Final Fantasy

Two hundred years have passed since the hero Bartz and his companions saved the inhabitants of Planet R—a world where crystals control the natural elements—from the threat of Exdeath. However, agents of the wizard Ra Devil steal the crystals of Earth, Fire, and Water. With three of the four crystals in his possession, Ra Devil seeks to claim the Wind Crystal, the final piece he needs to summon the destructive god Deathgyunos.

Novice summoner Linaly—a direct descendant of Bartz—lives with her grandfather Hassam. After receiving an ominous message about the Wind Crystal, Hassam travels to the Wind Temple. Concerned for his safety, Linaly suggests that they make the journey together. On their trip, they encounter Prettz, a rowdy yet amiable swordsman, who is captivated by the young girl and accompanies the duo for his own mysterious reasons.

During a battle, an antlion monster injures Hassam, leaving him bedridden. As a result, the responsibility of securing the Wind Crystal falls on Linaly, with Prettz assuming the role of her guardian as they continue their perilous adventure.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Klauser, Linaly Main

Minaguchi, Yuko Japanese

Prettz Main

Matsumoto, Rica Japanese

Ra Devil Supporting

Ogata, Kenichi Japanese

Valkus Supporting

Chiba, Shigeru Japanese

Rouge Supporting

Hirano, Fumi Japanese

Hassam Supporting

Tomiyama, Kei Japanese

Mid Supporting

Kozakura, Etsuko Japanese

Queen Lenna Supporting

Kasahara, Hiroko Japanese

Rintarou Director, Episode Director

Ookubo, Tomihiko Director, Key Animation

Sekijima, Mayori Script

Iso, Mitsuo Key Animation, Special Effects

Reviews

Sep 6, 2008

MikariStar

Recommended

Aside from the references, this anime isn't directly connected to the Final Fantasy V game. It takes place many years after the game, and though it is said that Linaly, the main female character, is a descendant of Bartz, this Bartz could very well be some random legendary hero.

There are job classes, though without the particular outfits and there are four crystals as in practically every Final Fantasy. The plot features the quest to protect the wind crystal after the others are stolen by a new enemy, a strange alien with advanced technology whose base is located in the black moon, a natural satellite of ... planet Gaia.

The story has its fair share of humor and amusing characters especially Pritz and Rogue. The plot is easy to understand even if you haven't played the game, but the references would be lost.

Overall it seems this anime has received more criticism than praise, possibly because people expected a sequel with more connections to the game. But if you look at it as a strand alone Final Fantasy story, it's not bad.

The art and sound are not the best, but to be fair the anime is rather old and has decent art for its time. Despite it not being one of the best anime out there, it's still enjoyable and I recommend watching it with an open mind, being ready to judge it on its own instead of holding it against the game.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 17, 2022

Gsarthotegga

Mixed Feelings

The reputation for this OVA has always been all over the place. Fans of the game series appear to dislike it because it's not as well-rounded as they would hope and maybe too brief and rushed of a fantasy romp. It's loosely based on Final Fantasy 5, but there's not much to this connection other than a few references to the four crystals, the heroes, the curious fact of every spell the female main uses involves the comic relief beast of burden/horse-like (more like an ostrich or big bird, but they ride them, so...) creature known as the chocobo, and the villain with the ... most badass name ever—ExDeath (I'm kidding). The FF games, as far as I know, took their time to really flesh the world and story out, but... it's not like their longwinded stories were anything special, yet I guess fleshed-out mediocrity is better than a mediocrity formed by being seemingly thrown together because of budget or time constraints...

It's an okay little OVA. One of the better hard fantasy series of its type from the '90s OVA boom. The story is just a rough bastardization and revamping of the SNES games—essentially, it's like "Oh, no! Oh, wow! Someone has taken the four crystals and thrown the world out of balance for their own diabolical plans! Too bad we didn't bother to add security details... oops..." that actually might be the biggest of all fantasy cliches when it comes to the conception of the world. An old-fashioned notion about the way elements correspond to nature and how the heroes keep this balance and the villains throw it out of whack. Not very compelling. They don't get too heavy in rehashing the rehash, but I did space out during a few expository moments. At least it's really brief.

The coloring is as vivid as 1992's similarly themed Ellcia. The character design is... eh, a mixed bag: I think it's quirky and stands out, but the dominatrix pirate group is very stupid looking, and Valkus is maybe a bit funky with the proportion of his tiny head and bulbous body. The visual design is pretty solid, and the more wide-open driving scenes remind me slightly of obscure OVAs with a great sense of movement like Birth, and Yoshinori Kanada had a hand in animating the both of them (most of his FF segments are noticeable in the fourth episode, especially with the dog fights and explosions), though Birth remains far more notable in terms of animation. Other reference points might be another obscure OVA, Dragon's Heaven—a kind of Moebius-inspired sci-fi/fantasy mech piece with lots of stippling and texturing, though FF is decidedly much lighter on the shading. Other notable animators include Mitsuo Iso, who provided exceptional character animation and one of the motorcycle chase scenes. Being that this is a Rintaro directed anime, the story boarding is also very good, and it especially shows in the perspective and detail-packed ending sequence among the green ruins.

Where the series is a little less convincing is with the characters. They're often serviceable to lead the plot along. Some of the hijinks are humorous—other moments not as much. The characters have enough swagger to the point that you might not notice what little depth they have if you get caught up in the action and character acting.

