I encourage you to keep an eye out for other similarities and callbacks to FFIII, coming so fresh off of it, as there are quite a lot of them. As you might expect, this game is as much a sequel to FFIII as it is FFIV.
I will...well, I will try. While doing these write-ups, I realize that I tend to overlook interesting stuff. Feel free to point out stuff that I missed.
I like this game a lot.
In medieval alchemy, quintessence means "a pure essence latent in all things and the substance of which the heavenly bodies are composed," literally "fifth essence." (The other four being, of course, "fire, earth, water, air" hmm.)
I find it potent that in a lot of ways FFV is the quintessential Final Fantasy.
I would like to say something clever here, but because it's just me, I'll stick with "Well said".
The FF5 Advance translation made Bartz out to be so, so dumb. Charmingly dumb, but dumb all the same. Does he come off that way in the SNES fan translation?
As far as I know, the SNES version has less flavour, because it was a fan-translation (as good as it was). There seem to be some nuances missing, especially when it comes to the party characters. But Bartz still isn't the brightest candle - there is a scene where he is woken up by his friends, and instead of doing it like a normal person, I jumps out of bed and...gets ready to fight, I think? Then the room brightens up, and it's clear that Bartz was still in half-sleep, and didn't realize that it was only his friends, who tell him that he is a weirdo. That he crashed into a wall at the start, when Boko suddenly stopped, also points to the game saying: Yeah, he is a charmingly dumb guy. With the focus on charmingly, I like Bartz a lot.
Blue Magic is hard to find but it is like all the other magic in that you only need one "copy". If one person picks up a Blue spell, everyone can use it if they equip the !Blue skillset.
I plan to not share jobs, so this will likely have no practical use for me, but it's nice to know. Thanks!
Oh, something that's not intuitive that might be helpful to know. If you get the Equip ____ skill from a job, using that skill means you get the relevant stat from the job that gave it to you. Equip Rod and Equip Staff give you the Magic stat of a Time (?) or White Mage, and Equip Lance gives you the Strength of a Dragoon, and so on.
I didn't know this! So, basically the Monks Brawl ability is sort of an "equip fists", right? That makes these "equip x" skills immediately more interesting.
I will join in again, playing the GBA version. Last time I played was the Super Famicom game on a SNES Classic, patched to incorporate the GBA script. It was a great way to experience the game, but now I want to stick to handheld play.
Nice to have you along for the ride, again. I'm looking forward to read more of your impressions. Especially considering your unique perspective on the game - considering that most people look at the story and characters as second-rate, I'm interested in reading more from you.
- I've never formally or otherwise participated in the Four Job Fiesta, because it's simply not the way I usually want to interact with the game, but this time I'm willing to go ahead with that approach as long as it seems tenable and interesting. Just rolling the dice come every Crystal and Job line-up; a character gets that one Job to use as they may from then on, and duplicates from a set are allowed. That's how I landed on Bartz the Knight, Lenna and Galuf the Monks, and Faris the Blue Mage. Simple and powerful, and whenever a game allows me to ignore dedicated healers, I tend to sway that way anyway. It's a real hurdle to reliably pick up Blue Magic like this, though: only one valid target out of four, and the Monks counterattack the enemies you're trying to bait to death all the time, leading to a lot of superfluous learning sessions. At least the EXP, AP and gil roll in!
Yeah, the way I learned the first two Blue Magic spells was by killing off the three other characters, and waiting for Bartz to get attacked. Doesn't feel very nice of me, but thankfully that wasn't necessary for the other ones I picked up already.
- There is no boss battle to cap things off, but instead more character interaction and Faris's introduction, which I think highlights where the comparative attentions of these games are: IV used characters as plot tickets to move events forward where they needed to go, whereas V is really invested in their mutual ribbing, asides and internal thoughts even if the assessment of them most often declaims them as too plain or forgettable. Again, I think it's in the contrast between the games's storytelling approaches: IV gives you loud, cartoonish melodrama to latch onto and form impressions of its cast with--V contains just as much lively character but it's often doled out in little interpersonal sketches and character interactions that are more textured than the endless retinues of introductions and catching-ups IV's party dynamics often consisted of. These characters are just more diversely developed over time, which is one of the benefits of a cast that's mostly locked in and not separated for the game's duration.
