Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary

I am slow to realise that this year is a special year for Final Fantasy fans as the series is celebrating its 25th anniversary. I came to first now about this when my friend posted about Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box on my facebook last month. The collection consists of all Final Fantasy games from I to XIII (excluding the prequels and sequels), a special video to commemorate the 25th anniversary, artbook, soundtrack disks, and the best part in my opinion: a visual and stand by Yoshitaka Amano. The rumoured retail price is 35000 yen and it will be released on 18th December as the first Final Fantasy game was released on 18th December 1987.

The stand with original artwork for the 25th anniversary

As good as it sound, it is likely that I would give this a miss. The reason is that the main "bulk" of the set i.e the games would be unplayable. FF I-IX are released for PS1 and by now my PS1 is dead. FF III is an exception because it is rumoured to be released as an UMD for PSP (although I think it would be PS Vita, rather than PSP). FF X-XII and FF XIII are for PS2 and PS3 respectively, which I do not own.

Anyway, below is the promo video.. Yum yum..

To celebrate the special occasion, there are still other things such as mugs, tumblers, mini towel, chocobo plushie, postcard set, and playing card set. Many were released early this year and were already sold out by the time I knew about them 2 weeks ago.

The only thing I managed to buy is the playing cards set. To be frank, nothing sensational about it. Well, how "great" a playing card set can be? I bought it more for "sentimental" values. Haha.. I bought 2 sets for 1080 yen each. The hearts and spades are good as they form a complete Dissidia and FF logo sets. The clubs and diamonds, however, are disappointing. It seems that they just find any pictures to make up the respective cards without any "theme".

The packaging box

Club.. I thought all would be guardian forces -_-

Diamond.. The worst set for me. Why is the special treatment for certain FFs only?

Heart.. a.k.a Dissidia set

Spade.. Final Fantasy logos

Jokers.. and the back of every card

Since the topic is about Final Fantasy, let me also comment on Theathrythm Final Fantasy game. Very very sad that it is a Nintendon 3DS game :( Sigh.. I can never imagine playing a rhythm/music game related to Final Fantasy.. Perhaps this would be the one and only of such genre ever created and I will not be able to enjoy it.. Sad.. Despite the skepticism, I am quite curious about this game. After all, Dissidia is a huge HIT for me, although initially people doubt that Square Enix would be able to make something good in the non-RPG world. Thus, I am expecting that this would excite me as much as Dissidia.