Final Fantasy V makes some great improvements on the job system that was in FFIII, now giving each class several unique abilities that can also be applied onto other jobs. That combined with a charming cast of characters, fantastic music, and some fun story beats, it's easily my second favorite SNES FF after VI
Finally finished this for my 550th log- only took uhhh a year and some months.
Perhaps the most eclectic FF so far. Even compared to earlier FFs it really stands out from the prior FFs but also I can't imagine any of the later games have a tone quite as odd as Final Fantasy V. It jumps from the usual epic grandeur of the series, traveling on Chocobos and Airships, dungeon crawling, building your party and conquering titans. However, it just as easily swaps to these cheesy as hell moments during cutscenes where our cast spouts TMNT and Power Ranger references. Bizarre that this stuff got brought over from the GBA and Smartphone versions but I guess this is just how the tone of FFV will go. Part of me wonders what the game would look like without most of these and I would groan but in truth this game has always felt like some sort of enigma to me. FFs in general have always had a weird vibe in my head with regards to my understanding. I never played any apart from 4 DS as a teen (didn't beat) and then several years later I decided to try this out on the GBA port. If I remember correctly, around the same time I would have been finishing Dragon Quest III so perhaps I was looking for another class customization heavy JRPG? I didn't get too far but since then I've always had a fondness for this one in particular and had since wanted to sit down and fully commit myself to FFV. Over the course of a year and several other FFs later this pixel remaster came out and I put in the time but I did sit down and come back to this one more than I had hoped for. Thinking on Final Fantasies as a whole for a moment, there's only a few of them that really 'stand out' as titans metaphorically, the ones that jump to mind as the name Final Fantasy is brought up. FFIV, VI, VII, and X are usually the strongest in my mind, not so much in terms of quality but typically as the ones most 'stand-out' and typical to the franchise. FFs I-III try to establish a winning formula with what RPGs can manage and do for the times, while 4 sticks to a dedicated cast and decides to tell a focused story, VI and VII remain titans of the franchise with little need for explanation as to why and onward it's kind of a grabbag, although X for some reason always had a fragment in my mind even as kid for some reason. 8, 9 and 12 I don't know much about although they usually fill out a chunk of my mind as wildly differing branches of what I know about Final Fantasy. I could also talk about XIV however as I've yet to dive deep into it I barely understand what's going on whenever people talk about that game considering its 6 versions in. I bring this up because V feels like this really weird side path between Final Fantasies IV and VI, so seeing as how gamers in the west during the 90s going from the former to the latter makes a lot of sense but going from the former to V is an odd path to take when tackling this linearly. You don't transition from tropey but large scale drama to generation-defining epic as smoothly as V, this klutz of a fantasy, decides to place its sweet self between the two entries.
I can't really complain though, this game can get really neat. Neat might be the best descriptor I can give- as its customizable classes aren't necessarily new, considering III DOES exist despite how often I forget it does, AND it often falls into the pitfalls that other class-heavy japanese rpgs do. Yet, this thankfully improves upon III's systems and provides enough tools that it doesn't leave you to dry as often as I convinced myself it would. What I mean by this is that I'm kind of an idiot in a lot of ways. But also! this game does like to play around with its bosses more often, and considering how many options you might have when it comes to classes it might be easy to place yourself in a corner. Quite often bosses would seem way more daunting than they were worth because I didn't take into consideration how many simple ideas just work. A lot of these bosses feel like puzzles, and sometimes the solution is as simple as 'Spellblade + Thundaga is way more powerful than you think' but the game has so many complex build options that I tend to skew into just 'but this thing had bigger number in normal random battle' which would lead to my demise in certain bosses. Other bosses just don't care about having resistances. One particular boss (or trio of bosses) I didn't wanna deal with turned out to be susceptible to Odin's Zanketsuken! Brilliant! This does lead to quite a few moments of complex, fairly frustrating encounters in which I kinda wished my own creativeness would just prevail rather than needing to untangle and cobble together some other strategy because I might have missed a certain blue magic or I don't have an adequately leveled black mage. Or maybe I'd rather perish a slow and arduous death than try to wrap my head around the intricacies of the beastmaster class for 5 minutes. It's not too often but I have the brain disease that makes me want to keep a character as one class as long as they can so that they can be extremely great at one thing, but also to have these classes kept to these characters so as to check out as many classes as possible. Unfortunately there are times where the best solution is to just break this disease and have two characters have the same class (or maybe I accidentally made Faris both the best DPS and the best Mage without realizing it- uh oh).
My main critical problem against the game itself is there are admittedly a few stinker classes. Buff Dancer! Make Berserker more interesting! There are possible ways that these more niche classes could be overhauled or more functional so as to make them stand out compared to more traditional but practical classes like Monk, Summoner or White Mage. Most of the classes work really well and switching from class to class is a lot easier than in 3, although understanding the upsides of certain jobs takes a bit of faith. 'Chemist is one of the best jobs in the game, trust me' I saw, 'Use Zenigage! It's what makes Samurai good!' the daimyo of Bal wailed. Nonsense, all I need is Krile to grab Berserk and stay a monk and do all the work. Dragoon isn't that good? Then how come I can jump? That's rad. (I should note I typed much of this before beating the final boss- a battle I mostly won on...Zenigage + Chemist using Mix! I mostly just didn't wanna rewrite this entire section) I say much of this as admittedly an apology to Final Fantasy V, similar to other class systems in gaming as my strategizing and planning really isn't as complex as perhaps the game would want me to think on. Maybe it's because Final Fantasy was still just a matter of the turn based combat that the class system would have some oddities I didn't take into consideration which kept me from being wholly engrossed in its system and more so entertained. Maybe I sound cheeky in this regard but I did wish my understanding of the classes for FFV was a bit clearer in-game. Mostly I wish the game was just transparent in what abilities I was getting so I could fully realize the utilities of my party and its jobs, but much of it turned into a party of swiss army knives with a little of columns A-C, a specialty in D and what I would have liked to be a mastery in E but a greater need at the moment for said character to be Column F instead. Perhaps better class planning in later replays would greatly trim the sloppy catalog of abilities I ended on, but that's for a later Polaroid. I mostly bring this up not in scathing criticism or in contradiction to its strongest and generally most acclaimed aspect, I mostly bring about my hiccups in the job system- as I admit I'm not certain how I feel about job systems in general at the moment. After sitting on Yakuza 7 for a while, I came to feel generally positive about the idea, but remembering certain flops and hiccups in how some classes progressed, on top of some other oddities regarding battles. Final Fantasy 3, being the first in the series to structure a job system for later games to build upon gets some slack for how early it is, but of course has its own can of worms in terms of balancing. Tactics, while I have yet to beat it, has an immensely deep class system, but gets into the territory of needing some guidance in unlocking other classes to diversify your team. Here in Final Fantasy V, while I enjoy the ease and speed in getting new jobs- as well as the amount of good jobs versus middling; I do think there's a major balancing problem. How come certain classes end on just 'Equip Axes' while others end on borderline game breaking abilities like Rapid Shot. Red Mage has the idea in knowing that to get the insane ability in 'Dual Cast' locked at a 1159 AP level cap but the Ranger’s ‘Rapid Fire’ is not only slightly more practical but only requires nearly half that in 600 ap. By the end of the game and once several classes are mastered, a lot of it starts to click and regular battles begin to become a joke, and I love it. I really just wish I had better planned who was gonna get what classes, as a lot of the late game was spent wondering why I spent as much time as I had in certain classes. Once I had finally sat down and got that chemist class leveled up I finally saw the appeal in abilities like Mix and Revive, but I don’t know why I spend so much time trying to make Berserker work. Hell, I never even got Black Mage maxed out, which felt strange.
Otherwise the game progresses about as similarly as other Final Fantasy, although the last third is kind of the least interesting part, with a late game party change and some pretty lackluster dungeons until the final stretch.
The pixel remastered soundtrack is pretty great, and some of the remastered effects look really great but I'm still on the fence on how the actual spritework looks part of the time. I am disappointed however that the game lacks much of the bonus combat that was added to the GBA and defunct PC release.
Overall I was really looking forward to playing this, and all things considered a lot of the game's charms and structure is very enjoyable but sometimes its quirk gets in the way of taking it too seriously- it still has one last push before it reaches the heights of the series' epic status nowadays. Certainly this and other FFs prior have their stellar moments and memorable moments, but with the help of hindsight and some knowledge of FF6- its hard to really compare most of the stuff that came beforehand. This was definitely my favorite thus far, but the third act and some of the cast really keep it from being my favorite of the bunch. Would still greatly recommend it primarily for its unique battling and progression system.
Perhaps the most eclectic FF so far. Even compared to earlier FFs it really stands out from the prior FFs but also I can't imagine any of the later games have a tone quite as odd as Final Fantasy V. It jumps from the usual epic grandeur of the series, traveling on Chocobos and Airships, dungeon crawling, building your party and conquering titans. However, it just as easily swaps to these cheesy as hell moments during cutscenes where our cast spouts TMNT and Power Ranger references. Bizarre that this stuff got brought over from the GBA and Smartphone versions but I guess this is just how the tone of FFV will go. Part of me wonders what the game would look like without most of these and I would groan but in truth this game has always felt like some sort of enigma to me. FFs in general have always had a weird vibe in my head with regards to my understanding. I never played any apart from 4 DS as a teen (didn't beat) and then several years later I decided to try this out on the GBA port. If I remember correctly, around the same time I would have been finishing Dragon Quest III so perhaps I was looking for another class customization heavy JRPG? I didn't get too far but since then I've always had a fondness for this one in particular and had since wanted to sit down and fully commit myself to FFV. Over the course of a year and several other FFs later this pixel remaster came out and I put in the time but I did sit down and come back to this one more than I had hoped for. Thinking on Final Fantasies as a whole for a moment, there's only a few of them that really 'stand out' as titans metaphorically, the ones that jump to mind as the name Final Fantasy is brought up. FFIV, VI, VII, and X are usually the strongest in my mind, not so much in terms of quality but typically as the ones most 'stand-out' and typical to the franchise. FFs I-III try to establish a winning formula with what RPGs can manage and do for the times, while 4 sticks to a dedicated cast and decides to tell a focused story, VI and VII remain titans of the franchise with little need for explanation as to why and onward it's kind of a grabbag, although X for some reason always had a fragment in my mind even as kid for some reason. 8, 9 and 12 I don't know much about although they usually fill out a chunk of my mind as wildly differing branches of what I know about Final Fantasy. I could also talk about XIV however as I've yet to dive deep into it I barely understand what's going on whenever people talk about that game considering its 6 versions in. I bring this up because V feels like this really weird side path between Final Fantasies IV and VI, so seeing as how gamers in the west during the 90s going from the former to the latter makes a lot of sense but going from the former to V is an odd path to take when tackling this linearly. You don't transition from tropey but large scale drama to generation-defining epic as smoothly as V, this klutz of a fantasy, decides to place its sweet self between the two entries.
