Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children [UMD Mini for PSP] [2005]

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Directors: Takeshi Nozue, Tetsuya Nomura
Actors: Takahiro Sakurai, Ayumi Ito, Shotaro Morikubo, Maaya Sakamoto, Keiji Fujiwara
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Category: DVD

Buy New: £11.10

New (3) from £11.10

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

11 reviews

Language: English (Original Language)
Media: UMD Mini for PSP
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Running Time: 101 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6

MPN: 11795
UPC: 043396117952
EAN: 0043396117952

Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Release Date: April 25, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ships from U.S.A., to anywhere in the United Kingdom! Orders only take 7-10 days! We specialise in service to the U.K. and only ship airmail.

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Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Last Order October 20, 2008
Aion (England)
Note: This review is only for Last Order, the 20 minute extra that comes on the second DVD of the limited edition. The score is not far the average main feature, Advent Children.

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The first thing that needs to be said is that Last Order, a mere extra created to sell more copies of the limited edition release of Advent Children, is actually vastly superior to what it was designed to help sell. It doesn't say a lot good about Advent Children when it isn't even good enough to better an extra, but Last Order did do what Square Enix wanted and helped sell lots of copies of the limited edition release.

Last Order was one of the very first things I watched on my then brand new 19" monitor, and it was a wonderful experience. Up until that point I'd only had a 17" CRT monitor; one that had such bad brightness levels that it was near impossible to see what was going when watching anything remotely dark. The difference between the two monitors was staggering. But what impressed me more than my new monitor was this surprisingly high quality extra that I had discovered at complete random. The art, animation, pacing, music...everything about it impressed me. Watching it made me want to own it, even if it meant paying a daft amount just for 20 minutes due to it only being available with Advent Children.

The story is short and sweet since it wasn't possible for Madhouse to fit too much story into 20 minutes and make it flashy and fast-paced enough to do what Square wanted.
Sephiroth, the best member of SOLDIER (the elite of Shinra) has gone insane, killing nearly everyone in the village he was staying in to complete a mission. This leaves Zack, another SOLDIER member who had gone with Sephiroth to learn from the best and help complete the mission, with the unenviable job of attempting to stop Sephiroth before his insanity causes even more deaths.

Unlike Advent Children, which did an awful job of continuing the story of the most famous game (FFVII) Square have created, Last Order briefly covers the best part of the games story - the Nibelheim disaster. In the game the true story of what happened wasn't revealed in full until near the end, with a flashback near the start having mixed up the events prior to the big reveal. Last Order, however, gets right into what really happened, telling the story from the perspective of Zack; a character key to the main character of the game, and a character who barely featured in the game. The story in Last Order skips the build-up to what led to Nibelheim turning into an inferno because of time constraints, the focus instead being on what happened right after it started at the nearby Mako Reactor. The story also constantly switches from the Nibelheim events to what's happening in the present (of the Last Order story), showing Zack trying to flee from a small army of Shinra troops and the infamous Turks; the Shinra department that deals with the more dirty side of their business.

Aside from selling more copies of the Advent Children limited edition, the other objective was clearly to flesh out the character of Zack in preparation for his lead role in Crisis Core (the prequel to FFVII), and that was accomplished excellently by adding filler that showed him to be the sort of guy who'd laugh in the face of death and protect a friend no matter what. The game did give you an idea what type of guy Zack was by including an optional truck scene (FFVII players will understand what I'm referring to) that briefly showed Zack chatting away about the future shortly before the fitting and tragic end to his story, but watching the same scene in animated form, after having seen lots of filler flesh out his character, made it much more powerful.

Moving onto the fluff side, the OVA was as high budget as you'd expect an animation that only lasts 20 minutes to have been. The art is excellent throughout, the dark/gloomy colours set the mood perfectly, the animation flows without issue and the music is brilliant. Watching this really made me wish that Madhouse had been allowed to create an OVA with more than one episode - it would've been brilliant to see Madhouse cover more of the Nibelheim story.

Speaking of looks, the main attraction for FFVII fans is the Zack vs. Sephiroth fight and Madhouse didn't disappoint in creating an exciting fight with very little source material to work with. The fight, which lasted under a minute, put the sleep inducing sword contests in Advent Children to shame. It was paced perfectly, with no needless sword waving/building throwing occurring, and it even had a nice little extra on show for fans of the game - a low level limit break that any fan of the game would recognise. And it's also worth mentioning the music that plays during the fight and the end credits - the music, combined with the animation, made my cheeks tingle when I first watched the fight sequence.

All in all, Last Order is a very satisfying and highly enjoyable piece of animation for any fan of the game, or even anyone simply interested in seeing the best part of the game story without going through the game. If you want to watch something FFVII related, make sure it's this and not the flashy yet empty main feature.

Rating: 9/10

5 out of 5 stars

Final Fantasy VII October 8, 2007
Frances
The makers of this film have really outdone themselves this time. The graphics are excellent.
The dipiction of Clouds journey to forgivness, battling with Jenova's memetic legacy (or Geostigma) is beautifully narated along with Tifa's struggle through life without CLoud while she has to look after Denzel (who also has Geostigma) and Marlene.
The fight scenes are very detailed in the smallest way and the lip syncing is very good
All in all a very good movie and I weould reccomend it to everyone who loves Final Fantasy 7
P.S the one thing I would say is that don't expect it to be a copy of the game

4 out of 5 stars

Storyline was a let down June 26, 2006
S. Byrne (London)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I found the storyline to be a bit of a let down, but this is probably because I am worryingly obsessed with the game, even after nearly ten years...! I think after such a long wait I was really expecting something more, especially as the storyline from FFVII was so gripping and convoluted.

