Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy V was a monumental step forward, occupying a pensive niche at the time that somewhat channels the spirit of FFIII (mechanically) and FFII (tone), perhaps to both revisit and improve upon their past. FFIII may have introduced the job class system, but FFV gave it a whole new meaning. By pushing the customization aspect to the forefront, it emphasized strategic freedom thanks to carry-over abilities plus a wide range of combat options, enabled by a separate class EXP system complementing the grindy gameplay. A stark contrast to the overly simple skill systems of their previous output.

A more dramatic improvement lies in its story, boosted by a penchant for depressing moments, following a group of heroes embarking to save the world while painfully surveying its rapid decay little by little. A dejected view on early-era idealism, armed with a salvo of brief but effective emotional bombshells as fate's uncompromising hostility begins to invade their adventure. There are still moments of goofy levity about, namely the entertaining skits involving the comically villainous Gilgamesh. Unfortunately, the game tends to stumble badly by the end, unable to truly follow through with its bleak vision. But despite the disappointingly conventional feel-good ending, there's a fair chance for players to append it with some impactful, bittersweet results from the final boss battle.

FFV was the final Final Fantasy game I played in my Final Fantasy game marathon I did during Winter break of my Senior year in college. The previous year I bought all the main Final Fantasy games on a Playstation sale that was going on, but could never get into the games right away. Well a year later I decided to just suck it up and started with VII, and after the intro I actually grew to love the game and beat it after a week of playing it, then I went on to VI and beat that in a week, then IX which was also roughly a week of playing, and then the final week before going back to school I took on this one. V is the awkward game in the series because it is sandwiched between what are considered 2 of the greatest Final Fantasy games, and well V almost feels like a filler game.

I have to admit though the one thing I liked about this was the ability to choose classes for characters and then master multiple classes, so you could have a thief with good magic and then give them some combat on the side. This added more variety and I did actually like the World in this game too, yeah it wasn't as big or well designed as VI or VII, but I thought it worked fairly well for a fantasy game, and the music as always in phenomenal. I mean this was the weaker of the 4 games I played in that marathon, and it does have flaws. The story just didn't captivate me and felt a bit generic, the game did get a bit repetitive and tedious at times, and the huge difficulty spike near the end of the game was insane, I actually had to grind for the extremely difficult final boss that felt cheap compared to the other bosses in this game. I mean overall this is a decent RPG and game, but in terms of Final Fantasy its pretty middle of the road. Yeah its far from being one of the worst Final Fantasy games but its comes nowhere near the greats, and it didn't improve enough on IV to stand out.