This was my first replay of this game since the ps2 days. Shocking amount of story that I either didn’t remember, or attributed to the prior game.

Pros:
The story/cinematics are awesome. The music in these portions are really exciting. While XS1 was more about setting up characters and some vaigue intrigue, these are just a total step up in every way.

Dungeons have some legitimately great puzzles.

Mixed:
Combat is different, and while I kind of dig the break system, there is a slowness to it. Feels like it needed one more iteration to have the right balance.

Character movement is cusping on too slow.

Cons:
Character faces, specifically female, are a gross overcorrection from the first game. Felt like FFX NPCs.

City/non dungeon area music just didn’t hit for me. I get the vibe they were going for but the discordant hyper repetitive electronic music made the next con a total slog.

Sidequests: so many fetch quests going all over with really slow movement and cumbersome navigation between areas. Felt like padding and gating attacks and skills behind these felt more like chores than an additive experience. Made me miss the trails quick travel menu.

Overall this game was much better than I remembered and quite hyped to jump into Xenosaga III.

Final Fantasy is one of the top 3 formative gaming series for me next to Mario and Zelda. FFV may be the first game in the series to capture the same sense of adventure that I felt playing the original FF on NES as a kid. The writing was quite charming, never takes itself too seriously, yet still delivers a really compelling narrative that belies its SNES roots. The music is also a high point, (spreading grand wings / home, sweet home / battle at big bridge)

The job system feels great, and is a natural iteration on the class selection of the OG FF. The game rewards experimentation and had so much fun seeing what combinations of abilities and equipment can basically break the game.

Maybe the one flaw I can find is that the MC is more of a proxy than a character, but even then all of the characters (playable and otherwise) have that extra attention to detail that adds to the game’s overall immersion. Ultimately I feel like the smaller cast plays to the strength of the writing. Few games give that ‘gamer high’ after experiencing a really fulfilling story, and this was not something I expected going into it.

Phenomenal game; hopefully people who are only going into the pixel remasters for IV and VI check this out.