Final Fantasy V (05)

[Koby]

 

Final Fantasy V is the fifth main installment in the Final Fantasy series, developed and published by Squaresoft. It was released for the Super Famicom in Japan in 1992, and has since been re-released in Japan and in the west on PlayStation in 1998, on Game Boy Advance in 2006, on iOS and Android in 2013, and on Microsoft Windows via Steam in 2015. It was directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, with Yoshitaka Amano providing the character design and Nobuo Uematsu composing the score. It was the only installment on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that was not released outside of Japan, with Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI both releasing in North America titled Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III, respectively. It was the first Final Fantasy to use kanji in text as well as hiragana and katakana.

 

The game takes place in a medieval fantasy setting, and centers on a group of four strangers brought together by circumstance to save the Crystals that have mysteriously begun shattering. The one behind the phenomenon is the antagonist Exdeath, as part of a plan to release himself from imprisonment and gain the power of the Void, a realm of nothingness, which could bestow absolute power on one able to resist being absorbed by it. The four become the Warriors of Light and turn their attentions to defeating Exdeath and stopping the Void's energies from consuming their world.

 

The key feature of Final Fantasy V is the job system, which allows each of the four characters to switch to one of twenty-two jobs, and master the jobs to retain their abilities and stats when using a different job. The four can use the abilities of their current job and any mastered abilities they have equipped from other jobs. Battles are fought using the Active Time Battle system. Much of the strategy revolves around mixing up combinations of jobs, or learning the right skills from a job to use in combination with skills from another job, to defeat challenging dungeons and bosses.

 

Final Fantasy V has had a great influence on the series. The job system has inspired later games, including Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy X-2. It also introduced many conventions to the series, such as the Blue Mage, and the recurring mini-boss in the form of Gilgamesh, who himself has featured in many games since. The anime, Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, is an OVA sequel to Final Fantasy V taking place two hundred years after the game's events.

 

---

 

The PC version on Steam currently still seems rather broken out of the box. Here is a few fixes I've figured out which should help make the game playable:

 

Controller Fix

By default controllers don't seem to work. Luckily for us the fix seems pretty simple. Just go into the Final Fantasy V installation folder. Find "opengl32.dll" and rename to "opengl32.dll.bak". Voila, you should now be able to utilize your controller.

 

Fullscreen Fix

It seems there is an issue with DPI settings that make the game unable to correctly play in full screen as you'll only see a portion of the game frame on screen once again requiring a simply fix. Go into the installation folder and right click & select properties on "FFV_Game.exe". Then go to the Compatibility tab and click on "Change high DPI settings". On this window put a checkmark on "Override high DPI scaling behavior." Now you should be able to properly play in fullscreen mode.

 

Portrait Matching

Not actually a game breaking bug, but it's something I personally took issue with and wished to correct. The portraits used for dialogue often don't match the designs of the sprites for the characters. Example being a blonde-haired portrait for a pink-haired character. Luckily there is are two fan-mods that fix this complaint. You can find the mods here & here along with directions as to how to install it.