Written By: John Perkowski

It can be argued that Final Fantasy VII is one of the greatest RPG's of all time. The story of Ex-SOLDIER Cloud and his friends against the Shinra Electric Power Company and the evil Sephiroth is legendary. So much so that people are practically begging Squaresoft to remake the game on a modern console. The game has spawned anime, flame wars on message boards (Cloud threw Sephiroth into the reactor! Sephiroth didn't jump willingly!), comics, and one poorly constructed game (Dirge of Cerberus). When Square-Enix revealed that they were going to make another story, this one about seemingly minor character Zack, and Sephiroth's decent into madness, Final Fantasy VII fans rejoiced. We got some hands-on time with the Japanese version of the game.

WARNING: The following hands-on will contain some spoilers for the game.

Our mission setup was to find some missing member of SOLDIER. After talking to his mission coordinator, Zack was dispatched with Angeal (his superior and wielder of the Buster Sword) to the mission's site. The first thing we noticed was the high quality of graphics. This game looks sharp on the PSP's small screen, and even better using the PSP Slim's new TV output. Truth be told, it was slightly above the quality of a PS2 game, it's that good. Cut-scenes are of Advent Children quality and are filled with the same kind of high action. In short, this may be the best looking PSP game made yet.

Combat is done in a kind of semi-real time fashion, and feels much more action oriented than previous titles. Once engaged in combat with some solider, Zack whipped out his trusty sword and combat got underway. In this mode, Square makes Zack roll out of the way, like a dodge function. Good for quick escapes, but sometimes pulls enemies out of sword range. Triangle is your block button, but some attacks can bypass your guard or overpower it. Circle executes the currently selected command, and X cancels the last selection.

Commands are displayed in the lower right of the screen. The first command is Zack's basic attack. With this he swings his sword in a slight arc at an enemy. Sometimes this can catch multiple opponents, sometimes it can't. You switch between attack types with the L and R buttons. What other attacks, you say? Materia of course! Zack is a SOLDIER in good standing, so for this mission he came equipped with Ice and Fire attacks, as well as a yellow Materia for a spinning attack and a healing Materia. The final command on the attack list was an item command so he could access his healing potions. Since battles take place in real time, Zack and change the tide of battle with good movement choices. Sure, he could hit an enemy face to face with his sword, but why not try to roll behind the enemy and get a backstab?

Our mission was in a darkened forest leading up to a Japanesesque castle. Our main enemies appeared to be simple soldiers and some animalistic beasts. As we got closer to the castle, Angeal pulled Zack aside and offered to let him take a safer path. Zack started complaining, and offered to go in through the front door. After a few minutes of the both of them arguing, Angeal finally acquiesced. Zack's smooth and easy-going manner seemed to be right on par with what we've seen in Advent Children and Final Fantasy VII, so it's good to know the programmers studied up on him.