FFV - Back to Work

My FF Anthologies CD set finally came in the mail on Friday. Unfortunately I've been swamped with other activities since then. I've only today been able to sit down and put some time in. I started off with a lone character who I got to name (Rhek). After a nearby meteor crash Rhek met up with another character who had amnesia named Galuf. Unfortunately I was unable to rename this character. I was also unable the next two characters I picked up; Reina, a princess, and Faris a pirate who pretends to be a guy but is a girl we find out. Could it have been the hot pink hair that tipped them off...?

The game definitely feels like a beefed up version of FF1 with jobs added in and polished. The four crystals are at risk and as the plot progresses each crystal is shattered for some mysterious reason. Thus far Wind, Water and Fire have all shattered and I'm on my way to see to it that the Earth crystal does not. Of course I really do want it to because every time a crystal shatters the shards on the ground teach me new jobs. Many of the old jobs are back and a few new ones are showing up like Time Mage, Samurai, Dancer, Sorcerer, etc. However, this system is a little different than the one introduced in FFIII in that as you level up your job you learn new abilities and if you change jobs you can retain one such ability from a prior job on your new job. Example: currently I've leveled both of my fighter characters to Monk level 4, where they learn the Counter Attack ability. Now I'm switching one to Ninja and one to Sorcerer, both with the counter attack ability as their secondary. It's how the Tactics system was built. The only real difference being in how jobs were unlocked in tactics.

Other new stuff in this game is the added Ability Points (ABP) earned in addition to XP after each battle. This is evolves into Job Points (JP) or (AP) in later Final Fantasy games as a secondary XP system. Other than that, it's the same old stuff so far. Lot of jobs to choose from but nothing too novel or cool yet, no real enemy or major plot evolving just yet. Gonna keep plugging away.