Final Fantasy VIII.

Original Release: Sony PlayStation, 1999. Version Reviewed: Sony PlayStation, 1999.


THE PLOT:

Squall Leonhart is a young man studying at Balamb Garden to become a SeeD, a force of elite mercenaries whose services are regularly requested by governments and citizens alike. Squall passes the final exam and becomes a SeeD, alongside fellow trainees Selphie and Zell. Squall's rival, Seifer, fails the test due to his own impulsiveness, leading to even more resentment between the two.

Squall's first mission is to assist Rinoa, the daughter of General Caraway, head of the Galbadian military. Galbadia's weak-willed president has sold his country out to the evil sorceress Edea. Rinoa wants the SeeDs to help her free her country, and Gen. Caraway has a plan to assassinate the sorceress during a public event.

The plan goes awry, and the sorceress launches reprisals against all the Gardens. But Balamb Garden has a secret, and Squall and his companions soon find themselves preparing for a war that will decide the fate of the entire planet!

Squall and Rinoa meet at a Balamb Garden dance.

SQUALL LEONHART:

When I play a game that I know I'll review, I jot down my thoughts between play sessions. This is far from a remarkable or unusual procedure, and I mention it only because looking over my notes about Squall reminds me of my journey with this game.

I have never been fond of the "broody loner" trope. I made more than a few digs at the characterization of Cloud Strife in my Final Fantasy VII reviews, and Squall makes early Cloud look accessible and likable by comparison. Squall isn't merely standoffish - He's deliberately rude to just about everyone around him, and most of the notes I took while playing through the first disc reflected my annoyance at such an unlikable main character.

It took a while, but at a certain point the character just snapped into focus for me. There's a moment in Disc Two, where the characters split into separate parties, where those in the "B" party wonder if Squall assigned them to a dangerous mission because he trusted them to accomplish it or because he simply didn't care about them. When they later return, after the others believed them to be dead, everyone is surprised at Squall's brief but unmissable display of relief.

The key to the character is that he really isn't the "cool, brooding loner." He's actually massively socially awkward. He doesn't quite know how to deal with the emotions he feels, so he puts up an emotionless front to avoid dealing with them. He's also wary of growing close to others or of counting on others, lest they be taken away from him. At his core, he's still the version of himself that the game cuts back to multiple times: a frightened child, alone in the rain.

All of which is to say that, over the course of the game, Squall went from being my least favorite Final Fantasy protagonist to being my favorite in the series so far.

Squall's first sight of Rinoa.

MAJOR CHARACTERS:

Rinoa: Though the series has featured romance before, this is the first game in which the romance is a primary focus. Rinoa is Squall's opposite, outgoing and socially confident. She spends much of the story trying to draw him out of his shell. At first, this almost seems like an amusement, with her teasing to get a reaction, any reaction. When she first approaches him at the dance, her primary interest still lies with his rival, Seifer, and she dances with him as much for something to do while she waits as anything else. As she gets to know him, she becomes intrigued, then alternately amused and exasperated. By the time he realizes his own feelings, she's already reciprocating, though it isn't until a (visually gorgeous) cutscene in the latter half of Disc Three that they are explicitly framed as a couple.

Laguna: "I dreamt I was a moron." Throughout the first three discs, there are various points in which Squall, Zell, and Selphie collapse and finds themselves dreaming of the life of Laguna. He is basically the anti-Squall, impulsive, friendly, and eternally optimistic. Across the string of flashbacks, we see that many things do not end up going his way. Even so, he is never less than cheerful, disguising his pain behind a smile the same way Squall does behind a scowl. Squall dubs him a moron after the first dream sequence; in almost the same breath, Selphie calls him "cool" and spends the rest of the game being a massive fangirl, even creating a website detailing his life (which gets updated every time you find an issue of Timber Maniacs during gameplay).

Seifer: Squall's rival at Balamb Garden. He's initially just a one-dimensional jerk, the "Big Man on Campus" who bullies others while pursuing glory for himself. Like most of the characters, he gains depth as the story progresses. He's always an enemy, but there is a core of something sympathetic in him. His needs aren't unlike Squall's. He desperately wants a place to belong (though, like Squall, he'd never admit it). He worries about the approval of others; Squall masks this trait by pretending to care about nothing, while Seifer masks it by being an aggressive glory hound. As the story unfolds, Squall gains respect, position, and friends; and while Seifer has friends who are every bit as loyal as Squall's team, I suspect that he can't help but look on in envy as his old rival accumulates everything that might have been - in his mind, should have been - his.

Seifer expresses his view of life to Squall and Zell.

SQUALL'S TEAM:

While none of the other squadmates receive the same level of characterization, most of them get at least a few moments to feel like more than interchangeable backup units. Selphie is enthusiastic in every situation. She spends much of the first part of the game trying to single-handedly put together a Garden social event, a thread that culminates in an impromptu concert. Unless you pick the exact right instruments, this ends up being a giddy display of incompetence... which actually strikes me as the most fitting result.

Zell matches her energy, though for him it manifests not in social situations but physical aggression. His weapon of choice is his fists, and he will punch the air or random surfaces at wildly inappropriate moments. Lest he come across purely as comic relief, he does get a couple nice moments when his parents' home is occupied by enemy forces during the mid-game. Oddly, his personal hero is his grandfather, who fought in the last war and whom Zell respects as much for his judgment and restraint as for his fighting prowess... which, as Squall observes, makes Zell's grandfather pretty much the opposite of Zell himself.

Irvine is introduced as an arrogant, womanizing lout, a sniper who boasts of his prowess. When he hesitates to take a shot during his first assignment with the group, it seems like cowardice... until a later reveal that gives his hesitation added dimension. It's difficult to talk more about him without talking about that reveal. Suffice to say, there's more to him than his initial scenes suggest, and he actually ends up being a fairly likable character by the end.

The least interesting member of the group is Quistis Trepe, Squall's instructor who becomes his subordinate. She's the youngest teacher at the Garden. She's close in age to the students, and as a result has attracted a flock of both male and female admirers who call themselves "Trepies." Sadly, that's really all there is to the character, with her development basically stopping about midway through Disc One. Not coincidentally, she was the party member I used the least.

The junction system: Not nearly as complicated
as the tutorials make it seem.

THE JUNCTION SYSTEM - NOT AS COMPLICATED AS IT LOOKS:

The Final Fantasy series has long experimented with different systems for controlling skills and stats. Final Fantasy III introduced the job system, which was later refined in Final Fantasy V. Final Fantasy VII and its spinoffs had characters equip materia to determine what spells they could cast.

