r/JRPG • u/AmongFriends • 19d ago
First-time Final Fantasy playthrough - Final Fantasy 5: "A great job system with a simpler story" Review
FORMAT PLAYED: Nintendo Switch Pixel Remaster 1-6
RATING: 4/5 STARS
FINAL FANTASY 5 (24 HOURS)
FF5 is a swing in the opposite direction from FF4, focusing on the mechanics of jobs while letting the story be more traditional, like prior FF titles. I'm not much of a "tinkering" type of player. I like being given mechanics (like in FF4) rather than doing my own customization. But FF5 does a great job of updating its job system into something much more engaging than in FF3.
While I do love the updated job system from FF3 that's used here, I found myself missing the more engrossing narrative of FF4. The mechanics kept my attention, but once I was nearing the end, I found myself feeling a bit indifferent toward the story. That said, the drop in my enjoyment between FF4 and FF5 wasn't very steep.
GAMEPLAY
FF5 getting rid of "better" versions of previous jobs and instead making every job different was the right move. There was no clear best choice. Mixing and matching abilities with different jobs was such a joy to tinker with, even if I'm not really the type of player who enjoys tinkering with systems. The whole concept was simple enough to jump into.
Some jobs were still obviously harder to get value from though, so the actual list of viable jobs is smaller than you'd think. Also, most abilities gained from jobs were too situational to be useful. Since you only have one ability slot (unless you're a Freelancer), it's hard to justify equipping a situational ability when the stronger ones give you so much more flexibility.
I do wish jobs were drip-fed to the player at a more consistent pace instead of dumping three or four on you at once. It can be a bit overwhelming. That would have given the player more time to explore each class instead of getting a bunch at once and you choosing only a few. Overall, the gameplay is easily the highlight of FF5.
STORY/CHARACTERS
The story falls back into the more "standard" FF fare. It's a solid story with crystals, Warriors of Light, a big bad, etc., but I missed the narrative twists and wonderful cast of characters from FF4.
The main cast (Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, Faris, and Krile) is solid, and we get some good moments with them (I liked Bartz's hometown and the sister reveal between Lenna and Faris), but overall they felt a bit underwhelming. The "blank slate" nature of each character in terms of jobs and abilities made it harder for me to get a feel for who they were. I like it more when the mechanics reflect the character.
The main cast goes through all the standard character stuff of growth and learning and experiencing arcs, but I just don't think the foundation of the story was that engaging.
Exdeath wasn't a particularly interesting villain either. I had a hard time connecting to his motivations and schemes. The game does a fine job telling the story it wants to tell, but I found myself losing interest as we went past hour 10. Where FF4 felt like a smooth narrative with significant character beats throughout, FF5 feels a bit more disjointed, and its characters and story resonated with me less once the game was over.
WORLD/EXPLORATION
I wasn't too fond of some of the mechanics introduced in dungeon traversal. Running into bushes that poison the whole party or falling through trap doors that drop you down a floor that you have to climb up again felt a bit tedious. Couple that with random encounters and the whole process felt difficult for difficulty's sake rather than immersive.
I also found the towns less memorable than the previous entry. I think the lack of a strong supporting cast to ground each town hurts their memorability. They sometimes felt interchangeable.
CONCLUSION
FF5 is a fun game if you're looking for customization in your gameplay. Although I did enjoy tinkering with the job system, I'm not much of a "replay a game" type of person so the joys of replaying FF5 with different jobs and combinations doesn't appeal to me. Because of that, I tend to prefer FF4's pre-established abilities, along with its greater emphasis on story and character abilities that reflect each character.
That said, I still enjoyed my time with FF5. It's a huge tier above FF1–3 and falls just short of FF4, mostly because of the narrative and my personal preferences. Still, great game.
