Defeating my tree-like opponent wasn’t just a regular win; I handled it right from the first go without losing any party members. To be fair, X-Death and his disturbing other form, Neo X-Death, do not rank as the toughest enemies in the game.
There are other optional bosses added for players who want extra challenges. The most difficult of them all is Shinryu, a dragon you encounter inside a chest close to the last dungeon. When I opened that chest for the first time, Shinryu cleared out my party with just one tidal wave.
Shinryu wiped my whole party from inside a treasure chest (Photo: Final Fantasy V/Square Pictures and Columbia Pictures)On my next try, I came better prepared but didn’t last much longer. It was only after several other painful defeats that I eventually overcame Shinryu by taking advantage of the Mime job. This Mime job comes very late in the game, and players can miss it if they’re not paying attention.
Like many elements in the game, its value isn’t immediately obvious. The main thing it offers is the Mime command, which simply repeats the action of another character in the same battle turn. It doesn’t introduce new abilities on its own.
Its real benefit is that it doesn’t use up any magic points, even when copying powerful spells. So I ended up creating a team of four Mimes. By blending Red Mage and Summoner abilities, one character could summon Bahamut—the strongest summon in the game—twice during one round.
That spell came at a high magic cost, but after the initial cast, the rest of the team simply kept mimicking it. This led to eight Bahamut summons happening in one round. Despite taking such a heavy beating, Shinryu still managed to take out half of my team before going down.
Maybe other strategies might have worked better, but this one got the job done for me. The same tactic worked perfectly against X-Death, who barely got a hit in before he disappeared.
If there’s going to be any sort of farewell line for the one who tried to master the Void, then it should probably read: “Here Lies X-Death, Brought Down by Mimes. He Was a Tree.” Of course, there’s no physical grave to write that on.
And you can’t even think of putting up a monument where the battle took place, since it all happened inside a strange, dimensionless void.
After the Final Battle: A Long Goodbye
Following that win, what comes next is a lengthy closing sequence that rivals the ending of The Return of the King. First, the game’s heroes are guided out of the Void by the spirits of the Dawn Warriors who tell them, “Your work is not yet finished.”
Afterward, we see the world beginning to heal—crystals form again, towns and castles that were lost to the Void during the third part of the game return, and peace seems to settle back in. Then comes a section that takes place a year after the events of the final battle, showing what the characters have been up to.
Who knew copying spells could save so many magic points (Photo: Final Fantasy V/Square Pictures and Columbia Pictures)We also see older scenes from the game replayed in a faded, sepia-style tone. If any party members fell during the final battle and remained in the Void, they come back to life at this point, just in time to ride chocobos as the credits roll.
When the credits are done, each character’s final stats and every ability they picked up are shown one after the other. After all of that scrolls through, there’s yet another montage, likely added in the PlayStation version.
This part contains pre-rendered FMV scenes, done with 3D character models that look very different from how they appear during normal gameplay. Interestingly, those models have more in common with Yoshitaka Amano’s early artwork than with the game sprites themselves.
His art style doesn’t quite match the in-game visuals, and yet he has been the main character designer for the Final Fantasy series right from the beginning. His illustrations usually feature tall, slender figures with soft features and complex clothing designs—inspired by a kind of Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic.
These are later reduced to tiny, squashed versions that fit inside single map tiles, which gives them that super-deformed look. The first six games all went through this transformation, so it’s not like Amano was unaware of how his designs would be adapted.
Moving On from Final Fantasy V
Now that I’ve completed the game, I feel satisfied, though I expect that the battle music will probably stay stuck in my head for some time. Of all the entries I’ve played in the series so far, this one stands out as one of the strongest.
A big reason for that is how the story allowed the gameplay to remain at the forefront instead of taking control. Tomorrow, I’ll be starting Portal. I doubt it will keep me as long as Final Fantasy V did.