Final Fantasy VIII continues the series' experimentation, introducing the junction system. Unlike other games in the series, enemies level up with you - meaning that you can't just blast through tough bosses by grinding for XP. Instead, you need to improve your stats by junctioning Guardian Forces (summons) and also individual spells to boost either defensive or offensive stats.

The in-game tutorials make this look horribly complicated, particularly since they dump a lot of information on you pretty much all at once. Fear not: While the early tutorials resemble study material for a graduate level course, it's fairly simple at its core. For the early game, just make sure you equip GFs to all your active party members and pick your command skills under "Ability."

That alone will get you through Disc One and much of Disc Two, because most of the game is surprisingly low difficulty. By the time you run into enough of a challenge to seriously worry about GF abilities, elemental junctions, or anything else, you'll have had several hours to play with the various options. Just don't neglect doing some periodic trial-and-error with the junction menus, and you'll pick most of it by yourself with relatively few problems.

An early boss battle against the Guardian Force Ifrit.

GAMEPLAY:

Combat is similar overall to that of the past several main series outings. There are a couple of additional features worth mentioning, however. This game features no MP limitation on casting magic. Instead, you stock magic the same way you do items. When you cast, say, "Fire," you lose one of your stock of that spell. You can stock spells from draw points, but the most common resource is the enemies. Equip "Draw" as one of your command skills, and you can hoover up spell after spell. In encounters with enemies with particularly useful spells (i. e., "Aura" or "Curaga"), I would keep that enemy alive as long as possible until all my characters had stocked as many of the spell as they could.

The game utilizes both summons (GFs) and limit breaks. Summons are so overpowered in the early game that you'll be tempted to just spam them on every enemy. I would recommend not falling into this trap. By the endgame, limit breaks are far more useful, while most summons take too long to be worth the trouble. Upgrade your weapons at every opportunity. Squall's final weapon will, in a limit break, one-shot many bosses, never mind regular enemies.

Most of the game's combat is not difficult. There is, however, a difficulty spike at the start of Disc Four. When the game prompts you to save just before switching to Disc Four, DO NOT overwrite your last save from Disc Three! The boss fight that begins the final disc is much harder than anything up to this point; in fact, I'd rate it as harder than the actual final boss. Worse, the fight comes just after you've officially reached the Point of No Return. If you overwrote your final Disc Three save, you cannot leave the dungeon to grind, upgrade weapons, and come back.

Fortunately, I had a save file from only an hour or so before that point. When I realized that I was not ready for this boss, I was able to load up my previous save and grind/upgrade until I was ready. After that point, the rest of the game was smooth sailing. I will note, however, that the final form of the final boss has a staggering store of hit points. After dealing thousands of damage per turn with no apparent effect, I began to worry that the fight was glitched and that I'd have to reload it. There was no glitch - The final boss is just such a bullet sponge that it takes a very long time to kill her.

Laguna inadvertently inspires his crush, club
performer Julia, to write the game's theme song.

SOUNDTRACK:

The Final Fantasy series has consistently been noteworthy for its soundtracks, and this game is no exception. The music is varied and wonderful. The waltz for an early dance scene that sets up the relationship between Squall and Rinoa is a match for the visuals: graceful and playful at the same time. Later, when the action goes into space, a piece plays that's deliberately reminiscent of the classical music used in Kubrick's 2001. In the Laguna dreams/flashbacks, the OST takes on a more lighthearted tone, mirroring the comedic atmosphere of these bits. Laguna even gets his own battle theme, the ridiculously catchy The Man with a Machine Gun.

For the first time in the series, the game has an official pop song: Eyes on Me. In-game, it's a song written by Julia, the nightclub performer Laguna has a crush on. The lyrics are tailored to fit Laguna directly, and to also act as a counterpoint to Squall's emotional journey. It's performed by popular Hong Kong singer Faye Wong, and it is a lovely piece on its own - and a genuinely moving one in the context of the game's story.

The entire OST continues the series' developing complexity in its soundtracks. At this point, I don't know how much further the series can go in this respect without just making one of its entries a full-on musical.

The evil sorceress Edea, the game's villain -
though, of course, it's more complicated than that.

OTHER MUSINGS:

Something instantly apparent about Final Fantasy VIII is its visual style. Unlike Final Fantasy VII, which was initially designed with the Nintendo 64 in mind before moving to the PlayStation, this game was always intended for Sony's then-powerhouse game console. Gone are the blocky, vaguely Lego-looking people, and in their place are correctly proportioned character models that strongly resemble the same characters in cutscenes.

The cutscenes are longer and more frequent than in previous games, with highly detailed art and animation. An early dance sequence is particularly impressive. As Rinoa tugs Squall onto the dance floor, we see humor and mischief in her eyes and gestures, and we see him responding to her. Then they begin dancing... with Squall hopelessly clumsy at first.

If you've seen a fair amount of computer animation, then you know that clumsiness is very difficult to animate well. Even big-budget movies can struggle with animating convincing physical bits of business. This sequence pulls it off seamlessly, from Squall stumbling into other dancers to exchanges of dirty looks. While all this foreground business is going on, additional dancers remain visible in the background of the scene. The whole set piece is gorgeous and full of life. I'd say it stands up today, never mind how mind-blowing it must have been at the time.

Our first sight of Rinoa, waiting in a field of flowers.

OVERALL:

Final Fantasy VIII is one of the more divisive entries in the series. Contemporary reactions split between those who loved it and those who found it disappointing. While its reputation seems to have improved over time, even now Entries 6 - 8 seem to divide into: Final Fantasy VI as the artistic fan favorite; Final Fantasy VII as the mainstream hit; and Final Fantasy VIII as... well, the curate's egg, loved by some and loathed by others.

As is probably clear, I fall firmly into the "loved it" category. The visuals and the soundtrack help, certainly. Mainly, however, it comes down to the characters. By mid-game, they became real to me in the way that happens with very good movies or television series. I genuinely cared about what happened to Squall, Rinoa, and their friends - and heck, even to Seifer.

There are some moments of clunkiness or outright weirdness (one word: NORG!). Even so, I would have to rank this among my favorites of the series thus far.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Main Series Game: Final Fantasy VII
Next Main Series Game: Final Fantasy IX (not yet reviewed)

Previous Release: Final Fantasy Tactics (not yet reviewed)
Next Release: Final Fantasy IX (not yet reviewed)

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Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Original Release: Playstation 4, 2020. Version Reviewed: Playstation 5 "Intergrade" Version, 2021.


