Final Fantasy V

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Well there's no thread for this one and I just beat it. People were certainly right about it being an overlooked entry to the series, it was really good.

I like the story better than IV's (which I liked, don't get me wrong), but Bartz is a fun hero. Kinda like Zidane but funnier. I loved the scene when Bartz and Galuf find Faris sleeping. This is before the secret is revealed they just come out of the room with hearts over their heads with "dumb looks" on their faces, lol.

It was also interesting how few playable characters there were, obviously its like 1, 2, and 3 (and X-2 I guess) in that regard, but 4 had more. And especially considering the monstrous cast FF6 had... I like they way that can match a big cast, with unlikely friends and all that, but I do hate how the fina dungeon in 6 forces you to use all the characters you never wanted to, like Strago's granddaughter, whatever her name was, so I prefer it to that I suppose.

Exdeath is a good villain despite the stupid name, and even in the old graphics they did a pretty good job of displaying his power, flinging people around and such. Him being a tree is...kinda weird, but his monster art looked pretty sweet in the final battle. You know, I'd like to see Nomura design the monsters again rather than the characters for a new Final Fantasy. Could be interesting in 3D, because his designs in 5 and 6 were pretty freakin' sweet.
And of course, Gilgamesh, I haven't laughed aloud at a text game since, well, probably FF7. I can see why he's so popular, he's hilarious. And I like what they end up doing with the character, sad as it is :(

I think one of my favorite aspects about the story was that, instead this evil emerging after 1000 years of being sealed, it was defeated a mere 30 years ago. As such, all the original heroes are still alive. (Yes, there's brief mention of the Enuo battle 1000 years ago, but that has more to do with the legendary weapons than anything else.) It also makes it less cheesy somehow when a member of your party happen to be one of the first heroes. Because instead somehow existing for a 1000 years, it wasn't all that long ago.
FF10 did something similar with Sin being defeated 7(?) years ago, but it wasn't quite like this. All the heroes in 5 now rule various kingdoms and are shown to be pretty damn powerful, just aged.

The job system...it was fun, especially towards the ends when things start mastering more quickly and your strength ramps up exponentially to the point where you go back to Freelancer for your final battle and are pretty damn strong. However, it feels a little less well implemented than say Tactics. In Tactics you mostly pick jobs you like and make them work. In 5 I found myself more just switching the job depending on the boss I was fighting. That's fine in a game like X-2 since you can change IN the battle, but here it was just kind of a game of matching.

Anyway, those are my thoughts minutes after beating the game (my second FF in one semester, I'm on a roll ^_^! And now have played all but 2 and 3.)

Gilgamesh said:
Enough expository banter! Now we fight like men!
And ladies!
And ladies who dress like men!
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
FFV is probably my favourite in the series after VI and IX, mostly because of the gameplay. I don't like the story as much, but it's a lot better on a replay, mostly because a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense the first time around makes perfect sense when you know why it's happening.
 

Suzaku

Pro Adventurer
I've always really liked Exdeath as a villain. His origin is really unique, and despite being yet another "big guy covered in armor", his design really stands out to me, namely because of his colorscheme. Regarding his name, for a while, before the Ivalice Alliance games and the FFV retranslations nailed it down, people usually translated his name as Exodus.

FFV's definitely my favorite of the classic job-change games. It's been a while since I last played it, so I'm a bit fuzzy on some of the details, though.

Also, I generally enjoy Nomura's monster/enemy designs. He still does them, for Kingdom Hearts and I'm sure some of the Compilation titles (though I couldn't say how much actually falls to sub- and mechanical designers). And of course, he came back to design the superboss version of Enuo for FFV Advance, which is one of my favorite enemy designs of his. I'm always really impressed by his ability to emulate Amano's design principals so accurately and still make concrete designs out of them.
 

