Blood: There is no blood in gameplay or cutscenes, just sparks/firework or particle effects, if you will, when you hit an enemy. Very mild stuff. In fact, if I were the ESRB, I would create a new rating for games like this that says something like, "Animated particle effects."

Specific scenes of blood:

• One of the villains, the main character's former best friend, uses his powers to turn into a monster, and then grazes the main character's face with his trident. The scratch is visible on the main character's cheek. You then have no choice but to fight and kill him. After you defeat him, there are also a couple of visible scratches on his face.
• In a later scene, the main villain removes his mother's head (not what it sounds like; read about her further down for clarification) and takes it with him for further experiment. You can also see what resembles a brain at the top of her head, but as mentioned lower in this review, she is a monster and not human.

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Mild language: Overall, the language is very mild and spread quite thin over the 30 hour game. There are 13 uses of d**n and 2 uses of h**l.

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Mild suggestive themes: One of the female characters wears a slightly revealing two-piece bathing suit in a short scene at the beach. And later in the game, one of the other female characters is seen wearing a cowboy outfit that covers about as much as the two-piece bathing suit mentioned above. There is also very light flirting between the main male and female character.

In one scene, a side character asks the main character what the name of his bar should be. The main character responds with a name, and then the side character says something close to, "Ya, and I should have a young girl work behind the bar, with a big bosom and long legs!" The main character then says something along the lines of, "Now you're talking!"

The main villain's mother is a 2000 year-old, preserved humanoid monster in suspended animation. She appears to be naked, but it's offset by the fact that, though she does have the overall female form, she is scaly and deformed, and looks more like a fossilized pile of mud, seaweed and fish scales shaped into the female form than anything else.

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Violence: This game is a prequel to Final Fantasy VII for the original Playstation. The story is the most popular and fleshed out of the series. If you are familiar with the original, you know this game has a sad ending. Since this is a content review mainly for parents, I will spoil it for you and say that the main character does die at the end, and the overall story is quite tragic.

One story element throughout the game's narrative that could be found as slightly disturbing is that of human cloning. There are several journals and papers readable throughout the game that explain the process: Some enemies are part human/monster clones, and you are responsible for taking out a cloning facility, where you see the process taking place, as well as the clones in vats and oversized test tubes. The main villains are also genetically engineered soldiers bred for fighting. This theme is what the villains struggle with throughout, as they try to find their true purpose. Overall the story is about degradation and how splitting yourself into so many pieces takes its toll. Also, near the very end of the game, the main characters are captured for experimentation. Because of complicated political and social issues in the story, once they escape, they are forced to fight people who were once their friends.

If you've seen Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children or played the Kingdom Hearts series, you pretty much get the style of violence in this game. If you haven't played or seen these, here is an explanation: the violence is a mix of over-the-top sci-fi/fantasy; nothing is really bloody or gory, and the physics (especially in the CG cutscenes) almost don't exist--that is, think Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon wire work and ramp it up x10. In other words, everything is very flashy, showy and overall cool, and never gets very offensive violence-wise.