Square Enix is reviving the Gameboy Advanced rendition of Final Fantasy V and re-releasing on PC with a few updates and upgrades. The game sees veteran artist and character designer Kazuko Shibuya returning to spruce up the characters for its first debut on Valve's digital distribution platform.
All Games Beta sports the press release where it's revealed that not only will the game be restored for HD play on PC, but it will also feature an all new optional boss battle called Enuo, designed by the legendary Tetsuya Nomura, probably best known for bringing to life many of Square Enix's classics, including Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy VII, the highly anticipated Final Fantasy XV and even the greatly awaited remake of Final Fantasy VII. The press release doesn't detail what the boss battle entails, but it'll be a great way for veterans and newcomers alike to stretch their battle skills and exercise some new tactics against the boss.
The most iconic feature of Final Fantasy V will also be making a return... the job system. The game was the first in the Final Fantasy series to feature the job class system. Basically it allows players to acquire 26 unique jobs in the game, each one offering various skills and abilities to master. My absolute favorite was the chemist, because you could come up with some extremely deadly combinations and buffs. Of course, classic jobs were also present such as white mages, black mages, knights, paladins and ninjas alike.
The highlight of the job system was that players could assign these jobs to the various main characters in the game. So there were no character-locked job skills or gender-locked classes, a pet peeve for many gamers especially in the MMO space where gender-locked classes certainly save tons of money on the development end but usually frustrate both male and female gamers.
In addition to the job system returning and new character art being featured, the game will also include Steam trading cards and achievements. This means you can play through and unlock rewards for your Steam profile as you complete the game and conquer certain objectives.
The story itself was never that impressive to me. It wasn't quite as character driven as Final Fantasy IV and it was no where near as good as the RPG magnum opus of the 16-bit era that is Final Fantasy VI; but the story was a distinct and direct bridge of events from Final Fantasy IV to Final Fantasy VI, as the crystals sit at the center of the story and Exdeath stands between a world of prosperity and a world thrown into ruin.
There's some cheeky moments with the character Faris and some sad moments as well involving a couple of characters. Tugging at the heartstrings as usual.
Story wise I was no big fan of Final Fantasy V, but the job system goes down in history as one of my absolute favorites. Square has apparently re-balanced the game for a proper active-time battle for the turn-based encounters, so that should also add an additional challenge to the game for veterans of the series who may have missed out on the Gameboy edition.
Final Fantasy V is due for release on September 24th for $15.99 (although it'll be discounted for the first week by 10%) and you can check out the Steam store page right now to learn more.
