Three years after the events of Final Fantasy VII, an unknown group of seemingly unstoppable soldiers appears, bringing a swift and bitter end to the peace enjoyed by the people of the world. The members of this enigmatic group are the ones who were trapped under the ruins of Midgar for three long years—the Deepground soldiers. Vincent Valentine finds himself pursued by several elite members of the mysterious Deepground organization. An unrelenting chain of events leads Vincent to the truth behind his past—and forces him once again to be the key player in a battle for the planet itself and all those living on it. Just what is the connection between Vincent's past and the recent attacks? When the world is engulfed in darkness, his gun will toll a dreadful dirge.

Admist the glorious masterpiece of Final Fantasy VII, it's sequel is hardly as adequete to as an RPG or as a first person shooter. Dirge of Cerberus takes control lesser delved characters and attempts to glorify them in a sequel that takes place three years later in the storyline of the expansive Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Although it is a shooter RPG, it's entirity is way to similiar to an RPG that it negates that fanbase that Square Enix was attempting to pull in. However, the title is not all terrible. It's gameplay is decent considering many factors, but it ultimately fails from minor flaws that eventually esclate to unbelieable proportions as the game continues.

The storyline is one huge problem. Shadowing minor parts of the story in Final Fantasy VII and attempting to enlarge them to a full game is unbelieabley wrong. Vincent learns that there are a lot of baddies that are similiar to him and want to beat the living shit out of him. Wow, great story. The whole discussion of redemption is probably (ironically) the only minor focal point to redeming the storyline. However, amazingly the cutscenes are suprisingly long for a shooter - it wouldn't be as terrible if it was an actual full-fleged RPG, but it wasn't and a shooter shouldn't have so much of a huge storyline. Another problem is that structurely attempting to squeeze out more of the Shin-Ra coporation as the baddie presents a lot of problems because simply the villanistic portion of the characters present absolutely no resolve in the game and absolutely nearly no well thought out reason to kill the innnocent. Problems stem from other minor characters who probably no one cared about in Final Fantasy VII. Such as Cait Sith and Yuffie. I can understand the merit in creating a title surrounding Vincent, but attempting to add Cait Sith and Yuffie to the game just plain ruins any merit it acutally had. Cait Sith's inclusion is actually a little more understandable with Reeve's major part in re-construction - despite how ridculously stupid. However Yuffie's incompetance and self are absolutely unnecessary factors in Dirge of Cerberus, just as well - Yuffie's probably unwittingly annoying.

Redeming the gameplay can be a very daunting task, especially if you loved Dirge of Cerberus. With the ridculously failing gameplay merit, Dirge of Cerberus doesn't let you enjoy the title, just as much as learn to hate it. Combining a melee freestyler and a gun-slinger sound all to familiar for Capcom fans and Vincent's controls are unbeliabley retarded. Devil May Cry is an more than adequete subsitute for a gameplay similiar to Dirge of Cerberus and Devil May Cry also has a much better storyline. With practically synonymous enemies of Deepground drones, learning to down a lot of these soliders becomes all too easy after the second chapter. With slight variations rare in enemies, the title adequetely doesn't provide a challenge. Practically the only challenge would have to be minor boss battles which throw curve-balls at your typical Deepground dumb-solider. With a limited enviroment to actually roam and play in the game - the use of the Double Jump doesn't aid you the experience, it merely makes the impression of Dirge of Cerberus even worse.

The experiental approach to re-orienting fans to Midgar lacks the finease and any flair or intrigue that Final Fantasy VII had. Despite being promising and being a change towards Final Fantasy VII and traditional sequels, Dirge of Cerberus is culiminating a waste of any money spent on this title. With a lackluster storyline and disapointing gameplay, Dirge of Cerberus is only merely decent in the large scheme of things.