Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy V is the fifth installment in the Final Fantasy series by Square Co., Ltd., originally released for the Super Family Computer (Super Famicom) in 1992. The game was ported to the Sony PlayStation, and this version was translated and marketed in North America and Europe as part of the Final Fantasy Anthology collection. The game's SFC version is notable for being one of the earliest fan translations to reach completion, by in 1997; this was driven by the SFC version also being one of the highest-profile "missing games" of the Super Nintendo era. Final Fantasy V was later released for the Game Boy Advance, as part of the Finest Fantasy for Advance compilation.

The game centers on a group of four strangers brought together by circumstance to save the Crystals that have mysteriously begun shattering one by one. The one behind the phenomenon is the villain Exdeath, as part of a plan to release himself from imprisonment and to 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 Warriors of Light turn their attentions to defeating Exdeath and stopping the Void's energies from consuming their world.

Final Fantasy V was the first Super Famicom Final Fantasy to incorporate the use of kanji in the Japanese text; previous Final Fantasy titles had originally only used hiragana and katakana script due to character-space limitations. Final Fantasy IV was the last to do this (despite kanji script having been possible at the time), and is the most visibly connected to its predecessors in style.

In 2013 Final Fantasy V was released for mobile platforms, followed by a 2014 Amazon Appstore release for both Kindle and Android devices. This version was developed by Matrix Software, and has new graphical style but otherwise remains the same as previous versions.

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.

Gameplay
The main gameplay feature is the revamped job system allowing all characters to potentially master up to twenty-two jobs. The player starts out as "Freelancer", and as they travel to new Crystal locations, the party acquire new jobs.

A separate form of Experience, ABP, is introduced for the advancement of the characters' job levels, while they continue to earn regular Experience Points. The system introduces a streamlined method of "multi-classing", allowing each character to learn job-specific abilities and carry one or two over when they change their class. After Final Fantasy V the job system was absent in the series until the Final Fantasy Tactics series, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy X-2.

Battle innovations include reworking the Active Time Battle system, so that the player could, for the first time in the Final Fantasy series, see whose turn would come next. Other Final Fantasy conventions, such as the Blue Mage, are introduced, adding new elements to battle.

Final Fantasy V features the series' first recurring mini-boss, Gilgamesh. Bartz and his friends fight him several times during the game, a concept the series continues to use.

Characters


The game stars a crew of five unique characters. The initial four remain together for much of the game, until one is replaced.
 * Bartz Klauser (Butz in the original Japanese and fan-translated versions) is an adventurer who becomes embroiled in the adventure when he comes upon the crash site of a meteorite with Boko, his chocobo, and meets Lenna.
 * Lenna Charlotte Tycoon (Reina in the Western PS versions) meets Bartz at the meteorite. She is the daughter of King Tycoon, and when the king failed to return from his trip Lenna set out to look for him.
 * Galuf Halm Baldesion is a mysterious old man with amnesia discovered unconscious at the meteorite crash site. He remembers only two things: his name, and that he is heading for the Wind Shrine.
 * Faris Scherwiz is a pirate captain whom the party meets when they try to sneak aboard the pirate ship.
 * Krile Mayer Baldesion (Cara in the fan-translated version) is Galuf's granddaughter who aids the party several times.

Story
In Tycoon Castle King Tycoon prepares to depart for the Wind Shrine. The wind is behaving strangely, and he orders his daughter, Lenna, to watch over the kingdom while he investigates. As soon as he arrives, the Wind Crystal shatters, halting the wind across the world. Lenna rushes off to search for her father, while a pirate at sea notices the change, and an old man in a meteorite hurries to the scene.

The meteorite crashes near Tycoon Castle, where it is seen by Bartz Klauser, a lone wanderer who travels the world with his chocobo Boko. He finds Lenna under attack by goblins and rescues her. They search the Tycoon Meteorite crash site and find the old man, who gives his name as Galuf but has no other memory. When Lenna mentions the Wind Shrine he says he has to go with her, though he has no idea why the Wind Shrine seems important. Bartz declines to accompany them, but Boko changes his mind and they return in time to rescue the pair from more goblins. Feeling that "the wind is calling," Bartz decides to join them on their quest.

