My issues with Final Fantasy (Dissidia NT, etc)
I think the point of games like Dissidia and several of Square-Enix's current projects is to pander to nostalgic fools like me - certainly all of their mobile offerings and card games, re-releases and remakes and so on. Something that bothers me though is something particular about the older Final Fantasy games that I see no one talk about:
The most obvious examples - I have zero connection to what Warrior of Light or 3D models of Amano Cecil look like.
I get that those characters could have been originally meant to look just like Amano's art, but couldn't appear that way in-game due to limitations of the times, but I would not even SEE Amano's art of these characters until I was a grown man. When I see blue and white Paladin Cecil who is always pictured with and fighting with a spear...
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/e5/68/b9/e568b948e00ae28e82ff909b3406dd67.jpg
That is...a completely different character to me. It has no connection to my memories of Final Fantasy 4 at all. Cecil CAN'T USE SPEARS. When I think FF4 Cecil, I think of the sprite obviously, so this:
(art by PleasePleasePepper) https://orig12.deviantart.net/388f/f/2016/174/b/9/cecil_the_paladin___final_fantasy_4_by_koopathetroopa8-da7cncq.pngÂ
I mentioned Warrior of Light earlier as well. Of course, no one in his game looks like that, it was an 8-bit, very primitive FF game - though the FF game I started with. That being said, like Paladin Cecil, I tend to associate WoL with the "Fighter" class of the game, and there is even less in common between the characters in this example. I know that the all-red fighter looks more like a hair band glam rock singer than an epic Amano pretty hero dude, but well...I have zero attachment at all to the Amano person. It's all lost on me. The first and last time I saw WoL was the FF Origins art on the PS1 packaging, and thinking "who is that supposed to be?" edit: Actually, no, that wasn't even WoL, but Firion. Um...I'm not sure when the first time I saw WoL associated with FF1 was, then. Some random art somewhere, I guess.
In Final Fantasy 6, Celes' Amano art had to be adapted very heavily to not look like shit in the game. That's my theory, anyway, because if they kept her design as-is, she'd be a bunch of different shades of yellows. Imagine 16-bit Amano Celes riding on a chocobo, eh? It'd be almost a pixelated "Where's Waldo?" of a mess. http://www.celes-chere.net/amano/celes04.jpg This is almost why I'm glad that she hasn't shown up in any of these new projects yet, because Amano Celes...isn't the person I know. It's only by coincidence that I and many fans in the west would have or did see any of the old artwork for these characters, or could remember it.
The newer fans though are more familiar with the art and have immediate access to all resources of the internet to immediately know and see these things. The strings aren't there for them, so attachment isn't as much of a concern. Would leotard and big shoulder armor Celes look silly in a modern HD game? Likely so, I think, but given how Team Ninja loves making damn costumes, I think it's something that should be explored for these FF characters. The same could be said for Ramza. No one prefers his initial squire outfit.
#notmyfinalfantasy
I just hope that Square Enix can come to understand and respect more the heritage of their games in the eyes of players who were specifically more fans of the stories and characters in front of them than Amano's art. I can't be alone in not even seeing the vast majority of the concept assets until I had access to the internet 10+ years later, after the tales had been engraved in my heart. Even what little I had seen of it, from maybe tiny images here and there in game booklets, they wouldn't stick me as much as the on-screen touching drama of Final Fantasy titles.
