Well, let's be blunt. The fighting game part of
Ehrgeiz is passable at best, and pretty lame at worst. The characters are terribly imbalanced -- I got through almost every single person using Cloud Strife and his sword by simply swinging the sword in front of me constantly. Really. Some of the other characters (like GODHAND) are almost impossible to get past people with. Sure, you get to play as various characters from
Final Fantasy VII. Yes, the environments are extremely cool, with free-roaming 3D (albeit tiny, but that's understandable, because
Bushido Blade, this is not). But the fighting game itself is almost trivial. You have high attacks, mid attacks, low attacks and your special attack. Various combinations of buttons do various moves, a la every other fighting game ever made, but they're rarely necessary.
Where the good gameplay is in Ehrgeiz is in the mini games and the built-in RPG quest (which seems to be an obsession of Dream Factory, since Tobal No. 1 and Tobal 2 had them as well). One of the mini-games, a very Othello-style board game played in real time, is almost worth the purchase price alone. It's a great little action-puzzle game that will keep you on your toes. The Beach Battle minigame is fun too, if hard as hell. The real gameplay in Ehrgeiz comes from the RPG mode, where you delve deep into a dungeon, picking up new weapons and equipment, and generally beating the hell out of every creature you meet. The battle engine is considerably simpler, but you can have many enemies on the screen at once, trying to beat the snot out of you. It's not terribly difficult, but it is damned fun, and will take you quite a few hours to beat. A pleasant little diversion, definitely.