I can't really complain though, this game can get really neat. Neat might be the best descriptor I can give- as its customizable classes aren't necessarily new, considering III DOES exist despite how often I forget it does, AND it often falls into the pitfalls that other class-heavy japanese rpgs do. Yet, this thankfully improves upon III's systems and provides enough tools that it doesn't leave you to dry as often as I convinced myself it would. What I mean by this is that I'm kind of an idiot in a lot of ways. But also! this game does like to play around with its bosses more often, and considering how many options you might have when it comes to classes it might be easy to place yourself in a corner. Quite often bosses would seem way more daunting than they were worth because I didn't take into consideration how many simple ideas just work. A lot of these bosses feel like puzzles, and sometimes the solution is as simple as 'Spellblade + Thundaga is way more powerful than you think' but the game has so many complex build options that I tend to skew into just 'but this thing had bigger number in normal random battle' which would lead to my demise in certain bosses. Other bosses just don't care about having resistances. One particular boss (or trio of bosses) I didn't wanna deal with turned out to be susceptible to Odin's Zanketsuken! Brilliant! This does lead to quite a few moments of complex, fairly frustrating encounters in which I kinda wished my own creativeness would just prevail rather than needing to untangle and cobble together some other strategy because I might have missed a certain blue magic or I don't have an adequately leveled black mage. Or maybe I'd rather perish a slow and arduous death than try to wrap my head around the intricacies of the beastmaster class for 5 minutes. It's not too often but I have the brain disease that makes me want to keep a character as one class as long as they can so that they can be extremely great at one thing, but also to have these classes kept to these characters so as to check out as many classes as possible. Unfortunately there are times where the best solution is to just break this disease and have two characters have the same class (or maybe I accidentally made Faris both the best DPS and the best Mage without realizing it- uh oh).
My main critical problem against the game itself is there are admittedly a few stinker classes. Buff Dancer! Make Berserker more interesting! There are possible ways that these more niche classes could be overhauled or more functional so as to make them stand out compared to more traditional but practical classes like Monk, Summoner or White Mage. Most of the classes work really well and switching from class to class is a lot easier than in 3, although understanding the upsides of certain jobs takes a bit of faith. 'Chemist is one of the best jobs in the game, trust me' I saw, 'Use Zenigage! It's what makes Samurai good!' the daimyo of Bal wailed. Nonsense, all I need is Krile to grab Berserk and stay a monk and do all the work. Dragoon isn't that good? Then how come I can jump? That's rad. (I should note I typed much of this before beating the final boss- a battle I mostly won on...Zenigage + Chemist using Mix! I mostly just didn't wanna rewrite this entire section) I say much of this as admittedly an apology to Final Fantasy V, similar to other class systems in gaming as my strategizing and planning really isn't as complex as perhaps the game would want me to think on. Maybe it's because Final Fantasy was still just a matter of the turn based combat that the class system would have some oddities I didn't take into consideration which kept me from being wholly engrossed in its system and more so entertained. Maybe I sound cheeky in this regard but I did wish my understanding of the classes for FFV was a bit clearer in-game. Mostly I wish the game was just transparent in what abilities I was getting so I could fully realize the utilities of my party and its jobs, but much of it turned into a party of swiss army knives with a little of columns A-C, a specialty in D and what I would have liked to be a mastery in E but a greater need at the moment for said character to be Column F instead. Perhaps better class planning in later replays would greatly trim the sloppy catalog of abilities I ended on, but that's for a later Polaroid. I mostly bring this up not in scathing criticism or in contradiction to its strongest and generally most acclaimed aspect, I mostly bring about my hiccups in the job system- as I admit I'm not certain how I feel about job systems in general at the moment. After sitting on Yakuza 7 for a while, I came to feel generally positive about the idea, but remembering certain flops and hiccups in how some classes progressed, on top of some other oddities regarding battles. Final Fantasy 3, being the first in the series to structure a job system for later games to build upon gets some slack for how early it is, but of course has its own can of worms in terms of balancing. Tactics, while I have yet to beat it, has an immensely deep class system, but gets into the territory of needing some guidance in unlocking other classes to diversify your team. Here in Final Fantasy V, while I enjoy the ease and speed in getting new jobs- as well as the amount of good jobs versus middling; I do think there's a major balancing problem. How come certain classes end on just 'Equip Axes' while others end on borderline game breaking abilities like Rapid Shot. Red Mage has the idea in knowing that to get the insane ability in 'Dual Cast' locked at a 1159 AP level cap but the Ranger’s ‘Rapid Fire’ is not only slightly more practical but only requires nearly half that in 600 ap. By the end of the game and once several classes are mastered, a lot of it starts to click and regular battles begin to become a joke, and I love it. I really just wish I had better planned who was gonna get what classes, as a lot of the late game was spent wondering why I spent as much time as I had in certain classes. Once I had finally sat down and got that chemist class leveled up I finally saw the appeal in abilities like Mix and Revive, but I don’t know why I spend so much time trying to make Berserker work. Hell, I never even got Black Mage maxed out, which felt strange.
Otherwise the game progresses about as similarly as other Final Fantasy, although the last third is kind of the least interesting part, with a late game party change and some pretty lackluster dungeons until the final stretch.
The pixel remastered soundtrack is pretty great, and some of the remastered effects look really great but I'm still on the fence on how the actual spritework looks part of the time. I am disappointed however that the game lacks much of the bonus combat that was added to the GBA and defunct PC release.
Overall I was really looking forward to playing this, and all things considered a lot of the game's charms and structure is very enjoyable but sometimes its quirk gets in the way of taking it too seriously- it still has one last push before it reaches the heights of the series' epic status nowadays. Certainly this and other FFs prior have their stellar moments and memorable moments, but with the help of hindsight and some knowledge of FF6- its hard to really compare most of the stuff that came beforehand. This was definitely my favorite thus far, but the third act and some of the cast really keep it from being my favorite of the bunch. Would still greatly recommend it primarily for its unique battling and progression system.
Much better than I remember it being. I'd also consider this the first good Final Fantasy game. It does everything that its predecessors do but better. The job system returns and has actual depth and amazing customizability options. Dungeons have some actual depth with puzzles (kinda) and interesting designs, for the most part. The ATB is back but works much better with this game's combat system than the 4th's. Levelling up means nothing really since the main way to get stronger is levelling up classes. And this leads to some addicting gameplay loops, wanting to max out all jobs for all 4 of your heroes. The music is great and has a lot of standout tracks. And while the writing in this game can't really be taken seriously because of all the awful humour. It has some key moments that would cement this franchise as the classic JRPG franchise it is. Mainly 'Battle on Big Bridge' and anything to do with Gilgamesh. I do feel this game is overlooked but the pixel remasters have made it more noticeable thankfully.
7/10
7/10
if it wasnt for the qol changes id say its worse than the gba version but its still ff5 so its an easy GOATED status
This is definitely one of the more challenging FF games if you don't know what you're doing—when I was a wee lad, emulating SNES games for the first time without knowing what guides were, I loved this game... up until I got utterly skill check'd by a certain mammoth that shall not be named. Ah, the days of not understanding how job systems work.
After playing a bunch of games with job systems since (shout out to Bravely Default), I kinda grew to appreciate and understand them, and eventually learnt that FF5 was a massive influence for like, every modern job system ever. So of course when I attempted this again as an adult a few weeks ago, I expected the experience to go a lot smoother. I didn't expect too much from the characters/story, as I'd heard this one was a lot more gameplay focused than say, FF4, so I kept my expectations in check there. But still, despite usually caring about story/characters over gameplay, a part of me was really excited to see this unfinished experience from my childhood through to the end.
So to start with, this is obviously a significant improvement on like, everything FFIII introduced. Jobs are generally more useful, and the game rewards you for switching between them with its new job mastery system. I was a huge fan of how creative the jobs were, each coming with their usages: bard buffing your party in crazy ways while being defensively vulnerable, samurai literally throwing money to do massive damage to enemies, ninjas being able to use two weapons at once, and so on.
Of course, the real fun comes once you've mastered a few jobs and can use their abilities on other jobs, and man there are some fun combos. Combining the ninja's dual weapons with the ranger's rapid shot leads to genuinely absurd damage numbers, and best of all this feels by design; the game encourages you to break it. So many bosses have hidden weaknesses that with enough knowledge of this games' systems, you can absolutely nuke them. There's even superbosses that basically require you to break the game to beat, it's wild. Unlike previous FF games, I never got bored of the gameplay here, there's always new job combos to try and tricks to learn; the depth of mastery is frankly quite staggering for a SNES RPG. Not to mention the fun times you can have with the freelancer and mime jobs by the end...
In terms of the story, it can be pretty campy, and generally goes for a much more light-hearted tone than FF4. I can see why people wouldn't be as much of a fan of this, coming off of the previous game. The cast are also more of a ragtag gang rather than individuals directly related to the plot conflicts, setting this apart from FF4 even further.
