| Graphics: |   3 |
| SFX: | 3 |
| Music: | 4 |
| Gameplay: | 5 |
| Challenge: |  4.5 |
| Replay: | 4 |
| Overall: | 4 |
| Genre: | RPG |
| Reading ability: | US Release (PSX) |
| Company: | Squaresoft |
Background:
You may already know this, but here it goes: Final Fantasy IV and VI were released outside of America as Final Fantasy II and III respectively. The incorrect numbering ended when Final Fantasy VII was released for the Playstation, and the rest is history. Final Fantasy V was never released outside of Japan on the Super Nintendo, but it was finally released on the Playstation in English along with VI in the Final Fantasy Anthology collection, packed with a lame soundtrack CD. There's a translated ROM version of Final Fantasy V which is supposedly a better translation than the official Square adaptation, but the Playstation version is the only official version.
There isn't a whole lot different between the Playstation emulated version and the original Super Famicom version. There are some noticeable changes such as names, slightly longer load times, and some minimal graphical changes such as how the screen changes when you go into battle (the screen originally zoomed in and out but now it rotates and fades away like in the later games). But the biggest change from cartridge to CD form is the addition of the new CG introduction with a musical score. This looks similar to the CG graphics in the later Final Fantasy games for the Playstation, and I really don't know why they did this. In my opinion, this new CG intro looks pretty barfy and is totally unnecessary. The characters in the actual game are anime-style in appearance, and thus a cartoony animated sequence would have been much more in the spirit of the actual game. Instead, Square put in CG animated characters that look unrecognizable and silly.
The version I played and am reviewing is the converted Playstation version.
The Game:
This game hails from a time when Squaresoft didn't make their protagonist an angst-ridden dweeb who has a problem with caring for anyone other than himself. It starts out fairly simple: there's something going wrong with the world's elemental shrines, and once the wind crystal is shattered it's up to you to protect the crystals from breaking to save the world. It doesn't sound very exciting at first, until reason for the crystals failing is made known and the sinister plot behind it.
This game features a job system, in which your characters must be assigned various jobs to learn skills as you build experience points. Such jobs are knight, theif, samurai, ninja, white mage, dark mage, time mage, bard, lancer and archer. There are some jobs that I basically just left alone and didn't use, such as dancer, chemist, and mime. Perhaps it takes playing the game through a few times to learn to appreciate these task assignments.
The Good:
I have a friend who only plays modern games. Whenever he goes back to games on his SNES or Genesis for nostalgic purposes, he's always turned off by its dated graphics and sound. To me, that's not what gaming is all about. I feel that a "true gamer" (I hate this phrase) should be able to enjoy playing older games. I never played any Final Fantasy games during the 16-bit gaming era (although I did play other Square games), but I think that this game is superior to more recent Final Fantasy games in terms of story and gameplay. And that's the core of all that really counts in a good RPG, I think.
The Bad:
The lack of diagonal movement is immediately noticeable, but then again this is a fairly old game. But actually, the way the layouts were designed only for movement in 90 degree angles, so it wouldn't be totally fair to expect vertical movement. The game would have to be completely redesigned in order to accomodate this. It's an older game and not as technically advanced as later Squaresoft games, but who says that doesn't mean it can't be fun?
The English translation could have been better. I'm not an expert on the original Japanese version, but I bet that the character Faris wasn't annoying in the original. Since she's a pirate, the translators assume that on every planet in the universe, they speak like our own traditional pirates from centuries past. Playing the game, I cringe every time she says "D'arrr!" And for that matter, did pirates really all talk like that? Were they always making references to a "dead man's chest," "land lubbers," and saying stuff like "Avast ye, mates"???? The game was enjoyable during the time when Faris wasn't talking, which fortunately is most of the time.
Overall:
If you don't mind the dorky translation with trite pirate cliches and such, this Playstation version is the only official way to play this game in English. Only minor cosmetic changes have been made, and you don't have to see the gay CG characters if you don't want to. This is a cool RPG.
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