1. Renegade Ops (PC)(Multidirectional Shooter)2. Borderlands 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)3. Gunpoint (PC)(Puzzle Platformer)4. Robotrek (SNES)(RPG)5. The Tick (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)6. Alien vs Predator (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)7. X-Kaliber 2097 (SNES)(Action Platformer)8. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)9. Shadowrun (SNES)(RPG)10. Quake II (PC)(FPS)11. The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (SNES)(RPG)12. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (PC)(Action)13. A Story About My Uncle (PC)(Platformer)14. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC)(FPS)15. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith (PC)(FPS)16. Catacomb (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
17. Catacomb Abyss (PC)(FPS)18. Catacomb Armageddon (PC)(FPS)19. Catacomb Apocalypse (PC)(FPS)20. The Catacomb (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)21. Catacomb 3-D (PC)(FPS)22. EarthBound (SNES)(RPG)23. Quake II: Ground Zero (PC)(FPS)24. Quake II: The Reckoning (PC)(FPS)25. Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (PC)(RPG)26. The 7th Guest (PC)(Puzzle)27. Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (PC)(RPG)28. Loom (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)29. Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES)(Action Platformer)30. System Shock 2 (PC)(Survival Horror FPS)31. Final Fantasy V (SNES)(RPG)Glad to get this one out of the way. That's all four Final Fantasy games from the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo now under my belt.
For someone who played both IV and VI well before I ever gave V a try, Final Fantasy V sits in a weird in-between place on the Super Nintendo. Graphically it's leaning in the direction of VI, but the colors aren't there yet and the sprite work isn't as up to snuff. Visually it's similar to IV in many ways, but the enemy designs and effects are all improved, and there is a lot more going on. Heck, the visuals during the end credits are completely beyond anything in IV but still not yet up to snuff when compared to the opening credits of VI. There are also ideas that I see in V from IV, such as the final area and its crystalline blues being reminiscent of IV's final area, at least to me.
At the same time, FFV was a step backwards to the previous generation of Final Fantasies with its plot based on crystals and its gameplay based on the specifics of jobs. It pulls some of the plot progression techniques that Square pulled off in IV to make the characters seem like individuals, but it never quite matches the overall oomph of storytelling that IV pioneered for the series. As a result, FFV comes off as more archaic and traditional than IV. It never manages to have the dramatic weight that IV did with its constantly dying characters, let alone VI with its genocidal leaders and characters who can be killed by the player either intentionally or through negligence. In fact the plot of FFV feels sort of slapped together. So Exdeath is really a tree? Or some agent of the Void? But the Void is something entirely different created by a dude named Enuo, which caused people to split the crystals that govern the elements and tear the world into two. So why were there crystals in the first place, and why two sets of them?
That's not to say that I think the plot is completely terrible. I like that Exdeath traverses worlds and survives defeat by becoming a splinter, and I appreciate how the multiworld system of FFV evolved into the split World of Balance/World of Ruin in FFVI. Also the final boss battle of FFVI was obviously influenced by the final boss battle of FFV, particularly the stalk leading up to Kefka from the final form of Neo Exdeath. But overall, this entry just didn't hold up for my plotwise when compared to the immediate precursor and successor. Still...no Blitzball or card games. That is a plus.
Moving away from that, where FFV really shines is in its job system. The job system is the best part of the experience, as every job offers some kind of viable option, even if they don't always seem readily apparent. I turned Bartz and Faris into melee characters who could wail on enemies with X-Fight and two of the best weapons each, making them veritable chainsaws of death, especially when Flare or Holy was applied. Lenna and Krile became my major casters, with Lenna using X-Magic and summons while Krile focused on White and Blue magic. Every job I mastered brought something new to the table and made my base class that much more powerful, so by the end of it nobody bothered with using a job anymore. Part of the fun was discovering what new abilities I could mix and match as well as what new innate abilities I could unlock for the base classes to make them more devastating.
In fact, I would argue that based on my experience, job mastery is much more important than grinding out character levels. I beat the final boss in FFV around level 40(Lenna was 39), but I believe the low level record is currently level 12. I even spent most of the final world running away from enemies with the Escape command so I could build up the Chicken Knife, which ended up my most powerful weapon by the end of the game. I still never encountered any issues with the bosses, save for a couple of gimmick fights that went down rather smoothly once I figured out the best way to cope. The game seems to agree with this philosophy too, as it constantly throws super enemies at you to see if you can survive in exchange for high-powered items and large amounts of money, experience, and job points. By the end of the game, the super powered enemies are more powerful than the final boss. I considered grinding up a few levels to then go and take all of them on, but then realized that A) this was unnecessary to beat the final boss, and B) by this point there really was no good place to grind for experience. The enemies in the final area give massive amounts of job points but no XP, while the area before that gives...well, it isn't paltry, but it was nowhere near the XP I would have needed to keep me going for more levels.
Heck, by this point most boss fights went the same way: Scan, Big Guard, whatever Magic Sword choice works best against the boss, heal with the casters and attack with melee until the boss dies, rinse, repeat. Even the most interesting aspect of the game started to get dull once I was powered up enough, and by then I had the best equipment and weapons so levels would have been the only way to improve but getting them was tiresome and unnecessary to finish things. I beat the game tired and admittedly bored, with all characters alive.
You know what? Good ending. I enjoyed seeing what became of the world. Final Fantasy V, I'm happy to have beaten you. I find I prefer both IV and VI to you, but I'm glad to complete this small subset of FF titles and to have experienced what you can do.
