A Gamer Looks At 40
An exploration of the history of video games told through the stories of the every day people who lived it. Join me along with a rotating cast of friends, family, gaming journalists, and industry types as we share personal recollections from the last thirty years of gaming, one story at a time.
A Gamer Looks At 40
Ep 105: Final Fantasy 5 - The Forgotten Classic
While North American gamers dined on Mystic Quest, our pals in the East were chowing down on Final Fantasy 5. Full of customization, intrigue and a killer soundtrack, this game was often considered unattainable aside from emulation and a handful of re-releases. Is this game worthy of celebration or did Square do us Western fans a huge favor? Find out in this week's episode!
STARRING (all handles from Twitter)
Aiden Moher (@adribbleofink)
Barry Carenza of Premium Edition Games (@HawkHellfire)
Greg Sewart of the Player One Podcast and Generation 16 (@sewart)
Julian Titus (@julian_titus) of The Stage Select Podcast (@StageSelectPod)
Mekel Kasanova (@MekelKasanova)
Mike aka MageORage on Twitch and YouTube (@mageorage)
Ryan aka @GameswCoffee
Xerxex
SONG COVERS
'The Day Will Come' (Final Fantasy V) | Classical Guitar Cover by John Oeth Guitar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVR32UbyOfg
FFVII SOUNDFONT: Battle On The Big Bridge - FFV by Neo-Midgar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_mr8YEJWlI
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Last week we mined our collective consciousness for memories of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. This week we examined the game it replaced here in North America, Final Fantasy V. Did American and Canadian gamers miss out on this job heavy dungeon crawler or did Square do a Snoobies a solid by skipping this entry, paving the way for an amazing game we'll be talking about at length in just a couple of weeks. Time to choose our classes, equip some actions, and steel ourselves for the adventure ahead as we embark upon episode 105, Final Fantasy V, The Forgotten Classic. At the risk of episode spoilers, I was hard pressed to find anybody who played Final Fantasy V upon release. Remember, those were the dark days of import games, which meant if it was a Japan exclusive, you're generally out of luck. But be it through re -releases, remasters, or some old fashioned downloading of emulators, hungry fans were able to experience Final Fantasy V as kids and adults. Starting us off with his first impressions is Julian from the Stage Select podcast, followed by Games with Coffee, then Xerxes, and finally Mike of the Major Rage Twitch and YouTube channel. So let's talk about Final Fantasy V, man. The one that no one played until somewhat recently or until they discovered emulators. Yeah, the one that got away. Well, of a handful. This is the one that hurt somehow because I don't know about... I can't speak to everybody, but when, you know, in this era was like the height of video game magazines. And this was around the time that they started to get savvy about, hey, look at all the stuff in Japan that we're not getting. And Final Fantasy 5 was the first one where I was like, wait, why aren't we getting Final Fantasy 5? Like, I didn't even know that Final Fantasy 2 wasn't Final Fantasy 2 until just now. Like, everything that I know is a lie. I want this. Everybody wanted it. yeah, like it would be, it would be a long time before we'd get it. It was one of those things where like a lie was exposed because it's like, wait, five? So they mean, do you mean there was another two and a three? There's like two or three we're missing now. Like, what's that? Yeah, it's, it's very funny. I like that. When did you play for the first time? It would have been when the Final Fantasy anthology came out for PlayStation that like, that I am like, okay, I have eased up on this in the last few years, but I was staunchly anti emulation for the majority of my life, especially once I started working in retail. And so, and honestly when Final Fantasy five was like, when the news about it was circulating, I wouldn't have even known that that existed. that was a possibility to play it that way. So it was just like out of reach. I was like, okay, well, I guess I can't play that. But luckily I was able to get my mom to purchase Final Fantasy VI for me when that came out. You make deals with your parents, right? And I was able to strike a deal for that one. But it remained this elusive thing that I would think about sometimes. And then... And then when I finally got my hands on it, I was like, I'm fine. I didn't need this actually. We're good. It is the only mainline Final Fantasy that I have not finished. And I have tried, Bill. I have started that game many, many times and I have gotten into that game many, many times and I always fall off and I don't know what it is. Part of it is. I definitely part of it is the story. I feel it is a much weaker story than four. I don't feel much of a connection to the characters. But I think, I also don't think that it looks as good as four. Now I think about part that probably has a lot to do with the fact that they had so many more sprites they had to come up with for the job system. So they had to make some concessions here and there. But my biggest thought, is that I feel that, and I could be wrong on this, but I feel that the PlayStation 1 and Game Boy Advance versions of the game that had been released previously, like before the Pixel remaster, I feel that there's something with the audio in those versions of the game where the soundtrack is kind of nails on a chalkboard to me. And I don't think it's the compositions. I think it's actually just the emulation of the... the sounds for those particular versions. I may be wrong. I need to get to it in the Pixel remaster and see if that fixes it, because I want to play it with the original music just to see. But yeah, I bounce off of it so hard and it's hard for me to really quantify why. It's fair because I played it again on I just played on the pixel remaster a couple I guess a year and change ago now at this point and I too bounced off of it. I too did not finish the game. I got about maybe two thirds of the way through and I ran out of steam. It might have been because I was marathoning Final Fantasy games. That could just very well be the case. I had done one, two, three and four in a row on the remaster. I was on five and I think I might have just ran out of steam. If I go back to my old timeline that I mentioned all the way back a couple episodes ago This would have been around the time when I discovered emulation So this would be somewhere between I'm gonna say 2002 2003 so I would have been about 15 16 years old at the time When I first was introduced to it, so I my brother and I we played it with a patch The English translation patch and this was before anthologies came out. I think anthologies came out I Believe 2004, you know what? I might just check that out while we're talking. but yeah, first impressions of it. it was a bit different from four. The graphical style was a little bit more, I would say a little bit more. Progressed than four was because four kind of still had a little bit of an eight bit feel to it, but five, one, one of the things that I noticed, and I just started playing the re the pixel remaster prepare for this is that in. In 5, you can see the characters being a lot more expressive with emotions. Like you have the surprise face, or you can see like Ferris laughing at a comet or something like that. Whereas you didn't really see that much in Final Fantasy IV. What was your first touch point with