Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is a Action RPG that acts as a prequel to the Final Fantasy VII that was released a decade ago on the first Playstation console.

Plot
So Crisis Core has you starting as a Zack Fair as a SOLDIER 2nd class. He's pretty much your general Final Fantasy character; spiky hair, a little sensitive, ambtious, and so on. The plot moves quickly with a mass desertion at SOLDIER, and you'll have to move up to the plate to fill in the holes. You can probably notice that I am not a big Final Fantasy fan, if you haven't noticed, that's where I stand on these games. But Crisis Core has such an excellent story; one that will take you a considerably long time to finish. Time isn't everything, but it's rare with the PSP, to have a well fleshed out story. The cutscenes just look too damn good, and you'll wonder at many moments how the PSP can handle it.

Gameplay
Crisis Core is an action RPG, with a very little bit of a turn based taste added on to it. The main feature of the combat is the DMW, which looks like a slot machine in a casino. While it's just hidden away in the right top corner most of time in combat, it actually does a lot. The scrolling images of characters and numbers actually contribute to combat. Special combination of characters and numbers will allow you to level up, perform very special moves or power up materia (magic).

One gripe with the game is the lack of customization. You won't be able to buy weapons or equipment. You'll only be able to carry a normal sword, as well as the buster sword towards the end of the story. You can still wear/buy accessories; they grant you special status effects as well as boost your stats when equipped.

After you're done the story, there's still more to do; all the side missions. These missions are usually short, but as you move on get harder. There's supposedly at least 50 hours worth of side missions. 50 hours. That's just crazy. I feel like I barely scratched the surface of a very deep game mode, because after a few years I still haven't finished all of them. It's pretty addicting actually, I found myself going to through the side missions more than progressing through the story.

Last Few Words
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is probably one of the best games you'll ever find on the PSP. Its great gameplay, story and hours of content should definitely hold on to you for a very long time. Especially when it only costs about $9.99 in stores these days. Go get it, right now. And be prepared to lose time, very fast.