| |
 |
|
Date |
: Sept 24th, 2001 |
| Genre |
: RPG |
| Developer |
: Squaresoft |
| Author |
: Jin-Ning Tioh |
|
The Villains ( Bad Guys )
Final Fantasy V features one of the greatest supporting villains of all time - Gilgamesh. Together with Enkidu and his master X-Death, he seeks to bring chaos and destruction to the world.
 |
|
Gilgamesh - His home base on the Big Bridge, his dramatic musical theme, and the most amazing attack ever to be found in an RPG (the Ultimate Gilgamesh Metamorph), all make Gilgamesh exude coolness from every pixelated pore of his sprite-based body. Gilgamesh and his sidekick, Enkidu, will never fail to both awe and amuse you every time they burst onto the scene. |
 |
|
Enkidu - Being Gilgamesh's sidekick, Enkidu can usually be found next to his partner in destruction - Gilgamesh. |
 |
|
X-Death - Deriving his name from 'exceeding death', X-Death is the evil force that the crystals were made to contain. He was once defeated by the Four Braves Of The Dawn before he was imprisoned. Free once again, he is now once again up to his old antics of bringing doom to the world. His final form is a horrible abhorrent arboreal. All right, no use mincing words - A tree. And let's face it - a tree, even an evil tree, isn't that frightening. However, his ultimate attack is far more terrifying than his appearance - The Mu attack. Instead of fire, ice or other elemental spells, Mu simply brings nothingness and nonexistence to its target. What once was, now isn't. Creepy. |
Historical Facts
Gamers in the states have been waiting for Final Fantasy V with bated breath since its Japanese debut in 1992. Originally, Final Fantasy V was said to be released in the states as Final Fantasy III. The project ran into unforeseen difficulties however. Some say that Square thought the game was too complex for American audiences and backed out at the last moment. Others whispered rumors of internal squabbles between Nintendo and Square over the cartridge size. Whatever the reason, Final Fantasy V was canceled for a release in the states, and Final Fantasy VI became Final Fantasy III in the states.
In 1995, Squaresoft resurrected Final Fantasy V as Final Fantasy Extreme. Intended for the hard-core RPG fan, Final Fantasy Extreme was unfortunately, axed during Square's massive restructuring in early 1996. Squaresoft Redmond was shut down, and most of its employees went on to create Crave Entertainment. Meanwhile, Square shifted platform from Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System to Sony's PlayStation, and founded Square Los Angeles and Square Honolulu. As a result, Final Fantasy Extreme fell to the wayside, a victim of a dying 16-bit era and Square paradigm shift.
All seemed lost for the fans until late 1997, when Final Fantasy V was dragged out into the spotlight once again. Eidos announced that in addition to publishing Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VI in its Platinum Collection, it would also publish Final Fantasy V for the Windows 95 platform. A prominent magazine even ran screenshots of the title with clearly visible english text. However, the project was canned once again for unknown reasons.
Though things seemed hopeless, gamers finally had their wish fulfilled in October 1999 with the release of Final Fantasy Anthology. It included translated versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI for the PlayStation. Unfortunately, the localization was embarrassingly poor. Finally though, fans of the series finally released a patch for the Final Fantasy V ROM that translated the entire game into English. Moreover, the fan translation was superior in every way to the "official" translation. So in short, Square's efforts, though well meaning, were ultimately empty.
|
|