Five? Obviously you probably didn't play it at its time, so I was curious when you first got your hands on it. Yeah, I like probably most Americans got their first crack at it with the Final Fantasy Chronicles release on the PlayStation. Right. So that was kind of like the eye opening moment when, you know, like, even though like Final Fantasy seven had been out and everything and there like there was that obvious like discontinuity between the games. It was like that eye opening moment where it's like, so wait, so three is six and four, two is four and five is this game that we should have gotten but never did. But yeah. But yeah. So that was kind of my first crack at it. Nice. And what was your take on it? Because obviously, you've been a Final Fantasy fan for a while. It sounds like you kind of grew up with the series. So you'd played four. You'd played six. You might even touched on two and three if you were playing on the Advance. So what was your take on Five when you first popped it in? Let's see. It was noticeably harder than any of the other ones. Like, Because it was one of those games where they kind of took the training wheels that the original Super Nintendo ones kind of felt like they had. The Super Nintendo ones felt a lot easier in comparison. So like with this one where it was like the speed was faster, the attacks were more unforgiving, there was a lot more almost like unescapable one -hit kills if you weren't prepared beforehand or you didn't... listen to that one NPC that you didn't talk to in the back of the town. It was one of those games where it's like there is definitely a kind of like a jump in difficulty levels even after because it's like even after like already beating seven multiple times before playing this one. First time I experienced Five was with the PlayStation release of the WonderSwan Color port. I appreciate Five, but it's not one of my favorites. It didn't really resonate with me very much. And I'm not sure why that is. I mean, it's got... It ticks all the boxes for Final Fantasy, especially if you want to talk about, like, the trappings. Like the, like the job class system and such. It's the big emotional story moment. You've got an iconic sacrifice there, in the form of gallop near the end. Iconic music. I was just listening to a version of Battle on the Big Bridge earlier today that was done in the seven sound font that I stumbled across on YouTube. that's the, ow, that's gotta be cool. That song. I can send you the link if you would like. Yeah, please do. Yeah, there's okay. I will I will Check that out. That's gotta be that song. I mean the music of five is fantastic like Ridiculously good it is It's good. I can say that from an objective point But for some reason it just it doesn't as the kids say hit like maybe the four or six or seven soundtracks and It I you know nostalgia is a hell of a drug I like to say it is but there is some objective bangers on that again as the kids say And yeah, the bridge theme is definitely one of them. you Continuing the introductions is Barry Kerenza of Premium Edition Games, followed by Greg Seward of the Player One podcast and Generation 16 series of videos, and concluded by content creator, Mikhail Casanova. What was your first experience with 5 then? Let's just roll 5. Again, when I did Final Fantasy 2 and 3 with emulation, I found a fan translation because we never got 5, so I downloaded the ROM. And... SNES 9K, I think it was, or 9X was the emulator. 9X, yep, that was the emulator of choice. That was the emulator of choice. Yep. And played that with a fan translation and played through the entire game. I was just captivated by it. And the one, like one of the things, I think, I think Bards was named Butz in the early translation. I was like, that's gotta be a fake name. And of course it's Bards, but it was B -U-T -Z, Butz. And I was like, okay, you know, I'm controlling butts. And at this time I was keeping the name. So I was like, I'm butts the whole game. But of course it's Barts. But no, it's one of those things where I feel Final Fantasy V is best played twice. It's best played the first time learning everything and it's then best played a second time more optimally. Because you learn what jobs. have what unlocks and you know to start working on them. Like when I play Final Fantasy V now, the first thing I do once Red Mage unlocks is I make every character Red Mage until they unlock Double Magic. Like that's it. I'm full Red Mage for Double Magic. Because once you learn that, it's like it opens up so much to the game and it is almost OP in a lot of ways. So you have to struggle just a little bit to make the rest of the game easier. But... And I remember that, like I was like, well, pick one red mage. And I saw that and was like, 999. my God, I got to keep going. Eventually I unlocked it and was like, yeah, you know, I felt takes a while. Let's move on to Final Fantasy V, a game that no one played of its time. Unless you had a Famicon or Super Famicon. Good for you if you did. I will fool the transparency. I played Final Fantasy V on the remasters. I did not finish it. I was mainlining the Final Fantasy games and I just burnt out. I said, I went, I can't, I can't. What's your take on Final Fantasy 5? What's the? I'm pretty similar to you. My first experience with Final Fantasy 5 was actually on an emulator. They wouldn't have been trans. This was before you got trans translation patches or anything like that. But when it came out on the PlayStation, I forget if that was origins or think origins, origins. Right. Yeah. So. The reason, I mean, I would have played that anyway, but that also happened to coincide with when I started my career at Ziff Davis working on their magazines and I started at Expert Gamer. And the very first game that I did a guide for, because that's what Expert Gamer was, it was a series of guides every month, was Final Fantasy VI from the Origins collection. So I flew in, I hadn't... technically started working there yet, but I flew in for a week because Origins was in and my editor wanted me to do a Final Fantasy 6 guide. Now, of course, five needed to be covered as well and that was covered by a coworker of mine named Andy Barron. So I sat and watched him play it, because of course you could play it in English at this point. And I remember being really impressed by the visuals, because I felt like they were a big step up from Final Fantasy 4. Final Fantasy 4 for as beautiful as it was it looks like an early Super Nintendo game. Yeah, right it does Absolutely, it's it's they're using some of the special effects and everything that the system allowed them to use and that was fantastic But five I think the tile work looks much better. Like it's just it's a much more intricate looking world It's got way more texture to it So I thought that was pretty cool But also it was through the lens of someone who played Final Fantasy 6 and Final Fantasy 6 looks that much better than five But I remember watching Andy play it and I remember watching him fiddling around with the jobs and and I thought it was so neat how the character sprites were For the different jobs still fit the characters that you were changing the job for yeah You know because having grown up with with games at that point. I kind of just expected them to all look the same Right like it's well if you change to and I'm gonna I don't know what jobs there were in Final Fantasy 5 at this point, but I You know, if you change to a Paladin, that all four or five or whatever many characters would look exactly the same, and they didn't. I thought that was really cool. And I loved the