Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering an animated OVA from 1994. That movie is "Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals".
Now, I should start by saying that I have played a little bit of Final Fantasy. However, my history with that video game franchise is somewhat cursed. Because, for one reason or another, I can almost never finish those games. I first played Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for the Nintendo GameCube, but I never finished it because I couldn't find a definitive ending for that game. I then played Final Fantasy: X-2, which was the first game in the mainstream Final Fantasy games that I played, which probably isn't someone's first choice when starting out with a main title in the Final Fantasy series. To be fair, the game was actually kinda fun. However, my copy of it decided to stop playing on my PlayStation 2. So unfortunately, I never ended up finishing it. And then I played Final Fantasy VII, which is considered, according to most fans, to be the best game in the entire series. But...I don't really see why. I tried it, and I never ended up finishing it. The game was not only boring, but I might've missed out on something that would've helped me defeat Sephiroth in the final battle. So there's that. And then my curse finally ended when I played Final Fantasy X, which I was able to fully beat, and...the game was OK. It certainly was a decent game, but it ended up being way too fucking long for my tastes.So as you can tell, my history with Final Fantasy isn't entirely a positive one. As for tonight's movie, I do know a little bit about it. I know that this OVA was released in 1994, and it was later distributed on VHS in 1997. Now here's where it gets a bit tricky. You see, the company that put this OVA out on VHS was a distributing company known as Urban Vision. And for whatever reason, Urban Vision lost the distributing rights to this movie. So unfortunately, the movie has never seen a re-release on DVD or Blu-ray to this day. And because of that, the only way you could view this thing is if you had a VHS player that still works and was able to run this movie. However, the prices for those VHS's are pretty steep, if you were to try and find this thing online. Thankfully though, there are two copies of this movie on YouTube, one with the English dub, and the other being the Japanese subtitled version. And if you like the OVA enough, you could run the risk and buy the VHS online. Again, providing if you have a VHS player and the money for it. But, you might want to hold off on doing that, at least until after you read this review.
Now because there are two different copies of this movie on YouTube, for the purposes of Reaction & Review, I'm going to be watching the English dub. So, I am hoping that the dub will be, at least, halfway decent. But, I don't know if this movie will be any good, considering I'm not really a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise. But the only way I'll know if I will end up enjoying this thing or not, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals".
7 minutes later
That thing's suppose to be a Chocobo? I may not have played a lot of Final Fantasy, but I do not recall Chocobo's ever going featherless. That thing basically looks like a fucking turkey being prepped for Thanksgiving. I totally understand that it may be a minor complaint, but it just looks a little bit off to me, you know?
13 minutes later
So let me see if I understand this. Prettz's idea was to force these pirates to crash their ship in front of the entrance to the Temple of the Wind, so that way he and Linaly could gain entrance, which was already high above ground. Yet, Linaly already figured out how to get up there by herself, by way of some sort of puzzle that lifted her to the entrance...I don't know what kind of sense that made on Prettz's part, but I'm going to pretend that it made some level of sense, and just hope that this movie gets better.
10 minutes later
So I wasn't imagining things when I saw Linaly's ass started glowing after the Wind Crystal was absorbed into her body. That is just creepy. And what makes it even more creepier is that Linaly is, potentially, under-aged. And if that is the case, then that makes seeing these up-skirt shots of Linaly even more awkward.
10 minutes later
OK, guys, I think now might be a good time to mention this as any. The acting in this dub is fucking terrible. I kinda hope it gets better as the movie goes along, but I fear that I might be asking for too much at this point.
20 minutes later
I didn't think this was possible, guys. But the acting in this dub is, somehow, getting worse. This is almost starting to become painful to watch, guys.
17 minutes later
You know, guys, you would think, at this point, I would care about Linaly being kidnapped. But to be honest, I really don't care. This movie has been kinda shit. Well, not shit, just really, really dull. I kinda hope these last 20 minutes or so will be interesting. But somehow, I kinda have my doubts.
9 minutes later
So hold on a fucking second here. When did this movie jump from Rouge getting hurt to Mid finding the mind of his grandfather? Either this is a technical issue on my end or this is just a poor copy of the movie that I'm watching that someone uploaded, and might've skipped over some important information. Granted, I understand this movie's been kinda dull, and it might not change anything, but I want to know. What exactly did I miss here?
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals". Let me shut that crap off...dear god. Wow. Guys, I have to start with something that I have never done before. I need to talk about the missing scene. Specifically, I need to address the 5 minutes that were missing from this copy of the movie. You guys may have noticed that I was complaining about how exactly we got from one scene with Rouge getting hurt to another scene with Mid reuniting with his grandfather. So, I decided to do something that I have never done before in this series. And that is watch the missing scene in the Japanese version with the English subtitles. And in order for me to talk about this, I need to talk about spoilers. So, if you are someone who is reading this and is curious on checking this movie out, you may want to skip the next two paragraphs, because I'm going to be talking about that entire 5 minutes. I just want to warn you now so, that way, you won't have to worry about being spoiled. If you don't care about spoilers, then this is not going to affect you either way. So now, let's talk about those missing 5 minutes.
