Been enjoying Final Fantasy V as the bedtime game for the past few days. I've started this game lots of times but never really gotten further than a few hours into it, so I'm curious to see how things go. So far I'm enjoying it a lot; I particularly appreciate how the Job system is rewarding a willingness to go into a situation with perhaps an unconventional lineup of combatants — indeed, for a boss fight last night, I was really struggling with my "default" early-game lineup of Knight, Thief, White Mage and Black Mage, but then I changed everyone to Knight and absolutely obliterated said boss.
I suspect things will get easier and party lineups can be more flexible as the game progresses. The trouble in the early game is that you're so lacking in HP that mages can maybe take one or two hits before they're dead, making them a little impractical; however, I did spend enough time earning job levels on them that I can cast some fun spells while on other Jobs now, which is nice.
Thus far the world has been interesting to explore, and it gets you right in there with a selection of vehicles to fiddle around with and access various different areas. It suffers a little from NES-era Final Fantasy syndrome, where you're expected to pootle around the world you can access until you stumble across something potentially interesting — but one could argue that has always been an important part of early top-down RPGs. I know certainly since taking a look at the early Ultima games and their knockoffs such as Questron I've come to appreciate or at least understand the way some of the earlier Final Fantasy games and their ilk do things.
Mostly I'm looking forward to showing Andie things like Gilgamesh in their original context; as a Final Fantasy XIV devotee, she's been in contact with a lot of stuff from early Final Fantasy games through that title's numerous homage sequences, but not seen many of them in their original context. I have to confess there are a number of things I'm curious about, too; I've somehow managed to remain mostly unspoiled on the majority of Final Fantasy V's plot so I'm intrigued to see where it goes in the long term.
And on that note, it's time for a mug of hot chocolate and a bit more grinding. A pleasant evening to ya!
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