Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is a Video Game Remake of the remake-inducingly popular 1997 PlayStation RPG Final Fantasy VII, developed by Square Enix for iOS and Android. It is the seventh entry in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, following Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier and succeeded by Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. A closed beta test ran from July 6 to 13, 2023, and the full game was released on September 7.
Compared to its modernized counterpart, the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, Ever Crisis aims to offer a more Retraux style of remake, with the entirety of Final Fantasy VII's visuals and setting updated with a modern finish while retaining the classic overhead cutscenes, character designs, and script. In addition to Final Fantasy VII itself, other games and media from the Compilation will be adapted (sometimes "demaked", so to speak) for Ever Crisis, including The First Soldier, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, Dirge of Cerberus, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
In terms of gameplay, the game is a fairly standard mobile gacha idle RPG. It's a Mobile Phone Game played on smartphones; as a "gacha" title, it involves buying lots of Lootboxes and hoping you get good weapons for your characters, because you need multiples of that Ultima Weapon to upgrade it to its maximum strength; as an Idle Game, battles involve up to three waves of enemies, and also feature a "Fast Forward" button and a "Play For You" button so that you can walk away and check back in a minute to see your success. Like most games in this genre, there is Premium Currency in addition to freely earned stuff, and certain purchases cannot be made unless you use the Premium Currency.
Featured Compilation Titles and Playable Characters
- Final Fantasy VII: The Super-Soldier Cloud Strife and eco-terrorist organization AVALANCHE fight to free the planet from the grip of the Shinra Electric Power Company MegaCorp and thwart the ambitions of the fallen hero Sephiroth.
- Playable: Cloud Strife, Barret Wallace, Tifa Lockhart, Aerith Gainsborough, Red XIII, Yuffie Kisaragi, Cait Sith
- Crisis Core: Set 7 years before the events of Final Fantasy VII, Zack Fair, an aspiring SOLDIER 2nd Class, finds himself on a crash course with destiny as the truth behind the SOLDIER project is unveiled, putting his faith and honor to the ultimate test.
- Playable: Zack Fair
- Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier: 15 years before the events of Final Fantasy VII, a team of fledgling SOLDIER candidates led by Glenn Lodbrok are deployed on a secret mission to the Rhadore Archipelago, where the story of Sephiroth in his youth unfolds.
- Playable: Glenn Lodbrok, Matt Winsord, Lucia Lin, Sephiroth
Trailers: Teaser Trailer
, 25th Anniversary Celebration Trailer
This game features examples of:
- Art Shift: Characters in the overworld are depicted as Super-Deformed-esque while combat depicts characters using their Remake designs, reflecting how characters in the original VII looked slightly more realistic in battle.
- Adaptation Expansion: This game's version of Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier takes the concept of the game and expands it greatly into a full-fledged plotline, starring a SOLDIER named Glenn and focusing heavily on Sephiroth's origin story.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: The "25th Anniversary Celebration Trailer" shows off a glimpse of some of the costumes you can get for your characters, including samurai armor for Cloud, modern street clothes for Tifa, and a wedding gown for Aerith.
- Call-Forward: When the teenaged Sephiroth obliterates the Rhadorian troops, he's shown standing amidst the flames left by his use of Firaga before turning to smirk at Glenn, Matt, and Lucia—exactly as he did to Zack during the Nibelheim Incident in Final Fantasy VII.
- Character Select Forcing:
- There's no real way to avoid training up Zack and to a lesser extent Cloud. Zack is the only playable character in the retelling of Crisis Core, meaning he needs to be strong enough to handle threats singlehandedly, while Cloud is present for pretty much all battles in the retelling of the original game and will thus be carrying his teammates through most problems. In contrast, the First Soldier trio faces most of their battles together while Cloud's allies come in and out of his party as the story demands it.
- Cloud is the only playable character for the Chapter 4 of the Final Fantasy 7 retelling. He will have to handle tough monsters alone, nevermind the fact someone powerful was with him at that time.
- Combatant Cooldown System: A version of the Active Time Battle system is used for combat, resembling its function in Remake. Characters fight automatically while the ATB gauge over their abilities fills up over time. ATB gauge segments can be spent to cast powerful moves, such as attacks or magic.
- Compressed Adaptation: Some scenes are shortened for brevity, removing otherwise pointless additional screens that were present merely to pad out random encounters or automating certain sections such as the Escape Sequence in Mako Reactor 1. Some less important parts such as most of the return trip to Seventh Heaven are cut entirely and shortened to a brief summary. As a result, some dialogue is shifted around to keep it contextually relevant.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In The First Soldier, Glenn, Matt, and Lucia are pinned down by Rhadorian soldiers with no way out... only for a ~15-year-old Sephiroth to drop in and utterly decimate the enemy troops.
- Equipment-Hiding Fashion: The game allows you to set skins for your character's armor and weapon, which acts independently of whatever equipment they're actually using, allowing players to set a favourite new look or weapon or invoke No Cutscene Inventory Inertia deliberately.
- The First Superheroes: The First Soldier chapter depicts the first mission of Sephiroth, the first super-powered SOLDIER. The SOLDIER members before him, called "Passive models", were just well-trained special forces officers, while he was a part-alien artificial human with super strength, super speed and heightened magical powers. The POVs of the chapter are the "Passive models", observing the strange youngster and trying to guess what the hell he is and what does it mean for them.
- Freudian Trio: The First Soldier trio. Glenn is the Hot-Blooded and impulsive Id, Matt is the stoic and logical Superego, and Lucia is the balanced Ego.
- Infinity +1 Sword:
- The game tries to avert this by making each weapon have unique stats growths and a unique skill so there is a job for each of them, but ultimately, the Loot Boxes draw system plays it straight - if you get a weapon several times, overboosting it will make it this trope.
- On this note, if a weapon can be farmed through quests or events, they are highly likely to become either this or a Disc-One Nuke.
- Loot Boxes: Ever Crisis features a gacha for weapons and armor, similar to Final Fantasy Record Keeper and Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia.
- Magic Countdown: The Escape Sequence in VII is shortened to a cutscene of Cloud and the party escaping. They manage to make it outside right when the timer hits 0:00.
- Video Game Remake: At its core, it is another remake of Final Fantasy VII. In a twist, however, later games are adapted for Ever Crisis, giving them a Retraux visual treatment similar to the original VII.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: The story battle with Ifrit in the retelling of Crisis Core. You're forced to face him in single combat with only Zack, and his damage output is high enough that if you've just been blindly tapping your way through the game, you're going to be made into thin gruel. Ifrit is the slap in the face that makes sure you've been truly paying attention to how the game works.