Tifabelle

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Tifabelle, Nathan Drake, Locke Cole, Kain Highwind, Yamcha, Arya Stark
WHAT? Why are there only 4 posts about this game?? TRAVESTY

Bartz was a great character. I feel like he was cooler than what Dissidia made him out to be. Dissidia has made him more...immature or childish. It's not how I've ever pictured Bartz.

Gilgamesh's greatest appearance! He needs moar appearances like this.

And I want to talk about the whole splinter thing. It reminds me of old time literature. idk why, but it's one of my favorite points in the game.

NOW RESPOND
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Well it was a very clever use of the whole Exdeath-is-a-tree concept. How would a living tree hide or stow away? As a splinter :monster: And like I said in my original post I love how powerful they managed to make Exdeath seems even with the limited graphics (they accomplished the same thing with Kefka).

As for Bartz, Dissidia caricaturizes everyone to an extent, and I got the impression that they were exaggerating his love of adventure rather than childishness, but I can see where you're coming from I guess.

One thing I didn't mention in my little review 2 years ago was how much I loved the soundtrack. All of it, really. The battle music is fun, the obligatory 'hurry'/'emergency' music is one of my favorite iterations of it. The theme for Faris' pirates, the Neo Exdeath fight, the library, the void, I could go on and on. It's a great soundtrack.

Also, I gushed about this in my Final Dungeon Retrospective, but the Phantom Village was an awesome and spooky concept.
 

Tifabelle

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Tifabelle, Nathan Drake, Locke Cole, Kain Highwind, Yamcha, Arya Stark
Oh you must finish it! I won't spoil it for you but GALUF OMFG.

The music was great. Battle on the Big Bridge is one of my all time favs :3 And the ending battle music was fantastic. The library music was great too :monster:

Lenna is meh. She's really nothing special. She just kind of blends. Faris is probably my fav of FFV.

The job system was cool for a game at that time. FFT I've never finished, so I can't really comment.

Force said:
As for Bartz, Dissidia caricaturizes everyone to an extent, and I got the impression that they were exaggerating his love of adventure rather than childishness, but I can see where you're coming from I guess.

Yeah that's true. I just...pictured him differently I guess. A brave and fun adventurer, idk. I didn't see that in Dissidia.

Well it was a very clever use of the whole Exdeath-is-a-tree concept. How would a living tree hide or stow away? As a splinter :monster:

And you know, they probably couldn't do a storyline that like today without people being up in arms. They got away with a lot more stuff back in those days. They should go back to some of it.

And like I said in my original post I love how powerful they managed to make Exdeath seems even with the limited graphics (they accomplished the same thing with Kefka).

Exdeath was a great villian. Highly underrated, often forgotten about. I never cared for his "over-armored" appearance, but his storyline is fantastic. And he's different than most FF villians, being something other than human. It makes him somewhat otherwordly, and more mysterious in a way, rather than just a human who's crazy or power-hungry.
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Well, Exdeath-type villains frequently show up as end bosses, see Cloud of Darkness, Zemus/Zeromus, Necron. But it is a bit unique for the "collected sum of all evil" guy actually BE the villain for the entire game. He and Kefka are polar opposites, I guess. As Kefka is sort of unique as being a villain that is completely human and completely under his own control and faculties the entire game.

Also interestingly, for as underrated as V is, it seems to permeate the rest of the series with references to Boko and Gilgamesh popping up all over the place. I guess the fact that it was the first FF for a lot of SE's current leaders plays no small role in that.
 
Last edited:

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
It's worth pointing out that this is one of the two games where I bothered doing this:

ff5_2.png


(note that this includes mastering all jobs)

FFVI was the other. I started doing it with FFX but got bored about halfway through.
 

Tifabelle

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Tifabelle, Nathan Drake, Locke Cole, Kain Highwind, Yamcha, Arya Stark
Well, Exdeath-type villains frequently show up as end bosses, see Cloud of Darkness, Zemus/Zeromus, Necron. But it is a bit unique for the "collected sum of all evil" guy actually BE the villain for the entire game. He and Kefka are polar opposites, I guess. As Kefka is sort of unique as being a villain that is completely human and completely under his own control and faculties the entire game.

