VideogameVagabond.com

In most Gran Turismo titles, about the only thing missing is car insurance. That’s because it’s not any simple “select a car, a track and start racing” formula racing title, but, as the series subtitle has often boasted, Gran Turismo is “the real automobile simulator.” An international obsession ever since its PSone debut, Gran Turismo has often been referred to as a CarPG, due to its RPG-like depth of play.

In the PS3 era, the series has kept up an almost constant, but not yet fully complete, presence on the platform. About a year ago, the PlayStation Network introduced a freebie download version that only had a handful of cars and, if I remember right, only one track. Now, Polyphony Digital and Sony have introduced Phase 2 of bringing Gran Turismo into the next generation of gaming: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

GT5P would, for most publishers, constitute a complete game experience. Stocked with around 70 cars and maybe a dozen tracks, however, GT5P is merely an appetizer. That’s because the last full version of the game, which appeared on PS2, contained over 700 cars and over 60 tracks. And rest assured, Polyphony Digital isn’t stopping with Prologue; in fact, the company has publicly admitted that the game, while satisfying in and of itself, is merely a test platform with which they intend to work out all the online racing bugs so that when the final version of Gran Turismo 5 is unveiled, it’ll be a true, deep mindblower of a title with at least as many cars and tracks as GT4 had on PS2.

In the meantime, what is GT5P like? Well, let’s start with the graphics; the game looks better than ever, especially on HD displays. The cars shine and gleam and, along with the backgrounds, are often nearly indistinguishable from live TV footage of car races. Of course, looks have always been a strong point of the series.

A traditional weak point, however, is still hanging in strong in GT5P, and we can only hope Polyphony Digital corrects it before they unleash the final version of Gran Turismo 5, and that’s opponent AI. In GT5P, once you pass an opponent and put him a little distance behind you, they never threaten you again, unless you goof up bad and lose a lot of time correcting your error. That means that if your car has a clear horse-power advantage, you’ll blow out your opponents in C-class races by quite a distance, not just a minor margin.

What would be truly satisfying is if each opponent were made as cagey and challenging to beat as a human opponent. Horsepower is on aspect of winning a race, but it shouldn’t be the only determining factor; too often, with as little as a 25-50 horsepower advantage, you can drive sloppy lines and endure minor miscues on turns and still finish well ahead of the pack. Similarly, if you’re at a horsepower disadvantage, unless you take advantage of the fact that there is no damage modeling in Gran Turismo and treat each race like the demolition derby on the early turns of the first lap, you’ll never get close to the lead cars that are way more powerful than yours.

The lack of damage modeling is once again a serious sticking point in GT5P, and considering that over on the Xbox 360, Forza Motorsport 2 is able to get many of the same car licenses AND an agreement to allow damage modeling, the failure so far of the Gran Turismo series to include this aspect of racing gameplay into the game is becoming an increasing drawback.

In fact, the challenge level (traditionally, Gran Turismo is excessively hard to succeed at) has been scaled way back for GT5P, and plays more like an arcade racer than a real driving simulator. Part of this is the ability to choose from standard and ultra-realistic driving physics, as well as a new ability, which is oversteer assistance. This feature can be enabled as a preference and seems mostly to be there for newbies, to make the game more playable in the early going. This assistance has three settings; off, which makes the game like previous installments, putting complete control of the car in your hands; mild, which only corrects your biggest oversteering errors; and strong, which can pretty much eliminate all but the biggest errors in oversteering.

Set on strong, the game becomes considerably less challenging to beat, especially due to the AI deficiencies already at work. This can rob series veterans of a good portion of the challenge, and so in online play, all drivers are made to use the same, identical setting for this, which is predetermined before the race begins. Intended to make the game more accessible for newbies, it can make experienced players almost as flawless as computer-controlled drivers, only more dangerous since the average human opponent drives way more competitively than the average AI opponent.

On the interface side, many elements are missing, such as posting times for all finishers at the end of a race. Also, front end boasts dealerships and garages, but lacks the Parts Centers that allow you to upgrade your care with after-market parts. Once you reach a certain level of achievement in the game, a Tune-Up shop is unlocked so gear-heads can tweak their cars for better performance, but for the non-mechanics who just like racing, that can become a bit challenging and the absence of Parts Centers is definitely felt.

