Fainaru fantajî V

Originally released on the Super Nintendo in Japan, Final Fantasy V never found its way to the states in its original form. But a few years ago it was re-released on the Playstation with Final Fantasy VI in a collection of the two games called Final Fantasy Anthologies.

Final Fantasy V follows the adventures of a love traveler named Bartz. He and his pet chocobo Boko were startled one night as a meteor came crashing down not far from their camp. Upon examination of the meteor they find an old man by the name of Galuf who seems to have amnesia caused by the meteors impact. Nearby as well, is Reina, the princess of the kingdom of Tycoon. You are joined shortly thereafter by Faris, the saltiest pirate on the seas. The four set out to find Reina's father, the king of Tycoon, as well as to protect the four crystals of Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth.

So there's chocobos and crystals and whatnot, but what makes this game stand out? Well, the crystals give your characters powers. You are able to equip each character with a job class and they can then level up each of their jobs, giving them abilities from that job class that can be equipped later. For example: one of your characters is equipped with the Black Mage job and they gain a level. They are then given the ability Black 1 which allows them to cast Black Magic. But you can then change their job to say, a Knight, and then equip the Black 1 ability as well. Or maybe you want a Monk that can use Blue Magic. Perhaps you want a White Mage that can hold its weapon with 2 hands for double the power (a Knight ability). This unique and functional system lets the player play how they want, and gives them tons of possibilities.

The usual good stuff is in here too. The plot starts out simple with you protecting the crystals but soon escalates to encompass so much more. The characters are all interesting in their own aspect and all have their own mysterious back stories, some of which intertwine a bit. As usual in any FF game, the mood is set well by Nobuo Uematsu's compositions. The beautiful and diverse soundtrack accompanies your journey well, and rarely gets annoying or repetitive.

This game, while following the same pattern as most Final Fantasy's, differs greatly with its job class system to give it an extremely unique touch. It's an old school game with a great feel and a must have for any FF or RPG fan. I give it 8 and 1/2 out of 10. Ya can't beat that 8-bit goodness.

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.

My potentially blithering hot take is that this is the best of the first five Final Fantasy titles. Its story is nothing to write home about, but that has little to do with my assessment of the game as its story is about as good as any of the first five (the epilogue is uniquely awful, though- it's essentially an incredibly tedious clip show of all of the greatest hits of the adventure). Final Fantasy V, like its predecessors, has two-dimensional characters that lack complexity and have no arcs. Also like its predecessors, the plot amounts to a series of bland fetch quests and has little in the way of textured world-building. Something something crystals something something balance something something entity wanting to destroy that balance and take over the universe. It took awhile for the world in each Final Fantasy title to actually feel like a place with its own history and internal logic. The exception to this blandness is, as usual, Nobuo Uemtasu's whimsical score, the endlessly creative creature designs, and the splashy backgrounds. Those elements do quite a bit of heavy lifting to really convey that unique Final Fantasy vibe, but they feel separate and irrelevant to the main narrative.

Where the game rises above the previous titles is in its job system and difficulty curve. The job system allows for your character to gain abilities in different jobs and then mix and match those abilities to create fun synergistic combos. Throughout the entire game I was constantly adjusting which classes I wanted to level up based on which combinations seemed to be more successful. The game even somewhat forces experimentation because different bosses require different strategies to overcome. My only complaint about the job system is that some abilities take eons to obtain, especially in the first two thirds of the game. If you are playing blind, you also risk putting in many hours of grinding only to find out that the next ability your character receives was not worth the effort. Still, the amount of creativity and strategy that the game allows for is impressive considering that each job allows for only one extra ability you have earned from another job.

Two aspects I was consistently delighted by were the substantial difficulty of many of the bosses and the best difficulty curve of the first five games- the game's difficulty is incredibly even and gradual (with the requisite spike in the end, of course). I never had to grind and usually just had to play around with my party job and equipment setup in order to overcome a boss. Even the last boss was beatable by just learning from each defeat and making adjustments. I got a little lucky on my final attempt because Neo-Exdeath missed a lot, but the battle didn't feel like pure luck at a lower level like the final boss of FF IV did (I had to lower the active time battle speed settings to win that one).

Final Fantasy has a nothing story, but it was the first of the original five 2D Final Fantasy games where I didn't feel like I was rushing at the end to get it over with. The level design was quite varied and each featured different types of puzzles instead of long, boring hallways like in the first four games. It's just a shame that the story was so perfunctory because that is the only aspect that would hold me back from wanting to replay it someday. I often found myself glazing over during the dialogue scenes and frequently lost track of the plot due to disinterest. The gameplay, however, was a treat.

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.