Final Fantasy V Advance

 Game Boy Advance
Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 25 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 25
  3. Negative: 0 out of 25
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  1. Nintendo Gamer
    74
    For the completist, a must-have. For the rest of us, an entertaining history lesson that's just about weathered the passage of years. [Apr 2007, p.49]
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  2. Gamestyle
    70
    Whilst plotting strategic job changes remains as fresh and engrossing today as it ever did, the grinding and sometimes repetitive combat can't help but detract from the overall enjoyment of the title.
  3. GameDaily
    70
    Unfortunately, it also requires a lot of battling to keep characters learning new abilities, and the frequent encounters are often tedious in their simplicity.
  5. netjak
    68
    In terms of a remake compared to the original, Final Fantasy V Advance manages to faithfully reproduce the experience of the original game. The biggest problem with that is that Final Fantasy V was never a great game in the first place.
    All this publication's reviews

Awards & Rankings

1
#1 Best Game Boy Advance Game of 2006
2
#2 Most Discussed Game Boy Advance Game of 2006
4
#4 Most Shared Game Boy Advance Game of 2006

User Reviews

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User Score
8.2

Generally favorable reviews- based on 90 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 72 out of 90
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 90
  3. Negative: 3 out of 90
  1. Sammechu
    Aug 2, 2013
    10
    The job system for Final Fantasy V is comparably perfect to that of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. This is one of those games that I couldThe job system for Final Fantasy V is comparably perfect to that of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. This is one of those games that I could just play for hours and hours and never get sick of it. The story alone takes up a very large chunk of time, say nothing about hunting down the side-quest bosses. I love this game to pieces.… Full Review »
  2. XV_
    Feb 14, 2021
    9
    [PSN version]
    The core of Final Fantasy V is its job system that has evolved in some way from the job system on FF III. You start as a Bare    [PSN version]
    The core of Final Fantasy V is its job system that has evolved in some way from the job system on FF III. You start as a Bare or Freelance class and each time you make significant progress within the story, you'll be awarded a new set of jobs to choose from. The beauty of this job system, however, is its skill mixing potential, once a character level up a job it will be awarded a new skill of that particular class, and now will be available to equip it with another job, so you can have healing Ninjas and summoning Thieves if you want to. Trying to make the most efficient killing machines within my party was a lot of fun, it reminded me a lot of my time with the Final Fantasy Tactics games, and is easy to see where they took their inspiration from.

    On the other hand, you also level up your character's base levels that in turn increase their base stats. These two separate systems have their own points and depending on the enemy you'll get a certain amount of each one, they are more or less balanced and to beat this game you don't need to do much grinding or any grinding at all.

    Aside from the normal battles, the more interesting ones might be the boss ones. For the first half of the game, these boss battles are pretty basic, where you need to take care of them and not die, but after you hit a certain point, the battles start to get trickier and challenging.

    Storywise, it has the classic approach of good versus evil. Final Fantasy IV presented a great story filled with nice twists and amazing characters, but because of the larger pool of characters, sometimes felt a little sidetracked. Final Fantasy V doesn't delve into the darker themes of the past game, neither have a complex story of politics and conquest, it is more a mix of the things that worked in the past games, and lands into a safe middle ground: not as simple as the first game but not as dense as the fourth.

    The drawback for the story is that the dialogue is way too simple, normally for games of that era, I don't mind that much their localization, but as the story unfolded and things get more personal and the stakes higher, I have this feeling that maybe the oversimplified dialogue replaced a better written and more beautiful script, I could be wrong as I haven't researched this topic but one can only wonder if the original script was this lighthearted and silly.

    What the game do great in terms of merging story with gameplay, however, is its rhythm and progression, Final Fantasy IV took some cues from FF II in this regard and make an incredible experience, yet, FF V might surpass it by some levels. Sometimes you'll be doing a dungeon, while the next destination could be just a town and an event, or in the next end, it will be a boss rush through many enemies. It never felt repetitive and I was always expectantly to see what will be next, throw side questing into the equation and you'll get a memorable adventure, my favorite aspect of the side-quests were the summon bosses that you almost casually met in the wild.

    Visually it looks quite similar if not the same as the SNES version or at least to an uneducated eye as mine that's what I get when watching videos to compare them. That aside, V has my favorite designs and sprites from the series to this point, enemy sprites are quite detailed and they look gorgeous, it always gets me how little things like eyes are abstracted to the point of being a couple of pixels and they also go the extra mile to convey emotion, it is mind-bending.

    Musicwise overall the soundtrack has aged pretty well and is solid, but there are some songs that stand-out above the rest, I'm not the only one to think of this as some of them are used in official arrangement and orchestral albums, I liked a few of them before playing this game, but I discover and fall in love with other ones too. Comparing sound to the original SNES version, the bass sounds a little deeper and other sounds may be different, but the transition is not as jarring, so overall I think that it sounds pretty good.

    I surely didn't know what to expect of Final Fantasy V, but after the great game IV turned out to be, my expectations were a little low as V is not that quoted on the medium, I imagine this must be because this game didn't see Occidental lands after many years have passed since its release, still, I was rewarded with a great experience. Some localization desitions may not aged that good or the challenge may be somewhat dull for some portions of the game, but it is impossible to ignore the charm and heart the developers put into the core of the game, being the story, the mechanics, or little details easy to overlook. Its greatness doesn't come with a darker story but with the freedom of its systems that lets you bend its rules as the very idea of fantasy does.    … Full Review »
  3. BasilZero
    Apr 10, 2015
    9
    Game: Final Fantasy V Advance
    Genre: RPG
    Developer: Squareenix System: Gameboy Advance (GBA) Total Score: 88/100 Value Score: 88/10    Game: Final Fantasy V Advance
    Genre: RPG
    Developer: Squareenix
    System: Gameboy Advance (GBA)
    Total Score: 88/100
    Value Score: 88/10

    • Story: 10/10
    • Characters: 9/10
    • GamePlay: 9/10
    • Graphics: 8/10
    • Sound: 7/10
    • Music: 10/10
    • Length: 8/10
    • Replay Value: 7/10
    • Player Value: 10/10

    Pros
    +Improved graphical visuals
    +Four new jobs
    +Game was re-translated
    +A bestiary has been added
    +Quick save function
    +Music player which allows you to listen to the whole OST
    +A New 30 floor dungeon has been added filled with new weapons and enemies/bosses
    +Improvement over the porting unlike the GBA version - does not have the bugs or slow downs.

    Cons
    -Grinding is still a major issue to the game despite being improved
    -Some enemies have fake targets which were added by mistake
    -Due to the fact it is on the GBA - the sound quality is worse than the original and PSX versions
    -Post game content not as in depth as FFIV Advance    … Full Review »
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