Book Description A hardcover volume that showcases the intriguing evolution of pixel art from the Final Fantasy series!Containing detailed sprite sheets that showcase the pixel composition of Final Fantasy’s beloved characters, maps of Final Fantasy’s most popular highlighting tools used by the developers, and a special interview with Kazuko Shibuya, the character pixel artist for the Final Fantasy series, FF Dot is a one of a kind product that immerses readers into an iconic aspect of the Final Fantasy experience. Dark Horse Books is proud to collaborate with Square Enix to bring fans FF Dot: The Pixel Art of Final Fantasy, translated into English for the first time. This localization of the original Japanese publication holds nearly 300 pages of colorful pixel art, and is an invaluable addition to any Final Fantasy fan’s collection. Customers Review: I rarely leave book reviews, but I was a bit disappointed in this book and want to set expectations for those who were hoping it would be what I hoped it would be.I’ll start with the good: This has a lot of artwork and covers all of the games up to VI. It would make a nice collector’s item and is enjoyable to look at.The not so good for some: I was hoping for more technical analysis of the pixel art, but I’m not deducting stars for that since I pre-ordered not knowing what exactly the book would contain. The reason I am deducting stars is because what little text there is dwindles away as the book goes on. Also, the more technical illustrations with dimensions and animations only exist for a portion of the book. So they set an expectation and didn’t follow through. If it wasn’t for those things I still would have given it four stars rather than five. The reason is that the book could have been better in general—with a table of contents, more interviews, and some amount of discussion around the pixel art. The most disappointing thing is that I didn’t learn anything. It is simply art with some meager technical teases. It could have been an amazing book, for both those who want to study FF pixel art from a formal perspective and those who just care about looking.I recommend the book for collecting and glancing at every now and then for whatever enjoyment it gives you. I do not recommend it for anyone who wants to learn more about the artists themselves or anyone who would like to study it as a pixel artist themselves. There are maybe a handful of images that I will reference for pixel art inspiration, but I’m not even sure about that.
Let me start with the obvious: Kazuko Shibuya’s skill, charm, and lasting influence on video games as a whole is absolutely inarguable, and having a book full of her and others’ beautiful pixel art certainly enhances that fact. FF Dot will definitely provide a jolt of inspiration for aspiring and practicing pixel artists, and the lengthy interview with Shibuya at the end of the book is an inspiring treat all by itself.That being said, the exclusions here are jarring and disappointing. The first three Final Fantasy titles receive about 150 pages, compared to only about 86 pages for the SNES FF titles. As a result, iconic art like “boss” sprites for Golbez, Zeromus, and Kefka are all missing, for instance. (Though to be fair, Zemus, X-Death final form, and Tower of Kefka are all displayed quite gloriously.)Even more disappointing is that overwhelmingly iconic hero pixel art is missing from this book, including the original pixel art for the entire casts of Final Fantasy IV (in their battle form) and Final Fantasy VI. They have all been replaced by *new*, special “2018” pixel art created for this book by Shibuya. (I have included pictures as examples.) Granted, this new pixel art is all significantly more faithful to the original concept art and enjoys a much expanded color palette, (In fact, Shibuya depicts the heroes of *every* FF up to XV in her pixel style, and it’s thoroughly enjoyable.) but that it outright *replaces* the old sprites makes for a grievous omission. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to buy a book like this and expect to see pages dedicated to the original pixel art of these beloved main characters.So in conclusion, what FF Dot *does* contain is fantastic and delightful, *including* Shibuya’s brand new 2018 sprite art. However, its imbalanced distribution of content and the absence of the original sprites for main characters from Final Fantasy IV and VI defeats the purpose of a book dedicated to classic pixel art, at least to a small extent. If it’s important to you to get a strong helping of the SNES entries, this book will almost definitely disappoint you. If you can look past that though, there is still plenty to enjoy in this book.
I love this book!I grew up with the NES and this brought back a lot of memories of how as a kid I would get lost in the creativity of what developers of these games made with only some blocks.I love pixel art and this book is great if you enjoy making your own and admiring the work of someone else’s and seeing their imagination from some truly great games.This book is small in size but is perfect size to show blown up images of final fantasy pixel characters and creatures, also of places from the games.Also having final fantasy characters from beyond the Nintendo/SNES was a really cool surprise to see if they had been made in that era.
Growing up playing NES & SNES games, I love pixel/sprite art. Featuring pixel art from Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy VI, this book has various types of pixel art including sprite sheets of different poses & walk cycles, backgrounds, monsters, and pixels of characters if they were done in 2018. There’s even pixel art from Final Fantasy VII to Final Fantasy XV.My ONLY complaint is that even though the book I got came in plastic wrap, somehow a couple of pages have creases. But since the creases are light, I’m gonna let that slide.All in all, this is a must have for those who love the Final Fantasy games from the NES and/or SNES era or those who love pixel art in general.
Such. Wonderfully illustrated book of all the pixel art of Final Fantasy. My favorite will always be the original 8-bit art and this book fully brings it to life in a big way.
Nostalgia!
Nostalgic, beautiful, and absolutely stunning. Perfect addition to the coffee table!
Great book for pixel art from the earlier Final Fantasy games, but disappointed they did not use the original sprites for Final Fantasy IV and VI when examining the characters. |
20 reviews