TL; DR - clears throat FINAL FANTASY V IS SO F-ING AWESOME THAT IT MAKES MY DICK ROCK HARD
I have to preface my musings by making the distinction between 'puzzle'-style gameplay and 'playground'-style gameplay in RPGs. FFVII is a typical playground-style RPG: the materia system is very flexible and customizable, so you can feel free to express yourself, build your characters in any way you like, and take any number of creative approaches to combat. FFIV, on the other hand, is a typical puzzle-style RPG: it often changes around your party composition and throws different challenges at you, often geared towards forcing you to make clever use of the resources and tools you have at that particular time with that particular party.
Time for my hot take: FFV is a better playground RPG than FFVII and a better puzzle RPG than FFIV. While FFVII does afford much more customization, it's also very easy which means you never really get incentivized to really explore the materia system and the varying combat options beyond spamming attacks/limits and healing when needed. FFV, on the other hand, is just tough enough to push you to explore the vast network of jobs and job skills to find combinations that work on that one boss.
The 'puzzle' aspect of the game comes from limited-job challenges like the Four Job Fiesta (let an RNG pick 4 of the 20 jobs which you have to limit yourself to over the course of a run). While this wasn't exactly what the devs had in mind, the fact that you can complete the game with any combination of four jobs (yes, even four Berserkers!) is a testament to how well balanced the game is. Playing the game with different job combinations each time forces you to come up with ever more creative solutions (no healer? Just equip flame rings and nuke yourself with Firaga!) to the puzzles the game presents, and unlike FFIV, the solution to the puzzle is different every single time you play. The sheer replayability and depth of the job system is what makes this my favorite game.
Run count: 51 and still not bored
I have to preface my musings by making the distinction between 'puzzle'-style gameplay and 'playground'-style gameplay in RPGs. FFVII is a typical playground-style RPG: the materia system is very flexible and customizable, so you can feel free to express yourself, build your characters in any way you like, and take any number of creative approaches to combat. FFIV, on the other hand, is a typical puzzle-style RPG: it often changes around your party composition and throws different challenges at you, often geared towards forcing you to make clever use of the resources and tools you have at that particular time with that particular party.
Time for my hot take: FFV is a better playground RPG than FFVII and a better puzzle RPG than FFIV. While FFVII does afford much more customization, it's also very easy which means you never really get incentivized to really explore the materia system and the varying combat options beyond spamming attacks/limits and healing when needed. FFV, on the other hand, is just tough enough to push you to explore the vast network of jobs and job skills to find combinations that work on that one boss.
The 'puzzle' aspect of the game comes from limited-job challenges like the Four Job Fiesta (let an RNG pick 4 of the 20 jobs which you have to limit yourself to over the course of a run). While this wasn't exactly what the devs had in mind, the fact that you can complete the game with any combination of four jobs (yes, even four Berserkers!) is a testament to how well balanced the game is. Playing the game with different job combinations each time forces you to come up with ever more creative solutions (no healer? Just equip flame rings and nuke yourself with Firaga!) to the puzzles the game presents, and unlike FFIV, the solution to the puzzle is different every single time you play. The sheer replayability and depth of the job system is what makes this my favorite game.
Run count: 51 and still not bored