Because I just know you all love and adore these so much. I’ve decided to cut the number of AMVs in these rants down to 8. 13 strikes me as maybe being too much all at once, and 8 is the best number of all, anyway, so it all works out.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but please, if you watch any of these, and agree with me that they’re good, just take those few, precious seconds to hit the Thumbs Up button, or better still, leave a quick comment mentioning that you enjoyed it. With so many subpar RPG AMVs out there (like, literally thousands), finding a notably good one is exceedingly rare, and I definitely want those with the skill to make a decent video encouraged to do more.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 8: Dancing in the Dark, by ChadVisionAbridged: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQhX2wShd2w&feature=plcp
The music used is Dancing in the Dark, by Bruce Springsteen. This is one of those AMVs you just never see coming, but work out surprisingly well. It’s silly but enjoyable, and its coordination between the song’s lyrics and the game’s visuals and text is surprisingly accurate. There’s a cheerful, slightly tongue-in-cheek energy that ChadVisionAbridged has instilled into the game clips that bring them together with the music. I also very much appreciate that this AMV makes excellent use of actual game footage, not just FF8’s FMV sequences--a lot of the connection between the audio and visuals comes from the right application of game footage that most people wouldn’t bother with just because it’s not an FMV. Even considering how statistically rare a good Final Fantasy 8 AMV is, this one is a pleasant surprise. And I just love the end, makes me laugh aloud. Solid AMV, this one.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask: This is Halloween, by DemonLordChuck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8cUal__hBk
The music used is This is Halloween, from the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. There’s not a whole lot to this AMV, but it has good editing, and frankly, the bizarre, unsettling, and sometimes downright freaky setting and visual tone of this game lend themselves perfectly to the nature and feel of the song. That vague, disturbing sense of wrongness of this game’s world just meshes very well with the song, and makes this video enjoyable and appropriate.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: United We Stand, Divided We Fall, by Enlistedman92: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Mdk2Anrek&feature=plcp
The music used is United We Stand, Divided We Fall, by Two Steps From Hell, and then a tune from the TLoZSS soundtrack at the end. As epic trailers/tributes go, this is about as good as you’re gonna get. The music and game footage meld together excellently to portray the game as an epic adventure. The scenes selected are perfect, and tell the story of the game with good enough flow to be understandable, yet loosely enough that you’re having very little spoiled, as a trailer/tribute more or less should. The editing is done very well, too; I very much liked the parts where the Goddess Sword’s power-ups were put together and where the Triforce appears in parts on Link’s hand. A shame Enlistedman92 isn’t on Nintendo’s payroll, because this is better quality than most professionally-made tributes/trailers. If it weren’t for the totally pointless bit at the end that completely jars you out of the mood that the AMV created, I’d probably keep this video in my personal AMV collection, and devote an entire rant to it. Even still, though, check it out, because it’s awesome.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Kryptonite, by Gurglesnurp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwWFPpbkHCY&feature=plcp
The music used is Kryptonite, by 3 Doors Down. If you can manage to sit through the half-minute intro,* you’ll find this is a very decent, solid AMV. Not perfect by any means, but overall it meshes the video to the lyrics and tune pretty well, the simple editing is done well, and it’s engaging from start to finish. Not much more to say, really, it’s simply a good AMV.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3: The Answer, by XcoxmoX: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuw59uslUaQ&feature=plcp
The music used is To Die For, by The Birthday Massacre. First of all, ignore the length the video indicates--there’s some odd glitch of sorts on this AMV, such that after it’s done, it starts up again without sound, so the actual length of the music video is only about 5 minutes, not the 10 it says. At any rate, this AMV is not perfect, as there are times when the musical tone doesn’t seem particularly well-synchronized with the game video, and a lot of the lyrics don’t seem to hold much relevance one way or another to it. But overall, the tone of the music works well with the game’s clips, there are times when the lyrics do match up to what’s shown, and I feel that the overall feel of the song works nicely with the overall tone of the video’s progression and events as a whole.
