And my adventure through the Final Fantasy games on Super Famicom comes to an end with one I've never actually beaten before! Popo gave me a guide to how the job system works, and I got right to work. And 34-ish hours later, I'm done! I didn't do anything absurd like maxing out every job, but I did do all the sidequests to get all the spells and super weapons and such. And also like FFIV, I played through this on my Wii U Virtual Console, so I played it in Japanese and with the benefit of a save state (so I needed to reset properly for deaths and such a lot less, basically).
On a presentation level, FFV falls right between FFIV and FFVI in basically every respect, as one might expect it to. The only slight exception is with music, which I have to put V at the bottom of that list for, as while Clash at Big Bridge is a GREAT song, basically every other song in the game is really forgettable. The environmental and monster graphics look beautiful though, as do the animations.
The combat is a really nice sister experience to FFVI (which is basically just FFIV but better) with its big ol' job system. I personally prefer FFVI more, if only because FFV does a fairly terrible job at actually informing the player about very large swaths of mechanics that the job system contains. Even things as basic as how many levels are in a certain job or what those levels unlock are entirely unmentioned until you just go and unlock them. If you don't have the patience for a LOT of experimentation and grinding, or you aren't willing to use a guide like I did, you are probably going to bounce off of FFV very hard, especially in its 3rd act (exactly like I did when I attempted to play through the PS1 version when I was younger). But I did use a guide for it, and had a lot of fun optimizing my team incrementally as I unlocked more jobs~. A lot of your enjoyment of the combat system in this game will be a lot on how you enjoy experiencing your RPG combat, but as long as you know what you're getting into, you'll probably have a good time. To reiterate, FFV's job system is not a bad system, it's just a very poorly explained one for the level of complexity it actually has.
The story is also a really nice advancement on IV's narrative. Because it can't rely on a character's combat job to do legwork for developing their character (as IV does a lot), V spends a lot more time developing the characters as people via their interactions between each other and with other NPCs, and it's done really well. It's use of overall themes isn't nearly as well done as VI does it (Exdeath is basically Kefka if Kefka had a story presence but no actual characterization), but its uses of comedy and levity break tone far less heavily than VI's do. Aside from some fairly serious issues I have with Faris' character (about whom I'm currently writing an entirely separate essay about), I really enjoyed the characterization methods used in V, and it's fairly easy to see how these translated to how VI would do its storytelling (right down to the final act of the game being far more non-linear with lots of optional side-goodies you're encouraged, but not required, to get).
Verdict: Recommended. This just barely doesn't make a "highly recommended" status because the caveat of being adequately prepared to deal with the job system is SUCH a big one. That withstanding, however, it's a fantastic game, and an excellent parallel experience to FFVI on the Super Famicom. What it does well it does nearly as well as VI, or does an entirely different way to VI such as to make V stand very well on its own as simply a game for a different kind of JRPG fan.
On a presentation level, FFV falls right between FFIV and FFVI in basically every respect, as one might expect it to. The only slight exception is with music, which I have to put V at the bottom of that list for, as while Clash at Big Bridge is a GREAT song, basically every other song in the game is really forgettable. The environmental and monster graphics look beautiful though, as do the animations.
The combat is a really nice sister experience to FFVI (which is basically just FFIV but better) with its big ol' job system. I personally prefer FFVI more, if only because FFV does a fairly terrible job at actually informing the player about very large swaths of mechanics that the job system contains. Even things as basic as how many levels are in a certain job or what those levels unlock are entirely unmentioned until you just go and unlock them. If you don't have the patience for a LOT of experimentation and grinding, or you aren't willing to use a guide like I did, you are probably going to bounce off of FFV very hard, especially in its 3rd act (exactly like I did when I attempted to play through the PS1 version when I was younger). But I did use a guide for it, and had a lot of fun optimizing my team incrementally as I unlocked more jobs~. A lot of your enjoyment of the combat system in this game will be a lot on how you enjoy experiencing your RPG combat, but as long as you know what you're getting into, you'll probably have a good time. To reiterate, FFV's job system is not a bad system, it's just a very poorly explained one for the level of complexity it actually has.
The story is also a really nice advancement on IV's narrative. Because it can't rely on a character's combat job to do legwork for developing their character (as IV does a lot), V spends a lot more time developing the characters as people via their interactions between each other and with other NPCs, and it's done really well. It's use of overall themes isn't nearly as well done as VI does it (Exdeath is basically Kefka if Kefka had a story presence but no actual characterization), but its uses of comedy and levity break tone far less heavily than VI's do. Aside from some fairly serious issues I have with Faris' character (about whom I'm currently writing an entirely separate essay about), I really enjoyed the characterization methods used in V, and it's fairly easy to see how these translated to how VI would do its storytelling (right down to the final act of the game being far more non-linear with lots of optional side-goodies you're encouraged, but not required, to get).
Verdict: Recommended. This just barely doesn't make a "highly recommended" status because the caveat of being adequately prepared to deal with the job system is SUCH a big one. That withstanding, however, it's a fantastic game, and an excellent parallel experience to FFVI on the Super Famicom. What it does well it does nearly as well as VI, or does an entirely different way to VI such as to make V stand very well on its own as simply a game for a different kind of JRPG fan.