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Nov 14, 2017
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Back for another round, this time after completing the amazing FFV . This one is a bit longer but I really really liked this one. (Sorry for the delay!)



Story and Characters

This was by far what surprised me the most by this game. While the story is simple: save crystals and stop bad guy from destroying the world. The characters and locations that inhabit this world make it a joy to experience.



Bartz, Lenna, Faris, Galuf, and Krile all bond on this adventure and by the end of it I really felt like they were friends. This is done by the hilarious writing and dramatic set pieces, it is filled with bad jokes and puns but in a way that you joke around with your friends. The situations encountered such as Lenna saving her drake by walking through poison, or Faris having to accept the loss of Slydra go a long way in developing feelings for these characters and making them feel like real people. Taking the time to develop the characters are what make the more dramatic moments so impactful. This was a short fall of FFIV due to the fact you have party changes so often. (I am not ashamed to admit I got some goosebumps and choked up during the ending montage)



The villain(s) were also great. Exdeath manages to strike a balance between being truly intimidating but also not being too serious. With classic lines such as "YOU FIGHT WELL FOR A REPTILE" and "Time for your viscera to see the light of day! Now die!" it never felt like the game was taking itself too seriously and helped with the overall tone. The real star is Gilgamesh though. He is easily my favorite character and brought a great amount of comic relief, I think his line ""Enough expository banter! Now, we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men! For Gilgamesh... IT IS MORPHING TIME!" is my favorite line in the series so far. He felt like a character right out of Undertale and I can certainly see where the inspiration for Papyrus may have came from.



The last thing to talk about is the overall world. Having essentially three worlds really helped keep things feelings fresh as you progressed and did a lot in the way of making the pace never feel stagnant. I also really enjoyed the inclusion of some popular series staples. This was the first big inclusion of chocobos and moogles in a story capacity and they help make everything feel much more "fantasy" and it's a feeling I very much enjoy.



Game play

Going into this I was very hesitant knowing that this was a job focuses game, but again, I was pleasantly surprised.



They really struck gold with this style of a job systems due to the variety of jobs as well as never feeling like I had to constantly grind every job for it to be useful. Mixing and matching abilities was fun and while SOME fights heavily favored certain compositions I never felt too constrained (However, two-handed is VERY strong and I sadly found myself just defaulting to the due to the amount of damage it provides).



The difficulty curve also never felt too harsh either. Other than the Exdeath fights the rest felt like you could beat them as long as you had a the right mix of jobs/ abilities. Some of the past entries have hit a huge spike of difficulty in the final dungeon and luckily FFV avoids that.



Another thing that is hard to describe is that the combat and game always felt fun. Never like it was dragging on too long or was frustrating.



Last Bits

This is very surprising, but this has become my favorite entry thus far. The loveable characreters, the smooth job system, and fantastic music make for a great Final Fantasy experience.

While this game is fairly old it felt very modern with it's mix of fun goofy humor and dramatic beats and I wonder if it was a bit ahead of it's time on release and never got that much recognition.


Thanks for reading, and be sure to share what you are think about FFV! (If you are interested in watching these games live, shoot me a message and I'll share the twitch channel)
 
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Jul 12, 2017
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Thanks for the small article on Final Fantasy 5(first released in 1992) and it's available to play on many ports these days as well, including Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. They enhanced the graphics in 2013 and it was released for iPhone and iPad, and also Android the same year as well,so you could check those different ports out as well.

 
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Feb 22, 2018
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The job system improvements is a good touch. As your expertness in jobs improves you gain more abilities
 
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Mar 19, 2018
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I loved the story. Hands up. Final Fantasy V was bae. So sad because of Aeri's death though.
 
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Oct 28, 2017
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The biggest surprise for me is the fact we only have 2 playable men. Most Final Fantasy casts are male majority. Also Bartz is the first openly LGBT Final Fantasy lead character. He is Bisexual since he liked Faris when he thought she was a man.
 
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The biggest surprise for me is the fact we only have 2 playable men. Most Final Fantasy casts are male majority. Also Bartz is the first openly LGBT Final Fantasy lead character. He is Bisexual since he liked Faris when he thought she was a man.
Not again with the sexual orientation.
 
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