This review contains spoilers
This is considered to be one of the the black sheeps of the Final Fantasy franchise. Would I say it's underrated? Not really. It's more like overlooked. I don't usually see many people talk about this game, it gets overshadowed by the other games. So you know what? I wanna talk about it, cause I do enjoy this game a lot despite its flaws.
Usually I talk about the story before the gameplay but this is a pretty gameplay heavy game, so I'll dive into that first.
{ Gameplay }
The Job System makes a return from Final Fantasy III but it has been so refined that the game is a real joy to play despite how underwhelming the storytelling is, like with Final Fantasy X-2.
Any character can be practically anything that you want them to be. And while some are more keen to physical or magical prowess, you have total control on how you want to make them. As you play through the game, you unlock more Jobs, and some of the best Jobs in the game are unlocked via side quests.
The Jobs have been expanded from the ones in Final Fantasy III. You no longer have to pay Job Points in order switch them, and now, each Jobs have Passive Abilities to go along with battle actions. This includes things like:
Thief: Can sprint, find hidden passgeways, reduce the chance of back attacks
Ninja: Can equip 2 swords, and increase the chance of preemptive strikes
Geomancer: Can avoid trap doors and pitfalls, and makes the party immune to damage-inflicting terrain like spikes and lava
As you level up each Job, you unlock more actions to use in battle. And each Job comes with one initial ability and an open slot to equip any OTHER ability that you earned. Either one to use in battle or any other passive ability.
I can't stress how insane this is in terms of customization. You can essentially play the game however you want to. There is so much mixing and matching to do here.
You could do things like:
- Give the Sorcerer the ability to equip the the Knight's 2-Handed ability so you can hold a sword with 2 hands for more damage, or learn the X-Fight ability from the Hunter Job so you can attack 4 times in one turn.
- You can have a Mime Job equip Black, White, and Time magic at once (since they get 3 open ability slots).
- You you can use a Ninja and have them use the X-Fight ability since they have 2 Swords equipped by default, meaning you can attack EIGHT times in one turn.
- Or have a White, Black, Blue, or Time Mage have the Red Mages x2 Dualcast ability, which allows you to cast spells twice in one turn.
There are literally dozens of combinations that you can give to your party. It's amazing.
And there are no bosses, aside from a couple of them, where you must use specific Jobs in order to beat them, unlike in Final Fantasy III. You can use whatever combination you feel is best for you. Some Jobs are more overpowered than others, but unlike FFIII, FFV provides free reign to the player.
And this freedom makes this game one of the most replayable games in the series. And what makes a game like this so fun is the reward for mastering its mechanics. The reward comes from leveling up those Jobs. It's like how I feel about the Junction System in Final Fantasy VIII.
I know people either love or hate the Junction System, but me? I am a fuckin' geek. I love micromanaging my characters, seeing these tangible improvements to each aptitude. I love being able to customize my characters the way I would like them to be. I like to see just how much power I can gain, it's much more exciting than just gaining experience points and gaining levels.
Every time a Job levels up, there is always a payoff for doing it. Some abilities are much more useful than others, but having that flexibility encourages experimentation.
Each Job have different speeds of advancement. And the amount of Ability Points required increases as they level up, but, the more you level up the Job, the better the rewards are.
And if you reach the max level to a Job, you MASTER it. The Freelancer, which is the base Job, is able to get the highest stat adjustments to all Jobs they have mastered. Essentially, huge boosts in their stats, which automatically makes them the best they can be. They also get 2 open ability slots.
So basically, by the late game, there are an endless amount of possibilities to mess around with, it's mind-blowing.
This can even encourage you to replay the game again and see how you could play the game a different way.
Wanna know my personal favorite Job setup?
- Bartz (Primary DPS)
Abilities: !X-Fight and !2-Swords
- Lenna (Primary Magic DPS)
Abilities: !Black and !Summon (sometimes I'll give her !White instead of !Summon)
- Galuf/Krile (Primary Healer/Support, and with Mime equipped)
Abilities: !Time, !White, and !Blue
- Faris (Secondary DPS)
-Abilities: !X-Fight and !Spellblade
I'm curious as to what your favorite Job combinations are.
Also, if you want to know what each Job does what, click on this link. Because there is quite a lot, you'll thank me later.