In need of a way to sail without wind, they watch a pirate ship enter a secluded harbor seemingly on its own power. Although Lenna suggests asking the pirates for a ride, Galuf and Bartz rationalize that since these are pirates, simply stealing the ship is the safer option. The pirates and their captain, Faris, catch them in the act and briefly imprison them, but Faris decides to join them to find out why he and Lenna share a pendant. He reveals the ship moves thanks to a tame sea dragon named Syldra and they sail on to the Wind Shrine.

The party discovers the shattered remnants of the crystal atop the shrine. The shards give off light and mark each of them with an essence of the four elements: courage and fire for Faris, devotion and water for Lenna, hope and earth for Galuf, wind and passion for Bartz. The King of Tycoon appears and names them the Warriors of Light, warning them of an evil that is trying to destroy the other crystals. The crystal shards entrust themselves to the party, providing them with the first set of job classes.

The nearest crystal is the Water Crystal in Walse, so the party visits Zok, the architect of Torna Canal. Though reluctant due to the recent monster infestation, he loans them the key to the gates. During the voyage, Lenna explains the dire consequences should the crystals be destroyed: the natural forces of the world would cease, rendering the planet uninhabitable. They resolve to save the crystals, but Zok's fears prove to be well-founded and the ship is attacked by a monster called Karlabos. Although the party defeats it, it sucks Syldra into a whirlpool, leaving them adrift. They end up in the Ship Graveyard. After crossing a flooded room, the party dries their clothes with a fire, but Faris protests. During a brief struggle, they learn he is actually a woman. Although shocked, they understand her reasons for disguising herself, and shrug it off. Upon reaching the shore they encounter illusions of their loved ones cast by the Siren and fall unconscious. Bartz sees his mother, Stella, Lenna and Faris are ensnared by King Tycoon, and a young girl appears before Galuf. Galuf has no memory of her and knocks his friends back to their senses, allowing them to defeat the monster. They visit the town of Carwen and soon hear rumors that a wind drake was seen flying to North Mountain, a clue as to the king's whereabouts.

The party is ambushed by a wife-husband hunter team, Magissa and Forza, on their way up the mountain. Magissa shoots Lenna with a poisoned arrow and tries to kidnap her. Faris leaps across and, though she nearly falls, she climbs back up and throws a rope for Bartz and Galuf. Together the party defeats them. At the top, they find Lenna's wind drake, Hiryu, injured. Lenna crosses the mountain's poison flowers to get the dragon grass to cure him. The grass works and Hiryu heals Lenna of poison.

The Light Warriors pay a visit to Castle Tycoon. During the night, Lenna confronts Faris with the knowledge they are sisters, but Faris denies any such connection.

They fly the wind drake to Walse and entreat its king to shut down the amplification machine they use to enhance the Water Crystal's powers, as it is weakening the crystal. King Walse refuses, saying that the machine has protected the country and brought them great prosperity. Before they can argue further a second meteorite crashes at Walse Tower, the site of the crystal. The party races to the scene after the king and find that the king and his soldiers have been defeated by Garula, a normally gentle elephantine creature. They find a strangely-dressed soldier at the top who addresses Galuf as "my lord," but he is mortally wounded by Garula before Galuf can learn anything. The Light Warriors defeat the creature, but it is too late to stop the crystal from shattering. They gain the second set of job classes right before the tower plunges into the sea. Syldra reappears and rescues them before drifting away in the current.

