Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds

I grabbed a ticket to Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, the symphonic rendition of some of the Final Fantasy Franchise's music while I was at Benaroya Hall for The Planets a few weeks back, and I've been looking forward to it ever since. I'm really glad I went, and I will gladly go again in the future in the hopes that a few things are improved. And I hope they never, ever remove To Zanarkand, Liberi Fatali and One Winged Angel from the tour!

Program: [updated to include video links from the Seattle performance]
Liberi Fatali (VIII)
To Zanarkand (X)
Don't Be Afraid (VIII)
Aerith's Theme (VII)
Medley FFI-FFIII
Dear Friends (V)
Vamo' alla Flamenco (IX)
Love Grows (Eyes on Me) (VIII)
Ronafaure (XI)
Main Theme (All)
Bombing Mission (VII)
Fisherman's Horizon (VIII)
Memoro de la Stono (XI)
The Man With the Machine Gun (VIII)
Theme of Love (IV) (skipped due to time constraints)
Swing de Chocobo (All)
The Opera - Maria and Draco (VI)
Terra's Theme (VI)
One Winged Angel (VII) (encore!)

First Complaint: The Accompanying Video
Most of the video footage was classic gameplay footage. Not movies, not opening cinematics. Not even later gameplay footage with acual expresssion and body language. A large amount of great game movie footage and CGI movie not used at all, and a the small amount that was used was actually reused. The "classic" style gameplay footage was hilarious and adorable at first, but though the novelty wore off quickly the footage persisted. Why use minutes and minutes of old school chocobos running across maps when you have pleanty of more dynamic footage from the more recent titles that shows the depth of the art and how the chocobo has evolved throughout the titles? For those of us who have been playing Final Fantasy for a long time it was nostalgic in small quantites, but it got old after a while. For those in the audience (mostly confused girlfriends) who haven't, it was just silly. The narratives and the art - what have always set Final Fantasy apart from the rest of console RPGs for me - were totally lost in the representation.

This was compounded by the fact that there was a heavy emphasis on early titles. The tribute to Final Fantasy I - III was great, especially since it featured some of the recently redone DS content which is beautiful. But the DS gameplay would have been preferable to the old style stuff. The FFVII gameplay was nostalgic for me since it was the first title I had access to, but after a little bit of it, they could have gone to the movie quality as well (towards the end they actually used the Advent Children footage, and it was AWESOME. If they had used the CG quality stuff throughout, the experience would've been so much more profound). The "cuteness" of the blocky avatars really drew me away from the power of the music. Terrible, terrible decision that undermined some of the strongest music of the night.

Beyond the poor choice of footage, it was constantly recycled. Really. Eleven console titles, one online title, 3 DS titles, plus additional FF stuff...and they couldn't find enough unique footage for a 2 hour symphony show? Unbelievable. For titles like 8 where a lot of footage was used, I was shocked to see none of the ballroom sequence "Waltz for the Moon", none of the very end movie, and almost none of the parade sequence. From FFVIII and onward the video sequences were really stunning, and yet there was not that much used (except, thankfully, quite a lot of Yuna's sending dance in one sequence). From FFX onward the gameplay footage is excellent too. Even as early as VIII it's possible to glean emotion from the characters in play mode, but instead of using the footage to tell a story to accompany the music, it was really just a distraction. If the video is not telling a story, then static art images would have been far superior.

Opening videos tell stories! Stories are good!
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy XII

Second Complaint: No Music From FFXII
NONE. Far and away FFXII is my favorite title. Best and most well rounded cast, best story in terms of complexity and flow, best writing, best language, best voice actors, best art....and an amazing score of music that was completely ignored for this performance. I could have done without any of the FFXI music, period. I found it to be the dullest, though at the very least the choice of video for the FFXI segments told a story. And the true loss was the gorgeous movies and expressive gameplay. There were just a few tiny, tiny clips of the wedding scene.

I'm hoping that they'll add FFXII in the future, since aparently the addition of FFXI was relatively new. Even the small bits were amazing, like the resting music! Seriously...they could tour on this alone...

Full Collection of FFXII Music on YouTube
Full Collection of FFXII Movies and Cutscenes on YouTube

Some Examples:
Final Fantasy Theme (opening credits)
Symphonic Poem Hope (end credits)
Time for a Rest (inn music)
To The Place of the Gods
The Forgotten Capital
Theme of the Empire
The Battle for Freedom
State of Emergency
Seeking Power
An Imminent Threat
Rebellion

Final Thoughts
The FF Series of games are not hard, tricky, or complicated to play. They're really just beautiful interactive stories. That's what this concert series missed and could have capitalized on. There were moments here and there where a certain clip reminded me about what it was I loved about an earlier title that I haven't played in some time. This series had the opportunity to take us back, walk us through the story and retell in a few minutes' time the dramatic and often tragic sweep of each game's narrative. I really feel a better presentation format might be to take each title, chronologically, and present its music. Leading off with the Main Theme, and moving through each title - starting with the I-III medly. For some of the games, which have a lot of music, you would have a large chunk of time to string together footage to tell a comprehensive story.

I hope that as this event continues to tour and hopefully prepares for tours in the future they take this into account. And I hope I can get "To Zanarkand" out of my head before I go completely insane.