5ive Things You Didin't Know about FFV: Take 2

[Wolf Kanno]

45. Byblos is an interesting boss in FFV due to a bunch of weird things about him. He actually has a few pieces of Amano artwork for him for one thing. More than most bosses, including ones with more plot relevance. He's also one of the few major bosses to get a palette swap in the form of Apanda, one of the Demons of the Rifts who is fought in a similar place a Byblos in the Inter-dimensional Rift. He also gets special dialogue as he is one of the first hints to ExDeath's existence since he'll mention he is serving a master that i trying to be unsealed. If you talk to one of the scholars in the Library, they will mention that Byblos was sealed in the Library of Ancients after he was caught trying to destroy the Wind Crystal. If you use Ifrit to defeat him, he will actually alter his lines and curse Ifrit. Likewise, his palette swap counterpart Apanda will also speak of Ifrit if he is summoned during the battle. In FFTactics, Byblos is an Apanda Demon Class the party can recruit and his move-set recreates Byblos fighting style involving status infliction and stealing GP and MP.

46. FFV has quite a few callbacks to previous FFs, but most will notice how similar it is to FFIII:

• Both games use a Job class system that let's you freely choose and swap your jobs between battles.
• Both games begin with the party realizing the threat to the world due to interacting with the Wind Crystal.
• Both games deal with the mythos involving the crystals relationship with the Void.
• The final boss of both games is a physical embodiment of the Void itself.
• Both games have a sidequest that involves riding a Chocobo around the world.
• Both games utilize a plot twist about a hidden second world beyond the one the players and party initially know of.
• Both games feature a final dungeon that involves traveling to another dimension.
• Both entries involve facing off with Bahamut on a tall mountain that he makes as his lair.
• Both games involve meeting a character with amnesia, who ends up being connected to the main problem of the setting in a way (Desch as a member of the Ancients who caused the Flood of Light in the past, and Galuf as a Dawn warrior sealing ExDeath in Bartz's world)
• Both games feature an airship that can become a submarine.
• Both games feature a starting class that is secretly the best class in the game.
• Both games feature a slew of forbidden magics and weapons that were sealed away due to their power as a minor plot point, the party can choose to collect.
• Both games feature piano the players can play that will often play real world piano pieces.

47. The first real battle with ExDeath in his castle can be quite a doozy for an unprepared party, seeing how he knows all the -aga level spells and other assortment of nasty abilities. He actually has two phases of nasty surprises, but unbeknownst to some players, he has a third phase he can never enter due to a bug where he pulls out Meteor. Luckily we don;t have to deal with this.

48. ExDeath also gets a quirky upgrade after he obtains the Void. You see, unlike most major villains in the franchise, ExDeath is ironically weak to Holy. Even more amusing because he is also carrying a Staff of Judgement (Holy Elemental) as a rare steal. Even his Soul variant is weak to it. But his final boss form loses this weakness, and in fact, he can cast Holy now as an ability. Adding to the irony is that ExDeath's Signature Move Almagest used by Neo-ExDeath (and a bunch of other enemies, but we'll ignore that) is also a Holy elemental attack.

49. For a long time, it was rumored that ExDeath was some sort of reincarnation of Enuo, the original evil that used the Void. This has largely been debunked with better translations and guide books, but design documents for FFV have revealed that in an earlier draft of the story, ExDeath's goal was to actually bring Enuo back and merging with him would have created Neo-Exdeath.

50. Neo-ExDeath's form may seem a bit out there, but if you were paying attention to the narrative and understand ExDeath's origins, it makes sense. ExDeath was once a Holy tree that had an innumerable amount of evil spirits, demons, and dark magics sealed within him. These beings merged together to create ExDeath and the Holy Tree became their body. So once the Void got mixed in and also merged with this legion of evil that makes ExDeath's being, it makes sense his new form would appear a legion of evil emerging from some body horror. If you've watched Inu-Yasha, its central villain Naraku is a similar entity made up of countless demons.

51. Oddly enough, there is a picture of ExDeath without his baby blue armor, and it is interesting to say the least.
Amano_Exdeath_real.jpg

52. Interestingly enough, of the Sealed Weapons, only the Magus Rod and Apollo Harp are original weapons and not a returning weapon from an earlier entry.

53. Another amusing element about the Sealed Weapons is that most of them are not even the strongest weapons of their class within FFV, being one of the first entries where the plots "ultimate" weapons are not the game's ultimate weapons. This is even before the Advance/Steam version added another set of Ultimate weapons For a Quick breakdown of the original:

Sealed Weapon ~~~~~~~ Strongest Weapon
Rune Axe Titan's Axe
Gaia's Bell Both Rune's Bells and Tinkerbell
Yoichi's Bow Artemis Bow
Masemune Murakumo
Excalibur Both Ragnarok and Brave Blade
Assasin's Dagger Man-Eater and Chicken Knife
Holy Lance Dragon Lance
Sage's Staff Staff of Judgement
Fire Lash Dragon's Whisker

Only Apollo's Harp, Sasuke's Katana, and the Magus Rod are the strongest weapons of their class in the base game. Though it should be noted that while many of the weapons in the Strongest category are statistically more powerful, many of the Sealed Weapons have certain traits that can actually make them better weapons overall like the Masemune, Fire Lash, Sage's Staff, and Yoichi's Bow.

54. The most powerful summon attack in FFV statistically is Odin's Gungnir attack which has a attack power of 255 and does non-elemental damage to a single opponent with Heavy Status. Second place goes to Bahamut, whose Mega Flare does 250 non-elemental damage to all enemies.

55.The Magic Lamp is one of the quirkiest items in FFV that I feel a lot of players miss out on. It's an item the player can acquire in Istory Falls and it will summon a different summon every use, starting with the strongest (Bahamut) going down to the weakest (Eggman). The Lamp will never summon Phoenix though and Odin is restricted to Zantesuken. Once all the summons have been used, the lamp can be recharged by taking it back to Istory Falls where you found it or in the Deep Sea Trench where you fight Phobos, Triton, and Nerid.