While boasting a wide variety of car makers in GT5P, many of them only have one or two cars in the game, which is a disappointment; apparently Sony will be releasing more cars and perhaps even more tracks through expansion packs via the PlayStation Store in the near future, but for now, the 70 car roster has some favorites, but nowhere near as much depth as series fanatics are accustomed to enjoying.

Finally, online play is loads of fun, but does need some spit and polish to smooth out lag times, blips and clips. The potential is definitely there for online play to really push Gran Turismo to the next level, but I’m sure most of the kinks will be worked out by the time the full-release Gran Turismo 5 appears at last with a lot more cars and tracks than the current installment allows.

In the end, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is nowhere near as complete nor as satisfying as a full-on release and the much greater depth of play that 700+ cars and 60+ tracks can bring, so you’ll want to hold on to your copy of Gran Turismo 4 for PS2 for a while longer. But for series fans who can’t wait for the full release, just keep in mind that even in this current, abbreviated form, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is still far deeper than 95 percent of full-release racing games currently on the market.

Like so many of the games that have rounded out the world of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core is a prequel to the classic PSone RPG. Much like the cell phone game that captivated Japan, Crisis Core is a game that tells the story before the story we all know and love to replay every five years or so.

Unlike many of the other Final Fantasy VII-inspired spinoffs, though, this one does not focus on the main cast of FFVII, but on Zack, a new main protagonist. Through the telling of his story, we are filled in on the backstories of Sephiroth and Aerith, as well as being introduced to Genesis and Angeal. Of course, other faces familiar to FFVII fans make appearances, as well, the most important of which is, of course, Cloud Strife.

But Crisis Core is not solely his tale, and the game is the better for it. Allowing us to see the world of Final Fantasy VII from a new perspective opens up entirely new storylines and viewpoints on the characters we do know from previous games.

I was skeptical when I first heard the game was going to boast an action-based battle system, rather than a turn-based one. I’ve long been frustrated with most FFVII follow-ups exactly because they don’t stick closely enough to the formula that made the original game a hit; in this case, however, the new system is more appealing than I anticipated.

Of course, it being an action-based RPG makes the game a natural for my wife, who prefers action-based systems to turn-based ones; that she enjoyed the game didn’t surprise me. What has surprised me is that I’ve enjoyed the game, as well. The shoulder button helps you switch between the types of action you’re taking when you hit “X,” which works quickly and smoothly enough to maintain some sense of turn-based control while delivering the battles in a much more active, real-time presentation.

It helps that the art style is similar to the Final Fantasy VII movie, Advent Children; Zack is drawn as a sleek action hero, missing only the vintage sunglasses to complete the look. The world he inhabits looks better than even the cinemas of the original FFVII. While the main quest takes only 20-30 hours to complete, there are loads of side-missions available that can easily boost playing time up, over and well past 50 hours, which should satisfy most fans. And the visuals come across quite well on the PSP system, though that is no surprise on a SquareEnix game.

While the game is all merely setup for Final Fantasy VII, in the end you’ll still find yourself emotionally satisfied by the tale that you’ve lived through with some beloved characters. Still, the game is not without its weak points.

While fun and appreciated for filling the game’s playing time out, the side-missions are quite spurious and nonessential to the story, making them more of a pesky diversion that one might have hoped for. And the leveling-up system, with it’s one-armed-bandit style of interface, makes character progression seem all too random to be truly satisfying.

Additionally, the game camera is awkward, often positioning itself behind a monster you’re fighting while your character is in front of it, making it quite difficult to move strategically around, dodge attacks or just simply see what’s going on. In fact, if pressed, I’d have to say that the game camera is, without exception, the worst aspect of Crisis Core. Fortunately, these weaknesses are all mostly minor and do not markedly detract from enjoying the game as a whole.

In the end, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is not the dream-sequel most of us have wished for since the credits rolled on FFVII over 10 years ago; it is, however, the first truly satisfying spinoff from that game, and stands heads and shoulders above the many inferior games that have leaked out onto the market bearing the name of this legendary RPG as a subtitle.

Crisis Core probable won’t make most people stop wishing for a true sequel to Final Fantasy VII that retains the classic turn-based battle system and follows up on the post-FFVII events in the lives of the surviving heroes from that game. But in the meantime, Crisis Core is at least the first follow-up title from that original game that is, without a doubt, worth playing… and perhaps even replaying, every five years or so. Time will tell.