Ohoho, now this is where things get spicy though: I'm of the opinion that... 🥁... FF5 has a MUCH better story and cast than 4. Now I'm not going to go too into this as this isn't a FF4 review and I don't want to spoil that game wholesale, but what it really comes down to is that 5 feels so much more alive to me. While not on the level of 6 (which I'm playing at the time of writing), it has a lot more dialogue than 4, and this does wonders for establishing chemistry of the cast. I cared about them more in like, the first hour. I'm also going to contradict what I said earlier, and say they actually do relate heavily to the plot conflicts, just more in thematic ways. At the end of the day, FF5 is all about how different people handle loss from a more grounded perspective, and I thought the execution was absolutely fantastic. Not to mention the villain does a fantastic job at embodying this conflict, while also being weirdly lovable in its shameless malevolence and cheesy villain speeches.
Best of all, this game knows have to have fun. After enduring the rather dreary story of 4, this was a welcome change a pace, with some amazing comedy that rivals even like, Tales (a favourite of mine) and its hilarious skits. I was really impressed by how well it balanced light hearted moments with heavier ones (and boy does this game get surprisingly heavy), always walking the tightrope between both without falling one way or the other. Plus, Gilgamesh is hands down the best villain of the first five games, you can't tell me otherwise.
Now I'm not saying this game is perfect... there are parts that could have used more dialogue imo, and from what I've played of 6, the team had clearly improved at this and become much more ambitious in their storytelling. Faris and Lenna also have areas of the story (particularly in Act 2) where their individual traits aren't as emphasised as I'd like. But overall, I think V's story is a good exercise in why quality is often better than quantity, and sometimes a more straightforward tale of good and evil works well. Cause frankly, 4's story really becomes a mess later on with its ridiculous twists and lack of understanding of what made its early beats so strong.
Overall I'm not berating 4 for being pretty messy, as it was literally one of the first RPGs ever to be so story focused and kind of set the trend for that, so ofc it'd be rough around the edges. I just felt the need to expand on this, as I went into 5 expecting it to be a step down based on what a lot of people say, and subsequently found myself VERY surprised.
As for my favourite character? Obviously Gilgamesh, but if I have to pick a protagonist, I would say... Bartz? I'm very surprised at myself by this, as I usually find his archetype kinda boring, but he's oddly charming and has an unexpectedly engaging arc. I love all of them of course, including you-know-who, but at the end of the day, Bartz sticks out in my mind the most. I also like how he doesn't really hog the show with his role as main character, they feel more like an ensemble cast at the end of the day. Oh and my goodness, their restraint with not pairing him with any of the girls in the party was impressive, love my platonic gang.
Since I played the Pixel Remaster, I should comment on that: remixed soundtrack is amazing, and they did an incredible job with remixes like Battle on the Big Bridge (the trumpets are here!) and Home, Sweet Home. Usually when I hear someone like Uematsu is 'supervising' I'm a little sceptical, but it's kind of undeniable here with how faithful everything is. Boosts were very welcome for late game, which expects some level of grinding if you want to really push the job system to its limits, and with how stingy that final dungeon is with save points, I'm not sure if I wouldn't finished the game without quick/auto saves. Visually, it's simply gorgeous, a very faithful modern recreation unless I get insanely picky with comparing every single texture something something system limitations create art (this is unironically true, but there's something to be said for how much love they put into these pixel remasters). Aaaand as always, I can't get enough of these minimaps, having to bumble my way around these artificial labyrinths with my terrible sense of direction (not helped by random encounters!) has always made dungeons in older rpgs pretty unpleasant for me.
The lack of the GBA content is a shame, as from what I've read it seems really cool, but honestly I'd take these QoL improvements any day, I don't have the time and patience I used to. Not to say that we should really need to pick one or the other, but... ah well, no point getting too caught up in what could have been.
But yes, FFV is amazing, and imo it's a travesty that it's the least recommended of the SNES titles (from my experience anyway). Give this game a shot if you're insane enough to have read this entire review without doing that!
After playing a bunch of games with job systems since (shout out to Bravely Default), I kinda grew to appreciate and understand them, and eventually learnt that FF5 was a massive influence for like, every modern job system ever. So of course when I attempted this again as an adult a few weeks ago, I expected the experience to go a lot smoother. I didn't expect too much from the characters/story, as I'd heard this one was a lot more gameplay focused than say, FF4, so I kept my expectations in check there. But still, despite usually caring about story/characters over gameplay, a part of me was really excited to see this unfinished experience from my childhood through to the end.
So to start with, this is obviously a significant improvement on like, everything FFIII introduced. Jobs are generally more useful, and the game rewards you for switching between them with its new job mastery system. I was a huge fan of how creative the jobs were, each coming with their usages: bard buffing your party in crazy ways while being defensively vulnerable, samurai literally throwing money to do massive damage to enemies, ninjas being able to use two weapons at once, and so on.
Of course, the real fun comes once you've mastered a few jobs and can use their abilities on other jobs, and man there are some fun combos. Combining the ninja's dual weapons with the ranger's rapid shot leads to genuinely absurd damage numbers, and best of all this feels by design; the game encourages you to break it. So many bosses have hidden weaknesses that with enough knowledge of this games' systems, you can absolutely nuke them. There's even superbosses that basically require you to break the game to beat, it's wild. Unlike previous FF games, I never got bored of the gameplay here, there's always new job combos to try and tricks to learn; the depth of mastery is frankly quite staggering for a SNES RPG. Not to mention the fun times you can have with the freelancer and mime jobs by the end...
In terms of the story, it can be pretty campy, and generally goes for a much more light-hearted tone than FF4. I can see why people wouldn't be as much of a fan of this, coming off of the previous game. The cast are also more of a ragtag gang rather than individuals directly related to the plot conflicts, setting this apart from FF4 even further.
Ohoho, now this is where things get spicy though: I'm of the opinion that... 🥁... FF5 has a MUCH better story and cast than 4. Now I'm not going to go too into this as this isn't a FF4 review and I don't want to spoil that game wholesale, but what it really comes down to is that 5 feels so much more alive to me. While not on the level of 6 (which I'm playing at the time of writing), it has a lot more dialogue than 4, and this does wonders for establishing chemistry of the cast. I cared about them more in like, the first hour. I'm also going to contradict what I said earlier, and say they actually do relate heavily to the plot conflicts, just more in thematic ways. At the end of the day, FF5 is all about how different people handle loss from a more grounded perspective, and I thought the execution was absolutely fantastic. Not to mention the villain does a fantastic job at embodying this conflict, while also being weirdly lovable in its shameless malevolence and cheesy villain speeches.
Best of all, this game knows have to have fun. After enduring the rather dreary story of 4, this was a welcome change a pace, with some amazing comedy that rivals even like, Tales (a favourite of mine) and its hilarious skits. I was really impressed by how well it balanced light hearted moments with heavier ones (and boy does this game get surprisingly heavy), always walking the tightrope between both without falling one way or the other. Plus, Gilgamesh is hands down the best villain of the first five games, you can't tell me otherwise.
Now I'm not saying this game is perfect... there are parts that could have used more dialogue imo, and from what I've played of 6, the team had clearly improved at this and become much more ambitious in their storytelling. Faris and Lenna also have areas of the story (particularly in Act 2) where their individual traits aren't as emphasised as I'd like. But overall, I think V's story is a good exercise in why quality is often better than quantity, and sometimes a more straightforward tale of good and evil works well. Cause frankly, 4's story really becomes a mess later on with its ridiculous twists and lack of understanding of what made its early beats so strong.
Overall I'm not berating 4 for being pretty messy, as it was literally one of the first RPGs ever to be so story focused and kind of set the trend for that, so ofc it'd be rough around the edges. I just felt the need to expand on this, as I went into 5 expecting it to be a step down based on what a lot of people say, and subsequently found myself VERY surprised.
As for my favourite character? Obviously Gilgamesh, but if I have to pick a protagonist, I would say... Bartz? I'm very surprised at myself by this, as I usually find his archetype kinda boring, but he's oddly charming and has an unexpectedly engaging arc. I love all of them of course, including you-know-who, but at the end of the day, Bartz sticks out in my mind the most. I also like how he doesn't really hog the show with his role as main character, they feel more like an ensemble cast at the end of the day. Oh and my goodness, their restraint with not pairing him with any of the girls in the party was impressive, love my platonic gang.
Since I played the Pixel Remaster, I should comment on that: remixed soundtrack is amazing, and they did an incredible job with remixes like Battle on the Big Bridge (the trumpets are here!) and Home, Sweet Home. Usually when I hear someone like Uematsu is 'supervising' I'm a little sceptical, but it's kind of undeniable here with how faithful everything is. Boosts were very welcome for late game, which expects some level of grinding if you want to really push the job system to its limits, and with how stingy that final dungeon is with save points, I'm not sure if I wouldn't finished the game without quick/auto saves. Visually, it's simply gorgeous, a very faithful modern recreation unless I get insanely picky with comparing every single texture something something system limitations create art (this is unironically true, but there's something to be said for how much love they put into these pixel remasters). Aaaand as always, I can't get enough of these minimaps, having to bumble my way around these artificial labyrinths with my terrible sense of direction (not helped by random encounters!) has always made dungeons in older rpgs pretty unpleasant for me.
The lack of the GBA content is a shame, as from what I've read it seems really cool, but honestly I'd take these QoL improvements any day, I don't have the time and patience I used to. Not to say that we should really need to pick one or the other, but... ah well, no point getting too caught up in what could have been.
But yes, FFV is amazing, and imo it's a travesty that it's the least recommended of the SNES titles (from my experience anyway). Give this game a shot if you're insane enough to have read this entire review without doing that!
While it would be reductive to all three games to call FFV the better FFIII, itself the better FFI; each one really is a massive step up from the last. We got job ability mixing, iconic scenes like the Battle on the Big Bridge, and even the series' first real superbosses. A must-play for any fan
The Pixel Remaster makes this more playable than before. The Job system is well designed. The music is rock solid.
Sadly the characters and story are bland by 2023 standards, and all the old school JRPG inconveniences makes this a slog to play at times especially with the occasional BS random battles and grinding neated for a 1st time casual playthrough.
Sadly the characters and story are bland by 2023 standards, and all the old school JRPG inconveniences makes this a slog to play at times especially with the occasional BS random battles and grinding neated for a 1st time casual playthrough.
