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The malleability is glorious, as you can play it more or less like it was back in the day, or customize it to your preference. You can also turn off encounters at any moment. Thankfully if you do just want to play around with jobs, the Pixel Remaster includes a variety of boost options that let you earn up to four times the experience points and ability points so you can power-level without as much grinding. Once you start getting jobs, the only limit is your ingenuity for breaking the system (and maybe grinding). There are definitely optimal job paths for different characters, with some more viable for mage roles than others, but the beauty of the job system is that it’s so flexible. Leveling up jobs opens up new abilities and options, most of which can then be used as a secondary option when they’re in a new job. It deepens the complexity of strategy (and might remind modern players of similar systems in Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler) as your heroes Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, and Faris level up in the traditional sense and also earn ability points for whatever job they have equipped. You don’t have a vast party like the Super Nintendo games before and after, but you do have 22 different jobs to switch your primary party of four between over the course of the adventure.
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And for the most part, this is a fantastic version of an incredible game.įinal Fantasy V is most notable for its job system, which builds off of Final Fantasy III’s similar mechanic.
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Thanks to the console release of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, this 1992 Super Famicom game is the most readily accessible it has ever been (legally). However, the relative inaccessibility of Final Fantasy V in the west cut down on the lasting impact of this excellent game. If I were to break out my all-time Final Fantasy rankings, it’d sit right behind Final Fantasy VI, and the gap between the two is not as wide as you might think. It took a while for me to reach this point, but I love Final Fantasy V.
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