Genre: RPG
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Release Date: August 15, 2006

Square's Final Fantasy is easily one of the most popular video game series on the planet, second perhaps to EA's Madden NFL or Bungie's Halo. Each new sequel sells zillions of copies and ensures that Square will make another, which would probably explain Square's recent blitz of Final Fantasy VII-related releases. If one FF sells gazillions, then a proverbial host of Final Fantasy tie-ins should sell even more! Movies, games, cell phone gadgets ... millions!

Enter Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, the latest tie-in game. It stars the brooding fan-favorite Vincent Valentine, with guest appearances by Yuffie and Cait Sith. It eschews the traditional Final Fantasy RPG-style gameplay for something more in-your-face: third-person shooting, with a side order of melee fighting.

Think about it. Vincent uses guns and turns into a number of giant slavering monsters. Would you rather choose "Shoot" from a menu 80 times an hour, or press a button to shoot and hopefully get a headshot? Aiding you in this quest for action are a few upgradeable and customizable weapons. You can hook up your machine gun with a long barrel and a scope if you favor rapid-fire accuracy. Add in materia, stat-boosting accessories, and a number of other enhancements, and you've got a good mix of RPG-style item upgrading, collecting and real-time action. If you're truly dedicated, you can make your gun into a fireball-shooting beast of Freudian proportions.

Speaking of beasts ... yes, Virginia, there are Limit Breaks. You pick these up as items, and once you activate them, you have a time limit for destruction. Most of you have wanted to be able to actually control Vincent's Limit Breaks since Final Fantasy VII, and now you have that chance. Is a boss whipping your tail? Turn into Galian Beast and show him what's what with a few high-impact attacks.

All of this action has a point, of course. DoC picks up three years after the end of Final Fantasy VII. The story starts off in Kalm and quickly hits the ground running. An attack on Kalm by the mysterious group Deepground turns out to be the opening shots in a hunt for Vincent himself. They believe that Vincent has something called "protomateria," and they want it badly. They want it so bad that they're willing to send out some of their best-trained agents to get it. These are the Tsviets, which sounds a lot like "Soviets," but that's cool. These guys are the top of the food chain. If a Navy Seal and a Mossad agent got together and had a magical baby, these guys would be it.

When you have an action hero like Vincent, you need to have villains who can stand against him as equals or betters. Case in point: Early on in our build, we went up against a gigantic Tsviet named Azul the Cerulean. Rather, we went up against the henchmen that were surrounding him. We couldn't touch him. Time will tell if there's going to be a positively apocalyptic battle between Vincent and Azul later in the game, but the smart money is on "yes."

There are sure to be other elite agents to take down, but you can't have a game where you do nothing but fight boss characters. There are going to be plenty of regular bad guys for you to mow your way through on the way to each boss, in addition to a healthy amount of exploration. It's not any fun to run from point A to point B with no variation, so you're going to have to do a bit of that old action game favorite: find the key card.

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII sports some fairly impressive graphics for a game coming out this late in the lifespan of the PlayStation 2. The cinemas are almost of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children quality, and the in-game graphics are intentionally dark and gritty. Square seems intent on making their games prettier than ever, and DoC illustrates this nicely.

Guest stars from Final Fantasy VII are relatively sparse, at least early on. Yuffie makes an appearance in the opening CG, and Reeve/Cait Sith provide more than a little comic relief even as he sends you off to what may end up being your certain death. At any rate, they should both do a nice job of balancing out Vincent's moody attitude.

The voice acting is quality. Vincent sounds dark, gravelly and suitably mysterious. He almost never rises above a whisper, as befits his status as brooding action hero. The ubiquitous Steve Blum, better known as Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop or Roger Smith from The Big O, voices Vincent. His voice is going to be familiar to anyone who's spent watched any anime, most likely, and he's played so many dark, brooding heroes that he's got it down to a science.

This is a new kind of Final Fantasy. Gone are the turn-based shenanigans of the past games. They've been replaced by frantic, real-time, third person shooting and dodging. It's guaranteed to be a different experience, and hopefully it'll prove to be a success in the long run and lead to more games that break the Final Fantasy mold. Watch for it on August 15th.