Hey guys, how's it goin'? Onion Knight here and this is the third day in our commercial extravaganza! Yesterday, we looked at an odd (and unexciting) advertisement for Final Fantasy II. Today, we'll talk about a Japanese commercial for Final Fantasy III. This will be the last 8-bit commercial I'll be looking at, which saddens me because I love talking about the older Final Fantasy's. O, but alas, thou must move on.
This commercial for Final Fantasy III is interesting, although I can think of one word that effectively summarizes this ad: nice. Why do I say that? That's really all it is. It's nice, but let's move on, pick this commercial into pieces, and see if we can find anything in the deep.
FFIII art cover of the box
The advertisement starts off with a somewhat spooky, but mostly mysterious atmosphere. What the viewers, us, see are rock pillars jutting out above dark clouds, (I would say that could be a reference to the Cloud of Darkness but I'm just looking too much into it). Next, what looks like TV screens manifest onto the rock faces while bolts of lightning shower the pillars. Well, this is something! Certainly a lot better than the FFII commercial we looked at yesterday. "Okay commercial, you've got my interest!" Then, a crystal forms from the lighting storm among the clouds in the sky and another television screen begins to emerge from said crystal. The TV screen separates from the crystal and it then begins to... rotate? Yeah, the crystal TV (Crystal TV? Now I've seen everything) is actually a cube formed of multiple television screens, each showing a different gameplay element from Final Fantasy III. Well that's awesome!
The atmosphere is really nice. As I mentioned earlier, the setting is quite mysterious and keep in mind the clouds - as clouds were a very important element in the setting of the game. Now that I think about it, the clouds probably represent the dark cloud cover that enveloped most of the world, which is discovered after the characters have left the Floating Continent.
Once again, like previous posts, I want to comment on the music. Here, they use the Prelude theme. This theme is great, and once again it's the arranged version! It's also the only piece that plays in the commercial, unlike the first commercial we looked at where the prelude theme was cut short by the Main theme. Well done!
Artwork of FFIII; Yoshitaka Amano. Note the prominence of clouds.
Overall, the commercial is good and caught my interest from the beginning. I really like this one, although not as much as the FF I&II ad. Speaking of which, at the end our extravaganza, I'll probably list my top 3 commercials and I'll explain why I chose them.
I hope you liked today's commercial! Have a good day!
Onion Knight out.
New day, new commercial! Welcome back to the Grove folks. I am your exuberant host, The Onion Knight, and today we are looking at our second commercial in this advertisement fiesta. Last time, we looked at a commercial for Final Fantasy I & II, and since I couldn't find any ads for the first Final Fantasy, we'll be analyzing a somewhat different and unique commercial for the second title.
Final Fantasy II was released in 1988 and this was probably the first TV ad for a Final Fantasy. Keep in mind that the quality of the YouTube video is very low, (perhaps suggesting just how rare and old this ad is), and that the real purpose is to analyze the commercial itself.
Of course, it's all about Final Fantasy II. But what does the commercial tell us about this game? The first thing we see are Square employees coding the game. This is such a strange way of advertising the game, and it might not be an effective strategy marketing idea in today's world. Showing the developers themselves coding and creating the game? Weird, different, and unique is all I can really say about that. Advertising the names of the people who were behind these games was apparently a popular thing to do during this time, however, this method must have been cut short since I haven't see this kind of stuff after Final Fantasy III.
Look at the bottom of the box here. Notice that the creators' names are presented, even the programmer.
So is there anything about this commercial that speaks Final Fantasy? Well, we have the battle theme from the game playing throughout the commercial, and some of Amano's artwork is even shown throughout; the first being Leon, the next Minwu, then Maria, a boss character(whose name I'm forgetting at the moment), and finally Firion. So we've got developers, artwork, and music, but what's my opinion?
Although the commercial is different from anything I've seen, it's anything but exciting and not much information is given in the commercial. Although the developers are shown, we don't know their names or who they are, and nothing is explained about the game at all. All I can gather is that it's for the Famicom, it has artwork, music, and people are making it. That being said, the commercial is still a rare find and something worth noting.
Tomorrow, we'll finish up the last commercial for an 8-bit Final Fantasy, (unless if I come across any more for the Famicom/NES, or any for the Game Boy FFs).
Hey everyone! I, the Onion Knight, your Final Fantasy Grove writer, hath returned from thou's ever-so long writing hiatus. I sure hope everyone enjoyed their holidays, because I sure did! I even got some interesting Final Fantasy stuff that I'll have to blog about another day. Since I haven't posted in quite some time, I've decided to blog on commercials advertising Final Fantasy. We'll explore and analyze commercials from the early 80's (mostly Japanese ads) right up to the present. Of course, it won't be only Japanese commercials, but other regions such as North American and European, (if I can find them). All of the commercials will be embedded from YouTube and I will be posting a commercial every day until I've run out of any left to find.
Today, I'm posting one of my favorite Final Fantasy commercials; a short but great ad. The commercial advertises Final Fantasy I & II, which was a 'compilation' cartridge released on the Famicom during it's later years of retail. The newer version of the Famicom, (also known as the version with the 'dog-bone' controllers), is also advertised at the end of the commercial. With each commercial I analyze, I'll ask one pertinent question: how well does the advertisement represent the product?
Note: the characters are from FFI while the chocobo is from FFII.
Well, let's look at the visual representation first. Does it look like Final Fantasy? Heck yes. The artistic style, such as the clouds, mountains, and the actors' costumes, all look like some work of Yoshitaka Amano. The airship seen here, (which is a staple in the Final Fantasy games, I should add), seems to be deriven from the artwork seen in the guide released by Nintendo Power for the original Final Fantasy, although that artwork most likely originated from the development team at Square HQ in Japan. Judging from the look of the commercial, it would seem that it's mostly advertising Final Fantasy, not II. The characters seen here do not have similar appearances to characters in FFII, who were Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon. Although, this is fair since Final Fantasy was probably more popular than the second installment and thus it would be wiser to fully advertise that game. I really like the look of this commercial; it 'oozes' Final Fantasy and seeing the characters riding on an airship into such an inspiring setting spurs me to play Final Fantasy again.
The AV Famicom, aka dog-bone.
Just as important with anything Final Fantasy related is the subject of music. What are the sounds like in the commercial? Are they relatable to Final Fantasy? They sure are! There are two peices that play in the commercial: the first one is an arranged version of the prelude, and then halfway through the commercial, the main theme kicks in. The prelude fits the mood and setting of the commercial perfectly, and personally I wish it lasted a little longer. The main theme comes in somewhat abruptly, although it would only be inexcusable to not put in the main theme in there somewhere. Overall, the music of choice is very good. And did you notice that the airship makes 'wooshing' sounds? Nice touch!
Like I said, this one stands as one of my favorite commercials and I JUST CAN'T FREAKIN' WAIT TO PLAY FINAL FANTASY! But I will pose one last question to you folks: who's flying the airship?
