Just the two games remain in our Pixel Remaster coverage, with the best possibly left till last.

The immediate feeling with Final Fantasy 5 is how much it relies on story, really trying to push a cinematic, dramatic tale through dialogue, self-contained scenes and dynamic environmental shifts.

Music is more dramatic, there’s greater environmental effects being used like fog, traversal is more liberating. Basically, it’s starting to feel like the franchise we know and love today.

I quickly got swept up in Final Fantasy 5, connecting with its cast, and discovering its secret walls. Before long, I was under its spell.

That’s what these games always do so well. To this day, we see it with the demo of Final Fantasy XVI with the world talking about its unexpected developments. Final Fantasy 5 doesn’t quite have the same vice-like grip but all these years later, it remains a compelling RPG.

New this time is the freedom and customisation to pick your class and job, with over 20 different types to choose from. This enables you to play you want to, whether you want a party of mages, stealthy rogues and assassins or hard hitting, tanky warriors.

But interestingly you can change your job if you want to, so you’re not even confined to that decision if you don’t want to be. Overtime, you earn AP for your success in battle and this builds up and adds to your overall Job rating rather than that of the character. This was groundbreaking at the time and a mind-blowing proposition despite being a bit taken for granted these days.

Yet playing FF5 again shows the ease in which Square put this together. And honestly, it actually plays better than some modern releases and makes more sense. Its quality is in its simplicity and ease / flexibility. Something that just can’t be understated.

Best of all, you can even mix abilities, so if your character was previously a mage then you’ve decided to turn them warrior, they can still use some of those spells if you want to. It’s just brilliant.

But FF5’s story also holds its weight too, sticking to the concept of crystals but really bringing the supernatural into play and showing off much larger, more powerful forces at play, a real nod and wink to the allies and enemies we’ve made in more recent titles.

Pixel Remaster, of course, just makes the experience flow and feel much better as well. Just as it has the other games, this time it really feels like a compliment to the product and where the other games could be seen as more novelty and a fascinating look back to the golden age of gaming, this is a game you’ll definitely want on your Switch and to see through to the finish.

There’s even side quests to really flesch this out and make the experience feel all the more vast and varied. While some might argue it doesn’t look much different from the original titles, I’d argue they’re just not looking deep into and seeing the experience for what it adds and offers.

It’s becoming a bit of a cliche to say, but Final Fantasy 5 really has learned so much from its predecessors and come together as the defining RPG of the golden 16 bit era. It has taught so much to modern RPGs while still being very much a master of its craft.

Verdict

Final Fantasy 5 is the most liberating, customizable of the games in the collection, letting you experiment with classes, while pursuing side quests. But the game is also the most story-driven of the series to date through cutscenes and characters you can really connect with. Final Fantasy 5 proves that every game in this collection moves the series forward slowly, gradually but ever-evolving, painting the clearest of pictures of how we got to the games we know and love today.

Pros

+ Carefully carved out characters, allowed to breathe in vast cutscenes
+ Great customisable possibilities with the job system
+ Fantastic music score
+ Optional side quests to really fill out the game