Final Fantasy V was one of the many games I first played on an emulator. This was around the time I found out about the Final Fantasy games we didn’t get in the US. There are a few things I miss about that time, and many things I’m glad we don’t have to deal with anymore. This first has to be the incomplete fan translations. When you downloaded the Rom, sometimes you weren’t sure if the game would turn incomprehensible at some point. It wasn’t until the PlayStation port came out that I got a chance to play it on a console.
It’s a strange game for me to revisit. Not only were there strange differences in the translations on this port, but there were also somethings which were odd to me. I felt like I enjoyed it more when I was younger, simply because I didn’t get a lot of games to play. Normally, my birthday and Christmas would be the only times I would get new games. Then sometimes on the weekend we would rent them. Final Fantasy V was like those rentals in some ways. I played it because a friend told me about it. There was internet, but it wasn’t my source for video game news back then. Once I was in high school, I could just buy what I wanted, and that is when I picked up the collection this was on.
I have some problems with the game. Mostly, it has to do with the job system. The way it’s used here feels off to me. It could be that I just don’t like the swapping jobs and carrying over skills. It’s hard to say exactly what I don’t like, but it’s something which stands out to me. I like the idea of a job system, and this one is done much better than Dragon Quest VII, maybe I just like the idea of selecting a class and sticking with that for the game.
Final Fantasy Five sits in a strange place in the series. It’s feels like the evolution of the ideas from Final Fantasy III, and in some ways a step back from what Final Fantasy IV had done. I do like the graphics, the story is still pretty good, and I like the characters. It might have helped the game if there were more than five main characters, or if you got to know them better. It’s hard to keep in mind this game had to work in the constraints of a SNES cartridge, so it will only be as good as what they could fit into it. I’m not sure if that makes any sense.
This is still a fun game to go back and play. I’ll always remember this game for the sick days I spent playing it. It holds a special place for me, even if I don’t like it as much as I used to. There are a bunch of games like this. I’ve been finding, as I get older, there are some games I still love, like Legend of Zelda, and others I just don’t like as much anymore.