Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy V Part III. “The laws of the universe mean nothing!”

Copyright Square Enix

At some point near the end of the game, while fighting Necrophobe and Gilgamesh had his big long speech about the party, I just said “I love this game.” While I’m a little disappointed in the final boss oscillating between being a pushover and just wiping me out, I ultimately found that this was one of my favorite Final Fantasy titles ever. It’s up there with VII and IX as the A-Tier games in the series. Now that I have completed it, I can say that I have completed every single mainline Final Fantasy game. All I have left for this project are games I held off for the end because I’d played them all before (except for XII, because I’d had the Zodiac Age for a year and hadn’t touched it), so I can confidently say that this will remain as one of my favorite games in the series, ever. It’s not quite on the top of the A-Tier list, that’s Final Fantasy XVI, but it’s definitely fighting it out with IX. I do think VII might edge it out a bit, but we’ll see. Obviously, spoilers for the endgame are going to follow.

The merged world was really cool. First, it was fun to see how the worlds merged together, how well it all fit together and where things “should” have been the whole time. It’s pretty interesting, especially with the foreshadowing we had before, such as the Sealed Tome split between the two worlds, the sealed basement in Castle of Bal and all of the kingdoms in Galuf’s World seemingly missing their towns. I mean, towns probably should have been built in the 1000 years since the split, but I get why the developers didn’t do that.

I liked all of the dungeons in the merged world, save for the Fork Tower. I normally like split dungeons, but the physical side was a huge pain in the ass. They had that Counter Knight guy who would just fuck up Faris or Bartz whenever they attacked him. I kept running into those guys, so I’d just get merc’d every time I fought them. Too much of a pain in the ass for me. Also, the Omniscient, the mage boss, was more lame than cool for a magic duel. I just kept Reflect up and he couldn’t do anything. The Minotaur wasn’t so bad, but he he did a bunch of damage. What’s funny is that I could have gone and picked up a bunch of the Sealed Weapons and made my life easier, but I thought you had to get all of the tablets first. I will say, going back and getting all of the Sealed Weapons before I did the final one for me, the Great Sea Trench, did make things easier. I just gave Krile the Sage Staff and she just killed everything down there. Hell, I actually meant to recast float (because of the possession ability one of the Unknown monsters has), hit teleport instead, and I didn’t have a problem going back through the dungeon. I was like “oh shit, more free AP.” Managed to max out Berserker for Bartz there.

Istory Falls and Pyramid of Moore weren’t really anything to write home about, but the Pyramid was crazy hard without Lenna. It kind of sucked, because I wound up having Lenna be a few levels behind for the rest of the game, although that did save my ass when I got caught with a Level 5 Death near the end of the game. Allowed her to run away. Even though the last few dungeons might have felt basic, I do like that each of them connected to their element and felt unique. The Great Sea Trench being connected to the kingdom of the dwarves and being in an underwater volcano was cool. The Pyramid had tons of traps and everything, like you’d expect a pyramid to have. The only one that didn’t have an impression on me was Istory Falls. It was just a water dungeon. I do like that it was all technically optional, I could have plunged into the Interdimensional Rift any time I wanted, but I do like that the first two set up things later, and that after you complete the Island Shrine, you can tackle the rest of the dungeons in any order. I actually didn’t know I had missed a tablet, because for some reason I thought the Fork Tower was one, but nope, I was wrong. That was the last one I did.

The Interdimensional Rift isn’t my favorite final dungeon, but it’s up there. Kefka’s Tower, Northern Cave and Sky Fortress Bahamut have it beat, but this one was really good. I do like that it’s combination of all of the important places of the tablets and Exdeath. Also, the final one just kind of being in space was cool. A lot of the bosses were complete pushovers thanks to the fact I had Spellblade and Rapid Fire, meaning I could easily throw around 40,000 damage a turn, and nothing had more than 60,000 a fight. Which probably explains why all of them can just hit like a fucking truck. This game would be hard if it wasn’t so easy to abuse.

The only guy I really struggled against was Neo Exdeath. I beat Exdeath’s first form like it wasn’t even there, but Neo Exdeath continually kicked my ass. I tried a strategy I saw online, though, when I found out that the bottom one was weak to Break and the back one could be one shot. I was told Zantezuken didn’t actually hit, but I accidentally hit Odin instead of Bahmaut and Odin fucking cut that part in half, so there we go. Then Bartz Break Bladed the bottom part and it was just a matter of healing and clean up after that. Shame I killed him before I could raise Faris, and I got the less good ending.