THE PLOT:

The Shinra Electric Power Company has revolutionized the modern world by mining Mako, an extremely efficient energy source. It allows them to provide power and comfort for the masses, making themselves extraordinarily rich and powerful in the process.

Environmental group AVALANCHE believes that Shinra's reliance on Mako is destroying the planet. Former Shinra military SOLDIER-turned-mercenary Cloud Strife accepts a job from them: an act of eco-terrorism, blowing up one of the reactors fueling the city of Midgar.

The detonation does untold damage within the city, but this isn't the work of AVALANCHE: Shinra's leaders magnified the explosion, attempting to use the attack to justify a new war with old enemy Wutai. Cloud, his childhood friend Tifa, and AVALANCHE leader Barret find unexpected aid in the form of flower girl Aerith, whose seemingly mundane life covers a mysterious past.

But Shinra isn't done. Cloud and his friends learn that the company plans to stage an even more devastating attack in the slums they call home. They race to try to prevent disaster - but another force seems determined to keep them from changing anything...

Cloud, Tifa, and Barret are ready for action.

CHARACTERS:

Cloud: I was dubious when I first read that the remake had recast all roles. It took all of ten minutes for the game to convert me. The new cast is excellent all around, with actor Cody Christian helping to make Cloud actually likable for the first time ever. Between Christian, the excellent character animations, and the script, we get a sense of the human being beneath Cloud's reserve. I particularly enjoyed Cloud's reactions to flirting, teasing, or displays of affection - He's outright baffled by both Aerith and Jessie, and yet it's clear that he becomes quickly attached to both of them.

Tifa: Cloud's childhood friend. When Cloud left to join Shinra with the goal of becoming a SOLDIER, she made him promise to rescue her if she ever needed it. Years later, Tifa (Britt Baron) feels trapped by AVALANCHE's escalating tactics, and yet it's no longer in her nature to ask for help. She's become a caregiver, watching over Barret, his daughter Marlene, and the Seventh Heaven bar - essentially acting as a mother figure to all despite still being quite young herself. She even helps Cloud build his reputation as a mercenary by finding jobs for him in the slums early on - a way of padding the game, but one that works in terms of building the characters and their world.

Aerith: The flower girl with the mysterious past. Actress Briana White's vocal deliveries provide just the right mix of chirpy innocence with flirtatious teasing for the character, making it easy to believe how quickly she both enchants and confounds Cloud. A refreshing carryover from the original game is that, while both she and Tifa are presented as potential love interests, there's no sense of rivalry between them; when Aerith and Tifa finally meet, they seem to instantly connect as friends even as they take turns vying for Cloud's attention.

Barret: The single most improved character. I (eventually) liked Barret in the original, but he was never high on my list of favorites. Remake transforms him into the cast standout, with voice actor John Eric Bentley alternating between very funny comedy lines to moments of shockingly raw emotion. There's a scene that sees Barret literally beating his one good hand against rubble, as if trying to move it by force of will, that is more memorable than many scenes from very good movies.

AVALANCHE: The trio of Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are elevated from little more than extras to full supporting characters. Jessie (Erica Lindbeck) has a playful surface, but a visit to her family shows some of the layers beneath that; cautious and professional Biggs (Gideon Emery) left a job teaching children in order to join AVALANCHE; Wedge (Matt Jones) is cheerful, but his constant smile covers insecurities that he doesn't do as much as his colleagues, with him at one point deriding himself as useless. All three register strongly, which helps to make certain events in the story a lot more effective.

Sephiroth: The portion of the original Final Fantasy VII that this game covers did not even feature Sephiroth: He was named, and eventually we saw the aftermath of his presence, but we didn't actually meet him in person until much later. But he's the "fan favorite," so this was not an option for the remake... unfortunately. By holding him back, the original turned him into a larger-than-life figure long before we met him. Here, Cloud sees flashes and visions of him starting very early in the game - which has the effect of diminishing him, so that when he's finally encountered in person at the end, there's no sense of anything special about the encounter. I will say that the boss battle against him here is much more satisfying than the one in the original Final Fantasy VII (OG Sephiroth is not a hard boss fight) - but as a character, overuse has made him a lot less interesting. In fairness, this was already true from earlier spinoffs, but his treatment here doesn't reverse the trend.

Combat is energetic and intuitive most of the time,
but it can become hectic and frustrating...

COMBAT:

Unlike its namesake, Final Fantasy VII remake uses real-time combat. The ATB bar is still critical - but now it doesn't control your ability to do normal attacks, but rather your ability to use magic and special attacks.

Most of the time, the combat is energetic and intuitive. Against tough bosses or mobs of enemies with resistances to normal attacks, however, this ATB/real time hybrid becomes too frenetic for my personal tastes. Too often in the final stages of the story, combat becomes endless dodging while waiting for the ATB bar to fill - which then usually has to be used up with healing, because the AI teammates are (as usual) morons with no sense of self preservation.

Then there are the "gimmick" battles that are basically impossible until you figure out the right approach - at which point they instantly become a cakewalk. Yes, Rufus Shinra, I'm looking at you.


QUESTS AND EXPLORATION:

The combat may be a mix of fun and frustrating, but the exploration of environments is a consistent joy. Final Fantasy VII Remake recreates many of the environments of the PS1 original faithfully, but with new detail and scale.

This is a beautiful-looking game, from the organic beauty of Aerith's garden to the cold sterility of the Shinra building. The residential slums are vibrant and alive, with extras (many of them with recycled character models) everywhere. You pick up snatches of conversations as you run past, and these bits of chatter help to create the impression of a fully realized world. At many points, I found myself just stopping what I was doing to listen to side conversations, take in the soundtrack, and rotate the camera and gasp at the game world.

There are three main areas in which you pick up side quests. Tifa helps Cloud get mercenary jobs in the Sector 7 slums; later, Aerith does the same in the slums that are her home. Finally, Cloud (and later Tifa) will engage in fetch quests in the overcrowded, overlit Wall Market. Most of these quests are standard fare - though some of the Wall Market ones get suitably wacky - but it's fun to see people's evolving reactions to Cloud as he completes them, and they provide a good opportunity for practicing combat mechanics, learning how the maps work, and just building the sense of the overall world.

Aerith's garden: detailed and beautiful.

