Final Fantasy V is a game that was introduced to the Super Famicom (Japan's Super Nintendo) in the 1990's but didn't get an American version until released as part of the Final Fantasy Anthologies edition on the PS1 along with FF6. The game is actually the fifth in the line once the whole ordeal of 2 and 3 came along and got everything righted with the works of the Final Fantasy confusion of the 90's. With that settled, how was this game overall? What were the positives and negatives?
Positives:
1. Storyline- You learn very, very quickly what the story for this game would be and the game does not deviate at all about that. It is super straight forward, and it works most importantly. It is overall very well done and very well equipped in the terms of the story.
2. Character growth- This is probably one of the best Final Fantasy games in terms of character growth. Every character has some character growth, and that speaks volumes for this game. Which then leads me to the next point..
3. Limited Amount of Characters- FF1 had the original four and that was it and it worked because it wasn't about character growth but just playing. FF5 has limited characters and it works because the story is straight forward which gives all these characters a lot of growth. Bartz, Lenna, Reina, Galuf and Krile all grow in every way, plus Boco but more it gives them the opportunities that say FF6 doesn't, FF7 doesn't, FF8 surely doesn't doesn't. It allows for insane amounts of growth in themselves through the game.
4. Job System- This is done supremely well. And it is very very much needed. I have heard that FF3's is good as well (I have not played FF3 though) but this is very well done. You don't need every job to succeed in the game but it is well worth executing some of the better classes throughout. In any case, the job system is done very well by Square in FFV.
5. Villain- Devious, alarming, straight up evil are all terms to describe the villain in this game but he has the growth as well to combat the heroes. He may start as just someone with a vengeance for what happened to him decades prior but he alone tries to overtake the current heroes but they must know what to do to overcome this. All pointed, Ex-Death (Yes sorry if this is a spoiler) is an exceptional villain and you need to know that.
6. Emotions- This plays well with the format of emotions in real life scenarios. There are conflicts but they are resolved. There is love for family at a time of loss, there is longing to be what their family hero was, there is love for each other in the game, there is family that didn't know they were family. All of this is also playing into real life scenarios and it is something that we can relate to in this game.
7. Graphics/Music- Honestly, for the (let's count..) 5th time on this, yes Final Fantasy has great graphics and music, that's just the norm here.
8. Combat system- I thought this was done well to be sort of an active time battle thing but while this is happening you have your own ways of combat but you also get to equip what things you want to use before battle as well. It is kind of a cool thing overall.
Negative:
1. Villain.. for a different reason- Yeah this was a positive but it is also a negative.. why in God's name the villain NOT A HUMAN? Come on Square, I get it, FF9's villain at the very end wasn't a human either, but the main antagonist essentially was. FF8 was too messed up for me to care about the final villain and we all know FF4 didn't have a human but that was like FF9 for a long time, but 6 and 7 we all knew who the villains were. But come on Square.. come on.
Honorable mention: I found it mystifying a bit that final area is just juiced up on difficulty whereas the game was just fine enough. Maybe it was just the final area so I didn't downgrade it as I likely probably should have.
Overall Rating:
FFV Is a game that all gamers and RPG'ers should play. It has a fantastic, albeit straight forward, story and has great character growth and the job system in this game is also very well done. You would be very glad to play this game and it ranks highly in terms of Final Fantasy stardom for me.
Overall Rating: 9 out of 10
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