HedonisticActor

Final Fantasy VII is the installment of the series that majority of the people are the most familiar with. It was very ground-breaking at the time, introduced many new ways to tell a story and broke sale records. And being often hailed as one of the best - if not THE best - games of all time you just have try it just out of curiosity at least in some point of your life. The review is based on the PC version of the game.

The story about a mercenary named Cloud and his search for his own identity while he and his group of friends are looking for the murderous psychopath elite soldier named Sephiroth and trying to stop his mad schemes while the evil Shinra company is chasing them both is still touching, suspenseful, and entertaining even today. Although at first it's quite hard to follow which even the game acknowledges by occasionally letting Cloud summarize the plot to the new members of the team. Also at couple of times the translation has made the dialog quite clumsy and it doesn't always feel natural (and sometimes leaves important plot points too ambiguous).

The good characters are part of the reason why the story is engaging. Escpecially the main hero and villain are interesting and quite well built complex characters. The rest of the characters are likable personalities as well (exept the ninja-wannabe Yuffie who is just annoying and the cat-like being Cait Sith who is just too odd to describe) but problem is they just have some nice personality traits but the story is too busy on focusing in Cloud and Sephiroth (and occasionally Cloud's childhood friend Tifa) so the rest of the cast gets very little development. This is especially notable with the Shinra resistant leader Barret and the cougar/wolf warrior animal Red XIII. At one point of the game the tragic event of their past is introduced and almost immediately resolved in which after the contribute nothing more to the story.

The graphics have been bitten heavily by time. On the plus side the surroundings look nice, cinematic videos are stunning and the effects and character models in battle look personal, colorful and authentic. But when the characters are not in battle they look hideous in today's standards. Seriously, they look like deformed playmobil figures. Music once again great like in so many Final Fantasies, the touching world map theme and simple yet utterly terrifying Those Chosen by the Planet. The music's full power somewhat suffers from midi-sound but at least its quality is better than in the Playstation version. The character building and battle systems aren't anything too complicated are is fun to master.

Even though Final Fantasy VII isn't the greatest video game ever created by the humankind it is still touching, engaging, entertaining and many other adjectives I've used so far. Time hasn't been friendly to it in some things but the Final Fantasy charm can still be felt.

The sixth installment in the most famous role-playing game series was another major turning point in the saga for introducing lot darker atmosphere than before. The story about stopping a powerful empire from using magic for complete world domination is full of toughing twist and turns.

Part of the story's charm is colorful cast of charismatic characters who all have well-thought personalities. Although in some cases the game doesn't tell enough about their past. This is notably bad for the young magic-casting woman Terra (Just what she was doing all these years before the game starts?) and the empire's insane top general Kefka who now feels somewhat out of place. It also annoys that the story can't decide between Terra and ex-general Celes who its main character is.

Music is just amazing, the atmosphere is perfectly caught with many awesome pieces including the tearfully beautiful world map theme and truly epic Dancing Mad for example. Graphics are not as eye-pleasing as in FF IV but fits for the game's mood (expet the world map which is just flat pixel mush). Game's battle and level up system is interesting and functional despite being little clumsy and offers multiple choices for character building. There's also a downside in this: it's way too easy to build your characters super killing machines that can destroy the hardest bosses just by touching them.

Even though time haven't been friendly to some of its technical solutions Final Fantasy VI can still, even after 15 years, to touch people by its pure magic.

Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier), based on Väinö Linna's novel, is the most succeeded domestic movie in Finland. It's easy to understand how it has gained such a high position.

The direction of Edvin Laine shows all that is essential and transitions between scenes work because of authentic war film material. Music does its purpose and serves patriotic positive atmosphere, especially Jean Sibelius' Finlandia hymn is impressive. Some hilarious comments make smile besides of dark subject. Sound effects have however gotten old-fashioned, especially the voice of bouncing bullets from old westerns is extremely unrealistic.

There's lots of strong performances in Tuntematon sotilas, Heikki Savolainen's delighted Hietanen, Leo Riuttu's funny Vanhala and Jussi Jurkka's swaggering Lammio are only few examples. Although the actors are professionals and superstars of their time most of them are way too old to be their young role characters. Especially Olavi Ahonen's middle-aged timid Riitaoja didn't make positive impact. Also some of the actors die too theatrically.

The script of the movie is good but it presumes too much that all of the viewers have read the novel. For example most of the characters names are not mentioned at all or are only mentioned in the near of the end of their lives. Mostly the only way for those who haven't read the novel to recognize the characters is to recognize the actors who are playing them. Also some aspects of the book witch emphasize the Continiuty War's violent and absurd points, like insane Viirilä, are completely left off, which little dims the novel's strong antiwar message. The only significant error in Tuntematon sotilas is that it's too much a prisoner of its time.

In any case, Tuntematon sotilas is still worth of watching because of it's impressive narration, atmosphere and characters, even though the movie doesn't feel as fresh as 52 years ago.