Five Reasons Dirge is a Better Game than people think.

[ForceStealer]

Yes, the one girl talks about her brother being in the slums when the plate fell. I seem to remember there being speculation that she might have been Biggs' or Wedge's sister.

 

[Flare]

Here is my own spin.

Five Reasons Dirge of Cerberus is a better game than Crisis Core

- Cutscenes can be skipped

- Sidequests and Extra Missions (of which there are 46) are way more diverse, engaging and fun than the minigames and missions (nothing but 300 "go defeat this enemy" missions) in Crisis Core.

- The villains (Tsviets and Hojo) are over-the-top in a fun, campy type of way. Genesis and Hollander are just boring and confusing. Sephiroth's presence almost compensates. Almost.

- The perfectly nailed creepy atmosphere of the Shinra Manor. In Crisis Core I just find the Shinra Mansion/Manor to be too bright and silly.

- In DC you perform headshots to do critical damage. In CC you walk up behind the enemy's back to do critical damage each time. Headshots versus bum slashes. Yeah I'll take the former. I feel more dignified that way. Srsly I feel like all I do in CC is cutting bottoms.


Other things that make me like DC more than CC:
- I prefer shorter games. Replayability is way up there for me with DC. Crisis Core is way too overwhelming for constant replays plus I just have way less fun in that game.
- Shelke. I like to think of her as a "Tech/Vulcan Cetran" what-with the scope of her SND abilities. It is great compensation for not having an actual Cetran around in this FFVII title.
- I found the English voice acting to be a way more enjoyable listen in DC than in CC.

Skippable cutscenes are nice.

Maybe I'm alone in the fact that I never got past mission 5 in DoC.... I feel like they're impossible. But I do praise them for being different, unlike CC's. I wish CC had more variable missions, but I like that there were so many, mostly because the emails/mission infos were fun to read.

I feel like the villains of CC are more mysterious perhaps, and almost more seriously portrayed? But DoC's villains are fun too, they're all kind of insane with their own distinct personalities.

I was creeped out more by DoC too, possibly because of the bigger screen lol. But CC's lab was more like the OG, so I like how the design was in that part.

I love headshots. Played enough Unreal Tournament to strive to get them and enjoy it. Makes it more challenging too, like you say. Though it's a little hard for Zack to get headshots since he uses a sword, unless they made the game more graphic and he lopped off their heads.

However, far as storyline goes, I prefer CC over DoC. But I really like both games. DoC's gameplay is a lot of fun to me, and I enjoyed CC's action-style combat.
I usually prefer longer games like this, because I always want to play more/know more when I enjoy the game. DoC was a bit too short for my liking, but I was surprised by how long the cutscenes were when I replayed it earlier this year. I'd forgotten!

 

[cold_spirit]

What other retcons does the game have?

Here's a few:
1. Hojo injecting himself with Jenova cells to prepare himself for Omega. In the original game he clearly intended to kill himself along with all of Midgar so that Sephiroth can absorb the spirit energy. (This is also where DoC trips over it's own plot. If Hojo was attempting to prepare his body for Omega, why would he inject Jenova cells at all? He literally claims that Omega's host must be clean of Jenova's influence)
2. Lucrecia mentions in the original game that her body became hideous due to the Jenova Project. Not sure about you, but I thought she was looking pretty good in that crystal in DoC.
3. The appearance of the Shinra manor gets yet another makeover.

Onto the main topic. I definitely found DoC to much more entertaining than CC in terms of gameplay. Although I felt that the Digital Mind Wave was a much more interesting core mechanic, the rest of CC's gameplay was too simplified and tedious. I found the gun-play much more fun to mess around in and, as mentioned earlier, those bonus missions were halla tight.

Unfortunately, in my eyes both DoC and CC have equally bad stories. I felt that each title was overly melodramatic, contained terrible villains, and infringed on the original story at almost every opportunity. I'm especially bothered the technology gap between the original game and the compilation. Hoverbikes and virtual reality training rooms? Huh? And don't even get me started on Cloud's role in CC. In the original game he inherited Zack's memories due to his own insecurities and the influence of Jenova. However, in CC these insecurities are downplayed and almost completely replaced with "ill be ur living legacy man".

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Maybe Lucretia meant her post-baby body?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

What I like about Dirge more then CC is that I have a smige more respect for Dirge's villains then CC's. In CC, you're pretty much got people who are giving up just because they think they're turning into monsters, regardless of what other people who know them really well are telling them. For all that the Tsvits are crazy, they've got enough of a spine try to get out of their situation with their extremely limited tool set. It just backfire on them horribly.

Which is more then can be said for Angeal or Genesis. They had way more resources then the Tsvits did and they don't even try to change their situation (Angeal more then Genesis). So having to go against Angeal and Genesis feels more of a letdown because it's really easy to see how they could have done so much better and maybe could have avoided fighting you. With the Tsvits... well, at least they tried, even if they're still enemies you have to overcome. Fighting them is a lot more satisfying.

