Final Fantasy V (FF5) is a Japanese console role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd in 1992. Originally released for the Nintendo Super Famicom, the game was subsequently rereleased for the Sony PlayStation. The original Super Famicom version was not commercially released outside of Asia, though the PlayStation version was eventually translated and marketed in North America and Europe as part of the Final Fantasy Anthology collection. The Super Famicom version of the game is notable for being the first significant fan translation to reach completion. It was released by RPGe to the console emulation community in 1997.

The Final Fantasy anime, Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, serves as a sequel to the events depicted in the game.

Release dates

• December 6, 1992 — Super Famicom (Japan)
• March 19, 1998 — Sony PlayStation (Japan)
• March 11, 1999 — Sony PlayStation (as part of Final Fantasy Collection) (Japan)
• September 30, 1999 — Sony PlayStation (as part of Final Fantasy Anthology) (North America)
• May 17, 2002 — Sony PlayStation (as part of Final Fantasy Anthology PAL version) (Europe)

Story

FF5 is the last Final Fantasy game to use the concept of elemental crystals as a plot device. The hero of the game, Bartz (Butz in the fan translation) becomes wrapped up in an elaborate war between his world and a parallel world ruled by X-Death (Exdeath in the fan translation). With the help of Princess Reina (Lenna in the fan translation), the pirate Faris, and the amnesiac Galuf, he fights Exdeath's influence and tries to stop him from plunging the world into the "Void." The party uses the shards of the elemental crystals to learn skills and magic (the Job System, which is also used in the Final Fantasy Tactics games, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy X-2).

FF5 also features the first recurring miniboss of the franchise, Gilgamesh. Bartz and his friends fight him several times over the course of the game, a concept that the next game in the series continued with Ultros.

Production credits

Original staff

• Director — Hironobu Sakaguchi
• Image Design — Yoshitaka Amano
• Music Composer — Nobuo Uematsu
• Field Plan — Yoshinori Kitase and Ikuya Dobashi
• Battle Plan — Hiroyuki Itou and Akihiko Matsui
• Field Program — Ken Narita
• Battle Program — Kiyoshi Yoshii and Katsuhisa Higuchi
• Field Graphics — Tetsuya Takahashi and Hideo Minaba
• Object Graphics — Kasuko Shibuya and Hiromi Ito
• Battle Graphics — Masanori Hoshino, Tetsuya Nomura, Hiroshi Takai and Hirokatsu Sasaki
• Menu Program — Shinichi Tanaka
• Sound Program — Minoru Akao
• Visual Program — Keizo Kokubo
• Map Design — Kaori Tanaka, Yukiko Sasaki and Hidetoshi Kezuka
• Sound Effects — Kenji Ito, Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoshihito Maekawa
• Test Assistants — Akiyoshi Ohta, Nobuyuki Ikeda and Mami Kawai
• Executive Producer — Tetsuo Mizuno and Hitoshi Takemura

PlayStation remake

• Executive Producers — Hironobu Sakaguchi and Shinji Hashimoto
• Director — Katsuyoshi Kawahara
• Supervisor — Kazuhiko Aoki and Ken Narita
• Sound Supervisor — Minoru Akao
• Producer — Yusuke Hirata
• Publicity — Toshiyuki Inoue
• Porting — Tose Co. Ltd
• Quality Managers — Hiromi Masuda, Rei Komatsu and Yuko Yamamoto
• North American/European release:
  • Localization Director — Kazuyoshi Tashiro
  • Programmer — Yoshinori Uenishi
  • Localisation Assistants — Mai Morofushi and Tomoko Sekii

References

• White Wolf, Kartanym, and Joshua Sloane. "Game Credits for Final Fantasy V." MobyGames. Accessed on January 2, 2005.