Yeah, that contrast between IV and V is really interesting, and I think I prefer the one V took. These character moments are, for the most part, very charming. In IV, you travel with people who might share part of your goals, but who are not really part of your group in a real sense (Tellah is a prime example, he leaves as soon as we don't serve his purpose anymore). Here, I already feel like this is a group of friends, who not only enjoy the journey (which, too, is very contrary to IV), but also enjoy each others company.
The comparison with IX that you made later on is very fitting too. These scenes, where you see what people outside your party are doing are very charming, and give you a sense of more to the world than just the journey. Both V and IX go deep into the state of their main characters, and look not only at what they suffer from, but also what they enjoy.
- god bless Kazuko Shibuya, is all I can say. 1992 was bookended by two major RPG releases from Squaresoft, with Romancing SaGa launching early in the year. That game had eight distinct protagonists and a total playable character count above twenty in all; Shibuya drew those sprites, with their extremely outlandish battle and celebratory poses that FF had not even attempted before. Then, she spent practically the entire rest of the year designing and drawing the monumental task that FFV was shaping up to become: 22 visually distinct Jobs (between individual characters occupying the same Job, also) shared between a playable cast of 5--that's a 110 sprite sets for characters intended to emote and animate in the full range at this point expected of FF in its battle presentation, and which V took to new heights besides. It's a ridiculous workload and accomplishment, setting the bar so high that any analogous Job System works made since are always struggling to keep up let alone match the scale of it. It's one of the first "dress-up games" where the fun of seeing characters in different guise and garb is its own reward, and it's all tied to the excellent mechanical underpinnings that give the concept form and lasting power even outside of the sheer visuality of it.
Can't agree more, Shibuya did an amazing job. All these costumes are fun to look at, with all their diversity and playfulness. My favourite is probably the Beastmaster - dressing your characters as sheep is just really, really adorable. Seriously, the spritework in this game is great, and absurdly diverse.
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I also continued with my journey. When I stopped last time, I was just done with the ship graveyard. A lot has happened since then.
The next town is Carven, and it has a great, lively soundtrack to it. I know, we just came from a place were ships "died", together with the crew, but that feels like regular fantasy fair. In general, the world here seems pretty lively, happy and welcoming. Also, I find the artwork in general having made great advances compared to FF IV - everything looks so much more detailed and lively. I love how the architecture in this game looks, houses and castles alike.
I do like, that the Wind Crystals shattering had an immediate effect, by letting the wind die down. It is also part of the story - no ships can sail anymore, and we need another mode of travel. Luckily, Lennas pet dragon (Hiryuu in this version) has been seen landing on the nearby mountain.
Back in 2004(?), whenever it was that I played FF III DS for the first time, I was immediately thinking of this mountain, when we have to climb the mountain with Bahamut on top. It plays out completely differently, but it seems weirdly related, all the same. They even have some Horrible Birds, the same that you fight against at the mountain in FF III. Thankfully, I only encountered one, and he didn't turn me to stone. I appreciate seeing a monster from FF I again, though.
In town, I actually found it pretty funny, how we first have to learn about the ships being useless now. After we learn this, every time someone mentions anything related, Bartz has these thoughts of "When we can't go by sea, than..." and trails off. Until we learn about the Hiryuu. It's a fun...puzzle(?). Dunno, I just like Bartz's reaction.
Near the top of the mountain, we meet a huntress - Magissa, who wants to kill the Hiryuu and sell his horn, or something. She and her husband Forza have interesting designs to them:
Forza looks really weird (is he supposed to be some kind of super-monk? What's up with these purple orbs?), and only vaguely human, but Magisa is clearly just a jerk. Her design, though, is really great. She has great boots, these weird wrapped things around her right arm, a cool whip and also a sword. Nice work. Also, and I don't know if that is a callback to FF III, but Lenna is shot by one of Magisas poisoned arrows, like a NPC in III. Fittingly, she starts the battle poisoned, which isn't a big deal.
The battle was actually quite challenging, mainly because Magisa has this Drain. The main problem was that it did instantly kill one of my guys. I also appreciated the mechanics - at first, you only fight her, but after some time she (a pure mage) sees that it gets dangerous, and calls her physically strong husband, who steps in front of her to defend Magisa. Which is annoying, because now I had to start annew with Forza, before being able to do decent damage to Magisa.
