[Classic] And now to start $h|T with the Final Fantasy 5 fans...

Kidding... I'm not actually starting a war here.
I have started to realize by comparing lately that FF5 seems to be inferior in most of the major ways (graphics, music, sound, & gameplay) compared to FF4 -- and this is not because I am an FF4 fan.

Observe: (LEFT: FF4, RIGHT: FF5)



Why does FF5 seem more cartoony? Also, the grass they stand on is almost one plain color. The only good thing would be the mountains on top... but this game was released 1.5 years after FF4 and looks more fake overall.

Sound: Saving the music for the last thought, why is it that when a command window appears and makes the "ding" noise, it sounds higher pitched and more NES-like? This also goes for the menus and every magic spell in the game. Closer to NES noise than SNES noise.

Gameplay: For this category I am not talking about the job system. It's fine and dandy. When a battle is in progress, the time bars are shown moving. When an ally steps forward to make an attack, every single time bar freezes for all allies and enemies until the attack is over, whereas in FF4 & 6, the time bars (or lack thereof) can keep moving while enemies or allies are making attacks. This makes FF5 seem slower and not as active. Look closely as somebody makes an attack, the rest of the game "freezes" into non-time: (Please ignore the GBA graphics because this thread is about comparing the Super Famicom games and not remakes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAT2nLTAZl8

Music: At the bottom, if you click and listen to each battle theme, why does the FF5 one have instruments that sound inferior & more fake? Don't get me wrong, I think both themes are brilliant. But I dislike FF5's instruments and came to realize that this month.

Final Thought: Did this game start development before FF4? Did a different studio make it? Different artist for the graphics and sound person for sound? As good as the game may be, why the inferiorities in all four categories? Obviously, these things have not ruined my overall enjoyment. I mean, jeez, FF1 is my third favorite game of all time... and it has bad graphics and gameplay with "ineffective" on.
I was wondering if anyone had answers as to these aspects of FF5.

How ya doing, buddy?

Final Fantasy V had more graphics to shove on the cart for battles. It had a different sprite for every character, for every job class. The only people who had more than a single sprite in FF4 were Cecil and Rydia.

Besides that, they barely look any different. FF4 had a darker color palette in battle is the only difference really. And FF5 looked a fair deal better on the world, dungeon and town maps also.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

FF5's overworld is basically a replica. Look at the water and trees.
But you are ignoring the sound effects, music and gameplay.

I'm sure you can throw at me some great looking caves in FF5 while I can throw you Mt Ordeals scenery or the Watery Pass (2nd cave in FF4) scenery deeper in the cave.

It is commendable that FF5 had sprites for every last class.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

FF4 and FF5 seem pretty much the same to me in terms of the ATB for the simple reason that you can't switch between active turns. Therefore whether or not you could see the time bars was irrelevant. FF6 was the first to let you switch between active turns instead of forcing you to use up turns as they came up.

Musically, I won't argue against FF4 being better, but FF5 is pretty good too. I like the main battle theme more and a lot of the music has a mysterious quality to it that makes FF5 feel different from the other FF games. It just doesn't have the epic feel that FF4's has. No doubt that FF5's music was a transitional period which would culminate with FF6's score.

Graphically, what I remember is FF5's various sprites and such being smaller than in FF4, but also more detailed. The grass example doesn't seem to work in its favor but I definitely remember FF5 for having very varied dungeons in terms of visuals and design. From the Fire Ship to Pyramid, FF5 definitely had more visual variety than FF4. More than FF6 as well, though FF6 obviously went for a more consistent world, which is a far cry from FF7 having a place like Gold Saucer right next to North Corel.

Ultimately, FF5 felt more like a Dragon Quest game to me than the other games in the series. It was less cinematic than most FF games and more focused on gameplay elements like the job system and dungeon designs. I like it more than FF4 since the linearity of FF4 is not my preference, but both are among the FF games that I actually care about.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

FF4 was also a consistent world. You're right about the dungeons and areas in FF5 though, but I'm puzzled by how the characters look a tad more cartoony & the main battle screens look like that too.

As for the music, I think that FF5 is a huge step down in instrument quality, but I have an extremely favorable opinion of Uematsu's work in FF5..... whether he had used NES instruments, Atari instruments, or Wii instruments!

Honestly, the character graphics / some battle graphics, music, and sound effects should have at least been in between the quality of 4 and 6 (because it's the game in between, obviously) rather than inferior in many cases.

As for the gameplay, I thought that FF4 (of all three SNES games) had the faster system because of the lack of a time bar and the quick execution of moves (except for some spells that take long, as they should, otherwise the game would be cheap). I just thought that FF5 & 6 were more methodical:

In FF5, everything goes into non-time when one attacks. Nuff said.

