So, you just finished Final Fantasy V/Final Fantasy V Advance. What a challenge it was! The final boss was hard, and kept on using its best attack over and over. Then (if you were playing the Advance version), after your many hours of slaving away, you find that there's a bonus dungeon - and so you went and beat that, too. You got a new job, which was useless, as you beat pretty much all there was to offer. So, that's probably the last time you'll play Final Fantasy V...right?


A few months pass, and you're back on Final Fantasy V Advance's Vizzed page, contemplating getting a refund. After all, that awesome item you wanted is just a few Viz away, and you aren't going to play Final Fantasy V again, are you? Scrolling down the page, perhaps seeing if there were any threads telling you if you missed anything, you spot a hack for Final Fantasy V - the "Custom Job" version. What could it do that could make the jobs more "custom" then the regular job system?

Well, to start it simple, every job is Mime. No, not literally: every job had three ability slots in addition to the job command (y'know, Steal for Thief, Jump for Dragoon, etc.). As a result, Attack and Item are not automatically slotted in - you have to put them in yourself. The way stat bonuses work is different, too: instead of giving a bonus to the base stat and being nullified if you have a higher stat bonus, it instead gives a raw bonus to that stat. All abilities give bonuses, too (for example, Item gives +5 Agility). Stats are also based on the character far more - rather then just a few bonuses here and there, the stats differ far more (for example, Galuf is now a mighty glacier, Lenna leans far more towards the standard mage build, Faris is a fragile speedster, and Bartz is more of an everyman pre-job). Innate passive abilities are now available for every 

The jobs themselves have been tweaked, too. The ABP costs for the abilities have been changed (for example, Check only requires 5 ABP, while Black Magic L1 needs 20). The order jobs are obtained are shuffled around - a few jobs are brought forward (such as dragoon, dancer, and bard), while a few jobs (like monk) are put back. Most noticeably, the jobs exclusive to the Advance version (Cannoneer, Necromancer, Oracle, and Gladiator) are added as crystal jobs - meaning you actually have a reason to use Necromancer! Of course, due to these reshuffling, shops have had their inventory changed, so you don't have to wait until you'd be able to access the jobs normally to actually USE them. (Some monsters needed for Dark Arts have also been pushed forward and ((probably)) scaled.)

The plot of Final Fantasy V isn't changed at all. Then again, one does not play Final Fantasy V for the plot, much like one doesn't play Final Fantasy Tactics for a plot that can be understood as soon as it is fed to you. You play it for a variety of reasons, one of which shouldn't be the plot. If you're playing a game for the plot, I'd suggest Final Fantasy VI. Or IV. But not V.

Anyway, for my final views on this mod: it's a pretty cool change for Final Fantasy V. It allows you to play around with the jobs more, as well as letting you mess around with some jobs on bosses more. It also might change the way you play; you might mess around with Dragoon more then you would in your regular game, or maybe abandon Monk for some other job classes. Either way, it's a neat modification for Final Fantasy V.

(as a note: addictiveness is rated 10 assuming it means "how many times I'd play it after the first time I picked it up". I usually don't play games again after I beat all of its challenges.)