Fainaru fantajî V

It took me nine years to finally play through and win this Final Fantasy game. That right there should tell you this one is a bit different. The story is your standard Final Fantasy fare. A traveler, a princess, a pirate, and a mysterious man with amnesia go on a quest to try and stop the destruction of the elemental crystals: Earth, wind, fire and water. They are also searching for the father of the princess. In the end an evil entity named X-Death is set free and he has plans to capture a terrifying power that threatens not one, but two worlds! What sets this one apart and causes it to be sort of a pain too is the job system. Similar to that found in Final Fantasy X-2, but more involved you switch between classes, gain their powers and in the end decide what powers will help you totally tear X-Death apart. The jobs though can take awhile to build up, now that I have a very good sized music collection it is not so bad, but it gets rather boring just leveling up with the same old music playing. The final boss in this one was somewhat tough too, until I read a strategy on beating him, then adding a few of my own touches it was a breeze. So in the end I liked six a bit better, however, this one was a rather good entry into the final fantasy universe. I think it is also the first one to feature Moogles, however, I may be wrong on that point. You also have a wide array of vehicles in this one to use to, from chocobos to airships, and even a submarine. However, the story is a bit short, I won it in thirty hours and I spent a good ten or more of that leveling.

Final Fantasy V was first released in Japan but it came to the outer world nearly ten years later. After I've played this game with SNES emulator it's easy to understand why.

First the good news. Final Fantasy V has an excellent job system that is more developed version from Final Fantasy III. There's a wide selection from different jobs including common fighter, thief and couple of mages and uncommon dragoon, samurai and many others. What even better, all special skills are saved even if a player decides to change classes. Only down side is that some of the classes, like geomancer, mediator or dancer, are completely useless.

The bad thing in this game is the atmosphere. Story about stopping evil Exdeath from destroying elemental crystals and the everything else just feels to make excuses to point colorless characters to go in different places. Although it's revealed enough their past that they are somehow interesting they have not any characteristics to make them feel close. Plus white-armored Exdeath with no clear motivation for wanton destruction is probably one of the dullest main villains ever in any media. Only good character is Exdeath's first-in-command Gilgamesh who has charisma and funny dialog. Even the music has decreed from Final Fantasy IV's excellency to mediocre.

Final Fantasy V is good as hack'n slash game but because of its sterile story, characters, music and even graphics it feels like work of engineers rather than artists.

God, I love this game! I myself have only played the PSX version but that's good enough! The king of Tycoon feels something is wrong with the wind, and thus goes to the Wind Shrine to check on the Wind Crystal. His daughter, Reina, wishes him luck. The scene switches to a pirate on his ship named Faris. He notices something wrong with the wind as well... then it switches to THE INSIDE of the meteor. An old man says that it has already began, and thus he must hurry. Then, You take on the role of Bartz, a traveler of the world born in (Lix in Japan; not sure about in the US). He and his chocobo, Boko, hear something bad going on, so they go to see what's wrong. A meteor has crashed near Tycoon, and as Bartz walks near, he finds two goblins taking Reina. He fights them, gets Reina, tell her his name... well, that's only the beginning. In Final Fantasy 5, the system used is the Job System.

Explanation of the Job System: You will gain many crystal shards throughout the game, which are "Jobs". They allow a large amount of freedom in customizing your team (Bartz, Reina, Faris, and Galuf, the old man). For example, you can have Bartz become a Knight, or Faris become a Dragoon. The one class they have without jobs equipped is called a Suppin(or BARE, if you own the PSX version, like me). Then there's the Ability system. Your jobs are devided by "levels". You gain levels by gaining certain amounts of ABP(Ability Points). By gaining a level, you gain a skill. E.G.: You have a Lvl2 Dragoon. You have his skills, "Jump" and "Lance". Now you equip a White Mage job to your character. You can put one of those skills on that job!

This game holds MUCH MUCH more secrets than ff6. The only secret that tops any of the ones in FF5 is finding GoGo in ff6. My overall score? 9 and a half out of 10 The game is great, but because of Krile... I had to knock the score down by half a point. - Jed Bookout

This game used to be an Japan only Final Fantasy SNES game. Not anymore. You can now play this game on your sony playstation with Final Fantasy Anthology. Alright the graphic isn't very good as the other final fantasy games on the Playstation. Does that really matter? I think not. RPGs is all about the storylines. That's why I play them. The game doesn't have much playable characters like the other final fantasy games. I think that's why they didn't bother to release it in the U.S.

The game also comes with an new CGI video that never before seen in the japan version.

Yes, I admit, there are some of the Final Fantasy games I like before FFVIII and the other latter titles came out. But Final Fantasy V sticks to me like bees stick to honey.

The story is in three parts: Butz's world (trying to save the crystals), Galuf's world (Galuf trying to stop the main evil himself) and Ex-Death's world (Destroy the Void and the evil mage himself). Without spoiling any of the plot or characters, you'll be pleased with the story and the likable cast of characters. Who says you need a big cast when you can have a few wonderfully developed cast. Not to mention the job system is very fun and addicting. You can even mix and match abilities.

The only flaw is the graphics and sound. The graphics look EXACTLY like FFIV's graphics. And even though the soundtrack was good in some spots, but a lot of the music sounded way too happy and perky. Sounds more like a kiddy game music than it does earth in distress music.

Just too bad this FF got overshadowed by FFIV and FFVI and was never released in America in trhe SNES days. It's far superior to FFVI in story, gameplay and characters. Play it and give it a chance.