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So I played all the NES FF games recently, and decided to keep it going with some SNES, but after playing FF3, I decided I wanted to play FF5 next. This game is basically the sequel to FF3 in many ways, and also, I’d played it once before, but never beaten it. And I remember ABSOLUTELY loving it. I had played the GBA version though, and this is the original SNES version. Which isn’t too different, tbh, it just has a few less bonus features. But how does it hold up? Is it as good as I remember it?

Final Fantasy 3 is, in my opinion, the best Final Fantasy game. In terms of its mechanics, that is. FF6 still wins out over all, though if you told me FF5 is your favorite, I’d go “that is 100% fair”. FF5 builds on what FF3 does in such a way that ESSENTIALLY perfects it. I have a single problem with the game and it’s not even really a problem. I’ll get into it.

Let’s start with one of the things people tends to complain about with this game.

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So, the story. FF5 is nestled between FF4 and FF6, which have large complex stories with lots of characters. FF5 has four characters, and then you swap one of those out for another later down the way. That’s it. And the story isn’t some major political intrigue with FF6 or a game with major twists about the characters like FF4. Like I said in FF3, it seems that even FF games are story-based, and odd ones are mechanics based. And yeah, this story is simple. An evil force is trying to break the four crystals to free himself. But I think people who say the story is simple and boring are frankly, wrong. This story DOES have twists, and it has a LOT of fantastic moments. A FF game that suddenly has a surprise second world map isn’t anything new, but this has THREE.

And of course, the Galuf Fighting Exdeath scene is, frankly, one of the best scenes in all of Final Fantasy. I felt EXTREMELY invested watching that scene, which is more than you’d expect from a “childish” story, as people say. It’s not FF6 or Chrono Trigger, sure, but all the characters are likable and interesting (Lenna is maybe the least, but hey, it’s fun to make fun of the fact that she poisons herself like four times), the plot is good enough, and the writing is goofy and fun. FF2, 4, and 6 are kinda serious games. FF1, 3, and 5 are a little goofy. And it’s goofy in a GOOD way. That’s not to say EVERYTHING lands, but I like the story. It also has a lot of themes about old generations and new generations coming along to fix the pasts’ mistakes, and that’s a theme that I like.

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Now for the best part of the game: The mechanics. FF5, like FF3, is a job system. You have characters, who are Freelancers to start, who can swap to different jobs, after unlocking those jobs from the crystals you find. These jobs have their own levels you can gain and their own EXP, on top of your normal levels and EXP. This unlocks new abilities you can slot into your ability slot, but notably, you can ALSO slot those abilities in for OTHER jobs too. So for example, get enough levels in Thief, you gain the steal ability. Now when you swap over to Dragoon, you can also slot in Steal, so your Dragoon can steal as well!

The jobs are balanced by the fact that most of them are fucking busted. A lot of them have VERY strong abilities you can use. Time magic, for example, has a spell that just lets you use two actions in a turn. Nuts. And dual wield + X-Factor is SO powerful that they literally made it Bartz’s super finisher in the Final Fantasy fighting series. So yeah, a lot of things are busted. But not everything is busted, sadly, and some jobs, like Dragoon or Berserker fall by the wayside. At least Red Mage KINDA has a chance to shine… kinda. Red Mage sucks-ass, but if you get 999 job points, you get dual cast, which you immediately put on someone OTHER than Red Mage, because by that point not having tier 3 magic bloooows.

I essentially cannot sing the praises of FF5 enough, but if there was one thing that bugged me…. So, in FF2, when characters died, they were put in the back. That was a fiddly thing I kept forgetting. In FF3, when back attacks happened and I had to swap rows, it didn’t automatically swap them back, so that was a thing I kept forgetting. The tradition continues here, too. This game’s Fiddly Nonsense I Kept Forgetting was the auto-equip system. In FF3, you had to manually unequip everything to change jobs. That was annoying. Luckily this game has an auto-equip feature that chooses the best equipment! Good! Unfortunately, it only cares about stats. So if you say, have the Bone Mail, which has KILLER stats but turns you undead, and then forget to take it off… Oh hey, Faris is low on health, let’s cast cure and- oh she’s dead.

This gets worse if and when you have cursed equipment. I ended up getting so fed up I ritualistically killed the equipment (and by that I mean, sold it)

But other than that, I seriously have no complaints. This is one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played, extremely fun, and highly worth your time if you haven’t played it. Unfortunately it’s pretty forgotten these days, and never got its due here in the west, since it took until the GBA era to come out here.