Exploring the Walse Meteorite, Bartz steps on a warp point and is whisked away. The rest of the Light Warriors follow and find themselves at Karnak Meteorite. They are arrested on suspicion of being in league with a werewolf that had emerged from the meteorite before them. They meet Cid Previa, the inventor of the crystal amplification machines, in jail. He had realized his mistake, but was imprisoned by Queen Karnak when he tried to shut down the device. Karnak's chancellor releases the party at Cid's insistence when his expertise is needed to shut down the device after damage to the crystal becomes apparent. The five go to the Fire-Powered Ship and find Queen Karnak in the engine room, clearly possessed. She either becomes or summons a fiery monster, which the party defeats. The werewolf from before joins them in the Crystal Chamber and reveals himself as an ally, also addressing Galuf. A Karnakian soldier—also possessed—turns up the machine to its full power and the crystal shatters. The werewolf aids the party's escape at the cost of his own life, and Karnak Castle explodes. The Light Warriors pick up three more crystal shards from the wreckage.

Cid blames himself for the crystals' destruction and holes himself up in Karnak's pub, so the Light Warriors go to the Library of the Ancients to figure out their next move. They meet Cid's grandson, Mid. When they tell him about his grandfather, Mid rushes to Karnak and snaps Cid out of his funk. The sight of grandfather and grandson triggers something in Galuf's memory and he flashes back to a similar scene between him and his granddaughter Krile, the girl Siren showed him. He tells the party he is from another world and that thirty years ago he and three other warriors sealed an evil warlock called Exdeath using the power of the crystals. Now, Exdeath is trying to escape by shattering them via possessing others to carry out the deed.

Cid and Mid repair the Fire-Powered Ship and give it to the Light Warriors to find the Earth Crystal, the last one remaining. They visit Crescent Island and lose the ship in an earthquake. The island's forest is home to a flying black chocobo and they retrieve the two missing shards of the Fire Crystal. With the chocobo, the party flies over mountains and makes a stop at Lix, Bartz's hometown, where he reminisces about his past. Returning to the library, they learn from Cid and Mid that King Tycoon has been spotted flying through the air towards the abandoned town of Gohn.

Although they find him there, the king leads the party to a trapdoor and they plunge into underground ruins. Faris calls out to him as "Papa," finally admitting that she and Lenna are sisters. They escape by a warp point but it overloads as soon as they use it, and they are nearly killed by the explosion. The warp point whisks them to another set of underground ruins where they find the Fire-Powered Ship shortly before Cid and Mid fall through the ceiling. The two inventors realize that the ruins, Catapult, were left by the Ancients. Finding an airship alongside the Fire-Powered Ship, Cid fixes it and gives it to the party, who resolve to save the last crystal.

The Light Warriors return to Gohn and see the Ronka Ruins rising into the air thanks to the ancient amplification machine, putting the crystal at grave risk. Cid and Mid reinforce the airship's hull with adamantite from Galuf's meteorite so the party can reach the flying city. They find King Tycoon in the crystal room and try to talk, but he orders them to defeat the Archeoaevis. They oblige, not realizing the creature is actually the crystal's guardian. Once it is slain, "Tycoon" prepares to attack them. Though he is possessed, Faris and Lenna refuse to let Bartz and Galuf confront him. Before anything else can happen, another meteorite arrives. Krile bursts into the room and hits Tycoon with a mild spell to break him from his possession. Seeing her again cures Galuf's amnesia and King Tycoon reunites with both of his daughters. Their joy is cut short when the Earth Crystal shatters and Exdeath is freed from his prison. He appears before them and taunts Galuf, sets the crystal shards to attack the party, and departs. King Tycoon saves them at the cost of his own life by drawing the crystals' attack. Now inert, the crystal shards bestow another set of job classes onto the party.

With the Earth Crystal gone, the party flees to the airship as the Ronka Ruins crash. Faris and Lenna are given no time to mourn their father's death now that Exdeath is back. Galuf tells them the full story of how he and his companions, the Dawn Warriors, fought Exdeath from the other world to this world and sealed him away with the crystals. Although he and the others on his world learned that Exdeath was attempting to free himself and used the meteorites to try and stop him, they were too late to do anything. He declares he and Krile will return to his world to fight Exdeath and forbid the others to follow, saying they would have no way to return. Bartz, Lenna, and Faris say goodbye, but decide they need to go and help. Again consulting Cid and Mid, they collect more adamantite from the meteorites to activate a warp point to the other planet. Bidding goodbyes to their distant homes and loved ones, they jump in one by one and find themselves on a lone island in another world. Exdeath's servants capture them and bring them to Castle Exdeath.

