Final Fantasy 5
Reviewed by Dyson Turner
Final Fantasy V without a shadow of a doubt is one of the
best Final Fantasy's you can ever get. Not only is the story
great, it has the best magic system to date, and everything
else is great too. This game just isn't matched. I know I
say this with all FF's but this one I'm serious until I
played FF5 I thought the other ones were way better than
this. I was seriously wrong and now I feel totally different
about how this one is. This didn't make it across seas
original because many felt that the complex job system would
be too hard for American's but it wasn't, most people found
it very unique and the possible combinations are endless.
That is the main reason why I love this game so much!
Story 10/10
A very intriguing one, it seems that mostly all the early
FF's focused in on the 4 elements Earth, Wind Water and
Fire. This one isn't an exception it does the same thing.
There are only 5 main characters one you meet later on but I
don't want to give away the surprise. The story begins as
Reina's father goes to the Wind Meteor because their has
been some trouble with the crystal their. Then there's a
young man by the name of Bartz who is traveling along with
his chocobo boko and runs into Reina. Then they see a man
fall from somewhere in front of the Wind Meteor he comes
along. Then they meet a pirate name Faris who comes along as
well. I will explain each character.
Bartz-The main character of Final Fantasy V. He is described
as common person and he is the adventurous type who looks
for things to get into with his pet Chocobo Boko.
Reina-A very noble Princess, she isn't the usual type of
'save me!!' princesses found in other RPG's she is
energetic and she puts up a good fight. She joins the story
when she found out her father left.
Galof the as fore mentioned old man. He has seemingly lost
his memory do to the fall and all he remembers is his name
is Galof and he is looking for the Wind Meteor, even though
he is old he still fights.
Faris- A pirate who has been pirating all his life. He
doesn't seem too hostile and there is a connection between
Faris and Reina because they wear the same medallions, so
for this reason he decides to join the quest.
All these characters have a connection with each other, and
very soon this story starts to pick up and it takes all the
unsuspected twist and turns as per the usual Final Fantasy.
Graphics 7. 0/10
The graphics weren't that great, and I was thinking Square
were going to improve them instead of just giving us the
Super Famicon version in CD form. All though they were
pretty good for RPG's back them they fail to meet today's
standards. I do like some seemingly 3D effects that were
tried like when you were in the Airship and when you seen
the meteor falling. The character size was about the same
from FF4 the only difference is now you seen their faces
move when they laughed or some times when they talked.
Normally I couldn't compare the older graphics from back
then to now but I have to here because of when it actually
came out.
Sound 8. 0/10
The music sounded good. I liked the FF prelude adaptation
here than any other version because after this one came out
it got messed up after wards with different beats and such.
The other town songs sounded great too and it was stuck on
your mind all the time you played this. The sound FX was
down to a bare minimum though you really didn't hear much.
Well early RPG's weren't too big on sound FX to start with
and this Final Fantasy is know different than them. Although
I did like the music on this and this saved the whole sound
category.
Game Play 10/10
This game featured the job system. The most unique and
innovative system for an RPG to date in my opinion. The idea
was you would assign each character a job, and when they
gained Ability Points to a certain amount they would gain a
new ability. The ability gaining part was the uniqueness
about it. Unlike FF6 were you were born with one you earned
them here. Some were quite useful, however others weren't
needed too much. Some jobs offered less Hp and more MP.
Usually Mages and magic users didn't have a high MP but
nights and monks and ninjas did. This is where the Job
system solves the problem, now if you have to fight some
particularly tough enemies or bosses you could have the
strength and HP of a Knight combined with the skills of a
Black Mage. Then mages had their faults they couldn't equip
swords or shields. This problem also solved because you can
gain a Knight up high enough to have even mages with swords,
which resulted in deadly combinations.
Almost every job besides bare, had a certain aspect that
could only be used wit hit, or until you mastered that job
with that character. For instance monks are able to kick, if
you master a monk you are also able to kick. Different mages
learned different spells and could only use certain types.
White Mages learned white magic like Cure and Raise. Blue
mages learned enemy skills, which could only be used if a
blue mage stood up to the spell. Time Mages learned time
magic like comet and slow, hyper. Then everyone's favorite
mage Black used elemental spells like fire and ice and
thunder. Their was also a summoner, summonmer's used summon
magic. These were great too, because they summoned the
powerful summon monsters. Summon monsters are cool but they
didn't play an important part in the game like we would of
like them have too. Like FF6 had Espers and they were key,
FF8 had GF's they were key for some reason Summon monsters
were ignored here. Anyway besides that they were still
powerful and all your old favorites were here like Ifrit and
Shiva. You also had your usual airship moogles and chocobos.
I liked the role moogles played in this game they were very
useful. The difficulty in this game was mega hard, and their
was a save and memo feature.
Overall 10 out of 10
I truly enjoyed this version of Final Fantasy. This has got
to be the hardest one to date, because yes I still haven't
beaten it yet : (. Anyway you would truly enjoy this version
even if you just heard of Final Fantasy or played any game
in this series. The replay value is high this is a great
game, and you will play it again and again for nostalgic
reasons. The fun factor is high, this is the only Final
Fantasy that had a flying Chocobo. Which is pretty cool when
you think about it. A lot of people complained about the
loading time in this game, I really didn't notice it is
about the same as Final Fantasy VIII. People shouldn't harp
on this type of thing because it isn't that bad it could
have been worst. This is a must get for RPG fans, you can
buy this on its lonesome, in a cheap used store, but its
worth more value together in the anthology pack.
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