Yeah, it's rare for the end boss to be the same guy that you're fighting at the beginning. But that's for shock value. Like, oh you thought it would be that easy? Here is some all powerful superbeing you didn't know existed until now. But Sephiroth falls in with Kefka too.

Also interestingly, for as underrated as V is, it seems to permeate the rest of the series with references to Boko and Gilgamesh popping up all over the place. I guess the fact that it was the first FF for a lot of SE's current leaders plays no small role in that.

I think V gets forgotten about a lot. It's a great game. I don't think it's as good as say VI, but it's definitely good in its own right. Like I said, these guys should look at games like V, VI, VII...and look at what it was that worked. Although maybe in the future, people will be saying XII & XIII were the best games! They should go back to that! It's probably subjective to which games you played first.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
It's a lot easier to do when you have Turbo Mode. If I'd been emulating FFX I probably would've finished in that game as well.
 

Flowing Ice

Pro Adventurer
I haven't posted on here in AGES, but felt like posting in this thread. I agree on FFV being pretty dang awesome. I've only played through it once, but I'm highly anticipating the eventual 3DS remake.
 

Ryushikaze

Deus Admiral Parsimonious, PHD, DDS, MD, JD, OBE
AKA
Tim, Ryu
Yeah, it's rare for the end boss to be the same guy that you're fighting at the beginning. But that's for shock value. Like, oh you thought it would be that easy? Here is some all powerful superbeing you didn't know existed until now. But Sephiroth falls in with Kefka too.

Arguably 1, definitely 2, 7, and 9, save it's literal final boss, and oddly, 10 and 10-2 have you fight the guy who troubled you from the start.


I think V gets forgotten about a lot. It's a great game. I don't think it's as good as say VI, but it's definitely good in its own right. Like I said, these guys should look at games like V, VI, VII...and look at what it was that worked. Although maybe in the future, people will be saying XII & XIII were the best games! They should go back to that! It's probably subjective to which games you played first.

The reason V is glossed over is because we missed it the first time around.
 

AvecAloes

Donator
Bumping this now because I'm almost finished with it...also using spoiler tags just in case :P

Really have enjoyed this game so far. There were a few frustrating times, especially early on, where I was trying out new jobs before I was really leveling up in any of them and ended up getting my arse stomped by even random battles, but once I kind of figured out the job system and decided what jobs I liked best, things got easier. Now that I'm nearing the very end
or at least I assume very near the very end, as I'm up against Exdeath/Neo Exdeath now
though, I think I may have spent a little too much time ABP grinding and not enough time actually gaining levels, because I've been having quite a bit of difficulty surviving many of the attacks I'm facing now. My HP is probably too low. I'm not sure what the "normal" level range is considered for being where I am in the game, but I'm starting to think I must be below it. I can dish out decent damage, as I've mastered my favorite jobs and have the most powerful spells and summons, but I just can't seem to take the damage gracefully. Smeh, I guess I'll see what I can do. I'd rather not grind, but if that's the only way, I will.

So far, I think I'd have to say my favorite character is Faris. Intriguing backstory, and if I had to choose one of them to be in a bar fight with (what, isn't that your standard judge of a character? :P), I'd have to choose her, as I'm sure she's had to swashbuckle plenty of burly men on her own. I mean, heck,
she passed as a man, for crying out loud,
I think she can handle her own. I found Lenna to be kind of...forgettable. Pitiable, in some ways, to be sure, but overall, eh. Bartz was fun, and I thought his origin was a really nice touch, as well as Galuf
and Krile. Also, I did not know what would happen to Galuf, really, that caught me off guard, and yeah, put a lump in my throat
.

