Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII​ ( ダージュ オブ ケルベロス -ファイナルファンタジーVII

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII​ ( ダージュ オブ ケルベロス -ファイナルファンタジーVII, -Dāju obu Keruberosu -Fainaru Fantajī Sebun-? ) is a third person shooter game developed and published by Square Enix in 2006. It is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII metaseries, a multimedia collection set within the universe of the popular 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII.

he game begins with a flashback to the ending of Final Fantasy VII. As Meteor looms overhead, Yuffie and Vincent are in Midgar helping with the evacuation. Vincent tells Yuffie to check the Mako Cannon. She does so, and the device she is using finds a single person still alive there. Despite Yuffie's protests, Vincent ascends the Cannon to the firing controls to find the slumped body of Hojo. Vincent trains his triple-barreled handgun, Cerberus, on him but, just as he is about to fire, an explosion blows Hojo's body away and causes the tower to start crumbling. Vincent is narrowly rescued by Yuffie on a hovercraft, after which they rendez-vous with Cloud and the others.

Three years later, in the Waterfall Cavern,
Vincent sits with his lost love Lucrecia Crescent, her body encased in Mako Crystal. She speaks to him telepathically, apologizing, though Vincent doesn't know why, claiming he is the one who should apologize. This exchange is revealed to be a brief flashback, and Vincent is actually sitting alone in a hotel room in Kalm, where a celebration is taking place to commemorate the three-year anniversary of Meteorfall. A nearby television shows a news report about a recently uncovered entrance to an unknown part of the Shinra complex deep underground, where it is rumored a force of soldiers more powerful than SOLDIER were created.

Suddenly, an explosion in a nearby building heralds the appearance of multiple airships in the sky, each one containing a number of mysterious soldiers who drop to the ground and open fire on the civilians. Not all are killed however: people free of Geostigma are herded into carriers; those infected are attacked on sight. Vincent springs into action, making his way through the town, dispatching the mysterious soldiers and aiding civilians, to meet with Reeve Tuesti. Along the way he helps members of the World Regenesis Organization (WRO), an organization created by Reeve to help heal Gaia and protect it from further damage. At one point, Vincent is met by a small girl and a hulking man who demand of him the "Protomateria", of which Vincent knows nothing. After sending a wave of soldiers at him, the man accepts Vincent's "challenge", gives his name, Azul the Cerulean, and says that "[they] will meet again" before leaving with the girl. After this, Vincent meets up with Reeve, who asks Vincent to help the WRO in their cause, though Vincent is reluctant. Reeve gets shot from behind by one of the soldiers, but he is revealed to be a costume of sorts for Cait Sith, who plans with Vincent to launch an offensive against the attack.

After clearing out the town and forcing the soldiers to retreat with the help of the "real" Reeve and fresh WRO reinforcements, Vincent travels to Edge with Reeve, who reveals the collective name of the soldiers: Deepground. A new breed of supersoldiers even more powerful than SOLDIER, the project was initially ordered by President Shinra and very few others knew about it. What little information the WRO have on them was gleaned from Scarlet's files. Suddenly a transmission comes in, where a seated man with long, messy white hair claims that "the time has come to cleanse this world". Suddenly the vehicle is attacked by a pack of Deepground wolves that, despite Vincent's efforts to vanquish them, still cause the vehicle to crash. Vincent continues the journey to Edge on foot, battling more Deepground soldiers and wolves along the way.

Reaching Edge, Vincent meets Shalua Rui, a WRO scientist, who tells Vincent that the city is deserted before leaving, saying that she is searching for "[her] reason to live". Meanwhile a red-headed woman sits surrounded by countless corpses of WRO soldiers, lauding "Weiss" on his earlier speech. Making his way through the abandoned city, Vincent comes across a young boy who helps him get a keycard to access a warehouse where he meets the woman from before, who introduces herself as Rosso the Crimson before throwing Vincent into a wall. Chaos emerges from the rubble and launches an energy attack of such power that Rosso is forced to flee.

