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Final Fantasy V Advance - Weltall - 2nd December 2006
Review: Final Fantasy V Advance
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Rating: 8/10[indent]Final Fantasy V Advance is the latest in a series of GBA ports based upon the classic series. After the more story-driven Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V focuses more on the gameplay aspect, and the character-building Job system seen first in the original Final Fantasy, and expanded upon considerably in Final Fantasy III. The story centers around a group of adventurers thrown together by circumstance to share a common goal; the preservation of the world's Crystals, which maintain the forces of nature. Some malevolent and unseen force is causing them to shatter, and Bartz and his friends must find out why, and stop it before their world is thrown into chaos.
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Graphics: 7.0
[indent]Though the visuals for the game are hardly poor, they are a noticable step down from the graphics seen in Final Fantasy IV Advance, which had most of its graphics upgraded from the Super NES original. Final Fantasy V's graphics are mostly unchanged, save for the nicer pre-rendered backdrops in the battle sequences. The characters remain squat and squarely-proportioned, though the characters are better-animated and considerably more expressive than in FFIV. FFV is a big game with a lot to see, and even without the enhancements, there are still moments that will impress, but it is a bit of a disappointment that no effort was made to improve the visuals, as there was room for it.
As in previous games, the best graphics are seen in combat. Character sprites are larger, and even though Final Fantasy V has one of the smallest playable casts in the series at five, it may have the largest variety of character appearances. There are nearly two dozen Job Classes for your characters to utilize. Each Job gives your character a markedly different appearance, and each individual character appears quite unique in each outfit (for instance, Faris as a Knight looks markedly different than Lenna does when she is a Knight). Monsters are large, and better-looking and more detailed than FFIV's. Spell and skill effects are also improved over the previous game's.
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Audio: 8.0
[indent]The soundtrack for this game is rather standard, in relation to other Final Fantasies. What is there is, at worst, serviceable, and there aren't any tracks that are outright bad. Some are even quite good (the theme played while piloting the Submarine comes to mind). However, there seems to be lacking any iconic or memorable themes, the kind which you'd instantly identify if you heard it out of the blue. This game is more upbeat than most in the series, and it reflects in the generally peppy, optimistic themes found throughout most of the soundtrack.
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Gameplay: 9.0
[indent]Final Fantasy V is known for sporting the most-evolved application of the Job system that had been featured in the previous odd-numbered entries of the series (though Final Fantasy XI has since taken it much farther). This allows you to take your characters and basically customize the hell out of them, building each to your tastes and present needs. The different Jobs become available as the game unfolds, and your options get better all the time. The upside to this is that you can use many creative methods to tackle whatever problems you face, and while there are some Jobs that are of questionable, or only situational use, there aren't many that are overwhelmingly great, either. This forces you to experiment, and find the strenghts and weaknesses of each job, and the uses of the inherent talents. By gaining Ability points, your characters can memorize certain talents inherent to a Job; for instance, you can have Galuf reach level 2 in the White Mage Job, so if you decide to make him a Monk later, you can give him the option of using White Magic while enjoying the much greater offensive power the Monk class offers. There are literally thousands of possible party configurations, and many, many useful applications to be found. The game is also a bit more of a challenge than most Final Fantasies, mostly because it's more difficult to find a combination of talents and classes that make your party consistently outclass the monsters you'll face.
Outside of the Job System, Final Fantasy V is a pretty standard RPG. Outside of the Job System, any Final Fantasy veteran will instantly understand how most of the game operates. As stated earlier, there are fewer characters than in most games in the series. Storyline and character development have taken a step back from FFIV. You know who the good guys are, and you know who the bad guys are. The story rarely deviates from the standard rah-rah, save the world stuff. Those who have played the previous incarnation on the Playstation, or the fan-translated ROM, will notice that the characters and dialogue are considerably changed, and for the better. They still don't match up with the likes of Cecil or Terra's bunch, but the characters now have better-defined personalities. Bartz is still a pretty vanilla do-gooder, but he's also a bit of a wiseass. He and Galuf have many of the game's lighter moments, as the two frequenty take good-hearted jest at each other. Faris is less the Jack Sparrow stereotype, though she does still drop several groaning pirate cliches around ("By the great beard of Neptune!"). Lenna and Krile are changed little. The game's main adversary, Exdeath, is your average megalomaniac villain, the Bad Just To Be Bad stripe a la Kefka, with no redeeming traits. He wants to control the power of the Void and make the world kneel at his presence... because that's what omni-powerful villains do. Almost all of the game's dialogue has been changed and improved, so conversations flow more naturally than the clapboard translations you might remember.
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Final Word
[indent]Final Fantasy V is definitely a love-it or hate-it game. You'll enjoy it if you can overlook its rather deficient story and vanilla characters, and if you love the challenges of character-building and ciphering the nuances of the Job System. It's also a welcome addition for those looking for a bit more challenge. A worthy entry in the series, though a little lost among many of its far more memorable siblings.
[size=6]8.0
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Final Fantasy V Advance - EdenMaster - 2nd December 2006
Hmm...story and (especially) character developmet has always been my favorite part of the series, a quality which places IV, VII, and X consistently near the top of my list of favorites. If that is so absent here...
Final Fantasy V Advance - Dark Jaguar - 2nd December 2006
Not really, I mean the story is still above the first three.
Final Fantasy V Advance - Weltall - 2nd December 2006
That's a tough call. I was basically point A to B to Z, with zero character development. II had the decent beginnings of a story, and traces of development, mostly among the supplemental characters. From what I've played of III (on the DS, anyway), it's about as character-oriented as V, and definitely moreso than the original III (where all the kids were just generic, formless OnionKids).
So yeah, it's at least as good as any of the first three games, but it's a pretty big step backwards from IV, and everything after it.
Final Fantasy V Advance - Dark Jaguar - 2nd December 2006
Yeah, but still I found it a fun game.
Oh, I'd say the graphics didn't really need to be redone, as they are, in and of themselves, roughly equal to what FFIV got improved to (that being a first generation SNES game anyway).
FFVI likely won't even get the battle backgrounds redone as those were already fully detailed backdrops instead of tiled boredom.
Final Fantasy V Advance - Dark Jaguar - 26th February 2007
Dark Jaguar Wrote:FFVI likely won't even get the battle backgrounds redone as those were already fully detailed backdrops instead of tiled boredom.
I CALLED IT!
Final Fantasy V Advance - Weltall - 26th February 2007
But it was pretty obvious considering that the first screenshots showed the old backgrounds. =/
Anyway, FFVI didn't need new backgrounds, but FFV sure could have done with an improvement there.