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. ( spoilers beneath the cut )