Fuzyll

Hopelessly passionate husband, engineer, hacker, gamer, artist, and tea addict.

on music

Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds

We had so much fun at the last video game concert we attended that I bought tickets for another! This time, it was Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds at the Mahaffey Theater in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

Last time, I had excellent, nearly front-row seats. This time, we were a little farther back, but still very close. Due to the way the stage was set up relative to our seats, I actually think we had a better view this time. Here's how it looked for us:

The Final Fantasy Distant Worlds stage
Watching the musicians set up before the show.

I'll admit I was a little less excited about this show than the last one. I'm a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda series, but not nearly as big of a Final Fantasy fan. My experience with the series has mostly been from playing Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX when I was in grade school. I've also played (American) Final Fantasy II and III from the SNES with ROMs on Higan. The stories are pretty good, but I'm far more a fan of the action-based combat and puzzles of Zelda games. Final Fantasy, by contrast, is a bit...grindy?

Anyway, I'm less intimately familiar with the series and the songs of Final Fantasy. But, I'm pleased to say that it really did not detract from my enjoyment at all. They did an excellent job of introducing each piece and provided visuals similar to that of the Master Quest Orchestra. The range of themes found in Final Fantasy is far more varied than the Zelda series as well, which meant I got to experience things like an actual opera (their rendition of the opera scene from Final Fantasy III).

Like Symphony of the Goddesses, I would absolutely recommend Distant Worlds with one caveat: You'll enjoy the show more if you're familiar with the works beforehand. I haven't played any of the Final Fantasy MMOs, for example, and found those performances to be far less captivating than Cosmo Canyon from Final Fantasy VII.

UPDATE (2016-05-03): At the time I wrote this, I couldn't find a YouTube video of the show that had a similar playlist. I've now found one! If you'd like an idea of what the experience is like, I came across a video of the full thing from a show they did recently in Germany: