What is your recommended order for playing Final Fantasy VII and all its prequels/spin-offs?

[Pearlsaul]

So I'm planning on playing Final Fantasy VII and was wondering about it, because Crisis Core is a prequel and was wondering if I should play that first or the main game, and any others I'm forgetting. Thank you for all answers!

 

[Roger]

Main Game first, then Crisis Core, then On the way to a Smile and Episode Denzel then Advent Children Complete.

 

[Unlucky]

Personally I recommend that you play FFVII first. And then play Crisis Core before Dirge of Cerberus since CC felt more connected to the original game than the latter. I don't think there's a way to play Before Crisis ( a Turk-centric prequel to VII) but you can watch playthroughs on YouTube. DoC is the last entry so it's probably best that you play it last.

 

[Tetsujin]

- Final Fantasy VII



...

 

[Farron]

Final Fantasy VII.

Crisis Core

Reading Case of Tifa

Episode Denzel

Advent Children Complete

On a way to a smile

Then ignore DOC unless you are a hardcore Vincent fan.

 

[Shademp]

Final Fantasy VII.
Then ignore DOC unless you are a hardcore Vincent fan.

I actually recommend Dirge of Cerberus both for its replay value and because of how hilarious some of the silly and bad writing is. But it's true that when experiencing the FFVII timeline, DoC is last on the list of things to play/watch.

Don't forget to watch the DoC PlayOnline scenes before or after playing DoC.

 

[Ffxiii1ll]

Anyway, do not play crisis core before ff7 because it will spoil almost all the plot. Cc is much more connected to ff7 than DoC is.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I recommend:

-Playing the original game
-Reading the On the Way to a Smile novellas
-Watching Advent Children/Advent Children Complete
-Watching a playthrough/translation of Before Crisis on YouTube
-Playing Crisis Core
-Playing Dirge of Cerberus

Seeing as The Kids Are Alright doesn't have a complete translation yet, I recommend reading at least the summary of it here on the site any time after reading the On the Way to a Smile stories and watching AC/ACC.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

I'd do 'em in order of release. First FFVII, then the OtwtaS novellas and ACC, then DoC, then CC. Yeah, I know ACC was technically released after CC, but AC wasn't, and there's no need to watch AC when ACC is the canon and far superior version. That, and I wouldn't play DoC without having watched AC/C first.

 

[Lex]

Play VII first then do the rest in chronological order. In all honesty there's no perfect way to do it other than to play the original game first.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'd do 'em in order of release.

Sadly, that means you would be going from FFVII to watching a playthrough of Before Crisis -- and that's nothing short of a chore.

Unless you were to place BC based on when the final episode was released, you might be turned off of the Compilation going in order of release.

 

[Lex]

It has taken me almost ten years to watch Before Crisis. I am not kidding when I tell you I have literally fallen asleep on my keyboard trying to get through it. It's so fucking boring.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It really is awful. Reading the scripts is less so, but it took me a few months to watch all the episodes simply because I don't hate myself.

Shademp was a trooper and got through it ln, like, a couple weeks -- and summarily resigned from being Content Manager right after.

 

[Unlucky]

Thank Cam for hosting the BC streaming session and I was able to last. Before that I think I watched about three episodes on my own and just decided not to give a fuck.

 

[Shademp]

Shademp was a trooper and got through it ln, like, a couple weeks -- and summarily resigned from being Content Manager right after.

Haha!

If you and I had watched BC at the same time, this is how things would have gone down (with me as the big guy).

So in retrospect, I think that Before Crisis is the very LAST thing one should try to absorb of the Compilation. Read the chapter summaries or be prepared to fall asleep when watching the recordings. Only when reading Case of Shinra might you feel a short loss from not having read/seen Before Crisis, by not knowing who a certain character is and what his history with the Turks is. But you'll still manage reading Case of Shinra very well. BC introduces two characters seen in Dirge of Cerberus, but you honestly get more out of seeing these characters in DoC *first*, than by first seeing them in Before Crisis.

 

[laurence]

No problem going in the order they came out, but placing Crisis Core as second can be reasonable, since I believe it's the best game after the original and they fit pretty well together as Kore said. With those two then the novellas and finally ACC I'm well off.

Save DoC for last, not CC. It's very likely to ruin the ride and you may have to trudge your way through the game like me to get to CC.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Honestly, I find Dirge way more replayable than Crisis Core.

 

[ForceStealer]

I think ACC has more impact going after CC, what with the flashbacks and such.

 

[Unlucky]

Honestly, I find Dirge way more replayable than Crisis Core.

^The same reason that it doesn't relate much to the original helped with that. With Crisis Core you have to deal with the bullshit it smears into the original as you play. And that's agonizing.

Not to say DoC is any better though. It's just easier to pretend it never happened

 

[Lord Noctis]

Honestly, I find Dirge way more replayable than Crisis Core.

 

[Lex]

The gameplay of DoC is quite fun. CC can be a bit slow/ repetitive at times. Honestly I never played shooters when I first played DoC so I'm looking forward to playing it again now that I've mastered the likes of Uncharted and Mass Effect which have shooter gameplay.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Yeah, CC can get borimg and repetitive after a while. Especially the missions, which have only a few different maps, so there's not much variety. There's only few missions I actually enjoy replaying.

 

[Ami]

Honestly, if it were me, I'd go in history order like playing Crisis Core first. But it's your choice at the end of the day. I enjoyed CC and DoC very much. If I could find my copy of DoC, I'd definitely play it again.