FFV to me feels underappreciated even though it's the title where the franchise started getting really, really good and sprinted ahead into being the frontrunner for JRPGs. The class system in this game is phenomenal and the story is genuinely pretty fun - still one of my favorites to this day. It's not a perfect game by any means, and is honestly pretty difficult in the back half, but it's very sincerely worth the time it asks you to invest into its grind.
The main failings of this game are in the story; the villain could be stronger in terms of writing and the character journeys aren't totally notable, though done well enough. Overall one of my favorite games in the franchise that feels incredibly overshadowed by FFVI (for fair enough reason, I guess).
The main failings of this game are in the story; the villain could be stronger in terms of writing and the character journeys aren't totally notable, though done well enough. Overall one of my favorite games in the franchise that feels incredibly overshadowed by FFVI (for fair enough reason, I guess).
Solid game I enjoyed my time with for the most part but held back a little bit by some really strange/not so great balancing/structural issues, as well as the archaic ATB system that I have RARELY ever enjoyed
TATS GUAY IS TE GOUT
I told y'all I would be returning to Final Fantasy V.
If there is one cliche-y phrase I could use to summarize my experience with Final Fantasy V, it would be love-hate. For the bulk of this game, I found myself meandering through a plot that I could care less for with characters I liked even less -- Final Fantasy V was shaping up to be my least favorite entry in the series, and one that I thought was going to make me stop my marathon of the entire mainline series completely.
I came close to that brink multiple times playing this game, but I am happy to say that I ended up refusing to give in. After an insufferable first 10 hours, Final Fantasy V became the most fun entry in the series with its "endgame", if I can call it that.
But in terms of development, I would like to talk about the history of this entry before going further into my own opinions. You see, Final Fantasy V stood as a bit of a stepping stone between the first four games, into the insane and legendary series it would become with the next few entries or so.
As such, I view V as the very awkward middle child of these retro games. I cannot deny the absolutely horrid frustrations I had with this game, but at the same time I cannot deny its obvious strengths. Focusing more on gameplay this time around, the devs over at Squaresoft stepped away from the story-focused direction of FFIV and harnessed the strengths that made games like FFI and FFIII so enjoyable.
While definitely having a coherent plot, there is obviously more expertise put into how this game feels to play. Final Fantasy V reprises the personalized job system of III, which initially I was excited to get back into after the static, character-based job system of IV. While it worked in that game, I inherently value customization in RPGs and as such felt that going into this game's job system was going to be a treat.
But, truth be told, V seemed to be extremely lopsided with its game-implementation of it. That is to say, that within the first initial arcs of the game's plot, little to no locations allow you to customize your party makeup even remotely. In a game that emphasizes experimentation, there was a disgraceful lack of that in the first two acts, to the point where boss fights felt absolutely unfair due to their gimmicky quality, and the necessity of some jobs to be more present than others.
It is truly dificult to strike a balance between reasonable class power dispersion and fun gameplay, and I believe that V stumbled much more than it soared, which is unfortunate. Nonetheless, V stood to offer players multiple jobs to choose from, but even after collecting all but one profession, it still felt like an absolute chore to switch jobs, and grind them up to a point where they were viable at the point of the game I was at.
A simple fix could have involved emphasizing player level -- making core stats heavily fixated on player level over correlated ABP level. Or, they could have simply upped the experience enemies give in general. As with every other pixel remaster, I played this game at 4x boosted experience and gil which greatly cut down on grinding time, but even at that rate, it felt like progress was glacially slow.
On top of that, V embraces new puzzle-based, mazelike dungeon design that I absolutely hated mucking through. I found the color palettes of each dungeon particularly gross (even worse than FFII's Pandaemonium). And what was the worst worst WORST offender of everything was this game's full acceptance of the worst JRPG story trope known to man -- extremely limited direction.
When NPCs give you hints at your next step through general dialogue, that is the best form of retro storytelling in JRPGs. But when its Dragon Quest II levels of baseless direction, it becomes an extremely un-fun experience all around. FFV barely had any indication to what you were supposed to be doing, and as someone who hates that design, made me hate this game for the bulk of my playtime.
BUT.
Final Fantasy V offers one of the best things in... the entire series. Its endgame.
Near the end of the story, you are tasked with finding four slabs to unlock the ultima weapons of this game -- clearly within-reach superweapons that dealt massive damage/buffs/spells. After fulfilling two of these slabs, you were granted access to the very final dungeon, but alongside that, you were granted access to the best leveling experience in... the whole series???
I might put FFXIV or FFXII first, but FFV's genuinely amazing endgame leveling experience saved this game for me. I love RPGs that have solid, clear-cut methods of leveling and becoming a badass -- its why I loved FFIII and I. Its also why I hated this game for most of its runtime! But with the quests to gain the best bows, harps, swords, etc. -- Final Fantasy V opened WIIIIIDE for me... that sounds weird.
What I mean to say is that its exploitability as an RPG was extremely apparent as soon as I was given HEAPS of EXP and Gil and ABP. Just because I wanted to have the full range of mixing-and-matching my party build, I ended up fully maxxing out every single job, thusly making my freelancers and mimes absolute wrecking balls, equipped with the best stuff the game offered.
As such, I completely obliterated the final dungeon/boss, but there was another new addition FFV offered that other games severely lacked. Superbosses.
Superbosses made the leveling grind feel unbelievably worth it. Dedicating a day to getting the best possible abilities and whatnot made the eventual battles against Omega and Shinryu true tests of valor, and were honestly the most fun I had in my replaying of the original titles thus far. It was JRPG heaven -- and while I have played and enjoyed systems that were far more gratifying than V (namely, Dragon Quest XI's timewyrm superboss), I would be lying if I said that I did not get that familiar feeling that I was a total badass for beating one of the series' toughest bosses.
Overall, FFV was in one half an amazing and addictingly fun JRPG endgame experience, and the other half was a truly horrendous, horribly paced beginning experience for me. Even at the end of the game, after dedicating my time to grinding levels, I could care less about its plot. Save for some enjoyable comedy, the writing was a clear step down, and I do love great stories in this series so that was a shame. And the issues I had with the leveling system earliest on alongside the natural restrictiveness of the job system in the beginning 7 hours of the game, I cannot give this game too much praise.
Nevertheless, my experience was obviously not the norm. People love this game -- more than some of the series' most beloved titles. I can totally see that, and I do wish I knew how to harness this game's system efficiently throughout an entire playthrough instead of at the very end, because not knowing the secrets to grinding made it very difficult to enjoy.
Final Fantasy V is a game I recommend if you love JRPGs. This definitely is not the game you'd want to start getting into Final Fantasy with -- while it has some of the most iconic elements of Final Fantasy, and is honestly very vanilla in terms of series identity, this game is definitely going to be enjoyed by people who know and love the quirkiness of this series' retro age.
After long deliberation, I am giving this game an...
82/100
If there is one cliche-y phrase I could use to summarize my experience with Final Fantasy V, it would be love-hate. For the bulk of this game, I found myself meandering through a plot that I could care less for with characters I liked even less -- Final Fantasy V was shaping up to be my least favorite entry in the series, and one that I thought was going to make me stop my marathon of the entire mainline series completely.
I came close to that brink multiple times playing this game, but I am happy to say that I ended up refusing to give in. After an insufferable first 10 hours, Final Fantasy V became the most fun entry in the series with its "endgame", if I can call it that.
But in terms of development, I would like to talk about the history of this entry before going further into my own opinions. You see, Final Fantasy V stood as a bit of a stepping stone between the first four games, into the insane and legendary series it would become with the next few entries or so.
As such, I view V as the very awkward middle child of these retro games. I cannot deny the absolutely horrid frustrations I had with this game, but at the same time I cannot deny its obvious strengths. Focusing more on gameplay this time around, the devs over at Squaresoft stepped away from the story-focused direction of FFIV and harnessed the strengths that made games like FFI and FFIII so enjoyable.
While definitely having a coherent plot, there is obviously more expertise put into how this game feels to play. Final Fantasy V reprises the personalized job system of III, which initially I was excited to get back into after the static, character-based job system of IV. While it worked in that game, I inherently value customization in RPGs and as such felt that going into this game's job system was going to be a treat.
But, truth be told, V seemed to be extremely lopsided with its game-implementation of it. That is to say, that within the first initial arcs of the game's plot, little to no locations allow you to customize your party makeup even remotely. In a game that emphasizes experimentation, there was a disgraceful lack of that in the first two acts, to the point where boss fights felt absolutely unfair due to their gimmicky quality, and the necessity of some jobs to be more present than others.
It is truly dificult to strike a balance between reasonable class power dispersion and fun gameplay, and I believe that V stumbled much more than it soared, which is unfortunate. Nonetheless, V stood to offer players multiple jobs to choose from, but even after collecting all but one profession, it still felt like an absolute chore to switch jobs, and grind them up to a point where they were viable at the point of the game I was at.
A simple fix could have involved emphasizing player level -- making core stats heavily fixated on player level over correlated ABP level. Or, they could have simply upped the experience enemies give in general. As with every other pixel remaster, I played this game at 4x boosted experience and gil which greatly cut down on grinding time, but even at that rate, it felt like progress was glacially slow.
On top of that, V embraces new puzzle-based, mazelike dungeon design that I absolutely hated mucking through. I found the color palettes of each dungeon particularly gross (even worse than FFII's Pandaemonium). And what was the worst worst WORST offender of everything was this game's full acceptance of the worst JRPG story trope known to man -- extremely limited direction.
When NPCs give you hints at your next step through general dialogue, that is the best form of retro storytelling in JRPGs. But when its Dragon Quest II levels of baseless direction, it becomes an extremely un-fun experience all around. FFV barely had any indication to what you were supposed to be doing, and as someone who hates that design, made me hate this game for the bulk of my playtime.
BUT.
Final Fantasy V offers one of the best things in... the entire series. Its endgame.
Near the end of the story, you are tasked with finding four slabs to unlock the ultima weapons of this game -- clearly within-reach superweapons that dealt massive damage/buffs/spells. After fulfilling two of these slabs, you were granted access to the very final dungeon, but alongside that, you were granted access to the best leveling experience in... the whole series???
