Honestly, I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game. Ever. I admit that I’ve been mildly intrigued from time to time regarding the hype that seems to follow this series, but I’m mainly a PC gamer. I’ve actually never owned a console on which to play these games (except for my NES, but I never played the first one). Not to mention the fact that I’m not huge on turn based games. I tend to get bored rather quickly by having to take a break between each attack to figure out what to do next. Maybe too many years of Counter-Strike has turned me into an action junky.

Despite having never played the games, I do own Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within though. The first time I watched this movie I was blown away at what Square/Enix was able to accomplish. The CG was amazing and the story was easily able to stand on its own for those unfamiliar with the games. To be honest, I don’t know if this movie even really ties in with the games, but as an Anime fan, I found it quite enjoyable.

Which brings us to the point of this post… This weekend I finaly rented Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Frankly, the only reason I rented it was because of the sheer lack of anything interesting at Hollywood Video on Friday night. Plus the fact that my wife wasn’t with me to pick something. Her general distaste towards movies of the anime/kung-fu/CG/sci-fi/fantasy/gaming persuasions usually wins out, but without her there to dissuade me, I got it. After watching it I have only two words… HOLY WOW!!!

I admit that I was a little lost in regards to the story line. Unlike Spirits Within, this movie directly ties into the Final Fantasy VII story and assumes a knowledge of that story and the characters in the game. I had none of that knowledge and was therefore a bit lost. However, the movie did a pretty good job of filling in the major gaps with flashbacks so even though I had no clue who some of the characters were, I was able to follow the major plot arc pretty easily. There was enough information about Cloud and Sephiroth that I thought I had a pretty good idea about the history between these two characters. Beyond all of this though was the absolutely amazing CG. I have never seen it’s equal. It was easy to tell that it was dubbed as the lips didn’t match the words, but even so, the English voice acting was quite good. The subtle facial animations and the incredibly life-like eyes made the characters come alive. Not to mention that the fight sequences were incredibly well done. This YouTube vid doesn’t really do it justice, but it will give you an idea of how well done this movie is…

After watching this movie, I’m now as interested as ever in the Final Fantasy series. As with a few other games I’ve played, I may be willing to forge ahead through the gameplay style in order to let the story line play out. I’m a firm believer that story is as important to a game as the gameplay and after watching this movie it’s easy to see that this series has a very intriguing story with many complex and well written characters. Maybe this is the turning point for me…