Having lost consciousness, Vincent awakens in a tube in the WRO headquarters being watched over by Shalua, who Vincent briefly mistakes for Lucrecia. After recovering fully, Vincent is given a new task by Reeve: go to the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim to find as much of Lucrecia's thesis on Chaos as possible. As well as the possibility of Vincent's Chaos form giving the WRO a fighting chance against Deepground, Shalua has a suspicion of Deepground's ultimate goal having something to do with the final WEAPON, Omega. Suddenly, WRO security is breached by Deepground soldiers led by Azul. Fighting his way through the complex and aiding WRO soldiers, Vincent finds Shalua, who sees that Vincent has been followed by the girl who was accompanying Azul earlier. After shedding her camouflage, the girl is revealed to be Shelke, Shalua's long-lost younger sister and the "reason to live" she had told Vincent of during their first meeting. Shelke reveals that she remembers being captured by Deepground, and that the Mako infusions they used to keep her in a 10-year old body (she is actually 19) are now required to keep her alive. Despite this, she still tries to complete her objective, and tries to attack Shalua. Fortunately, Reeve intervenes. Using special tranquilizer bullets, Vincent is able to best Shelke in battle and sedate her. However, upon leaving, Azul ambushes Vincent, showing that Shelke's attack was merely a foil for his own. By using nearby explosive barrels, Vincent is able to defeat Azul despite his shielding. After dealing with the problem, Vincent makes for Nibelheim to find Lucrecia's reports on Omega WEAPON and Chaos. Reeve advises him to go through the sewers, as the path above ground is crawling with Deepground soldiers.

Reaching the mansion through the sewers, Vincent is surprised to find a hologram of Lucrecia waiting for him, apologizing again. After finding the remaining data, Vincent runs into Rosso again. Preparing to battle her, Rosso instead flees and sends a spider-like mecha, the Black Widow, after him, which Vincent destroys in the mansion foyer. Preparing to leave, Rosso ambushes Vincent and plunges her hand into his chest, retrieving the Protomateria, which is revealed to be what allows Vincent to control Chaos. Without it, it is possible for Chaos to overwhelm him. Finally, Rosso makes to kill Vincent, but a sudden flash covers Vincent's rescue by a mysterious figure.

Vincent awakens in a WRO vehicle en-route to the WRO headquarters, being watched over by the person who saved him, who reveals herself to be none other than Yuffie Kisaragi. The truck crashes, forcing Vincent to make his way back on foot. On the way, Vincent finds a Deepground camp close by, and, sure enough, when he reaches the headquarters, it is under another attack by Deepground, this one even grander in scale. After dispatching the heavily fortified attack force outside the building, the entrance opens, revealing the inner building to be practically in ruins.

Once again, Vincent fights his way though the remains and helps the few remaining WRO soldiers before finding Shalua and Shelke under attack by a huge blue behemoth. Fending it off, Shelke pulls out a shield materia to reveal the creature as a transformed Azul, whose body had been held at the WRO before reviving. Asking Shelke why she stopped him, she replies that he had attacked her too. With this Azul attacks her again, saying that the Tsviets had only been using her because of her Synaptic Net Dive (SND) ability (creating a residual image of herself in the worldwide network to obtain information), and that Azul had never considered her a true member of the Tsviets. Reactivating the shield materia to hold him off while Shalua opens an escape route, Shelke is unable to do so long enough to stop the door from automatically closing. Holding a small space open with her mechanical arm, which begins to malfunction under the pressure from the door, Shalua ushers Shelke through it into Vincent's care. Shalua expresses regret that she couldn't rescue her younger sister from Deepground's clutches just before the door closes, crushing Shalua's mechanical arm and leaving her defenceless to an (unseen) attack by Azul, which renders her comatose.

Vincent, Yuffie, Reeve and Shelke manage to escape from the complex just in time for Cid to arrive with the Shera. With help from Cloud and co., the remnants of the WRO plan to lauch a simultaneous land-air attack on the remains of Midgar and the home of Deepground. What they don't know is that the Tsviets are waiting for them with an army of their own. On the Shera, Shelke struggles to deal with her sister's sacrifice and her abandonment by Deepground, and Vincent is seen to be gradually losing control over Chaos (though Lucrecia appears to help him regain composure). Eventually, Shelke decides to help Vincent and the WRO, though she insists that it is in her own best interests: while in Deepground, her main mission was to collect the fragments of Lucrecia's research on Omega and Chaos from the worldwide computer network and arrange them in her own mind to help find the Protomateria. However, this had an unintended side-effect: Lucrecia's thoughts and emotions began to mix with her own. On the WRO's side, as well as providing them with detailed information on Deepground, she can use the data collected by Vincent to complete the collection, remove it from her mind, and regain control of herself.

Using an SND, Shelke explains Lucrecia's findings on Omega WEAPON and Chaos:

Soul wrought of terra corrupt
Quelling impurity, purging the stream
To beckon forth an ultimate fate

Behold mighty Chaos, Omega's squire to the lofty heavens.

