One of the things I always thought was cool about Square was their reluctance to go back and revisit the characters and worlds that they created for each of their Final Fantasy games. The policy implied that Square had a respect for their stories and their characters: unlike Mario or Sonic or Mega Man, their characters, it was implied, would not be returning for countless sequels, no matter how beloved they became...because if they did, the stories those characters originally inhabited would be cheapened, made less mythic.





Now, of course, Square revisits their characters and worlds all the time. Well, okay, maybe not all the time, but far more than they ever used to: the immense popularity of Final Fantasy VII led them to place numerous characters from that game into other games like Ehrgeiz; the largely unnecessary Final Fantasy X-2 broke the no-direct-sequels rule; the aforementioned Kingdom Hearts was filled with cameos of Final Fantasy characters (although, admittedly, they seemed more like reimaginings of the characters than the characters themselves); and Final Fantasy XII is apparently going to take place in the same world, Ivalice, as Final Fantasy Tactics. And then there's the whole "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" series of games and movies that the fanboys have been drooling over lately.

On the whole, I'm not a fan of this new approach, but the fact that Square has decided to revisit Final Fantasy VII doesn't really bother me that much, mainly because it offers the company the opportunity to clear up some aspects of that game's storyline, which was -- even for a Final Fantasy title -- extremely cryptic and confusing.





I enjoyed Last Order: Final Fantasy VII a great deal for that very reason. A short, twenty-five minute OVA (traditionally animated) released with the special edition of the Advent Children movie, it follows Zack and Cloud's escape from Nibelheim, and chronicles, in flashbacks, what exactly went down in that Mako Reactor after Sephiroth went crazy (because of Cloud's mixed-up memories and the game's sketchy way of presenting the chronology, these tend to be perplexing points for some players; in particular, Square notoriously hid, for all practical purposes, an important, pivotal flashback scene in the game that describes much of what happens in this OVA and how Cloud came to be so unbalanced).

The animation, by Madhouse, is excellent, and the characters more or less perfectly realized. Zack, always an enigmatic figure in the game, comes across especially well; he is basically the main character here, and is instantly likeable (unlike Cloud, he has no evident psychological hang-ups, and has a bright and outgoing personality). The Turks show up as well, but don't do much; Tseng gets the most screentime, and spends most of it in an office apparently regretting the Nibelheim incident and what he has had to do about it.

The OVA is brief, and to understand the jist of what's going on it's pretty much necessary to play Final Fantasy VII first, or to at least read a thorough synopsis of the plot, but fans already familiar with the game and its characters should be extremely pleased with this effort: it's intelligible, well-told, and gets the "feel" of the game just right. I found myself lamenting the fact that the story of the entire game will almost certainly never be brought to life in this way; based on what I saw here, this likely would have made a damn good anime series. All told, a very effective twenty-five minutes. I look forward to watching it again.

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