Featuring Inu Megapack Integrated with RPGe Translation
For the first time, the widely hailed work of Japanese romhacker Inu (dog) has been amassed for testing and integration with the monumental RPGe translation before being released as a standalone, no-frills megapack.
Why the name “Boco’s FFV”? Well, dog is man’s best friend, and Boco is Bartz’s best friend, so to speak, so there you go.
Although certain hacks have used some of Inu’s work in the past, it is unclear how big of a fraction of Inu’s comprehensive body of work was included.
Some of these works did not provide any integration with an English translation.
Furthermore, those certain hacks added additional features, sometimes well beyond those that Inu intended to offer in his body of work.
Project Status
Additional documentation may be available later here or via Discord.
Phase 2: Inu’s improvement patches for FFV – 7/8 integrated (1 in conflict, 3 excluded) – see below Examples: GBA dash, improved item sort
Phase 3: Inu’s QoL loose patches for FFV – 16/18 integrated (2 in conflict, 6 excluded) – beta available today via FFV Central Discord Examples: pass turn in battle, L/R character scrolling in menus
Prior Hacks that Use Inu’s Work
Be sure to check them out and support each modder’s work.
This page may be updated as more rankings become available.
Community Average
Coming Soon
1. solidification
solidification is a prolific creator of fan-made achievements across different game genres and especially in the world of Final Fantasy mods. You can follow solidification’s set-making journey here.
General thoughts from solidification in speaking with FFV Central:
1 – easy to pick up and play and just blast through with a lot of different challenge runs
2 – decent story, strong gameplay, completely marred by its overworld design
3 – mechanically a fun idea, but it feels really lifeless and barebones
4 – strong story and strong characters with well-defined stat usage such that parties feel appropriate (or appropriately challenged) for the enemies/bosses/dungeons they’re forced into
5 – nigh-endless challenge run replayability
6 – what a great game that is completely overruled by the hacks that do it better
7 – don’t care for its presentation of plot and character arc as the game opens up
7-R – brings the world to life better than 7 ever did and the gameplay is top-notch, as expected by the team that made Kingdom Hearts 2
7-R-2 – still great but marred by overuse of minigames that destroy the pace of an already overly large story
8 – amazing story completely ruined by its gameplay
9 – perfect story, perfect characters, and a personal favorite ability learning system
10 – everyone can do everything is getting dull, but at least the story is decent
10-2 – the best mechanics of any turn-based game with a very down-to-earth story of healing and growth and just the right amount of camp and cheese
12 – everything looks muddy and everyone looks like a Who from Whoville that I can’t take any of it seriously
13 – a story that actually feels driven by the characters and not by the player with a lot of focus
13-2 – 13, but better, but it keeps crashing on Steam so the player experience is lessened
2. Casual Tom
Casual Tom, an avid Mega Man player, is a streamer and content creator who focuses on blind playthroughs of romhacks while occasionally throwing some speedrunning into the mix. As a staff member of Final Fantasy IV – Ultima, Casual Tom often features Final Fantasy mods on his streams. You can follow Casual Tom via YouTube, Twitch, or Twitter/X.
General thoughts from Casual Tom in speaking with FFV Central:
2 I just really like the story and 9 the gameplay
1 I just hate having to pay to revive people
And 3 is just like, hard to make myself play
7 has too many stupid mini games and I don’t care about the characters or story. Plus the worst ending of any game I’ve ever played. But great soundtrack.
I don’t have many good things to say about 8 other than gunblade
Additional context:
I just rank 4-6 at the very top, along with tactics [and dimensions]. 10 is just right behind those [and tactics a2]. Favorite PS1 FF is 9, least favorite is 8. NES trilogy I rate above PS1 trilogy but I’m still not a particularly big fan of those. Though I do love 2’s story and characters.