idea behind the job system big time. Like, I'm a big fan of the premise. But then when I'd finished that guide, and I got my own copy of Origins, I'm like, I'm gonna play Final Fantasy V, and boy, I just did not like that game at all. At all. Let's let's real quick. You know what cuz I don't have much on five. Have you have you played five? We can do like a quick tight ten minutes on it I don't have a lot on five. I played a little bit I play like half of it and I ran out of steam. So the yeah, the first time I played five I believe is Was it anthology? I think that's what it came out on and there is I think the PlayStation 1 Back in either 98 or 99. I think it was 99. I could be mixing up, but I know they re-release six and I believe five. And then they also did four and Chrono Trigger, which is a weird combination. I get it, but it's like, Chrono Trigger's not really fun or fancy. Anyways, I, you know, I, look, if you haven't played Chrono Trigger, please do it. Please that game is yes. my god. So good. It still holds up to today I played five on that PlayStation 1 re -release and It was the Final Fantasy collection right on PS1. Yeah, so that was the first time I played it and Storywise, I barely remember it. I I don't I don't I couldn't tell you Characters really stood out to me to be completely honest. I mean You know buds or or bards or bards bards, you know and Who else is there is Lena and I think Yeah, Bart's you have Lena Galif Galif who's the old the older guy and there yeah, who's the pirate captain? Yeah, there's the pirate captain with her with her I think she has the dragon that or the is it not dragon would say I? that's a dragon. Yeah, she's a dragon. Yeah. So, you know, it didn't it never I played through it and I beat it and I think I played through it again on the pixel remaster and I was just trying to wait for it to grab me and it didn't and I understand. OK, so we look at the job, the gameplay, the job system. really got greatly expanded. So if you like three, I think five you will enjoy for the job system, which was further improved upon and 10 two, but I think it's ultimately a forgettable entry. And I understand why they didn't bring it to the West because nothing about it really, at least to me. And I know I could probably offend some people by saying this, but I don't feel it really stood out. Like you got. Yeah. Honestly, I will put three above it, but you got four. Great. Great entry point. Five is just there. Doesn't really do anything. It's like, you know, it's a it's a cheese pizza with the most bland cheese ever. I think you got six, which is this. yeah. If there's one thing Final Fantasy V is known for, it's not the story or the characters or even the visuals, it's the job system. To talk about this evolutionary take on classes and roles is Julian followed by Major Rage Mike, then Xerxes. I think it's an interesting game, and I think, I think it's an interesting game, but as far as just the scope of it and the characters, I think so much effort was put into the job system, which I think is actually very good. It's one of the, it's, I love the concept of the job system in Final Fantasy five, where not my time isn't wasted. It feels like, because even when I'm leveling up other jobs, I can use abilities in those jobs on my character. So at least I can say, Hey, I really want this ability. I liked this ability. I don't, I haven't wasted my time leveling my monk or my, my a monk? I think it's a monk in that game. Or Black Belt, whatever it is. Yeah, for leveling up my monk to get this ability, because I can still have the bare hands ability on my fighter when I'm using a time age. I can still have bare hands or whatever it happens to be. That customization for me feels very natural and good because, again, I'm not wasting time when I'm leveling all these other different jobs. So I think it's a very, very clean way of doing it. But I think the sacrifice in that is you have these four characters that you basically are with the entire game that are not terribly interesting. Yeah, that's a big part of it for me, honestly. Yeah, yeah. And you know, and I, you know, I know you've you said that, you know, job system is not necessarily your cup of tea. I love a job system, but I think it's because for me, I would have experienced it first with Final Fantasy Tactics, which is like the distillation of the Final Fantasy five job system, which itself was an evolution. of the one from three, where you do have that ability to mix and match the jobs and kind of come up with like really fun ways to break the game. It gives you that flexibility. And that continues to this day, like even in non -Final Fantasy Square Enix games, right? Like the Octopath series, the Bravely Default series, they have the job system and it still has that mix and match ability. Final Fantasy 11, the first online one. You have your main job and you have your sub job and your sub job is always going to be half the level of your main job. So that it should have like on paper, it gave you the way to like mix and match jobs in interesting ways. But of course it was an online game. So then of course you get into the meta where you get into situations where why are you subbing that on this main job? Like that's not viable, right? It's like, well, but I just thought it'd be neat. It's like, well, but you're not going to be in our party if you do that. So, you know, But the idea was strong, right? Like it was there. And I do love that aspect of Final Fantasy V. And I'm hoping that, you know, on this revisiting through the Pixel remasters, because again, like I wanna go through the entire series because now we have the Pixel remasters. So it is a very easy thing to do now to go from one through 16, you know, on modern consoles. So I want to do that. And... I have forced like I have made a rule. I've drawn a line in the sand. The line must be drawn here. That that I cannot play Final Fantasy six pixel remaster until I beat Final Fantasy five for the first time. That's that's that's fair. That's fair. Job system. I grew up not liking job systems because I always felt like I didn't want to start over and I felt like I would pigeonhole myself into a certain class and was unsure if I was doing the right thing. I love the way Five treats it. I think it's a really smart mechanical move to make it so you can adopt abilities you get from other jobs in your existing jobs so it doesn't feel like you're kind of wasting time, which would always be my concern. I like the job system the five a lot. I think it's really really interesting and good. What's your what's your take on it mechanically? Mechanically, it's very solid. I would say probably the best take on job class of the core entries of at least of the early entries. I feel like tactics probably does it best. Yeah, but that it has the benefit of being like that is, you know. three quarters of what it has to do mechanically so you can do put all your heavy lifting and focus into just making the job classes just work right but five if five does that it balances it with active time battle so it took what it had done before and built upon it the characters it gave the ability for them to make all the characters that have traits that aren't dependent upon a job class or a role in combat. And I feel like you couldn't have done the type of story that they did with Five without that freedom. Like you couldn't have had that theme of Ferris just literally trying to literally figure out who they are. And it's one of those instances where the mechanics and the thematics line up perfectly in a Final Fantasy entry. And I feel like