A PARTIAL TRIUMPH...:

Final Fantasy VII Remake gets so much exactly right. It feels modern and immersive, while at the same time showing respect to the 1997 original. The characters have depth, and the voice acting ranges from very good to outstanding.

Then there's the music score. Final Fantasy VII's score was already outstanding back in 1997. Hearing those same tracks brought to life with a full orchestra is a tremendous experience, and the handful of new tracks blend well with the remixes of old ones.

The story covers only the first 5 - 6 hours of the original game, so a lot of material is extrapolated. This isn't inherently a problem. The place chosen as the break point makes sense, and the city and its areas are varied enough to be worth exploring. Cloud taking on mercenary jobs is fun as a diversion, while at the same time allowing the game to chisel some much-needed cracks early on into his moody surface. A trip to the more affluent topside area, with Cloud tagging along for a visit to Jessie's family, is an entirely new sequence that opens up the world while adding further depth both to Cloud and to the supporting cast.

Finally, the Wall Market sequence is beautifully executed. This break in the action comes at the exact right point in the story. The first Act has ended, and the stakes have temporarily lowered - meaning that there's nothing interfering with enjoying Cloud engaging in squat battles and running increasingly bizarre errands for the market's outlandish denizens.

In the original game, this sequence was fairly short and culminated in a somewhat strained cross-dressing gag that seemed unlikely to translate well to 2020. I think a lot of people expected the remake to cut that out entirely. Instead, the game creators lean into it. Cloud's cross-dressing still happens... but now it comes at the end of a dynamic cabaret sequence, complete with a rhythm mini game, as the ultra-fabulous Andrea remakes Cloud while urging him to embrace the moment. It's not only more positive and meaningful than the same bit in the original game... it's a lot funnier!

Oh, and the Yuffie DLC included in the Intergrade edition is delightful from start to finish, turning comedy relief character Yuffie into a likable but fully realized individual, while still keeping her exasperating original personality intact. If I were to rate it separately, I'd probably give the DLC a higher individual score than the main game. It's long enough to be a substantial expansion, but not so long that it overstays its welcome - which unfortunately isn't something I can say for much of the main game...

Aerith communicates with a spirit, in one
of many sections that goes on way too long.

...IT'S JUST TOO OVERSTRETCHED:

The biggest problem with Final Fantasy VII Remake is that, in trying to pad 5 - 6 hours of material to fill a complete AAA title, the story is left feeling more than a little stretched out.

This becomes apparent early on. After the destruction of the first Mako reactor, Cloud flees through the streets of Midgar. In the original game, this takes up just a few minutes. This has been opened up, so that players now control Cloud as he flees through streets, up rooftops, down fire escapes, and into alleyways. At first, this is a good change, letting players experience Cloud's escape while exploring these incredibly detailed environments. The problem? The whole sequence goes on for what feels like an hour. The action becomes repetitive, and the story is mostly put on hold.

The pacing improves again after that... Until the second reactor mission. Instead of going straight to the mission, players now have to go through a network of tunnels, battling Shinra robots and giant monsters. Just as this starts to get old, Cloud, Tifa, and Barret reach "Sector G" for an entirely new chapter, in which they must divert energy from giant lamps to traverse the sector.

Meaning that after one overlong section of going through tunnels, players are instantly given another long section of going across bridges and up and down staircases. There are a few fun moments (if you divert to collect some shiny materia, Barret will sing-song that the group is "going on an adventure to find some treasure!"), but the entire segment feels like it was pasted in just to extend the runtime.

The worst offender comes in the final third, when the team infiltrates the Shinra building. Like most of the game, this is initially engaging. The corporate setting is enjoyably different from the slum, city, and warehouse environments of the rest of the game, while at the same time feeling like what it is: the center of the society we've observed up to now. Everything up to and including Aerith's rescue is fun to play, with a nice mixture of story beats, character bits, and varied gameplay.

But after Aerith's rescue, instead of going straight to the final confrontations with the Shinra President and Sephiroth, the game has to stretch itself out one more time. Gamers get to suffer through an extended sidetrip through the laboratory of the mad Professor Hojo. This section offers nothing new in gameplay terms - switch puzzles, enemy encounters, a boss fight - and in story terms it's an irrelevance.

As with other diversions and attenuations, once gamers get past it, the very last section is back to being enjoyable, with the Shinra President faceoff even managing a few surprises. But it's an ongoing issue that the game keeps stalling its own momentum, forcing the story to effectively jumpstart itself multiple times throughout, all in order to be that little bit longer.

Aerith has a secret. A few secrets, actually.

OVERALL:

Final Fantasy VII Remake is a good game by any reasonable standard. It's gorgeous to look at, with cutscenes and gameplay blending often indistinguishably. The story cutscenes are well-written, boasting dialogue that reveals character and builds the game world while entertaining at the same time. Voice acting is top-notch, and the music is magnificent.

It's just a shame that it's so badly padded. I think about games like I think about movies: They should be as long as they need to be and no longer. Unfortunately, modern AAA games are now expected to be lengthy, too often to their detriment, and that is very much the case here.

Had Final Fantasy VII Remake been 20 - 25 hours in length (maybe 30 for completionists), I'm pretty sure I would be raving over it. But add in an additional 10 hours, and it's left feeling sluggish. Too many of the major story beats are held too long, and the pacing regularly stops and starts for the sake of lengthy patches in which the characters do nothing but travel from Point A to Point B.

In the end, I'd say the good outweighs the bad, and I am looking forward to the next installment, Rebirth. Since it will pick up at the point the game world opens up, I'm hoping (against hope?) that it can provide a full experience without the stop-and-start pacing that marred this title.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Prequel: Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII
Sequel: Final Fantasy VII - Rebirth (not yet reviewed)

Previous Main Series Game: Final Fantasy VI
Next Main Series Game: Final Fantasy VIII

Previous Release: Dissidia Final Fantasy NT (not yet reviewed)
Next Release: Stranger of Paradise - Final Fantasy Origins (not yet reviewed)

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Final Fantasy VII: On the Way to a Smile - Episode: Denzel

Denzel watches the fire that kills his parents -
only the first of the losses he will experience.

Release Date: Apr. 16, 2009. Approx. 28 minutes. Written by: Kazushige Nojima. Directed by: Shinji Iishihara. Produced by: Square Enix, A-1 Pictures.