There is a very sweet scene, where we see Lenna nearly sacrificing herself for Hiryuu, who then heals her by feeding her that healing plant. It's very affectionate, and I can only repeat that I love how three of the four party members have this deep relationship with an animal companion. Then, we learn that Bartz is scared of heights, and doesn't want to fly. Which makes his friends laugh at him, before Galuf just pushes him onto the dragon.
Look at them, don't they look great, so happy? The Hiryuu sprite is also very well done.
While this isn't a nice thing to do, I feel like the game just wants to make it clear that this is just friendly ribbing. I imagine Lenna trying to calm Bartz down, while the ride along. It should seem mean, when they laugh at him - but it just feels like they already know Bartzs boundaries, and know that getting some fun out of his fear doesn't overstep it. Maybe I'm being too generous here, but I just love when these people can laugh together, and have some fun.
And than, we have our first "airship". Considering that we can't fly over any mountains, this seems like one more throwback to FF III - our world got bigger, but there are still barriers we can't cross.
With the Hiryuu, we can reach Worus, the town of the Water Crystal. All royalty knows Lenna, of course, so it is no problem to get into any castle in this game. I did look around the castle, and found both the cellar with the horrible, superstrong imp guys (I died) and the sealed place with Shiva (I died again, she is super-strong).
I like that the chancellors in this game are all decent people (maybe that will change later? I don't remember it, at least). There are also people in jail cells, and the guard is really rude ("The people in the dungeon are trash.") Chill out, buddy. I didn't free anyone this time. Actually, I don't remember what happens (or if anything happens) if you do. But I like that the game offers you this little choice.
Near the tower are wild Galuras, who actually don't seem to attack you, as people tell you (or it died too fast?). There is also a little one in the town, it's cute! The one at the top is pretty strong, though, and I was happy to have Lenna covered in heavy armor. Everyone else took heavy damage, but she never got anything in the double digits, and started to protect the wounded, so there was no real danger in this battle. But without a knight, I could imagine this fight being pretty brutal, and I remember having a lot of trouble with it. Here is Galura:
Did I menation that I love the spritework for the bosses in this game (aside from the great spritework for the characters, of course). Damn, this game looks so great.
We do find out, that Syldra was still alive! She saves us, but then goes back into the ocean to die. Poor Faris.
Before using the meteor to get to Karnak, I used the Hiryuu to search around a bit. I visited the pirate cave again to find Boko there, as Peklo already mentioned. It's really cute, the adorable bird lies in bed. I mean, it's not cute that he is hurt, but I like how much these pirates care about poor Boko.
There is another place that you can totally miss - Tycoon castle, where Lenna is from. It's actually just behind the first meteor. It's another lovely place, and everyone is really happy to see Lenna again, including the chancellor (who is just a very nice guy). We get a bunch of stuff, and find some hidden places.
The amount of secrets seems to have been reduced, again, but there are more than I remember. I think every town up to now had a few goodies hidden, somewhere. The one in Tycoon castle felt particularly clever:
See that way to the right? I nearly didn't! You only see it, if you go behind the trees as I did here, for no reason but to have a look. How do you get there?
Bartz is looking at the secret walkway to the right. There isn't anything great hidden (just two cabins), but it's a really well hidden place.
These little scenes and places, that do nothing more than give you some nice, little character scenes, are a reason why I love this game. In this case, we see a scene during the night, where Lenna talks to Faris, to find out if they really are sisters. It's a very nice, warm scene, even though Faris isn't ready to talk about it yet. But it's really sweet, how you see signs of affection all the time in this game.
Back on the main track, after travelling via the meteor teleporter, we get outside of the mountains that blocked the Hiryuu in. On the way to Karnak, we meet some weird wolves, who did some attack that did 0 damage. After the battle, I learned that Bartz has learned the spell with my favourite name: ???? It did 0 damage, because that damage is calculated by "Max HP - Current HP". Nice!
There were also some turtles, who have some turtle shells, which will be nice to have for my chemist, later on. I don't know any recipies yet, but I know that turtle shells are very useful. Finally, Faris could steal more interesting stuff than potions. Because I stole more than I ever did in a FF game, and most of the stuff I get is just potions. Oh, well, it's still nice. Another relevant monster was the giant, black birds whose name I forgot. You can steal Elixirs(!) from them.
