Mission Statement

For those new to the site, this blog is, in short, a nostalgic journey for myself to complete every core Final Fantasy game over the 101 days before the launch of XIII in an effort to become a true FF fanatic.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Final Fantasy V, Routine Finale

Let's see...

Escaped X-Death's castle.
Found our way out of some forest.
Ran into some Moogles.
Galuf's grand daughter Krile came and found us.
Joined up with some other old school Warriors of Light.
Attacked X-Death's castle by submarine.
X-Death killed Galuf.
Krile joined party.
Went to find the four relics to unlock the twelve weapons of power.
Unlocked all the weapons.
Attacked X-Death's castle again.
X-Death summons the void.
Killed X-Death.

Something like that, been a busy few days what with Xmas... Along the way I fought some of the toughest bosses I've fought in any of the FF games thus far. Odin kicked my ass for a good couple hours before I gave up. I went around the world and got every other summon I could. I mastered Red Mage on Krile to get the Double Cast ability and went back and double cast Bahamut on that bitch till he went down. Getting each and every summon in the FF games is still one of my favorite parts. Gotten all of em so far in the six I've played that had the class.

One cool aspect of the game was the ability to learn spells for the entire group and be able to change to any job with all those abilities at any instant. It made for some interesting boss fight strategies. For example, one boss could only be hurt by black magic, so I switched to a party of all Black Mages and cast Flare 4x a round till it died. Another was weak to Holy, so.... four White Mages casting Holy. You get the idea.

Anyway, game was a bit shorter than the previous couple only clocking in at like 25 hours. Was good but it felt very routine. I just felt like I was playing a combo of the previous four games. I know that's what the series is about but I know what's coming in VII-XII and they're all different a little in some way. Can't wait to get to them. These clones are wearing on me and the graphics aren't helping. It's amazing how much the little things matter. How much the visual aids involve you in the story. How much something like being able to just name your characters makes an impact. I could only name the main character in this one and he wasn't even a major part of the story, just some wanderer. Kinda just glad this one's done. Not my favorite, I don't know how it could be Sakaguchi's. But then again his next favorite is IX, and most people hated that one. Can't account for some people's taste. Here's some screens of the end. Another weird point is the low level at time of completion.



Some things of note.

This game went back to the format of the first Final Fantasy game VERY strongly. It left behind the rotating cast of II, III and IV and focused on a very limited four member party. It focused completely on a crystal story line and standard kingdoms and quests. It also continued with the more morbid tone that was set in IV, where main characters died left and right in sacrifice for the greater cause. While only one character died in V, it was one of the main four party members that you'd been playing with for 3/4 of the game. Kind of a big deal, especially since he didn't like come back in the end.

The end credits of V is the first time I've seen any isometric animation in a Final Fantasy series. I wonder if I will see much more in VI before the series left Nintendo for the more powerful Playstation system in VII.

2 comments:

Darren Hupke said...

people didn't hate 9, just poeple who found the series with VII were turned off by the "classic" vibe.

I loved V myself...

Rhek said...

I didn't really dislike V myself. In fact if the game had come out and I had played it then, I'm sure I would have loved it. I guess I'm just a bit burnt out on the same story and graphics after 150 hours in one month. Liking VI better so far just for the fact that it's gone more futuristic, and left the traditional stuff behind. I think I'll like IX by the time I get to it. Very much looking forward to the graphics upgrade in VII. Can only handle so much of the 16 bit sprites and zooms into four sided polygons.