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_V/Jobs#Starting_job
There are also additional tweaks done to the battles that can be both good and bad depending on how you look at it.
This is the first game where you can actually see the ATB gauges, letting you know exactly when a character is going to get their turn. However, you can't switch from one turn to another like in Final Fantasy IV.
If you want to skip a turn, you have to use the Defend command (Right D-Pad and A) which puts the ATB gauge back to 0, which can be annoying if you skip a turn but then your enemy hits you really hard and you really need that character to act again.
The game also has the Front and Back Row mechanic from FFIV. If you're in the Front Row, you deal normal physical damage but also take normal damage from physical attacks, and if you're in the Back Row, you take half damage from physical attacks but you can only deal half damage yourself.
Enemies can also be in either the Front or Back Rows, so it's recommended that you attack the enemies in the front before you attack the ones in the back, unless if you use magic or attacks that ignore Rows. It creates the mentality of "Mash A to win" which is prevalent in a lot of RPGs. It can result in some battles being mindless button mashers.
Also, there is no cooldown for magic spells. As soon as you select the spell and the target(s), it immediately pops off, so there is no punishment for spamming your most powerful spells.
Despite these few flaws in the battles, the game is still a blast to play, because even nowadays there are few JRPG games that can top this level of character customization. The amount of different battle strategies and experimentation you have at your disposal is staggering. The gameplay alone is why this game is so good, and is the biggest reason why you have to play it, or just play it again lol.
{ Story, Spoiler Warning! }
This is a first for the Final Fantasy series, but in this game, you don't actually obtain the four Crystals of the Elements. By the time you reach them, they're already destroyed.
It turns out the Crystals were used as a power source for the people's cities and machinery, and were so overused that they ended up shattering. So while this is a story about the crystals, you don't save them. It's already too late. Instead, the four heroes are imbued with the power of these shattered pieces, hence the Jobs.
The main villain Exdeath gets pissed by the actions of the human race so he then becomes the physical embodiment of Mother Nature so to speak, using the power of The Void to rid the world of humanity, so it's up to you to stop him. It's a story about environmentalism.
However, the issue with the story though is one simple word: underwhelming. It's serviceable, but it's the weakest part about this game. The characters barely ever develop. Stories are about weaving a narrative and how a person or a group of people change from beginning to end.
From the beginning of the game to the end, you don't see many changes, if at all in any of the characters. But if I was to choose, I'd say the most developed characters were Galuf and Faris, but even then, it's nothing to write home about, because half of the game with Galuf is spent with him suffering from amnesia and trying to find out who he was.
And early on it's revealed that Faris is a pirate but is also a woman at the same time, which isn't really that shocking. She was originally a princess but she wanted to trade that captivity for her own freedom.
Though later on in the game, Galuf sacrifices himself to save his allies in a 1v1 fight against Exdeath. This was the best part in the game, because it made Galuf into a badass. And he died with dignity.
But then it goes downhill from here, because after that, his granddaughter Krile takes his place and she immediately inherits all of the abilities that he learned. Which not only makes his death inconsequential, but it actually makes the story even weaker, because Krile doesn't develop at all, especially since she is introduced so late into the story.
Interestingly enough, a character even more fleshed out than the party is actually an enemy which is Gilgamesh. He has quite a lot of joyful dialgoue and it actually got some chuckles out of me.
You meet him in the second world and throughout the rest of the game you encounter him time and time again, and by the end of the game, he actually becomes your friend. It's no wonder he is in almost every FF game after this, he's a really cool character.
Despite the weaker storytelling, it's a more humorous Final Fantasy game, which may have been the point, I don't know. One of the funniest and yet dumbest moments in the whole game, hell, in all of Final Fantasy is when Krile gets a splinter inside of her finger. The party then meets Sage, who is a...turtle who was actually one of the old four Guardians of Light who sealed Exdeath away from the world 30 years ago.
Then the splinter flies out of Krile's finger and then it...transforms into Exdeath..and then he says
Mwahahaha... I disguised myself as a little splinter, waiting for this moment...
And then he fuckin' fights Sage via warping around the room like it's a fucking Dragonball Z fight. Pfffftt!!
I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.
