Final Fantasy V Review | Boko, The Best Companion!

Hi guys and welcome to my place!

Can I be completely, 100% honest? Even though I played this game (I’m sure!!!) I don’t remember much about it LOL So I think that what I can say first of the fifth instalment of Final Fantasy is that it easy to forget (?) but, let me explain… I didn’t play this game when it came out… I already have played many games in fact! It was one of those I picked when I told to myself (some years ago) that I wanted to play all the Final Fantasies… Because of this, many things that were brand new and completely made the difference, for me it was already seen as cliché and gameplay that I already have seen and experienced, so this way, the game may not be as brilliant, in my eyes, as someone who played in 1992.

Story:

As I told you… I don’t remember much, but I’ll do my best!

Even though in a different environment, the main plot is the same as Final Fantasy IV that I reviewed last week (click here to read it if you want), going in adventure to save the 4 crystals, each one representing one of the four elements. Basically, something that I’ve seen many times before and even if I played right after Final Fantasy IV when it came out (which I couldn’t because I was not born yet) I probably would feel that it had the same setting as the Final Fantasy before.

The story starts with a meteorite and 3 of the 4 main characters (yes, here you only have 4, I mean 5 with some random help from one character, but I’ll go that in detail later) meet each other in the meteorite’s crash site. The “hero”, Bartz which was just passing by with his great companion Boko (a chocobo), Reyna which is looking for her father (the king) and Galuf, who is found by the other 2 fainted. He has amnesia, but knows that the wind crystal is important and that he needs to hurry there.

And that’s it, you start your adventure!

Since the wind crystal has been shattered, wind does not exist anymore (at least this part is a cool add to the environment) and the party needs to find a boat that doesn’t need wind to travel. They end up finding a pirate ship who seems to work with no problem at all and decide to steal it. However Faris, the ship captain catch them on the spot but end up deciding to help and joins the party (not really something that would happen in real life, but ok). And that’s it! You have your 4 main characters for the story.

The rest of the story is a big blur to me… There is only one scene that pops into my mind, but I don’t want to make spoiler so I’ll not speak of it. The only thing that I can tell you is that later you will find that the antagonist Exdeath is the one behind it all, his objective, is of course to gain immense power and conquer the world (or something like that).

Gameplay:

Now this is where the game really shines. Final Fantasy V introduced the job system! What is this of the job system you ask? Well basically your characters can have many different classes throughout the game. The game features 22 different jobs! So you have really many things to experiment and ways to battle.

Each job has certain skills, if you master those skills when you change to other job those skills will still be available. So, you can see that there will be many strategies you can adopt and many combinations you can do! It is really fun and it gives a lot of freedom, something that in the previous installment you did not have.

Characters:

Since you have only 4 main characters from the beginning to the end it should be normal to expect that I would remember them well and tell you how they are right? Well… Not really lol I really can’t tell you any feature worth mentioning, the only character that I remember well is Faris! I did love what they did with the character, but since I don’t do spoilers in my reviews you will need to play the game to know that makes Faris so special 😛

However, I do have to speak about Boko!!! Basically he is Bartz’s pet/companion, but they need to leave him when they cross the ocean to go to the Wind Shrine, the same time they meet Faris. Well… Much later in the game Bartz rejoins to Boko who is married (YES, MARRIED lol) and with eggs in the way… I don’t know… It was the first time I saw something like this and it put a smile in my face! 😛

Graphics:

The game is old…. It really is, however you are in luck! There are some remasters out there! If you want to see the original graphics watch the video below in the music part, to see the remaster you can just look down and see the picture 😀 You will need to look what are the systems the “remaster” is available though… I know it is for PC and Android…

Music:

I’m not that smart… Instead of listening to Sia while writing this review I should have been listening to the OST… Well, there is something that I love from Final Fantasy V OST… It is when my favourite song from ALL the series came out! Gilgamesh made his first appearance in Final Fantasy 4, the same with the BEST music in Final Fantasy ever: Clash on the Big Bridge:

And that’s it! Because of the job system I do think the game is worth your while to experiment! I would recommend you to play on the Gameboy Advance version with better graphics and sound or the pc/android version. The one that came out in 1992 did not age well I’m afraid!

I give Final Fantasy V 3.5 Chocobos of 5!

What do you think about Final Fantasy V? If you did not play it until now are you thinking on trying it? Comment down below! 😀

I will come next week with Final Fantasy VI! 😀

See Ya Soon! 😀