Oh, right, after Galura, I changed the relevant jobs. Lenna became a summoner (I didn't realize that I could actually buy the first three summons, and wasn't strong enough for Shiva, so Lenna just hit with her Ice Staff, or whatever it's name is. Galuf became a Berserker, for the time being, who also have a pretty great costume.
In another callback to FF III, when we enter the town of Karnak, we get captured by the guards of the castle. Well, only after we try to buy something, and it's not a perverted magical tree this time, but still. Get into new town, get thrown into prison. I like these little callbacks.
We get to know the new Cid, and are soon left out of the cell, because the Crystal still continues putting out power, despite Cids machine being turned off. The steam ship is near explosion, so we try to turn it off. It's a very cool looking dungeon, where you can see to the lower level in the background, when you are in an upper level. Still a really neat thing to see.
Someone in town mentioned that a specific monster would use Flash, when alone, which made it very easy to grab that blue spell. Nice! I actually got in and out two times, the first time because I wanted to save that I got the spell, the second time because I had no eye drops. Didn't need any.
Oh, right (again), I forgot to mention that I bought a Fire Staff, went back to Shiva and broke the thing. This made the fight, of course, trivial, and made Lenna instantly super powerful. It's also the first time, where I know that having a staff of a specific element equipped will increase the power of the corresponding magic. Which means a difference from 500 to 800, when summoning Shiva!
I completely forgot to make pictures of Liquid Flame, which is a shame, because he looks great, like all the other bosses. It also was probably the hardest fight I had since starting this whole project. Fire 2 is an instant kill for whoever is hit, and Flame (from the human form) did a lot of damage too. Having a Berserker made planning somewhat hard, because he just hit whenever, meaning that I would often get hit by two spells, one after the other. I got killed two times, before finally making it through. Needed to use a few of the High Potions and even Pheonix Downs, that I had found and stolen from monsters.
This here seems to be the game, where they really figured out how to use difficulty in these games. Honestly, I think FF I and II have only "fake" difficulty. These games are both really confusing and hard, if you don't know specific things. In FF I, you shouldn't waste spots for bad spells, you have to somehow know that the "Heal" equipment is actually really useful and that Ribbons are super useful, even if they don't show you how they protect you against spell damage. I'm not sure if any of these informations is in the manual, but without it, the game is way harder. I was turned off from FF I for a long time, because there seemed to be so much you had to learn, before you could play the game. Now that I know, it seems pretty easy. You will only die, if you don't know about the Heal equipment (because Potions aren't enough for the final dungeon) or due to cheap instant death or infinite paralyzation.
In FF II, I feel like it is easier not to screw up, but it also seems like if you don't focus your characters, they will become useless. If you do know sort-of how to develop your characters (in general, that you have to specialize) the game is pretty easy, even if you don't really break it.
FF III and IV are pretty easy games, even if III has a difficult start and end. But elsewise, there isn't too much of a challenge, if you fight every battle and look a bit closer at what the game tells you to do.
FF V is the first one to actually challenge me. Forza and Magisa, Galura and the Liquid Flame were all strong, challenging bosses. Even the random encounters aren't too trivial. But than, I'm restricting myself heavily, and my only heavy hitter couldn't be controlled and was pretty slow. Shiva actually did trivialize a lot of the enemies. With two black mages, Liquid Flame wouldn't have been much of a problem, I guess.
Anyway, we learn more about Galuf, sort of (a Werewolf recognized him), but than everything went bad and the Werewolf died. The following sequence is pretty intense, and the time is really well counted. I made it out with all the treasure, with only 30 secons to spare. Right when I started the boss battle, the music went into intensity-mode and got faster, which was scary and exciting. But Shiva made the battle trivial (as she did with the battles inside the castle, I even had to use an Ether, before fighting the boss). Summoners are really fun, guys. Oh, and Bartz picked up the Aero spell, which means he has now a straight-forward attack spell. Nice to see that one coming back from FF III, too.
There were some nice NPC-moments, with the queen in bed of the inn, talking about the encroaching darkness, and Cid being depressed about having created the machine that made the Crystal shatter. Or, at least he thinks so.
I also made the next class changes. The Berserker was fun, but it also was only a placeholder. For now, Galuf would be a Geomancer, and Lenna would take some time off to tame monsters. Which doesn't matter, I just gave her the !Summon skill. Dancer and Chemist still aren't unlocked, so Bartz will stay a Blue Mage and Faris a Thief for some more time.