My first hour into Final Fantasy 7-Crisis Core for the PSP is fairly positive. Some random thoughts. SPOILER WARNING!?

-- Zack is an upbeat main character who just wants to be a hero in SOLDIER. This is a surprise for a sci-fi themed Final Fantasy game, where the protagonist is usually a cigarette smoking emo kid who cries about the girl he'll never get.

-- Dumbapples? Really? Couldn't they have called them something else?

-- I laughed when after completing a battle, a computer voice says, "Conflict resolved." Her tone reminds me of EVA from Command & Conquer.

-- A lot of people have compared the combat to Kingdom Hearts, but a more apt comparison would be Parasite Eve. You can wander around during combat, but are in a fixed location. While you can just mash the X button to attack things, if you try to hit things from behind you do more damage. There is a slight waiting period between attacks. The only thing that would make the combat more Parasite Eve is if you fought with guns.

-- Hard mode is slightly hard. I managed to get wiped out right near the end of the first assault on a Wutai castle. Kinda frustrating that I'll have to replay 30 minutes or so worth of combat, but I am a Final Fantasy fan from the SNES era, so it's not like this experience is unusual to me.

-- Not sure what to think of the constant slot machine action going on in the background during fights. You don't gain XP during combat, but can gain levels if the slot machine settles on a random combination. Not that I've gained a level yet, though I've done some grinding to little avail. :)

Anyone else playing this game and have similar/opposing thoughts?

Hour 2 coming soon! I'll have a glass of wine before playing some more Crisis Core.