Introduction
What is this?
It's Final Fantasy V, do I need to say more?
Psh, fine. Final Fantasy 5 was originally released in 1992 in Japan for the Super Famicom. There were plans to release it onto the SNES but they chose instead to focus on localizing FFVI instead since allegedly Squaresoft considered FFV to be hard (Hence why it was refloated for release as Final Fantasy Extreme, but between the end of the SNES's life cycle and the obvious step back in graphics to FFVI it was shelved).
In 1999 the US finally got this game in an official release in the PSX release of Final Fantasy Anthology along with FFVI. This release was effectively identical to the original release, however this was at a time where Square was still throwing the translation services to a poorly staffed department and a 4pm on a Friday deadline. Dialog was still mostly coherent, but not always. And the enemy names... are, well. Memorable.
In 2006 there was a new release for the Gameboy Advance. This has what many
In 2013 saw a release for iOS, and eventually made its way to Android and Steam. This was mostly an adaptation of the Advance release. The major differences were many beneficial bugs were crushed. The enemy sprites in battle were beautiful. The player sprites and overworld tiling were less so. If I mention this in the course of the LP I will probably refer to it as the Matrix release. It's no longer available for sale because...
In 2021 SquareEnix decided to rerelease the mainline Final Fantasy games from the Nintendo systems. These are the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. These are ostensibly direct ports of the original releases, stripped of all the bonus content. The Pixel Remaster series has upgrade graphics, a remastered soundtrack that absolutely slaps, and some pretty good quality of life tools under the hood.
The LP
For the third or fourth time ever playing this game, I am not Fiestaing. Okay that link doesn't immediately explain much since its currently off season. Four Job Fiesta is a challenge run of FFV and I realize that I spent 20 minutes listing off facts and didn't actually explain anything. Final Fantasy V was the second game in the series to feature a job system, III was the first. IV utilizes jobs but aside from Cecil becoming a Paladin, the only changes in jobs was in the revolving door of characters.
In FFV you get 4 characters and can make them as you want. There are a lot of jobs by the end. Honestly calling a Fiesta a challenge run is oversimplifying, and probably an outright lie. In Fiesta you get 4 jobs and those are the ones you use til the end. There is bliss in knowing what you're going to do from fight to fight, dungeon through dungeon.
I've taken the limiters off. I can do what I want when I damn well please. This is probably why Square originally thought this game was too hard. You are at real risk of decision paralysis with what you could be doing at any time. With intimate knowledge of all the hammers at your disposal every problem is going to look like a very tiny nail.
Spoiler Policy
Go hog, the game is almost 30 years old. And aside from one midgame plot beat this game does not do subtlety.
Imaginarily Asked Questions
"So what version should I play?"
I'd say that the Pixel Remaster is definitely the way to go for casual play. If you were to drink deep of Fiesta, that answer is more difficult and could vary from run to run.
SNES release
Pros - Project Demi is a quality of life hack for FFV. For casual play this means that battle rewards can be scaled, so ABP grind for job mastery isn't quite so grindy. For Fiesta play this means skipping cutscenes. This is arguably the best game to play for a multiple berserker teams, as there is an underflow glitch that makes their ultimate weapon more ultimate.
Cons - The worst I can say is that this release actively punishes a certain strategy for the final boss. Said strategy is definitely absolutely certainly not the one I used on the first time I played the game. Them nerfing that playstyle is a dick move for one and only fight but honestly the boss can be broken far harder far easier.
PSX release
Pros - The enemy names. (I will point out any of the good ones, and when mentioning them will use the PSX names exclusively)
Cons - The enemy names. The fact that unless you have a PSX or PS2 laying around you almost certainly can't play it on hardware. The load times are horrible. It is pratically the same as the SNES release so any situation you'd want to play this version you should just play the SNES one.
GBA release
Pros - This is the localization of the game that all future ones are based off of. It's that good. Some bugs are fixed, but some new ones are introduced, many of those new bugs are pivitol to many Fiesta teams. Speaking of Fiesta, there is a patch to unlock all jobs immediately if you want to go ham right out the gate.
Cons - The lack of GBA onboard soundchip means that the soundtrack loses a bit of the original kick (The above mentioned patch also fixes this). The Advance special jobs are mostly non-factors and show up way too late to be relevant unless you're using the above patch.
Matrix release
Pros - I understand that this fixed some of the nastiest Berserker-only fights you'd subject yourself to in Fiesta rules.
Cons - For any berserker love the game has it fixes the good GBA bugs and breaks other non-bug strats out of spite.
Pixel Remaster
Pros - Quality of Life features like auto battle, a very detailed map. While many of the bugs I love are fixed there are new tricks that take their place that I plan to show off. Finally and probably the most important: This is probably the best way to play the game casually, both because its commercially available so no need for piracy and because it has the previously mentioned quality of life improvements.
Cons - There are some hardlocks or other bad bugs, but Squenix is still actively patching so those will hopefully be resolved. Like all the other PR releases, despite having PIXEL right in the name the default text is regular font. Look back up at the top of the thread, that's the best that font will ever look, it only looks worse and way too tiny in the actual game. That's the last time you'll be seeing any of that. There are means of just renaming or replacing files that fixes this, so I'm only mentioning this on the minor chance someone buys this game because they see me talking about it and anyone asks why things suddenly look better like below.
That's basically what I want to say, lets get into this.
Chapter 1 In hindsight I should probably have made this update a little meteor.
Chapter 2 Very well... I will give you your Butz. You seem to want it so.
Chapter 3 In Which We Tule Around
Chapter 4 I'm blue daba dee da ba di
Chapter 5 A man a map a canal, Anacapamanama
Chapter 6 BRB entering my cold rod in Forza Motorsports
Chapter 7 Water Damage
Chapter 8 Thread Title Drop
Chapter 9 Donde está la Byblos teca?
Chapter 10 HWUH
Chapter 11 Built Ronka Rough
Chapter 12 Down to Earth
Chapter 13 The Cursed Chapter
Chapter 14 NO JOKE TITLE ONLY ROCK
Chapter 15 Quelb Your Enthusiasm
Chapter 16 High Seas Havok
Chapter 17 Moore Than You Can Handle
Chapter 18 Meat Casa Es Su Casa
Chapter 19 Carnage Asada
Chapter 20 All the old paintings on the tombs They do the sand dance don't you know?
Chapter 21 Oh my God, it's Sabotage, I'm Tellin Y'all it's a Mirage
Chapter 22 Fork Stoker
Chapter 23 Take 2 Tablets and Call Me in the Morning
Chapter 24 They call me Gogo I Hit Very Hard, Mimic Me Well and Get a Crystal Shard
Chapter 25
Chapter 26 Gilg Amiss
Chapter 26.5 Last Call
Chapter 27 The Updates of the Universe are in Chaos
Wind Crystal Jobs
Water Crystal Jobs
Fire Crystal Jobs
Earth Crystal Jobs
Final Jobs
https://www.greatestgamemusic.com/soundtracks/final-fantasy-v-soundtrack-pixel-remaster/ Pixel Remaster OST is here, just scroll down past the "I remember my grandma making these waffles during my christmases in vermont when I was a child of 8. The sacking of Washington DC by the British was still fresh in our minds and raw in our hearts but we had faith...." puffery.