Final Fantasy – Video Games Writ Large

July 2, 2001

I lucked out and was able to get into the premiere of Final Fantasy tonight. In short… wow.

The story’s just a hodgepodge of old sci-fi cliches and stiff dialogue, but the graphics are absolutely jaw dropping. This is miles and miles ahead of Shrek and Bug’s Life. It’s so realistic and life like that you end up picking apart stuff because it’s not absolutely perfect. This is especially noticeable when you see the human characters move and speak. They look a bit like the Thunderbirds in Marion-ation! Other than that, everything is dead solid. The tech design and stuff is really good too, better than most live-action sci-fi we’ve seen. I’d have preferred a less realistic look so they could have exaggerated the animation a bit more. It’s almost to the point where you wonder if it would have been cheaper to do this as a live action movie. That’s really nitpicking, though.

Even when everything gets bogged down in the metaphysical spirit mumbo-jumbo, you can just look at the screen and say “ooooh. pretty.” Very cool. Completely on a technical level, every geek should check it out.

Posted in Moving Pictures