Discount Final Fantasy Anthology (Final Fantasy V & VI)

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"The game might as well stayed unreleased..." I don't agree with this at all! I personally appreciate the effort of Square to give us this game a game we otherwise would not have. FFA should be a game in your PSX library. 2 for 1 can't beat that. I feel as though even "new-school" gamers who played FF7 first would find these games entertaining. Now as far as the comment in the editorial about FF5, this game is the hardest in the series, next to the FF3 that Japan got (for the original NES). The bosses are hard, and mastering the job system in this game takes a lot of effort. Try going through this game without dying on a few bosses and you can consider yourself an FF expert.

My hat's off to Square for releasing these games to us hardcore gamers in North America. FF VI is arguably the best RPG in the 16-bit genre, and FF V, technically being a new game to North America, make this an unbeatable package. Square must know this, because they're doing it again with Final Fantasy Chronicles (FF IV and Chrono Trigger). Smart move if you ask me. Gamers like me will be first in line to get this compilation when it comes out. Meanwhile, if you see this somewhere and you don't own it, buy it! You won't regret it.

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Final Fantasy VI, or 3 on the Super Nintendo, was the second console RPG I played. (The first was "Lagoon" on the SNES, which was good.) I still believe that FF6 is one of the best of the Final Fantasy series. It has excellent character development, a good story, and for the first time, a villain with a background and personality. Up until this point, most RPG villains were "Mwa, ha ha, I'm Evil!!!" villains who were evil to have someone evil in the story. In FF6, Emperor Ghestalt and Kefka are deeper than that. One realizes too late that his greed has doomed him, the other is insane because he was the subject of magical/medical experiments. I have played this game six times, more than any other RPG.

Final Fantasy V was good. While I think FF6 was a little better, this is the first time FF5 was released in the US. It was interesting, and obviously the predecessor of the job system used in Final Fantasy Tactics. I think it was worth playing.

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I wish there was more re-releasing old, classic games for new systems. I suppose some might see it as the companies just trying to squeeze more money from old games, but I love being able to play these games on new systems, and the addition of new features is always fun to experience.

As far as collections go, this is a very good one. Final Fantasy 6, originally 3, is a classic game, and considered by some to be the best FF ever. I can't say I think it's the best, but it is definitely an exceptional game that was even more remarkable when it was first released. It does already seem dated in many ways. At the same time, this is the final game in the series where you can experience the classic, 2D FF that many fans of the series have grown up with.

This game does have an excellent cast of characters, and one of the better storylines in the series. The espers, the first real summon monsters, are really cool, and theres somewhere around 30 of them, much more than any other game, which I like. Each character has unique abilities and weapons, which makes for great variety. A very fun old school RPG.

The graphics were amazing at the time, but already seem pretty dated. The sound as well. The music that was written for the game is some of Uematso's best, but the sound capabilities of the SNES are just too dated. If they improved anything, I wish they would have improved sound quality a bit. Also, the CG scenes they added were disappointing to me. They weren't that badly done, but I thought that they would be peppered throughout the game at the appropriate spots, which they weren't. They were only at the beginning and end, which I find disappointing. I guess they wanted the actual experience of playing the game to be identical to how it was on the SNES. I wouldn't have minded some small improvements, personally. Overall, they did a good job.

FF 5 was a real surprise, and it was great to play a brand new old style FF, never before released in the US. Lots of the reviews on Amazon say that it is really a sub-par game. I have to say I strongly disagree...I think its a great FF game. If you enjoyed FF 4 and 6, I think you'll definitely like 5. The graphics and sound are similar to FF 4. The gameplay is what makes the game so good though. You can switch your characters between the variety of job classes like in FF Tactics or FF X-2, and learn a large variety of different skills, then mix and match them. It's a very primitive form of the job class system, sure, but it's still really cool, considering the age of the game. I also really enjoyed the story of the game...it was about as good as FF 4. Theres a part where you're navigating through a graveyard of pirate ships infested with ghosts and zombies that is totally classic. I would definitely recommend giving FF 5 a chance. It is old and outdated, but definitely lives up to the quality of the FF series.

Now, a quick word about the music disc...it's pathetic. An absolute waste of time. If anyone could actually listen to that disc and get into the music on it, I'd say you have serious issues. It's tinny SNES sound, taken directly from the games. I can't imagine it would have been too much work to throw some real orchestrated versions (they are available in Japan) of the songs on here...that would have been great. Furthermore, they chose a bunch of the worst songs to include on the disc and left out many of the best. Terrible.

But, you won't be buying this collection for the music disc. The games are what matters, and they are quality, faithful ports of the originals. Highly recommended for people who want to walk down memory lane with some great old games.