THE PLOT:

A ten-year-old boy named Denzel (Kazumu Izawa) comes to a café for a meeting. The owner teases him about having a date. Instead, Denzel is meeting with Reeve (Banjou Ginga), a former Shinra executive who now runs the World Regenesis Organization (WRO). Denzel wants to join the organization as a soldier, insisting that he isn't worried about danger. Reeve responds by asking about the boy's background, prompting Denzel to recall the last four years of his life, from the deaths of his parents - killed when Shinra obliterated Sector 7 - to the devastation caused by the unleashing of "Meteor," and the painful aftermath.

Reeve listens stoically to Denzel's saga.

CHARACTERS:

Episode: Denzel is appropriately titled, as this story is seen entirely through Denzel's eyes. The filmmakers wisely don't shoehorn in recreations of the Final Fantasy VII events that created Denzel's hardships. Instead, everything is observed from the perspective of this little boy, watching helplessly as his world is destroyed around him. The artists and animators do a splendid job with the character, particularly his eyes. Repeatedly, the film returns to him watching events unfold, his large eyes seeming to take in everything.

Supporting characters are transitory, mostly only appearing for a couple of scenes, but each is given enough of a personality to make an impression: Denzel's father, a Shinra employee who seems to worry that warning his wife about Sector 7's destruction will cost him his promotion; Ruvie (Ikuku Tani), an old woman who takes Denzel in after his parents die, and who has a desire to grow flowers; Gaskin (Fumihiko Tachiki), a man who takes in the children orphaned by all the destruction and puts them to work as scavenger; Rix (Kaito Arai), another orphan whose background is very different from Denzel's; and Reeve, who mainly acts as witness to Denzel's tale, but who shows his own connection through his final reaction.

Amidst the ruins.

THOUGHTS:

Final Fantasy VII: On the Way to a Smile was a set of short stories. Each focused on a different character, detailing what happened to them between the events of Final Fantasy VII and its animated sequel, Advent Children.

Episode: Denzel was the opening story, establishing the changes to this fictional world from the point of view of a child. This animated adaptation, produced for release alongside the "Complete Edition" of Advent Children, is a very direct screen translation - and a surprisingly emotionally effective one. If the rest of the stories were of this quality, I wish they'd adapt all of them.

This is one spinoff that would probably still work for viewers unfamiliar with Final Fantasy VII. Though the uninitiated wouldn't comprehend why Sector 7 is destroyed, what "Shinra" or "AVALANHE" are, or anything about "Meteor" devastating Midgar, I don't think that information is really needed to appreciate the story. What matters is that Denzel experiences losses and hardships; he survives and perseveres, while coming into contact with others, both children and adults, who do not survive; and eventually, he is there to see the survivors rebuild. It's a universal tale, one that could easily be framed around a real-world war or natural disaster, and it's been animated in a suitably subdued and realistic style... all of which means that Denzel's journey is emotionally accessible, even to someone who missed out on the larger references.

The film is only 28 minutes long, but it never feels rushed. Enough time is given to each of Denzel's successive caretakers, and each new person he meets adds something emotionally or thematically: From the old woman who loves plants but lives in a place where they don't grow, to the little boy from the slums who resents Denzel's previous comfortable life, even though they are now equals in poverty. The focus is always on Denzel and those with whom he interacts; but in the background, we see a new city slowly emerge from the rubble, until the flashbacks finally catch up with Denzel's present conversation.

It culminates in a splendid scene. First, Denzel recalls all the people who kept him alive, many of whom did not survive themselves. His resolve to be strong for others, the way those people were strong for him, could come across as silly bravado. Instead, with the subdued animation and voice acting, it carries surprising emotional weight - as does Reeve's response. The final images are perfectly judged.  When the end credits rolled, I felt genuinely moved.

Denzel - The survivor.

OVERALL:

Episode: Denzel is the opposite of what I expected from an anime tie-in to a video game series. There is no over-the-top action. Instead, we get a child's-eye-view of a disaster and its aftermath, brought to life in a realistic art style and featuring subdued, naturalistic voice acting. All of this makes it the most "life-sized" Final Fantasy-related product yet, and also the most directly emotional one. Its viewpoint also makes it a full story in itself; Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children expand the context... but it is entirely worthwhile in itself, even without its connection to larger works.

Within the limits of its format, and possibly even disregarding those limits, I would rate this as an absolute triumph.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Preceded by: Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children
Followed by: Dirge of Cerberus - Final Fantasy VII

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Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Original Release: Playstation Portable, 2007. Version Reviewed: Playstation Portable, 2008.


THE PLOT:

SOLDIER Second Class Zack Fair dreams of being a hero. Working for the Shinra Power Company under the supervision of his mentor, the meticulously honorable Angeal, Zack's goal is simply to help. It's never occurred to him that he might be fighting on the wrong side. After all, Shinra brings cheap, efficient power to the world. How could that possibly be bad?

Angeal disappears following a strike on Wutai, a village that has resisted Shinra. When the company declares Angeal a rogue agent, Zack can't believe it... until he finds his mentor amidst the ruins of his home village. Zack learns that Angeal and Genesis were both part of the top-secret "Project G." Their DNA was altered during experimentation. Genesis is now degrading, and he will do anything to stop that degradation - even if it means going to war with Shinra!

Zack is assigned to kill both ex-operatives, working under the supervision of the heroic SOLDIER First Class, Sephiroth. Despite their orders, Sephiroth prefers to find a way to bring his old friends in alive.

But as their mission moves from Midgard, to the abandoned reactor at Modeoheim, to the rural village of Nibelheim, it gradually becomes clear that Angeal and Genesis were not the only ones Shinra experimented on - and that Zack might soon be facing these powerful adversaries alone!

Zack Fair: He just wants to be a hero...

CHARACTERS:

Zack Fair: Zack had a minor but critical supporting role in Final Fantasy VII. He's promoted to lead here, and fortunately his characterization is the game's single best feature. Zack is basically the anti-Cloud. He's friendly, bordering on boisterous, and is almost instantly likeable. He becomes disillusioned with both SOLDIER and Shinra as the story goes on. Still, he doesn't allow himself to become bitter, focusing on doing something good even as it becomes clear that his employers no longer share those values (if they ever did).

Genesis: If Zack is the best-realized character in the game, then Genesis is the worst. I know I still have quite a few titles to get through; but in a single game, Genesis puts himself in the running for Worst Character in the Franchise. He's meant to be a tragic figure, except... Well, he's so utterly insufferable! Most of his dialogue consists of bad poetry, with him obsessively grafting his own life onto the text of the epic, Loveless. His actions are motivated by his desire to save himself from his degradation - but "save my own skin" stops being sympathetic when you engage in wholesale slaughter to do it. Oh, and that degradation? A flashback reveals that it's the result of his own ego, when jealousy led him to challenge Sephiroth to a not-so-friendly duel.

