Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII - Reception

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII shipped 392,000 units in its first week. On August 31, 2008, Square Enix announced that 460,000 units were sold in North America and 270,000 units in Europe. As of November 2008, over 513,000 copies of the game have been sold in Japan alone. In July 2006, Dirge of Cerberus was in Sony's Gold category of top selling video games (the Gold category includes games which have sold anything from 500,000 units to 1 million).

Upon its release in Japan, the game received mixed reviews. Gaming magazine Dengeki PS2 rewarded the game with a 313/400, while Famitsu scored it a lower 28/40. Famitsu's review of the title hinted at a controversy between the magazine and Square Enix.

Dirge of Cerberus received similarly mixed reviews from English critics. GameSpot stated that Dirge of Cerberus "does have a few interesting and even entertaining moments, but will ultimately leave action game fans and Final Fantasy fans feeling unfulfilled." Despite stating Dirge of Cerberus is not "the best use of the Final Fantasy VII universe," IGN called it "a decent game with a strong story and occasionally-engaging rifle blasting." 1UP.com gave the game a D+, criticizing the enemies' intelligence and weak scenarios, and labeling the story "boring." Reviewers from Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it a C, with Shane Bettenhausen stating that he found all of the titles in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII to be unappealing. Eurogamer found that Dirge of Cerberus was a "risky gamble" by Square Enix, as their first shooter, and he criticized the fact that most of the main characters in the game were either optional in Final Fantasy VII or had only small roles. GameSpy awarded the game a "fair" score of three stars out of five, calling its gameplay and plot interesting, but finding other aspects generic. GameTrailers praised the game's storyline, calling it "convoluted, but incredibly impressive in its scope." They also praised the changes Square had made to the Western versions, but found the game to be very similar to Devil May Cry, and felt that it didn't make good enough use of Vincent's abilities. While the CGI cutscenes and designs also received positive comments, the lack of variety in enemy types was criticized. G4's game review show, X-Play, gave the game a negative review, with 2 stars out of 5, citing poor level design, weak gameplay, too many cutscenes and bad AI. At GameRankings, the game holds a score of 60%. The combined score from Metacritic is 57 out of 100 based on 51 reviews.