So after Rouge gets shot at, Valkus starts going on a shooting spree and destroys all of the incoming enemies that he sees. Afterwards, our heroes spot the villain of this movie called Deathgyunos. So they charge after him with their ship, guns blazing, to which it leads to his destruction. After they land on the ground, Prettz goes to look for Linaly, to which he finds her being carried by a robot. He then pursues after the robot and, ultimately, destroys it. Afterwards, he tries to wake up Linaly. She does, and proceeds to kick the ever-loving shit out of Prettz, which I thought was the highlight of the entire movie, because Prettz was really annoying. I'll talk more about that when I talk about writing. So after Linaly literally beats the shit out of Prettz, Mid appears and stops her by blowing some sort of smoke in her face. According to Mid, Linaly lost her wits due to some magnetic force. Don't ask, it doesn't make a ton of sense. So anyway, she recovers, and then a giant orc appears to attack our heroes before he gets gunned down by Valkus. And then, we are shown that Valkus and the others have gathered the other 3 crystals, including the one in Linaly's body. And this is where the missing 5 minutes ends before Mid discovers the brain of his grandfather.
So as you can tell, that 5 minutes that I had to condense was filled with heavy spoilers. But you would not have known that, had you watched this movie, and not realize that there was footage cut out near the end of the movie. But it's really noticeable, because it cuts ahead really awkwardly after it looks like Valkus is going to go on a killing spree, and then it cuts ahead to where we see the group together with Linaly, who looks perfectly fine. Now, I would've said that this may have been a technical issue on my end, but it really was a poor copy of the movie that I watched. How? Because I decided to check the description from the person who uploaded this movie, and it has a link to the Japanese subtitled version that clearly states that there is an extra 5 minutes missing from the English dub. Which tells me either it was a fuck up on the person who uploaded this movie, or the user knew they had a poor copy of the English dub that was missing footage and still decided to upload it anyway. Either way, it is very scummy, and it makes this copy of the English dub borderline unwatchable. Then again, it's unwatchable for a couple of different reasons, but I'll get into all of that later on. Now this may entirely be my fault, because I didn't check the description when I started to watch the movie, and not know about the 5 extra minutes of footage. But either way, it just feels wrong to see that I was watching a butchered copy of the movie, on a technical level, and not realize it until near the very end of the movie. I sincerely hope that the VHS print of this movie doesn't have those 5 minutes of footage missing, but I would not be surprised if that is what ended up happening. But I'm just speculating at this point, so I think I should finally move on and talk about the movie itself.
Now, on the off chance you skimmed by those two paragraphs, I'm going to make this point short and quick. This copy of the movie is borderline un-fucking-watchable because of the missing 5 minutes of footage. And the person who uploaded this copy of the English dub of this movie, intentional or not, should be fucking ashamed of themselves for leaving a copy of this movie unchanged and not re-uploaded with the full footage.
With all that out of the way now, let's finally get into the movie proper. Let's start with the writing. As I have stated earlier, I am not a huge fan of the Final Fantasy franchise. And I think the big reason as to why is because I just never found the stories or any of the characters interesting. Now granted, I have only played a handful of Final Fantasy games, and there may come a time where I will find one game in that series and end up liking the story and the characters. As for this movie, it is no different. Now I will say that the story does work. At least, in terms of a Final Fantasy setting. Because we have our main characters, Prettz and Linaly, who travel to the Temple of Wind by the request of Linaly's grandfather, who was suppose to accompany them. Well, more specifically Linaly, because he doesn't like Prettz for some reason. But because of a sand monster, Linaly's grandfather can't continue on the journey with her and tells Linaly to go at it alone. But Prettz eventually ends up joining her, regardless. So anyway, they end up finding the Wind Crystal that ends up in Linaly's body. And from there, it ends up being a quest to put a stop to a villain named Deathgyunos, who wants to use the crystals to end up becoming a god and destroying the world in the process.
Now, as I said, all of that is fine for a plot involving Final Fantasy. In fact, as I was looking up any kind of information for this movie, I found out that this story is set about 200 years after the events of another Final Fantasy game that I haven't played, which is Final Fantasy V. Now, since I haven't played that game, I'm probably going to leave out a ton of details that someone may correct me on. But to be perfectly honest, I don't really care. Because I'm reviewing this movie on it's own standards, rather than trying to fit in what was either missing or left out of Final Fantasy V. And unfortunately, the movie fails to deliver because of it's characters either being really annoying or really shallow. And I touched upon that earlier as to why I'm not a big fan of Final Fantasy. The story can work, but you have to have interesting characters in order to help carry that story forward. Or in the very rare case of Final Fantasy X-2, the gameplay was actually really fun, despite the lackluster story and the bland characters. But that's beside the point. I'm gonna rundown every character that I can remember by name.
