougher than I remembered, pacing-wise, but as a whole, it was much stronger, and held together far better than I remembered.
(...Still not the biggest fan of the gameplay, though, lol. The random encounters especially drove me mad… But at least new game plus meant that I could spend a good portion of the game killing most things in one hit!)