Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Impressions

Tim Butler writes "1UP.com has posted impressions of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children from the premiere screening at the Venice Film Festival. The article also reveals that the film won't be ready until next spring -- but may clock in at more than an hour and a half in running time (is a big screen release a possibility now?)."

Re:Holding out hope.

[AndyChrist]

Was FFVII the first one you played?

Almost invariably I find this to be the case with those who call it their favorite.

Re:Holding out hope.

[jaredcat]

Actually as sucky as the last FF movie was, it's plot had every element of a FF game story...

. A small team of unlikely characters fighting impossible odds.
. A government with factions out to kill that team.
. The earth nearly destroyed or in its final days.
. People with magical/spiritual powers.
. Some kind of religeous overtones.
. Scary monsters everywhere!
. A top bad guy evil character, out to get our team!

I think what made it suck was that those good game elements that play out over 40 hours of interactive gameplay as you are descovering the world don't neccesarily make a good 2-hour non-interactive movie where there is a lot of exposition and all of these elements are crammed together.

The difference in the plots between FF: TSW and FF VII: Advent Children is that the FFVII Universe is already established (as the most popular FF of all time), and pretty much anyone wanting to see FFVII has already a good idea of the backstory. That allows for better storytelling.

Re:Creepy Faces

[Feneric]

Nope, sorry. The images still don't look real to me. Even the thresholds between different objects look wrong somehow.

Re:Holding out hope.

[jandrese]

I'm not sure I'd really tout FF Tactics for it's storyline either. It's got a great battle system and a fiendish (if somewhat predictable) AI, but the storyline was a convoluted mess that at best didn't detract too much from the gameplay.

Indeed

[lavar78]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree. One of the (many) reasons FF6 is the best of the series is the strength of its characters. Celes, Locke, Terra, Sabin, Shadow, and Kefka -- just to name a few...

Re:Holding out hope.

[Bendebecker]

You forgot the effeminate men and strong powerful but still good looking women.

Re:Indeed

[sabernet]

First off, I apoligize for the lack of line breakers, I forgot /. uses html formatting

secondly, while FF6 had more characters, the characters were more dry and not quite as "cool(with all that entails).

What FF6 had going for it was the delivery of the characters and the setting in which they were introduced. Narshe, Vector, etc... were all memorable towns and the Airships looked man-made. The world itself was just plain well-detailed and the characters were well thought out, for sure. It makes FF6 my fav FF to play.

Kefka was a strong character, and an excellent villain, but had absolutely no background. Sephy had a shiteload of background story. Hell, you sympathized with him.

FF7's world wasn't as deep, but the characters themselves stuck with you.

But one thing they both had in common:
They both had character with EXCELLENT finishing moves that got killed before you could use them:P(Aeris's Lv4 and Leo's swordamajig)

Re:Holding out hope.

[Obiwan Kenobi]

I think the reason for this assumption is that FF7 truly showed what RPGs could do with next-gen hardware. Before FF7 there were no 3D worlds, no 3D monsters, no true spatial and particle effects.

The storyline was so intriguing thanks to the amazing visuals that it simply took the gameplay to a new level.

They also killed a major character, a love-interest no less, right in the middle of the story. This, to my recollection, had never happened in such as quick, brutal and shocking manner before.

It may sound silly, this is a video game yadda yadda, but the immersiveness of this game is unparalleled in any other Final Fantasy to date. They seem to be so hot on Amazing CGI Scenes and SUPER HUGE MONDO MONSTER SPELLS that take (I kid you not) 2 minutes a pop to pull off, that they leave the gameplay and the richness behind.

That's not to say they haven't come close, but that's also to say that the magic in FF7 has yet to be repeated.

The next final fantasy will be a continuation of the FF7 story. That has never happened before (the revisit of an older universe to tell a continuating tale). This alone tells the power it had not only on gamers, but on SquareEnix as well.

Re:Kill Square

[RogueyWon]

This might seem an obvious question, but...

Since when was it a good idea to let the fans write the plot? What should it matter how the fans thought FFVII should have ended? Movies or games produced by focus group rarely have any redeeming features. One of the things I respect about Square is their willingness to make unpopular decisions with regards to the Final Fantasy franchise. Pretty much every game is iconoclastic and messes around with the establishe formula, using sending the fanboys who wanted a clone of the previous game into hysterical fits. The battle system changes pretty much every game, often in completely unexpected ways (witness the sphere-grid in FFX) while the game-world usually has at least one unique factor that makes you go "what the fuck". I'd say that the only time Square *didn't* do this with a recent game (FFIX), they delivered the most disappointing product.

To sum up, I don't want the content of my Final Fantasy games/movies dictated by the turgid outpourings of the fanfic authors. Advent Children may turn out to be just a blatant cash-in, but past experience leads me to suspect it will be something a bit riskier.