{ Soundtrack }
It's great. Like with many other FF games, some of the best tracks in the series are in this game. The Super Nintendo is a powerhouse in terms of making music. Any songs that have drums in it sound incredible. My most favorite songs in this game are:
- To the North Mountain
- Fire Ship
- Exdeath's Castle
- Battle on the Big Bridge (best track)
- A New World
- In Search of Light
- The Decisive Battle
- Battle 2
And the chocobo theme is the greatest fucking chocobo theme in any FF game, I'm dead serious. Go listen to it, it's incredible lol. Go listen to these other songs while you're at it.
The soundtrack in this game pales in comparison to the ones in Final Fantasy IV and VI, but it's still a great listen.
{ Best Version }
The best version of the game that you absolutely should play is the original Super Nintendo version. It's the most accessible and the best way to experience the game.
The easiest way to access it is via emulation, and getting it to run isn't difficult at all. Hell, I can play the game on my Android cell phone with a PS4 controller via Bluetooth with no issue at all. No joke. I do own the PS1 port but I refuse to play it again for good reasons.
It has a shitload of problems. The load times are really bad, the translation is fucking appalling, and the music and sound effects are total shit. They're actually compressed. How does music and sound effects from an SNES game become compressed on a PS1 disc??
This is also a problem with Final Fantasy VI, which is why you should avoid that as much as possible also.
The Gameboy Advance version is a good version but again, it has compressed music and sound effects, but not to the same butchered degree of the PS1 version. The only reason you would play that is for the extra exclusive Jobs and a couple extra boss fights. You could download a mod for the game on PC that restores the sound quality if that's what you fancy.
And for the love of god, do not, and I mean DO NOT play the mobile port of the game. Holy mother of shit, it's horrible. The graphics and the character models are beyond ugly and the user interface is just... Ugh!! I find it hard to believe that shit even exists, let alone charging people $15-18 to play it. Avoid that shit like the Black Death.
{ Final Thoughts }
A fine but ultimately weak story, an excellent soundtrack, and absolutely amazing gameplay with insane replay value. That's this game in a nutshell. It's a damn great game. If the story was better, the characters were given the Final Fantasy VI treatment, and some changes were given to the battles, then this game would easily be a 9 or even a 10/10.
This is definitely a game that you should play merely for its gameplay.
It's a more light-hearted fun adventure but I think that's the beauty of it. It's a very fun game, one of the most fun games in the franchise. God I love JRPGs.
8/10
Usually I talk about the story before the gameplay but this is a pretty gameplay heavy game, so I'll dive into that first.
{ Gameplay }
The Job System makes a return from Final Fantasy III but it has been so refined that the game is a real joy to play despite how underwhelming the storytelling is, like with Final Fantasy X-2.
Any character can be practically anything that you want them to be. And while some are more keen to physical or magical prowess, you have total control on how you want to make them. As you play through the game, you unlock more Jobs, and some of the best Jobs in the game are unlocked via side quests.
The Jobs have been expanded from the ones in Final Fantasy III. You no longer have to pay Job Points in order switch them, and now, each Jobs have Passive Abilities to go along with battle actions. This includes things like:
Thief: Can sprint, find hidden passgeways, reduce the chance of back attacks
Ninja: Can equip 2 swords, and increase the chance of preemptive strikes
Geomancer: Can avoid trap doors and pitfalls, and makes the party immune to damage-inflicting terrain like spikes and lava
As you level up each Job, you unlock more actions to use in battle. And each Job comes with one initial ability and an open slot to equip any OTHER ability that you earned. Either one to use in battle or any other passive ability.
I can't stress how insane this is in terms of customization. You can essentially play the game however you want to. There is so much mixing and matching to do here.
You could do things like:
- Give the Sorcerer the ability to equip the the Knight's 2-Handed ability so you can hold a sword with 2 hands for more damage, or learn the X-Fight ability from the Hunter Job so you can attack 4 times in one turn.
- You can have a Mime Job equip Black, White, and Time magic at once (since they get 3 open ability slots).
- You you can use a Ninja and have them use the X-Fight ability since they have 2 Swords equipped by default, meaning you can attack EIGHT times in one turn.
- Or have a White, Black, Blue, or Time Mage have the Red Mages x2 Dualcast ability, which allows you to cast spells twice in one turn.
There are literally dozens of combinations that you can give to your party. It's amazing.
