This review contains spoilers
Wow, FFV is high quality. The game launches you right into the plot with things happening quickly, and it all feels natural. There is a bit of anime nonsense at the beginning (the dancers, & Bartz/Galuf peeping on Faris sleeping at a bar and getting heart emoji from it) but it quickly peters out to a more serious tone which manages to maintain its whimsy throughout, nontrivially due to Galuf. There was a bit of a lull in the third act, especially when several places became un-revisitable (and I missed a bard song because of it), but it picked up the pace again near the end.
The progression is the best it's been so far in the final fantasy games I've played. The magic progression and levelling feels appropriate (summoning is a bit shafted but it's overall more powerful so it's balanced) and the job system is incredible. Being able to mix-and-match jobs with abilities makes you feel like the game's your oyster - and unlike FFIII nearly every job has something to offer. A couple aren't as good, but none are outright useless or not worth at least checking out. Auto-equipping weapons is a bit annoying since the optimization system only looks at raw damage and not effects, but it's hardly a detriment and more a minor irritant.
Combat is great too - ATB, something I was worried about, in this game feels good. It never particularly felt unbalanced and it was nice to be able to play with time magic (Hastega is nuts, but Haste was also crazy nuts in FFI, so). The boss battles were varied and had interesting mechanics, rather than just being sponges with big HP and big Attack. The series still hasn't quite found out how to make trash mobs friendly, with some of the late dungeons being particularly bad with lots of status monsters and things that cast zombie.
And the dungeons themselves are largely fine. There's nothing particularly special here. Most are good. North Mountain is great. The Fire Ship is bad. The Phoenix Tower is extremely bad. I wouldn't call dungeon design this game's specialty, but everything largely feels good. They're streamlined at least, even the bad dungeons are annoying because they're long, unlike say FFI's dungeon design which can be cruel at times and actively deceptive.
I think this is the first FF I've played that I'd actively recommend to JRPG fans without a curiosity in Final Fantasy itself. I had an absolute blast playing it and despite my nitpicks, the quality of this game speaks for itself.
The progression is the best it's been so far in the final fantasy games I've played. The magic progression and levelling feels appropriate (summoning is a bit shafted but it's overall more powerful so it's balanced) and the job system is incredible. Being able to mix-and-match jobs with abilities makes you feel like the game's your oyster - and unlike FFIII nearly every job has something to offer. A couple aren't as good, but none are outright useless or not worth at least checking out. Auto-equipping weapons is a bit annoying since the optimization system only looks at raw damage and not effects, but it's hardly a detriment and more a minor irritant.
Combat is great too - ATB, something I was worried about, in this game feels good. It never particularly felt unbalanced and it was nice to be able to play with time magic (Hastega is nuts, but Haste was also crazy nuts in FFI, so). The boss battles were varied and had interesting mechanics, rather than just being sponges with big HP and big Attack. The series still hasn't quite found out how to make trash mobs friendly, with some of the late dungeons being particularly bad with lots of status monsters and things that cast zombie.
And the dungeons themselves are largely fine. There's nothing particularly special here. Most are good. North Mountain is great. The Fire Ship is bad. The Phoenix Tower is extremely bad. I wouldn't call dungeon design this game's specialty, but everything largely feels good. They're streamlined at least, even the bad dungeons are annoying because they're long, unlike say FFI's dungeon design which can be cruel at times and actively deceptive.
I think this is the first FF I've played that I'd actively recommend to JRPG fans without a curiosity in Final Fantasy itself. I had an absolute blast playing it and despite my nitpicks, the quality of this game speaks for itself.