I do think the story in the final third is not bad. Like I said, this isn’t the most narrative driven game in the series, but it is more than the Famicom games, and it gets more involved as it goes on. Exdeath surviving as a splinter to sneak into the merged world was brillaint. Also, him becoming a tree again at the end of the game is also very cool. We get some examinations of the characters, but they are fairly limited. It’s not as great, but like I said in the last one, at least there’s no meat left on the bone by the end. Of course, I also started Final Fantasy VI already and the contrast in narrative and character just from the first two hours I’ve played so far is stark. Still, it’s why VI is S-Tier.

By the end, I had turned my team into absolute killers. I wound up going after both superbosses, and Shinryu was the easiest. I just had to get a chance to go, because the first two times I fought him, he just hit me with Tidal Wave and killed me. However, I used the Golem/Berserk combo and Flare Bladed him to death with Bartz and Faris while Lenna kept summoning Golem and Krile did her best to keep everyone hasted. Omega was a challenge. All it took was for me to get Thundaga Blade up on Bartz and Faris, but surviving the set up was a challenge, since Blaster just killed someone and he had tons of other moves to fuck people up. I tried a Reflect strategy at first, but that’s what caused him to use Blaster. So, I switched to a haste strategy, and he did kill Lenna and Krile, but by then, Bartz and Faris had their Thudaga Blades up, and it was time for them to go. 16 hits at 40000-5000 damage each was more than enough. So, I have finally beaten some super bosses. It’s just Omega and Shinryu, but I did it.

I do like that Omega is just out there walking around. He looks funny on the field, especially after the Omegascape Raids in Final Fantasy XIV, and him just kind of being an asshole. I wish we had more Alpha. Shinryu was kind of just a big dragon, so whatever.

Ultimately, I loved this game. I’ve enjoyed all of these games, even II for what it was, and I’m glad I’m back in the swing of things. I am going to take a break after VI, mostly to play Shinobi and Doom: the Dark Ages, but I’ll hopefully be back to VII and VIII Remastered soon after. I’ll probably do a write up of XVI soon, because I found my notes already. I think I’ll wait until my friend finishes, since I’m kind of playing along with him as he streams.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy V Part 2. “Enough expository banter! Now we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men!”

I’ve heard that quote more than once before I played this game. I have done all of the Hildebrand quests up through Endwalker. I just now realized he’s talking about Faris. She’s a lady who dresses like a man. This is something I really like about the game, even though it hints pretty well at her being a woman before the reveal, I do like that the Wind Crystal Job sprites for Faris have her in more masculine clothing than Lenna. There are hints, such as her having the same color armor for Knight as Lenna while Bartz has the same color as Galuf. Krile has the same color as her grandfather and Bartz, but, you don’t have Krile until you have all of the Jobs (other than Mimic) and it makes sense for her to have similar sprites as Galuf considering she inherits his abilities. Also, after the jump, it’s spoiler territory. I also talk about endgame spoilers for other games in the series, including XVI, VIII and IX and parts of Shadowbringers, so be wary.

So, the second world of Final Fantasy V kind of made up for some of the complaints I had about Bartz’s world. This game still isn’t a narrative tour-de-force like VI or even IV is, but it definitely stepped up in terms of storytelling and developing characters. It’s interesting because now that I’ve played pretty much every other game in the series other than XIII, one of the criticisms I have is that the story tends to fall off in the second half, but not so here. This is where we actually got some real character moments for some of our guys. Galuf, of course, gets the lion’s share, with Krile getting a lot even before she joins the party, but Bartz, Lenna and Faris get a lot more than they had in Bartz’s world. It’s still not a lot, but Bartz’s angst about his father does explain his sort of lackadaisical and easy-going demeanor. He doesn’t want to feel the sadness he went through losing his parents, so he just sort of ignores it, but it manifests in different ways. It’s part of why he’s afraid of heights, for instance. Lenna and Faris get to explore a bit more about their history, after watching their father sacrifice himself to save them and defeat Exdeath. Finally, we get Exdeath.

