Turn back time to the beginning of the battle.
Description
Return is a Time Magic spell in Final Fantasy V. It resets a battle to the beginning, allowing the player to the start over the encounter. Return is a useful utility spell that can help in a variety of circumstances, especially when stealing an item, but has no inherent offensive or defensive uses.
Some enemies are also known to use Return as an ability, such as Omniscient. There are also a number of enemies that have Return/Reset available as part of the set of spells that can be accessed when they are controlled by a Beastmaster, even though they do not use it normally.
Obtained[]
Return can be purchased at Regole, Castle of Bal, Surgate Castle, or Quelb for 3,000 gil. Regole is the earliest it can be obtained.
Return can also be used by using the Wonder Wand as an item during battle.
Mechanics[]
In battles with a timer, the Return spell is supposed to reset the battle and, also restart the timer. This is bugged in the North American GBA version, but is fixed in the European version.
Use[]
Return starts a battle from the beginning of the encounter, resetting anything that had occurred up to that point. As long as the player has access to Time Magic and 1 MP, they can reset the battle whenever they want.
The most typical use for the ability is resetting in dire circumstances. If a battle has gone poorly, Return can be used to try again with a new strategy; though the player will not be able to change jobs or equipment, they can still attempt the same battle and hope for different results. A more common use is when attempting to steal a rare item. If the enemy has a rare item the player needs, and the player is unsuccessful and steals the common item instead, then Return can be used to try again until they obtain it.
Casting Return/Reset in a battle begun with a back attack will generally reset it to a condition more favorable to the player.
When using abilities that do not always work, like Gravity/Graviga and abilities that defeat enemies instantly like Banish, the player could use Return if the ability fails and try again to regain the MP expended. If the player accidentally kills an enemy they wanted to catch with a Beastmaster or from whom to learn a Blue Magic spell, they could also use Return.
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