they do that a lot. Yeah, no, that's a great way of putting it. I really do. I agree. I think they they really do line up well. They definitely complement each other for sure. I think it makes a lot of sense. Absolutely. I'm trying to remember where this slots in, because we didn't have, like where job systems had, because the biggest thing about Five was the invention of that job system. Do you recall, I'm trying to remember if there was anything close to that yet in the Final Fantasy world at least. Well, obviously tactics. tactics, right, yeah. I'm trying to remember when tactics came out. Was tactics around the same time? Because my PlayStation era is fuzzy, because I wasn't a big gamer at that time. Let's see, it would have been like, it probably would have been around the same time, if not a bit, if not like a year sooner. Okay. So you already had a flavor for the job, for a job system then. How do you think Five's job system kind of holds up to, again, Tactics of course is, you know, a classic, but how do you think that job system holds up when you're playing it nowadays? Overall, I mean, I'd say like as far as like all job systems across all the Final Fantasies, I think the only ones that even like holds a candle to it would probably be 10 -2. Interesting. Okay. Interesting. Okay. Why do you like it so much? What about it do you feel like works so well? Like the overall would definitely be the customization of it and everything. Cause it was one of those situations where it's like, it was all like, it all had its viability in a way than like how you played it. Especially if you knew ahead of time what you're going to do. But then it also rewarded you for going that extra mile of mastering as many as possible because all those passes stayed with you whenever you went back to your freelancer or mimic. Yeah, and that's what really struck me when I played it. I played it for the first time a couple years ago on the remasters. And I was never a big fan of job systems in the past, but this time around, for some reason, it really struck me. I like the fact that I always felt like I was making progress on a character, because I could keep one of those elements. And I always felt that was really a good thing to do. I thought that was really an elegant way of approaching it. Keeping the job train a -rollin' is Games with Coffee, followed by video game journalist Aiden Moore. It was actually my first introduction to the job system, because I didn't play 3 up until then, right? So the job system was brand new to me. And I like the versatility of the system, but also at the same time too, because I was so used to Final Fantasy 7 and 8 and 9 as well too, and then they're kind of more structured. a character focused structured job system. I don't know if that makes sense. Like every character has his own every character kind of has their own has their own specialty. Right. I kind of didn't enjoy the customization factor of Final Fantasy five's job system. But I'd still let the very last impression on me. And the story was great, too. And that doesn't hurt either. I mean, and. And I think it's interesting, but most people when they talk about five, that the first thing they go to is that is that job system, right? Is that, is the mechanics of it is how interesting it is. I never loved job systems growing up. I just wasn't the thing I was into. They didn't like, I always felt like I was wasting time. Like, because I, and I never had enough information to make the best choice. When the real answer is there is no best choice. You just make the choice you want to make. It's, it's that true customization. And I think Five does it better than, definitely better than Three. It's definitely an evolution of that, for sure. yes, absolutely. But even still, it's just the choice paralysis. The paralysis of choice. There's so many jobs to choose from. Which one would be optimal for the current situation that you're in right now? Like, what about if I wanted to work on another job first before moving on to another one? Right? But the beauty of Five is that you can transfer certain abilities. from certain jobs to other jobs. So if you wanted to be like a, if you wanted to be a blue mage with white magic, you can do that. If you wanted to be a knight who can cast black magic, you could do that too. The beauty, it's a really beautiful system, I think. Final Fantasy V's job system, it's a really beautiful and intuitive system that helps elevate the whole job experience, in my opinion. Yeah, I agree with that. And I love that. My favorite thing about it is the fact that you can actually keep a certain ability, even if you're not in that job, that really helped move me along to say, no, I really want to keep the black belt abilities. I liked having that ability on because it gives me more. It's been a while since I've played it now, but it gives me more something. And I want to maintain that even though I'm not going to be a black belt class. I think a lot of that customization really helps in keeping me engaged and wanting to kind of. get everything up to par. Right, it's the versatility. The versatility of using the black belt's ability for a black page. That opens up a lot of strategic opportunities to approach enemies in games. In this game, at least. Yeah, Final Fantasy V is, I've only experienced them with the Pixel Remasters. My first game was Final Fantasy I. I played that of its time in 1990. I was 10 and talking to my friends on the playground who also played it and I'll tell all those stories on the show. And of course, Final Fantasy IV I never had, so two American two, I never owned it. I played that very relatively recently, probably within the last 10 years. And of course, 6 and 6 slash 3, I played obsessively. I played numerous times. Five is interesting. I never loved job systems because I always felt like I was wasting time. And if I put too much, too much time into one job that wasn't going to work for something else, I felt like I was always running into soft locks and like, now I'm in a situation where I'm not going to succeed. And I've broken myself of that recently. I do now like a good job system. very recently because I like that expression. And I think Final Fantasy V's job system is absolutely sensational because it scratches both itches. It allows me to really customize the character and really think strategically about how I want to build, but I'm not wasting abilities. I can still assign abilities after the fact. And that is so smart. It's so good for someone like me who wants to accumulate in an RPG. Yeah, I love accumulating. I can accumulate and I can iterate. It's really a nice, really, I love wave five does it. Yeah. And I think like Bravely Default is I think an example of a job system that it falls into what you were describing. Like I had a point in Bravely Default where I just, I got soft locked because I was in, I had focused on some jobs and I was like, well, I just, I literally can't defeat their damage, these enemies. I'm a pirate or something and I couldn't, and I was like, like. this is just going to require me to spend hours grinding up and re -optimizing my characters. And I was like, I just don't want to do that. Where Final Fantasy V, like the fact that four job fiesta exists and people can beat the game with any combination of jobs is just like, to me, that just shows how well designed that system is and how, you know, it can be as much or as little as you want it to be. And so, you know, Final Fantasy 3 gave us Final Fantasy 5 so forever I will be forever grateful for it for that And I played Final Fantasy 3 for the first time on the DS as well. Yeah, did you I hated it? I was like I got I couldn't even get through I couldn't get through it You know what? I did I didn't beat it either back in the day. I don't know why I was swimming in games back then the DS period I was like, yeah, I was in my mid -20s. I was working I I had so much money and like less time than I had, so I have a lot of half-beaten Nintendo DS games. That's so funny. Yeah, it was one of those systems where I just didn't... Again, I didn't love the job system. I'm like, I shrink down, I haven't boosted my magic yet, I now have to be a mini for this dungeon. Small dungeon, sure, it's not a big deal, but I'm like, I'm getting wrecked everywhere I go. How am I supposed to predict what I'm supposed to be putting things into? Yeah, the progression of how you unlock jobs in that game as well, I didn't... Like as much as tricky. