boco my beloved...
the second mainline final fantasy on the super famicom and for the first time since the series' beginning, the presentation has not changed at all!
what did change? progression!
we are back to 4 party members you improve how you want to, who are solely your responsibility.
no more characters leaving on short notice, taking some of your strongest equipment with you, thank god.
this, along with the new job system, makes for a wonderful party building experience along your journey!
new job system? you shouldnt be surprised, every single entry has experimented in new directions so far, but this experiment sure made me happy.
it's a mix of ff3's short term job selections and a bit of ff2's slower, long term improvement of abilities.
each character can be assigned a different job you have already unlocked at any time and can rank up jobs they gained enough "experience" with. what for?
well, each character can also have an aditional ability from a job they ranked up with, each rank granting an additional option, or improving certain existing ones.
like a rank 3 knight unlocks the ability to two-hand weapons to deal double damage, change them to the berserker which is the only job able to use axes, the most damaging weapons for most of the game, and now you have a single party member who does enough damage for four, leaving three characters up for utility!!
and all this has a big impact on your overall party strength. time i would have spent in previous games grinding, i spent here thinking what short term risks i would take during normal progression through dungeons, ranking up a, to my party, redundant job, for an ability that would improve a character in the long term. the previous example of job switching was actually an anecdote of how i saved myself from possibly hours of grinding.
well, what else is important in the series?
world exploration?
yea that's fine, nothing special, until the story happens and then more story happens and the limitation of the overworlds visuals actually hamper your ability to find where the fuck you have to go next, with how everyplace looks exactly the same. still only a single sprite for castles, towns, temples and such, each.
lastly, the preparation for the final dungeon of the game is an agonizing two to three hours full of complete rng, unless you know the exact counters for things like random removal spells which are unrecoverable from inside of battles and abushes with groups that can consistently wipe out your entire party in the two turns they get to make before you get your first action. god.
this wouldn't be so egregious if it wasn't for the still, after 5 games, lingering problems of the non-existence of spell and item descriptions.
the games script has no texts that could prepare you for most of those mentioned bullshit encounters. so just do these parts over and over until you're lucky, or... "ask your classmates" who already figured it out.
please game, just let me make semi-informed decisions, then i'll let you not have quicksaving, thank you.
so, final fantasy 5 is mostly a really great experience, with a decent story and only a few spots that could really use some trimming. most of the problems with the first game have been fixed at this point in the series, and i'm eager to find out how this continues!
the second mainline final fantasy on the super famicom and for the first time since the series' beginning, the presentation has not changed at all!
what did change? progression!
we are back to 4 party members you improve how you want to, who are solely your responsibility.
no more characters leaving on short notice, taking some of your strongest equipment with you, thank god.
this, along with the new job system, makes for a wonderful party building experience along your journey!
new job system? you shouldnt be surprised, every single entry has experimented in new directions so far, but this experiment sure made me happy.
it's a mix of ff3's short term job selections and a bit of ff2's slower, long term improvement of abilities.
each character can be assigned a different job you have already unlocked at any time and can rank up jobs they gained enough "experience" with. what for?
well, each character can also have an aditional ability from a job they ranked up with, each rank granting an additional option, or improving certain existing ones.
like a rank 3 knight unlocks the ability to two-hand weapons to deal double damage, change them to the berserker which is the only job able to use axes, the most damaging weapons for most of the game, and now you have a single party member who does enough damage for four, leaving three characters up for utility!!
and all this has a big impact on your overall party strength. time i would have spent in previous games grinding, i spent here thinking what short term risks i would take during normal progression through dungeons, ranking up a, to my party, redundant job, for an ability that would improve a character in the long term. the previous example of job switching was actually an anecdote of how i saved myself from possibly hours of grinding.
well, what else is important in the series?
world exploration?
yea that's fine, nothing special, until the story happens and then more story happens and the limitation of the overworlds visuals actually hamper your ability to find where the fuck you have to go next, with how everyplace looks exactly the same. still only a single sprite for castles, towns, temples and such, each.
lastly, the preparation for the final dungeon of the game is an agonizing two to three hours full of complete rng, unless you know the exact counters for things like random removal spells which are unrecoverable from inside of battles and abushes with groups that can consistently wipe out your entire party in the two turns they get to make before you get your first action. god.
this wouldn't be so egregious if it wasn't for the still, after 5 games, lingering problems of the non-existence of spell and item descriptions.
the games script has no texts that could prepare you for most of those mentioned bullshit encounters. so just do these parts over and over until you're lucky, or... "ask your classmates" who already figured it out.
please game, just let me make semi-informed decisions, then i'll let you not have quicksaving, thank you.
so, final fantasy 5 is mostly a really great experience, with a decent story and only a few spots that could really use some trimming. most of the problems with the first game have been fixed at this point in the series, and i'm eager to find out how this continues!