I'm not sure what Tseng was doing in the film, seeing as I'm sure Sephiroth killed him in the game, and found it highly improbable that Rufus could possibly have survived, but never mind!! I much preferred watching the film in Japanese as it made a lot more sense and the American voices were really irritating!

The ending was just too soppy for me, with all those irritating children jumping around. I think I prefered the ambiguity of the game's ending.

Despite the let down in the plot, the graphics were beautiful and most of the characters looked the way they should have done had the game been made more recently (except Tifa). I did enjoy seeing all my favorite characters from the game again, especially Reno!! The battle scenes were beautifully executed, if a little fast and I liked that they incorporated a lot of the sountrack from the game into the film, especially the Sephiroth choir!!

My fiance, who never played the game, said he didn't really get what was going on, so I would say you do really need have played the game to understand it, especially with their constant references to Aeris without ever actually saying her name...

Although I was expecting a lot more from it I still enjoyed the film and it is definately a must see for anyone else who was addicted to that wonderful game!!!

5 out of 5 stars

You need to play the game to understand October 26, 2005
Mr. R. Young (Northern Ireland)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

As the title suggests and as one earlier reviewer pointed out, there is no real point in watching the movie unless you have completed the game. I watched the movie last night and although it was a japenese version and I had to read the subtitles it was an amazing movie from start to finish.

To start off with I will explain what happened in the game to those who do not know. If you already know what happened then skip through this paragraph. The main character is a man called Cloud Strife. He meets up with a band if eco-warriors called AVALANCHE, the leader is called Barret. Their aim is to destroy a company by the name of Shinra that is polluting the world. Along the way Cloud meets Tifa and then he meets Aries. Aries is the last known ancient on the planet. Shinra captured her and Cloud goes with Tifa and Barret to go and save her. When they catch up to her they come across a dog like creature called Red13. They go up to the top floor to try and assasanate Shinra the head of the organisation but they already find him dead. Cloud informs them that a man named Sephiroth did it. Sephiroth was an ex-soldier and was the best. When he found out that he had been born by an experiment then he went psycho on the Shinra company and then on the rest of the world. After the assasination Cloud and friends set out into the wide world to kill Sephiroth. About 20 hours of gameplay later the group have met a number of people (Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, Cait Sith,) and they have found the lost city of the ancients. It then shows Aries on her own praying with Cloud a bit of a distance away. Sephiroth the jumps down from a balcony and kills Aries. It is a heart renching moment when she dies. But then another 20 hours of gameplay later and Cloud and friends have to stop a meteor from falling to the earth. About 40 hours later and you eventually kill Sephiroth. There is a lot more in between this but I would not have been able to fit it all in.

Anywho back to the movie. The graphics are top notch and the animations are perfect in the fight scenes. The fight scenes take up a big percentage of the movie but it is still quite clear to get the jist of what is going on. Fans of the game will jump with glee when they see that their favorite characters have returned. The turks have returned with Reno and Rude and a very mysterious character that is hidden by a cloak and who fans will wonder on how it is as it is a character from the game.

A lot of the soundtracks have returned like the music when Aries dies in Final Fantasy 7. The best music that returned was by far the music in the game when you are fighting Sephiroth at the end. Both soundtracks are remastered to be a little bit more modern and in keeping with the adrenalin rush in the fight scenes. There is a funny bit in the film that the fans will instanly recognise. One of the bad guy's phone is ringing and the tone for it is the victory tune when you defeated a bad guy from the game.

There are parts in the film where it is hard to understand what the plot is but that may be because I had the Japenese version. The story isn't as gripping as the game but the game was spread out over three discs and was exceptionally long. Cloud has a very cool sword in the movie with which he can do extreamly cool things with like split it into two and then put them in his motorbike. The final figth sequence is just jaw dropping and the suprise after it is even more jaw dropping so it is good fun to look forward to it.

I have no doubt that when the UK version comes out it will be just as amazing but just that little bit better for those that do not speak Japanese. Overall an amazing movie that probably won't get into the movies because of that blasted Final Fantasy: Spirits Within movie. I would say that it is well worth splashing out some money on it.

5 out of 5 stars Finaly a Fantasy come true October 14, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is what We've waited for something i thought would dissapoint at every corner how wrong was I.

This movie takes final fantasy VII so so much further. as well as the continuation of the story from VII the movie also takes elements of plot lines in VII further.

Graphically amazing and with the best fight scenes ever This is a must have for anyone. You have to watch each fight scene at least five times to keep up with every blow.

The comedy side delivers well through reno and rude and the occasionaly one liners from other characters such as clouds comment about bahamut look out for that.

The downside is you have to have played FF VII to truly appreciate it as there is little explanation of the origional storyline but hey most of us interested will have done.

One final point for those of you thinking that this is the only spin off of final fantasy VII in film form look out for an anime called Final fantasy VII last order its a 25 minute film based on what happened in Nibleinhim.

I give it 10 materias out of 10

United Kingdom