We first have Linaly, who is one of the descendants from Final Fantasy V, and one of the main characters for this OVA. She has a very standard good guy personality that is really dull and doesn't change in the slightest. Then we have Valkus, who is an air force general who is really loud and has a crush on Rouge. Speaking of which, Rouge, is a pirate who's only after treasured valuables. Bascially, she's Rouge the Bat from Sonic, except with less personality. And I wouldn't be surprised if this is where Sonic Team got the idea of Rouge the Bat from, but that's just me speculating about something trivial. Then we get to Mid, who is, honestly, the only character in this movie that has some sort of development, because he's one of the descendants from Final Fantasy V. Unfortunately, his personality is really dry and it comes to a point of him being kind of annoying. Now, I don't know if he was like in Final Fantasy V, but I'm sure it has to be better than he was in this movie. And then we get to our other main character, Prettz...oh boy. Prettz is one of the most annoying and obnoxious main characters I have seen in a movie in a long time. And what's funny about that is that during the second episode, where they are locked up inside a cell on Rouge's island, Valkus says someone should shoot Prettz and put him out of his misery. Which is honestly what I thought should've happened. Every single time Prettz opened his mouth, I just wanted someone to fucking shoot him in the head, because he was just that annoying. Unfortunately though, that doesn't end up happening. So unfortunately, our characters here are just kinda shit and dull overall, at least in terms of personality.
Now we get to the voice acting. As I stated before the start of this review, I opted to watch the English dub for this movie. And unfortunately, that ended up being a really poor choice. Not just because of the missing 5 minutes footage, but the acting overall is just terrible. Almost everybody in this movie is either overacting their performances by yelling their lines or they're purposefully subduing them. One example I can think of is during a flashback, where we get to see how Mid's grandfather was dying. After he dies, Mid gives out the most subdued 'no' I have ever heard. I want you to imagine the ending of "Star Wars: Episode III", where Darth Vader gives out the very infamous line of crying 'no'. Now imagine that, except when Mid yells out no, it sounds very drowned out, that it could almost be seen as laughably bad. In fact, I would almost say that the acting in this dub could be seen as just laughably bad. And if this copy of the movie didn't have the 5 minutes of missing footage, then I probably would've recommended this thing to watch with friends on a bad movie night, assuming of course, if you don't care about plot or substance. However, because I have more of a standard when it comes to story and characters, this movie doesn't do it for me. And personally, this dub is just awful, and not in a funny way.
Animation is really good. And I can tell you that it's good, because it was done by a very well known Japanese animation studio known as Madhouse. And Madhouse is known for creating some really awesome looking shows and movies such as "Perfect Blue", "Tokyo Godfathers", "Summer Wars", "Black Lagoon", just to name a few. This movie is no different. For something that was made in the mid 90's, this is very impressive. Of course, if I were to compare it to the stuff that Madhouse made today, then I would say that the animation looks dated. However, you would have to be completely foolish to try and compare an OVA from 1994 to the current stuff Madhouse has made. So yeah, animation in this thing is really good, from the unique character designs, and to the different locations set in the world of this movie. That being said, I do have to talk about the picture quality. Because the picture quality in this OVA is fuzzy and grainy as shit. And you can totally tell that the person who uploaded this thing decided to upload a very poor VHS copy of the movie, and it shows how bad the quality is. But what's strange about all of this is that when I checked the Japanese version to see what I had missed from those 5 minutes of missing footage, the picture quality in that version is clear and crisp as day. It almost looks like it was uploaded from a DVD or Blu-ray copy, despite the fact that this movie still doesn't have a proper home video re-release. So if you want another reason to avoid the horrible English dub, then the Japanese subtitled version is going to be a much better viewing experience for you, both in sound and in picture quality.
Sound-mix is competent enough. The music here is pretty good, too. Listening to the music in this movie would definitely be something I would hear in a Final Fantasy game. So at least this movie got that much right.
So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals"? I can, maybe, recommend it to fans of Final Fantasy, and that's about it. I certainly can't recommend it to non-fans, such as myself. Oh, and I would prefer watching this movie in Japanese with the subtitles. There is no way in hell I can recommend this copy of the English dub that has poor picture quality, and the 5 minutes of missing footage. This English dub is unwatchable. And while I may not be a big fan of Final Fantasy, I was still hoping for this thing to, at least, be halfway decent. But unfortunately, this movie couldn't even meet those standards. Now, I kinda want to watch a better movie made by Madhouse, and the first thing that comes to mind is "Redline", so I'm gonna go watch that. That way, I can try and forget about this horrible mess.
Anyway, with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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