Omega WEAPON activates when Gaia senses that it is in fatal peril, gathers the entirety of the Lifestream using itself as the container, and ascends into space to find a new planet on which to deposit it and begin life anew. Without the Lifestream, the remains of Gaia would wither and die, crumbling into dust. As found by Cait Sith earlier, Deepground have been collecting people with pure Lifestream currents (i.e. not infected with Geostigma) to slaughter them en masse and dupe Gaia into activating Omega WEAPON early. The appearance of Chaos heralds that of Omega.

The attack soon begins with Vincent as part of the ground squad, but a stray bullet hitting his hoverboard lands him far from the others. Vincent fights through the Depground hordes, eventually reaching the remains of the Shinra building where, after fighting Rosso and Azul each for the last time, he reaches Mako Reactor 0, the home of Deepground. Meanwhile, on the Shera, Nero the Sable,another Tsviet and second-in-command, sabotages the engine and kills the engine room crew. Shelke tries to defeat him, but fails, falling into his darkness. Vincent travels deeper into Mako Reactor 0, successfully fighting off Nero, after which Yuffie appears again and accompanies Vincent to the throne of Weiss the Immaculate, the highest member of the Tsviets and leader of Deepground. In the meantime, Shelke, surviving in Nero's darkness using her shield materia, has a final conversation with the spirit of her sister, who asks if it would be alright for her to enter the Lifestream, reminding Shelke of the time their mother died.

Nero makes one final attempt to stop Vincent from approaching Weiss, who is revealed to be Nero's older brother, absorbing Vincent into his darkness, but Vincent is able to escape, with Shelke in tow, because his own darkness (Chaos) is much deeper. Despite Nero's best attempts, Vincent defeats him. After getting Shelke to a Mako tank, Vincent and Yuffie approach Weiss' throne, only to find him slumped on his throne, lifeless. Nero appears and tells them of Weiss' resurrection through absorbing the powers of Omega. Suddenly the Lifestream around the room surges and Weiss rises, reborn. Nero attempts to embrace his brother, but Weiss impales him and throws his body across the room. After a monologue referring to the events of Final Fantasy VII, Weiss is revealed to be possessed by the spirit of Hojo, who had used his remaining strength after being defeated at the Mako Cannon to upload his consciousness into the worldwide network. Hojo was able to usurp Weiss' body because of Weiss being in the middle of an SND to find a cure for a virus he was infected with by the Restrictors, leaving his mind wide open. Vincent attempts to defeat Weiss, but with the power of Omega he is practically invincible and Vincent is easily defeated. In his weakened state, Vincent starts losing control of Chaos again, but Lucrecia appears again and pleads for Vincent not to let Chaos control him. Weiss attempts to finish Vincent off, but Vincent deflects his attack, "utilizing the Protomateria to call forth Chaos while retaining [his] human form", as Hojo puts it. Enhanced by the powers of Chaos, Vincent is able to fight Weiss to a standstill. At this point, the spirit of Nero appears, silences Hojo's flaunts about the power of Omega, and finally embraces his brother, infusing him with his spirit and exorcising Hojo's spirit from Weiss' body. Finally, Weiss enters the surrounding Lifestream, which activates the appearance of Omega.

Omega WEAPON begins forming over the remains of Midgar by drawing Mako directly from the Reactors. Vincent is swept up in one of the currents, and loses control over Chaos in the process, transforming into the demon to escape from inside Omega. Shelke senses what's happening, and enters SND, which also allows her to communicate with living beings on the subconscious level. Entering Omega, Shelke finds the spirit of Lucrecia with the Protomateria, and evades Omega's attacks to return it to Vincent, allowing him complete control over Chaos' form.

At this point, a series of flashbacks expand upon the backstories of Vincent and, to a greater degree, Lucrecia. Lucrecia was a Shinra scientist and assistant to Professor Grimoire Valentine, Vincent's father. Studying Chaos and Omega WEAPON with only an ancient Cetra text to go on, Lucrecia completes a thesis on the subject which is heavily mocked. However, rather than dampening her spirits, their criticism just drives her to prove them wrong. Later, Lucrecia and Grimoire find the Waterfall Cavern which, according to the Cetra text, is the place where Chaos will appear on Gaia. Finding a dark, mist-like substance, they take it back to the Shinra Mansion where a violent reaction when studying it almost claims Lucrecia's life, with Grimoire pushing her out of harm's way at the last second, sacrificing himself instead. This tragedy strikes Lucrecia hard, affecting her future actions. Shortly afterward, Vincent is assigned her protection. Flustered that she would have to interact with the son of her deceased mentor, and worried that he would find out the truth, Lucrecia hides these feelings and introduces herself.

