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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy V, 4 April 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
If you're a Final Fantasy fan, then by all means get Final Fantasy Anthology. These two Final Fantasy games are much better than the first two, with more interesting characters and storylines, though I feel that the crystals ruin the games; there's the dark knight Golbez attempting to get his hands on the crystals in Final Fantasy IV and the crystals shattering in Final Fantasy V.
Final Fantasy IV
This one is perhaps the hardest Final Fantasy to beat (this or Final Fantasy VIII. Final Fantasy VIII gets hard at the end, where this has constant boss fights, in which half of them are hard to beat, and when I say they're hard, I do mean HARD).
This one is the one that introduces the ATB (Active Time Battle) system. I heard rumours that this was also the first to introduce the summons, but I recently found out that it was actually Final Fantasy III that introduced the summons. This one is filled with many characters, who each have different job classes. There's the dark knight Cecil, who later becomes a Paladin. There's also the dragoon Kain, the summoner Rydia, the white mage Rosa and many more.
This also has two types of chocobo; the ordinary yellow ones, and the black ones (they for some reason appear purple in the game) that can fly, though they can't fly past mountains and can only land in forest areas. Lastly in this game, you can have up to five part members in battle, where in the other early Final Fantasies, you can only have four, but three in Final Fantasies VII, VIII and X.
This one has a very interesting storyline to it. It revolves around Cecil, who starts of as the captain of Baron's Red Wings, but demoted from his job, after questioning the king with regard to why he wants the crystals. He is soon tricked into attacking the nearby town of Mist and learns that by killing the mist dragon (also first boss fight of the game. One of the easy ones too), he killed the mother of a child (Rydia). It is then when Cecil decides to rebel against the king (Rydia joins him, though he has to gain her trust first). It is shortly after when he learns of his replacement Goblbez, who unlike Cecil is evil and the only person who can destroy him is a paladin, which Cecil eventually becomes. He and some other people (some he already knows) group together to stop Goblbez from claiming the crystals at all costs. Good game and fun to play. I must warn you it can be hard to beat. But if you can beat this, you can beat any Final Fantasy game.
Final Fantasy V
This one brings back the job class system, with lots more varieties than Final Fantasy 1. In the first Final Fantasy you could either be a warrior, a thief, a monk or a black or white or red mage. This one includes all of these plus loads more. You don't have the option of being any of these at first, but as you collect crystal shards, you gain different job options. Amongst the first lot is warrior, black and white mage, thief, monk and blue mage. You soon gain others like Red Mage, summoner, Geomancer (a warrior who can cross damaged floors without taking damage), sorcerer (someone who can do sword-magic) and many more.
You begin as a bare, a basic warrior, who can equip anything, and also the weakest, but once you master your warriors, than bare becomes the toughest. As you level up you permanetely gain abilities and the best part is you can equip one you've learnt when you switch jobs. EG. Once you've mastered the first level of black mage, you gain "Black 1", where you can cast level 1 black magic spells like Bolt, Fire and Ice. If you become a white mage afterwards, you (obviously) can cast spells such as cure. But equipping "Black 1" will also allow your party member to cast black magic spells. So your party member becomes a sort of red mage that way. Unfortunately you can only equip one, but as bare you can equip two. Again, this game has a black chocobo, which is exactly the same as the one in Final Fantasy IV, with the difference that it can fly over mountains, but not the white bits on them however. Lastly you only have five party members in total. You begin with Bartz, Reina, Faris and Galuf. Galuf is later on into the game replaced by his granddaughter Krile.
This game begins with the weakening of the wind crystal and the king of Tycoon travels to the wind shrine to investigate. A meteorite crashes and Reina (princess of Tycoon) is knocked out in the impact, having just left Tycoon castle to catch up with her father. Bartz catches a couple of goblins attempting to snatch her, but he rescues her. The two then meet an old man (Galuf), who has lost all memory but his desire to travel to the wind shrine. Bartz joins them in their quest there (Faris joins them on the way). When they reach the wind shrine, the wind crystal is shattered and the other three are in danger of shattering too. If they are all shattered then the world will come to an end, and it's later on when they learn that the shattering of all the crystals would also bring back the evil X-Death; something Bartz and the others have to stop at all costs.
Final Fantasy IV and V are excellent Final Fantasy games to play, which I highly recomend to all Final Fantasy fans. Buy this and enjoy.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hmmmm..., 13 Oct 2002
All the above reviews sing the praises of Final Fantasy 4 and 5 and they are totally justified in this. I personally have played FF 1-10 (unfortunately not tactics as I have been unable to get a copy) and I think that 4 (especially) 5 rank up there with the best of them.For those of you whose only experience of the series has been on the Playstation, you really don't know what you are missing. The early games are up to par with the later ones and in many ways are better. Final Fantasy 4 and 5 both have involving stories and great gameplay (the job system in 5 is one of the highlights of the whole series). But, whilst any RPG player worth their salt will gain much enjoyment from them, I wouldn't suggest them for everyone. If you are not really into the genre, then you may not have the perseverance to stick them through, as they have aged slightly since their release. In this case, you might want to go for a more modern and action oriented RPG, such as Baldur's Gate or the sublime Vagrant Story. Also, if you are into RPGs, but don't have FF6, then I would buy that first. Of all the FF games it is my second favourite and the sheer quality of its story and gameplay makes it the easiest introduction to the older games. Anyway, 4 and 5 are both top games and you will have difficulty finding a better RPG for your money. Finally, a word to certain fans of the series. Please will you stop putting FF7 down. Whilst 8-10 are not what they could have been, I rate 7 higher than any of the games in the series. It has (in my opinion) the most invloving story, encompasses the best environments and has better humour, narration and styling than any of the others. Also, Sephiroth would beat Kefka any day...
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Must Buy, 30 Mar 2003
As mentioned above these earlier Final Fantasy games are on a different level all together to the ones on the Playstation. The Generation raised on the Playstation editions will at first take sometime to get used to the difference in sound and graphic quality, however due to enhancements you'll barely notice after an hour or so. Playing the post Playstion Fantasys is in every way as enjoyable and involving as playing the later games, as each Fantasy, despite there age, have amazing soundtracks and storylines that will drag you in and involve you in the story just as much as it did for those who first started off with Final Fantasy 7.Personaly having played Fantasy's 1-10, i've got to say, and any true fan would agree, that each Fantasy is unique and amazing in its own way, whether it be for its atmosphere or characters. I would say though, don't simply buy the games for the sake of having the set to date, each must be played to conclusion and enjoyed to the end.
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