Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion brings players closer to Final Fantasy 7's evil Shinra Electric Power Company than ever before. Playing as Zack Fair, players take on the role of an elite SOLDIER completing missions under Shinra's guidance, and as a result of this, they get to see and hear about some of Shinra's shadiest experiments firsthand. In terms of Final Fantasy 7's narrative, probably the most important experiment conducted by Shinra's scientists is known as the Jenova Project, sometimes referred to as the Ancients Project. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion helps players to understand what this project entails and the impact it has on some of the game's key characters.
The Jenova Project, and the subsequent Project G and Project S that are linked to it, can be traced back to an extraterrestrial species that Shinra discovered inside a crater, approximately 30 years before events in Final Fantasy 7. Shinra's scientists mistook this life form to be a Cetra, part of an ancient civilization that is able to commune with the planet itself. As a result of this mistaken identity, Shinra took the life form, which they called Jenova, deep into their underground laboratories, and began to do experiments on it in a bid to use it to create more Cetras.
The Jenova Project Has Some Devastating Consequences
The project itself was divided into two sections: Project S (Project Sephiroth) and Project G (Project Gillian), with the two in direct competition to see which branch could make the superior specimen. Project S was headed up by Professor Hojo, while Dr. Hollander oversaw Project G. Professor Hojo's work on Project S involved injecting Jenova's cells directly into his unborn child, which resulted in the birth of Sephiroth, Final Fantasy 7's iconic villain, a specimen considered to be the most advanced of all the Jenova Project's creations. For this reason, Project S is seen as the more successful of the two. In spite of his superiority though, Sephiroth did not in fact become a Cetra as Shinra had hoped he would.
Project G saw Dr. Hollander inject Jenova's cells directly into a woman called Gillian Hewley, mother of Angeal Hewley, a 1st Class SOLDIER who serves as a mentor to Zack Fair. Hollander hoped that this would mean anyone who received Gillian's cells would inherit Jenova's abilities. She gave birth to Angeal, and her cells were also injected into Genesis Rhapsodos. Both would inherit superhuman strength and speed among other powers, but neither would inherit Jenova's full abilities.
When compared to Project S's Sephiroth, Shinra deemed Project G a failure and ultimately closed it down. However, unbeknownst to them, Hollander would continue work on Project G far below the surface of Midgar in a facility known as Deepground, where his testing methods became more unstable, but results were broadly the same, and nothing was created that could compare to Sephiroth. Over time, subjects of Project G began to succumb to various illnesses, as the cells in their bodies slowly degraded. In contrast, Sephiroth's body showed no signs of degradation.
The success of Sephiroth saw Shinra move forward with plans to create a genetically-enhanced military force, which would become known as SOLDIER. Among others, both Cloud Strife and Zack Fair were experimented on by Hojo, having their cells exposed to Jenova's, as well as mako energy. Hojo's theory, which he called the 'Reunion Theory', was that by doing this he could make them into clones of Sephiroth, who could effectively be made to follow Sephiroth's commands. Zack resisted the treatment, presumably because he had already been exposed to high levels of experimentation as a 1st Class Soldier, but Cloud succumbed to the treatment, as did many others who were killed by Sephiroth. In the original FF7 continuity, following Sephiroth's death, Cloud would become the sole survivor of Project S.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