Sephiroth: Portrayed as basically pretty decent, at least at the start. Despite the order to hunt down and kill his close friends, he is determined to bring them in alive if possible. He works well with Zack, prodding the junior agent to do his best work, and is also friendlier than he has to be to a certain young Shinra security man. This would make his inevitable descent much more effective... If that descent was actually expanded on, rather than happening just as quickly as it did in the flashback in the original Final Fantasy VII. As backstory in that game, it worked well enough to impart the needed information; as current story in this game, it feels rushed and thinly motivated, with the only real addition being a quick poetry recital by Genesis.

Real-time combat is fluid and fun - when not disrupted by gimmicks.

GAMEPLAY:

"Activating combat mode."

Crisis Core replaces the series' usual semi-turn based, ATB-gauge driven encounters with real-time combat. This is largely fluid and well-implemented. The triangle button blocks; the X button hits; the shoulder buttons are used to switch from swords to spells to items. Using items in combat can feel hectic and cumbersome, simply because you have to shoulder button through two menus to find and use the correct item, but it's overall engaging and surprisingly intuitive. Except that...

"Modulating Phase." (roulette wheel spins)

Except that, on top of the real time combat, Square Enix added the "Digital Mind Wave" (DMW). This is a roulette-like phase that, depending on its results, can result in special attacks and level ups both for skills and for Zack in general. It is the only way to gain levels in this game, so it is essential. It is also incredibly aggravating in its execution, particularly because...

"Modulating Phase." ---> 'Lucky Stars' "You can do it, Zack!" "Yeah, I'm on fire now!"

Particularly because the player is given no control over its activation. You'll find Zack powering up healing abilities while at full health, or using Summons that you'd prefer to save for a boss battle on no-challenge, low-level grunts. Not to mention...

"Modulating Phase." ---> No Match."

Not to mention that the DMW constantly interrupts the flow of combat... Meaning that if you don't get a match and nothing happens, the fraction of a second it takes for you to go back to dodging an enemy or casting a healing spell could all too easily result in a "Game Over." Crisis Core's main story is overall quite easy; as such, I'm pretty sure I died to DMW interrupts more often than anything else.

Finally...

"Modulating Phase."

Finally, I became extremely tired of the computerized voice intoning these phrases. Really, very, extremely tired.

"Conflict Resolved."

Fallen angels: Angeal, Sephiroth, and Genesis.

THOUGHTS:

Crisis Core, developed for Sony's Playstation Portable, stands as a showcase for the handheld's capabilities... as well as its limitations. The game offers dynamic (if flawed) combat, a terrific soundtrack, a variety of reasonably detailed environments, and cutscenes that are both fully voiced and skillfully animated.

The trade-off for all this is that the environments themselves are small. Very small. Most environments, whether interior or exterior, whether made for exploration or dungeon crawling, are similarly structured: A main path that loops around to maximize the limited space, with a few side paths leading off from it. In the city of Midgar, there will be three or four people per map whom you can talk to, and then you reach the border and a new, adjacent environment loads. In a dungeon, you fight three to four random encounters before reaching the border of the map and loading a new environment.

At least the story is good... for a while. The narrative spans years as it moves from the end of the war with Wutai to the hunt for Genesis. Through Zack's eyes, we get a sense of Shinra's degradation across this time that parallels Genesis's own degradation. Professionals who seem both affable and committed to their work are replaced by people who seem sinister or even disturbed. Scientific projects are shelved in favor of sinister experiments. By the time the fateful Nibelheim mission occurs, Zack wonders aloud what point there is to any of this, a statement of weariness that's a sharp counter to his early enthusiasm.

There's also a nifty thread involving the iconic Buster Sword, which emerges as a legacy in its own right. At the start of the game, the sword belongs to Angeal, Zack's mentor. As the story progresses, Angeal passes the sword to Zack. At the same time, Zack meets Cloud and becomes, in effect, his mentor... and of course, we already know that the game will end with Zack passing the sword onto Cloud - passing the torch between prequel and main game. Save for an overinflated speech at the end, this is all generally well done.

It's just a shame about the third Act.

The poetry-spewing Genesis: Worst Final Fantasy villain?

As the action moves to Nibelheim, everything seems in place for a memorable closing. Genesis has been defeated; Shinra has degraded into an entity Zack either can't or doesn't want to recognize; and he's embarking with Sephiroth on the misson that was the key backstory to Final Fantasy VII. At this point, all the game has to do to end up a firm winner is just flesh out the Final Fantasy VII flashback into a detailed chain of events.

But it's here that it all goes wrong. After spending a bit of time in the Nibelheim outskirts fighting enemies and completing side quests, you reach those key events... And then skip right over them, seeing basically only what was previously portrayed in flashback. Except with Genesis returning for no good reason except to make sure that Sephiroth is no longer even the focus of his own breakdown.

This is followed by an entirely unnecessary Fourth Act in which Zack (once again) tracks down Genesis, to a final dungeon that turns into an extended Easter Egg hunt. No, really: To proceed, you need to find all of the chests holding stones needed to unlock a door, while pausing to read synopses of the Acts of Loveless from headstones. When you finally reach Genesis, he first spouts more Bad Poetry at us... and then reveals that his sub-Vogon Poetry is also his deadliest attack.  The final fight is the series' most ludicrously easy Final Boss Battle since Mystic Quest, basically just requiring whaling on him and healing up whenever Zack's health gets low.

It ends with a brief epilogue leading directly into Final Fantasy VII. By this point, however, my previous engagement with the story was gone. I simply couldn't make myself care as the last cutscene played out. There's a post-credits bit meant to recreate the opening of the main game in the context of what we've just played... but even this doesn't work, with Cloud's attitude in this scene a complete mismatch with his ambivalence at the start of Final Fantasy VII.

Feathers from a fallen angel.

OVERALL:

There is much to recommend in Crisis Core. Despite technical limitations resulting in small and repetitive maps, the first half is genuinely very good. Zack is a likeable hero, and the background portrayal of Shinra's decline creates an effective parallel with the main plot.

