Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy V (ファイナルファンタジーV Fainaru Fantajī V) is a computer role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd. in 1992. Originally released for the Nintendo Super Famicom. The game was remade for the Sony PlayStation, and this version was eventually translated and marketed in North America and Europe as part of the Final Fantasy Anthology collection. The Super Famicom version of the game is notable for being one of the earliest fan translations to reach completion, by RPGe in 1997.

It is interesting to note that it was the first Super Famicom Final Fantasy to incorporate the use of, in the Japanese text, Kanji. Previous NES Final Fantasy titles had originally used an all-Hiragana script due to character-space limitations. Final Fantasy IV was the last to have this (despite the fact that a Kanji script was possible), and is the most visibly connected to its predecessors in style.

The game is being ported to the Game Boy Advance under the title Final Fantasy V Advance, and is scheduled for release sometime in 2006. 

The Final Fantasy anime, Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, serves as a sequel to the events depicted in the game.

Gameplay
The main feature of its gameplay was the revamped job system (originally introduced in a different form in Final Fantasy III), allowing all characters to potentially master up to 22 jobs. The player starts out with no job classes (they are defaulted as "Normal," a class which can be reverted to later on), and as they travel to new Crystal locations, they acquire new jobs. A separate form of experience, ABP, was created for the advancement of the characters' job levels, while they continued to earn regular experience points. The system also introduced a streamlined method of 'multi-classing,' allowing each character to learn job-specific abilities and carry one or two over when they changed their class. The Job System would disappear in the series for a short time, but would reappear in the Final Fantasy Tactics series, Final Fantasy XI, and Final Fantasy X-2.

Battle innovations include the famous Active Time Battle system, in which the player could, for the first time in the Final Fantasy series, see whose turn would come next. Other Final Fantasy conventions like the Blue Mage were introduced, adding new elements to battle.

Another first for the series was the introduction of two "super" bosses, namely Omega Weapon and Shinryuu. Both of these bosses can rapidly wipe out the party (even if every member has absolute maximum status points) and special tactics are required to defeat them. Facing these enemies is not required, and battles with them are manually initiated by the player. If the player defeats Shinryuu they will recieve the strongest sword in the game. Defeating the Omega Weapon has no reward, however.

Story
The hero of the game, Bartz (or Battsu, the original Japanese romanization) becomes wrapped up in an elaborate war between his world and a parallel world ruled by X-Death (エクスデス; Ekusudesu, sometimes "Exodus"). With the help of Princess Reina (Lenna in the fan translation), the pirate Faris, and the amnesiac Galuf, he fights X-Death's influence and tries to stop him from plunging the world into the "Void." The party uses the shards of the elemental crystals to learn skills and magic and eventually defeat X-Death.

Final Fantasy V also features the first recurring miniboss of the franchise, Gilgamesh (ギルガメッシュ Girugamesshu). Bartz and his friends fight him several times over the course of the game, a concept that the series continued with Ultros (Final Fantasy VI), the Turks (Final Fantasy VII), Biggs and Wedge (Final Fantasy VIII), General Beatrix (Final Fantasy IX) and Seymour Guado (Final Fantasy X).

Characters
The game stars a crew of five unique characters. The initial four characters remain together for much of the game, until one is permanently replaced by a fifth character.


 * Bartz Clauser (バッツ・クラウザー; Battsu Kurausā) is an adventurer and the 'main character' (only because he is the first person the player controls, and he is often 'representative' of the party). He becomes embroiled in the adventure at the very beginning, when he comes upon the crash site of a meteor with his Chocobo, Boko, and meets Reina. His name is Butz in the fan translated version.
 * Reina Charlotte Tycoon (レナ・シャルロット・タイクーン; Rena Shorurotto Taikūn) is of the princess archetype, and meets Bartz at the meteor. She is the King of Tycoon's daughter. Her name is Lenna in the fan translated version.
 * Galuf Doe (ガラフ・ドウ Garafu Dou) is a mysterious old man. He is discovered unconscious at the meteorite with amnesia. His past is initially unknown but is revealed later in the game. His full name is Galuf Halm Baldeison (ガラフ・ハルム・バルデシオン; Garafu Harumu Barudeshion).
 * Faris Scherwiz (ファリス・シュヴィルツ; Farisu Shuvirutsu) is a pirate whose ship the party uses to travel, at first. The party meets up with Faris when they try to sneak aboard her ship. During the first portion of the game, Faris disguises herself with her hair and clothing as a man. She has a connection with Reina that is later revealed.
 * Krile Maia Baldeison (クルル・マイア・バルデシオン; Kururu Maia Barudeshion) is the granddaughter of Galuf. She and her pet dragon Hiryuu are in search of her lost father. Later in the game, she takes Galuf's place in the party. Her name is Cara in the fan translated version.

Localization
The original Super Famicom version of Final Fantasy V was never released in North America. As translator Ted Woolsey explained in a 1994 interview, "it's just not accessible enough to the average gamer." Plans were made to release the game in 1995 as Final Fantasy Extreme, targeting it at "the more experienced gamers [who] loved the complex character building". For unknown reasons, however, Final Fantasy Extreme never materialized.

In 1997, video game studio Top Dog was hired by Square to port the original Super Famicom game to Microsoft Windows-based personal computers for North American release. Although a good deal of the game was completed, ultimately communication problems between the Top Dog and Square's Japanese and American branches led to the project's demise. That same year an English fan translation patch for the Final Fantasy V ROM image was released on the Internet by RPGe. The release was well received, and until 1999 was the only widely available English language version of the game.

In 1999, a PlayStation compilation, Final Fantasy Anthology was released, which included Final Fantasy V (as well as the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy VI). Some names were interpreted differently, yielding Butz in the fan translation, and Bartz in the official. In 2002, this version of the game was released in Europe and Australia (alongside Final Fantasy IV). Some fans were unhappy with the dialogue translations, particularly Faris' 'pirate accent' which was not part of the original script.