In 1997, Final Fantasy VII was released on PlayStation.
The last installment of the series to our knowledge was Final Fantasy III on Super Nintendo
in 1994.
So what happened to 4, 5, and 6, and why were we at VII all of sudden?
Turns out that we’d been neglected a Final Fantasy game... or three.
Seven years after it’s initial release, the world outside of Japan would finally get
an official release on PlayStation of Final Fantasy V.
According to an interview with Ted Woolsey, an American translator for Square, FF5 was
quote “just not accessible enough to the average gamer" which doesn’t really say
much or seem like a valid enough reason to not release a game that was part of my all
time favorite series.
Turns out what he was talking about was the in-depth job system in Final Fantasy V, the
most distinguishing feature of the game.
You start off as Bartz with his faithful chocobo friend, Boco, investigating a meteorite landing
near by, running into Reina and Galuf.
Reina is looking for her father the king who went to check on the Wind Crystal.
On your way there, you pick up a pirate, Faris, who decides to join your quest.
Eventually the wind crystal shatters into pieces and this is where the game actually
gets going, so it’s now you job to check out the remaining water, fire and earth crystals.
The crystal shards grants your adventures the ability to choose different jobs to take
on and learn new abilities.
This is the highlight of Final Fantasy V, and the feature that Woolsey thought would
only appeal to experienced gamers and die-hard fans.
Each job gains unique skills and now in addition to xp you’ll always receive Ability points
to earn job levels which give you even more abilities to customize your characters.
These learned abilities can be used in combination with other jobs, so you can have a knight
that can cast white magic or black mage that can steal and so forth.
This wasn’t the first Final Fantasy game to use this type of gameplay.
Final Fantasy 3 also featured a similar job system.
And as we know now, it was certainly not the last time we’d see this feature, most notably
Final Fantasy Tactics, FFX-2, and both MMOs Final Fantasy XI and XIV.
I enjoy the system, it offers a lot of customization and something else to work toward instead
of just levels.
My only complaint of the system is, at least at first, it’s a bit of grind to learn abilities.
Most battles will only give you 1 ability point and some abilities will cost 50 to 100
points to learn.
Bit of trivia, this would be the first appearance of some common final fantasy jobs, like Blue
Mage, Time Mage and Mime.
The job system is quite extensive.
You can tell they put quite a bit of effort into it and this is why it really stands out,
and also why not much else does in Final Fantasy V.
The plot eventually unfolds a bit more but is a bit predictable and cliche at times.
Graphics are decent, but seem to be a bit reminiscent of FF4.
I do like that there is different sprites for each character for each job, but again
that just adds to the job system.
Sound is good, it’s hard to go wrong with Nobuo Uematsu, but none of the tracks really
stand out as great, especially compared to other Final Fantasy games.
I’m reviewing the PlayStation version because, well A it’s the version I own... and B its
historical significance in it’s release.
But you can also get FF5 on Game Boy Advance which features additional jobs, new dungeon,
a optional boss, and a new English translation, the last reason is probably why It’s been
said by some that the GBA version is the best one out there.
So if you’re really interested in finding out what we missed all those years ago, pick
up a copy of Final Fantasy V, whether on PlayStation or Game Boy Advance, and its been announced
that PlayStation will be re-releasing this title as
a PSOne classic.