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.

This is it. This is the one.

Absolutely fantastic game with a fantastic system and fantastic characters. It doesn't have an incredibly complex multi-layered story because it doesn't need one. Sometimes all you need is a solid plot with great, believable characters, and voila, one of gaming's masterpieces.

It takes everything FFIII tried (and failed miserably at) and refines it to the highest degree yet. There is so much variety in what you can do, and nothing feels inviable. Leveling jobs works the way you would expect it to, and you're incentivized to play around and learn the systems and how to make it the best for you. Coming off of FFIV fun was not something I expected from playing this.

The difficulty curve is there, but it's not nearly as bad as some people say. It just requires a little bit of thinking and tinkering with the jobs. I ended up beating the two superbosses without any grinding outside of job xp for one class, and didn't have much trouble with either (5 retries is not bad at all for the hardest one). It rewards the player for thinking outside the box and creating their own dream team, so I would guess if you stay in your comfort zone and don't mix and match classes it can get tough.

The characters are great. All of them feel like genuine people instead of "I'm the mage guy, I'm the monk guy, I'm the sword guy", which gives the game plenty of opportunities to have them interact and talk about things other than the plot or "I'm the wizard so let me cast spell!".
This makes it so you have a good understanding of each character and their personality, and it's something people usually take for granted, despite only FF2 getting characters right up to this point. There are several character events, some silly, some serious, it makes it feel like a real group of people going on a real adventure.

Not just that, but there's tons of NPCs you meet that are equally distinct and important. Gilgamesh being the most famous one, and I can definitely see why. Not knowing why he was so famous, getting to encounter him throughout the game was a lovely surprise.

Then there's the main villain, Exdeath, which is a really simple evil villain. That's great! You don't need super complex motivations or five plot twists and three movies to try to explain why he's a bad guy, he's just a bad guy and that's it. Beat him up. Mind-blowing artwork for him, too.

Overall, I love this. The bar is set so incredibly high I can't wait to see what FF6 is going to do with it.

I tend to enjoy the older FF games that allow me to change my team's jobs. I like to switch and experiment, rather than a character set in stone. There are 22 jobs in total to collect. While it's fun to gather, 22 is A LOT. There's a few that aren't really helpful/fun to use. You will most likely only use them for achievement purposes.

One good news is that this Pixel Remaster game finally figured out how to hide the mouse cursor! I also enjoyed that magic is cast immediately. (Take that FFIV.) The characters actually attempted to use spells in story cut scenes, like Cure and Raise. Instead of you know, uselessly watching and shrugging.

I didn't understand how "Flee" worked. The majority of the time, your character couldn't get away and suffered hits from the enemy. It was better to fight, instead of "saving time" to flee. I wish I knew what stat, if any, was related to that.

I realize the initial release makes this 30 years old, but I still found the antagonist silly. There's no reason to have any writing where the "bad guy" is so OP with multiple opportunities to make quick work of our heroes but then never kills them off. We're knocked out, helpless, but this bad dude is like, "I'll finish you off later." WHY? Just do it now???? He's literally described as a "being of pure evil" but conveniently never kills us. It's silly. This isn't the first media with this trope but I can't take the antagonist seriously when they pull a Dr. Evil and assume it all went to plan.

Best characters hands down were the sassy turtle and sweet, baby GIlgamesh.

My expectations were certainly heightened after Final Fantasy IV, and unfortunately, this didn't really meet them. The story was just... fine, and the world wasn't really interesting in the same way. The job system was more developed than in FFIII, but I still didn't find it that satisfying. It didn't really come together until the endgame where you are basically forced to min-max jobs and abilities, and it was more annoying to me than anything, although that may just be me preferring characters being connected to jobs in traditional turn based jrpgs.

It was still good, still Final Fantasy. But I definitely did rush through the end. I think this one is appropriately rated: good, but it doesn't compare to IV.

Ah... the SNES FF that avoided us in the 90s. I have no idea why Square didn't localize this one back then, but because of that I never got around to playing it, despite being a big FF fan in the 90's/early 00's. Anyway, I finally got to try it thanks to the Pixel Remaster, so... yay!

Final Fantasy V is a pretty standard FF game, with a medieval setting with hints of modernity and the classic ATB turn based system. Compared to other FF games from that era (like IV, VI and VII), V strays more on the silly side with characters and plot. Because of this, it takes a little bit for the game to land, since the first few hours are very vanilla. One of the most notable aspects of FFV is its job system. Characters don't have defined roles, instead you assign jobs (like White Mage, Knight, etc) to them. Each job has a set of abilities that you can learn to eventually customize your characters a fair amount. Thanks to this system, you can take Lenna, the usual princess trope, and turn her into a badass Ninja Mage instead of the usual healer role she'd have in a regular FF game (which is, ironically, the role I gave her). At the beginning of the game you are limited to a small amount of jobs but the system really opens up as you progress through the game.