So, I love Exdeath. Nearly every time he comes on the screen, it’s after doing something horrible and I wind up shouting “Exdeath! You asshole!” It’s great. What’s interesting is that he’s kind of the opposite of what I like when it comes to Final Fantasy villains. I love very human, very relatable villains. Emet-Selch, Vayne Solidor, Shinra, Kefka Palazzo, Kuja and Garland, and a lot of Final Fantasy XIV villains are some really good fantasy video game villains largely because they feel like things bad people in real life would do or be. Sure, many of them have super powers, are wizards or literally turn into gods (or in Kuja’s case, summons the universal embodiment of death), but even when Kefka is literally the god of magic, his apathy and despair feels very human. He got what he wanted and it’s terrible, so the rest of the world will suffer. Exdeath, meanwhile, is just a complete asshole. No redeeming qualities. He’s not even funny like Kefka is. I mean, his actions are hilariously terrible, but he’s not cracking jokes or anything, he’s just so awful that its comical. He’s not even a person, he’s an evil tree. He wants power to destroy everything. He should be down there with, like, Ultimecia in terms of villains I think are lame as hell, but nope, Exdeath rules. He has so much charisma, so much presence combined with zero redeeming features. He’s a very flat character who wants nothing but destruction and it rules. He shows up, chews the scenery, probably blows it all up, kills a bunch of people and just mocks you. The only thing I didn’t like was what he did to my boy Gilgamesh.

So, I have to admit, I was really excited for Gilgamesh. I’ve seen this guy in several other games, but never his initial appearance, but he’s great here. I wanted to see my boy Greg so bad and he didn’t deliver. Cowardly, arrogant and wielding so many dumb weapons while thinking he’s the smartest guy on the planet is hilarious. Plus, hearing Battle on the Big Bridge as it was originally intended was so good. Hell, the whole Battle at Big Bridge is one of my favorite sequences in the game, especially with him running away. I just forgot the steal the Genji Armor from him before he got launched into Final Fantasy VIII. The first time I got to fight ol’ Gilgamesh, I couldn’t help myself and cried out “GREG” with delight to see one of my favorites in his first real appearance.

So, the last thing to talk about is, of course, Galuf’s death. Now, I think Cid’s death in XVI might be the strongest party death in the series, but that one is kind of unfair because it’s so emotionally moving and it’s in full 4k with Ralph Ineson, Ben Starr and Susannah Fielding doing voice work. So, I always considered Tellah’s self-righteous sacrifice against Golbez to be the best, thanks to the story-gameplay integration. However, Galuf’s sacrifice is even better. It has the similar story-gameplay integration, only this time, it’s a noble sacrifice, so Galuf can save the next generation and his granddaughter. He takes on Exdeath on his own entirely at 0 hit points. I just threw comet after comet at Exdeath until he finally died, since Galuf was already dead anyway. I love that after, they tried everything to save him, Curaga, a Phoenix Down and an Elixir, but nothing saved him because it’s not running out of hit points that kills you. God, he just refused to go out. Of course, Exdeath isn’t so easily defeated, he managed to turn himself into a splinter to resurrect himself after he merged worlds, so it wasn’t the end, but Galuf saved the party. He should be commended.

Ultimately, this one is shaping up to be one of my favorite Final Fantasy titles, I think. I think it will fight with IX in that spot. It doesn’t beat out XII, XIV and XVI, and I think that VI and VII will remain in their spots as second and fifth respectively, but it’s still an A-rank game.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy V: Knights Do it Two-Handed

All the good quotes are in the second half of the game. I just beat a major milestone, but I don’t want to spoil it in the opening paragraph. Anyway, yeah, we’re back to doing games in bunches now, rather than just writing it all up in one go, since we’re done with the NES/Famicom titles. After all, the games are trying for more complex narratives now, so this one will likely get at least one more post. Maybe three. I’m really liking this one, even if the narrative isn’t quite as strong as IV’s was. I still kind of like the story more. So, anyway, spoilers after the break

So, I have completed all of Bartz’s world, learned of Exdeath’s resurrection and did a few things on Galuf’s world. I was actually kind of surprised at how little I knew about this game’s story. I know about only one thing in the future and I think I knew that Lenna and Faris were sisters and that’s about it. I’m not even sure I knew about the different worlds or not. It is interesting how similar the worlds actually are, and I have become aware of the third world map, so I have some theories about what that means, but I’ll hold them until the next post. Anyway, the short story is, as I said in the previous paragraph, I really like this game a lot. I found myself actually just grinding when I had a small amount of free time in between two things in my real life, and I don’t normally do that. However, the Job system has really gotten me going. I wish it were more in-depth like the one in Final Fantasy Tactics, but I kind of understand why they don’t want you to have Rapid Fire, Dual Wield and Flare Blade all at once. I might be able to pull that off with a Mimic, though, as long as I don’t have Attack or Item. Hmmm.

