Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII serves as sixth installment to the Final Fantasy VII Compilation, as well as the prequel to the original game. Released ten years after the debut of Final Fantasy VII, the game retells the beginnings of story in detail, from the perspective of Zack Fair (who now subsequently has a last name). Crisis Core reveals new information that was left untold from the original game; granted, much of the key points were explained in relation to Final Fantasy VII, but nothing minute.

For the veteran players of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core is played out much like Ancient Athenians sitting at a theater watching a Greek tragedy-- the ending of the story is no surprise, but the art lies in how well the rest of the story is portrayed. Crisis Core is the only game in the series to focus extensively on the relationship between Zack and Aerith, from their meeting to Zack's departure. It gives more depth to both characters, and especially elaborates on the interaction between them. This site in particular focuses on the story presented in this game, simply because there are much more details given than in any of the other compilations. Thus, I decided that Fair Verona would mainly focus on this game.

Crisis Core also does a good job of filling in storyline concepts left untold in the original, such as name origin of the sector 7 bar, Seventh Heaven, or how Cloud fell into Aerith's life just as Zack did before-- a key explanation of how Aerith found Zack in Cloud. Although using the game to fill in plot holes was a good idea on the part of Square-Enix, it brings to light a very undermined character and a digs into the roots of some that we are much familiar with.