Here it is a new Final fantasy art book!!! This book is Final Fantasy Type-0 Official Art works. Ever since the first time I saw the I can't wait to order it and decide to order from amazon japan right away. The book cost 2800 yen, which could go around 35~40 USD. And shipping from Amazon Japan usually cost a lot and depend on where u live, my total comes around $75.
As far as I know we don’t get to see too much FF art book out there and I only know a few, so I know I just have to get this one, and I really love the design of Type-0 and also a big fan or Tetsuya Nomura (FF VII, FFXIII, KH...etc) who handle most of the art for the game.
Even though I import the book, but I barely know any Japanese, but I still order them cause I really like the work and most of the time these book don’t come to stateside.
First lets start with the cover. The book actually comes with clear plastic sleeves cover with title in red on top right corner. Take the plastic sleeve out and u will see the full cover of the book which is the main character for the game Ace from class Zero, also the cover for the book have some light matte finish and have some sort of glare effect which seem pretty cool to me additional to the clear sleeve something you don’t see often.
The book is 255 pgs and in 3 sections. Artwork, History, and Special. The first 2/3 of the book cover all the artworks (pg 4 to179) and the last 1/3 of the book cover the history (pg 180- 241) and special (pg 242-254).
The book start with various CG visual arts and promotion arts, and some never showed artwork. Then its goes to class zero.
One of the reason I wanted the book is that I wanted to see more art for the game, at the same time I wanted to know and see more arts of the all 14 members of class Zero, but it also one of my biggest disappointment for the book. The book didn’t show much or enough for each member. They only show a CG render and one in game render for each member, and that’s pretty much it for class Zero member. With about 14 pages total cover all 14 members but other characters in the game have about 2-4 pages per characters. Consider the class zero is the main point to the game I feel like they should have more work shown in the book.
The characters separate into section just like the fraction in the game Suzaku (red phoenix), Byakko (white tiger), Soryu (blue dragon), and Genbu (black tortoise). Each section covers the characters of that fraction. Then there are artworks of other characters such as Masamune the director class zero, some support characters and then there are various designs for moogles. There are also costumes and color design for the students and regular townspeople NPCs in the games. There are also many armor designs for the Byakko soldiers.
Also in the characters section, it’s the Eidolon section (summons), it include the common summon we know such as Ifrit and Shiva (each summon only gets a pages and mostly frontal shot and some breakdown and a cg shot). After that its show the enemy section with various mechas (also with some breakdown) and monsters in the game. The last few sections for the art work cover the Backgrounds, its shows a world map of the game, then there are many concept art for the environment in the game.
Past the art section it will be history then it special section. (I won’t explain much on each of these as I’m limited to what I can understand but I will give some general ideas these).
The history section is just like the title, it explain the history for the game and its best for you to skip this section if you don’t want any spoilers or such even though its about the game history and in Japanese but there are still some in games shots showing what happen in the game.
The Special section of the book, show various chart about the game with data from Square Enix Members. These chart showing Which Eidolon were used the most, which member from class zero were used and most and which character level up to lv99 the most….etc.
There are 2 interviews in the book, with a short one with 3 main staffs who work on the game and an interview in the end with Hajime Tabata.
Overall I really like the book, and I feel like Square need to release art book like this one for all their future titles (I’m still waiting for a Kingdom Hearts art book). I like all the design for the characters and again my main complain for the book was it don’t have enough arts for class zero members. I like to recommend this book to all FF fans out there especially if you have play Type 0, this is still a great book to have even if you don’t know anything to FF or the game.