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a blueprint for something greater that came later. It was good. And that's and that exactly right. Yeah. And again, it being on the NES is just like that to me is miraculous. Like the fact that they were thinking that way at that time and able to make that like, you know, Final Fantasy one's job system such as it is, is pretty limited. And the fact that they went from Final Fantasy one to Final Fantasy three and like two years is like to me. Right. It's insane. It's absolutely crazy. Time to thank my amazing wonderful patrons for their amazing wonderful patronage. Starting with Terry Canare, Sir Coffee of House Blend, first of his name, also known as Games with Coffee, BT Gobbles, Julian of the State Select Podcast, Seth Sergel of the All -End Podcast, Tim Knowles, formerly of the Liedist, the Let's Play Princess, Greg Seward of the aforementioned Player One Podcast and Generation 16 series of videos, Philip Becker, and finally the one and only Pete Harney. If you would like to join these patrons of patronage, go on over to patreon .com forward slash agamerlooks at 4040, check out the tiers, and if something appeals to your sense of generosity, sign up today. And if not, ratings and reviews on your pod player of choice are always greatly appreciated. Despite what detractors will tell you, Final Fantasy IV is more than just a slick job system. There are actual named characters moving the story forward. Now, while I think everyone would agree, Bart's is no Cecil, there are still arcs to experience. Starting us off on this conversation about Final Fantasy V's characters is Julien, followed by Barry Carenza. Again, say what you want about Gobles, right? In Final Fantasy 4. Gobles, Gobes, and say what you want about Gobes, and then of course turning into the big bad at the end that no one knew existed until five minutes before you see him. Say what you will about that. But when your main big bad's name is X-Death. And I think it's a tree. Come on. Does it end up being a tree? I honestly don't know. Or like a tree is involved somewhere? I don't know. Yeah. Yes. I again, I, X -Death. X -Death sounds like the name of like a Decepticon from the Japanese only Transformers cartoons that started airing after it got canceled in America. Cause they get some weird names in there. And that's, that's what I always think of with X -Death. Yeah. It definitely is like an anime vibe. X -Death to me sounds like a bad, like a, like a bad band, like a band name. for like a high school band, like 311, their first band was X -Def before they became 311. I bet you. I'm sorry, Bill. I don't have the 311 button handy. Hey, call back. come on. That is my co -host, Justin. Only Justin has that power. man, stay select, y 'all. Please listen to that show. It's very, very funny and very good. My man is doing really good work over there. I'm glad my friends are doing really good work. Between you and the Well -Read Mage, doing, I'm like, my friends are doing really good stuff. And that makes me very happy. It's been fun, like, you know, kind of bolstering each other and, you know, like, shouting each other out and getting the word out with everything. Yeah, it's been very cool. Also check out GameLogica on YouTube. Holy crap. That is such an amazing, informative series. that stuff that it does to kind of help ease that friction of learning these new things was very good for me. And that will kind of unlock job systems for me. So I'm glad I played Bravely Default before I played Five, because now I can really appreciate, this is actually really cool and good. I like having this customization. I just wish there was a better story slash selection of characters to wrap that around. Absolutely. Yeah, and look, and I know that I that I criticize the soundtrack again. I I feel that might just be the versions that I've played of it. But Battle on the Big Bridge will always be a banger. And so if nothing else, Final Fantasy five gave us that and it gave us Gilgamesh. So like, you know, I was going to bring up Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is pretty amazing. I love me some Gilgamesh. I love a good Joe character in a Final Fantasy game, or any game really, but especially in Final Fantasy for some reason they land more often than they don't. And Gigalash is a really fun one. I think so too, yes. And honestly, I'm not even, I can't say for sure if I've gotten to him in Final Fantasy V, but I've encountered him in other games where he is just amazing. And it starts here, right? You know, like... He's been in, you know, various games as like either hidden boss fights or summoned characters or he's he's got he's he's he is in one of the craziest quest lines in Final Fantasy 14. There's the Hildebrandt line of quests which turns the game into this bizarre anime like by way of like Ace Attorney that. Shouldn't work but does and Gilgamesh is a big part of that stuff and he's hilarious And I I think I got a little inkling of him in Final Fantasy 7 rebirth so far. So that's exciting He like I like I'm always happy to see him I love it. That's great. Yeah. He's been in a bunch of them. Was he was he in six? So again, I will I will never not take the opportunity to shout out no one can know about this a podcast where they play every Final Fantasy. I hope Bill that you get a chance to talk to them for the series at some point. Cool. Yeah. But I just finished the Final Fantasy six season for like the eighth listen through and there is a recurring character in in the like the original. Super Nintendo American version of six called Siegfried or Siegfried, depending on where you talk to him. Yeah. I feel is supposed to have been Gilgamesh, but got mistranslated. I'll have to see in the pixel remaster if that if that's if that bears out. But but just as I've listened to them play through that game seven or eight times, every time they get to that part, I'm like, this feels like it's supposed to be Gilgamesh. And I think it just feels that way. That's so funny. You're right. That little small recurring character that's somewhat ineffective, but somewhat annoying, but still entertaining. And you're happy he shows up like, hey, what's going on? And also because he is connected to Ultros, which is the joke recurring boss character in six. So like, you know, like I can draw the lines between all of this stuff. Like I can put it on the cork board and like it all makes sense in my head. You get the beautiful mind lines going in the pins and yeah, OK, it's very good. I feel like Five is the black sheep, more so than Final Fantasy II of the original Six. Interesting. Two is considered the black sheep by many because it's so vastly different in how you level up. And