It’s the 13th of December, do you know what time it is? It’s the time for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII! Square Enix just released the game. And to my surprise, it came with promising responses from both the press and the community.
Multiple have praised Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion for its visual overhaul, making a 2007 game look no different than the current frontrunners. Despite the 2007 original release being a PlayStation Portable (PSP) exclusive, Square Enix decided that the remaster would include the old and new generations of consoles.
The Crisis Core remaster is available, but not exclusive, to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch. That begs the question, is Core Crisis: Final Fantasy VII playable on Nintendo Switch? Well, no hard feelings for Nintendo, but the console is pretty outdated for such a release. And there’s no going around that fact, so how’s the performance?
Is Crisis Core Playable On Nintendo Switch?
The short answer is, surprisingly, yes. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is playable on Nintendo Switch. In fact, the performance is staggering for a portable console like the Switch.
Quoting the ancient but timeless question, “but y tho?” But first, before we answer the question, we need to take a look at how outdated the Nintendo Switch is. Because I, quite frankly, do not like Nintendo. I’m also totally okay with dragging personal biases into this.
Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch back in March 2017, therefore making it belong to the eighth generation of video game consoles. The same generation that, I remind you, had PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Nevertheless, Nintendo Switch is a portable console, primarily, which in turn makes it not rely all that much on hardware.
The hardware inefficiency makes it near impossible to play games like GTA 5. Which, I will admit, makes total sense. I mean, who has Nintendo Switch as their primary console? No amount of Zelda games can satisfy me if I can’t get cyber-bullied and have my IP Leaked simultaneously while being sent death threats. But then again, GTA 5 is a 2013 game, for god’s sake!
Regardless, Square Enix did a fantastic job of rendering Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion playable on an age-old Nintendo Switch. The details extend past just a great performance. The team at Square Enix also managed to preserve the visual cohesiveness to an acceptable degree on the Nintendo Switch.
Great Optimization
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion runs at a predominantly stable framerate of 30 per second on the Switch. While that would threaten the hell out of a PC user, that’s totally fine if the Switch could keep it. Spider-Man ran on the PS4 while being locked to 30 frames per second, and it was one hell of an experience. So the framerate shouldn’t be of your worries.
You might experience a stutter or two throughout the entire game, but that shouldn’t be a nuisance; it’s not exactly that frequent. On handheld mode, Square Enix capped the resolution at 720p, which doesn’t look bad at all. The only affected area that might be extremely noticeable is the hair of each character, especially Zack Fair.
Fair has got a mad haircut. No wonder why his hair would be pixelated. Additionally, the Nintendo Switch port also contains screen space reflections. A bold choice from the team that probably made their lives nothing less of a living hell to optimize for a console like the Switch.
As @SwitchUpYt detected, it’s probably not going to show up unless you’re in close proximity to the reflection for it to show up. Furthermore, I would advise you not to be tricked by the pre-rendered cutscenes. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a good choice for a remaster, but it’s still not representative of the game’s quality on said port.
Crisis Core Is Not Cloud
On a final note, did I mention that Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion is not cloud-based? This is a wise decision by Square Enix to ensure that fans get what they expected, at least visually. Apparently, that revelation came following the positive responses to the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. People expected nothing less regarding the graphics.
Conclusion
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. It does seem like Square Enix pulled off another good port. They’re probably running on a spree right now after that last Nintendo Switch port with Nier: Automata. And for the time being, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion seems to be quite playable on the Nintendo Switch.
Am I going to give it up for Square Enix for giving us a visually gracious and technically great remaster and port? No. Instead, I’m going to complain about how the Nintendo Switch is outdated and should’ve gotten another edition ‘another² edition if you think OLED seriously counts’ or a follow-up or something.
Anyways, enough of my whining. What do you think? Are you going to buy Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion on the Nintendo Switch? Or are you still going to wait on the possible game pass release? I would love to hear from you down in the comments.
