Final Fantasy V (GBA) Review

[Monterossa]

Since a lot of crybabies are giving this game bad reviews, mainly because of their nitpicking "issues" and trying to convince people not to buy the game just because it's not the version they want, I'm gonna review their beloved GBA version.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=525903211

- Bad graphics. Even worse than the original Super Famicom version. The resolution of the game is 240x160. People are complaining about the Steam version doesn't look good in 1080p, how about this 160p?

- Too small. Can't even see anything and if you enlarge the picture with an emulator, it will pixelated.

- Waterdowned color palettes. Everything looks whiter than the SNES/PS1 version. If you don't believe me you can go to the FF Wiki and compare the sprites from SNES and GBA version.

- Terrible BGMs. They had to optimize the BGMs and sound effects due to the hardware limitation.

- Bartz's portrait looks like Sun Wukong. The portraits lack colors and they're pixelated.

- Character sprites don't even look like humans.

- Bad textures. You can see the ground, the floor, the grasses look like ♥♥♥♥♥.

- Hilarious meteorite texture. Looks like a pile of ♥♥♥♥♥.

- The treetops look like they're coming from nowhere.


Total score: 4/10 - Bad port. Not recommended.

[RΔSHID]

You want 1080p on a Gameboy advance? Of course it's 240x160. lol

[DukJane]

Dunno, I thought the GBA version was great in all accounts outside of audio (which I think is a BIG part of the experience which is why I can't play the vanilla GBA game anymore). It's only the best version if you apply the sound restoration patch however, otherwise that title goes to the SNES version. The Steam port is above the Vanilla GBA but below SNES and restored, and the PS1 version is essentially the least convenient due to how hard it is to play without experiencing one really negative attribute (either take the 30 sec to 1 minute loadtimes or the PSN/PS3 bugs, your only option is PS2), additionally I think the music is messed up in the PS1 port but I'm not 100% positive. All the videos of it however point to this.

Regardless the graphical qualities of FF5 were never the merit nor the point of the game and I can only give credit to the Steam/iOS port for improving the in battle options and map movement as well as menus you can instantly exit out of with the Menu key as opposed to hitting the cancel key like three times. On the gameplay front the game is undeniably improved on the Steam version. All they really have to iron out is the small visual fidelity issues and this would be friggin perfect.

[MoldySpore]

Yea it doesn't matter how powerful the GBA's hardware was compared to SNES/Super Famicom. It had a maximum resolution of 240x160. It doesn't matter how much better the hardware was in the GBA, everything is going to look like ♥♥♥♥ at that resolution. By comparison, SNES's maximum resolution was 512 x 448. More than double. And while the GBA could display about twice the amount of colors on its screen at once, it's color palette was still the exact same size as the SNES.

The sound was crap on GBA's because they lacked a dedicated sound processor, which the SNES had. This is why the sound was crap on most games ported the GBA when compared with the originals.

[DukJane]

Originally posted by MoldySpore:

Yea it doesn't matter how powerful the GBA's hardware was compared to SNES/Super Famicom. It had a maximum resolution of 240x160. It doesn't matter how much better the hardware was in the GBA, everything is going to look like ♥♥♥♥ at that resolution. By comparison, SNES's maximum resolution was 512 x 448. More than double. And while the GBA could display about twice the amount of colors on its screen at once, it's color palette was still the exact same size as the SNES.

The sound was crap on GBA's because they lacked a dedicated sound processor, which the SNES had. This is why the sound was crap on most games ported the GBA when compared with the originals.

Actually the sound restoration patch that's floating around kind of makes the original seem lazy but they were obviously working on a deadline and didn't want to go through the process of porting all the instrument samples perfectly so they just kinda rushed out resampled, reinstrumentated versions (likely versions that would sound better on GBA speakers since the GBA didn't have dedicated headphone support until the GBA SP). After all they had released 4 and 6 around the same time (I think a year or two apart at most?) so the sound quality is pretty bad regardless but it has a good reason to be.

I'm such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FF5 nerd holy crap.

[A Walrus in Heat]

lol this thread is such awful bait

[RΔSHID]

http://i.imgur.com/B77dFus.png

This is the native resolution of the PC version, then gets stretched to fit the screen. Acceptable for phones, but not PC.

[Gabby]

Originally posted by Rashid:

You want 1080p on a Gameboy advance? Of course it's 240x160. lol

The point.


























Your head.

[Zunnoab #931]

Originally posted by Rashid:

http://i.imgur.com/B77dFus.png

This is the native resolution of the PC version, then gets stretched to fit the screen. Acceptable for phones, but not PC.

Are you seriously suggesting they should redo all the sprites again in higher reolution for PC? That is downright unreasonable. What do you think all classic games should stay off Steam until remade too?

I was worried they were keeping 2D games off Steam due to concerns about such demands. I am glad they released this port.

[RΔSHID]

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

Originally posted by Rashid:

http://i.imgur.com/B77dFus.png

This is the native resolution of the PC version, then gets stretched to fit the screen. Acceptable for phones, but not PC.

Are you seriously suggesting they should redo all the sprites again in higher reolution for PC? That is downright unreasonable. What do you think all classic games should stay off Steam until remade too?

I was worried they were keeping 2D games off Steam due to concerns about such demands. I am glad they released this port.

They should at least make the games in higher resolution for universal use, but nope, that's not even iPhone's resolution but passable since phones have small screens.

[Zunnoab #931]

I seriously wonder how you would have reacted to a straight up port.

[Gabby]

The part that I'm enjoying is he doesn't seem to realize the port was actually made for devices that actually do support 1080p.

[RΔSHID]

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

I seriously wonder how you would have reacted to a straight up port.

Straight up port? you mean the original? I would prefer a proper PC version, but original is fine too.

[Zunnoab #931]

Why is the original fine but sprite resolutions between the two not?

[Gabby]

This is a proper PC version, you're just unable to express your distaste without trying to make it sound like it's anything other than personal taste.

[RΔSHID]

Originally posted by Seraphna:

The part that I'm enjoying is he doesn't seem to realize the port was actually made for devices that actually do support 1080p.

Yes you can set to 1080p, but I don't see it. Everything is blurry and resized, 1080p is supposed to be sharper. The only thing that is sharp are the tiles lol.