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?)."

Holding out hope.

[slusich]

I'm just hoping they did a better job on this one then on the last FF movie. The last one looked gorgeous, but the plot was almost non-existent. It was as if they had spent every ounce of effort producing the visuals, and someone had forgotten to bother with a script. I loved FF:VII as a game, and I'm holding out hope that the movie will live up to the name this time. Of course, I'm also hoping for a direct to DVD release since I refuse to go to a theatre any more.

Big Screen release...

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

I have no doubt that there will be showings on big screens across the country when this thing comes out. However, I sincerely doubt that a Great company would put themselves through anything even resembling the fiasco of Spirits Within on their second release. Lets hold out hope for the next one, and enjoy this one as it comes!

Creepy Faces

[Feneric]

I'm in agreement with this article [msn.com] that computer-generated human faces still look creepy. I can't quite place what it is, but computer generated skin (even when done well as it was with Gollum from the LOTR movies) doesn't look right.

Maybe it's that the faces look somehow too regular; maybe it's that they look somehow luminescent.

It's even evident in the little thumnail image at the top of the article.

Direct-to-Market release

[Power Everywhere]

I'm calling it here. They'll include it for a discount when you buy the game.

how can you have a screening

[WormholeFiend]

if the film "isn't ready"?

[/dumb]

Re:Creepy Faces

[News for nerds]

You better check out Square USA's CGI work in an episode in Animatrix [imdb.com] anthology, as it has photorealistic rendering of human faces much more advanced than FF:Spirits Within. The characters are very very close to real human faces.

As for FF7:Advent Children, those character designs are intentionally more anime-style oriented, reminiscent of the original FF7 designs, so realism is not wanted by viewers. it should be rendered in surrealistically beautiful, fantasic tastes as it is Final Fantasy anyway.

Re:Holding out hope.

[LtOcelot]

Another take on this is that FF game plots have always been weak, but the interactivity distracts players from that. They've been considered "good" relative to other games, but the average quality of game plots in general is pretty poor.

Re:Uh.... no?

[cgenman]

I should point out, that Nintendo pulled the plug at the last minute on releasing the original Final Fantasy 2 on the NES here in the states, after hyping it up in Nintendo Power the month before (and a juicy contest that nobody won). What was released here as Final Fantasy 2 was actually Final Fantasy 4, in no small way because Nintendo didn't believe the series would amount to anything in the US.

And then, of course, the Final Fantasy for the SNES made the platform in Japan, at a time when the Mega Drive (Genesis) was swimming in great RPG's... but Nintendo's fiasco with the Sony-made Nintendo Playstation (SNES CD) upon which Square developed a fully realized "greatest game ever..." the Secret of Mana, then had to chop it to little bits to make it fit on a cartridge when the SNES CD was not released, soured the relationship on Square's side. Then Square deciding to make the next Final Fantasy game on, you guessed it, the Sony Playstation was taken as a personal slap in the face by Nintendo's president Hiroshi Yamauchi, which not only burned the bridge between them but salted the ground for many years.

Of course, the SNES CD couldn't be released as it was originally invisioned... In a momentary and tremendous lapse of judgement, the Nintendo lawyers signed to Sony the profits for any CD games sold, while they kept the profits on any Cartridge games sold. Nintendo asked for a redrawing of the iron-clad contract, Sony refused, and while Nintendo was contractually obligated to approve of Sony's release, they found a sneaky loophole and drew up a contract with (I believe) Philips to make a CDI compatible SNES CD, which they would throw their marketing muscle behind. Philips, of course, was an earlier partner which Nintendo had scorned in favor of Sony. Anyway, it was a big ugly mess.

I won't even get into how Square and Nintendo finally made up.

In other words, while Nintendo was not responsible for creating the Final Fantasy series, they do have a sorded past with the series.

Re:Holding out hope.

[Zangief]

The first FF I played was FFVII. However, after liking a lot said game, I went back, and played the older ones. I have played FFI (never finished that one...is way too primitive), FFIV (hyped by nostalgic fans; good if you like basic rpgs), FFV (good game, a shame that west skipped this one) and FFVI (f*cking great game).

FFVI is my fav. The history is great, the fact that you could select (at some point of the history) which group of characters follow, and a lot of other small details that help making the story a little less linear, make it a winner.

Yeah, FFVII was good, but:
-Had a lot of long cutscenes.
-Summons were way too powerful (and boring. Here is a hint: play the game without ever using summons, and the game quality will go up a little)
-Way too easy (even without summons).
-Very linear game.
-Worst. Ending. Ever.
-Horrible load times for battles.
-The battles were tiring. (When I was reaching the end of the second disc, I started playing without volume, because the battle theme was driving me mad).

The bottom line: great story, and 3D characters against good (at the time) 2D backgrounds don't

FF8 fixed the summoning problem (replacing it with the renzokuken problem, which was worst. :), and a great ending. However, you couldn't care less about the villain (Ultimecia? who the heck was her...pseudo-spoiler: some people say she was Rinoa), and the magic system was broken. I liked FF7 best.

Re:Holding out hope.

[Speare]

FFX and FFX-2's crystal are in Luca (the center of the round plaza), and in the tops of Macalania Woods.