History VideoGame / CrisisCore

* FakeDifficulty: Hard Mode in general. Several early missions quickly leg it into being impossible by virtue of the enemy having a cheap cutscene attack that can't be dodged and will merrily hit you for more HP than you've got, even if you're using accessories for defense against whichever way it hits. The plot will also happily throw one-hit-kill attacks at you too. The only chance you've got for these missions is by exploiting the free Raise in Midgar in the best possible scenario, and in the worst case doing that on top of using at least one Phoenix Down to get another Raise for when you get oneshot again, of which there are very few to be had.

* JackOfAllStats: Zack. Justified in both gameplay and story, as story-wise SOLDIER operatives have to be pretty good at everything and gameplay-wise Zack is the only person you have control over.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: The "Punch" Command Materia, which inflicts a NonElemental attack that ignores the target's Vitality and Spirit. Magical Punch consumes 99 MP, Hammer Punch consumes 99 AP, and Costly Punch is CastFromHitPoints.

* GuideDangIt: Materia Fusion can be quite a pain to figure out. Basic recipes are fairly simple and straightforward -- "Status Magic" + "Special Attack" = "Status Attack", "Elemental Magic" + "Special Attack" = "Elemental Attack", and so on. However, the intricacies of the system are rather more complex than they seem. Most Materia are organized into categories and have tiers within those categories, and the "tier" of Materia, coupled with if either or both are Mastered or not, will affect the result of a Fusion. It isn't always obvious which Materia belong to which categories, which tier they occupy within it, and especially how Materia interact with each other between categories to determine the result, so it's difficult to tell what a Fusion may yield, sometimes to the point of ViolationOfCommonSense, like fusing two Magic Materia and getting a Command Materia out of it, or vice-versa. ''Reunion'' clears up some of the mechanics, but it's still quite in-depth and opaque.

** The M1-2-X chain of missions has a Public Security captain challenge Zack to fight his men and various Shinra mechs. Part of this is because he fears his underlings will become complacent if they rely too much on SOLDIER.

* InterserviceRivalry: All over Shinra. With pretty much every department fighting for funding while sabotaging others and security forces almost incapable of cooperation, no wonder Shinra was in such disarray during ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII FFVII]]''. Zack can help out the Materia Fusion department until they're able to embarrass Heidegger himself in a board meeting.

* PaletteSwap: The G-Clone rank-and-files are basically red uniformed versions of the standard Shinra Infantrymen, the difference being that they eschew nightsticks in favor of throwing kicks in close-combat. ''Reunion'' does away with this by giving the rank-and-file clones a slight makeover to make them distinct from Shinra troops.

* PaletteSwap: And how! It's part of the story as Genesis degrades, but many of his copies feature this as the game advances.

!!This game contains examples of:

* WifeHusbandry: A very minor example of this trope plays when Zack talks to a small girl in the Sector 8 slums. She mentions a kind, rich uncle who smiled in agreement when the girl said that she wants to marry him. This goes straight into {{Squick}} territory when you realise that said Uncle is [[spoiler:Don Corneo, the pervert mob boss in the original game]]. Compounded further when you remember [[Don Corneo would discard his lovers down the sewers to be fed to his pet Abzu when he was bored of them]].

* WifeHusbandry: A very minor example of this trope plays when Zack talks to a small girl in the Sector 8 slums. She mentions a kind, rich uncle who smiled in agreement when the girl said that she wants to marry him. This goes straight into {{Squick}} territory when you realise that said Uncle is [[spoiler:Don Corneo, the pervert mob boss in the original game]].

An [[UpdatedReRelease HD remaster]] was announced on June 16, 2022. Entitled ''Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion'', it was released on December 13, 2022 for the PC, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/PlayStation5, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS, and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch. A VideoGameDemake version of ''Crisis Core'' is set to be included as one of the playable episodes in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIEverCrisis''.

** Zack is free to take missions from Shinra right up until the final area of the game right outside the chamber of the final boss, even though by that time he's a wanted fugitive being pursued across the world, and a good number of them aren't even available before he's on the run from Shinra.

* BGMOverride: In Shinra Manor, the minor-key, disjointed piano theme continues playing over battles, rather than the buttrock-ish regular combat music.