XENOSAGA
Xenosaga 2 + 3: Breath, by ShionStrife: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J85LYsk5iAI
The music used is Breath, by Breaking Benjamin. The subject matter of this one, pairing Shion and Jr. up, is ludicrous and dumb, of course, but surprisingly, this video’s actually a pretty solid work. I suppose it just goes to show you how far effective use of game footage and coordination with the song can really go. The scenes match up to the lyrics and the mood of the music extremely well, and are arranged in a terrific way for conveying Hell, it’s done well enough that if someone who was not at all familiar with the Xenosaga games and characters were to watch this, they would probably wholeheartedly believe that there really were some sort of romantic subplot in the game concerning Jr. and Shion.
Xenosaga Series: The Awakening, by Tabichan8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6MgwLiB4JQ
The music used is Prometheus Ring, by Immediate Music. This one’s a KOS-MOS tribute/trailer AMV, and it’s pretty awesome. The scenes are great with the music, the quotes used are perfect for the purpose, and overall, it gets your blood pumping, it shows KOS-MOS as being awesome, and it totally psychs you up for the Xenosaga series by being pretty damn epic. You could easily believe this to be an official trailer from how well it’s done.
Xenosaga Series: The Saga Begins, by GunnerRikku75: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06b5KRhpz_Q
The music used is The Saga Begins, by Weird Al Yankovic. Given that it’s a 5+ minute joke AMV to a joke song cover to a song that is itself bad enough to also be a joke, I’m kind of surprised that this video’s actually pretty darned good. The video clips are well-timed and a good match to the Star Wars-ish lyrics, and it all winds up being a nice bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, which is just what it should be with a Weird Al song
* I feel like I want to make an entire rant devoted just to this one thing, but it’s not RPG-related enough to do so, so I’m gonna just post my complaint here. These stupid, pointless intros to people’s AMVs have got to STOP. If someone wants to quickly stick their name up at the start of the video for 1 to 5 seconds, well, that’s alright. But a ton of AMV makers have these elaborate, 30 - 45 second intro videos to their music videos! It’s distracting, it’s annoying, and frankly such flamboyant narcissism in thinking anyone cares at all makes me very disinclined to even give the actual AMV, when it finally starts, a chance. You are not an acclaimed fucking director or movie studio! You’re putting up fan music videos of video games on Youtube, you self-important twats. Get a grip, stop boring your audience, and get on with the actual AMV already.
From what I understand, people put a 30 second intro before their videos to try and fool Youtube's automatic copyright material detector/banhammer (which supposedly only scans the 1st 30 seconds of any video).
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, it is annoying and ofen comes across as pretentious. A good alternative is instead to use lines of dialogue from the game to establish the mood of the video and set up the themes in it.
I suppose that IS more legitimate than I thought, but yes, as you point out, there are far less annoying and far more artistically appropriate ways to fill that 30 seconds, so I figure the point stands.
DeleteThe Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: United We Stand, Divided We Fall, by Enlistedman92
ReplyDeleteThis was absurdly well-done. Like, I want to buy the game with money.
Xenosaga 2 + 3: Breath, by ShionStrife
I've only played the first game, so I may fall under the unfamiliarity clause. It works pretty well with the characters. But then again, the only alternatives I know of are Allen and Ziggy and whatever chaos is, so yeah.
Xenosaga Series: The Saga Begins, by GunnerRikku75
Way too much fun.
I'll watch the rest when I can get a minute.
And what the heck is it with VIII having amazing AMVs all over the place?
Man, I don't even KNOW. It's like, I really don't want to give it even the minute acknowledgement of accepting its AMVs, but for some reason, there are some out there that are really good.
DeleteOn the other hand, do consider that each time I check the past 3 or so months' worth of AMVs for every RPG, FF8 has literally dozens and dozens of new ones, most of which are inevitably utter crap. So it's still a case of wading through a sea of crap to find the gems--just surprising that the gems are there to be found.
Actually, sir, it occurs to me far too late that, though you know I appreciate and enjoy your feedback, perhaps you should be making these comments to the AMV makers at Youtube, not to me here. As I've mentioned, good AMVs don't get nearly enough recognition as a general rule, so if you're willing to throw in a reaction, might as well let the creator see it, right?
DeleteOh, most certainly. I do copypaste things off to the creators, though I seem to have not done so with this batch of comments, nor did I check out the other vids. Thanks for the heads up!
DeleteGood man, good man.
DeleteFreaking this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWunKK-YylY