Final Fantasy VII often carries the reputation of being the best RPG of all time, but despite its huge fan base, there is very little original merchandise available from the series (outside of Japan).
>There has been recent releases of plush characters and figures being produced following the success of Advent Children & Kingdom Hearts, but little around the time of the game's release.
Today we are going to focus on the figurines released by Bandai around the same time as the game.
Where popular games go, you can always expect merchandise to be available. Final Fantasy VII was released back in November 1997 for Europe after its incredible success worldwide. Several months later, Bandai released these figures in early 1998 under the title Extra Knight.
Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aerith, Red XIII, Vincent and Sephiroth were all available to buy individually from the shops. Yuffie and Cid, for some strange reason were never immortalised in plastic leaving yet another unsolved FF7 mystery.
A European Release?
Once these figures made their way to US and European shops, Bandai decided to bundle them together into a Collectible Edition. Unfortunately, when they did this, Red XII, Sephiroth and Vincent were all left out of the set. The only way to get the missing characters, would be to import them from Japan.
Bundled with the surviving four characters was a Chocobo and Frog. To get these two creatures in the original set from Japan, you had to buy Tifa who came bundled with the Frog and Aerith who came with the Chocobo.
While the build quality and paint job on these figures isn't of the highest quality, they're a fantastic addition to any Final Fantasy Collection and well worth the investment.
Worth Buying?
At the time of writing, the full set was available to pick up from eBay US with prices ranging from $20 - $50 per figure (Brand New). While a completed listing on eBay UK recently shows a Complete Collectible Edition Box Set slipped through at the low cost of £12.50.
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