Overall, I think this game is great. After its slow-ish start, the plot becomes pretty good and features some awesome moments (like that scene with Galuf). In terms of gameplay, the job system makes it stand out from other FF games thanks to the ability to customize your characters. I don't think FFV manages to move VI and IX from their spots as my favorite FFs, but it's definitely up there as a very high quality entry in the franchise.

I had a good time with this game. The job system in this one is awesome, I loved being able to mix and match abilities. The plot felt kind of standard, very much like FF1 in how simple it was. The story was heavily carried by the characters, the main cast had a lot of fun banter and I think Gilgamesh is one of my favourite characters in the series now. I will say that the game kind of became a slog towards the end, the whole slab hunt wasn't that fun, it was just dungeon after dungeon with little to no story. Overall though, very good game.

I wanted to quickly write this to keep riding on the high of the excitement in beating the game while I have all my thoughts in order. In general, every Final Fantasy game after FF3 feels like a natural evolution of the games should progress. FF3 took the job aspect of FF1 and made it more flexible in being able to change whenever, adding an element of preparation to dungeons and bosses. However, FF3 lacked a lot in the storytelling aspect so FF4 went balls deep in presenting a gripping narrative. In turn, FF5 is the next step of FF4 in combining an engaging narrative in the same level as FF4 while also implementing the classic job system FF3 had and expanding on that. With the implementation of job skills, customization for each character is so layered in how you want to tackle every single obstacle in the game. Moreover, this game nudges you on what to choose next with how expertly shops and chests give what you’re naturally going to be the next classes for your party members. And oh boy your party members.

Although Bartz is not necessarily as complex as Cecil, the overall cast makes up for it with how great their chemistry is from Faris’s feistiness to Galuf’s old man shenanigans. Exdeath is easily the best villain so far in how well defined his character is and how the game builds him up very early on while never pulling the rug in showing a twist-villain out of nowhere. There's also a lot of standout NPC characters like this iteration of Cid who’s more aware of the damage has caused because of his inventions, or Gilgamesh who has some incredibly great dialogue as a joke henchman. A small nitpick I have with the narrative is mostly that the scale doesn’t feel as high as it was in FF4 but the smaller scale honestly works in its favor with every plot thread actually being properly resolved.

One thing of note is that although I did use a guide to find some side stuff that I was advised to pay attention to, I have to praise this game with how clear it is in presenting the next objective as I have only once or twice gotten lost while playing this game compared to previous entries. Not only that, but this game also really pushes in finding the side content with the summons such as Bahamut challenging you after your first tablet find. It's hard to see FF6 top this but I also said that about FF5 when I completed FF4 so I am both hopeful and excited.

Let start here: Exdeath and Gilgamesh are endless charismatic and memorable villains. Gilgamesh utterly silly writing and his squirming when losing is endlessly entertaining . It’s great that for the second half of the game that when you deal with the main villains , you are just getting great amusement. What makes Exdeath great is his interactions with the world in World 2 & 3.
These two are part of what’s mostly a silly lighthearted romp. Like an actual scene has Exdeath pop out of a twig and fight a sentient turtle. This game does not have much seriousness in its body. There is one boss fight that require the team to like Wiley Coyote create a rope across a cliff as part of the boss introduction . There’s a search in a library, and Barts looks up asses . This game is goofy. In general what this tone does is that it makes it hard to connect to the characters , but Faris , Galuf and Krile standout in great story flourishing moments .
The levity is paired with a job system that has barely aged. This job system has a legacy in some of my fave games and it’s impressive how it opens up strategies and fights. You raise job classes to learn skills which you can add to other jobs and switch around. It feels limiting at first especially because you can only carry one skill. The combos and synergy doesn’t feel wide ranging but man later on it just becomes impressive. Other games allow you to stack more skills so on face value , it feels weak but specifically how the freelancer class works in combination with this systems is where my eyes opened. The freelances gain both the passive skills of the class you mastered and the stats, which allows so much freedom in who your characters are at the endgame! It’s so dizzying . I wish there was a bit more class variety but I think the next time I play, I will challenge myself to seek more utility in the ones I avoided. This is the first time I really pushed my blue mage , and I was thoroughly impressed, speaks to the systems if I felt that learning the skills was truly worth it. I do wish that some bosses didn’t seem easier with magic too or that more physical attacks hit all enemies, battles with statues that can only be beaten by defeating simultaneously becomes a pain without magic.
What’s really holding this back though? Locations. Phantom Village is incredible, it’s lore driven and used brilliantly twice. The dungeons ? The other towns? They are nice and the game has different world visits to try to make them memorable through different versions. But I would say it didn’t accomplish making them memorable . Although, shout outs to the Library of the Ancients though!
Musically it’s great, but I’m only pulling two tracks from here into my personal pantheon of JRPG music (EXDEATH THEME IS BANGING). Also as an aside, if you love pets, this might be the best third best JRPG to really capture that feeling (DQV and the Pokémon franchise got it still). I was hyped to play this game as the ancestor to my fave games and I even see it in the non Bravely games, like FF 9 def has a lot from here, and while I am not confident in saying it has the chutzpah to dethrone my personal faves, I am enthusiastic about this experience. It’s great to see the fore-bearer hold up to its legacy games.

