I've been playing Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis on my iPad for about a week. It has some compelling elements, it's low intensity, and can be played on grad school autopilot while also making some progress. However, there are are some game mechanics and designs that promote replayability, for better or worse. Here, I'll go over the design of Criterion Dungeons, the current "Beach Festival Fun!" Event, and drawing from banners.
Where are the Criterion Dungeon Cactaurs?
Some of the missions are hidden on the first playthrough of the Criterion Dungeons in FF7:EC. Although it promotes replayability, it can be annoying to the player when it's a low level "seek and destroy" mission just to gank a Cactaur. You can finish the quest even when it's hidden, so there's no reason to not do it on the first round.
I never wanted to look up whether the hidden mission was just "finish this level as quickly as possible" or if there was a hidden enemy, so I wanted to take out some of the guesswork. Since each Criterion Dungeon (Make Reactor, Fort Tamblin, La'paina, and Padapili) has two areas, and every dead end or pixel sensitive encounter could be a candidate, I wanted to share where to go on the first playthrough.
Mako Reactor 1 Area 1 Cactaur
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| In Mako Reactor 1, continue on the second screen past the fork. |
This is skippable, since this is the first Criterion Dungeon, when the player has no clue that it's a possibility, and there's no visual breadcrumb or treasure to explore down the entire bridge.
Fort Tamblin Area 2 Cactaur
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| In Fort Tamblin, skip the urge to fight the boss in the courtyard. |
This one distracts you with the shiny boss area and invisible wall dead ends just prior.
La'paina Coast Area 2 Cactaur
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| At La'paina Coast, continue to the top left corner of the map. |
By now, the player expects it, so just keep going up to clear out the ??? mission.
Padapili Sea Cave Area 1 Cactaur
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| At Padapili, this one is also past a boss, but not quite at a dead end. You'll have to do a quick sweep. |
This last one was when I decided that this feature was more annoying than fun, so I wrote this post for posterity and to think about whether I like part of the game.
Beach Festival Fun! Event
This was a fun event with a time-traveling misunderstood, green Tonberry, a classic monster type in the Final Fantasy games. He just wants to pinata a bunch of watermelons. This could be subtle world building though, since the Tonberry fights against Zack in the past and then Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith. They're even able to give messages to each other, so the theorycrafting nerd in me puts this as semi-canon.
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| Solo missions for watermelons and life preservers. |
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| Yes, my ingame name is Kiritokun. I'm an overlevelled carry ace. |
The mix of solo and co-op missions lead to good rewards, making this essential content for the player to get through. I don't think it's possible to get by on the main story content without this event, so I imagine future events will be similarly structured to help new players.
Draw Banners and Stamp Cards
I already have the Lifeguard Wraps for Tifa, but I stopped drawing for Red XIII's gear. I like the character, but I like having Tifa and Barret in the party more. I skipped out on Murasame Cloud, but Maritime Cloud is a more realistic take on an outfit like Sora's from Kingdom Hearts. These kind of small decisions on what to buy will keep me a free-to-play player, so I'll most likely prioritize seasonal banners. I don't want to wait another year for it to come around, and most of the gear will be outclassed by whatever is new.
With nine characters, and fates uncertain, I think it's prudent to stockpile currency crystals when needed. The randomess of how many stamps you get on the Chocobo stamp card can be infuriating RNG since you have to spend in increments of 3000. It's basically a loyalty card program, but you never know if you'll get just one stamp, or more. Character skins aren't a priority for me unless they're a slamdunk in design.
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| An elemental anchor sword with the Seasplitter skill. |
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| Lucky draw, but I'll probably only use Aerith in story battles. |
Discussion
I remember my brother "training" against Cactrots and Pugs, the translations between Cactaur and Tonberry in the SNES Final Fantasy III/VI. Ted Woolsey, the translator for the FF3/6 was a University of Washington grad student in Japanese literature before going to Square in Redmond. The nostalgia really clicks with my current role as President of the grad students at UW, so I'm personally invested in this game.
Ever Crisis is compelling enough for the full download and planned calendar of events. Still, I'll keep free-to-play based on how Square Enix has treated its other mobile games. It will be a while until this one shuts down as long as the main games make money. The Remake came out at the onset of the pandemic, so it has an audience that grew up with it since 1997.
More on FF7
Here are some more posts I've written about Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis.
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