In time, Vincent and Lucrecia form an informal friendship where Vincent's feelings begin to grow, until Vincent happens upon a confidential file Lucrecia left unattended and finds out about what happened to his father. When he asks Lucrecia about it, she assumes he will react harshly and, after apologizing to Vincent, flees the situation and enters a relationship with Hojo, which would lead her into the Jenova Project, and bring Sephiroth into the world. Rather than trying to stop things, Vincent merely stands back, believing that whatever makes Lucrecia happy is best. However, upon seeing her continued and increasingly severe suffering, Vincent confronts Hojo, who shoots him in the stomach. Lucrecia enters at this point and what she sees only makes her already fragile mental state even worse. Not wanting a repeat of what happened with Grimoire, Lucrecia resolves to save Vincent no matter what the cost. Unable to stop tissue decay, a mocking remark from Hojo gives her the idea to use her research on Chaos to find a solution. By injecting Vincent with G Substance (the dark substance that killed Grimoire), Lucrecia stabilizes Vincent's body, but at a cost: Vincent becomes Chaos. Crying out in despair at her repeated failures, the Protomateria appears before Lucrecia, which she uses to calm the beast and return Vincent to human form. With her mind practically broken as a result of all that has happened, Lucrecia tries to commit suicide, but the Jenova cells inside her thwart her attempts. Consequently, she seals herself away from the world inside the Waterfall Cavern. In the meantime, Hojo takes Vincent's body and uses it in his experiments where it turns out that, with the power of Chaos inside him, Vincent has become immortal, which enables him to survive Hojo's tests. After regaining consciousness and reacting in horror at his new form (the Galiant Beast), he is sealed in a coffin in the basement of the Shinra Mansion, where he would sleep for 30 years before meeting Cloud and his party.

Finally, Lucrecia appears to Vincent in a dream sequence where she laments how much she hurt him and makes one last plea for his forgiveness, but is "happy that [he] survived". With this, Vincent activates his Chaos form, takes Shelke to safety, materializes the Death Penalty and faces down Omega WEAPON, obliterating its defenses in order to get close enough to find that it is protected from direct assault by a barrier. Fortunately, the WRO, together with Cloud and co., work on taking down the remains of Deepground and cheer Vincent on as he charges straight through the barrier and enters the inside of Omega, where he takes down more of the WEAPON's defenses before coming face-to-face with it. Vincent enters a portal in Omega's head into an ethereal-looking white space. After taking out some Crystal Feelers, Omega's Cocoon is forced to the surface and quickly destroyed. Afterwards Vincent encounters Weiss, now fully integrated with the powers of Omega, and he and Vincent promptly fight to a standstill. Weiss summons a biomechanical creature similar to Omega WEAPON but smaller in stature and connects himself to it, forming the final boss: Omega Weiss. Vincent defeats Weiss and escapes Omega who, rather than deactivating, actually sprouts wings and prepares to ascend into space. Seeing this, Vincent amasses all the power Chaos can afford him and charges headlong into Omega WEAPON, destroying it, and supposedly Vincent as well. As the credits roll the camera pans deep into an abyss, where Shalua's life support tank is embedded in the ground, heavily damaged. Shalua lies there, lifeless, as wisps of Lifestream begin to emanate from her body.

In the epilogue, Shelke, sitting inside Seventh Heaven, narrates that life has begun to return to normal, and that she seems to be beginning to age again. Yuffie bursts in, asking Tifa if she's heard from Cloud regarding "him"; Tifa replies that she hasn't. Shelke is seen to be speaking into a cassette recorder. Meanwhile, Vincent is inside the Waterfall Cavern speaking to Lucrecia. He tells her that both Omega and Chaos have returned to the Lifestream until they are actually needed. Before leaving, he thanks her, saying that "[she was] the reason [he] survived". Unseen by Vincent, a tear rolls down Lucrecia's cheek. Exiting the cavern, Vincent is surprised to find Shelke looking in the distance. Without looking round, she tells him that everyone is waiting for him, and that they made her come and get him, "not that [she minds], though". They look to the sky together, where fragments of Omega remain, floating in space.

If the player collected all three G Reports, a secret ending sequence shows the emergence of Genesis Rhapsodos in a cave where he finds the body of Weiss, carries it into his arms and, saying that "it is not yet time for slumber" and that "[they] still have much work to do", as well as calling Weiss "[his] brother", unfurls his lone black wing and flies away.