Oh boy. this game is hard to rate as it has many ups and downs. I wouldn't say that this game is better than 4 or even 3 but it's a unique experience i still consider worth playing. Many of the games problems stem from its gameplay rather than its story. This game took me over 10 more hours to finish than the other ff games and not for a good reason either. The game has a multi hour long segment in the end that feels like padding. You have to collect the 4 mcguffin tablets to unlock the 12 sacredly awesome weapons. I can't help but feel that this is a step back from ff3 where the awesome weapons were in an optional dungeon you could choose to skip. Its not even like theres a lot of story going on during the mcguffin collection its just filler. The games difficulty curve is all over the place. you will destroy enemies in previous areas only to go to the next one and suddenly get destroyed for no apparent reason. The biggest issue with the gameplay I feel is the ability points system. It's cool in theory and in practice but the thing that makes it a slog is just how slowly you get given the stuff. I mean for the majority of the game battles will give you at max 4 and often times 1 and when the games enjoyment hinges on getting cool abilities it can be a massive slog. The big problem as well is that later on in the game you start fighting enemies with extremely specific ways to kill them. If you didnt invest in the right class before these moments you have to GRIND to get the right ability to kill that enemy easier. This problem could've been solved by 1. making ABP easier to obtain overall and 2. Designing the enemies so they have many equally valid ways to defeat them without brute forcing them via grinding. overall i think this game is exactly middle of the road in my rating of these games so far. It's better than ff1 and especially ff2 but it has at times severe gameplay issues that hold it back which I believe makes it worse than ff3 and ff4.

Overall a fairly good experience throughout, with some issues that don't really get resolved. The story was a shorter and simpler story compared to other games in the series. The characters have some development, but feel somewhat one-note for the most part. Most characters only have a few defining characteristics, which leads to them being somewhat interesting, but also to them feeling underdeveloped by the end. While I appreciated the uniqueness of the combat system at first, it grows old by the end with the slow-paced leveling for jobs well into the second act. Many enemies would still give the bare minimum ABP for increasing job level, making learning multiple jobs annoying without using the Pixel Remaster menu that boosts ABP earned in battles. Even then, some abilities require insane amounts of ABP to obtain. The last ability for Red Mage costs 999 ABP to get, and while it is a really good ability, I honestly don't see anyone getting that without dedicated grinding. While the job system does leave a lot of room to customize your group throughout the game, I was disappointed to see that physical fighters seemed to have one strong set-up (dual-wield, spellblade, rapid fire) and not much else. Mages have more options, with solid jobs like White, Black, Time, and Blue Mages, as well as Summoner. While I do think the system is innovative on the job system from the first and third games in the series, I still see it as lacking in strong options later on, and the pacing for upgrades is really not that good. In spite of this, the game was still pretty fun overall. The strong options, while a bit limited in quantity, are cool and fun to use. There are some interesting boss fights throughout the game with unique mechanics, which is cool to see. The music was honestly great, and the pacing of the story was solid until the third act (kinda just becomes confusing on where to go at that point).

Hot Take: This is better than VI.

After finally finishing 1 through 6, my final ranking is as follows:

FFIV
FFV
FFVI
FFIII
FFI
FII

What a fun time did I have with this game. It's probably the most fun I had with any main title Final Fantasy. It is not by any means the most profound story (that would be FFVI), nor the most impactful (FFVII), nor the most touching (FFX), but it works as an adequate frame for the absolutely fun and well balanced (with smart cheesing oportunities) job system.

The characters are loveble and everything is serious and unserious at the same time, like children's movies of the 1980's. The fact that it came after a quite serious story (FF IV, another great game) is a testament to Square's team versatility in story telling and game design.