It may not be the most popular Final Fantasy, but it stands out as one of the best!

User Rating: 9.5 | Final Fantasy V Advance GBA
The game follows 4 warriors; Bartz, Lenna, Faris, and Galuf. Their mission is to restore the power of the crystals. This Final Fantasy mixes the old with the new. Instead of them just restoring the crystals(like in Final Fantasy I) they added character development, a plot with depth, and interesting gameplay. As the four warriors fight to restore the crystals they find out that they have an even bigger problem. A warlock named Exdeath is creating a void and wants to destroy the world. Exdeath is definitely one of the coolest bosses (except for the weird tree thing at the end). The story continues as you continue to fight the void and ultimately fight Exdeath.

As I mentioned this game mixes the new with the old. This game uses the job system, but it doesnt let a certain job define your character. Each character has their own personality and it works great in this game. I am usually not a fan of the job system, but they made it a little better in this game. In this game if you level up multiple jobs, you can mix and match different abilities from the jobs you have mastered. For example; if you mastered the white mage and black mage, you could use both white and black. Or if you master the white mage job and then became a samurai you could use all white magic plus use the samurai's powerful attacks. This job abilites made things fun and made you think which job combination would work best in each situation.

The graphics are good for a gameboy advance game. There aren't any CG special scenes but the game has solid graphics throughout. The music is top notch as well. Nobuo always works wonders with each Final Fantasy game. It's not the best Final Fantasy music, but its still very enjoyable. The battles system is the active battle system, which is my favorite.

Theres just a few small things keeping this from being perfect. When in battle, especially in boss fights, the battle slows down randomly. If you put in your commands quickly, I noticed that the actual game would start to slow down, then it would quickly try to catch up. It isn't a major problem, but against Exdeath it became annoying because I didnt know if there was a glitch or if he was ready to cast some major spell. it made me nervous. Also i was a little disappointed with the length and other small things...

But those minor problems aside, this is an amazing game. And if you are a fan of the new, old, or all of the final fantasy games you will love this one.