I would rate this game much higher had the final Act not so thoroughly shredded the goodwill built up early on.  I'd still consider it worth tracking down, at least if you own a PSP. Though it was never made available digitally, as of this writing physical copies remain very affordable. It isn't a terribly long game (less than 30 hours, unless you try to play all the "Missions"), and there's enough that's good to offset the bad.

But with the final Act turning into a tedious and misjudged slog, I ended up with a negative final impression - even though, if pressed, I enjoyed more of it than I didn't.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Alternate Version: Last Order - Final Fantasy VII (anime)
Followed by: Final Fantasy VII

Followed by: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Previous Main Series Game: Final Fantasy XII (not yet reviewed)
Next Main Series Game: Final Fantasy XIII (not yet reviewed)

Previous Release: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - Ring of Fates (not yet reviewed)
Next Release: Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (not yet reviewed)

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Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII.

Original Release: Playstation 2, 2006. Version Reviewed: Playstation 2, 2006.


THE PLOT:

The town of Kalm is holding a celebration, so Vincent Valentine is there to... um, brood in an inn. His reverie is cut short when the town comes under attack. Vincent does his best to save as many people as he can, but most of the town's population is abducted.

Reeve, head of the World Regenesis Organization (WRO), tells him that the attack was the work of "Deep Ground," one of entirely too many dirty secrets of the Shinra organization. The WRO has done its best to keep things quiet to avoid panic, but Kalm is not the first community to be attacked. Deep Ground has a plan - one that could lead to the end of the world!

Vincent Valentine investigates a series of abductions.
And pauses to pose under the full moon, of course.

CHARACTERS:

"That was my sin. This is my punishment."
-Vincent broods portentously on his angst over his tragic backstory.

Vincent Valentine: Dirge of Cerberus gives the spotlight to Vincent Valentine, the original game's cool-looking, sort-of vampire-like party member. And it proceeds to... turn him into a Cloud knockoff, as he spends the game obsessing over his past. Something the original game's Vincent did only when it directly came up. Steve Blum is a fine voice actor, but he doesn't have anything to work with beyond grave pronouncements and angsty quotes.

Shelke: A Deep Ground operative who specializes in finding information through "Synaptic Net Dives" (SNDs) - so, basically a computer hacker. Vincent and the WRO capture Shelke relatively early in the game, and we learn that she was actually captured by Deep Ground as a child. Her treatment has left her all but emotionless - but freed of the influence of her captors, she gradually bonds with Vincent and the others. Her arc is entirely predictable, but still reasonably effective, and she emerges as probably the best of the game's major characters.

Shaluah: Shelke's sister, who has been searching for her ever since her abduction ten years earlier. She lost an eye and an arm during her quest, but the first thing I noticed about her wasn't that: It was her outfit. "Fan service" female outfits are sadly part and parcel of most science fiction/fantasy anime, but this is the most bizarre example I can recall. She wears a lab coat to denote her status as a scientist, but it only loosely drapes off her shoulders, leaving her tight, midriff-baring crop top and tiny skirt on full display. If it stopped there, it would be normal bad anime fan service - but she also wears a strange sort of cloth wrap that tightly encircles her upper thighs, leaving me to constantly wonder how she manages to walk, let alone fight. I can also only assume that the lab coat is held in place with superglue, as it would otherwise fall off when she so much as breathes.

The Team: One thing Dirge of Cerberus does well is to shift focus to characters who are usually on the periphery. Cloud, Tifa, and Barrett only appear briefly. Instead, we spend a decent amount of time with Yuffie (Mae Whitman), Cait Sith (Greg Ellis), and WRO head Reeve (Jamieson Price). These three actually come across pretty well, the lightness and energy of Cait Sith and Yuffie a welcome relief from the deadly serious Vincent. Yuffie gets what may be the only good character moment in the game: After rescuing Vincent from the bad guys around the midpoint, she makes a show of demanding thanks for her heroics... only to become flustered when Vincent actually does thank her. It's a throwaway bit, but it rings true in a way that none of the brooding of the rest of the game manages.

Vincent vs. the Dragonfly: one of the game's first boss battles.

GAMEPLAY:

Dirge of Cerberus is something unusual for Final Fantasy: A third person shooter. The player (mostly) controls Vincent as he rampages across twelve chapters, each of which involves killing enemies by shooting them, by pulverizing them with melee attacks, or by using magic - er, "materia" - to burn, freeze, or shock them to death.

As a shooter, it's pretty standard. You get three guns: your standard pistol, a machine gun, and a sniper rifle (a couple additional variants you'll likely never use are added for the final two levels). You loot bullets, along with the occasional health potion, from dead bodies and crates. You also will come across a ludicrously generous number of stations dispensing all of these needed items. Never mind Vincent's adventures with Deep Ground; I want the story behind the enterprising entrepreneur who's installed these health-and-bullet vending machines in abandoned mansions, reactors, and sewers!

While unexceptional, the actual gameplay is reasonably engaging.  There are a few clunky elements. Melee attacks are downright broken. Unless Vincent is literally overtop of the target (and occasionally, even then), he is at least as likely to spin away from the enemy as toward it. If the sniper scope is attached to your gun, it's far too easy to bump the control stick and engage it at the worst possible moment. I think I took more damage due to those two issues than to anything else.

The rest of the controls are fine, though, particularly once you learn the game's patterns.  In fact, at least on "Normal" difficulty, I'd rate this as an easy game, but most of the time spent playing is at least somewhat fun.

No, the problem here isn't the gameplay. It's the story - and given how long some of the cutscenes are, the story becomes a real problem...

Shelke identifies Vincent for Deep Ground.

THOUGHTS:

"So Rosso the Crimson told you that Protomateria is the key to controlling Omega?"
-just a sampling of the sparkling dialogue propelling the scintillating story of Dirge of Cerberus

Oh, dear. And the whole Final Fantasy VII Chronology seemed to be going so well...

I was originally going to put a disclaimer in here about how shooters are not my genre, meaning that Dirge of Cerberus starts at a disadvantage with me. However, as I noted above, I actually found the gameplay to be fairly enjoyable.  It's the story that's the problem.  The plot is mainly advanced through cutscenes, both in-mission and between missions. These scenes are frequent, and some of them run quite long - in a few cases, longer than the levels themselves. This would be fine if the narrative was of high quality.

It isn't.

Most story information is delivered by characters making speeches. Dialogue is bad, often laughably so, and is stuffed with the sort of pseudo-philosophical nonsense that bad anime scripts seem to think is profound. The unfortunate voice actors - many of whom have done fine work elsewhere, including in these roles - are left gravely intoning nonsense while inserting enough pregnant pauses to fill a nursery.

