Return of the Void Final Fantasy V

Made in 1992 has been released on multiple systems.

Plot

The back story of Final Fantasy V is revealed in phases through cut scenes and interactions with non-playable characters. One millennium before the events of the main story, a powerful mage named Enuo imperiled the world using the power of an evil entity called the "Void". The people retaliated by using twelve legendary weapons to vanquish Enuo; however, the Void itself could not be destroyed. Consequently, the people split the world's four elemental Crystals into two sets, effectively creating two worlds. The Void then became sealed in a dimensional cleft between the two worlds.
Nearly 1,000 years passed without incident, and both worlds prospered due to the powers of their Crystals of Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth. New kingdoms and towns flourished, and travel by ship acted as a critical means of commerce and communication. However, a sinister force was stirring in the second world—ever since the Void incident, malicious demons had been sealed inside a tree in the Great Forest of Moore. The corrupted amalgamation of spirits emerged as Exdeath, the game's primary antagonist. When Exdeath attempted to claim the world for himself, a group of heroes called the "Four Warriors of Dawn" (Galuf, Xezat, Dorgann, and Kelger) sealed him within the first world using its Crystals, and peace returned for another 30 years.
Final Fantasy V begins on a day when the world's wind currents begin to slow and stale. Deeply troubled by this occurrence, the king of Tycoon makes ready to travel to the Wind Shrine on the back of his drake, quelling the worries of his daughter, Princess Lenna (Reina in Final Fantasy Anthology.) Upon arriving at the Shrine, the king bears witness to the Wind Crystal shattering before his eyes.
Meanwhile, a young traveller named Bartz, resting in the woods near Tycoon, beholds a meteorite plunge to the planet's surface just outside the castle. Bartz promptly investigates, discovering a young woman, Lenna, lying unconscious from attack. After rescuing her, they discover an old man in the debris with partial amnesia named Galuf. Lenna explains that she had been on her way to the Wind Shrine after her father. Galuf suddenly recalls that it was his original destination as well, opting to accompany her. Though the trio part ways, Bartz soon encounters Lenna and Galuf again assaulted by monsters in a quaking valley. The three travel together, finding all land routes blockaded by the upheavals caused by the meteorite's fall. Exploring an underground cavern, they encounter a den of pirates and their leader, Faris. With the help of the pirate captain, the group makes its way to the Wind Shrine to discover the shattered Crystal, but no sign of the missing king. The shards react to their presence, however, and an image of Tycoon appears, explaining to them that they must protect those Crystals that yet remain.
Eventually, the party comes to discover that the Crystals formed a seal upon Exdeath; with them destroyed, not only would the dark essence be released, but over time the planet itself would become uninhabitable. The party attempts to save the crystals of Water, Fire, and Earth; but by the machinations of human folly or the influence of the sealed Exdeath they fail. Having been freed, Exdeath defeats the party and returns to his homeworld. Galuf's granddaughter Krile arrives by meteorite, restoring Galuf's memory completely; he recalls he originated from the same world as Exdeath, pursuing him back home with Krile. Bartz and the others resolve that the fight is not Galuf's alone, together traveling to the distant planet world, where Exdeath is already wreaking havoc in pursuit of that world's Crystals. The trio is captured, but Galuf rescues them and defeats Exdeath's lieutenant, Gilgamesh, in the process. They are blown to a distant continent when a magical barrier is activated during their escape, but make their way to Val Castle, Galuf's kingdom.
The party meets Kelger, one of Galuf's companions and a former Warrior of Dawn, and learn that Bartz's father was part of their group. Joining forces, they deactivate the barrier around Exdeath's castle, but at the cost of Kelger's life. They then learn of Exdeath's origins, traveling to the Guardian Tree to dispel the seals. Exdeath anticipates the party's actions and torches Moore Forest, ensnaring the group. Krile arrives to help, but is herself trapped by the warlock's powers. At the sight of his granddaughter's capture, Galuf frees himself and battles Exdeath to the point of death, refusing to fall until the creature flees. Collapsing from his wounds, Galuf dies despite the party's efforts to save him, imparting his abilities to Krile. The party pursues Exdeath to his tower and defeats him, but the remaining Crystals shatter and the worlds are reunited.
For a time, it seems Exdeath has been truly destroyed, and the party celebrates in Tycoon. Bartz, however, is contacted by the sage Ghido. Meeting with him, a thorn suddenly leaps from Faris' palm, manifesting as Exdeath, now resurrected and fully in command of the Void. With it, he removes entire towns and kingdoms from existence, tossing them into a tear in reality.
Fortunately for the party, the reunification of worlds has opened the pathways to ancient sites where weapons and powers used to quell Enuo's rise a thousand years past lay in wait. So armed, the party enters the Rift, seeking out Exdeath at the center of the inter-dimensional nexus where they, too, fall prey to the Void. With help from their fallen allies, the party survives and is returned before Exdeath, now manifested as a demonic sylvan, battling him until he weakens and is swallowed by his own power. He then transforms into Neo Exdeath, intent on destroying the very essence of reality, himself with it. Exdeath is ultimately defeated, and, using the power of the Crystal shards, the heroes seal the Void once more and restore the reunified world and its Crystals. The game's ending varies based on how many party members are still alive at Neo Exdeath's defeat, detailing the events after the world's resurrection. At the end, the remaining group visits the Guardian Tree, and find that the fallen party members have returned to life.

