tommy_lop's Full Review: Final Fantasy Anthology for PlayStation 1
I got FF Anthologies several years ago has it contain both FF 5 and FF6 two games I hadn’t tried, went home beat 5, waited a year to beat 6 and reviewed 6, waited another year to sit down and play 5 again so I can write this review. Both are good Final Fantasies and even though there RPG’s I still enjoyed them for the most part. Well anyways on with the review
FF5
This game was never released state side in till it’s PS1 re-release. Originally released in the early 90’s for the Super Faicom Final Fantasy 5 took the job system from the original and made it more flexible. With this new battle system your allowed to pick your jobs on the fly and change them whenever you wanted, has your characters grow they gain skill and can then mix and match with other jobs to beef up your characters. Now if this sound familiar in two newer RPG’s Final Fantasy X-2 and Blue Dragon it should both games get there inspiration from 5 battle system. But anyways I’ll explain more in the gameplay section.
Story.
You take a role of a young vagabond named Bartz. One day the wind stops and King Tycoon sets out to the wind temple to find out what’s wrong, a little while later a meteor falls near Tycoon castle. Bartz investigates and finds the Reina the Princess of Tycoon who was following after her father, and Galuf an older solider who lost his memory when he hit his head on the meteor. Shortly after they meet Faris a cross dressing she-pirate who turns out to be Reina’s sister. Together they go to the wind temple only to find the wind temple is scatter. The crystals each give them the power of different jobs. And they will be needing them to it turns out a dark mage named X-Death is trying to destroy the world crystal for some unknown reason, and oh yeah his true form is a tree.
Ok so Final Fantasy 5 villain X-Death isn’t going to beat Sephiroth has the greatest villain in the world, he’s an evil tree who wants to destroy the world, and he does what any great villain does, act like a giant jerk and kill people. The heroes in the game are ok and there are a few good moments, Aeris wasn’t the fist member of the party that is killed in the middle of the game after having him since the beginning, but this party member gets replaced by another character with all the skills and stats so it’s no big loss when they kick the bucket.
Graphics.
The graphics are only a small step above FF 4, were still dealing with sprites that look like they could easily fit into an NES game, if it wasn’t for some rather nice shading on them this could easily be an NES game. Like all 2d Final Fantasy the battles are done in a different view with more detailed sprites, and all the villains are always still pictures. The graphics are far from a deal breaker just don’t look for anything to wow you, even if you put it in the context of 15 years ago.
Sound.
Final Fantasy never disappoints with sound and this is no different every melody is a memorable one and a few are quite touching. They include a sound track of tracks from both games in the collection and it’s worth listing to it.
Gameplay.
The gameplay for FF 5 is random enouncter over the top classic RPG’s like all old school Final Fantasies. Your goal is to go around the world and find whatever weapons you need to stop the local mad man from destroying the world. Beating monsters in the overhead map give you experience that allows you to level up your characters. Along the way you will pick up your boat and air ship to make traveling interesting, but then if your interested in this game you probably know this stuff so I’ll get into the battle system.
Like I have all ready mention you can find jobs from each of the shatter crystals you find. Each job has there own weapon and armor that can be equipped and special skill. White mages of course can cast white spells, while black mages can cast black spells, knights can carry around the best armor and weapons, while Samuri’s can use Katanas with high critical attack rates and throw money at the opponent. There are several jobs that are unlocked through the course of the game. After each battle you will get a certain amount of AP points that will go towards your job, when you get enough AP your job level will increase and with it comes a new ability. White Mages allow you to carry over a certain level of magic to another class so you can have a black mage that can cast white magic, or a new skill that allows you to run around dungeons faster giving the characters in the game an easy to use customization. By only complaint with the exception of the mime job that lets you put 3 different classes on, your only allow to carry over one ability. Making the system a little bit more limiting then it should has items like HP+ 30% has to be left out so I can have a knight that can summon Bahamut when I get in a jam later in the game.
The game lasts about 30 hours and crosses 3 worlds in your journey to stop X-Death there is a lot to find and do in this old game and it’ s worth a play through. I should make a note for those with a PS2 the game is a bit glitchy when it comes to saving, not in any serious way thankfully. However when you stop to save sometimes the screen will come off has unreadable and you have to back out by pressing circle and hit save several times before the screen comes out well enough for you to save your game. It’s not a deal killer but it’s frustrating, especially if your trying to save in a hurry.
