Game Data:
- Review Date: May 30, 2021
- Release Date: December 6, 1992
- Platform: SNES, sort of
- Publisher: Square
- Developer: Square
- Genre: RPG
Description: Ex-Death was set loose again to wreak havoc on the world. A new team of warriors is given the task of putting him away for good. As usual, I’ll list the characters using whatever translation sounded best to me, and, of course, Butz instead of Bartz because it’s funnier that way.
Butz: Butz is a cheeky individual at times and a total ass at other times. Sometimes he’s just full of crap, but he didn’t seem like the type to toot his own horn. In world 1, he takes part in a stunt to steal the pirates’ booty, but their leader just leaves the pirates behind. Butz was reared by Drogan, who is one of the legendary warriors of the past. I usually have Butz in the rear using white magic to keep the party alive.
Faris: She’s the commander of the pirates, but she leaves them behind because she secretly knew Lenna was her long lost sister. She pretends to be male at the start of the game, but that plot is resolved rather quickly. Faris will join the party and stay there the entire game, with minimal exceptions. I have Faris as a thief to start until she can prevent back attacks, then I have her do “unusual” jobs as needed the rest of the game.
Galuf: In world 1, Galuf is just the everyday old geezer with amnesia traveling someone else’s world with young people. Galuf goes home to world 2, where it’s revealed that he’s a king. I have him focus on offense, mostly by monk work or black magic up until his final battle with the Seal Guardians.
Krile: She replaces Galuf late in world 2, just in time to raid Ex-Death’s castle. She inherits all of Galuf’s skills and talents through the magic of video games. Krile repeatedly appears as an NPC in the first two worlds before taking on much more importance in the third.
Lenna: A very caring, warm soul, Lenna is the kind of person I’d love to have around in real life. Anybody that will go through a field of poison to save a dragon sounds worthy to me. Nearly every playthrough I’ve seen makes Lenna a white mage, but I don’t like that idea at all. The biggest reason is that Lenna isn’t present for the Pyramid dungeon, and I’d rather have the experienced mage with me so I can use him or her as a bard with white magic instead of a white mage with no offense. I use Lenna as a knight to start, then switch her to a hunter as soon as the job is available. She’s a hunter until she obtains X-Fight, which usually is in Ex-Death’s castle in world 2. After that, I choose jobs that enhance her offensive abilities. In the first version I played, her name was Reina, which isn’t a bad name for her as it’s Spanish for queen, but Lenna rolls off the tongue better for me, so I’m going with that.
Positives:
- Although learning abilities is painfully slow, the job system is an excellent gameplay system. Each job has its own innate and active abilities. For example, a thief can steal, dash, prevent back attacks, and see secret passages. I had Faris doing that job. When I change Faris to, say, a Ninja, one of those abilities can be placed onto to new role if Faris got enough ABP and learned it. What this means is that I can give her Caution as an ability and the party will NEVER be back attacked the entire game. This also allows for tons of combinations and finding abilities that compliment each other will boost the party immensely.
- FF5 has a “Bare” class, which is essentially the absence of a specific job. All numbers are reset to the character’s base numbers, but he or she can equip any item in the game. It’s a weak job, until the other jobs get mastered. Mastering jobs not only improves HP, magic, strength, etc., but it also transfers innate abilities to the Bare class. It also can “equip” two abilities, so these characters become very versatile.
Negatives:
- Learning abilities is slow. The problem is that ability points are tough to come by. Most battles in world 1 yield one or two ABP and some of the abilities just take too long to obtain. By time the final dungeon of world 2 comes along, battles will increase to three or four ABP per battle. In a complete lack of balance, though, suddenly these numbers jump up to 30 per battle in the final area. They could have done a better job of evening that all out.
- That whole scene just angers me. Lenna, who pretty much runs the show in world one no matter how much Square says
ButzBartz does, organizes the party to go to Zokk’s house to get the canal key. When they get there, Zokk is happy to see Lenna, but he lies and says he lost the key. I would think there would be multiple keys held by multiple people for a thing like this, but whatever. Butz then gets up in the middle of the night for some reason and Zokk finds him. Zokk gives him the key after lying to Lenna about it. He could have at least shown some trust in Lenna as he just treated her just a child, plus he could have made sure everyone saw him hand over the key and hand it directly to Lenna. Instead, he makes some secret handoff to Butz in the middle of the night. Lenna then asks Butz where he got the key and Butz starts acting like an ass and getting defensive. He never tells Lenna where the key came from. Screw you, Zokk.
Screenshots:
Final Opinion: The game is divided into three parts, with the third being head and shoulders above the rest. The job system allows for millions of possible character builds, but it takes the entire game to build them.
Grade: B