Introduction

Final Fantasy V was released in 1992 on the Super Famicom. It was later released on the SNES...never, as translation efforts fell through. There were rumors that it would be released on the PC as Final Fantasy Extreme, but that never came through.

In 1997, a translation group called RPGe ended up translating the game, becoming one of the first big fan translations of its kind, and ushering in a huge wave of translations for other games that would otherwise never be accessible to western audiences. We won't be playing this version.

Skipping ahead a bit, in 2006, Square released Final Fantasy V Advance on the Game Boy Advance, as part of its porting the SNES games to the handheld. FF5A featured a new, lighthearted translation that went well with the English audience, new jobs, and a new bonus dungeon. It's the definitive version of the game, and is well-loved by many. We won't be playing this version either.

The version we're playing is the game's first official release to the West, the PS1 version that came with Final Fantasy Anthology. This was the first proper introduction of the game to many people, and between its lengthy load times and its lackluster translation, it did not make a good impression and failed to do the game justice. Which is why I'm playing it.

My plan is to show off the PS1 translation, and compare it both to the unofficial RPGe translation and the official GBA translation. I figure it'd be an interesting way to gauge the differences between one of the earliest fan translations, an official translation during the time that Square was on the verge of not being lazy on its translations, and a translation where the translation, while not literal in a few places, certainly captured the spirit of the game, even if it was filled with a few memes.

To shake things up a bit, I'll be doing a gimmick run on this game as well. As for the gimmick, well, that's where you, good readers, come in, but more on that later. At any rate, doing this will give me more reason to explore the gameplay of the game itself, which is easily one of the game's highlights. That said, I'm not an expert on the game's mechanics, and I won't be breaking the game in half. Rather, I hope to talk about just why this game is just so god damn fun and awesome. It's been decided that I'd have only one character adopt each job to make things a bit more interesting. You can see the current line-up below.

If you enjoy FF5 and its mechanics, I highly recommend both Orange Fluffy Sheep and Dr Pepper's LP's of the Advance version. OFS breaks the game apart and shows off all sorts of awesome ways to dominate the battle system, while Dr Pepper shows the game off while doing a low level run, showing further how to dominate the game despite a severe handicap.

Spoilers in spoiler tags. It's possible we may have people who've never played the game at all, and the story, though not stellar, has its moments. Plus it'd be cool to see people's reactions to the translation in certain instances, so don't spoil those either.

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Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Orange Fluffy Sheep is doing perhaps the craziest challenge possible with this game: A runthrough using nothing but Berserkers. You should read this.

Job Line-up:

pre:

Bartz
                                          
White Mage     Summoner       Red Mage      Chemist       Dancer

Reina
                                          
Knight         Berserker      Sorcerer      Ninja         Hunter

Galuf
                                          
Monk           Black Mage     Trainer       Bard          Lancer

Faris
                                          
Thief          Blue Mage      Time Mage     Geomancer     Samurai

Fan Art

W.T. Fits reinterprets the game's weird monster-naming scheme into something beautiful.

W.T. Fits posted:

Also, I'm sorry, but I see low-hanging fruit, and I'm compelled to grab it...

Explosionface decides to immortalize the game's translation into an emoticon.

Explosionface posted:

Reverend Cheddar posted:
God this translation made me cringe when I was twelve and had been playing the RPGe translation for years. I couldn't even get past the pirate cave.

But this, I just noticed this.

"It's a Monk." I keep seeing this in my mind like those emoticons and or something.

"Well, that's enough Ni no Kuni for tonight. Time to just relax online and not do anything. Oh. Welp."

Then Explosionface takes it a step further.

Explosionface posted:

Yeah, I was just thinking about how useful something like that could be when I had something of a revelation.

"That just doesn't make sense!" "Well, "

Much more FF5-ish.

And of course, Explosionface made a ton of awesome avatars as usual.

Explosionface posted:

I don't know about anyone else, but I used the good half of the Super Bowl to do something I've been meaning to get to for a little bit now:

Orange Fluffy Sheep gives an explanation for Tycoon's treasure trove.

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

Maybe it was a gift.

Shaezerus shows off what it'd be like if Galuf could cast magic on his fists.

Shaezerus posted:

nuuhhh look at me i pay attention to things like "game mechanics" and "only have one ability slot per class"

Galuf the Burnpuncher is the hero we deserve.