 

[ForceStealer]

In fairness, Lucrecia didn't really seem all that worse for wear in FF7 either
Although....for that matter, I don't remember Lucrecia actually saying that she became hideous. Just that hte Jenova in her wouldn't allow her to die (generally taken to mean that she attempted suicide).

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

She sort of implied it with "I wanted to disappear. I couldn't be with anyone." And the Ultimania said it made her hideous.

 

[Flare]

Maybe she means hideous in a mind sense, like she thought she became hideous, but not physically, only mentally.
She did become a bit messed up once she decided to go ahead with the experiment.

 

[Clement Rage]

I don't think the Plate collapsed, or nobody in Midgar would have survived. Vincent didn't have to start from the edge of the city, and he had Shelke to help navigate. There was heavy resistance, but he did start closer to the centre of the city than Cloud.

I like AC, by the way, I'm not intending to pick on it. I just think Dirge gets more hate than it deserves.

In CC, you're pretty much got people who are giving up just because they think they're turning into monsters, regardless of what other people who know them really well are telling them. For all that the Tsvits are crazy, they've got enough of a spine try to get out of their situation with their extremely limited tool set. It just backfire on them horribly.

People always forget that Genesis is terminally ill. And utilising most of those resources would involve trusting the company that did it to him in the first place.

Did Hojo know he needed a pure Lifestream before he was injected with JENOVA, or is that something he found out on the internet?

 

[Roger]

I don't think the Plate collapsed, or nobody in Midgar would have survived.

It may not have happened right when Meteor was overhead but AC definitely depicts the plate as no longer being on pillars.

Vincent didn't have to start from the edge of the city, and he had Shelke to help navigate. There was heavy resistance, but he did start closer to the centre of the city than Cloud.

He wasn't going to the centre of the city. He was going to a city underground, by first going to the highest point of Midgar. And then had to go through the length of said underground city.

I like AC, by the way, I'm not intending to pick on it. I just think Dirge gets more hate than it deserves.

But you're making your point by comparing AC negatively to it.

People always forget that Genesis is terminally ill. And utilising most of those resources would involve trusting the company that did it to him in the first place.

Hollander is the one that did it to him, and he is the one Genesis trusts to cure him implicietly . The whole reason Project G was considered a failure is because to Shinra's eyes Genesis and Angeal were born perfectly normal children.

 

[Flare]

I don't remember seeing all the plates of Midgar down on the ground. They were still being supported in places in AC, right? Unless you're talking about plate 7.

 

[Clement Rage]

He wasn't going to the centre of the city. He was going to a city underground, by first going to the highest point of Midgar. And then had to go through the length of said underground city.

Yes. Still closer than if he'd started from the edge, though.

But you're making your point by comparing AC negatively to it.]

In relation to one small aspect, that Dirge actually had a reason why everyone else stayed out of the final battle. Doesn't mean I dislike it.

Hollander is the one that did it to him, and he is the one Genesis trusts to cure him implicietly . The whole reason Project G was considered a failure is because to Shinra's eyes Genesis and Angeal were born perfectly normal children.

Genesis doesn't trust Hollander at all, when we first see the together he's holding him a swordpoint. He uses him because he has no one else with the skills he needs.

 

[Unit-01]

I've always understood why people dislike DOC, but with that I never really agreed with it. Good to see I'm not alone.
(A slight bump to post this).

 

[MintEggs]

I feel kind of half and half with DoC. I like some of the concepts it has and the ideas that expand the world.
-> I enjoyed how it gave us more info on the ancients and the life stream.
-> I liked getting to see Vincent's back story (although any time I get to see into a character's back story is a + for me.)
-> I liked Shelke's character and the concept of Deep-ground. Personally I don't think it's too much of a stretch that Shinra would have a secret army. BUT I kind of wished they tied it in better with CC. Instead of just a short scene where Weiss and Nero carry off Genesis.

However, there were things I didn't like
-> Hojo being the 'main villain' It just kind of seemed shoved in there to me. Not to mention that it creates a plot hole within the entire compilation. It just didn't seem necessary at all. I feel they could have just as easily had Weiss make someone find out how to get him free from his bindings and during that they find the data on Chaos and Omega.
-> Net dives. I like the concept but I feel it would have made more sense as something that directly connects to the life stream rather than an internet data base. Given that Shinra wanted to find the "promise land" I can see them trying to figure out a way to artificially connect to the life stream. So that they wouldn't have to worry about keeping an ancient around.
-> The whole saving of mind data or whatever in the data base. imo It just felt out of place and forced into the story.