Now it’s been several months since I played through FFV but I decide to pick up and play through FFVI a lot of people consider this the best of the old school Final Fantasy games. And it’s good but it’s not the greatest Final Fantasy in my opinion but it does warrant a play through for any body looking for an old school Final Fantasy game.
Story.
1,000 years have passed since the war of the magi nearly destroyed the world. Now the evil empire is invading the town of Narshe looking for an esper a weapon that was part of the war. During the invasion the rebel group the returners capture a young girl from the empires army and remove a slave crown from her. The player starts out controlling this girl named Terra a young girl who somehow is able to use magic, but she has lost all memory do to the slave crown. Unlike most Final Fantasy that go around the actions of a single character, the story centers around the entire group of returners you have Locke the thief, Edgar the womanizing king, Sabin his twin martial arts brother, and Shadow the assassin just to name a few of the characters. The story has a few good plot twists in one case in the middle of the game something goes horribly wrong and the world ends, the game picks up in a post apocalyptic world and where you have to stop a mad man from destroying what’s left.
Despite no hero in the game the games characters are amazing and there all likeable, not once do you feel like there is a 5th wheel with all the characters to choose from. And the villain Kefeka is only missing one thing to be has cool has Sephiroth, and that’s a really big sword. Kefeka is an evil clown and he has no qualms with killing anyone he sees has getting in his way and it doesn’t matter if it’s his leader or a bunch of innocent civilian. He’s the type of villain you don’t mind taking down in the end, without getting over melodramatic.
Graphics.
For old school final fantasy 6 has the best graphics. In both 4 and 5 they used small sprites and not a lot of details to the graphics when it came to characters and surroundings. While the graphics are still reminiscent of the past 2 games the character sprits are now twice has large and have more detail then in the previous FF. Of course things pick up a bit to when ever you get on a chocobo or an air ship has things move into a 3d perspective has you ride around on your mode of transportation. Of course there is a few glitches when it comes to this, when flying on your air ship you can’t help but notice that the world is still flat and 2d. And when things like mountains or towers pop up there flat has a pan cake on the world map below, but still for the SNES a cool effect.
Sound.
I liked the over world music that both the world of balance and the world of ruin employ. The world of balance has a peaceful but sad sound to it, while the world of ruin is more serious. The typical Final Fantasy battle music marks the battles. And like a lot of Final Fantasy each character has a theme. I like the villain Kefka’s theme has it sounds just a bit fruity for something that is so ominous.
Gameplay.
Like all old school Final Fantasy games the battle system goes on a random encounter, has you walk the over world or dungeons you will randomly encounter monsters. Kill the monsters and you will not only be allowed to continue but you will also gain GP points (able to spend in town shops for more weapons and other useful items) and EXP (points needed to level up and improve your character).
The key point in this games battle system is the Espers that you can collect. The espers are summon characters from previous final fantasy games. You can only equip one per character. You can then summon them from the magic menu. However there more useful then just mere battles. Each esper has a set of magic spells that it can transfer to the characters. Spells like fire and cure for example. The rate you learn spells comes from there transfer rate. If the rate for the spell is x20 then it’s amazingly fast. You can transfer spells by getting Magic Points at the end of the battle. It takes 100 MP to learn a skill, and those MP are multiplied by the multiplayer on displayed on each skill. If X20 then each magic point is multiplied by 20. This has a flaw though once you get espers with powerful magic like the ultima you can easily transfer them to all your characters. Even with a X1 ratio you can find caves and easy dungeons and which battles will give you 5 MP each and in about 2 hours have taught every character that move. That is what I did and I finished off the last guy in about 2 minutes.
While it is true you can teach all characters the same magic spells, regardless of how powerful the spells may be. It is not true that each character is the same. Each character has a special move that they can do. Edgar has special tools he can use to put the hurt on enemies, Sabin have special blitz moves that are simpler to street fighter combos, and Locke can steal. So even with the magic being so easy to learn you still have to use a little bit of strategy in picking out which 4 members form the main party.
Extra
A bonus CD is thrown in with a lot of the tracks from the game for you to listen. And it’s a great bonus, esepcailly for those of you who bought Blue Dragon for the Xbox, you can rip the CD to your box and then play final fantasy music for that mind dumbling bad boss music that Blue Dragon has.
Final Recommendation.
Final Fantasy Anthologies has two great 16 bit Final Fantasy games on it and it’s worth a purchase. Of course if your only interested in one of them I should note that each game is also sold separately for the GBA.
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