Before Final Fantasy X-2, there was this.
Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, known as simply Final Fantasy in Japan, is a 1994 Original Video Animation spanning four episodes, and the first anime installment in the medium-hoppingly popular Final Fantasy franchise. It is the direct sequel to the video game Final Fantasy V.
For 200 years after the events of Final Fantasy V, the Planet R has become peaceful and serene. However, dark forces aim to upset this tranquility, and have captured three of the four crystals that regulate the planet's elements. Linaly and Prettz, the descendants of the previous game's heroes, are given the mission to protect the last of the four crystals, The Crystal of Wind.
Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals is the very first sequel ever made to an existing entry in the Final Fantasy series, and the first animated installment of the Final Fantasy franchise. It was released in the United States on VHS by Urban Vision in 1997 (ironically, before the game it was based on was ever given a US release), but that release is now out-of-print.
The OVA was not produced by Square themselves but rather by NTT Publishing with animation by Madhouse.
This OVA series contains examples of:
- A God Am I: Ra Devil, to the sixteenth power. He even states himself as one at one point. And he basically all but becomes one once transformed into Deathgyunos.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Prettz has a massive crush on Linaly that she fails to notice. Mid, meanwhile, thinks that Linaly has a huge crush on him when she doesn't.
- The Anime of the Game: The first Final Fantasy anime, and sequel to Final Fantasy V.
- BFS: Prettz wields a nodachi similar to Sephiroth's. Just how long it is seems to vary from scene to scene.
- Bad Moon Rising: Ra Devil and his army hail from the "Black Moon", and the final battle takes place there.
- Big Bad: Ra Devil.
- Big Damn Heroes: Prettz is pretty good at this.
- Bond One-Liner: After Prettz's first Big Damn Hero moment where he slices a monster in half, he quips (in the English dub), "Poor guy, he had a splitting headache."
- Brain in a Jar: Ra Devil stole Cid Previa's brain from his grave, then hooked it up to a machine to extract all of Cid's knowledge about the Crystals.
- Chosen One: Prettz and Linaly are direct descendants of the heroes of Final Fantasy V. As such, destiny dictates that these two must be the ones to protect the Crystal of Wind.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Subverted. Rouge subjects Prettz to the terrors of... a tickle machine. Later when she tries to extract the Wind Crystal from Linaly, she opts to feed her prune juice rather than the gruesome vivisection that Prettz was probably imagining.
- Cool Bike: Prettz owns a motorbike with a passenger sidecar. He tends to use this bike in some rather unique ways.
- Culture Chop Suey: In the past 200 years, the world of FFV seems to have gone from Medieval European Fantasy (that grew out of an old quasi-Egyptian society of Ancients) to something vaguely Chinese, judging by Linaly and her grandfather's clothing and yin-yang... oh, and Castle Tycoon was rebuilt as the Taj Mahal with a minaret housing the dragon shrine.
- Dead Guy Junior: Queen Lenna of Tycoon, who is directly descended from the original.
- Deuteragonist: Since Linaly isn't an Action Girl, Prettz deals with all the swording-related tasks of the quest.
- Dissonant Serenity: Linaly takes the easygoing nature of her ancestor up a notch. Even when she's on a plummeting aircraft, she's enjoying herself because it's the first time she's flown through a cloud.
- Distress Ball: Linaly gets kidnapped a few times and needs to be saved by monsters a few others.
- Every Japanese Sword is a Katana: Defied. The only Japanese sword around is Prettz's nodachi.
- Fate Worse than Death: Cid had hardly been buried when Ra Devil shows up, exhumes his corpse, cuts out his brain, and keeps it alive to extract Cid's knowledge of the Crystals. Mid explains that this has somehow kept Cid's soul from being able to pass on, and he's been forced to use his knowledge in Ra Devil's service for 200 years.
- Friend to All Living Things: Linaly. She's already friends with a canal-dwelling serpent/dragon called Kisana and quickly befriends Hiryuu.
- The High Queen: Queen Lenna, regal and wise. Though she spends most of her time looking worried.
- In Name Only: Shares the same setting and features some characters (or descendants of said characters) from FFV, but other than that, it's completely different from it in terms of tone, plot/characterization, soundtrack, and character designs.
- Keet: Prettz, whose obnoxious, Hot-Blooded attitude is quite in contrast with his companion.
- Large and in Charge: Valkas, commander of Tycoon's air force, is far taller and wider than the rest of the cast.
- Mecha-Mooks: Ra Devil's forces are made up of these.
- My Brain Is Big: For some reason, Cid's disembodied brain has gotten huge in the 200 years Ra Devil was keeping it alive. It's never really explained.
- No One Could Survive That!: Prettz goes through several of these moments.
- Oblivious to Love: Linaly doesn't seem to notice Prettz's huge crush on her.
- One-Winged Angel: Ra Devil's transformation into Deathgyunos, pretty much a given for a Final Fantasy villain.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The poster is "Prettz is about to slice you in half."
- Schizo Tech: Somewhat less so its predecessor. While technology has visibly progressed from mostly-medieval to something like the Industrial Age, with firearms and outboard motors, melee weapons are still commonly used.
- The Smart Girl: Linaly is good at figuring out the puzzles they encounter along the way.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Cid died in the immediate aftermath of the events of the game, and Mid Previa was murdered by Ra Devil very soon after that. Doesn't really count for the rest of the Light Warriors themselves, since there's no indication they died of anything but natural causes.
- Taking the Bullet: Prettz tries to intercept the Wind Crystal when Mid sends it back into Linaly's body, only it simply passes through him.
- Unfinished Business: Mid's ghost joins Prettz and Linaly to stop Ra Devil and avenge the theft of his grandfather's brain.