I might put FFXIV or FFXII first, but FFV's genuinely amazing endgame leveling experience saved this game for me. I love RPGs that have solid, clear-cut methods of leveling and becoming a badass -- its why I loved FFIII and I. Its also why I hated this game for most of its runtime! But with the quests to gain the best bows, harps, swords, etc. -- Final Fantasy V opened WIIIIIDE for me... that sounds weird.
What I mean to say is that its exploitability as an RPG was extremely apparent as soon as I was given HEAPS of EXP and Gil and ABP. Just because I wanted to have the full range of mixing-and-matching my party build, I ended up fully maxxing out every single job, thusly making my freelancers and mimes absolute wrecking balls, equipped with the best stuff the game offered.
As such, I completely obliterated the final dungeon/boss, but there was another new addition FFV offered that other games severely lacked. Superbosses.
Superbosses made the leveling grind feel unbelievably worth it. Dedicating a day to getting the best possible abilities and whatnot made the eventual battles against Omega and Shinryu true tests of valor, and were honestly the most fun I had in my replaying of the original titles thus far. It was JRPG heaven -- and while I have played and enjoyed systems that were far more gratifying than V (namely, Dragon Quest XI's timewyrm superboss), I would be lying if I said that I did not get that familiar feeling that I was a total badass for beating one of the series' toughest bosses.
Overall, FFV was in one half an amazing and addictingly fun JRPG endgame experience, and the other half was a truly horrendous, horribly paced beginning experience for me. Even at the end of the game, after dedicating my time to grinding levels, I could care less about its plot. Save for some enjoyable comedy, the writing was a clear step down, and I do love great stories in this series so that was a shame. And the issues I had with the leveling system earliest on alongside the natural restrictiveness of the job system in the beginning 7 hours of the game, I cannot give this game too much praise.
Nevertheless, my experience was obviously not the norm. People love this game -- more than some of the series' most beloved titles. I can totally see that, and I do wish I knew how to harness this game's system efficiently throughout an entire playthrough instead of at the very end, because not knowing the secrets to grinding made it very difficult to enjoy.
Final Fantasy V is a game I recommend if you love JRPGs. This definitely is not the game you'd want to start getting into Final Fantasy with -- while it has some of the most iconic elements of Final Fantasy, and is honestly very vanilla in terms of series identity, this game is definitely going to be enjoyed by people who know and love the quirkiness of this series' retro age.
After long deliberation, I am giving this game an...
82/100
The job system, although more complex than FF3, did not excite me enough to fully experiment which just felt like a chore. Compared to FF4 this game drags on for far longer without the story to match the increased longevity. Decent though.
FFV builds on the job system from 3 and almost perfects it. You can see even more clearly where Bravely Default came from! Overall, 5 feels incredibly polished and like the first modern FF, especially in terms of dialogue and animation. Definitely a fantastic game!
Yeah this was fantastic. The gameplay and jobs system were incredible and it was just a blast the whole way through. I wish I was more invested in the plot as my interest dwindled towards the second half, but the ending still gave me the feels. I could see myself replaying this for the job system alone quite a few times in the future. For now though, on to VI…
While it lacks the punch of IV's story, its gameplay makes up for it in SPADES. The job system is the best it's ever been and rewards you handsomely for the work you put into it.
Battle on the Big Bridge is a BANGER!
Battle on the Big Bridge is a BANGER!
best game EVER!? #BRUH you can be a Ninja that casts flare or a dual-wielding summoner. They put Faris in a dress now my 🍆 wont go down 🔥🔥🔥
Could be better if they added the GBA version exclusive jobs and dungeon.
Always a joy to replay Final Fantasy 5. Love the camp, tongue in cheek script and even think the characters become unironically quite compelling. Of the classic final fantasy games it is easily the most replayable thanks to its versatile job system, and the quality of life improvements like autosave and boosters make doing so even easier. In fact it encouraged me to step out of my box a bit more and try more than just my standard "Spellblade/Rapid Fire, Time Magic/Mix, Blue Magic/Summon, and Throw/Zeninage" builds and experiment with other ways of breaking the job system! After all, if I can quadruple ability points, why not see what bards and dancers could bring to the table.
However, it is a bit disappointing to see the bonus dungeon added in the Advance version removed from the game. Not because it was particularly good, but in an age where its pretty common knowledge how to breeze through even the games toughest superbosses, the lack of optional endgame content is felt.
That said, I don't feel especially short changed by this version and will have little issue playing it as the definitive version in future.
However, it is a bit disappointing to see the bonus dungeon added in the Advance version removed from the game. Not because it was particularly good, but in an age where its pretty common knowledge how to breeze through even the games toughest superbosses, the lack of optional endgame content is felt.
That said, I don't feel especially short changed by this version and will have little issue playing it as the definitive version in future.
This is probably the version of FFV that I'm going to continue to replaying until the sun burns out. All the QoL features make for a super smooth time blasting through the game while trying out different job class combos. This time I used a Ninja with the Rapid Fire ability while dual wielding the Assassin Dagger + Sasuke's Katana and hitting your enemies 8 times with a 25% chance to inflict death on half of those hits my pleasure center in just the right way. I defo enjoyed this much more on a replay where I knew exactly what I was getting into and how to exploit the systems than I did the first time around, just a real good JRPG.
I was really impressed by this title. It's so often overlooked, but the story here is quite epic, and the Job system implemented here is a delight to play around with.
I loved the characters, who all had their own personalities (much like FF4 before it), but were not locked into specific roles (unlike FF4).
I loved the characters, who all had their own personalities (much like FF4 before it), but were not locked into specific roles (unlike FF4).
When you look at a list of Final Fanatasy games ranked this is arguably the most polarizing one. Sometimes you see it near the very top and in others it’s a bottom tier of the franchise. While I understand people that have it towards the bottom for its campy, tongue in cheek story I simply disagree that this isn’t one of the strongest entries in the entire franchise.
While I agree that the story is tongue in cheek and campy I also found the story to be somewhat charming adventure with characters I didn’t expect to love but ended up caring about very much. In fact the only cast of characters that I find better in the whole original 6 classic games was in FF6. I truly grew to love the five main characters and the story wasn’t always comedic (see where you gain your fifth party member.) While I loved most of the characters, liked the story, I admit Exdeath is as bad a villain as his horrible name. The motivations and back story for him were just flat out lacking.
The star of this game is the gameplay and more specifically the job system. The job system single handedly gives this game so much replay potential. The job system from this game is still the baseline for every RPG that contains a job system. I was blown away with how good it was for being a 30 year old system. The replay system is good enough on its own but you could even do self imposed challenges where you only use certain classes to make this game a challenge for any vet.
The music and art is well Final Fantasy so it’s spectacular and always one of the best for its time of release. The battle at big bridge theme has to be a top 5 song in Final Fantasy history.
It’s criminal that this game was not originally released world wide. It makes me sad knowing this easily would have been one of my favorite games as a kid but I never had the ability to play it. While this game is polarizing in the FF community to me it’s nothing but one of the best the franchise has to offer and I cannot recommend it enough.
While I agree that the story is tongue in cheek and campy I also found the story to be somewhat charming adventure with characters I didn’t expect to love but ended up caring about very much. In fact the only cast of characters that I find better in the whole original 6 classic games was in FF6. I truly grew to love the five main characters and the story wasn’t always comedic (see where you gain your fifth party member.) While I loved most of the characters, liked the story, I admit Exdeath is as bad a villain as his horrible name. The motivations and back story for him were just flat out lacking.
The star of this game is the gameplay and more specifically the job system. The job system single handedly gives this game so much replay potential. The job system from this game is still the baseline for every RPG that contains a job system. I was blown away with how good it was for being a 30 year old system. The replay system is good enough on its own but you could even do self imposed challenges where you only use certain classes to make this game a challenge for any vet.
The music and art is well Final Fantasy so it’s spectacular and always one of the best for its time of release. The battle at big bridge theme has to be a top 5 song in Final Fantasy history.
It’s criminal that this game was not originally released world wide. It makes me sad knowing this easily would have been one of my favorite games as a kid but I never had the ability to play it. While this game is polarizing in the FF community to me it’s nothing but one of the best the franchise has to offer and I cannot recommend it enough.
FFV easily has some of the best gameplay in the entire franchise but unfortunately some of the worst...everything else. In pretty much every single way other than gameplay, it feels like a regression for the franchise after 4, especially in the story and characters area. I've heard described as a "fun romp" by multiple people, but I found it to be a mostly joyless experience. There are also way too many dungeons. Like, way too many.
This review contains spoilers
Final Fantasy V is the second of three Super Nintendo games in the series. In this entry we see the continuation of the Active Time Battle (ATB) system, the return of the job system first introduced in Final Fantasy III, and new ideas that the series hasn't seen yet. Coming off of Final Fantasy IV I wasn't sure what to expect going into this entry but I was left feeling (mostly) good about it.
The story this time around takes a few different turns and pleasantly shakes up the formula. You start off with a character named Bartz and you quickly meet two other party members named Lenna (the princess of the nearby Castle Tycoon) and Galuf (a mysterious old man who has amnesia). The crystals are weakening and you are tasked with investigating why. Upon reaching the Wind Crystal, it shatters (oh no!) and you are left with shards of the crystal that grant you your different jobs. You then set out to stop the other crystals from being shattered. Shortly after you embark on your journey you end up meeting your fourth party member, Faris, who is the leader of a pirate crew. It's a nice contrast of meeting characters over the first hour of the game and choosing whether to keep their assigned names or to name them something you'd prefer. I chose to stick with the provided names. The story's presentation this time around is my favorite thus far. Every character is full of life. We see the character sprites move around, emote, and interact with the world. It's not the rigid characters walking/running into each other and then yelling "take that!" Instead we get to see characters raise their hand and hit the other characters. We see them laugh, cry, and everything else in between. This provides for more bits of comedy but also works to convey the seriousness of a situation.
