Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children - Complete (Blu-ray)

Lets not beat around the bush: FFVII:AC looks amazing. And on blu-ray, its gobsmacking, eye-popping, reference quality material.

What a shame then, that all this pixel perfection is wasted on such unfathomable, excerable pap.

I admire the japanese for their commitment to sophisticated entertainment, but this is just incomprehensible and, unlike say Akira or Tekkonkinkreet, just way to boring to make you want to try to figure it out. All the manga cliches are here: moody, androdgonous teens, impossible combat, ridiculously oversized (yet curiously ineffective) weapons, slo-mo, and dull, trite dialogue which just consists of agonizing over past and future events, and exposition that serves to confuse rather than clarify. The ludicrous final act is terrific eye candy, but don't expect to be excited: the characters fly, jump, fire energy bolts, chop through motorbikes and suvive falling buildings. Since no-one can be hurt, who cares why they are even fighting? new characters just appear as if they are supposed to means something, and...and.. oh, who gives a flying pixel.

Just pop this into your blu-ray player, give your HD TV a treat, then forget it. Your IQ will recover.

I got my copy of FFVII: Advent Children Complete on bluray this morning and have watched it twice since! Being a massive fan of the original game and most of the compilation games thereon after, including the original DVD release of the CGI film, i was expecting bigger and better things with the Blu-ray release. And boy i was not disappointed!

Straight off the bat the image quality it pant-wetting, jaw-droppingly good. Every texture, skin tone, hair strand , expression, and each environment are portrayed it all its 1080p glory. The amount that is taking place on the screen at times attacks the senses, but definately in a good way.

The 26 minutes of added footage definately helps with making the story and the events taking place more complete, giving both newbie and seasoned FF7 fans a better understanding of the story. These newly addes scenes are better produced than the original DVD ones (which have just been upscaled), resulting in noticable image quality improvements. However, this is not to take anything away from the quality of the other scenes...it all looks stunning.

The Directors Cut label makes itself noticed by adding nice touches such as dirt, rips, and stains on the clothing after characters have been fighting. Even dirt and blood (quite alot in certain battles) have been added to give that darker edge. I can't quite put my finger on it, but this blu-ray version makes the film more "real" and "harder" than the original DVD release.

The audio kicks ass as well! I have a top of the range plasma TV and surround system and the Dolby TrueHD really does fly out and smacks you round the face, emersing you into the adventure further.

The special / added on features are also nice. Theres a anime 25 minute film surrounding Denzel. Two story digests of the original FF7 game. A 20 minute long featurette called "The Legacy of Final Fantasy VII". Several trailers of Advent Children. And something which other reviewers have said isnt included, whereas it is on mine: the FINAL FANTASY XIII sneak preview (And yes i do have a UK version of this film). A good 10 minute long preview featuring CGI cut scenes as well as in-game fighting and exploring.

The final verdict is an easy 5 stars YOU MUST GO OUT AND BUY IT NOW! Everything about this blu-ray release shouts class. From the outter packaging to the end credits. The FF7 universe is unique to gaming, and strikes a deeper cord than being just a video game. It transends genres, demographics, mediums, and race. An inspired masterclass in encaptivating story telling; this movie is going to fly off the shells just like its younger brother did. Regardless of whether you own the original DVD, or you don't and have never even experienced FF7 before, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie!

I have both the DVD and bluray versions of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and I have to say that there's a huge difference between them. Putting aside the bluray image and sound quality I have to admit that the new scenes really enlightened me about various aspects of the storyline I didn't grasp with the DVD version.
I'm a big fan of FFVII and all the games linked to it but I'm sure that even people new to the serie would really appreciate this "clearer" version of the movie.

The only aspect I didn't like is that the subtitles aren't really truthful, watching the movie with japanese audio and english subtitles I noticed a lot of weird word choices that completely changed the meaning of some dialogues. However this won't ruin the overall experience :D

If you are a fan of final fantasy, or even played FF7 all the way through and experienced the emotion behind the game - Then FF7AC will be a re-awakening.

The start of the film is nice, there are a few slow bits - But it soon picks up, and manages to make you wet your pants with excitement.

CGI & Audio are 10/10, truly amazing visually - If you are a fan of anime, final fantasy, or even square-enix stuff in general. Or even if you are curious if you'll like it - then you won't be disappointed.

Also, this version does not come with the PS3 demo, as far as I'm aware you can only buy that version from retailers who stock from Japan - such as yesasia.com, this is just the normal version.

If you're thinking of buying this for the FFXIII demo then don't bother as the demo was exclusively for the Japanese release. The English and American versions of the film don't have the demo.

With that said, it's still a film worth owning, especially on Blu format.