Characters

Final Fantasy V features five player characters, though only four of which are playable at a given time. Bartz Klauser is a traveling adventurer who becomes involved in the story when he investigates the site of a meteorite strike. Lenna Charolette Tycoon is a princess of Tycoon who follows her father to investigate the Wind Shrine's Crystal. Early on, Bartz finds her unconscious and saves her from goblins. Galuf Doe is a mysterious old man who was discovered unconscious near the meteorite with a case of amnesia. Faris Scherwiz is a pirate captain who captures Bartz, Lenna, and Galuf when they try to steal her ship; she is revealed to be Sarisa Scherwill Tycoon in disguise. Krile Mayer Baldesion is the granddaughter of Galuf who journeys with him to the planet and receives his abilities.
Most of the main characters were involved with or related to the original Four Warriors of Dawn, such as Dorgann Klauser (Bartz's father), Kelger Vlondett, and Xezat Matius Surgate; Galuf was the fourth warrior. The game also contains several supporting characters, including engineer Cid Previa his grandson Mid Previa, and turtle sage Ghido. One of Exdeath's henchmen, Gilgamesh, is a recurring mini-boss in the second half of the game. Gilgamesh has also appeared in newer Final Fantasy titles, such as Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy XII. Concept art for the characters was designed by Yoshitaka Amano; he has offered such artwork for every main Final Fantasy installment since the original.

