It's an okay little OVA. One of the better hard fantasy series of its type from the '90s OVA boom. The story is just a rough bastardization and revamping of the SNES games—essentially, it's like "Oh, no! Oh, wow! Someone has taken the four crystals and thrown the world out of balance for their own diabolical plans! Too bad we didn't bother to add security details... oops..." that actually might be the biggest of all fantasy cliches when it comes to the conception of the world. An old-fashioned notion about the way elements correspond to nature and how the heroes keep this balance and the villains throw it out of whack. Not very compelling. They don't get too heavy in rehashing the rehash, but I did space out during a few expository moments. At least it's really brief.
The coloring is as vivid as 1992's similarly themed Ellcia. The character design is... eh, a mixed bag: I think it's quirky and stands out, but the dominatrix pirate group is very stupid looking, and Valkus is maybe a bit funky with the proportion of his tiny head and bulbous body. The visual design is pretty solid, and the more wide-open driving scenes remind me slightly of obscure OVAs with a great sense of movement like Birth, and Yoshinori Kanada had a hand in animating the both of them (most of his FF segments are noticeable in the fourth episode, especially with the dog fights and explosions), though Birth remains far more notable in terms of animation. Other reference points might be another obscure OVA, Dragon's Heaven—a kind of Moebius-inspired sci-fi/fantasy mech piece with lots of stippling and texturing, though FF is decidedly much lighter on the shading. Other notable animators include Mitsuo Iso, who provided exceptional character animation and one of the motorcycle chase scenes. Being that this is a Rintaro directed anime, the story boarding is also very good, and it especially shows in the perspective and detail-packed ending sequence among the green ruins.
Where the series is a little less convincing is with the characters. They're often serviceable to lead the plot along. Some of the hijinks are humorous—other moments not as much. The characters have enough swagger to the point that you might not notice what little depth they have if you get caught up in the action and character acting.
Prettz has a big sword to represent how horny he is, and we get to watch him do nothing but hero things and simp the whole time. Linaly is... *flashes panties.* Oh, right. The most notable aspect about her character is that she eats one of the crystals, and it causes her bottom to light up like a firefly, and she can easily function as a lighthouse, as we see in one of the classiest scenes of all time. Rouge is a gold-digging dominatrix whose philosophy is like "I love money. I hate death." Valkus is an interesting case: you don't know what he'll be like as a character until he sees Rouge, and "falls in love" with her and will do anything for her. Ugh, well, he's partially redeemed by his line of dialogue when he's trying to avoid fighting: "W-wait! I'm not in the habit of fighting fat women." Pretty based, but then he ends up as an emasculated slave by the end in one of the worst send-offs for a character I've ever seen. I personally have a soft spot for ghost characters like Mid; he works well as a wise man archetype and guide, though his backstory is really ridiculous. Talk about a big-brained grandfather—it's like the size of a house!
The villain has absolutely 0 depth. I guess he wanted to rule the universe or something, and he has the equally cool name of Ra Devil (kidding again). His visual design is kind of cool and reminiscent of a more tech-infused body horror like you'd find in Akira, but that's about it. The action has some kind of weight and tension to it throughout most of the first three episodes, but it feels really thrown together and random by the end. Like the heroes have unimaginable plot armor, and the sense of world building for the final area is really non-existent. The final fight actually does feel oddly like a drawn-out turn-based JRPG game with how ridiculous it is. The ending is also unsatisfying and flat.
I feel like this was a fun... possible 6/10 for most of the series, but it loses direction to such an extent by the last episode that I settled for a 5/10. The whole thing about finding the dragon is a little tedious, and there are plenty of little things that bog it down, as well as some pacing issues due to the predictability of the script. There are a LOT of shoddy OVAs during that period, but this one is reasonably well-made and worth checking out. It just needed a better script, and the VGM tie-in probably didn't help, but I will say that as far as that kind of thing goes, this held up remarkably well, flawed as it may be.
