However nice the real time battles are though, the game suffers from one of the problems several games like it have – lack of a pause feature.No, not pause as in “stop everything to eat.” Pause as in, “Gimmie a few seconds to find the item I need.”
While spell selection and attacking is easy as hell (you are allowed only three attacks/spells at the beginning) items are drawn in the same fashion. So if you are getting your ass kicked by a boss and need to use a high potion, plan on getting far away to get what you need, or else you may die while making a selection.Fortunately, Crisis Core is by no means a hard game, but expect a few cheap deaths when you are digging for the item you need while trying to dodge an attack (or just do what I did and use cure religiously).
The combat also has problems with lack of a cancel out feature. If you slice and dice one guy and end up hitting that attack icon once more while performing the finishing strike, Zach will run after the next guy and into danger with no way out.
With combat comes skill building; compliments of the DMW feature. DMW is a slot machine located in the upper left corner that consists of three portraits and three numbers. Match two portraits on the outside and you will go into a screen where you can get a third portrait and match the numbers up. Match pictures and you get a limit break. Match numbers and you can level up materia as well as Zach.
While gamers may initially think the whole system is random, the slots are rigged in the player’s favor as enemies drop XP secretly which will allow you to level quicker. So in theory it’s the same thing as always. You wanna level up? Go kill a bunch of enemies. Granted, there are times that you may find yourself not leveling at all and others where you go up say, five levels. But the game doesn’t just screw you over by leaving leveling to chance.
Aside from the main quest to build your skills, Square-Enix threw in a copious amount of missions – simple maps that require Zach to go kill or find something. Doing so nets you all sorts of goodies, gets you a chance to fight enemies hence building your levels, and get a certain satisfaction in helping the feel good corporation of the world, Shinra, proceed with world domination.