Gameplay

Final Fantasy V includes many standard role-playing elements as well as renovated features introduced in earlier Final Fantasy games. Players navigate the characters from a top-down perspective; a traversable overworld connects the various towns, dungeons , and other points of interest. The player can traverse the overworld by foot, Chocobo, hydra-guided ship, wind drake, or airship, depending on the situation. Most towns scattered contain inns for resting, shops for purchasing equipment, and people from whom the player can gain information. The player may also embark on several side quest that become available as the story progresses. Characters grow in strength by gaining experience points from random events with monsters on the overworld or in a dungeon. Experience culminates in a "level up", in which character attributes, such as hit points (HP) or magic power, increase. A menu-based management system allows the player to equip, heal, and change each character's selected job outside of battle as well as to save the game's progress.
Final Fantasy V is the second Final Fantasy game to use the Active Time Battle (ATB) system, in which time flows continuously for both the player and enemies during combat. This system was first established in Final Fantasy IV but in that game, there was no way to visibly anticipate which character's turn would come up next. In Final Fantasy V, the player can see which playable character's turn is next in battle, in the form of a time gauge—or "ATB Bar"—which fills according to a character's speed. When the selected character's turn arrives, the player can execute one of several commands, such as attacking the enemy with an equipped weapon, using a special ability or item, or changing the character's row position. The ATB mechanic with a gauge, as seen in Final Fantasy V, is used in four of the following titles in the series.
The main feature of the gameplay of Final Fantasy V is the Job System. Players can freely select jobs (also called "classes") for their characters to master, allowing each character to gain special abilities and potentially master all 22 jobs (26 in the Game Boy Advance version). Each character begins with only the "Freelancer" class; to gain access to new jobs, players must acquire crystal shards. This system is basically an improved version of the one in Final Fantasy III; several older jobs were either reused or revamped for Final Fantasy V, such as the Black Mage and Thief. The game also introduces several classes to the series, including the Blue Mage, Time Mage, and Mime. Each of these classes has been featured in numerous Final Fantasy installments since.
Once the player gains access to the job system, characters begin to earn a separate form of experience—Ability Points (ABP)—in conjunction with regular experience points. Characters gain job levels after accumulating ABP; as with regular levels, the required amount of experience increases after each job level. ABP and job levels do not transfer from class to class. As job levels increase, new skills become available for the character to use in a new form of customization; characters learn job-specific abilities that may be transferred to a new job. For example, a character with the Knight job who has also earned job levels as a Black Mage may set Black Magic as a secondary command, enabling both Black Mage and Knight abilities in battle. The nature of these abilities varies; while some serve as special commands in battle, others may be innate to the class or activated automatically when conditions are met, such as the Thief's "Caution" skill, which prevents rear attacks from enemies. This system allows for deeper customization of characters.

Once more we see a return of a lot of the same FF element in this next instalment of FFV. We have our Elemental Crystals, although in the effect of changing things up so they dont completly match the previous games, we have a world split in two with a set of the elemental crystals each.
We have our usual, Overworld Map, Dungeons, Towns, Inns, Shops, Weapons, Armor and Accessories. The Level Up system has returned by means of gaining experience, but we also see a return of the job class system from FFIII. In this instalment all the characters begin as "Freelance" characters, at which point they can learn abilities or gain an item, giving them the "Job" class. The characters in this game can actually change job class through out the game as well and in most cases keep some of the abilities learned from the previous job. Example being, the character learns Black Magic from the Black Mage job class and then becomes a Knight, well we now have a Knight who can use black magic. I believe this is where some of the ideas for meshing classes in characters came from, its a lot more convenient for your party, to have a character who is well rounded, if you have one character who is a Knight/Black Mage and another character who is a Thief/White Mage, you then have what seems like 4 different character classes but only using two characters, leaving the other for more class opportunities. Mind you unlike its predecessor IV, V went down to a 5 playable character cast, as opposed to IV's 12.
We also see the addition of a couple new classes, the Blue Mage, Time Mage, and Mime.
We see the return once more of the Active Time Battle System (ATB), from IV with an improvement, in IV you had no idea of the order of the turn of the Characters, with V they added a player order bar to the battle screen to allow you to plan the order of your attacks.
We also see the return of Chocobos, and not mentioned in the character section for some reason, we actually have the appearance of a Chocobo who is an actual character not just a mode of transportation. Bartz companion Boco is a adolescent Chocobo who has befriended the games main hero, and makes many appearances in the game.
We see Cid make an appearance once more, and ironically has a son in this game, Mid.
As well as the return of Airships.
So were now at kinda a half way point before things start changing in the realm of FF drastically. And we see they haven't ventured too far from the same type of FF elements and concepts. But you see Squares concept of evolving the game, taking the concepts of the previous title, adding them to a new world. This is the evolution that I would like to point out. A lot of people act like the greatness that is FF began with VII, but even the greatness that was there would not be there without the elements of the previous titles.
The next post is going to be a break from our history of FF and I am going to post pictures from each of the 5 instalments so far, to give those who haven't played an idea of what these fantasy worlds looked like, some that have been re released have been evolved to make an almost entirely new game.
Things to keep in mind:
Items
Shops
Inns
Weapons
Armor
Accessories
Overworld Map
Towns
Dungeons
Airships
Chocobos
Crystals
ATB
Turn Based
Level Up System
Job Class

After our break with a post containing mostly images, Fina Fantasy VI