This is the first game, thus far, that has gotten me fully invested in the characters partially because of the display of emotion but also because we get to see a full range of personality from the characters. Bartz is a bit of an idiot who is very emotionally driven. He's sweet in his own way even when he doesn't understand what's going on. Lenna wears her heart on her sleeve and does everything she can to help and protect others even at the detriment of her own health. After her father dies she takes her role as princess seriously and intends to lead the kingdom that is left behind. But not until she has helped Bartz and company save the world. Galuf is a grumpy old man that you learn is from a different world. He was a hero both in his time and in the present. He loves puns, and yelling at Bartz for being stupid. Faris (who turns out to be Lenna's sister) spends most of her life pretending to be a man so that pirates will take her seriously as a captain of her own crew. She tries to do the royalty thing but always ends up going back to her pirate ways. I was devastated and emotional when Galuf died towards the end of the second act. I thought for sure it was going to be a fake out or they were going to somehow bring him back but they actually allowed for him to die. Sure we see him again at the end of the story but it's not like in Final Fantasy IV where damn near everybody "dies" and then miraculously comes back. Galuf is dead and nothing is going to bring him back. He's only able to help you in spirit when it matters the most and even then it was limited. We end up moving on with Galuf's Granddaughter Krile as his replacement after he bestows upon her all of his character progression (job levels and experience). We then get to see Krile mourn the loss of her grandfather and watch her grow as she comes to accept that.
The story's villain in this game gets to stay the main villain and it's done terrifically. In the first act of the game you learn that Exdeath was this great evil that couldn't be defeated by the world's old heroes. So they sealed him away with the power of the crystals. By the end of the first act, the crystals have all been destroyed and Exdeath has been released! He then goes back to Galuf's world to try and destroy their crystals. Galuf leaves you behind to try to stop him but Bartz and friends figure out a way to follow him there despite knowing there's no going back. While we are in this new world we get to meet Exdeath's second in command, Gilgamesh! This villain is pure comedy relief and has the greatest theme song. Battle on the Big Bridge quickly became my favorite tune in the game. But more on that later. Gilgamesh monologues during your multiple encounters and has some of the best lines in the game. By the end of the game your relationship has gone from being enemies to being friendly rivals. Even to the point where he sacrifices himself to help you (another sad moment). Back to Exdeath. This guy is a dick all the way through the game. He manages to always be one step ahead of you. Even when you think you're ahead he shows up and basically admits that he used you to get to the crystal. He continues to get his way all the way until the end. It's not a unique trope but it works well for this game. Exdeath's goal at the end is to harness the power of the void to further his own power. His motivations are entirely self-fulfilling. After dealing with secret behind the scenes villains during the last couple of games it's nice having a straightforward villain.
The dungeons in this game are good... until you reach the merged world. The layouts, themes, and overall designs of the dungeons are great. The problem is that the last three dungeons before going to the final dungeon have the most awful enemy encounters. Most of the enemies that you will encounter in these dungeons have a myriad of abilities that can spiral you into a gameover should you get unlucky. Either the enemies afflict status conditions that can cause your party members to hit each other or in some cases the enemies can straight up one hit kill any given party member because they happened to choose that ability. This would be manageable if they weren't often given the ability to strike first. Due to the ATB system there are many times where you do not get a chance to act before any number of these abilities can be used which leads to a frustrating experience. Each of these dungeons also includes an enemy that has more health than pretty much any boss we've seen until now. They also have particularly strong attacks. These enemies only appear alone and the encounters are pretty easy to flee from so they're not as bad to deal with. Every battle in these dungeons felt like they needed to be treated like a boss encounter in order for me to be able to safely get through. Either that or I had to give a party member the "scram" ability to instantly flee from battle. However this puts you at a disadvantage since you're then not accumulating any experience points. Fortunately the final dungeon (Interdimensional Rift) gave us more manageable fights. Having certain boss encounters drop a consecrated circle was very helpful in making my way through.
The character progression in this game returns to the Final Fantasy III format where characters have individual levels and job levels. You can change a character's job at any time outside of combat and mastering jobs benefits your starting job (Freelancer) and another job you can obtain in the late game (Mimic). Leveling the jobs requires your character to gain job experience points by being alive at the end of the battle. Improvements to note is that characters are not required to take actions to gain job xp and also the job levels vary on the xp requirements in order to level up or achieve mastery. The other cool new feature is that when you level up jobs and master them, you gain access to those job's related abilities. So by leveling up Black Mage you could gain access to black magic spells even while playing a different class like Dancer or Ranger. This is a great tool that allows you to maintain character roles while also allowing the character to level up jobs that can't cast spells. I effectively had two spellcasters and two martial fighters. The balancing aspect is that in most jobs you have their innate ability and you can slot in a single learned ability. The exceptions are Freelancer and Mime as they have no innate abilities (other than Mime's "mimic" ability. The real goal of the job system is to master the jobs that pertain to the role your character wants to fill. I had my spellcasters master all types of magic and obtain the "Dualcast" ability from Red Mage. Meanwhile I had my martial characters master Ninja for the "Dual Wield" ability. The main idea though is that when your characters are in the Freelancer job they get stat boosts based on what jobs have been mastered. Freelancers that have Monk mastery are going to have high health and strength. Freelancers with Summoner mastery are going to have a high magic stat. They also obtain every innate ability that is unique to the mastered jobs (like being able to run faster in the overworld as a Thief). This system is a great idea but it could see refinement. While every job is viable, there's really only a few that you really need to master before just making your character a Freelancer or Mime. Mastering Thief, Monk, and Summoner gives you the highest stat benefits for Freelancer and Mime and then it's a matter of mastering jobs for flavor. Strategies often recommend mastering Summoner and Red Mage so you can dualcast your summons and do the highest damage possible which becomes incredibly useful but does make the game easier as a result. Overall it is still my favorite system as I enjoy the puzzle aspects of bosses that can be completely wrecked if you exploit their weaknesses. One boss is even weak to the Level 5 Death spell which is hilarious.
Magic in this game sees the introduction to "Time Magic." Some of the spells aren't new but are reclassified as time magic. Meteor being one of them. Having five types of magic (Black, White, Time, Blue, and Summon) makes for a different balance in the game. I found myself often running my spellcasters as the same mage and having white magic as their extra ability or having them as a white mage with any of the other four. It gets the most interesting when you get dualcast and can cast two spells at a time. You can implement neat strategies where you can cast two healing spells to greatly restore your party or you can double down on damage. You can also heal and deal damage in the same turn. This is the best implementation of magic thus far. Blue Magic makes its debut and is exhilarating. The fun thing about Blue Magic is that you have to learn the spells from enemies before you can cast them. In order to learn the spell your character must be hit by the ability. What's nice is that the character doesn't have to survive the attack or even be conscious at the end of battle to learn the spell. This made learning spells like Level 5 Death or Level 3 Flare much easier to learn. The drawback is that Blue Magic cannot be used with dualcast. It also cannot be silenced which is a great positive. Blue Magic is the most overpowered throughout the game as you likely won't have dualcast until late in the game and as mentioned before some of the bosses die instantly from certain Blue Mage spells.
Let's talk about bosses. The bosses as mentioned are more like puzzles than real challenges. If you can solve the puzzle then the boss drops almost immediately. Or if you want a harder challenge you can usually face them head on. It makes for a fresh experience when the game allows you to decide how you want to approach the hurdles set before you. The bosses are more fun and engaging that way. The bosses also have more character. They taunt you while you are in battle (especially Gilgamesh) and they feel like they are actually a part of the story rather than just another big baddie in your way. I want to specifically mention that Exdeath is in fact your final boss encounter. This is a nice experience. It's nice knowing the bad guy from the first act and finally being strong enough to stop him. After all of the chaos he has caused, it feels good to beat him. It's also cool that the battle is played straight. You get to come at him with whatever strategy you think is most appropriate. There are no gimmick strategies like a key weapon that was useless until that moment. There are no hidden items that drop him down in health or stats and you cannot kill him with Odin's Zantetsuken ability either. This is the final battle and you are going to either beat Exdeath or he is going to beat you.
The ending once you defeat Exdeath is pleasant. You can't undo everything that Exdeath has done but at least you were able to save what was left in his wake. You restore the crystals and your heroes become the stewards of those crystals. I came out of this narrative feeling good with how the story played out.
The score of this game takes a prominent role as the tracks are well integrated into the environments. The highs sing and the lows wallow. You could listen to the game's soundtrack and feel like you've been on an adventure by the end of it. Some of the best tracks are "Ahead on Our Way" which is the title screen theme, "Presentiment" which plays during the introductory sequence, of course "Battle on the Big Bridge" plays when you're fighting Gilgamesh, and "The Decisive Battle" which plays while you are fighting Exdeath. There are many other great tracks that do well to accompany the game but those were some of my favorites.
Overall I do feel like this is objectively the best entry out of the pixel remasters thus far. I'll of course have a final opinion once I have completed Final Fantasy VI. Final Fantasy V is the most enjoyable and engaging experience that I've had. While I still adore FFIII, FFV exceeds it in every aspect. This series really hits its stride at about Final Fantasy III and it continues to improve with every entry. Looking forward to Final Fantasy VI.
The story this time around takes a few different turns and pleasantly shakes up the formula. You start off with a character named Bartz and you quickly meet two other party members named Lenna (the princess of the nearby Castle Tycoon) and Galuf (a mysterious old man who has amnesia). The crystals are weakening and you are tasked with investigating why. Upon reaching the Wind Crystal, it shatters (oh no!) and you are left with shards of the crystal that grant you your different jobs. You then set out to stop the other crystals from being shattered. Shortly after you embark on your journey you end up meeting your fourth party member, Faris, who is the leader of a pirate crew. It's a nice contrast of meeting characters over the first hour of the game and choosing whether to keep their assigned names or to name them something you'd prefer. I chose to stick with the provided names. The story's presentation this time around is my favorite thus far. Every character is full of life. We see the character sprites move around, emote, and interact with the world. It's not the rigid characters walking/running into each other and then yelling "take that!" Instead we get to see characters raise their hand and hit the other characters. We see them laugh, cry, and everything else in between. This provides for more bits of comedy but also works to convey the seriousness of a situation.
