It's time to start the Final Fantasy retrospective (Patreon)

I hope you're doing well! I'd like to share some details about the mega-project I'm currently busy with: The Animation of Final Fantasy.

(Apologies in advance for the length of this post, there's lots to cover!)

WHAT IS THIS PROJECT?

This is going to be a retrospective series of videos examining the animation in the Final Fantasy franchise. I want to draw a detailed line from the early 8-bit games all the way to the most recent AAA releases, showing how Final Fantasy's character animation and story presentation techniques have evolved with time and technology. It'll be kinda like that Sonic the Hedgehog video, but much more in-depth! And split into multiple parts, because I'm here to make new mistakes, not repeat old ones. :P

I started planning this series back before New Frame Plus even existed. I've been chipping away at the footage-gathering work in the background for nearly five years, and now it's finally time to put this monster of a series into production!

THE PLAN

I will be making one video for each numbered entry in the Final Fantasy series, including (most of) the direct sequels. Some of these videos will be longer than others, but I'm aiming for a length between 10-25 minutes each.

Here's the list of games I currently plan to cover:

Final Fantasy 

Final Fantasy II

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy IX

Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy X-2

Final Fantasy XI Online

Final Fantasy XII

Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy XVI

That is a lot of games to talk about and a lot of videos to make. We will not be finishing this series any time soon, but that's ok! There's no rush, and - though I do plan to focus the majority of my energy on this series in the coming years - we'll likely pause to do videos on other topics from time to time, just to keep things fresh.

Nearly all gameplay footage for this series has already been recorded. Like I mentioned earlier, I've been capturing footage for this series bit by bit over the last 5 years, and I now have a full playthrough recorded of nearly all of the games listed above. There's still a bit more gathering left to do (I want more footage of both MMOs, I was waiting for the PS5 update to record FF7R, and FF16 won't be out for a while), but I've got more than enough to get this retrospective started.

Playing all of these in advance also means I have the benefit of already knowing what I want to say about each game. In fact, I've got rough draft scripts for the first six videos already written. Most of them still need a lot of work, of course, but the foundation is in place, and...

EPISODE 1 IS IN PRODUCTION

The script for the first episode is locked and the narration is recorded! I've still got some organizational prep work to do (and lots of assets to create), but I expect to take things into Premiere and start editing the video next week.

I'm not certain how long this first video will take to complete! I really want to start this series off on the right foot, and I've got some ideas for visual elements I've never attempted before which may take some experimentation to figure out. Additionally, I've had a few life circumstances slowing me down recently. Nothing dire, just some IRL priorities competing for attention and a flare-up of old repetitive stress injuries that has forced me to reduce daily mouse/tablet/gamepad use. Health comes first and all that.

Still, after so many years of slow preparation, I'm beyond eager to finally get this retrospective underway. To my mind, the last three years of New Frame Plus have been building to this project. This Final Fantasy animation retrospective has been living in my head for half a decade, and I hope it proves half as fascinating to the rest of you as it has been for me.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below. Thanks for your patience, and stay safe!