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Mini CRT-lookalike Final Fantasy figurines are awesome pixel art music boxes [Video]

Casey Baseel 3 days ago
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Square Enix’s Mini Melody TVs tap into the nostalgia for retro games and old-school electronics.

With retro games, there’s often a fine yet indistinct line between games’ whose aesthetics have been canonized as timelessly charming and cultural milestones of digital artistry, and those whose graphics and sounds now merely feel antiquated, making them past their expiration date in terms of triggering a warm, fuzzy emotional response. Tapping into gaming nostalgia gets trickier still when you take into account that many fans’ memories aren’t tied only to the games themselves, but to the equipment they were played with, much of which has also now been replaced by newer tech.

So it’s nice to see Square Enix going the extra mile in presenting the Final Fantasy series’ early sights and sounds with these cool, clever figurines that look like CRT television sets.

The Final Fantasy Series–Mini Melody TV collection takes us back to Final Fantasy’s initial pixel art era, consisting of the first six games in the series, which were released for the NES/Famicom and Super NES/Super Famicom. Each figurine’s screen shows a scene from one of the games and also plays an iconic piece of background music from its soundtrack.

For the original Final Fantasy, you’ll see the title screen (which, famously, doesn’t come until after you complete the first objective of our quest) and its rousing musical accompaniment that would go on to become the main theme of Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy II’s figurine plays “The Rebel Army,” and Final Fantasy III’s “Eternaal Wind.”

The Final Fantasy IV Mini Melody TV shows us Cecil, still in dark knight mode, sailing through the skies to “The Red Wings,” while Final Fantasy V’s recaptures Bartz party’s battle with Gilgamesh, backed by “Battle at the Big Bridge,” a frantic fight theme that’s possibly the most widely remembered thing about the entire game.

And finally, the Final Fantasy VI figurine has us checking in on Setzer, Celes, Edgar, and Sabin aboard the airship Falcon, searching for their lost friends as, fittingly, “Searching for Friends” plays.

Each of the figurines draws power from a AAA battery to light up its screen, which is actually an LCD display, despite the CRT-style casing. With dimensions of 6.2 x 4.45 x 5.3 centimeters (2.4 x 1.3 x 2.1 inches), they’re compact enough to fit more than one on your desk, and you may want to pick up more than one, since they’re being offered as blind-box items, so you won’t know which one you’re getting until after you open it, unless you opt for the complete box set that guaranties you one of each version.

Individual Final Fantasy Series–Mini Melody TVs are priced at 1,980 yen (US$12.50) and the complete set at 11,880. They’re scheduled to officially go on sale on January 29.

Source: PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: YouTube/スクウェア・エニックス, PR Times
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