final fantasy v: fighting like men, ladies, and ladies who dress like men
Well, this afternoon I finally beat Final Fantasy V, in one of those "it's about fucking time" moments. Here's the story: I started playing the Playstation version back in February. I played it until probably around April or May, and it was at that point when my life started to get really busy so I figured I'd hold off on it until the summer. Once summer came, though, my brother took the Playstation 2 hostage in his room, so I was like "Well, screw that" and busied myself with playing FFVII and FFVIII on my Playstation emulator. Then, after finally beating FFVII a few weeks ago, I figured I needed something else to play, and I thought, why not play through FFV again? I actually had my PSX version at school with me, but since I didn't have an actual console there was no way for me to use my data from my partial playthrough, and I figured that if I was going to start over again I might as well play a good translation of it. So I started a playthrough with the GBA version, and after a few weeks finally beat it today.
I think Final Fantasy V is solidly #5 on my list of favorite Final Fantasy games (in which FFVI is pretty much solidly #1 and #2-4 cycle between FFVII, FFVIII, and FFX depending on my mood). The story's nothing special, I'll have to admit: it's the standard "save the crystals" story common in the early Final Fantasy games. The characters aren't really anything special, either; they're fairly generic, although the GBA translation does give them some hilarious lines sometimes. What really makes the game awesome for me is the gameplay. FFV uses the job system first introduced in FFIII, and it's a huge improvement of it in my opinion. What I liked best about FFV's job system is the ability to mix and match character abilities once you've learned them, so for example you could have a White Mage with the Knight's "Equip Swords" ability, allowing a White Mage to wield swords in battle and be able to be used to deal physical damage too. Or you could give a Thief the Black Magic ability, so a Thief would be able to cast black magic in battle in addition to stealing and dealing physical damage. There's a huge variety as to what abilities your party can use, so unless you deliberately do so it's very hard to have your characters all end up clones of each other, since your characters will have different abilities depending on what jobs you train them as.
Or, of course, you can be like me and become overleveled like whoa so that your characters have all the available job classes master by fairly early on in World 2. It's insane how far I went with the overleveling. It started off just trying to match the suggested levels in the guide I was using, but once I found a good spot to grind (the desert outside the Library of Ancients and the basement of Bal Castle were my two big grinding spots, along with the huge desert near the Phoenix Tower at the end of the game), I figured why not become insanely overpowered. I'd do my grinding in short bursts too, usually, like the free time I have between classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. As you can probably guess, all of this grinding made the game extremely easy for me, especially once I had all of the job classes mastered and made everyone Freelancers, which automatically gave them the ability to use any weapon, and also automatically let them duel-wield. The end of the game especially was pretty much a huge joke. But hey, I love curb-stomping bosses. Otherwise I wouldn't have put all the time and effort into grinding.
So yeah, the job system is pretty much what makes the game for me. It's the only Final Fantasy in which the story doesn't have much affect as to how much I like the game (although if it had had a better story, like that of VI, VII, VIII, X, or IV, I would like it even more). But it was an awesome way to spend a few weeks, although in terms of replayability I think it'll be a long time before I do another playthrough, just because I feel like I'd be pressured to master all of the job classes again and although the end result is awesome, it really is boring and repetitive fighting the same battles over and over again to get ABP. Thank goodness for the fast-forward button on emulators... although as a result I started fast-forwarding through pretty much everything in the game, except for some boss battles and dialogue, so I'm going to have to get used to playing a game at regular speed again, haha.
And now, for the omnipresent "I just beat a game!" list:
Favorite character (story): I dunno, none of the characters really stood out to me as being awesome, except maybe Gilgamesh only because he said funny things and had awesome theme music. Faris was pretty cool, I guess, except her portrait sprite was kind of ugly which puzzled me because the game states that she's supposed to beautiful in an androgenous sort of way... which makes me expect something like a slightly more feminine-looking Kuja. And that would have made her even more awesome.
Favorite character (gameplay): Lenna by the end of the game was an absolute beast because I had her be my resident Rapid Fire user, and she also wielded the Excalibur and Masamune once I got them, so she could deal around 12,000 to 15,000 damage per turn, depending on how many critical hits she got.
Favorite location: The Library of Ancients was awesome, mainly because it vaguely reminded me of the Hollow Bastion Library in Kingdom Hearts at some points. I also like the Big Bridge mainly because of its theme music.
Favorite method of totally annihilating enemies: For the first third or so of the game, I pretty much had every character use the Barehanded ability once they learned it, since it allowed them to deal two hits per turn and the damage output was much better than the damage that came from the weapons that I had at that point. Towards the end of the game, Rapid Fire and Finishers could pretty much take every random encounter (and most bosses) out in about two turns.
Character with the best lines: Galuf and Bartz for the main party, especially when they played off each other. And Gilgamesh, of course, who has the famous line "And now we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men! For Gilgamesh... it is morphing time!" Ghido had some nice zings for Bartz's general cluelessness as well: "They are weapons. They are legendary. There are even twelve of them."
Favorite music: "Clash on the Big Bridge," SO MUCH. It's one of those boss battle music pieces that I just have to dance along to like an idiot. The game's rendition of the main Final Fantasy theme is also one of best versions in the series in my opinion.
Level I finished the game: Level 63 for everybody. Bartz was technically the highest leveled because he had the most EXP, and Krile I think was the lowest leveled. In the middle of the game there was a slightly bigger gap in terms of levels due to story reasons (i.e. characters being taken out of the party and all that), but during my late-game grinding everything pretty much evened out due to my party members getting stoned and KO'd all the time and me being too lazy to revive them in battle to get the EXP.
