Summer.
It comes every year, and always brings with it shouts of “Why aren’t you outside,
playing like a normal kid?”
Because outside is overrated.
It’s literally the oldest thing in the world.
In the millennia modern Man has been putzing about this earth, we’ve invented countless
distractions to distract ourselves from the fact that there’s ticks and bees and wolves
and sunspots and people who listen to Foreigner unironically out there.
“Out there” is not a place I should be.
And so I resolve to spend this summer, and in fact this Super Famicom Friday, safe and
sound and playing Final Fantasy V. Because Final Fantasy V is summer.
And this, it should be mentioned, is the first - and for a long time, only - release of FFV.
Legend has it that Square thought the whole Job System would make western heads explode,
from Kilkenny to Kennebunkport, and shelved the whole thing, instead choosing to give
us IV and VI and call them II and III because, hey, it was the 90’s.
People listened to Ace of Base.
Unironically.
That’s the kind of time it was.
A time before using L and R buttons to switch between characters on an Equipment screen.
I could spend almost the entire review just going over what this game lacks compared to
its contemporaries… but honestly, I did all that in talking about the improvements
Final Fantasy V Advance made.
This isn’t Advance.
This is pretty De-vanced.
But it’s still one of the greatest RPGs ever made.
First off, and in stark contrast to many other titles both in its series and in the general
time-frame…
it doesn’t take itself seriously.
You’ve got a goofball protagonist, who only really suffers angst when, y’know, his hometown
is sucked into an extradimensional void.
Until then, his interests are chillin’ with between one to three princesses at a time,
cruisin’ on his sex machine chocobo Boko, and dabbling in job after job to turn himself
into the ultimate killing machine.
Okay, so you’re the one who does that for him.
Point is, FFV represents an important tweak to the Job mechanics that FFIII pioneered,
in that you now have…
AN OPEN SLOT.
That’s right, you could actually mix and match your skills.
That’s why the Job system is so beloved.
You want a Red Mage who also dabbles in Blue Magic?
Make it.
You want a Chemist who picks pockets in his spare time?
Make it.
You want a Corsair Samurai with a Pluto’s Staff for Seigan and spamming Leaden Salute?
Make it in Final Fantasy XI.
Close enough.
Lemme take just a moment, too, to bring up V’s greatest contribution to the series
as a whole: BLUE MAGES.
Or, how to cheat at Final Fantasy by trying a lot.
The entire Blue Magic spell list is just a mass of utility powers and ultra-situational
skills, which can go the entire game without being used but just completely wipe a boss
battle off the face of the earth because the numbers just happen to align a certain way.
The more attention you pay to the game, the more you learn, the more you understand these
tricks and can blow through parts of the game fast.
Too fast.
Too fast to, y’know, survive Titan’s parting attack.
Unless you know to go back to the mountain where Lenna constantly poisons herself, control
this flying cat thing, make it Float the party, then leave and head back.
Ridiculous?
Yes.
And that’s why I love it.
There’s a trick to absolutely everything in this game, and you’re rewarded handsomely
for learning them.
The sprite art on the overworld hasn’t expanded to FFVI’s standard of two-tile sprites yet,
but there’s still plenty of character packed into these pixels.
Really, the most frustrating part of the visual presentation are the menus, both for control
and quality-of-life issues.
The rest of the art - from the enemies to the customized job sprites for each character
in your party - are well-handled, if a bit grainy on today’s larger displays.
The music, on the other hand…
well, it all boils down to one piece.
And you know what piece I’m talking about.
Yeah.
Behold, Final Fantasy V, the true champion of summer, winner of dollars, distributer
of Berserkers.
The RPG that answers the question, “What level is this boss, anyway?”
with a resounding, “20.
You know what that means.”