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Content review for this game:
Pertaining to the ESRB rating.
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Content sum up: While its narrative is moderately intense, the game's content is otherwise mild, with negligible blood, language, combat and tame suggestive themes. So, I recommend this game for ages 13+. |
Blood: There are no blood effects in gameplay or cutscenes, just sparks and firework-like particle effects, if you will, when you hit an enemy. However, there is some very mild static blood on the main character's face in one scene, listed below:
Specific scenes of blood:
- A villain, the main character's former best friend, uses his powers to turn into a monster, and then grazes the main character, Zack's, face with his trident. The lightly bloodied scratch is visible on his cheek. After defeating said villain, there are a couple of visible, lightly bloodied scratches also visible on his face.
- In a later scene, the main villain removes his mother's head (not what it sounds like; read about her further down in "Mild suggestive themes" for clarification) and takes it with him for further experiments. You can also see what resembles a brain at the top of her head, but she is a monster, not human.
Mild language: The game's language is very mild, and spread quite thinly over the 30 hour campaign, with a dozen uses of d*mn and two uses of hell.
Mild suggestive themes:
- two female characters are each seen wearing scant, slightly revealing two-piece bathing suits in a couple of brief cutscenes at the beach. And the main male and female character flirt in an apparent but light manner throughout the game.
- A character asks Zack what the name of his bar should be—Zack responds with a name. The first responds, "Ya, and I should have a young girl work behind the bar, with a big bosom and long legs!" Zack replies, "Now you're talking!"
- The main villain's "mother" is a 2000 year-old, preserved humanoid monster in suspended animation. She appears to be naked, but it is offset by the fact that she is scaly and deformed, and looks more like a fossilized pile of seaweed and fish scales shaped into female form than anything else.
Violence: This is a prequel to Final Fantasy VII for the Playstation. If you are familiar with the original, you know this has a sad ending, and since this is a content review, I will say that the protagonist, Zack, does die at the end, with an overall narrative that is both meloncoly and somewhat tragic. Another story element that could be found as slightly disturbing is that of human cloning, with several journals and papers readable throughout that explain this process; some enemies are human/monster clones; and you are responsible for taking out a cloning facility, where you see the process taking place, as well as the clones in vats and oversized test tubes.
The main villains are genetically engineered soldiers bred for fighting—a theme that they struggle with throughout as they try to find their true purpose. And as mentioned above, the story can be quite tragic, with an overall story about degradation and how splitting yourself into so many pieces takes its toll. And near the very end, the protag-onits are captured for experimentation; because of complicated political issues in the story, once they escape, they are forced to fight people who were once their friends. If you have watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children or played Kingdom Hearts, the style of violence is very similar. If you have not, here's the idea: violence is a mix of over-the-top sci-fi and fantasy; nothing is bloody or gory, and the physics (especially in the CG cutscenes) are nearly non-existent, think of Kung Fu wire works and ramp it up x10. In other words, the action is very flashy and showy, but combat is bloodless, and the tone of violence is fantastical, not graphic or realistic.
Specific scenes of violence:
- The two main villains kill their parents for unknown reasons. You see one of the villains' mother lying unbloodied and dead on the floor (you later discover that she killed herself in shame because of what her son turned out to be).
- In a later scene, Zack stabs the main villain through with a sword, as the villain returns the favor and stabs Zack through. Zack grabs the sword while it is still through him, and throws it at the villain, resulting in the villain hitting a far wall and falling to his "supposed" death (no blood/gore).
Content review posted: 04/16/2008
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