I am LOVING the final dungeon. I think it might be my favorite final dungeon, though IX's would be a very very close 2nd, if not an even tie. Mirage was incredibly unsettling, as was the portion where it looks like you're following tower walls but not all of the parts are visible, as though they didn't quite make it through the transition...

I will most likely have more to say once I beat the game (and once I'm not posting from my phone :P).
 

AvecAloes

Donator
Ok, double posting because I just finished the game. It took me....5? tries to defeat Exdeath, but I finally got him.
The first couple of times I tried to fight Exdeath, I kept everyone as I had them going through the dungeon - Bartz was a ninja whose main ability was Zenigage, Lenna was a white mage with black as her ability, Krile was a time mage with summon, and Faris was a dragoon with...mug, I think. After having problems, at the behest of Force (and a strat guide...), I switched everyone back to the Freelancer job. Gave Bartz +20%hp and rapid fire while he was using two powerful swords (so I did 8 attacks per turn), Lenna still had white and black magic, but by just being a Freelancer her HP automatically went up, and I used her to cast shell on everyone as quickly as I could, Krile still had time and summon magics, and I caste Hastega and summoned Golem as quickly as possible, then summoned Bahamut over and over, while I gave Faris the jump command and Zenigage, which I spammed until I ran out of gil, and then jumped every round. Well, at least until he used Grand Cross, which took Bartz, Lenna, and Krile down to single digit HP and mini'd Lenna, and put Faris into berserk. Thankfully, I only went through one round like that, and Lenna summoned Bahamut once more and finally finished him off. I'd be interested to hear how any of you went about defeating him...I like comparing strategies ^_^

I apparently missed some fun dialogue with Gilgamesh, mainly due to my spamming Zenigage earlier in the game, and I also killed him before Exdeath could cast him into the void, so I also missed one more battle with him, and an appearance by him at the end of one of the boss battles before you reach Exdeath. I'm more than a little disappointed. I ground for ABP too much, and this makes me sad.

I liked the end of the game. It was surprisingly long, especially in comparison to, oh, say, VII ( :monster: ), and I thought that it wrapped up the story and emotional ends quite nicely.

Annnnd I'm running out of steam/getting tired...so...that's enough for now
 

Ghost X

Moderator
I had learnt all jobs by the time I faced Exdeath, and so had all characters on free lancer. Been months since I played, so I can't exactly remember my strategy, but I think a lot of mime and bahamut was involved. Seemed to take forever to kill. One of the more challenging final bosses if you don't know what you're doing. As for the game itself, incredibly underrated. I enjoyed it more than FFVI.
 

AvecAloes

Donator
There were so many jobs that I didn't learn, and in fact never used. Once I found my favorites, I stuck with them, often declining to change to a new job once I'd mastered the old one. I think everyone averaged mastering 2 or 3 jobs each. And yes, the final battle took quite a while, just because of its nature, and having to make sure my buffs and HP were maintained.

As for the game - definitely underrated, as you said, Ghost. I thought the pacing throughout was good, and the game was just challenging enough without being too frustrating (I mean, there were definitely a few times that I gave up for the night, and I think that might have lead to my ABP grinding, but it wasn't so difficult even in those times that I didn't want to keep playing), the characters were concise and I kinda liked only having to get to know 5 characters (hhaaaaaaa VI lulz), the villain was evil, the final dungeon was just freaking awesome, the comic relief was excellent...all around, really good game. Really glad I got to play it (yay GBA emulator :D).
 

Ghost X

Moderator
Though my primary goal was to improve my freelancer stats when learning all jobs, I personally found it fun to learn the crappier jobs, or at least learn strategies with each job and find out they weren't so bad after all. But yeah, after I mastered them, I never used 'em again :awesome:. Once you're in the final dungeon it's fairly easy to master each job, due to the ABP available. I just stocked up on items and battled away. Since you've beaten the final boss though, there may be less incentive :P.

