New Faces, Familiar Surroundings

Although it may not appear so at first glance, many of the innovations that led to the series arriving at the point it is at today began with Final Fantasy V. The game may appear to be nothing more than a rehash of old ideas, but those who look closely can see the early creation of some very familiar occurences.

The fifth installment of the classic role playing series starts off a tad more slowly than its predecessors. Until you reach the Wind Crystal, the game is nothing more than following simple instructions to move along the story. For example, even though there is a town to visit after acquiring a boat, it is of little use to veteran players at this point of the quest.

Speaking of veteran players, after playing through the past four Final Fantasies, FFV has lost much of its former lustre. Seeing the same ideas being put into place over and over again (i.e., Surprise! You acquired a boat from Pirates!) is beginning to get a little old, and I could care less if I never see another crystal again at this point.

There are some concepts, however, that do somewhat vary the gaming experience. The biggest example of this is the Job system, which essentially set the standard for how every ability since this installment would be acquired. Although this Job system does get its roots from III's original system, I would consider the two to be very, very different from each other. The Job system in III was unimaginative, and most of the jobs were useless. This changes in Final Fantasy V. Every character can change jobs at a whim, making it easier for every character to become adept at each occupation. And this time around, the game makes it worthwhile for the characters to try out each job with the biggest innovation by far in the series, Ability Points.

Ability Points have shown up in some form or another in every Final Fantasy since FFV. In their original appearance, they were used to raise the skill level each character had with each job. When a job level is raised, that character learns some kind of an ability, which can then be transferred from job to job. In other words, after gaining a level or so of White Magic, the character could switch to being a thief with the ability to cast Cure. If anything, there is not an RPG fan alive who would disagree with the fact that gaining these abilities for each character is a heck of a lot of fun.

The artwork is also different. The monster designs, for example, were done by Nomura, who later went on to draw much of the artwork for the post-SNES installments.

And, unfortunately, this is where I will have to stop for a short while. I realize that it may seem as if I have been distracted these past couple days. Unfortunately, something has come up, and I have been busier than expected the last few days. It also means that I have to go out of town through next Saturday, meaning the Blog will not be updated again until a week from Sunday.