I think what bothers me the most is how little a lot of this was left out of CC. (and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't DoC made before CC?) Which just makes DoC feel more out of place within the entire FF7 universe. One thing that I'm hoping for in the remake is that they tie in a lot of things so that it makes more sense.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

Lucrecia never said she became hideous. It was a thing in an Ultimania, and I think it may have been part of the scrapped "early materials" because either way it never made it into the game. We see her during OG and she looks the same.

So, I was playing this lately, and I noticed a couple of things Dirge actually does pretty well when you think about it.

1: Representation of Women:

For better or worse, I've played a fair few games. You know what never happens? Random, killable female NPCs on both sides. You get female exclusive enemies, like the Alexandrian army or the FROGS, but just having women mixed into the ranks with little distinction...doesn't happen very often. Especially not on both sides, unless they're zombies or splicers or in some sense not in control of their actions. Only other examples I can think of are Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock Infinite. We know the Cocoon in FF13 army recruits women, but we only see a handful of them through the games. Even really well acclaimed games, like the Last of Us, Uncharted, or Tomb Raider don't do this.

As for the main characters, we have a 3:2 split on both sides (Vincent/Cid Reeve: Shalua/Yuffie, Azul/Nero/Weiss:Shelke/Rosso) and none of them are Love Interests if you aren't wearing shipping goggles- Shelke's a maybe, but she has Lucrecia's data ghost in her brain, so I'll give that a pass. Speaking of whom, the game is built on the fact that Lucrecia did Science, and accurately predicted the end of the world (and averted it. For all her apologies, she was right.

Costume designs are kinda stupid, but this is a Final Fantasy game.

Not only that, but Lucrecia is a far better character than she gets credit for—possibly far better than they even intended her to be. She perfectly exemplifies a number of feminist issues, including treatment of women in the workplace, attitudes toward motherhood, a woman's right to make her own decisions regarding her body and reproductive functions, and she flips a few "love interest" tropes on their heads including being the one to rescue Vincent and also doing things that "should" make her less attractive to him but do not (such as asserting to him that she's going to do whatever the fuck she wants with herself and he can butt out). Lucrecia is, in fact, the only female love interest in this compilation—and, hell, in most others of its genre—with truly "unattractive" personality traits who remains loved nevertheless.

And all this while being hated by half the fandom for daring to be a woman who fails to meet their standards of womanness while also being too womanish. The feminist issues involving the way the fandom receives and deals with Lucrecia are almost (if not outright) more poignant than the feminist issues of the character herself.

(To wit: )

and accurately predicted the end of the world (and averted it.

Uh no, Lucretia identified a possible means for the end of the world, gathered the neccesary components, and laid out the instructions, giving the bad guys everything they need.

If Lucretia had just left well enough alone, everything would be fine.

Lucrecia interpreted/predicted the role that Chaos and Omega would play in the ending of the world. She did not lay out an instruction manual saying "and here's how you prematurely induce the apocalypse;" Hojo hijacked her research and misused the information in order to do that. She is no more responsible for what Hojo did with her research than the person who discovered Hydrogen is responsible for the H-bomb.

 

[Clement Rage]

I agree with most of that, but I'm not entirely sure about 'treatment of women in the workplace'. She's a top tier scientist important enough to be given her own personal bodyguard, trusted with a super secret project. You could argue that she's just a convenient womb, but it's not like it's above Shinra to just kidnap a random pregnant lady, nor is she the only one working in the department at the time.

 

[Roger]

Lucrecia interpreted/predicted the role that Chaos and Omega would play in the ending of the world. She did not lay out an instruction manual saying "and here's how you prematurely induce the apocalypse;" Hojo hijacked her research and misused the information in order to do that. She is no more responsible for what Hojo did with her research than the person who discovered Hydrogen is responsible for the H-bomb.

She found the Protomateria, brought it too Nibelheim, used it to awaken Chaos. That's a little more then research. And Hojo isn't some random party that came along later completely beyond her control. He was her boss (or at least became the head of the department she was working for), her partner on the project they were working on at Nibelheim and she married the man.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Apparently Grimoire found the Protomateria (according to Omega Report #8). And though you're right that Lucrecia had more than likely shared all of that stuff with Hojo anyway, what he ended up doing that with information was still pretty far outside her control.

 

[Shademp]

Apparently Grimoire found the Protomateria (according to Omega Report #8).

Indeed. The game easily misleads you here. We first get a cutscene where Lucrecia has just fused Vincent with Chaos, causing him to spasm wildly but then this is calmed by the Protomateria suddenly shining. The Protomateria is out of view at first so many people, including me, assumed that the Protomateria just teleported there out of plot convenience.

Later you collect Omega Report #8 and read in Lucrecia's report that it was Grimoire who found the Protomateria at the fountain of Chaos, the location later known as "Lucrecia's Grotto".

 

[AerithLives]

I just couldn't respect it. The game itself was fine, but they took one of the best stories from FF7 and told it with terrible FMV voice acting. It ruined everything for me.