Live Magazine Christmas 2016 ISSUE Live Magazine December 2016 Issue | Page 26

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RETRO

History of Fi

Between Classics
With the release of Final Fantasy IV in
1991 the series had found its greatest success to-date with sales of
almost two million units across all regions. Encouraged by this continued
growth the development team once
again went immediately to work on
a sequel. Just as IV had been less
about experimenting with new design elements and more about improving already existing ones, Final
Fantasy V had a very similar ethos,
albeit one with a very different focus.
While Final Fantasy IV had been all
about creating a captivating story
and memorable characters for players to become attached to, in V the
goal was to improve upon the series’
gameplay, making it more complex
and compelling. As a result the game
is in strong contrast to its predecessor; the strengths and weaknesses
of the two are almost completely
opposite from one other.

Switching Focus:
Final Fantasy V
Hironobu Sakaguchi was once again
at the center of the game’s development. He created the basic story
and directed the game, while many
other familiar names returned, reprising their roles, including Nobuo
Uematsu, Yoshitaka Amano, and Hiroyuki. Additionally, Tetsuya Nomura
made his first significant contribution

to the series as a monster designer, while Yoshinori Kitase made his
debut as a scenario writer, working
closely together with Sakaguchi to
create the game’s event script.
All in all, 45 people worked on the
game’s development at various
times - a significant increase over
the team of 14 that had worked on
FF IV. Final Fantasy V was released
in Japan for the Super Famicom on
December 6, 1992, but unlike its
predecessor was not released in the
west despite there being plans to do
so at the time. The reason cited for
the cancelled localization was that
the game was considered too difficult for western gamers at the time.
It wouldn’t be until 1999 that Final
Fantasy V would makes its way to
the west as part of the Final Fantasy
Anthology collection on the PlayStation, although a fan translation of the
Super Famicom version had been
created in 1997. The PlayStation
version was otherwise well received,
but its translation was critisized for
being of poor quality and this resulted in subsequent releases of the
game using an entirely new English
translation, starting with the GBA
version that came out in 2006.
The game’s narrative centers on
four crystals that control the four
elements, and which have suddenly
begun to shatter for unknown rea-

sons. After a chance encounter the
four main characters decide to band
together to investigate the mystery.
After it is revealed that the crystals
act as seals for an evil sorcerer
named Exdeath, who is plotting to
take control of the unlimited power
of the void and control the world with
it, the four begin working towards
defeating Exdeath and saving the
world from him.
Final Fantasy V’s most significant
change over its predecessor was
in bringing back the job system that
had been introduced in FF III, but in
a significantly improved state. Many
of the systems’ issues were fixed,
and the rest of it was expanded and
improved. The game introduced aspects such as ability points which
the player earned in battle alongside normal experience points. They
were then used to learn new abilities
by using the various jobs.
In addition, Final Fantasy V expanded
upon the jobs themselves, allowing
a character to learn multiple abilities
from each job, as well as use their
already learned skills as secondary commands with other jobs. For
example, a Thief who had gained
levels as a White Mage could use
white magic while still being a Thief.
This allowed for much greater freedom for players in developing their
characters, especially as the jobs
themselves were also much more