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Not much has changed in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion over the original, which is a shame for Zack Fair’s only solo adventure. The biggest thing Square Enix did was add new graphics which are indeed spectacular. There is a litany of other things they could have done to improve the experience and they still could with a patch. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

8 Update The CG Cutscenes

It’s wild that the CG cutscenes in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion look worse than the in-game graphics because they weren’t updated. They don’t look bad so much as they look dated. They have a fuzzy and blurry quality to them since it has been over a decade and technology has grown so much.

Games of the 90s and 2000s were once praised because of their CG or animated cutscenes. Times have changed now and Square Enix needs to do something to fix the awkward placement. Either they need to remaster the cutscenes as well, or they must redo them in the game’s engine.

7 Add Photo Mode

When Final Fantasy 7 Remake launched on PS4, it did not have a photo mode. When the re-release came out in PS5, there was one added on top of other content like Yuffie’s side adventure. It’s a shame to see Square Enix didn’t learn with that game when it came to releasing Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion. Fans presumably expected to see a photo mode along with other improvements to the experience. Hopefully, this feature is part of the roadmap for future updates throughout 2023.

6 Add A Jump

It’s not weird to see this game not have a jump button for combat since most other buttons are already occupied. Jumping in battle is not that important though as there is a Materia called Jump already in the game. It allows Zack to attack aerial enemies easier.

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What’s missing is a jump while exploring the world as there is still plenty of room on the controller to add one in while not in combat. It would make traversal much easier, so a dedicated jump or even a vault mechanic would be appreciated.

5 Add Fast Travel

There is no fast travel system in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion and it slows down productivity. Players will spend most of their time in the Shinra Building, going from floor to floor for various reasons. At save points, players can save, naturally, as well as take on side missions.

It would be great if Square Enix could add a third option to save points for fast travel. The game could limit fast travel to areas within other areas. For example, players could fast-travel within the Shinra Building, but they couldn’t warp to somewhere else like a save point in Wutai.

4 Change How You Level Up

One of the biggest complaints with the original release was how Zack leveled up. The DMW, or Digital Mind Wave, is a slot-based system that can boost Zack’s stats, or even give him special attacks like Summons and Limit Breaks.

This randomized system can also sometimes increase Zack’s level. There is supposedly an experience system behind the works which triggers the DMW to level Zack up if players collect enough points. If that’s true, all Square Enix has to do is add an experience bar to make things less obtuse.

3 Add Multiplayer

New missions would have been good to get, but so would extra modes like a multiplayer system. This is a solo adventure for Zack even though he is sometimes joined by characters on missions like the ever-gloomy Sephiroth. He, and other mission partners, never aid in battle.

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What if Square Enix added a separate mode wherein players could tackle missions as one of several beloved characters from this game? Being able to play co-op missions with Zack, Sephiroth, Angeal, Cissnei, and many others would be huge. Understandably, this would be hard to program in with a simple patch but there is always room for DLC.

2 Add An Easy Mode

There are two difficulty settings in the game: Normal and Hard. If players somehow figure out the leveling-up system and take on side missions, the main missions shouldn’t be that challenging for most RPG players on Normal. That doesn’t mean Square Enix shouldn’t add an easier mode for beginners though as it’s good in this day and age to accommodate a wider audience.

Adding assist features like the ability to lessen or increase damage would alternately be a good route to take. Other Square Enix games have had robust assist options before like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, so it’s not far off base to wish for something like that in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion too.

1 HUD Tweaks

There are a couple of things Square Enix could remove from the game to make the screen cleaner. For example, in the upper right corner during battle, there is a display screen showing button prompts. This is good for tutorial purposes but after a certain point, it seems senseless to include something like this. A way to remove that would be ideal.

Also, if Square Enix is unwilling to put a photo mode into the game then they could at least have the decency to remove the watermarks from screenshots. They’re not hugely obstructive but including them at all is a slight to the fans that buy Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion was released on December 13, 2022, and is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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