This is it baby this is THE Final Fantasy! The good shit!!! Have I ever played this game like a normal person? Absolutely not! I'm sure on my ninth fiesta run though!
Even though limiting yourself to four random jobs cannot possibly have been on the minds of anyone developing the game, the fact that it works so well and makes for such a rad experience really shows the games' various strengths, which are all in the nitty-gritty of the boss and job design. Certainly not the story, which is great for what it is, has a lot of funny moments and works as a nice romp, but isn't particularly ambitious. Try to find a theme in the story: you can't. It kind of gestures at some environmentalism here and there but it doesn't actually care so there's nothing at all.
First: the jobs. Most of them have a pretty big variety of tools or some unique utility. Nobody is completely dead weight, even Geomancer. The overlap between different jobs is a big part of how the game remains playable with any team composition, I think. They also are not even close to balanced, which rules. Generally, you need a lot of experimentation or outside info to know, say, when you can just use an instant death attack to kill a boss instantly, or how mixes work with the chemist, but the decision to not worry much about flattening everything in terms of power level, or going the other way and just having a progression of jobs like in FF3, makes the random style of playthrough work. And this is not even getting into the synergies! A lot of the game can be decided by figuring out which combination of abilities will get you something truly cool and busted, and finding that stuff feels great! This is another place where the fiesta rules, because playing normally you would just not use a Berserker. If you have to, though, you can figure out that giving them Equip Bows makes them way faster and stronger.
Second: the boss/enemy design. I think this is really the key point. They're so good. There are so many different gimmicks, and only a few fights that are just straight-up brawls. Almost every single major encounter in the game has at least one dirty trick available to trivilize or mitigate it. It's often as simple as just letting status effects work on bosses. There are plenty of RPGs where you also have lots of tools but they suck because they only work in places you'd never care to use them. In FF5, even playing as intended, you can come up with creative solutions to problems, and you will because levelling is only marginally relevant to your overall power. It smooths some edges but won't fundamentally overhaul your approach.
Yall I recommend FFV. Use a guide and do some random job bullshit or play it normally. Either is neat.
Even though limiting yourself to four random jobs cannot possibly have been on the minds of anyone developing the game, the fact that it works so well and makes for such a rad experience really shows the games' various strengths, which are all in the nitty-gritty of the boss and job design. Certainly not the story, which is great for what it is, has a lot of funny moments and works as a nice romp, but isn't particularly ambitious. Try to find a theme in the story: you can't. It kind of gestures at some environmentalism here and there but it doesn't actually care so there's nothing at all.
First: the jobs. Most of them have a pretty big variety of tools or some unique utility. Nobody is completely dead weight, even Geomancer. The overlap between different jobs is a big part of how the game remains playable with any team composition, I think. They also are not even close to balanced, which rules. Generally, you need a lot of experimentation or outside info to know, say, when you can just use an instant death attack to kill a boss instantly, or how mixes work with the chemist, but the decision to not worry much about flattening everything in terms of power level, or going the other way and just having a progression of jobs like in FF3, makes the random style of playthrough work. And this is not even getting into the synergies! A lot of the game can be decided by figuring out which combination of abilities will get you something truly cool and busted, and finding that stuff feels great! This is another place where the fiesta rules, because playing normally you would just not use a Berserker. If you have to, though, you can figure out that giving them Equip Bows makes them way faster and stronger.
Second: the boss/enemy design. I think this is really the key point. They're so good. There are so many different gimmicks, and only a few fights that are just straight-up brawls. Almost every single major encounter in the game has at least one dirty trick available to trivilize or mitigate it. It's often as simple as just letting status effects work on bosses. There are plenty of RPGs where you also have lots of tools but they suck because they only work in places you'd never care to use them. In FF5, even playing as intended, you can come up with creative solutions to problems, and you will because levelling is only marginally relevant to your overall power. It smooths some edges but won't fundamentally overhaul your approach.
Yall I recommend FFV. Use a guide and do some random job bullshit or play it normally. Either is neat.
3 Comments
Yeah I think I would note two obvious places that hint at it.
1) The crystals break because humanity is using/amplifying their powers. Exploiting nature or something. This motivates Cid's character but is pretty aggressively dismissed as an actual problem by the plot and is never really discussed.
2) ExDeath, as you say. He's a tree that came to life because people kept putting evil spirits inside him. This is mentioned offhand exactly once and never really discussed again, even when he burns down his own home forest. I love ExDeath as a character because he's such a ham but these loose ideas are, to me, just places where something could have gone if you wanted to. Luckily we have FF7 which does those exact themes for real so I don't feel bad about them being missing here.
1) The crystals break because humanity is using/amplifying their powers. Exploiting nature or something. This motivates Cid's character but is pretty aggressively dismissed as an actual problem by the plot and is never really discussed.
2) ExDeath, as you say. He's a tree that came to life because people kept putting evil spirits inside him. This is mentioned offhand exactly once and never really discussed again, even when he burns down his own home forest. I love ExDeath as a character because he's such a ham but these loose ideas are, to me, just places where something could have gone if you wanted to. Luckily we have FF7 which does those exact themes for real so I don't feel bad about them being missing here.
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The attractive thing for me is that it doesn't need to be discuss because it's just there: the world when you start the game isn't the same world when you finish it. This game's design and philosophy consists around the facts that are around him: some are more obvious than others, which are subtle.
By the way, love the moment when you fight over the last save point and the prize is Gilgamesh's life. The player's avarice over a safe bubble...
By the way, love the moment when you fight over the last save point and the prize is Gilgamesh's life. The player's avarice over a safe bubble...
Lot0
1 year ago
I think the antagonist, Exdeath, has something to do with the theme too. If you think about it, everything about him is about architectural but overall landscape changes: when the two worlds collide, when he destroys geography of the map directly, the way to access his dungeon (If I remember well, the world is rarefied when you cross. certain door that was guarded by someone before)... And well, he becomes a tree! That's symbolic.