(1) A piss poor storyline. True, you had X-Death. And his evil plan of DOOM~! But I had no reason to REALLY hate him. And I never really connected with any of the main characters. They had as much depth as a piece of paper.
(2) An unresponsive battle system. I would spend five minutes per battle trying to get my characters to do stuff. Most annoying when I want to level up both job and characters as quick as I can.
Those are my two main gripes, but I’ll think of other stuff laters.
But the storyline being so predictable, or seemingly predictable, was in a way the whole fun. I didn’t expect the game to surprise me in any way. I expected it to be a short unoriginal game. And when I reached the point that I thought was the ending, I was suddenly in a second WORLD, and for the first time really met the villain. The story was just starting. And then, a third world.
The game was long and had some surprises, I liked that.
I also liked the adventure factor the game had like no other. There are always hidden passages, items, tiny subquests like the unbeatable monster in the cave or the man asking for a frog… o_o
The sword I found outside Castle Bal or whatever it was called, this was the sword I used for almost all the rest of the game, it was THAT great. 🙂 And it was just a sword I found somewhere, I am still so proud of this sword… 🙂
The job system rocked, too. One day I should try and properly explore the unloved jobs… monster trainer, etc. They are really interesting…
And the music was great. And it had the best airship-ship-submarine in the whole series!
And yep… no captivating story to distract you from the exploring and levelling up. 😉
Maybe part of the problem is in the PAL conversion of FF5 to PSX. I don’t know, but when I wanted to sit down and seriously level up my characters, I just couldn’t because it took so darn long.
"Hi! I’m some chocobo guy called Butz and I love my chocobo!"
"Really? I’m some old guy who turs out to be a king of some place!"
"Don’t forget me! The cross- dressing pirate!
"And me! Some princess of something!"
Wow. The entire character development.
The storyline wasn’t the game’s strength, it was the gameplay. The characters were loveable in their own pixel way, but still… the strength was gameplay.
P.S.: Wasn’t FF5 the FF game that introduced Gilgamesh?
what good is gameplay if you fall asleep halfway through, forget where you were, have to start again then get bored again….
see where im going with this?
And see, the whole thing is that gameplay can get you hooked, too. Exploring the world map and the dungeons of FFV, striving to get more rare items, more jobs, more skills, this gets a game played, too.
I did have an interest in the story, though, it’s not like this factor didn’t exist.
I pity you if you got bored while playin the game. This happens. People have different tastes and one cannot like every game. A game cannot please every gamer. But I pity you.
Call FF5 what FF1 and FFTA and FFCC ended up being: Gameplay over Story. 😮
Yeah, the gameplay was some of the best in FF, but you do need a reason for the gameplay… a story that drives the plot, even a simple and thin one, is better than one that occurs whenever the game feels like it. It’s a pity because the gameplay/ job system was pretty good.
I completed it.
And see, the whole thing is that gameplay can get you hooked, too. Exploring the world map and the dungeons of FFV, striving to get more rare items, more jobs, more skills, this gets a game played, too.
I did have an interest in the story, though, it’s not like this factor didn’t exist.
I pity you if you got bored while playin the game. This happens. People have different tastes and one cannot like every game. A game cannot please every gamer. But I pity you.
I agree, the gameplay was everything and the story wasn’t as bad as some other FF’s. I completed it because i got hooked and i would say that it is like FF10-2 in many ways and if you don’t like it fair enough but if you just try to get further instead of falling asleep you might actually enjoy it more. The best part was getting all the lithographs and going into the temples, and eventually getting all of the 12 mystical weapons. Also it had a few challenges in it such as Necraphobe the boss before X-death that was very hard and when you almost kill it Gilgamesh appears and finishes it off for you which is another good part of the story line. So all i have to say to you is get up of your arse and at least try and play it a bit more!
I did finish it i think but i cant remember what happened. The game was so long last thing i remember was some blue crystal room. Gilgamesh was there i think.
The ending had nothing to do with Gilgamesh seeing as he died just before the end.
But Gilgamesh doesn’t necessarily die. This battle that he interferes with is optional… isn’t it?
The ending starts out as like a letter that Cid and his grandson (I forget his name) are reading. I believe the letter is written by Boco, unless you finished the X-Death battle with him in KO status, in which case there’s a pecking order that dictates who writes the letter and what’s said in it. Finally, there’s a resolution scene that recalls Galuf and also involves having one or more of your characters "returned" to you because it’s not their time yet, if any them were in KO status at the end of the final battle, hence the multiple endings. The letter has a generally happy tone if nobody died and gets progressively sadder if someone did. At the end, if I remember correctly, everyone rides off into the sunset or whatever on chocobos.
Blue crystal room doesn’t sound like the ending…
But Gilgamesh doesn’t necessarily die. This battle that he interferes with is optional… isn’t it?
The battle is optional but to get you just have to leave Necraphobe on around 4000 health and he will turn up. if you don’t the last you see of him is when you fight him before in the void. And what Agent0042 said was one of the correct endings.
And hehe, Icubus is right, there are different endings. We’ve been through that already sometime in the past in some other thread. 🙂 It’s funny.
i remember what happened now. its not that bad.
maybe i should try for a more depressing ending.
anticlimaxes are always easier to remember.
The storyline is just……gah. I found myself just skipping through all the dialouge as quickly as I could because I was so bored.
I love the job system. The battles do move kind of slow, but I never got really fed up over that.
When it came down to it, I got stuck at a part, and I just wasn’t interested enough to work my way through it. Sooner or later, I’m sure I’ll play it again just to beat the game, but it’s just too weak of a story for my tastes.
1) I love FF5
2) Sadly, it didn’t start the jobs system. FF3 did, I played the rom that someone translated, it’s pretty cool for an NES game, sadly It was only released in Japan and as far as I know Square (SquarEnix as they now call it) doesn’t plan on putting it on GBA or any other system.
V is an awesome game, though. If you think it has a blah storyline, play Mystic Quest, Crystal Chronicles, or one of the gameboy Final Fantasies, then try to complain about a bad storyline 😛
I never finished V. I want to, but I’m completley lost (I started exploring the world on a ship, and then saved and stopped playing and forgot my purpose :x)
That kinda happened to me. I couldn’t find the pyramid dohickey in the third world or something… The game’s not that helpful in giving directions.
I think if I do start playing it again, I’ll start from scratch. Because my party was pretty much being destroyed by anything that crawled…