in that way, it totally is. But I feel Five was so overshadowed by Four and Six. Like, what a sandwich to be in. And it's the only one from the Super Nintendo era that did not get a US release. So it's like, well, why didn't it come over? Is it not good enough? So a lot of people, when they say, what's your favorite Super Nintendo Final Fantasy, the majority say six, then four, and then you have a few that will say five. So because people here, six and four, way more than five, I feel if they're going to experience it, they're going to go to those first and they're going to overshadow five. And I feel that's a shame because five has its own merits, its own story. And there's a lot of that Gilgamesh. I mean, come on, Gilgamesh has introduced a battle of the big bridge. What a tune. the big bridge is so good. That song is a banger. Gilgamesh is the only character that I'm aware of in Final Fantasy history that is able to transcend dimensions and is the same character in every single game he appears in. It is the same. That's fair. Interesting. I didn't know that. That's interesting. Huh? Even in Dissidia. I don't know if you've played the Dissidia games. I haven't, no. He is a hidden character in Dissidia Duodecim as a bonus character. And his intro cutscene is Bart's walking around and Gilgamesh is like, I finally found you. And he opens up a portal and he drops down. And what's interesting is the Dissidia games are actually prequels. The Dissidia games take place prior to the other Final Fantasy. Like all the... They're like pulled from different times. So Bartz has no idea who he is. But the Gilgamesh that arrives is the one from Final Fantasy V after those events. So he's like, I know who you are. And Bartz is like, I have no idea who you are. So it's interesting. And every Gilgamesh is the same Gilgamesh in some way. That's cool. I have no idea. I mean, I'm assuming even type zeroes is the same. Like he went there and he got knocked in the head and doesn't remember. And it's always with Enkidu. And it's just great what they did with that character. Because he's a comic relief villain. And I feel he might be the first real comic relief villain. Ultros, to follow him. Ultros, of course, is probably the most popular comic relief villain. But Gilgamesh, he's great. And he's appeared in so many games and a lot of people don't even know that he started in V. Like that's his origin. That's funny. Yeah, that's fair. And V, you know, well the death in V didn't take me the same way as IV or VI because of what those games contained. I wasn't expecting it. I almost felt like V was a little more chipper. It was brighter than four. It was a little more colorful. It was a little more lighthearted. And then, of course, Gallif, my man, like, you know, he just, he, and the sacrifice, and again, back to the sacrifice, and his daughter taking over, or granddaughter taking over, I'm sorry. And it was like, I was so thankful that she inherited everything that I worked on with him. It's like, God. Which is so, which is, you had to do that, even from a game perspective. yeah, you had to. It was too late game. And Galof is such a fun character too. He's awesome. He's an awesome character. That was the one I remember again and I played it for the first time just on the remasters. So I had no history with it before a couple years ago. And that hit me even just as an old man. As a fellow old man, me and Galof, I remember really like, geez, that's in front of his granddaughter. Right there. Yeah, really, really powerful moment. I was going to ask you about that moment, because that one. yeah, that's the big one for sure. You know, and the characters are good. I love Ferris. I thought she was a great, great character. Continuing our quick but hopefully quality deep dive into Final Fantasy 5, Greg and Julian return with some warranted criticisms, Coffee combats the negative with glowing praise, and Barry returns to chime in on the many versions of this once lost title. What do you think held you back from that? What would you think was the blocker? It was the job system. As much as I love the idea of it, In practice, I don't like it. And I have to, that's entirely on me. That's not me saying that I think it's bad design, because I know the kind of gamer I am, especially with role playing games. And actually, I was joking about this with one of my co -hosts previously, most recently actually, where we were talking about how we didn't use, we were talking about Lunar the Silver Star. and how it has an AI setting in that game where you can just tell it to, you know, you go into a battle, you just set it to AI and it's an auto battle. It's an auto battle. And we were talking about how we never use it. And I was asked, well, how come you don't use it? It's like, cause I am so stingy with everything in those games. Like I won't use a potion unless I absolutely have to. I hoard everything. And I just, I'm in those types of role playing games, I'm... I sort of meticulously planned and if I was to get into a situation or get into a dungeon where I clearly not tackled it properly, I'd back out. I might not necessarily cancel and load, but I would get out of there. And you know, I'm gonna start fresh, I'm gonna do this again. And I felt like in Final Fantasy V, whether that's true or not, that's how I felt from the word go. As soon as I could start picking jobs, I'm like, well, am I picking the right job? I don't know what's the right job. I don't know. And I don't know anything about these characters. I don't know anything about these jobs. I don't know what a good mixture is. I don't know what a good group is for whatever the next task is, because I've never experienced this game before. And it was just, it was way too anxiety inducing for me. I just couldn't take it. I've played through it with a guide and liked it for what it was, but. Right. If it had come out in like 92 or three or whenever it may have, you know, reached our shores had they had they decided to localize it. I don't know. I don't think I would have been down with it at all. I think it would have. I think it would have hurt my love of the series. I don't have a ton to talk about five switches gonna make the five conversation very interesting. Yeah, it's I know that it is like like of the Super Nintendo three, right? Because I like up until it finally broke, right? Like every generation got three Final Fantasies until it until they didn't anymore. And that made me sad. I actually wrote about it for Pixelbit back in the day about like, the cycle has been broken. no. But of the Super Nintendo era, it's usually. that the majority of fans, the masses, if you will, like Six the best, the old like Four the best, but the smarties like Five the best, right? That is the intellectuals, Final Fantasy of that era. And I'm not smart. So that might be the issue right there. But again, like. Now having many more of these games under my belt and and you know, maybe with a little bit of tweaking with the pixel remaster, I think that I can do it this time. I don't know if I need to like force myself like, no, actually a listener suggested that like a listener suggested that I do the four job fiesta, which is a very, you know, like that. That is a well known charity where, you know, you you go to their tweet bot and they will assign a job to each of the characters. And so once you get that job, they can only be that job. But I feel that. Intentionally limiting the system for me would make it worse for me. So I just need to, I need to find my fun in Final Fantasy V and make it all the way there. That's wholesome Final Fantasy stuff