Before Crisis: From Mission Start To Finish

When you first start playing the game, you are asked to create a character. At the current time, you are allowed the selection of two characters at a time. You may switch between characters as you wish. Once you have selected your character, you begin the game. Your first mission involves the patrol of Sector 8 – a standard duty for all rookie Turks, as Tseng will tell you. He will go over how to use Materia in the game. To start using Materia, you must first create it - this is done through a system that takes advantage of the camera on your mobile phone.

To create Materia, you select the Materia option in your main menu. If you have not created Materia prior to starting your game, this will mean that you will have to leave it and go back to the main menu. Once you are in the Materia submenu, you will select the “Create Materia” option. This will activate your camera phone. Depending on the dominant colours of the picture you have taken, a different Materia will be produced. For example, taking a picture of something that is predominantly white will most likely produce a Cure Materia. The best thing to do is to try taking pictures of different things – you may come up with some strange and wonderful combinations that you never knew existed.

Once you have your Materia, you it automatically goes into your inventory. The number of Materia you are allowed to keep in your inventory depends on your rank and performance during missions. The number of Materia generally allowed in weapons and armour put together is three – two in your armour, one in your weapon. As in Final Fantasy VII, Materia in Before Crisis will level up when in use. The number of times you make use of your Materia, as well as where you have slotted it will have an impact on its growth. It is also possible to use Summon Materia, though the existence of such Materia is rather different at this stage. Rather than having a specific Summon Materia, you must use three top grade Materia in order to produce the summon effect. As your rank increases, you will be allowed to store more Materia. You will also be able to create higher grade Materia such as Cura or Curaga. Having several top grade Materia used at the same time will produce a Summon.

A last note on Materia is the effect is has on your attacks. The stronger the Materia slotted into your weapon becomes, the more your attacks will begin to favour that attack. For example placing a low level Comet Materia in your weapon will at first produce about a 10-20% chance of the attack carrying the Comet element. As your Materia levels up, the percentage of your attacks that will take on that element will increase. It is a good idea to experiment with different Materia and see the effects they will have on your enemies.

Now that you have your Materia, you are ready to embark upon your first mission. Depending on which players you use, you will have specialized attacks in place especially for that player that can be activated by pressing the keys on your mobile phone in a certain pattern. The methods and strategies used to attack enemies is also different depending on whether your player is a close range fighter, relies on a projectile weapon, etc. Attack patterns also change depending on whether you allow the game’s “Auto Attack” feature to guide your attacks. Once you have played to the end of a particular episode, you will have to wait for the next episode update, or, if the episode has been added to the game already, you may move on and play that one.

At the end of an episode, you will generally be evaluated on your performance by either Tseng or Veld. Top notch performance is vital to moving up the ranks and unlocking different techniques and capabilities for your character.

This type of gameplay, where you work your way through the storyline of the game is called Episode Mode. There are two other modes available in the game: Free Mode and Rescue Mode. In Free Mode you are placed in a certain location and must complete certain objectives within that mode. For completing these objectives, you will get a prize, and in later episodes there is a chance to obtain a Dio Medal. If you have enough of these, you can unlock special events or prizes in Gold Saucer. Rescue Mode, on the other hand is exactly as it sounds. Your objective in this mode is to rescue a fellow Turk that has failed a mission. The premise is that they have been captured by AVALANCHE – you must get them out. If you are KO’d during the course of the game, or fail a mission objective, you will also be brought to one of the two AVALANCHE holding facilities, where you will await rescue from one of your fellow players on the network.

Rank in the game is established through the RP (Rank Point) system. With the successful completion of each mission, you gain a certain amount of RP, which serves two functions. RP is necessary in order to gain rank – generally speaking, the higher your RP is, the further up the ladder you will climb. RP is also important when upgrading weapons and purchasing items and Materia. Every time you perform certain actions, you will use up some of your RP – changing a character, for example, costs approximately 1000 RP, and upgrading weapons also costs about the same.

Another aspect of the game that differs from Final Fantasy VII are the save points. Unlike traditional games, you will not find save points – in Episode Mode, the game automatically saves from the last episode break you left off at – an episode is divided into a number of sections, so if you exit the game, your game will load again from the section you left it at. Note that there is only one “save point” slot available at this point – you may only save at one point time; in other words, you cannot save at Episode 3 and play Episode 8 without having the save data for Episode 3 deleted. This is one readily apparent drawback of mobile gaming technology to date - unlike the standard console, it is not possible to create multiple save files.