4.5/5 ★ – jared_c's review of Final Fantasy V.

Continuing my journey of playing all Final Fantasy games (previously unplayed) in order, I've now completed the fifth entry in the series. Safe to say, so far of the old school final fantasy games, this one is my favorite! This review is around the Pixel Remaster edition that has recently-ish come out. Final Fantasy 5 starts of with you playing as Bartz, a wanderer who comes across a fallen meteor. While investigating, Bartz encounters several characters who reveal the danger facing the four crystals that are controlling the world's elements. These crystals are acting as a seal for the powerful evil being known as Exdeath. You then team up to try and protect these crystals but just as in all of these games, disaster strikes. Just as in the other Final Fantasy games to this point, you have an overworld to travel in, various towns/villages and castles to explore each with their own people, shops, and other buildings to aid you, chocobos, airships, Cids, and others. This is the second entry in the franchise to use the Active Time Battle (ATB) system, though it's further fleshed out from 4's iteration, with each character having their own active bar. This is the first entry though to use a Job system. This is where the game truly shined in my opinion. Early on, you only have a few Jobs that can be used by the characters. As you level up, abilities tied to those jobs become equippable regardless of what Job you may switch to. You unlock additional jobs as you progress through the game, some being unmissable tied to overall progression in the game, and some being optional and missable if you aren't exploring everywhere. You can really make up some fun party dynamics and whacky characters depending on your creativity and how much you are willing to grind out Job experience. If you aren't careful, you can end up like I did having to reload a save because you somehow got yourself into a loop where no characters can attack! The story here is relatively standard, but the characters are well thought out and lively. There's tragedy, yet mixed in with humor throughout. I'm not sure really what all else to say as if you've played an early Final Fantasy game, you pretty much know what to expect. The Job system here was a lot of fun, and I maxed out most of the jobs for each of the characters in my playthrough. I think I finished at around 60 hours playtime, but I did a lot of the side quests, exploring, and grinding out experimenting jobs. If you were to play any of the first 5 Final Fantasy games, this is definitely the one to go for!