This is the first game, thus far, that has gotten me fully invested in the characters partially because of the display of emotion but also because we get to see a full range of personality from the characters. Bartz is a bit of an idiot who is very emotionally driven. He's sweet in his own way even when he doesn't understand what's going on. Lenna wears her heart on her sleeve and does everything she can to help and protect others even at the detriment of her own health. After her father dies she takes her role as princess seriously and intends to lead the kingdom that is left behind. But not until she has helped Bartz and company save the world. Galuf is a grumpy old man that you learn is from a different world. He was a hero both in his time and in the present. He loves puns, and yelling at Bartz for being stupid. Faris (who turns out to be Lenna's sister) spends most of her life pretending to be a man so that pirates will take her seriously as a captain of her own crew. She tries to do the royalty thing but always ends up going back to her pirate ways. I was devastated and emotional when Galuf died towards the end of the second act. I thought for sure it was going to be a fake out or they were going to somehow bring him back but they actually allowed for him to die. Sure we see him again at the end of the story but it's not like in Final Fantasy IV where damn near everybody "dies" and then miraculously comes back. Galuf is dead and nothing is going to bring him back. He's only able to help you in spirit when it matters the most and even then it was limited. We end up moving on with Galuf's Granddaughter Krile as his replacement after he bestows upon her all of his character progression (job levels and experience). We then get to see Krile mourn the loss of her grandfather and watch her grow as she comes to accept that.
The story's villain in this game gets to stay the main villain and it's done terrifically. In the first act of the game you learn that Exdeath was this great evil that couldn't be defeated by the world's old heroes. So they sealed him away with the power of the crystals. By the end of the first act, the crystals have all been destroyed and Exdeath has been released! He then goes back to Galuf's world to try and destroy their crystals. Galuf leaves you behind to try to stop him but Bartz and friends figure out a way to follow him there despite knowing there's no going back. While we are in this new world we get to meet Exdeath's second in command, Gilgamesh! This villain is pure comedy relief and has the greatest theme song. Battle on the Big Bridge quickly became my favorite tune in the game. But more on that later. Gilgamesh monologues during your multiple encounters and has some of the best lines in the game. By the end of the game your relationship has gone from being enemies to being friendly rivals. Even to the point where he sacrifices himself to help you (another sad moment). Back to Exdeath. This guy is a dick all the way through the game. He manages to always be one step ahead of you. Even when you think you're ahead he shows up and basically admits that he used you to get to the crystal. He continues to get his way all the way until the end. It's not a unique trope but it works well for this game. Exdeath's goal at the end is to harness the power of the void to further his own power. His motivations are entirely self-fulfilling. After dealing with secret behind the scenes villains during the last couple of games it's nice having a straightforward villain.
The dungeons in this game are good... until you reach the merged world. The layouts, themes, and overall designs of the dungeons are great. The problem is that the last three dungeons before going to the final dungeon have the most awful enemy encounters. Most of the enemies that you will encounter in these dungeons have a myriad of abilities that can spiral you into a gameover should you get unlucky. Either the enemies afflict status conditions that can cause your party members to hit each other or in some cases the enemies can straight up one hit kill any given party member because they happened to choose that ability. This would be manageable if they weren't often given the ability to strike first. Due to the ATB system there are many times where you do not get a chance to act before any number of these abilities can be used which leads to a frustrating experience. Each of these dungeons also includes an enemy that has more health than pretty much any boss we've seen until now. They also have particularly strong attacks. These enemies only appear alone and the encounters are pretty easy to flee from so they're not as bad to deal with. Every battle in these dungeons felt like they needed to be treated like a boss encounter in order for me to be able to safely get through. Either that or I had to give a party member the "scram" ability to instantly flee from battle. However this puts you at a disadvantage since you're then not accumulating any experience points. Fortunately the final dungeon (Interdimensional Rift) gave us more manageable fights. Having certain boss encounters drop a consecrated circle was very helpful in making my way through.
The character progression in this game returns to the Final Fantasy III format where characters have individual levels and job levels. You can change a character's job at any time outside of combat and mastering jobs benefits your starting job (Freelancer) and another job you can obtain in the late game (Mimic). Leveling the jobs requires your character to gain job experience points by being alive at the end of the battle. Improvements to note is that characters are not required to take actions to gain job xp and also the job levels vary on the xp requirements in order to level up or achieve mastery. The other cool new feature is that when you level up jobs and master them, you gain access to those job's related abilities. So by leveling up Black Mage you could gain access to black magic spells even while playing a different class like Dancer or Ranger. This is a great tool that allows you to maintain character roles while also allowing the character to level up jobs that can't cast spells. I effectively had two spellcasters and two martial fighters. The balancing aspect is that in most jobs you have their innate ability and you can slot in a single learned ability. The exceptions are Freelancer and Mime as they have no innate abilities (other than Mime's "mimic" ability. The real goal of the job system is to master the jobs that pertain to the role your character wants to fill. I had my spellcasters master all types of magic and obtain the "Dualcast" ability from Red Mage. Meanwhile I had my martial characters master Ninja for the "Dual Wield" ability. The main idea though is that when your characters are in the Freelancer job they get stat boosts based on what jobs have been mastered. Freelancers that have Monk mastery are going to have high health and strength. Freelancers with Summoner mastery are going to have a high magic stat. They also obtain every innate ability that is unique to the mastered jobs (like being able to run faster in the overworld as a Thief). This system is a great idea but it could see refinement. While every job is viable, there's really only a few that you really need to master before just making your character a Freelancer or Mime. Mastering Thief, Monk, and Summoner gives you the highest stat benefits for Freelancer and Mime and then it's a matter of mastering jobs for flavor. Strategies often recommend mastering Summoner and Red Mage so you can dualcast your summons and do the highest damage possible which becomes incredibly useful but does make the game easier as a result. Overall it is still my favorite system as I enjoy the puzzle aspects of bosses that can be completely wrecked if you exploit their weaknesses. One boss is even weak to the Level 5 Death spell which is hilarious.
Magic in this game sees the introduction to "Time Magic." Some of the spells aren't new but are reclassified as time magic. Meteor being one of them. Having five types of magic (Black, White, Time, Blue, and Summon) makes for a different balance in the game. I found myself often running my spellcasters as the same mage and having white magic as their extra ability or having them as a white mage with any of the other four. It gets the most interesting when you get dualcast and can cast two spells at a time. You can implement neat strategies where you can cast two healing spells to greatly restore your party or you can double down on damage. You can also heal and deal damage in the same turn. This is the best implementation of magic thus far. Blue Magic makes its debut and is exhilarating. The fun thing about Blue Magic is that you have to learn the spells from enemies before you can cast them. In order to learn the spell your character must be hit by the ability. What's nice is that the character doesn't have to survive the attack or even be conscious at the end of battle to learn the spell. This made learning spells like Level 5 Death or Level 3 Flare much easier to learn. The drawback is that Blue Magic cannot be used with dualcast. It also cannot be silenced which is a great positive. Blue Magic is the most overpowered throughout the game as you likely won't have dualcast until late in the game and as mentioned before some of the bosses die instantly from certain Blue Mage spells.
Let's talk about bosses. The bosses as mentioned are more like puzzles than real challenges. If you can solve the puzzle then the boss drops almost immediately. Or if you want a harder challenge you can usually face them head on. It makes for a fresh experience when the game allows you to decide how you want to approach the hurdles set before you. The bosses are more fun and engaging that way. The bosses also have more character. They taunt you while you are in battle (especially Gilgamesh) and they feel like they are actually a part of the story rather than just another big baddie in your way. I want to specifically mention that Exdeath is in fact your final boss encounter. This is a nice experience. It's nice knowing the bad guy from the first act and finally being strong enough to stop him. After all of the chaos he has caused, it feels good to beat him. It's also cool that the battle is played straight. You get to come at him with whatever strategy you think is most appropriate. There are no gimmick strategies like a key weapon that was useless until that moment. There are no hidden items that drop him down in health or stats and you cannot kill him with Odin's Zantetsuken ability either. This is the final battle and you are going to either beat Exdeath or he is going to beat you.
The ending once you defeat Exdeath is pleasant. You can't undo everything that Exdeath has done but at least you were able to save what was left in his wake. You restore the crystals and your heroes become the stewards of those crystals. I came out of this narrative feeling good with how the story played out.
The score of this game takes a prominent role as the tracks are well integrated into the environments. The highs sing and the lows wallow. You could listen to the game's soundtrack and feel like you've been on an adventure by the end of it. Some of the best tracks are "Ahead on Our Way" which is the title screen theme, "Presentiment" which plays during the introductory sequence, of course "Battle on the Big Bridge" plays when you're fighting Gilgamesh, and "The Decisive Battle" which plays while you are fighting Exdeath. There are many other great tracks that do well to accompany the game but those were some of my favorites.
Overall I do feel like this is objectively the best entry out of the pixel remasters thus far. I'll of course have a final opinion once I have completed Final Fantasy VI. Final Fantasy V is the most enjoyable and engaging experience that I've had. While I still adore FFIII, FFV exceeds it in every aspect. This series really hits its stride at about Final Fantasy III and it continues to improve with every entry. Looking forward to Final Fantasy VI.
“It's amazing how, over time, a person's perspective can be altered.”
-William Frederick Durst
I knew next to nothing about Final Fantasy V going in: It’s lighter in tone, it has a “job system”, and it didn’t initially release in the west. VI is the one people talk about.
Coming hot off the heels of the first four entries, I was ready for anything. Final Fantasy V is indeed lighter in tone for the most part, with plenty of jokes and banter, and a surprising amount of down-time with the party.
If this had been my first Final Fantasy game I might have wanted a meatier, darker story, but I also don’t want to put games in a box. A figurative box. Some games come in a box. Final Fantasy V almost certainly came in a box on release. This franchise has displayed a dedication to variety that I think is pretty rare in the industry, and each Final Fantasy is its own beast. This one is a goofy one, and I thought it worked.
The near-constant swapping of party members in past entries wasn’t necessarily a negative, but it was refreshing to play through a game with a highly consistent cast of core characters. The personalities at the center of the story kept me engaged, and I think I’m personally a character-focused player. While the plot definitely has its moments, I feel the smaller beats of levity are where the game shines. The game is luckily filled with them!
“I'm OCD beyond comparison.”