right there. I think you hit on a very interesting word there, wholesome. I find Final Fantasy V very wholesome compared to like IV, which I felt like had really deep themes and we didn't unfortunately get a chance to talk about IV for the four episodes. But IV is... I know, I'm so disappointed. Because like IV is my jam. I know, I know. We're gonna talk about VI. So that at least hopefully makes up a little bit for it. But man, IV is such a challenging... thematically challenging game that there's so much stuff going on in that game where five is almost like a bit of a fresh breath of fresh air. It's like it's a little more light hearted. It's a little more whimsical. Yeah, a little bit whimsical. Yeah, yeah. It's one of a whimsical journey for four people just interacting with each other through happenstance. Find the crystals, become the chosen four warriors of light and go save the world. How are we gonna do that? I don't know, but we're gonna figure it out together as a group. Figure it out as a group. And the comical adventure begins. Now in Final Fantasy V, you also mentioned story. It's got a surprisingly interesting story. I don't know if I like it as much as IV. What's your take on the story of Final Fantasy V? I personally do think that IV is much more memorable than V. But that doesn't discount the fact that V is a very good story. mind you I haven't I have I only just started playing five again after I think it must have been about 10 or so years since I last played it so I can only remember bits and snippets of the story but there is there are two worlds that are separated by an interdimensional void I believe this is the case and there's this one crazy wizard who wanted to utilize the void for his own purposes and Some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff happens, an elder tree gets involved, becomes cursed with evil energy, and decides to, hey, I'm gonna take over the world because I'm an evil tree. So that's just the, but then I guess, well I guess these two worlds were once merged together. Bart's dad, Galuf, and two other warriors set off on a journey on a quest to stop the evil tree from doing its evil tree stuff. And then the resulting The end result is that the world's end up splitting splitting apart until XF comes back and merges the world's back together So we can access the void and end all these existence. I Think that's how the story goes. That's about it. I know there's an X step at the end and X and which Okay, there's a gig la meshes in this fun I was just about to say, y 'all, like, the characters of the game actually make Final Fantasy V so much more memorable. Like, you have Gilgamesh, you have the first introduction to Gilgamesh, and Gilgamesh is... He's just the guy that, he's just the underdog that you just can't help but root for, even though he's a bad guy. You just want him to do well, like, he can't not love Gilgamesh. It's so weird with Square because the Pixel Remaster now, when they did it for the Game Boy, they did the Game Boy Advance versions, they added new things, and then they took them away in the Pixel Remaster. And I'm like, why you do this? Why? I heard about that. Why do you add stuff in one remake or one port and then take it away in the remaster? It's so silly. I don't get it. You've already created this content. Just give us the definitive version of the game. Because they added characters, they added jobs, they added summons. I was like, what? Like, why? But I never played the GBA version. I have it sealed still. I bought it and I just never got to it. cool. So I was like, all right, well, I'm going to have it now as a Final Fantasy collector. But like I said, when I got the PlayStation version, I'd already beaten it. So I'm like, I'm just getting it for posterity and to watch the opening cut scene. Not that they added in. To close out our Final Fantasy V episode, we ask an important but tricky question. What if Final Fantasy V got a stateside release back in December of 1992? Would North American gamers have embraced it or ignored it as a puzzling follow -up to a stone cold classic? To answer this question, Greg returns to show, followed by Xerxes, and then Games with Coffee weighs in on the topic. And then finally, Xerxes returns to tie a bow on the episode with some final thoughts. Do you think it would have been well received if we had gotten it in North America? Do you think it would have landed well or do you think it would have hurt? I think it would have landed well because RPGs were still a bit of a rarity back then. Now, the Super Nintendo really started changing that. Yes. And depending on how early we got it, I guess. would be, you know, if it was, I don't know what year it came out in Japan. Yeah, I can look at that. I mean. But if it was localized to come out fairly quickly afterwards, like 90, I'd say like 92 maybe. Yeah, it was released in 92, end of 92. So, December 6th. If it came out in 93, I think it probably would have still been well received. I also think that this was also the time that. You would have had probably like Nintendo Power articles that were guides. Yep. I think that the instruction booklet probably would have had an opening section guide for the game, much like Sega was doing with their RPGs, because it was still such a. It was still a rare, a rare genre in North America, and you could tell that. Sega again is a great example of this, but I think every company that was releasing these games were just like, we need to hold your hand. We're not sure everyone digs these. We're looking at every release as kind of an entryway into the series or into the genre. So I think it probably would have been well received. I think personally in North America, it was overhyped because we didn't get it. Because when it came out in that Origins collection, I mean, I was looking at the issue the other day and how in Expert Gamer as an example, it was hyped up as like the lost Final Fantasy, the one that, you know, we finally get to play this in English, this masterpiece in English. And like, I think it built up a lot of cache based on the fact that it was inaccessible for 10 years. You know, so. It makes sense. Still a good game. And I say that in hindsight, I think it would have hurt my love for the series. It probably wouldn't have. I probably would have just been excited. play another RPG at that point. Yeah, probably. That makes sense. I always wonder why it didn't come here. And I'm sure there's a story and I'll have to look into it. I never really looked into why five didn't make it over here because at that time we were kind of caught up, right? And we in six didn't come out until nine. Is it 95 or four? I would say four. I don't know. I know that the screen says 94 but I don't know. Yeah, it's like 94, 95 somewhere around that. like that Christmas time era. Who knows? Somebody somewhere might have thought that it was too weird. Yeah, maybe. Maybe the job system itself. Maybe it was just like, you know, American gamers are just not going to get this weird job system, which I actually like their job system. I like the fact that in Final Fantasy V, I'm not wasting my time leveling things I don't use because I can take those abilities, at least one of them, and apply it to my current build. And that for me is enough to make it worthwhile. going through the experimentation and the iteration. That's enough. That's like, okay, that works for me. That's okay. I'm fine with that. The idea of just having a job that doesn't look interesting, not leveling it, and then all of a sudden, oops, you need it, which happens in five. Five, I know happens in