And there are no bosses, aside from a couple of them, where you must use specific Jobs in order to beat them, unlike in Final Fantasy III. You can use whatever combination you feel is best for you. Some Jobs are more overpowered than others, but unlike FFIII, FFV provides free reign to the player.
And this freedom makes this game one of the most replayable games in the series. And what makes a game like this so fun is the reward for mastering its mechanics. The reward comes from leveling up those Jobs. It's like how I feel about the Junction System in Final Fantasy VIII.
I know people either love or hate the Junction System, but me? I am a fuckin' geek. I love micromanaging my characters, seeing these tangible improvements to each aptitude. I love being able to customize my characters the way I would like them to be. I like to see just how much power I can gain, it's much more exciting than just gaining experience points and gaining levels.
Every time a Job levels up, there is always a payoff for doing it. Some abilities are much more useful than others, but having that flexibility encourages experimentation.
Each Job have different speeds of advancement. And the amount of Ability Points required increases as they level up, but, the more you level up the Job, the better the rewards are.
And if you reach the max level to a Job, you MASTER it. The Freelancer, which is the base Job, is able to get the highest stat adjustments to all Jobs they have mastered. Essentially, huge boosts in their stats, which automatically makes them the best they can be. They also get 2 open ability slots.
So basically, by the late game, there are an endless amount of possibilities to mess around with, it's mind-blowing.
This can even encourage you to replay the game again and see how you could play the game a different way.
Wanna know my personal favorite Job setup?
- Bartz (Primary DPS)
Abilities: !X-Fight and !2-Swords
- Lenna (Primary Magic DPS)
Abilities: !Black and !Summon (sometimes I'll give her !White instead of !Summon)
- Galuf/Krile (Primary Healer/Support, and with Mime equipped)
Abilities: !Time, !White, and !Blue
- Faris (Secondary DPS)
-Abilities: !X-Fight and !Spellblade
I'm curious as to what your favorite Job combinations are.
Also, if you want to know what each Job does what, click on this link. Because there is quite a lot, you'll thank me later.
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_V/Jobs#Starting_job
There are also additional tweaks done to the battles that can be both good and bad depending on how you look at it.
This is the first game where you can actually see the ATB gauges, letting you know exactly when a character is going to get their turn. However, you can't switch from one turn to another like in Final Fantasy IV.
If you want to skip a turn, you have to use the Defend command (Right D-Pad and A) which puts the ATB gauge back to 0, which can be annoying if you skip a turn but then your enemy hits you really hard and you really need that character to act again.
The game also has the Front and Back Row mechanic from FFIV. If you're in the Front Row, you deal normal physical damage but also take normal damage from physical attacks, and if you're in the Back Row, you take half damage from physical attacks but you can only deal half damage yourself.
Enemies can also be in either the Front or Back Rows, so it's recommended that you attack the enemies in the front before you attack the ones in the back, unless if you use magic or attacks that ignore Rows. It creates the mentality of "Mash A to win" which is prevalent in a lot of RPGs. It can result in some battles being mindless button mashers.
Also, there is no cooldown for magic spells. As soon as you select the spell and the target(s), it immediately pops off, so there is no punishment for spamming your most powerful spells.
Despite these few flaws in the battles, the game is still a blast to play, because even nowadays there are few JRPG games that can top this level of character customization. The amount of different battle strategies and experimentation you have at your disposal is staggering. The gameplay alone is why this game is so good, and is the biggest reason why you have to play it, or just play it again lol.
{ Story, Spoiler Warning! }
This is a first for the Final Fantasy series, but in this game, you don't actually obtain the four Crystals of the Elements. By the time you reach them, they're already destroyed.
It turns out the Crystals were used as a power source for the people's cities and machinery, and were so overused that they ended up shattering. So while this is a story about the crystals, you don't save them. It's already too late. Instead, the four heroes are imbued with the power of these shattered pieces, hence the Jobs.
The main villain Exdeath gets pissed by the actions of the human race so he then becomes the physical embodiment of Mother Nature so to speak, using the power of The Void to rid the world of humanity, so it's up to you to stop him. It's a story about environmentalism.
However, the issue with the story though is one simple word: underwhelming. It's serviceable, but it's the weakest part about this game. The characters barely ever develop. Stories are about weaving a narrative and how a person or a group of people change from beginning to end.