Oh, and you know the talking villain cliche? Chapter Eleven delivers not one... not two... but three (!) villains who monologue at Vincent, one of them at such length that I half expected him to break out flowcharts!

I'll add there's a little skeeviness in the epilogue, which suggests that Vincent's "reward" will come in the form of hooking up with a teenage girl who has been drawn to look particularly young throughout the story. Just thinking about the final look the two characters exchange makes me want to go wash my hands. Vigorously.

Vincent meets Shaluah, whose outfit is distracting
in ways the developers probably didn't intend.

VISUAL DESIGN

The bulk of the game is set at night, and "Playstation 2 washout" is very much in evidence.  It's particularly noticeable when Vincent visits the abandoned mansion from the original game.  Despite the capabilities of the PS2, everything in the mansion looks drab and almost featureless.  Should the textures in a PS2 game look less detailed than those in a PS1 title?

Outside of this level, the game generally looks decent, and the anime cutscenes are of particularly high quality.  I just hope you like blues and greens, because that's most of what you're going to see here...


OVERALL:

I have been generally impressed by how the various Final Fantasy VII spinoffs - both games and anime films - have developed and expanded the world created in the 1997 original. Until Dirge of Cerberus. This game's story does not expand the world. It doesn't even tell a good story; bad anime clichés mix with nonsense to create something that borders on incoherence, and that fully crosses over into stupidity.

On a gameplay basis, I'd probably rate this a "5." The shooter mechanics are generic, but there is fun to be had in blasting through the levels. As a bonus, the game has the courtesy to make its cutscenes skippable.

However, as is likely apparent by now, I am far more of a "story-and-characters" gamer than a "hack-and-blast" one.  And on a story basis, I'd have a hard time awarding more than a "1." 

Finally, even speaking as a non-shooter fan... There are far, far better shooters out there than this.


Overall Rating: 3/10.

Preceded by: Final Fantasy VII - On the Way to a Smile - Episode: Denzel

Previous Main Series Game: Final Fantasy VII
Next Main Series Game: Final Fantasy VIII

Previous Release: Final Fantasy - Crystal Chronicles (not yet reviewed)
Next Release: Final Fantasy XII (not yet reviewed)

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Last Order: Final Fantasy VII.

Sephiroth turns against his former allies.

Release Date: Sept. 14, 2005. Approx. 25 minues. Written by: Kazuhiko Inukai. Directed by: Morio Asaka. Produced by: Masao Maruyama, Jungo Murata, Akio Ōfuji.


THE PLOT:

SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair (Kenichi Suzumura) is fleeing with his friend, Cloud Strife (Takahiro Sakurai), who has been left insensible by exposure to the energy source Mako. They are pursued by operatives of Shinra, the power company that effectively acts as the government for Midgar.

Five years earlier, both Zack and Cloud were part of an expedition to the small town of Nibelheim. It was just a routine investigation into a malfunctioning Mako reactor - until their superior, the legendary SOLDIER operative Sephiroth (Toshiyuki Morikawa) made a discovery that drove him murderously insane.

It was up to Zack to stop Sephiroth. But no one could have predicted the consequences of their confrontation within the reactor...

Zack tries to save the drug-addled Cloud from Shinra.

CHARACTERS:

Last Order runs a brisk, tightly focused 25 minutes. As such, we only observe the characters in two situations: Zack and Cloud fleeing from Shinra in the present; and Zack, Cloud, Sephiroth, and local guide Tifa (Ayumi Ito) five years in the past. Characterizations are entirely consistent with Final Fantasy VII and its related media: Zack is as decent as he is skilled; Cloud (when conscious at least) is capable of remarkable determination; Tifa memorably cries out her rejection of all things related to Shinra and SOLDIER.

Given that the flashback only depicts the confrontation at the reactor, we see only the Sephiroth who has already gone insane. Zack and Cloud both talk about how they previously admired him... but we see only the monster that he has become, with no real sense of the man he was before. It works well if you've already played Final Fantasy VII and know the general backstory - but I doubt it would have much impact if viewed completely in isolation.

Tifa and other survivors in the burning wreckage of their village.

THOUGHTS:

Last Order: Final Fantasy VII was not made for people not already familiar with Final Fantasy VII. The frame story feature Zack's flight with an unresponsive Cloud, while the bulk of the action fleshes out the main backstory from the original game: the battle with Sephiroth in the Nibelheim reactor.

This OVA (original video animation) was released by Madhouse Animation Productions as part of the collector's edition of the feature-length Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Though largely well-received, it still earned some backlash from fans who were upset about slight changes to the events seen in the Final Fantasy VII flashback. When prequel game Crisis Core was released two years later, these changes were wound back... though I'd argue that in their place were more egregious retcons (*cough* Genesis *cough*) that did far more to undermine the significance of events than any of the tiny variances found here.

I far prefer this movie's version of the Nibelehim fight and Zack and Cloud's flight from Shinra to the portrayal in Crisis Core. There's a stronger sense of immediacy and impact here, from Tifa's anguished rejection of Shinra to the duel that is the film's centerpiece. In Crisis Core, events felt rushed and were thrown further off-balance by the inclusion of new villain Genesis. In this OVA, the action is more focused and its significance is felt. At least, it is if you already know who the characters are and why they're fighting; no allowances are made at all for those new to the Final Fantasy VII universe.

The hand-drawn artwork is gorgeous, while at the same time remaining mostly visually consistent with the original game. There are animation cheats - In many places, editing tricks are employed to disguise the use of still frames, and a few of the cuts are genuinely distracting. Still, the entire production is more polished than it really had to be, and it's clear that a lot of time, love, and effort went into this film.

The Nibelheim Massacre: The event that changed everything...

OVERALL:

The biggest criticism I could levy against Last Order is that it feels like half a movie. We jump into the main action with Sephiroth already on the rampage and Nibelheim already destroyed, and the narrative makes no allowances for viewers not already familiar with these events. Had it been ten minutes longer, opening with the investigation of the reactor and the discovery that drove Sephiroth mad, it would feel much more complete, and might actually be accessible to the uninitiated.

Still, the film clearly wasn't made for them. This was made squarely for fans who need no introduction to the characters or their world. For that audience, Last Order is dramatically satisfying and well worth the 25 minutes that it takes to view it.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Alternate Version: Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII
Followed by: Final Fantasy VII

Followed by: Final Fantasy VII Remake

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