On my first and only play through, I tried to achieve everything one possibly could in the game so I didn't have to play it again (find everything, defeat everything etc). I think the only thing I haven't done was defeat the super boss (Omega Weapon? forgot the name). Tried a few times, and failed miserably, so I gave up :wacky:.
 

AvecAloes

Donator
I straight up avoided Omega. I knew that at the time that I could have encountered him, my party wouldn't have been able to last.

I noticed how much ABP was being handed out in the final dungeon, but I was too scared to try switching to jobs that I had no experience in at that point, especially because the very first encounter I ran into in the final dungeon kicked my ass all over the place. I ran into two King Behemoths, and they just kept casting Meteor on my party. That was just after I had finally defeated the boss that stands between you and entering the Rift, who had given me loads of trouble, and then I had to go back and fight him....again. So that was a little disheartening, which led me to try to play it as safe as possible throughout the rest of the dungeon, using my best skills and the best combinations of abilities that I could come up with, haha.
 

Ghost X

Moderator
The group I had trouble with in the final dungeon was the one that had the necromancer and the mind flayer in it. If I recall correctly, sometimes they'd be able to cast zombie powder and mind blast in a single turn and kill my team. There were tactics I could've used to easily defeat them, but I didn't use 'em :P. King Behemoths on the other hand counter any magic and summons with meteor, so you just attack 'em physically :P.
 

AvecAloes

Donator
Ghost X said:
King Behemoths on the other hand counter any magic and summons with meteor, so you just attack 'em physically
Ah, see, when I first encountered them, I didn't know that, and so suffered the consequences. Hard.

I must have been extremely lucky with the necromancers and mindflayers, though, because I don't recall ever having that happen when I ran into them. Either that or I spammed Zenigage against them. Which is likely.
 

Kermitu Kleric Katie

KULT OF KERMITU
I find it interesting how GILGAMESH's first American appearance was inn FFVIII, which was first released in America only a few weeks before FFV was. He barely got his first US appearance in VIII.
 

Lex

Administrator
I'm completed this game twice before years ago, but it's definitely my least played FF and I can barely remember it.

So I'm doing another run. Lost my save yesterday etc but managed to catch up/ move forward with it today, and all I can say is WOW. I remember it being more natively difficult than other FF's, if that makes any sense - but I didn't really seem to be having problems until the boss fight with the 4 crystals. I remember them being a problem before but I KNOW I was overlevelled and it literally took me more than 15 attempts!!!

THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME IN A FF GAME. I'd get it if they were ultimate super fainaru bossu but they're a mid-story boss! A really hard mid-story boss! Also I'm finding the extreme encounter rate at this point in the game really annoying. I never usually run from battles but I've found myself bored with the repetition in some of the areas. Just let me get from my dragon to the bloody town will you? It's only 4 squares of space away.

No says the game. You must endure two random battles first :facepalm:

Just to clarify, I'm about to go to Ex-Death's castle for a second time.
 

AvecAloes

Donator
I noticed (and sometimes abhorred) the high random encounter rate in this game, too. Of course I understand the point and the purpose, but sometimes it just felt like it was interrupting the flow of the story - I just want to finish my business in this damn area, game, so I can get to more story! etc.

I don't think I had that much trouble with the four crystals battle during my play through (I *think* the key was to take them on individually, if I remember correctly), but there were other bosses which certainly gave me a hell of a time. There were times that I actually wondered if I'd be able to move forward in the game because I'd be stuck fighting some boss many times over and just getting my ass handed to me. The FF game I played most recently before this one was VI, and I don't remember having nearly as much trouble with that one as I did this one. Now, I wasn't playing that one alone, and we did look up the info on many of the bosses we came up against because we were working under a time frame, but still. I used a walk through for much of V (I hate feeling lost in a game) but that didn't change the difficulty of some of the bosses. A lot of them just seemed to have moves that would kill you before you could even do anything.
 
Top Bottom