Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children released

As the title suggests, the long-awaited video-game adaptation has already been released. I have not watched it yet, I am still downloading it. You can download it here. For now, lets look at the preview I wrote some time ago.

Yes, people. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children will be released on September 14, at the US at least. There is no mention of this film screening on cinema, though, just in the form of DVDs. I recently downloaded a four-minute trailer off BitTorrent, it made little sense to me. The background music of the entire trailer is taken from the final boss fight in the original FFVII, only this time with real instruments and a real choir (Think Duel of the Fates from Star Wars Episode 1).

Take a look at how realistic the visuals are. Click on the above image, and I have proven my point. It's hard enough to produce still images this realistic, imagine an entire film, 70 minutes in all. Gasp, only 70-80 minutes? Yeah, I am disappointed for how short it is. But then I think about the awesome detail in its graphics and how flashy and intense the fight scenes are going to be. Hence, I will watch it twice. In fact, I watched that trailer twice in a row.

As for the story, the trailer made little sense to me, like I said earlier. All I can figure out is that something 'big' is going to take place and Cloud, of all people, have to stop or counter it. (Sounds like a familiar plot?). Here, we have new characters: three men with silver hair, aptly named 'The Silver Haired Men'. Go figure. Incidentally, the villain from the game was also silver haired. I actually mistaken Kadaj, a new character, to be Sephiroth in the fight scenes. Only later I found out that Sephiroth did not appear in the trailer at all.

Aside from new characters, which includes a white-robed guy on a wheelchair, we see some familiar faces, this time having a million more pixels on them. We get to see life-like recreations of Vincent Valentine, Barret Wallace, Tifa Lockheart, Yuffie, Red XIII, Cid Highwind, and even the Turks. To me, the most realistic of them all is Tifa; since when is she so beautiful?? Well, Cloud's face is also very real, but his hair is still ridiculously yet stylishly anime-character-ish. Also, we have Vincent, who now proves himself to be more than just an optional character.

All in all, this should be a good watch, especially for die-hard final fantasy fans. Mouth-watering eye candy plus a solid storyline here will produce at least decent reviews. I just hope that it would not flop like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which I put so much faith on before its release.

'I think... I want to be forgiven.' - Cloud Strife

Another piece of Justin Wong's mind at 9/12/2005 11:09:00 PM