Story: 50 years ago, a sword containing an unknown material was found in an ancient German Castle. The  blade of the sword was broken and a mysterious stone set in the middle. This sword was called 'Ehrgeiz' and became the symbol for a tournament to decide who is the world's strongest fighter. The sword was presented to the winner.

Review:

Well well, where to begin? The story, the characters, the FMV...just what? Okay, let's try breaking it down into several parts.

Usually, when I play fighting games, I ignore the story completely. To me, a fighting game is merely to vent out frustration. This is the same case for Ehrgeiz. I don't care about the sword. Really, I don't. But I guess if you're looking for a story, you could try. Fighting for a sword which has mystical powers...nope, haven't really heard of it yet.

I have to confess: I bought this game for the FF7 charas. Then I got myself a gameshark code  which enabled me to play as Vincent and Yuffie. If it wasn't because of them, I would've given this a miss. Unfortunately, as all the reviews say, they're just there to make the game popular. The other characters are all fine, but I think they won't be popular compared to Sephiroth or Cloud. Plus, this is the only time you get Sephiroth to beat up Cloud!

Now come on, I dare you to say you never wanted Sephiroth to defeat Cloud. Permanently.

Yes, Sephiroth is just there to make gullible people like me buy the game! He has to be the *only* FF7 character to have an FMV ending. And that's just a collage of FMV from FF7 stringed together with the orchestra version of 'One Winged Angel' in the background. At least I *think* it's One Winged Angel because I didn't turn on the volume.

The O button's just for your special attack. For Cloud, Sephiroth and Zack, it's to draw your sword. For Tifa, it's Final Heaven. For Yuffie, it's tiny shuriken. For Vincent...errr....he shoots, and if you hold it long enough, he shoots guided missiles. And so on. But you can't do these forever. Why? Because if you did, it would make the game too easy. Thus, it runs out after a while. I think I actually had more fun when Vincent hit his enemies with his gun rather than shoot. Oh, and another thing: Before you start the game, set it to very easy. If normal is hard, I wonder how is very hard.

The frame rates are smooth. Everything happens so fast. And not to mention that the surroundings are in 3D, so that means you have to run around the ring, kick your opponent, jump up to a ledge, jump down, kick your opponent even more, run some more, kick your opponent, jump up, kick your opponent again....

Whee.

For the terminally bored, you have your choice of mini games and a quest mode, much like an RPG. But since I don't understand kanji, I dropped it. Some of the mini-games were nice, like a life-sized othello and running round a track course. The other two were a beach battle and a survival battle. Nothing much.

If you like FF7, go ahead and buy it. This is the only time you'll be able to see Vincent as a Turk and play as Sephiroth (shirtless!). Otherwise, you could just go and borrow it from somebody else.

+ Nice FMV.
+ Smooth framing.
+ Vincent Valentine and Sephiroth.
+ You get to beat up Cloud with Sephiroth! Make your own ending of FF7! ^^;;

- No FMV for any of the FF7 charas save Sephiroth.
- Particularly frustrating when you *think* you're kicking Cloud, but you're actually hitting air because of the 3D environments.