Final Fantasy What
Heath's Review
Heath's Review
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Story/Plot The wind is weakening, and the King of Tycoon suspects something is amiss, so he takes his Dragon to the Wind Shrine to investigate. A meteor has fallen from the sky and crashed near the castle of Tycoon, and Butz, with his Chocobo, decide to check out what happened. There, he meets a pretty, young lady named Lenna, and a mysterious man named Galuf, who has amnesia. Both are on their way to the Wind Shrine, and decide to leave together. Returning to his Chocobo, Butz heads away from the Tycoon Meteor. Shortly after, he finds Galuf and Lenna unconscious on the ground, grabbing them before they can be hurt, he sets up a camp. They awaken, and the next morning, Butz decides to accompany them to the Wind Shrine. Heading through a nearby cave, turned pirates' hideout, they meet Faris. Revealing herself to be the Princess of Tycoon, Lenna asks the pirates to help her reach the Wind Shrine. At the Wind Shrine, they find the King of Tycoon, and the Wind Crystal shattered. The crystal tells them to find the remaining three crystals and to stop them from shattering. The King disappears, and the 4 Warriors of Dawn together. Adamant to do as the crystal wishes, they leave the Shrine. As you can tell from that, it is another Final Fantasy game which has a plot that revolves around the crystals of the world (like FFIV, for example). I found the plot to be very interesting, with some nice twists later in the game, a number of which greatly surprised me. No complaints at all about the story, though it is a little on the simple side. |
9.0 |
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Characters Now, unlike the previous Final Fantasy game, the characters aren't given specific classes that they keep (for example: Rosa the White Mage), instead, a more effective version of the class system of FFIIIj is used, but I'll discuss that later. There is only a relatively small number of playable characters in this game (five), but they are all rather interesting. There are some twists with all the characters, some a lot more hard-hitting than others. Whilst one of the earlier "twists" might not seem like much at the start, it will develop into something much more meaningful later in the game, which I loved. It's not just the playable characters that get development either; some of the support characters are very interesting. One complaint is that the support characters will often have nothing more to do with the plot once you leave the village/town/whatever, which can be a shame. The ones that do keep coming up are very well done for the most part. |
9.0 |
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Music Like the plot, the OSV of this game is another part that makes it truly a memorable game, in my opinion. The Dragon Spreads It's Wings, The Evil Lord ExDeath, The Land Unknown and Nostalgia are all brilliantly put together. Nostalgia and The Day Will Come both add to the general sadness of the scenes that they're played in. One particular part of the game plays Nostalgia, in what was an already moving scene, and it was one of the saddest moments I've ever experienced in a video game. Almost as much as a certain scene from FFVII, I might add. The most memorable track from this game, has to be Battle With Gilgamesh/Battle On The Big Bridge, which has to be one of the greatest non-Final boss battle themes ever. I found myself returning to the Big Bridge in game just to listen to this track. Absolutely wonderful OSV that compliments a wonderful game. I might add that the track What does tend to annoy me after a bit, though. |
9.0 |
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Graphics The graphics in this game aren't that spectacular, to put it bluntly. I prefer the graphics of Final Fantasy IV myself, but they're decent enough. The sprites in battle are nice enough, and the job class sprites are different and colourful (I liked how each character looks different in each job class. E.g. Faris the Knight looks different from Lenna the Knight). The boss sprites can look pretty impressive though. One of the bosses later in the game, Atomos (who you may know from FFIX) looks threatening and challenging. Could be better, but they do exactly what it says on the tin. |
7.0 |
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Battle System If ever there was a feature that set FFV apart from the other Final Fantasy games, it just has to be it's battle system. The job class system gives you a total of 21 classes to play with. Whilst some maybe more useful than others (compare say, Black Mage and Bard), they're all useful. When a class is mastered, you'll be able to use all the skill from a class (provided you equip them) and you'll also get a stats boost. The mere ability to have so much freedom when choosing classes makes this game fun. It adds a lot of replay value as you try different combinations of classes on different characters. I really cannot find any real faults with this battle system. |
10.0 |
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Overall FFV is probably my third favourite (after VII and IX) Final Fantasy game, and it's certainly one worth playing, even if you aren't a fan of the SNES quality graphics and sounds. Whilst things could be improved, many of them have been in the PSX re-release of the game (I was basing this review on the SNES version which I've played on emulator. I prefer the SNES version over the PSX, because of the sheer annoyance of the loading times. Not the worst I've seen, but having to wait every single battle does tend to grate a bit). And when you can probably pick up the Final Fantasy Anthology version of this game for only £20 new you can't complain at all. So, without further ado, play the game if you haven't. |
8.8 |
- Heath