Prettz has a big sword to represent how horny he is, and we get to watch him do nothing but hero things and simp the whole time. Linaly is... *flashes panties.* Oh, right. The most notable aspect about her character is that she eats one of the crystals, and it causes her bottom to light up like a firefly, and she can easily function as a lighthouse, as we see in one of the classiest scenes of all time. Rouge is a gold-digging dominatrix whose philosophy is like "I love money. I hate death." Valkus is an interesting case: you don't know what he'll be like as a character until he sees Rouge, and "falls in love" with her and will do anything for her. Ugh, well, he's partially redeemed by his line of dialogue when he's trying to avoid fighting: "W-wait! I'm not in the habit of fighting fat women." Pretty based, but then he ends up as an emasculated slave by the end in one of the worst send-offs for a character I've ever seen. I personally have a soft spot for ghost characters like Mid; he works well as a wise man archetype and guide, though his backstory is really ridiculous. Talk about a big-brained grandfather—it's like the size of a house!

The villain has absolutely 0 depth. I guess he wanted to rule the universe or something, and he has the equally cool name of Ra Devil (kidding again). His visual design is kind of cool and reminiscent of a more tech-infused body horror like you'd find in Akira, but that's about it. The action has some kind of weight and tension to it throughout most of the first three episodes, but it feels really thrown together and random by the end. Like the heroes have unimaginable plot armor, and the sense of world building for the final area is really non-existent. The final fight actually does feel oddly like a drawn-out turn-based JRPG game with how ridiculous it is. The ending is also unsatisfying and flat.

I feel like this was a fun... possible 6/10 for most of the series, but it loses direction to such an extent by the last episode that I settled for a 5/10. The whole thing about finding the dragon is a little tedious, and there are plenty of little things that bog it down, as well as some pacing issues due to the predictability of the script. There are a LOT of shoddy OVAs during that period, but this one is reasonably well-made and worth checking out. It just needed a better script, and the VGM tie-in probably didn't help, but I will say that as far as that kind of thing goes, this held up remarkably well, flawed as it may be.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 3, 2013

ktulu007

Not Recommended

Before I begin, let me start with a quick disclaimer. I like the Final Fantasy games, for the most part. If I poke fun at the franchise a bit during the course of this review it's not because I just don't like the series, it's because the series has a lot of goofy aspects. I've looked at a few anime adaptations of video games in the past. I've looked at bad ones, Ninja Gaiden being the obvious example. Average ones, Nightstalkers and ones that were pretty good, Tales of Phantasia. This week I'm going to be looking at a selection from one of my favourite ... game companies, Square and our old friends at Madhouse. This is Final Fantasy, Legend of the Crystals.

Legend of the Crystals takes place several centuries after the events of Final Fantasy V. Linaly, a descendant of Bartz, is going to the temple of the wind to safeguard the crystal. She's followed by a young man named Prettz. The two find the crystal, which decides to hide itself in Linaly's body, which causes her bum to glow for some reason. The two find out that the other crystals have been stolen and find themselves targeted by mechanical beings who are trying to get the last one. They even build a Proctologist robot for that very purpose. Not really, but that would've been moderately less stupid than what actually happens. The actual story is pretty minimal and very cliche. The plot element of Linaly's firefly bottom mostly serves as an excuse for fan-service shots, on a character who looks to be all of twelve, classy. The final battle scene is quite anti-climactic and a lot of the events in the plot happen by virtue of plot contrivance instead of as a part of any kind of cohesive whole.

The characters in this are dreadful. You have Linaly, who spends most of her time either getting kidnapped or acting as a compass. She brings great shame on Bartz's name, and he's not even one of the good FF protagonists. He's okay though, which still makes him far too good of a character to be associated with this helpless twerp. Prettz is only slightly better, being an annoying moron. Then you have Rouge, a character who does absolutely nothing plot relevant. The other major characters are Mid, a ghost who basically serves as a guide for the majority of the OVA, Valkus, a muscle-head with all of one personality trait, and Ra Devil, the antagonist who makes Exdeath look like the best developed character ever by comparison.

The art in this is largely just lazy. With shading being used almost never. The facial expressions used for the characters tend to range from blank to dull surprise with very little variation. A lot of scenes are also repeated pretty much verbatim. To give an example, there's an action scene in which a large woman tries to slice our protagonists with a sword, only to have them duck. Then it happens two more times and it's pretty much the same every single time. The chocobos in this look terrible. They don't have their traditional yellow feathers, looking more like plucked ostriches, their beaks and eyes are also off. Then we have the fan-service. There are a lot of panty shots of our twelve year old heroine, because Madhouse decided to put their grossest people on this project. Linaly, put on some proper pants. Your shorts are far too short. Especially given your age. Rouge's outfit is just terrible. She looks like she's wearing bondage straps. Lady, most people can't pull bondage gear off as an outfit for action and you certainly aren't Sephiroth. Valkus just looks like a badly drawn 90s comic hero with a head that's too small for his overly muscled body.

Madhouse did get some really good voice actors for this. Particularly Ogata Kenichi, Yamazaki Wakana and Minaguchi Yoko. However, they don't give their best performances. In fact, their performances are kind of mediocre. The music is the best part of the OVA. It's the only aspect of the OVA that actually feels like a Final Fantasy game.

The yuri factor is a 1/10. The female characters barely even interact.

that was Legend of the Crystals, and it is bad. To be fair, the story is only the fifth worst I've seen in conjunction with the Final Fantasy title, but that isn't saying a whole lot. The franchise may have some great stories and characters, but it also has some really bad ones. It's not the worst video game adaptation I've reviewed either, but it's down there. My final rating is a 2.4/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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As we wait for the next installment in the acclaimed Final Fantasy series, there is no better time then to see what wonderful figures have been released during the franchise's long run.

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CollectionCute GirlsCute GuysFigures