Sounds neat. I didn't like the way Amano drew people, but I loved how he drew monsters and clothes.
For the dedicated Final Fantasy collectors...
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 On 01/08/2014 at 10:12 PM by SanAndreas See More From This User » |
I'd like to say a few words about this little goodie.
For the low, low price of 57 bucks, you can own this three-book boxed set from Dark Horse Comics containing three artbooks and 576 pages full of Yoshitaka Amano's drawings for the Final Fantasy series, from FFI to FFX, packaged in a handsome satin-covered slipcase sporting Amano's rendition of Cloud.
Book One covers the NES/Famicom Final Fantasy games. It also has most of the monster illustrations, since many of the more famous Final Fantasy monsters first appeared in the Famicom/NES games and these games were less character-driven than later entries.
Book Two covers the SNES era Final Fantasies and is considerably thicker than the other two books. Here, many of you will see all your familiar 16-bit favorites, from Cecil to Gilgamesh to Terra, as well as all the bad guys. These games tended to cleave most closely to Amano's preferred artstyle.
Book Three covers the PS1 and PS2 eras. While these games are more closely associated with Tetsuya Nomura's illustrations, Amano actually did a sizable amount of concept art for these games. Final Fantasy IX, in particular, was meant to more closely resemble Amano's style in line with it being billed as a throwback to the oldschool Final Fantasy style. It's pretty interesting to see Amano's take on Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Sephiroth, Squall, Tidus, and Yuna, along with the rest of the characters in these titles. In 2001, for its Final Fantasy X preview issue, EGM even had a cover sporting a Yoshitaka Amano illustration of Tidus and Yuna which I believe is in this book as well.
I've really enjoyed this Final Fantasy collectible, as I'm a longtime series fan and I love artbooks. The edition you see for sale nowadays, The Slipcase Edition, released in June of last year, is actually a reissued edition. The original edition was printed in a very limited print run, and also included a book called "All About Amano" which included photos and interviews with Mr. Amano, an animation flipbook, a print, and a card signed by Mr. Amano. This limited print run was released in 2012 and quickly sold out, where it now commands a staggering price on eBay. However, the Slipcover Edition on its own contains more than enough artwork to satisfy hardcore Final Fantasy fans and is well worth getting.
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