Galuf, Krile, and an army prepare to cross Big Bridge and assault the castle. Exdeath uses Bartz, Lenna, and Faris as hostages, forcing Galuf to call a retreat. He borrows Krile's wind drake and mounts a rescue, fighting Exdeath's lackey Gilgamesh during the break-in. They escape across the bridge, fighting their way through monsters and confronting Gilgamesh in a second clash. Before they can reach the other side, Exdeath activates his Barrier Towers. The barrier hurls the Light Warriors to the far-distant continent of Gloceana. Bartz apologizes for their capture, but Galuf waves it and their thanks away, saying they helped, because the army would have been wiped out if they were on the bridge when the barrier activated. Searching for a way back, they help a moogle escape from a hungry monster. In gratitude, it leads them to Moogle Village. The moogles contact Krile's moogle at the Castle of Bal, and her injured wind drake volunteers for the flight to go pick them up.

Upon arriving at the castle, the party learns Galuf is King Galuf Halm Baldesion, although he is embarrassed by the revelation and insists they not treat him any differently. Krile tells them the wind drake is dying from the long flight and Lenna suggests dragon grass, which only grows in the dangerous Drakenvale. The party goes anyway and passes through the werewolf town of Quelb. Quelb's leader, Kelger Vlondett, is one of Galuf's old Dawn Warrior comrades, although he is suspicious of the party and demands Bartz prove himself in a fight. Bartz defeats him using a move taught by his father Dorgann and is stunned when Galuf and Kelger tell him Dorgann had been a Dawn Warrior, the only one who protested leaving Exdeath on the first world and remained to watch over the seal.

They find the dragon grass at Drakenvale has turned into a monster, likely causing the extinction of the wind drakes there. It becomes safe after the monster is defeated, but the wind drake refuses to eat it when they bring it back to him. Lenna encourages it by taking a bite herself despite its toxicity to humans. Krile, who has been bedridden from a migraine, gives her a medicine to cure it before collapsing again. Her distress is caused by a psychic call from the sage Ghido, so the Light Warriors go visit him. As soon as they set foot outside Ghido's cave, Exdeath sinks it into the sea. Back on the wind drake, they find a fleet of ships preparing to attack one of the Barrier Towers, led by another Dawn Warrior: King Xezat of Surgate, also known as Xezat the Swordsman. They join his plan to infiltrate the tower in a submarine and climb to the top to destroy the antenna. Below, Xezat becomes trapped in the generator room and dies in the explosion. The party escapes and the barrier falls.

Using the submarine, they speak to Sage Ghido, an ancient turtle. He tells them to go to the Forest of Moore to stop Exdeath from destroying the crystals kept there, but Exdeath deceives them into destroying the crystals' guardians. Exdeath arrives and turns the crystals' magic on the party. Krile flies to the forest and tries to stop him, but is struck down. At the sight of his granddaughter in danger, Galuf rises up in spite of the crystals' magic and fights Exdeath. He battles to the last limit of his strength, forcing the warlock to flee. The party tries to heal Galuf but he cannot be saved. Using the power of the Guardian Tree, he passes his powers onto Krile so she can take his place as the fourth Light Warrior.

The party infiltrates Castle Exdeath and Kelger gives his life to reveal the castle's true form, allowing them to fight their way to the top. They encounter Gilgamesh but his poor choice of weapon is no threat and Exdeath banishes him to the Interdimensional Rift for his failure. Exdeath battles the party at the top of the castle and though he appears defeated, he shatters the remaining crystals.

