Final Fantasy V 101

SPOILERS

The Basics of the JOB system

Unlike FF4, FF5 has the vaunted job system, so each character isn’t locked into a specific path for character development. The job system is pretty much like the class system in your typical CRPG (computer role playing game).

When you have a job equipped, you automatically gain the abilities of that class. For example, if you using “white wizard” you can cast “white magic” (curative & restorative magics). However, if you decided to switch over to the “knight” job then you lose the ability to cast white magic.

However, the game has a mechanism that allows you to mix and match abilities.

Basically, after battles, in addition to earning experience points, you earn ability points (ABP). So if you’ve selected “white wizard” as your job, you will earn ABP towards that job.

For example, after earning X ABP as a white wizard, you’ll be able to use level 1 white magic in conjuction any other job. You can gain as many abilities as you please, but you can only use 2 abilities at one time.

When you gain all of the abilities of a job, you “master” that job and gain all of its inherit advantages (ie, if you master “knight”, you can equip Sword, Shield and Armor, no matter what class you select).

Like in sports, it’s important to have a well balanced team. I mean your football team wouldn’t be composed of 11 quarterbacks on both offense and defense now would it?

The Party:

For everyone, I select the “generic/starting” class, because it allows you equip the best equipment. And each character has gained or mastered many abilities

Butz - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Monk, Mystic Knight, Archer, Ninja.

2-Handed - Allows any class to equip two weapons (other than bows or harps) at the same time.
X-Fight - Attack four times, with a weaker than normal strike.
GP Toss - Spend money to cause large amounts of damage to all enemies.

X-fight in conjunction with 2-Handed allows Butz to attack 8 times in a row per turn.

Lenna - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Archer, Monk, White Wizard, Black Wizard

White magic – White Magic (Cure3, Arise, Holy)

Cara - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Knight, Thief, Monk, Time Wizard, Caller

Call – Summoning magic (Bahamut, Golem)
Jikuu – Time magic (Fast2)

Faris - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Knight, Monk, Samurai, White Wizard

GP Toss
White magic

Overall Exdeath and NeoExdeath strategy:

This battle is fairly easy because the party should have more than enough firepower to overwhelm Exdeath/NeoExdeath.

However, I tend to play on the defensive because Exdeath/NeoExdeath has some potentially devastating spells (hence there are 2 white wizards in my party, Faris and Lenna)

- Holy         - 2500-3000+ dmg, single
- Flare        - 2500-3000+ dmg, single
- Meteo        - random damage, , 4 hits, all, random
- White Hole   - instant death, stones, single
- Maelstrom   - critical HP, all, random
- Almagest    - 600-1000+ dmg, constant HP loss all
- Grand Cross - different negative status, all

White Hole is especially annoying because you need to take 2 turns to revive then de-petrify the affected party member.

Butz:

Exdeath: X-Fight.

NeoExdeath: X-Fight is much less effective here, because NeoExdeath puts up “fake targets”. GP Toss works much better here….better than Holy and Bahamut for that matter.

See? X-Fight is useless here

Lenna:

Cure3 and Arise (Restore a dead party member with full health) when necessary. Otherwise, cast Holy every round (high damage for only 20 MP).

Lenna casting Holy

Cara:

Cast Fast2 which will speed up the entire party and re-cast as necessary. Cast Golem to block physical damage from the enemy and re-cast as necessary.

Otherwise cast Bahamut every round.

gogo Bahamut

yay Golem

Faris:

Cure3 and Arise when necessary.

Otherwise GP Toss every round.

The power of GP toss

I suppose that you could master more classes and get other powerful abilities (i.e. X-magic), but that require a lot more work.

I’ve uploaded my save file to my email account along with the rom (noporns@gmail.com, pass: gimmee). Give it the ol’ college try. The emulator can be found at www.znes.com

Cripes. Of all places to leave the game untranslated......