From the beginning of the game to the end, you don't see many changes, if at all in any of the characters. But if I was to choose, I'd say the most developed characters were Galuf and Faris, but even then, it's nothing to write home about, because half of the game with Galuf is spent with him suffering from amnesia and trying to find out who he was.
And early on it's revealed that Faris is a pirate but is also a woman at the same time, which isn't really that shocking. She was originally a princess but she wanted to trade that captivity for her own freedom.
Though later on in the game, Galuf sacrifices himself to save his allies in a 1v1 fight against Exdeath. This was the best part in the game, because it made Galuf into a badass. And he died with dignity.
But then it goes downhill from here, because after that, his granddaughter Krile takes his place and she immediately inherits all of the abilities that he learned. Which not only makes his death inconsequential, but it actually makes the story even weaker, because Krile doesn't develop at all, especially since she is introduced so late into the story.
Interestingly enough, a character even more fleshed out than the party is actually an enemy which is Gilgamesh. He has quite a lot of joyful dialgoue and it actually got some chuckles out of me.
You meet him in the second world and throughout the rest of the game you encounter him time and time again, and by the end of the game, he actually becomes your friend. It's no wonder he is in almost every FF game after this, he's a really cool character.
Despite the weaker storytelling, it's a more humorous Final Fantasy game, which may have been the point, I don't know. One of the funniest and yet dumbest moments in the whole game, hell, in all of Final Fantasy is when Krile gets a splinter inside of her finger. The party then meets Sage, who is a...turtle who was actually one of the old four Guardians of Light who sealed Exdeath away from the world 30 years ago.
Then the splinter flies out of Krile's finger and then it...transforms into Exdeath..and then he says
Mwahahaha... I disguised myself as a little splinter, waiting for this moment...
And then he fuckin' fights Sage via warping around the room like it's a fucking Dragonball Z fight. Pfffftt!!
I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.
{ Soundtrack }
It's great. Like with many other FF games, some of the best tracks in the series are in this game. The Super Nintendo is a powerhouse in terms of making music. Any songs that have drums in it sound incredible. My most favorite songs in this game are:
- To the North Mountain
- Fire Ship
- Exdeath's Castle
- Battle on the Big Bridge (best track)
- A New World
- In Search of Light
- The Decisive Battle
- Battle 2
And the chocobo theme is the greatest fucking chocobo theme in any FF game, I'm dead serious. Go listen to it, it's incredible lol. Go listen to these other songs while you're at it.
The soundtrack in this game pales in comparison to the ones in Final Fantasy IV and VI, but it's still a great listen.
{ Best Version }
The best version of the game that you absolutely should play is the original Super Nintendo version. It's the most accessible and the best way to experience the game.
The easiest way to access it is via emulation, and getting it to run isn't difficult at all. Hell, I can play the game on my Android cell phone with a PS4 controller via Bluetooth with no issue at all. No joke. I do own the PS1 port but I refuse to play it again for good reasons.
It has a shitload of problems. The load times are really bad, the translation is fucking appalling, and the music and sound effects are total shit. They're actually compressed. How does music and sound effects from an SNES game become compressed on a PS1 disc??
This is also a problem with Final Fantasy VI, which is why you should avoid that as much as possible also.
The Gameboy Advance version is a good version but again, it has compressed music and sound effects, but not to the same butchered degree of the PS1 version. The only reason you would play that is for the extra exclusive Jobs and a couple extra boss fights. You could download a mod for the game on PC that restores the sound quality if that's what you fancy.
And for the love of god, do not, and I mean DO NOT play the mobile port of the game. Holy mother of shit, it's horrible. The graphics and the character models are beyond ugly and the user interface is just... Ugh!! I find it hard to believe that shit even exists, let alone charging people $15-18 to play it. Avoid that shit like the Black Death.
{ Final Thoughts }
A fine but ultimately weak story, an excellent soundtrack, and absolutely amazing gameplay with insane replay value. That's this game in a nutshell. It's a damn great game. If the story was better, the characters were given the Final Fantasy VI treatment, and some changes were given to the battles, then this game would easily be a 9 or even a 10/10.
This is definitely a game that you should play merely for its gameplay.
It's a more light-hearted fun adventure but I think that's the beauty of it. It's a very fun game, one of the most fun games in the franchise. God I love JRPGs.
8/10