Anyway, the Job system is one of the things that really makes this work. I’m jumping from Job to Job way more than I did with III, not just to build characters, but just to experience different party makeups and strategies. The game doesn’t penalize me for changing out Jobs, even in the middle of a dungeon, so when I mastered White Mage on Galuf, I switched him to Red Mage to help build up Doublecast just to make sure the AP didn’t get wasted for him. I did that in the middle of a dungeon, with no penalty. Did the same for Lenna when she mastered Black Mage and I’ll probably have to do that with Faris when she finishes off Ranger, although I don’t have the knives to switch her to Ninja yet, since Bartz is using them. It’s a thinker about what I’m going to do next, and I love it. I love seeing how I’m going to build the characters into huge badasses in the future, and I like that eventually, once you’ve got them built up, you just switch over to Freelancer where they have all of their abilities and a pair of powers. It’s very cool.

My only issue is that you can’t really get in depth with it like Final Fantasy Tactics. Sure, Tactics has its own issues with Jobs and it’s not quite as easy to jump from Job to Job there, plus Job requirements (although considering it’s a tactics game rather than a regular RPG, requirements are understandable for the genre), but I do wish I could have more than two abilities. Like I said, I get it, having Rapid Fire, Dual Wield and Spellblade all at once is a lot, especially if you’re wielding Knight Swords or something instead of Knives, but man, it would be cool to rock up to Exdeath and fuck him up.

Now, the narrative is one of the things that is the most important for me, and I have to say, I’m finding I really like the one found here, even if it’s not as complex or ambitious as others in the series. Obviously, it’s a more complicated, more complex story than anything we got in the Famicom games, but it is a step down in terms of complexity and character development from IV. The characters aren’t quite as deep, the story is a lot more light hearted and the narrative is way more whimsical. Ironically, despite IX being something of a throwback to IV when compared to VII and VIII, it’s tone is actually closer in comparison to V and IV is closer in tone to VII and VIII. Yet, for some reason, I really like it more. Bartz doesn’t have a lot of character, but I like him way more than Cecil, who is a bit of a wet blanket, and we don’t have a Kain anywhere, which is nice. Faris and Lenna are fun and sweet respectively and Galuf is a big jolly guy. I do think his amnesia was a little weak as a character trait. It worked great at the ship graveyard, foreshadowing who he really was, and Krile, but there wasn’t any pathos to follow up on it, and then later when the werewolf sacrificed himself, it was kind of like “oh, this should have been sad, but we don’t know who he is.”

Still, I kind of don’t care as much. The game isn’t shooting to be crazy complicated. It wants to be a fun journey, so the characters don’t have a lot of personality they’re not living up to. I love X, but Wakka and Lulu especially have these potential character arcs, especially in regards to their relationship, that the game doesn’t really explore. People often just write off Wakka as racist, too (even though his bigotry is religious based, not based on ethnicity, but bigotry is stupid and irrational anyway), and it’s largely because his arc of understanding the Al-Bhed and coming to terms with the failings of his own religion are largely, but not entirely, left on the cutting room floor. This isn’t a thing in V. The characters may not be incredibly complex, but the also don’t leave anything on the table, so to speak. Faris and Lenna have their drama, Bartz has his insecurities and Galuf has his conflict with Exdeath and amnesia, but they also get resolved and their character arcs complete. It’s not a lot, but it is all there, so I can appreciate that.

On the other hand, it is lacking a lot of the emotional exploration it should have, which is something the later games are going to do much better at. I know this because V is the only game I hadn’t ever played, and I’ve beaten every other game now besides this, Tactics and XIII. Part of what works so well for X is Yuna’s story (she is one of my favorite protagonists now, up there with Cloud, Ashe, and the rest of the XII protagonists, and Clive) explores her emotions and fears about performing the summoning of the Final Aeon. Her relationship with Tidus, doomed as it is (even if he were a real boy. Let’s face it, he’s a dumb jock and she’s an honor’s student, they weren’t going to work out no matter what) is at the heart of wanting to see more, to do more. It’s great. V doesn’t have anything like that, at least in the beginning. It’s got cool dungeons and great set pieces and it’s a fun adventure, but it’s also not really doing a lot. That doesn’t matter though, it’s not trying to be XVI or Tactics. It wants to be the fun adventure and it succeeds at that, and that’s fine.