I kind of expect this post to die out almost immediately, but whatever.
As of about 3 weeks ago, I decided to spend some time with my Super Nintendo Emulator and play through an old RPG. I've played FF4,6 and Chrono Trigger, so I decided to give FF5 a try. It was highly recommended by a friend of mine, who claimed that the job system was the best leveling up system he's ever encountered. I started playing it, then started playing it a lot, and ended up playing all the damn time. Finals (I'm a junior in college) made me break from the game for a little more than a week, but after the semester was over I returned home and played through the rest of the game, and only just beat it.
Now I'm curious to see what everyone on these posts thought of the game, or even how many of you have ever even played the thing. Did you all like it? Hate it? Have mixed feelings?
To me, the game suffers from the "let's extend gameplay by forcing the player to fight lots of battles all the time" syndrome. FF5 is damn difficult, and nearly impossible to go straight through from dungeon to dungeon without lots of leveling up and training in between. I wouldn't mind it so much but the number of different encounters in any particular area is dismally small, which makes it get really boring really fast. I found myself getting into a system of finding a save point, fighting random enemies around the save point, using a tent/cabin when the white mage runs out of MP, repeating five million times, continue through the dungeon. It's not that I'm one of those RPG gamers that needs to be 10 levels higher than one is supposed to be at any given point in the game, it's that FF5 is that hard.
The job system is good, but could be much better. I found it irritating that you could only choose one extra ability from other jobs throughout ~97% of the game. It gives a huge incentive to level up in only 2 jobs, if that. If I'm going to spend the time to level up ninja and archer all the way, I want to be able to duel wield and attack 4 times while still being able to dash or see hidden passages. Since there are such a large number of jobs, it feels like the game is mocking you because there is no possible way that you could actually use all of them. There just aren't enough command spaces. Also, it takes way too long to master most of the jobs. Since it's so important to master a variety of jobs so that when you switch back to normal or go to mime your stats won't blow horribly, they should have made it take less time to master the jobs. The only place to level up Ability Points quickly is at the very very end of the game. This goes along with the "it unnecessarily extends the length of the game" complaint. When you finally get X-Magic, you feel less of a sense of accomplishment than you do relief that you can stop wasting your life away. Aside from that, it offers character customization and adds another layer of strategy when picking out jobs and abilities, which is nice. Overall, I liked it. It was something different and fun to play around with, even with all of it's flaws.
The story is nothing special. It's not the epic saga that 4 was, it doesn't have anything nearly as moving or touching as Mobliz (sp?) from FF6 or the death of Aeris, but at least it's story doesn't make you cringe and want to bury yourself in a hole (FFX). The only part that I felt truly connected with in the game were the scenes with Syldra. For some reason that 16-bit cry touched my heart.
The combat was normal Final Fantasy really fucking good but done so many times it can't be considered great. Graphics are better than decent for a Super Nintendo, although the art direction felt a little lacking. Nothing was particularly beautiful or stunning, but there was enough variation that I never had any actual complaints. The music was probably the worst of any Square RPGs since the original NES, but it was bearable. There were some hidden extras that were fun to find. Finding all 7 or so pianos made me feel like I had accomplished something truly epic, same with finding the black Chocobo in the hidden city near the end. The gameplay, like most FF games, is linear up until a point and then the world around you opens up to as much adventuring as your heart desires.
Overall, I would recommend it to the JRPG fan, but not as much as I'd recommend most of the other "great" SNES RPGs. Chrono Trigger, FF6, Secret of Mana, all these are superior to FF5 and a better use of your time. Don't get me wrong, I did like it, I liked it quite a bit in fact. Just... I didn't like it as much as FF6 or Chrono Trigger.
Do you all agree? I've heard so many different opinions of the game, I'm really curious to see how the people on this message board thought about it.
As of about 3 weeks ago, I decided to spend some time with my Super Nintendo Emulator and play through an old RPG. I've played FF4,6 and Chrono Trigger, so I decided to give FF5 a try. It was highly recommended by a friend of mine, who claimed that the job system was the best leveling up system he's ever encountered. I started playing it, then started playing it a lot, and ended up playing all the damn time. Finals (I'm a junior in college) made me break from the game for a little more than a week, but after the semester was over I returned home and played through the rest of the game, and only just beat it.
Now I'm curious to see what everyone on these posts thought of the game, or even how many of you have ever even played the thing. Did you all like it? Hate it? Have mixed feelings?
To me, the game suffers from the "let's extend gameplay by forcing the player to fight lots of battles all the time" syndrome. FF5 is damn difficult, and nearly impossible to go straight through from dungeon to dungeon without lots of leveling up and training in between. I wouldn't mind it so much but the number of different encounters in any particular area is dismally small, which makes it get really boring really fast. I found myself getting into a system of finding a save point, fighting random enemies around the save point, using a tent/cabin when the white mage runs out of MP, repeating five million times, continue through the dungeon. It's not that I'm one of those RPG gamers that needs to be 10 levels higher than one is supposed to be at any given point in the game, it's that FF5 is that hard.
The job system is good, but could be much better. I found it irritating that you could only choose one extra ability from other jobs throughout ~97% of the game. It gives a huge incentive to level up in only 2 jobs, if that. If I'm going to spend the time to level up ninja and archer all the way, I want to be able to duel wield and attack 4 times while still being able to dash or see hidden passages. Since there are such a large number of jobs, it feels like the game is mocking you because there is no possible way that you could actually use all of them. There just aren't enough command spaces. Also, it takes way too long to master most of the jobs. Since it's so important to master a variety of jobs so that when you switch back to normal or go to mime your stats won't blow horribly, they should have made it take less time to master the jobs. The only place to level up Ability Points quickly is at the very very end of the game. This goes along with the "it unnecessarily extends the length of the game" complaint. When you finally get X-Magic, you feel less of a sense of accomplishment than you do relief that you can stop wasting your life away. Aside from that, it offers character customization and adds another layer of strategy when picking out jobs and abilities, which is nice. Overall, I liked it. It was something different and fun to play around with, even with all of it's flaws.
The story is nothing special. It's not the epic saga that 4 was, it doesn't have anything nearly as moving or touching as Mobliz (sp?) from FF6 or the death of Aeris, but at least it's story doesn't make you cringe and want to bury yourself in a hole (FFX). The only part that I felt truly connected with in the game were the scenes with Syldra. For some reason that 16-bit cry touched my heart.
The combat was normal Final Fantasy really fucking good but done so many times it can't be considered great. Graphics are better than decent for a Super Nintendo, although the art direction felt a little lacking. Nothing was particularly beautiful or stunning, but there was enough variation that I never had any actual complaints. The music was probably the worst of any Square RPGs since the original NES, but it was bearable. There were some hidden extras that were fun to find. Finding all 7 or so pianos made me feel like I had accomplished something truly epic, same with finding the black Chocobo in the hidden city near the end. The gameplay, like most FF games, is linear up until a point and then the world around you opens up to as much adventuring as your heart desires.
Overall, I would recommend it to the JRPG fan, but not as much as I'd recommend most of the other "great" SNES RPGs. Chrono Trigger, FF6, Secret of Mana, all these are superior to FF5 and a better use of your time. Don't get me wrong, I did like it, I liked it quite a bit in fact. Just... I didn't like it as much as FF6 or Chrono Trigger.
Do you all agree? I've heard so many different opinions of the game, I'm really curious to see how the people on this message board thought about it.