Set Seven years prior to the exploits of VII and features many of the characters from VII, Tifa, Cloud and Sephiroth, yet it also introduces some new ones too;
- Angeal - A SOLDIER 1st Class and Zack's Mentor
- Genesis - Another SOLDIER 1st Class and friends to both Sephiroth and Angeal

This story follows Zack, previously never a playable character in any of the FFVII games and friend to Cloud, a 2nd Class SOLDIER employed by Shinra who, as a 2nd Class SOLDIER, looks up to Sephiroth and Angeal and wants to aspire to be as great as them.

Crisis Core has a very unique battle system, like with Final Fantasy XII, you have the freedom to walk about during battle and attack almost whenever you want, however, with CC they have made more charges, they have introduced a new system called DMW or Digital Mind Wave, this involves three spinning reels in the top left corner that have pictures on them (Initially no pictures, but as you progress more appear showing characters such as Tsung *Turks* and Aeris) and each has a special ability that acts a lot like the limit breaks of old Final Fantasy Games, each reel also interacts with the other reels to give power-ups and even level ups at random points during battle. Another aspect of the battle system is more of a re-introduction really, to select an attack you must use the shoulder buttons to navigate, these can be set up out of battle in the customization screen, and these can be attack and materia with the only constants being Attack and Items. Materia and attacks are also upgraded via the DMW.

The DMW also has numbers on them, these numbers affect the power of attacks and when the numbers all read 777 and has three characters the same this causes a character level up.