PaigeFTW: The Saddest Game I Ever Played
I’ve cried in many a game, but no game ever coerced my tears so well as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.
Given that the game celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, I think it is fair game to include spoilers in this reminiscence.
As famously told in the original Final Fantasy VII (via, like, 8-minute cutscene), Zack Fair is an elite SOLDIER who befriends a mostly comatose Cloud Strife. As the two of them escape from a Shinra laboratory, Zack is confronted by Shinra troops and killed. Mentally broken, Cloud assumes Zack’s identity and the events of FFVII unfold.
Crisis Core, eschewing Final Fantasy tradition, allows you to control most of Zack’s final moments. Herein lies its emotional potency.
The battle starts easily. At this point in the game, you are a hyper-elite warrior who is nigh invincible, and you will cut down your initial opponents with ease.
But the enemies don’t stop. You can heal yourself, again and again and again, and they won’t stop. You can’t dodge forever. The enemies will keep coming.
Once your health hits the halfway point, the game’s combat systems start “failing.” The Digital Mind Wave (aka Zack’s limit breaks, powered by his affection for the game’s other characters) breaks down. There will be no last-minute burst of strength. No one can save you now.
Once your health drops to critical, Zack can barely lift his sword. He staggers towards the remaining enemies. Soon, he’s crawling, still trying to fight. Your HP clings to that final point. He wants to live. You want to live.
My pronouns get mixed here, deliberately, because you are Zack, and trying to save him is also trying to save yourself. But you can’t. The game forces you to let go, to give in, just as Zack eventually must.
And it feels terrible.
I sobbed straight through from the moment Cloud reaches out to Zack, as if to call him back, straight through the credits. Never been affected so much by a game before or since.