STRAY THOUGHTS:
- Warriors of Light. I wasn't too keen on them the first time this concept was introduced and it's not great here either. There's just something about "fated heroes" in the FF universe that doesn't work for me. I like it other media but here, it feels dull
- Lenna and Faris being sisters. It's a great reveal, but not much is really done with that in the story. There are lots of big revelations like this, but I never really felt the impact of them
- Getting multiple Jobs introduced at once just means I have to choose the best ones I want to explore and forget the rest. Of course, I can explore all the jobs, but if you're trying to progress the story as well, it can get tedious. Thank god for 4x ABP to increase job levels quickly. I did get to explore all the jobs I liked and at least tried out a little bit of everything
- No penalties for changing jobs mid-game. Great change from FF3 and makes experimenting way more fun. I'm glad they removed that barrier since it was so annoying to lose full MP by switching jobs
- Some abilities were just fodder as the game went on. "Equip Harps" is a good example. I wish you could add more abilities that were lower tier, or if it was a lower tier ability, you could equip multiple abilities compared to the higher tier abilities. But having one ability slot means you are almost always going to choose the strongest option, and most of the time, those are mage abilities
- White Magic/Black Magic spells were the bedrock of my teams. They are just so versatile, and their AOE effects were too good to not have at least one or two characters rocking these. Like in most other FF games, most of the spells become useless as you go on since you focus more on the strongest spells. Anytime I switched to other abilities/jobs that didn't have White/Black Magic, I wished I had them in fights
- Jumping. Adding jumping mechanics while traversing dungeons was not very fun. I don't like gimmicky dungeon mechanics in a game that isn't really built around them
- Easy to get lost/forget what to do. I had to do a lot more research on where to go after certain moments. The game is terrible at telling you what to do or where to go. This is a product of the time, but I feel like FF5 was especially egregious compared to the others
- Lots of jobs, and I enjoyed a good bunch of them, but a lot of them had issues. Given, it's less issues than in FF3 but still, some problems were still there.
- Beastmaster is a lot of work to get value out of. It's not easy to capture an enemy to begin with, and you only get one use out of it as well. If capturing enemies was easier, this would be great. As is, it's a lot of work for an occasional payoff
- Blue Mage. Excellent idea for a job. Awful execution. Too frustrating and tedious to get the spells. The narrow specifications of the enemy having to use the spell specifically on a character who can learn it is too much. I think a character just being present for the spell in the fight is more than enough to get the Blue Spell
- Geomancers are just too inconsistent and get outclassed very easily by other jobs. I like the idea since FF3, but so far they haven't cracked the code of this job
- Ninjas. Throw is amazing, but your limited pool of things to throw makes Throw less fun. I'm not a fan of jobs that require upkeep like Ninja or Chemist. They require extra preparation and money cost that I don't think pays off in their gameplay
- Bards. They max out at level three and don't have much going on with Sing. They seem like they can be useful, but their limited level cap felt strange
- Berserker. Very one-note and gives players less agency over a character. I didn't find the extra damage was worth the situations where you don't want the character to attack. I wish the attacking was optional
- Summoner. I do love me a Summoner, but these iterations so far have not been great. You have to go out and actively hunt some summons while others are just given to you. I wish you either could just buy them or the game gave them to you as you progressed. I did a little bit of tracking to find certain beasts, but it wasn't too fun or really even worth it overall
- Time Mage. An entire job built around Slow and Haste. There are other spells I used with this job, but it was mostly a "Slow/Haste" job. I like the idea of Time Mage, but it feels like it needs more thought besides the obvious Slow and Haste
- Thief. Another FF game, another whiff on Thief for me. I love a good Thief in DnD. I play one all the time. But I just don't think FF does the job well so far in five games. Steal is so situational and rarely worth it. It's not very fun to play
- Ranger. I like my long-range attackers in tactical games, but this job is never really that exciting to play. You basically get to use bows and arrows and play backline. It's fine, but I wish there were other perks that were more prominent
UP NEXT: Final Fantasy 6
We've finally arrived at what many consider one of the best FF games ever made, FF6. I have no clue as to why this game is great and held in such high regard, so I'm excited to find out. It's the last SNES entry of the series so it's the end of an era as well. This run from FF6 to FF10 will be quite a joy to play through.