The Light Warriors black out and awake near Castle Tycoon, which throws a celebration for the return of the princesses Lenna and Sarisa (Faris). Bartz and Krile slip out to discover why they returned to the first world, and are soon joined by Faris, who grew tired of being royal. They learn from Ghido the two worlds have been merged into one. Long ago, the world was split into two to seal the power of the Void, a destructive power of unknown origin, lest it be used for evil. Now that the world has been restored to its original state the power of the Void has been released to be used by Exdeath. The Light Warriors must obtain the Sealed Weapons, a set of twelve legendary weapons from a thousand years ago, to survive the Interdimensional Rift, an otherworldy dimension existing in the rift between worlds, and destroy Exdeath. Exdeath emerges from a splinter in Krile's hand and knocks them out, although Ghido fights him to a standstill. Exdeath uses the Void to destroy several locations by casting them into nothingness leaving but black holes behind, including Castle Tycoon and Lenna with it.

After obtaining the first seal from the Pyramid of Moore to unlock the legendary weapons, the party reunites with Lenna, who was saved from the Void by Hiryu. Hiryu sacrifices himself to help drive the demon Melusine from Lenna's body so the other Light Warriors can defeat her. Exdeath strikes again with the Void, seemingly to taunt the party as well as removing Sage Ghido. Among the towns he attacks is Lix, enraging Bartz to the degree he almost destroys the airship by pushing it to unreasonable speeds before the others calm him down. They reunite with Cid and Mid after traversing Fork Tower to obtain the Flare and Holy spells, and the pair gives the airship an undersea function. The Light Warriors travel all over the Merged World to unlock the legendary weapons using the seals from the Island Shrine, Great Sea Trench, and Istory Falls, defeating the demons Exdeath sent to stop them. They find Syldra as a summon spirit in the Pirates' Hideout and Hiryu as the summon Phoenix at the top of Phoenix Tower.

Now fully prepared, the Light Warriors fly the airship into the Interdimensional Rift that has opened over Tycoon. They fight through the hodgepodge of environments seemingly put together from the places the Void consumed until they reach the final floors, a world of crystalline darkness. Exdeath reveals his true form: the Moore tree. The Great Forest of Moore had once been used to seal evil spirits, until the day the spirits sealed in a tree became a sentient, malicious being. He tries to destroy the Light Warriors with the Void, but the spirits of Galuf, Xezat, Dorgann, Kelger, and King Tycoon save them, allowing the party to confront Exdeath in battle. Halfway through the fight he is consumed by the Void and becomes Neo Exdeath, an entity—the manifestation of the evil spirits trapped within the Moore tree that was Exdeath—that seeks to turn all of creation to nothingness. At great length, they defeat it.

For a short time, the Void lingers. The essences of the elements carried by the party—Hope, Courage, Devotion, and Passion—imbue the crystal shards they carry, and the crystals are reborn in the places that held the weapon seals. It is told the Void existed before the world, and that the crystals that sustain the planet were born in the Void and thus created the world. From this it can be drawn that the Void is the original state of the universe from which all life was formed. King Tycoon and the Dawn Warriors thank the party for saving the world and Krile's wind drake appears to take them back.

A year later, Krile writes to Mid and tells of what the Light Warriors have been up to. Bartz has resumed wandering. Lenna and Faris returned to Tycoon, although Faris cast aside the life of royalty to rejoin her pirate crew. Krile herself returned to Bal. She visits the Guardian Tree on the anniversary of Galuf's death, feeling sad and lonely, but the others join her and remind her she isn't alone. Should any of the party have fallen in the final battle, they are revived at the Guardian Tree. Together, they vow to continue protecting the crystals.

Development
Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshinori Kitase first worked together on Final Fantasy V. Kitase has later summarized the experience thusly:

Hironobu Sakaguchi was in charge of the overall design, while everyone else carried around their ideas in their own plan books. Tetsuya Nomura, whose first big involvement with Final Fantasy was with Final Fantasy V, had jobs in mind, such as a ninja with a dog, a gambler who fought with dice and cards, among others. Others typed things out with computers, but to have more impact Nomura wrote handwritten notes and included drawings. After a while, whenever it was time to turn in the plan books, Sakaguchi and Kitase would ask for Nomura's book especially. Nomura's ideas of a ninja with a dog and a gambler were not used for Final Fantasy V, but when work started on Final Fantasy VI, they were used for Shadow and Setzer.