Now, on to new games to play! I'm hoping to start a playthrough of Kingdom Hearts II soon because I don't own the game and thus haven't played it in two and a half years, which was when I last borrowed it from someone. But my roommate, who is also a huge Kingdom Hearts fan, is hopefully going to bring her PS2 back with her after this long weekend, and she has KH2 so I can play her copy of it.
I think Final Fantasy V is solidly #5 on my list of favorite Final Fantasy games (in which FFVI is pretty much solidly #1 and #2-4 cycle between FFVII, FFVIII, and FFX depending on my mood). The story's nothing special, I'll have to admit: it's the standard "save the crystals" story common in the early Final Fantasy games. The characters aren't really anything special, either; they're fairly generic, although the GBA translation does give them some hilarious lines sometimes. What really makes the game awesome for me is the gameplay. FFV uses the job system first introduced in FFIII, and it's a huge improvement of it in my opinion. What I liked best about FFV's job system is the ability to mix and match character abilities once you've learned them, so for example you could have a White Mage with the Knight's "Equip Swords" ability, allowing a White Mage to wield swords in battle and be able to be used to deal physical damage too. Or you could give a Thief the Black Magic ability, so a Thief would be able to cast black magic in battle in addition to stealing and dealing physical damage. There's a huge variety as to what abilities your party can use, so unless you deliberately do so it's very hard to have your characters all end up clones of each other, since your characters will have different abilities depending on what jobs you train them as.
Or, of course, you can be like me and become overleveled like whoa so that your characters have all the available job classes master by fairly early on in World 2. It's insane how far I went with the overleveling. It started off just trying to match the suggested levels in the guide I was using, but once I found a good spot to grind (the desert outside the Library of Ancients and the basement of Bal Castle were my two big grinding spots, along with the huge desert near the Phoenix Tower at the end of the game), I figured why not become insanely overpowered. I'd do my grinding in short bursts too, usually, like the free time I have between classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. As you can probably guess, all of this grinding made the game extremely easy for me, especially once I had all of the job classes mastered and made everyone Freelancers, which automatically gave them the ability to use any weapon, and also automatically let them duel-wield. The end of the game especially was pretty much a huge joke. But hey, I love curb-stomping bosses. Otherwise I wouldn't have put all the time and effort into grinding.
So yeah, the job system is pretty much what makes the game for me. It's the only Final Fantasy in which the story doesn't have much affect as to how much I like the game (although if it had had a better story, like that of VI, VII, VIII, X, or IV, I would like it even more). But it was an awesome way to spend a few weeks, although in terms of replayability I think it'll be a long time before I do another playthrough, just because I feel like I'd be pressured to master all of the job classes again and although the end result is awesome, it really is boring and repetitive fighting the same battles over and over again to get ABP. Thank goodness for the fast-forward button on emulators... although as a result I started fast-forwarding through pretty much everything in the game, except for some boss battles and dialogue, so I'm going to have to get used to playing a game at regular speed again, haha.
And now, for the omnipresent "I just beat a game!" list:
Favorite character (story): I dunno, none of the characters really stood out to me as being awesome, except maybe Gilgamesh only because he said funny things and had awesome theme music. Faris was pretty cool, I guess, except her portrait sprite was kind of ugly which puzzled me because the game states that she's supposed to beautiful in an androgenous sort of way... which makes me expect something like a slightly more feminine-looking Kuja. And that would have made her even more awesome.
Favorite character (gameplay): Lenna by the end of the game was an absolute beast because I had her be my resident Rapid Fire user, and she also wielded the Excalibur and Masamune once I got them, so she could deal around 12,000 to 15,000 damage per turn, depending on how many critical hits she got.
Favorite location: The Library of Ancients was awesome, mainly because it vaguely reminded me of the Hollow Bastion Library in Kingdom Hearts at some points. I also like the Big Bridge mainly because of its theme music.
Favorite method of totally annihilating enemies: For the first third or so of the game, I pretty much had every character use the Barehanded ability once they learned it, since it allowed them to deal two hits per turn and the damage output was much better than the damage that came from the weapons that I had at that point. Towards the end of the game, Rapid Fire and Finishers could pretty much take every random encounter (and most bosses) out in about two turns.
Character with the best lines: Galuf and Bartz for the main party, especially when they played off each other. And Gilgamesh, of course, who has the famous line "And now we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men! For Gilgamesh... it is morphing time!" Ghido had some nice zings for Bartz's general cluelessness as well: "They are weapons. They are legendary. There are even twelve of them."
Favorite music: "Clash on the Big Bridge," SO MUCH. It's one of those boss battle music pieces that I just have to dance along to like an idiot. The game's rendition of the main Final Fantasy theme is also one of best versions in the series in my opinion.
Level I finished the game: Level 63 for everybody. Bartz was technically the highest leveled because he had the most EXP, and Krile I think was the lowest leveled. In the middle of the game there was a slightly bigger gap in terms of levels due to story reasons (i.e. characters being taken out of the party and all that), but during my late-game grinding everything pretty much evened out due to my party members getting stoned and KO'd all the time and me being too lazy to revive them in battle to get the EXP.
Now, on to new games to play! I'm hoping to start a playthrough of Kingdom Hearts II soon because I don't own the game and thus haven't played it in two and a half years, which was when I last borrowed it from someone. But my roommate, who is also a huge Kingdom Hearts fan, is hopefully going to bring her PS2 back with her after this long weekend, and she has KH2 so I can play her copy of it.