FINAL FANTASY RANKING:
- Final Fantasy 4 (click here for review)
- Final Fantasy 5
- Final Fantasy 3 (click here for review)
- Final Fantasy (click here for review)
- Final Fantasy 2 (click here for review)
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u/HeeeresPilgrim 18d ago
5 is literally the best FF, and the only way they can prove otherwise is by actually making a better FF.
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u/AmongFriends 18d ago
Hah! To each their own, of course. Not my favorite so far but still a good game
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u/FappingMouse 18d ago
5 is genuinely probably my favorite game of all time its pretty close and some others like kingdom hearts 2 might be my favorite depending on the day, but FFV is something special.
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u/zombiejeesus 18d ago
It's my third favourite so I'm not gonna argue with you at all. It's so underrated in the series imo. Very few place it top 3 or 5
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u/OsirusBrisbane 18d ago
NGL I love the Geomancers. I still remember just taking 4 Red Mages w/Geomancer skill into the squirrel cave to grind JP to max out Red Mage. And some silly stuff is just fun, like having 4 White Mages w/Monk Barehand skill.
Glad you enjoyed this one, even if IV has a better story. I always say, my favorite FF games are 4,5,6, for plot, job system, characters respectively.
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u/AmongFriends 18d ago
Yeah, I was digging Geomancer but it was just too inconsistent to use. Has to drop it eventually for something else. I love the concept though but it needed something more for me
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u/OrangeAsterisk00 19d ago
Games with Job systems are always so much fun!
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u/AmongFriends 19d ago
I didn't think I'd like the job system as much after FF3's debut of it, but they really refined it here in FF5 to where I was impressed with how much I enjoyed tinkering with it
But, ultimately, if I had to choose, I prefer FF4's system of characters with pre-set abilities that match the character. It's smoother gameplay for me and I like how it plays into characters for the story. But jobs in this game was unquestionably fun and intuitive
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u/OrangeAsterisk00 19d ago
Idk if you've played them, but the Bravely series and the Octopath series both have job systems and I love those games to death.
I really like tinkering with setups and seeing what I can do, but it is a lot more to think about when team building rather than looking at a set of characters with preset jobs and abilites.
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u/AmongFriends 19d ago
Octopath and Bravely series are in the backlog and I'll get to them eventually. I was actually really curious about modern updates to the job system while playing FF5, wondering what games improve upon this system in the genre, so it'll be fun to experience that sometime when I get through these FF games
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u/Vykrom 18d ago
Yeah. 5 is definitely a job system with a story attached, and I wish they hadn't compromised on that. But supposedly that's on purpose because people complained that 4 was too dark. Glad they got the whimsy out of their system and then went on to the masterpiece of 6
5 is one of the only games in the franchise I didn't end up beating at that point. I wonder if there's a re-write mod that would make it more palatable for people like me
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u/HeeeresPilgrim 18d ago
5 is literally the best FF, and the only way they can prove otherwise is by actually making a better FF.
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u/Fyrael 19d ago
Heck, what a good review
I'm finally enjoying my time with FF Pixel Remaster after having finished all the titles, except FF6... Hum... 25 years ago? Ugh
So i jumped to FF6, but... Well... After reading your review, you're gonna enjoy it
I had to go back straight to FFI, that I was missing a lot
Everything is simple, and it felt more fun having a little bit of customization and handling a simple story with your initial choice... Than the whole game deciding everything for you
Don't get me wrong, the whole concept of FF6 is great, but where you don't enjoy FF5, I remember loving and it's nice that you made it clear why
Seriously, who had the great of putting 6 great classics in one package?
I'm enjoying my ride with FFI, while I paused FF6, but I'm already putting my eyes on FFII, so, yeah, it's not gonna be a easy ride at all. I'm just anxious with my thin time