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," but this never materialized. Woolsey had almost all of the game translated, but Square opted not to ship it because they didn't feel the US market was ready for a second flagship RPG after Final Fantasy II (released as Final Fantasy IV in Japan) and they felt they needed something else to get people trained on that style of gaming; this vision actualized as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

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 the communication problems between Top Dog and Square's Japanese and American branches led to the project's demise. During the 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 game's only widely available English language version. RPGe's translation of Final Fantasy V was one of the early major fan-translated works.

PlayStation
In 1999, a PlayStation compilation Final Fantasy Anthology was released, which includes Final Fantasy V. Some names were interpreted differently, yielding "Butz" in the fan translation, and "Bartz" in the official. In 2002, this version of Final Fantasy V was released in Europe and Australia (alongside Final Fantasy IV). Some fans were unhappy with the dialogue translations, particularly Faris's "pirate accent", which was not part of the original script. When played on the PlayStation 2, the emulation graphics glitch on the save screen, although the graphics restore on the overworld map. This error causes the game to crash on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. This bug is not present in the PAL or Greatest Hits versions of Final Fantasy Anthology.

Game Boy Advance
A port of Final Fantasy V for handhelds had been considered by Square (now Square Enix) in early 2001, but the project failed due to the absence of an appropriate platform—the WonderSwan Color was not powerful enough to run the game, and Nintendo did not allow Square to develop on the Game Boy Advance, despite Sakaguchi's wish.

Years later, after relations between Square and Nintendo improved, the game was successfully ported to the Game Boy Advance under the title Final Fantasy V Advance, and was released in North America on November 6th, 2006. Changes made from previous versions are graphical tweaks and a new translation, four additional jobs, a bestiary, a quick save function, music player, and a new 30-floor dungeon. Unlike the Advance port of Final Fantasy IV, some of the bugs of Final Fantasy V were fixed. There is also not as much choppiness and lag in the graphics.

Virtual Console
On January 18th, 2011, a port of the original Super Famicom version of Final Fantasy V was released for the Wii's Virtual Console service, but only in Japan.

PlayStation Network
A port of the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy V was released for PlayStation Network in Japan on April 6th, 2011, in Europe on April 13th, and in North America on November 22nd, 2011.

Mobile
On March 28th, 2013, an iOS remaster was released worldwide and the Android version on September 26, 2013. The game is based on the Game Boy Advance version and thus includes all the bonus content from that version. It has upgraded graphics along with new menu portraits. The graphics are similar to those of Final Fantasy Dimensions. The music is of the original Super Famicom version quality, aside the sound effects which have been remastered. The game now includes achievements in the non-Amazon Appstore versions, some of which are missable (i.e. "Bestiary (323 Pages)", "Gone Too Far", etc).

Because of advances in technology with everything for PlayStation era games and beyond Square has been able to store the data, but for the original Nintendo and Super Nintendo games they did not have the proper means to store the production and so to remake them, Square had to reconstruct everything. This is one reason everything in the mobile version is brand new.

The version 1.0.2 update of the game adds an option for the diagonal movement from the Config menu, where players can turn off the 8-way movement into the traditional 4-way movement.

On October 22nd, 2014, the iOS and Android versions received an update that includes new features such as gamepad support, translations for more languages, and cloud saving. The Amazon Appstore version is missing gamepad support and cloud saving.

The port has good ratings, scoring 4.5 stars average on Google Play and 4 stars average on the Amazon Appstore.

Allusions
Final Fantasy V makes some allusions to previous Final Fantasy games, among others. The new translation for the GBA port makes many pop culture references.

Trivia

 * In Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls, the bosses Atomos, Gilgamesh, Shinryu and Omega appear in the original Final Fantasy Lifespring Grotto bonus dungeon.
 * In Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, the same four bosses appear as guardians for the Crystals of the True Moon. Gilgamesh makes a direct reference to his origin by asking for Bartz before he dies.
 * Final Fantasy V is the first Final Fantasy game to have two sisters as playable characters. It is also the first game where females outnumber the males in the party.