Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, I'm so glad you could attend, Come inside come inside. This right here is going to be a complete playthrough of the former lost gem in the Final Fantasy series known only as Final Fantasy Extreme. First off though, let's get familiar with some important names.
Final Fantasy director Hironubo Sakaguchi would direct his last Final Fantasy (until Lost Odyssey anyways) and boy howdy, this game is very much a whimsical entry in a series that would be known for its attempts to out angst itself.
Next up is one Yoshitaka Amano, known mostly for his extremely stylized (ugly) art. He's responsible for character and monster designs for Final Fantasy 1 through 6 with some 9 thrown in for good measure. He also did the art for Front Mission and Kartia, though I haven't played either of them to the degree that I can ramble about his Final Fantasy contributions.
If you're a fan of the Final Fantasy series, odds are at bare minimum, you have some familiarity with the name Nobuo Uematsu. This gentleman is responsible for some groovy tunes like She Sells Sanctuary and Bark at the Moon. I also hear that he's currently on tour with Queen.
I have no idea who Masanori Hoshino is, but the other name may or may not be the scourge of the Final Fantasy series. Tetsuya "Belts and Zippers" Nomura is mostly known for his outlandish character designs that came in during the Playstation era. He's also known for conjuring up GIANT SHOES for Disney Trojan Horse games and for the insanely svelte waists of the deceased Shibuya youths.Prologue: Gone like the Wind
On a cold and oddly blue night, we see a Wind Drake sleeping on the edge a castle veranda. Normally I'd say this isn't a safe place to sleep, but he looks like a take charge dragon, so I'll let him have his way.
Oh dang, it looks like the king of this castle is none too pleased with this slacker dragon.
"Remind me not to chastise the dragons" the king probably thought to himself.
Suddenly from nowhere, Dialog. After their argument, it looks like the king's hot daughter came to calm everyone down.
Here we have King Tycoon and his offspring discussing the local weather. I'm assuming King Tycoon is a meteorologist as a hobby and that's why he's leaving his kingdom in the hands of the product of his loin. Surely this strange wind will have no dire, forseeable affects.
And off goes our hero to stop the evil wind that apparently bothers royalty. To the windshrine we go!
Just kidding, we're going to completely forget about them and focus on something much more interesting: Pirates!
Here we see some purple haired person who doesn't seem to like pirate fashion. You see, it obviously gets in the way of his long, flowing locks that wave effortlessly in the breeze.
And now that the wind has stopped, he apparently has nothing left to live for
And just as quickly as we got there, we're brisked away to what appears to be a red glowing cave. I've always been sort of curious as to how he knew the wind stopped since he's kind of in a dank cavern that probably echoes things as faint as his breath. It's like this is someone's fantasy!
Don't worry Lenna, nothing bad ever happens to anyone's parents in RPGs, he's surely doing something of great importance.
"A spinning crystal on a bed of vines?" I don't really see what this has to do with the wind stopping...
Well then, I guess we know why is parlays into meteorology as opposed to jewel crafting. (for those of you who can't figure out what happened from those two shots, the crystal magically exploded in front of King Tycoon's very eyes)
Now that we've seen spontaneous gem implosion, we find our real hero in a forest with a large bird and an inferno. I wonder how the wind stopping is going to affect them?
(This still screenshot is actually kind of misleading. What you can't see is the earth itself rumbling and quaking. I wonder why that's happening instead of something related to the air current.)
Oh...
Armageddon Apparently...Well, looks like the world is done with. It was a nice ride, and it looks like our plucky heroes just didn't have the pluck in them for this one. The world is ending and we never even got around to actually playing the damn game. And what kind of way to end things is ending the world? Whimsical story indeed.