three. And three it happens where it's like, you, oops, you need your goon. Hope you leveled that at some point because you can't get past this without using it. It's... Those little gotchas are so frustrating. Yeah, they remind me a lot of another genre that I love, but I absolutely recognize that this is an issue. They remind me a lot of like the old Sierra Adventure games where you could just get into these what felt like unwinnable, and in those games they were unwinnable sometimes, but you get into what felt like these unwinnable situations through no fault of your own because you didn't prepare for something you didn't know was coming. That's not good design. Not fun. I don't understand why people like those Sierra games. My brother loved those games. He loved all those King's Quest games. And he would sit and I would watch him play this. I'd be, dude, why are you playing this? He's younger than I, he's five years younger than I am. And he like, loving them. great. I never understood him. We just like the Leisure Suit Larry games, but there was other reasons. This is an interesting question. I've been asking this because my Final Fantasy 5 episode is likely going to be one of the shorter ones just because again, there's not as much historical, you know, with the people that talk about it. What do you think if Final Fantasy 5 had been released in the US at the same time it was released in Japan, do you think it would have been a success here of its time or do you think it was wise of Square to leave it on the shelf? Yeah. Gameplay wise, like, gameplay wise, it definitely would have. But if we throw in marketing as well, then no. Interesting. Because it was one of those situations where you look at it where it's like Final Fantasy II came out, and it sold pretty low, like so low that. Squaresoft decided that, you know what, these guys don't really like this, let's give them Final Fantasy Mystic Quest just to teach them how to play RPGs again. Right, right. I think it was one of the, I think they did a good job of bringing it out after the internet started to become more of a thing. and it was able to kind of get, you know, like kind of make itself known that way. So, you know, because like I think Seven needed to come out first to get the masses to, you know, like to bring out the masses to Final Fantasy before a more niche game like that could come out. So you feel like you feel like we needed Seven to be the just all encompassing power that it was. before we had the appetite. Because six was still, you know, obviously a huge game, but seven was the one that like ever that that's the one that kind of blew the doors open in North America at least. So you feel like seven was required before we could get to a five that's like you said, a little more niche. Yeah, that's that's my thought process on it because even six as great as it is, great as the games that was didn't have the numbers really like necessary to justify bringing five to the US at the. at the time. Now here's my one of my main questions. The Final Fantasy five episodes will be very short. It's a quick one. There's not a ton to talk about. Do you think Final Fantasy five would have done well in the U .S. if it was released after Final Fantasy four in order? That is a very good question. I feel like it would, because when Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 3, was released, the job system didn't exist anymore, but they were leading into a more of a hybrid system where you can customize your characters to the nth degree. And that would eventually carry on to 7, where even though every character has their own specializations, you can... tweak them and customize them in so many different myriad ways with materia. So like 6 was kind of a lead up to 7, but 6 even then had such a complex system with the Esper system and being allowed to learn magic through that. I feel like 5 would have been just as receptive because it's almost the same. You gain ability points to unlock new abilities for your jobs and then you can transfer them to different... to different sort of jobs after that. So I don't... I don't... It's a really mysterious thing why they didn't release five in the US, because looking back on it now, I feel like it could have had a really good chance being released at the time it should have been released. So let's give any other thoughts on Final Fantasy 5 just like general thoughts or recollections Again the show my show is more about personal recollections and calling nuts and bolts of like how you felt when you were playing it your reactions to it So yeah any thoughts on on final thoughts on five before we move to six? Let's see as far as that one goes. I mean, it's like as far as personal goes. I mean, I've done like I've met up with that Leo like I've I've gotten in contact with other fans through the four job fiesta that happens every year. I've done a few of those and then I've done a couple of those just on my own, just for fun. Because usually I'll play whenever a new version comes out because I'm usually a collector of different versions. Because I've got the Chronicles version, I've got the advanced, I've got the... the Pixel Remaster, got the cell phone version and the Steam version, like the Steam original release version. So it's like, every time I pick that up, it's like, let's try something new. Nice, nice. So it's one of those things, it's kind of sort of almost like a comfort food to a certain extent, sort of experience it sounds like. Yeah, it's like, I would still like, I would argue it's in like, I would actually put it like, I don't know if I'd put it top five, but. It's dearly there. Thank you so much for checking out this edition of A Gamer Looks at 40 and our trek through Final Fantasy V. It was a really interesting journey. I really enjoyed hearing people's stories of playing this game either on remasters or re -releases on emulators. I don't know, this was an interesting one for me because not many people played it at its time, yet we still have some really awesome memories of it. So thank you, thank you, thank you for checking out this episode. Next week we're gonna have a Tales from the Bargain Bin, so just in case you're thinking, what, stop with the Final Fantasy, I'm not a fan. A break is happening next week, we're gonna do a Tales from the Bargain Bin episode, and then we begin a month -long journey, soiree, deep dive, something else on Final Fantasy III slash VI for the Super Nintendo. This is a game that's... vitally important to me and really important to a lot of people. So I am extremely excited to get this going and get these episodes off the ground. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this, there's a bunch of Final Fantasy we've done earlier and there's a lot more to come. So please keep it here. We've also done a series on Earthbound, The Legend of Zelda and all sorts of other topics dating back for the last, wow, almost three years. So please give the backlog a listen if you haven't done so already. Thank you so much to my friends, Pete and Kev, for their help in editing this episode. Many thanks to my guests who take their time out of their days to chat with me about the games they love. I genuinely appreciate it. And thank you for taking time out of your day to check out A Gamer Looks at 40. Trust me, I understand there are a thousand things you could be doing at this very moment. And you took that time to listen to this, and that is never lost on me. and I truly greatly appreciate it. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Until next time, just be kind to yourselves and each other.
