Final Fantasy Retrospective – Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals

 

Legend of the Crystals was a four episode OVA intended as a sequel of sorts to the fifth game in the Final Fantasy series. In the first episode, it’s established that the crystals are being stolen by a sinister being with mysterious motives, and that the Wind Crystal is all that’s left. Linaly now bears the power of the crystal in her butt, because reasons (mostly comedic, I’m sure) and her friend Pretz is taking her to Tycoon to consult with the kingdom’s Blue Mage and find out what to do next.

It’s strange to think about it nowadays, but at this point in time, I don’t think Final Fantasy had established a lot of common elements. Summons have been a thing in the series since the third game, but Linaly shows off her abilities exactly once in the first episode, and isn’t very good at it. Meanwhile, White and Black Magic don’t make an appearance in the first episode, but a Blue Mage is introduced. Blue Magic wasn’t introduced until the fifth game, but the anime decides to include a practitioner of it. I assume they wanted to include a Sage, but despite the fact that such a character was present in the third and fourth games, there was no Sage in the fifth game. I wonder if it was assumed that Blue Mage was a replacement for Sage, even though they have little in common with each other.

None of these are going to show up in this episode either, just so you know. One of the most iconic aspects of Final Fantasy, its magic, seems to be almost completely absent from Legend of the Crystals so far.

In the chapter of fire, Pretz and Linaly find themselves confronted by the military might of Tycoon, for they think they’re protecting the Wind Crystal from thieves. I suppose it is interesting that thieves are often the ones needing to save the world in Final Fantasy. Thief is one of the classes that can be picked in the first game, Thief is available as one of the first jobs players can get in the fifth game, and as will soon be seen in the sixth game, a Thief character is available almost right from the start, pretty much as soon as the game’s tutorial level is over.

Final Fantasy IX also goes to great lengths to try to put a thief in the party for all of the major boss fights, even when Zidane isn’t around. I get ahead of myself here, but the ninth entry in the main series is a game I am most eager to discuss, but I have a lot of ground to cover before I get there.

It’s incredibly ironic that Pretz finds himself confronted by Tycoon’s military when he’s trying to get to Tycoon in the first place. This highly convenient road block turns into a shootout of sorts with Mr. Valkus doing his best impression of an American police officer shooting unarmed civilians. Well, Pretz isn’t actually unarmed. He takes getting shot at very personally and he attacks with his Samurai sword, but quickly finds that Valkus is very highly skilled, able to stop his Samurai techniques.

A third party joins the fray as the pirates from the first episode launch a smoke attack and scoops up Pretz, Linaly and Valkus in a net. Rouge wants the Wind Crystal for herself and she assumes one of these three has it. As a means to bring the party together, it’s certainly unique and doesn’t feel like something Square themselves would do in the Nintendo era of the Final Fantasy series.

Rouge takes her prisoners to Rouge Island, which I guess is named after herself? Or was she named after the island? Which came first, the human or the landmass?

Later on in the episode, dialogue suggests that she named the island after herself and has been intending for it to be her base of operations.

Negotiations for the Wind Crystal consist of Rouge making demands and whipping Pretz when he refuses to cooperate. Naturally, the negotiations go poorly. Since Rouge mainly uses a whip, it doesn’t really tell me much about what class she could be. Presumably she could be a Beastmaster since they’re the only class in Final Fantasy V that uses whips, other than the Freelancer (which can equip everything, so they don’t count), but in Final Fantasy IV, whips were used by Rydia, the Summoner. Whips will show up again in Final Fantasy VIII, but this muddies the waters further because the game’s whip user has Blue Magic as her Limit Break.

After her negotiations break down, Rouge decides to tickle torture Pretz instead because this is a comedy anime. But when even that doesn’t work, she threatens Linaly’s life, prompting Pretz to attack in desperation. Rouge can do whatever she wants to him, but if she dares to go after the girl he likes, he’ll do whatever he can to defend her, including attacking her with his bare feet. Naturally, since all of his equipment has been removed, it doesn’t do a lot of damage to her, but she seems intrigued by this spirited young man.

