Final Fantasy V First Impression

After finishing FFIII, this is the only Final Fantasy game I haven't played. FFIII was played mostly for completionist purposes. However, this game I believe will be thouroughly enjoyable. This is the second game of the series to feature the job system. I am a sucker for the job system. I have been since Final Fantasy Tactics ate my soul. The job system in Tactics was perfect. It is the reason I've logged more hours into Tactics than all other Final Fantasy games combined. I am a whore for the job system.

The job system featured in FFIII was barely a shadow of what was to come. The job system in FFV is obviously the next step. It is pretty much the halfway point between FFIII and Tactics. In FFIII you could choose a specific job that had abilities that differentiated it from the others. That was pretty much the extent of the system. Changing to another job, you would lose all the abilities of the previous job, and gain the abilities of the new one. In FFV when you choose a job, you gain a special "job ability" that you can use until you switch jobs. In addition, you have an extra ability slot that you can equip another ability to. As you level up in your job, you learn other abilities specific to that job. These can be equipped (only one at a time) to the extra ability slot. This is where it gets good. Once you change jobs, any of the abilities that you have learned from your previous jobs, can still be equipped to the extra ability slot.

So, for instance, I can level up my Black Mage and learn "!Black Magic" Level 4. When I switch the character's job to White Mage, they get the default "White Magic" job ability, but I can also equip the "!Black Magic" ability to the extra ability slot. Now I can use both White and Black Magic. Most of the mage classes have a single ability that levels up with the job. So you'd have to level up your Black Magic ability to use higher level spells. The other classes have more interesting and varied abilities. Knights can learn Cover or Two Handed. Theives can learn Steal or Flee. All of these abilities can be learned from the different jobs by the same character. The amount of character customization available is amazing. Of course, I'll have to have my characters learn every skill available. I'm so screwed. I'll be playing this game for months.

So far, the story seems to be pretty decent as well. Based on the lengths of FFIV and FFVI, I'm barely beginning to scratch the surface of this game. I really can't imagine why this game wasn't regionalized the first time around. I can understand FFII and FFIII, since they were so different from the first game. But I think the job system is fleshed out enough in this one to have been successful.

Current party configuration:
Mystic Knight with the Two Handed ability from the Knight job.
Ninja with the First Strike ability.
White Mage with Level 5 Summoning Magic.
Time Mage with Level 4 Black Magic.