I beat FF6 GBA recently and felt that I was simply queuing moves up in the battles. A lot of times I would use Ultima for most characters, in which waiting for the graphic of that spell to execute slows things down a tad. (There is no spell graphic in FF4 that is as slow).
After the spell would be done, I would be worried whether the enemy would attack me or just wait for a couple more of my turns. So I developed a method against FF6's methodical gameplay:

While two chars were queued to use Ultima, I would have Sabin's window (the third character, for example) command up & ready and purposely not do anything yet to see if the boss would attack. If he would, I would use Cure 3. If not, I would use Ultima.
As for the fourth char, if Sabin already cured everyone (or if hes queued to do so), I can automatically use Ultima for him/her. If not, I could use Cure 3 or just wait for a turn to be over so I can see what the monster will do.
The "X" button (switching command windows) definitely makes things easy. As does waiting to see what happens to stay on ones toes instead of make wrong decisions.

My favorite game contains my favorite gameplay system of all time. It is a colossal waste of time to wait with somebody's window. It feels truly active. The moves are executed quickly. If somebody is dead and you want Rosa's turn to come badly, it will come at a fast rate anyway. If you don't want to wait, getting 99 of each item and putting them to use is good. You could even use a Life Potion so that Rosa only has to Cure when her turn comes. Furthermore, to prevent problems such as some chars' death, obviously planning ahead of time (in battle) as to the enemies' attacks is the smart thing to do, as the game is fast and doesn't queue itself as slowly. (Planning ahead of time is smart in all games, of course, I'm not trying to say it's only doable in FF4).

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Borg1982

FF4 was also a consistent world.

I agree for the most part, except that the Lunar Whale was one seriously advanced ship compared to the mostly medieval world of FFIV. (The Giant of Babil was crazy as well) The whole Lunarian thing came out of left field but the lack of consistency in that respect isn't something which bothers me much since it was cool to visit the moon.

Originally Posted by Borg1982

My favorite game contains my favorite gameplay system of all time. It is a colossal waste of time to wait with somebody's window. It feels truly active. The moves are executed quickly. If somebody is dead and you want Rosa's turn to come badly, it will come at a fast rate anyway. If you don't want to wait, getting 99 of each item and putting them to use is good. You could even use a Life Potion so that Rosa only has to Cure when her turn comes. Furthermore, to prevent problems such as some chars' death, obviously planning ahead of time (in battle) as to the enemies' attacks is the smart thing to do, as the game is fast and doesn't queue itself as slowly. (Planning ahead of time is smart in all games, of course, I'm not trying to say it's only doable in FF4).

What FF6 did was to (unintentionally?) make things easier by giving you the option of saving turns. The upside is that you actually have more control over a fight, whereas in FF4 you had no choice but to use the current character's turn. The fights in FF4 do move more quickly, however. Just that there's the curious bit about stronger spells taking longer to cast, which is an unexpected bit of realism that didn't appear again until FFT, which had a combat system built around charge times.

What you're describing in terms of character turns being frozen sounds like what I recently noticed while playing FF8. When I attack an enemy, the turn bar of my fellow party member freezes.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I didn't realize that. But I haven't played FF8 in 5 years now. Maxed the whole game out that long ago...

I discovered the huge difference between FF4-6 this month, whereas in years past I just figured them to be exactly equal to each other. (I used to think that FF4 was the one that had a time bar as well but didn't show it and that all the systems were identical). It took some analyzing though to see how different they are.

I think the realism in FF4's magic system makes perfect sense. I also think that to compensate for having no "X" button to switch command windows, FF4 has five chars in a battle. That, and the fact that its a unique class video game where only some people have Cure 4 (Tellah, Rosa, Fusoya, Porom) means that there should be five to a battle. In fact, I doubt an X button would have been the best idea for FF4 since it is very fast paced anyway. In a way it could be cheap to do such a thing. I think planning & anticipating for attacks is how you are supposed to play FF4 (use strategy) rather than wait & move. (I think I just realized during that last sentence why its my favorite game ever).

Of course, I am a big, big fan of turn based games, FF5's style, FF6's style, and tactical games like Shining Force as well. (Hack & Slash RPGs would be after all of these).

I guess the primary point of this thread cannot be answered. I seriously wonder if FF5 was being made around the same time as 4, except, 4 was done faster and 5 needed a lot of work because of the large amount of classes involved.

FELIPE NO

Maybe it's because more people worked on FF4 over FF5.

FF4 had three different people working on the map design, and four people working on battle graphics. Two people for battle graphics and one for the map design in FF5.

Companies are always changing and they have to adjust. Most people will stay with a company until a project is finished before deciding to leave, even if they want to leave beforehand, but this isn't always the case. You can't expect consistency from Square, or anyone, really.

That's how it is and always will be.

Why are we complaining about old games, again.

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No complaints. Just observations. As I said, these aspects cannot affect how much fun I have with FF5.

FF1 is my third favorite game of all time and it has horrible graphics and an archaic "ineffective" battle system.

How ya doing, buddy?