| Final Fantasy used to be heralded as the untopped king of RPGs back in the late 80s and early to mid 90s. The video games redefined the role playing game genre and came the closest to immersing gamers into a fictitous realm and battling the unreal and supernatural beasts and creatures only found in the pages of Dungeons & Dragons monster manuals that table top gaming provided. The series can be considered Macbeth, ruling over the RPG console gaming world that the Dragon Warrior series and Sega's Shining Force franchise could only hold their own so much. But much like Macbeth, (then) SquareSoft would fall victim to it's own madness, and that madness emerged in the form of easily the most overhyped, overrated video game Final Fantasy VII. I won't take anything away from it's success in the marketing department, this game made out like gangbusters and the only other game that was equal in hype was Super Mario Bros. 3. The similarities end there. I will not lie, I really hated FF7 and still do, for more than just pissing off hardcore fans of it (which I did for well about a decade). The gameplay was simple and adaptable, the visuals were stunning at the time, and the music was pretty darn good (I still love the boss battle BGM). It's the storytelling. Final Fantasy VII destroyed comprehensible stories beyond repair that still affects RPGs to this very day, even in SquareEnix's own works. I won't get into all of that, I'll be here for hours. FF7 made little to no sense from the end of disc 1 to that debacle of a flashback in Nibelhiem. I've played the game from start to finish seven times to try and make heads or tales out of what is taking place and whose story is supposed to be the truth. What I pieced together is Cloud, Tifa, and Sephiroth's lies are all just one, big plothole pretzel that I assume is supposed to keep audiences guessing as to what the answer is. So I assumed with the announcement of Final Fantasy: Advent Children, Tetsuya Nomura would come clean and release a full-fledged apology and tell us what that whole Life Stream crap was supposed to be. Instead what was released was an impressively below- mediocore CGI snore-fest that not only failed to answer any questions, but raised new, even more puzzling ones. This was an amazingly boring movie that I could not get into from minute one. Not much happens, to be honest. Once I threw aside the notion of expecting an explanation for.....ANYTHING....the new plot they were attempting to feed me just seemed very paltry. The new villians, Kadaj, Yazoo, and Lox, are apparently hardcore Sephiroth fans clad in all black (all black attire is hammered into your brain repeatedly in this movie. "Look, we're EDGEY", they seem to faintly scream), looking to retrieve Jenova. You know, Jenova? That entity that would've made for a far more suitable antagonist than drama queen Sephiroth, who was sad about being a clone? This is anime, who isn't sad about being a clone!? Anyway, they talk and talk, but none of their dialouge means anything, mostly because these guys just show up and I'm supposed to accept them as some mode of threat. This plot is very akin to one of those Disney direct-to-video sequels where the same thing is just vaguely rehashed (see Aladdin and Mulan sequels). It just isn't engaging in the least. Something about a virus, too. As for the "heroes", and I use the term very loosely in regards to Cloud, who is a walking Radiohead album with spiky hair, and Tifa, who still ranks as one the most selfish female leads I've encountered until the creation of Bella from the Twilight franchise. The fact that she was perfectly content with continuing to feed and ferment Cloud lies about his origin and existance despite the fact that it was tearing him apart just so he wouldn't leave her side is easily the most blatant act of co-dependance and self-absortion I've ever seen in fiction. having a nce rack doesn't make you a good character, he still had his mind on the dead girl, you hussy. As for the other characters you played as in the game, they're virtually non-existant, save Vincent, who appears to tell everyone that he's a vampire now, since that what everyone on the face of planet decided instead of the amalgam of experiments Hojo turned him into in the damn game. At least I got a kick out of the Turks while they were on screen. They provided nice bouts of entertainment whenever present. The visuals are nothing short of stellar, though, and it is beautiful to look at, even if the color palette is regulated to mostly the hues of gray, black, and brown. It's too bad most of the film takes place in the rotting septic system that is Midgard. If I wanted to watch Bladerunner, I would. It would've been nice to see Cosmo Canyon in rendered CG or that Casino place, the name I forgot. (Rold Gold-something?) The fighting and action, like most CGI films I watch, comes off a little fake and over produced. Things are zipping across the screen at blinding speeds, so keeping up is a chore, and since it's lifeless CG models, they resemble drones that get hit, yet exhibit no real expression of pain or anguish, making it hard for me to care about the fight. They just get right back up like automotons and continue zipping around like mad. By the way, when did Cloud learn to fly? IN CLOSING: FF7 has it's loyal fanbase, but to me, it's the Neon Genesis Evangelion of RPGS. It's formula has been copied and only got worse with each passing mimic. Funny since it's source material isn't that great to begin with. Advent Children seemed to be an attempt to cash in on the hardcores that adored the game and wanted more, but just came off as a hackneyed, uninteresting sequel riddled with forced cameos and nonsensicle storytelling and probably the mother of all goofball surprise reveals (I won't say anything except "TOWELWHEELCHAIR", you might know what I mean). If you want to see characters from the game duke it out in high quality 1s and 0s, enjoy. I'll turn my Gambits off so I'll stop attacking Final Fantasy to end this review. STORY: 3 ART: 8 SOUND: 7 CHARCTERS: 4 ENJOYMENT: 5 OVERALL SCORE: 4 out of 10 PROS: Pretty cool visuals, I loved the Turks, Zack in full rendered CGI CONS: Lousy story, lame villians, uninspired Matrix-styled fight scenes, just dull |
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