-William Frederick Durst
The job system takes said characters and turns them into first-year college students, swapping disciplines on the fly, encouraging and facilitating a massive amount of experimentation with the gameplay. This exacerbates some experience point issues shared by past entries, but I will say that grinding for specific upgrades is easier to swallow (for me) than just general leveling.
I wanted to rank everything up. I wanted to get everything. I wanted my endgame characters to be the most versatile ever. This came at the cost of the game’s narrative pacing, as I spent way more time fighting random monsters than I did progressing the story. By the end, my team was beastly but my interest in the plot had waned slightly.
But it can’t be overstated just how fun the experimentation with the job system is. Each job is distinct enough to seemingly be viable for the whole game, yet there’s a definite progression as you unlock more and more of them.
“I'm definitely on the incline to a peak.”
-William Frederick Durst
I enjoyed my time with Finally a Fantasy V more than I did with the already solid Final Fantasy IV. I thought IV was better than III. III was better than II. II wasn’t as good as I but the point is, I’m feeling the winds of quality blowing toward Final Fantasy VI. Will it be the series best it is often hailed as, or will I be left yearning for my time with Bartz and the gang?
“I stopped predicting the future a long time ago.”
-William Frederick Durst
-William Frederick Durst
I knew next to nothing about Final Fantasy V going in: It’s lighter in tone, it has a “job system”, and it didn’t initially release in the west. VI is the one people talk about.
Coming hot off the heels of the first four entries, I was ready for anything. Final Fantasy V is indeed lighter in tone for the most part, with plenty of jokes and banter, and a surprising amount of down-time with the party.
If this had been my first Final Fantasy game I might have wanted a meatier, darker story, but I also don’t want to put games in a box. A figurative box. Some games come in a box. Final Fantasy V almost certainly came in a box on release. This franchise has displayed a dedication to variety that I think is pretty rare in the industry, and each Final Fantasy is its own beast. This one is a goofy one, and I thought it worked.
The near-constant swapping of party members in past entries wasn’t necessarily a negative, but it was refreshing to play through a game with a highly consistent cast of core characters. The personalities at the center of the story kept me engaged, and I think I’m personally a character-focused player. While the plot definitely has its moments, I feel the smaller beats of levity are where the game shines. The game is luckily filled with them!
“I'm OCD beyond comparison.”
-William Frederick Durst
The job system takes said characters and turns them into first-year college students, swapping disciplines on the fly, encouraging and facilitating a massive amount of experimentation with the gameplay. This exacerbates some experience point issues shared by past entries, but I will say that grinding for specific upgrades is easier to swallow (for me) than just general leveling.
I wanted to rank everything up. I wanted to get everything. I wanted my endgame characters to be the most versatile ever. This came at the cost of the game’s narrative pacing, as I spent way more time fighting random monsters than I did progressing the story. By the end, my team was beastly but my interest in the plot had waned slightly.
But it can’t be overstated just how fun the experimentation with the job system is. Each job is distinct enough to seemingly be viable for the whole game, yet there’s a definite progression as you unlock more and more of them.
“I'm definitely on the incline to a peak.”
-William Frederick Durst
I enjoyed my time with Finally a Fantasy V more than I did with the already solid Final Fantasy IV. I thought IV was better than III. III was better than II. II wasn’t as good as I but the point is, I’m feeling the winds of quality blowing toward Final Fantasy VI. Will it be the series best it is often hailed as, or will I be left yearning for my time with Bartz and the gang?
“I stopped predicting the future a long time ago.”
-William Frederick Durst
What the hell happened?
I remember liking FFV so much. But upon a subsequent playthrough, I cannot stand this game for a lot of reasons. Mainly, the story is an immense downgrade from FFIV, and the gameplay is unironically worse.
I remember enjoying the job system so much, but the genuine intricacies and well-designed aspects of V's iteration of it are absolutely ruined by awful, truly AWFUL dungeon design, terrible bosses that have absolutely zero indication towards their solution (they are gimmicks rather than a test of the player's management skills, which if we have learned anything from the last FOUR entries, you want to hone in on player management and not shitty gimmicks!!!), and a story progression system that is, in my opinion, the worst in the series yet. Yes, I am being serious in that. I quit FFV without even getting halfway through. I was about to get halfway, but dropped everything after having to fight the absolute disgustingly bad designed boss fight of the purple bombs in front of the Walse meteorite.
I am severely disappointed by this game. After miraculously not having series fatigue after playing FOUR games in a row, including one terrible game (II), I am amazed that I have been gutpunched this hard by an entry I fondly remember. I do not like the characters. They barely have any worthwhile character TO them, as FFV drops the serious overtones of FFIV in exchange for an extremely goofy, nonsensical, and bland plot. Add on top of this that this game goes WHOLE-HOG into the "we made an open world for you to explore, but we aren't going to give you any direction at all towards exploring it and will make progressing forward completely nonsensical!!!" JRPG trope of games like DQ1-3, and it is a trope that I absolutely despise. It is made for the express purpose of forcing players to run over location after location, ruining world-to-player intrigue by making exploration, a core part of JRPGs this era, an absolute chore!!!
And the job system. This part is so sad. I love the basis FFV has with its job system, but presently the gimmickiness of boss fights and the frequency in which you have to alternate between jobs is absolutely offensive. Grinding, even with the 4x boost in the pixel remaster, is an absolute CHORE because NONE OF THE ENEMIES OFFER GOOD EXP!!!!!! OR EVEN GIL!!!!!! SO WHAT'S THE POINT???
I do not know how Square establishes a changeable job system so strongly in FFIII, then makes a static-job system actually fun in FFIV, only for the full implementation of it in FFV to be absolutely pointless. AND the dungeons -- they're terrible too. We're back to the annoying, maze-like, awfully colored (they hurt to look at) dungeons of FFII with this game, but now we have confusing and pointless minigames to pad out the experience even more!!!
In all honesty, I might be shitting on this game too hard. I want to just play games like FFVI, and when I am on this series journey, that pressure to get over a game hurdle was none more apparent than with this entry. I am writing this to vent frustrations, as I know it says abandoned, I will be returning to this game after a little bit.
But for now, I cannot stand this piece of crap. Worst entry in the series so far.
I remember liking FFV so much. But upon a subsequent playthrough, I cannot stand this game for a lot of reasons. Mainly, the story is an immense downgrade from FFIV, and the gameplay is unironically worse.
I remember enjoying the job system so much, but the genuine intricacies and well-designed aspects of V's iteration of it are absolutely ruined by awful, truly AWFUL dungeon design, terrible bosses that have absolutely zero indication towards their solution (they are gimmicks rather than a test of the player's management skills, which if we have learned anything from the last FOUR entries, you want to hone in on player management and not shitty gimmicks!!!), and a story progression system that is, in my opinion, the worst in the series yet. Yes, I am being serious in that. I quit FFV without even getting halfway through. I was about to get halfway, but dropped everything after having to fight the absolute disgustingly bad designed boss fight of the purple bombs in front of the Walse meteorite.
I am severely disappointed by this game. After miraculously not having series fatigue after playing FOUR games in a row, including one terrible game (II), I am amazed that I have been gutpunched this hard by an entry I fondly remember. I do not like the characters. They barely have any worthwhile character TO them, as FFV drops the serious overtones of FFIV in exchange for an extremely goofy, nonsensical, and bland plot. Add on top of this that this game goes WHOLE-HOG into the "we made an open world for you to explore, but we aren't going to give you any direction at all towards exploring it and will make progressing forward completely nonsensical!!!" JRPG trope of games like DQ1-3, and it is a trope that I absolutely despise. It is made for the express purpose of forcing players to run over location after location, ruining world-to-player intrigue by making exploration, a core part of JRPGs this era, an absolute chore!!!
And the job system. This part is so sad. I love the basis FFV has with its job system, but presently the gimmickiness of boss fights and the frequency in which you have to alternate between jobs is absolutely offensive. Grinding, even with the 4x boost in the pixel remaster, is an absolute CHORE because NONE OF THE ENEMIES OFFER GOOD EXP!!!!!! OR EVEN GIL!!!!!! SO WHAT'S THE POINT???
I do not know how Square establishes a changeable job system so strongly in FFIII, then makes a static-job system actually fun in FFIV, only for the full implementation of it in FFV to be absolutely pointless. AND the dungeons -- they're terrible too. We're back to the annoying, maze-like, awfully colored (they hurt to look at) dungeons of FFII with this game, but now we have confusing and pointless minigames to pad out the experience even more!!!
In all honesty, I might be shitting on this game too hard. I want to just play games like FFVI, and when I am on this series journey, that pressure to get over a game hurdle was none more apparent than with this entry. I am writing this to vent frustrations, as I know it says abandoned, I will be returning to this game after a little bit.
But for now, I cannot stand this piece of crap. Worst entry in the series so far.
If they ever make another game with a job system this expansive and robust I'm gonna go feral.
Final Fantasy V is a great game with fun mechanics and a really good story, i enjoyed this til the end. loved the job system and i hope they bring it back, whether it be in an action format or a turn based format. it is not one that you should overlook .
Tonally this has been my favourite in the series so far, I just really enjoyed these characters and many of the comedic moments. I feel like I'll actually remember character names, which I can't say about many from Final Fantasy 1-4.
On top of that, there's a more developed story and the now iconic job system. Overall, this is really fantastic game and pretty close to 5/5 from me.
I also enjoyed the step up in difficulty here, with Gil Turtle, Omega, and Shinryu being more challenging than anything thus far.
On top of that, there's a more developed story and the now iconic job system. Overall, this is really fantastic game and pretty close to 5/5 from me.
I also enjoyed the step up in difficulty here, with Gil Turtle, Omega, and Shinryu being more challenging than anything thus far.
Evil tree>mind broke clown
funny enough I said ff3 felt more like a sequel to 1 than 2 now 5 feels more like a sequel to 3 than 4
a very big and flashy game that's a bit more tongue and cheek with its characters and story than some of the previous entries
also i really liked a lot of the enemy designs in this one
a very big and flashy game that's a bit more tongue and cheek with its characters and story than some of the previous entries
also i really liked a lot of the enemy designs in this one