Interestingly, despite being a man of the law, Valkus has fallen in love with Rouge. Or at the very least, in lust. He struggles with this revelation and with whether he’s the Javert of the story or not. He was prepared to do all he could to defend the Wind Crystal, but he got swept off his feet by the beauty of the pirate queen.

It’s great that, 200 years after Faris thought she had to dress like a man in order to be accepted by the pirates, there can now be actual pirate queens who don’t have to worry about whether or not being a lady among pirates will work out for them.

While the trio are stuck in a jail cell on Rouge Island, the Wind Crystal temporarily forces itself back out of Linaly and manifests the spirit of Mid to help them. Mid was, of course, the grandson of Cid, and the two of them helped the Warriors of Light defeat Exdeath two hundred years ago. It turns out that the main reason the crystal is hiding inside of Linaly is to throw their enemies off of its trail. As long as it’s merged with her, it won’t be giving off a signal to the main villain of the story. Deathgyunos is described by Mid as a “dark existence” and plans to destroy the world if he has all four crystals. As long as the Wind Crystal is safe within Linaly, the world is safe as well.

Rouge is too short sighted to realize the world is at stake, though. Once she learns that the Wind Crystal is inside Linaly, she takes the girl away to try to extract the crystal by force, leaving Pretz to struggle to free himself and Valkus from jail. Valkus is unfortunately too distracted by Rouge’s looks to even try to help until Pretz points out that as long as they’re in jail, Valkus won’t be able to see Rouge as much as he wants.

Pretz rescues Linaly from Rouge, whose plan to retrieve the Wind Crystal is to feed Linaly a laxative and wait for her to poop it out, because this is a comedy anime and they just couldn’t resist.

While Pretz breaks himself out of jail and rescues Linaly from the pirates, the most Mid is able to do is gesture towards helpful objects and directions, as if he were a mannequin in the horror game In Sound Mind.

The escape from Rouge Island contains elements of Final Fantasy V‘s battle theme, which is interesting to me, because Pretz is actively trying to press the left and right shoulder buttons (figuratively speaking) and the pirates are constantly trying to attack him as he flees. It makes sense.

Eventually, Rouge tries to block Pretz from escaping and a lustful Valkus tries to keep the pair from fighting, but it’s actually Deathgyunos’ arrival that prevents bloodshed, though not for long. Pretz draws the dark existence’s minions away and destroys them, but he uses Rouge’s stockpile of explosives to do so and it’s larger than he expected. He completely destroys Rouge Island and basically makes her homeless. Everyone, minus Pretz who is presumed to have died in the explosions, escapes on Rouge’s ship and I have to ask… have none of the characters played Final Fantasy IV? There’s an 87.5% chance that Pretz survives the explosion!

Rouge is more upset that her home is gone, and I can sympathize. In fact, it’s a lot more realistic than in Breath of Fire, when Ryu blows up Nanai after stopping the Quake Control machine. The former citizens of Nanai, who fled when the Dark Dragons took over the city, thanked Ryu for heroically sacrificing their homes to kill the Dark Dragons. Yes, of course! That’s exactly what Ryu was trying to do! There’s no way it was a complete accident!

Man, Ryu’s a dick.

But speaking of Breath of Fire, it’s interesting that the enemy in the second game is known as Deathevan, and the enemy in Legend of the Crystals is named Deathgyunos. Both of these came out in 1994, and both are considered direct sequels that are separated by hundreds of years from the originating game and star descendants of the original cast.

While Rouge is being comforted by Valkus, Mid points out to Linaly that Pretz has actually survived, having taken cover in a pot as if he were the main character of Dragon Quest V escaping slavery. Kisana shows up as well, and at this point it looks as if Kisana is going to actually take part in the story, but I think this is the last time Linaly’s sea creature friend shows up. It really does seem like the writers of the anime wanted a Syldra of their own but didn’t know how to justify Kisana in the actual story.

This is also where the chapter ends, marking the halfway point in the story. The chapter of dragon is next, where the characters actually and finally make it to Tycoon, and I will be covering it next Wednesday. Until then, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!