I used to be a huge fan of the Final Fantasy video game franchise. I say "used to be" because I feel like each subsequent game (after Final Fantasy 6, my personal favorite) has delved even further into character melodrama, and that's not something I enjoy. Final Fantasy 7 and its CG animated sequel Advent Children spent too much time focused on the character Cloud and his weepy emo-drama and so I've sort of disowned that game and its characters. But I do acknowledge that it's extremely popular with fans and it's a phenomenon that's endured for over ten years, a mind-boggling amount of time in the short-attention-span world of popular video games.
For day 4, I wanted to take a look at the more traditionally-animated companion to Advent Children, the Last Order OVA. I had never seen it before and thought that its focus on the pasts of the characters might be marginally more entertaining and interesting.
Last Order tells the story of the characters Zack and Cloud and how they escape the city of Nibelheim after Sephiroth goes crazy and destroys it. Sephiroth is shown discovering the extraterrestrial being Jenova (who he believes to be his mother) atop the Nibelheim Mako reactor, and brutally injuring Zack and Cloud (as well as harming Tifa) who ascend the mountain to try and stop him.
The story is narrated by Tseng, leader of the Turks, and its flashbacks alternate between the events at Nibelheim, and Zack and Cloud's subsequent escape from the Shinra corporation, when Zack is eventually killed. For the most part, these are events which appear in the video game, but they're fleshed-out somewhat and Zack is given more of a starring role. The other members of the Turks appear in what can only be described as small cameo roles, as does the smarmy professor Hojo.
There are plenty of shout-outs towards fans of the games in the form of visual similarities. The outside view of the Shinra corporation is a dead-ringer for the games, and the final scene of Zack and Cloud riding in the back of a pickup truck is framed the same way that it is in the game. There are also a couple of musical pieces from the game that are echoed in this production, if briefly.
Though my interest in the actual video game on which this OVA is based has waned considerably since I first played it (and I've pledged never to touch it again unless the oft-rumored remake comes to be a reality), there's still something pleasantly nostalgic about revisiting the characters and their universe. The bonus is that Cloud is silent for most of the OVA, so no one has to be subjected to his whining, and that makes things much more tolerable.
This OVA is available as part of the Collectors' Edition release of Advent Children in the US. For fans of the game, it's a must-see. For non-fans, it's still a curiosity but, like Advent Children, requires familiarity with the game to get much from it.
Last Order was a pretty decent anime, but I've since enjoyed Crisis Core on the PSP. It wasn't a perfect game but it was a fairly good prequel to FF7. In the end, I think I prefer Crisis Core's retelling of events to Last Order.
I still have the fansubbed version of LO I downloaded years ago. I also own Advent Children on DVD. My like of FF7 doesn't go deep enough to buy AC again just for the extras.
On a last note, I found FF12 to be a pretty refreshing game in the Final Fantasy series. I didn't finish it (the game is extremely long-- at least 100 hours) but I found it to be a nice departure from where Final Fantasy has been going lately. Then again, I completely enjoyed FF13 for the opposite reasons, so feel free to take my opinion with a hearty grain of salt.
I enjoyed what I played of FF12, but it pulled the whole "suddenly getting exponentially more difficult" thing with me and as someone who was already becoming more short on time due to an increasing interest in anime I didn't really want to sit and level grind for the rest of my life. It's unfortunate, because I liked the story and a couple of the characters, and the battle system was really fun to tinker with and customize IMO.
I'm not gonna lie - the copy of Last Order I used for this article was also an ancient fansub that I downloaded and kept sitting around on my computer, unwatched since then. Unlike most other anime, though, I don't think this one has really suffered in sales enough to feel that bad about it ;)
Ever played FF9? That one's on 6's level and is my personal favourite. That one's main hero, Zidane, is a welcome change of pace from Cloud's angst-baggery and Squall's emo-ness.