Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion

Crisis Core Reunion is an action JRPG that acts as a prequel to Final Fantasy VII. You play as Zack Fair, a young warrior who wants to be a hero, as he discovers the dark secrets of Shinra's experiments. Experience the tale unfold with intense real-time combat and the DMW system to level up Zack and power up your customizable abilities (Materia).

Crisis Core was one of my favorite Final Fantasy games when it released on the PSP in 2008, so playing the remaster felt incredible. With its fully voiced dialog, a newly arranged soundtrack, improved battle system, and complete overhaul of the graphics, Crisis Core feels like a brand new game while retaining what made the original so great. And boy do I love the tie in to Final Fantasy VII. But, even though it is a remaster of a portable game, can it perform on the Deck?

Crisis Core Reunion: Performance

The answer is yes, but it isn't perfect. Right off the bat, keeping everything set to the highest does have the game running well! You can set the framerate cap to 45 and you will feel only small drops from time to time, or go all the way to 40 to feel even less, but the battery drain will still be a bit on the high side (16W - 18W). After testing all the settings though, only one of them made such a significant difference that only changing that while keeping everything on high allowed 50 FPS stable at an average 12.5W drain, resolution.

By just changing the resolution to 1152x648 and using FSR to upscale, Crisis Core Reunion was now able to handle 50 FPS at a much lower drain point. While I did test this at multiple hot spots I found, one of the biggest was actually the first battle in the game. At max settings, it would sometimes dip to 38-39 FPS, but with only changing resolution and keeping all other settings on the highest, all dips were completely eliminated:

While there is some sharpness from FSR, it is almost impossible to see on the smaller Deck screen. The plus side is much better battery life and smoother, more stable framerate.

I also wanted to find the best way to make a build for native resolution, which for this game is 1280x720. I was able to get 45 FPS pretty much stable with native resolution, but battery drain is still significantly higher than I would like. I also wanted to keep settings on high since the biggest one that would help stability, anti-aliasing, looks terrible when dropped down to "low".

I did notice two instances where framerate drops happened regardless of settings as well. The first was when going into any limit break and the camera zooms into Zack's face. On recommended settings, the framerate would drop to 42-43 at the lowest, but would immediately bounce back during the break and after. The second is during some cutscenes. Not all of them, but some spiked battery drain and brought down framerate, but it would bounce back as soon as you could control Zack again (and I never saw it go below 45). Both these are very manageable and don't impact gameplay at all.

The Ghosting Effect

The biggest issue I have with the visuals of Crisis Core Reunion is the ghosting effect. When looking very closely at Zack, you can see some very slight bluriness around his figure and, in some cutscenes, it looks like some of his animations linger on the screen a little bit. This happens on all settings, but it is a little more noticeable using our recommended.

The reason why it is still recommended even with this is that on the small screen, it is very hard to notice. I noticed it more because I was actively looking for it, and know exactly what to look for, but if you have no idea, you will probably never see it. I decided to still mention it since I still noticed it.

Conclusion

Crisis Core Reunion is a game that hits very deep with me personally. I not only loved the gameplay and story, but the way it weaves into Final Fantasy VII is just so cool. I am also elated to say the game can be easily enjoyed on the Steam Deck with little compromise. 50 FPS feels so smooth, battery sticks around the 3.5 hour mark, and stability is there where it matters. Overall, this is a safe bet to play on the Deck and I believe all JRPG fans should try it out! I have to give props to Square Enix for absolutely crushing it with optimization for this game.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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