9 falls apart by like, the last boss fight. 7 falls apart at the last disc. And 8 falls apart after like, the intro lol. …. 9 I mostly enjoyed okay but I felt the mages were underpowered
4 and 6’s endings were a tough act to follow
5’s is weak compared to the other two 5 is the most replayable, but 4 is pretty [replayable] too due to how short it is
6 has regrettable gameplay oversights but great presentation 5 just has minor issues. Worst thing I can say about it is doublegrip isn’t compatible with jump
…6 is very easy 4, worst thing I can say is it doesn’t have varied environments compared to 5. It’s all cave, tower, cave, mountain, cave… Plus a bit lacking in qol features, but it’s not super fair to fault it for that
[1 and 3 i’d put after FFIV TAY and Tactics Advance in the same tier]
3. PharaohRobDad
Aside from being a fan of the Final Fantasy series, PharaohRobDad is an avid Mega Man modder and runner. You can connect with PharaohRobDad via YouTube, Twitch, MMLB, or the new Mega Man Romhacking Discord here.
General thoughts from special guest PharaohRobDad in speaking with FFV Central:
Final Fantasy Rankings (including everything I have played, cuz if you include the remake and X-2, imo, should include After Years and tactics)… but if they are in ( ) then it means they aren’t mainline to me. Also this is what I think is BEST not FAVORITE. 5 and 10 would be in different spots for sure if I went with favorite. Also not including the GBA ports, which might make FF6 go higher than 8 for reasons I’ll go over later. Also not including games that are actually a part of the mana/saga franchise, mostly gameboy games.
If they aren’t listed I have not played it, except I listed 13 but I have seen my friend play through the majority of it to have an opinion.
Analysis
I think 1 is a landmark game, and if I were to rank NES games only, I would probably put it as an A because it’s an A for the hardware, but pretty much every game since has surpassed it.
For 2, I like the story and the characters and the environments a lot, I also enjoy a challenge, but the broken level up system is rough, but it’s a big improvement over 1.
As far as 3, yes, the job system rules, but literally everything else about this game is a step back from 2 and 1, the story/characters/environments are bad and so is the progression and just everything about it is bad.
FF4 is a landmark game and I love the fact that 95% of the game is seen either through the eyes of Kain or Cecil, iirc you don’t see any scenes they aren’t a part of other than like 2. The writing is better AND THERE’S A WHALE ON THE MOON OMG. But as far as a dungeon crawler, it leaves a lot to be desired and it’s kind of ugly, sorry.
I think 5 is maybe the best one, the story is underrated and different, the characters are smaller and so they get developed more than other games, the music is amazing, the environments are varied and beautiful and Ex-Death is one of the best vilians in FF history. Job system is implemented perfectly and as far as end game stuff, there’s 3 super bosses to tackle so going through and mastering each job and leveling up and grinding and finding everything is worth your time.
6, well, I think having 50 characters is a dis-service and I think Kefka might be the most overrated character in any video game ever. He’s in like 5 scenes and yes, him using the magicite to capture the espers was cool, but all he did was move some statues, wow, what a bad ass (end sarcasm), people like be like “OMG KEFKA WON”, mother fucker I didn’t see any credits. It’s like saying Scar from the Lion King won after watching the entire movie. Yes, that’s more of an issue with the fan base, but I digress. There’s no reason to grind in this game as there’s no reason to, you can beat this game without trying. It’s ugly and dark most of the time, I think outside of sprites and mode 7 stuff, 5 looks and sounds better by a lot and has better characters. FF6 gets worse every time I play it.
I think 7 is an awesome game and the more I understand about psychology, the better I think the game is, there’s more to do in this game than the older games, the music is god tier as far as mood is concerned, there’s actual bonus content as far as the weapon fights (I’m american so I played the US release), I think Sephiroth/Jenova are great bad guys with much more charm and are in the game and make a difference in the plot all through out, the way they tell the story is better, though I will say it does look kinda ugly with time.
With 8, I have the opposite reaction as 6, it gets better every time I play it, I learn something new in the plot, I understand the characters better, and I find replaying it is more fun because there are so many ways to play the game that aren’t contrived like other ways to play it. Squall went from a hated character who is a baby to me understanding him more the older I get. The music and the mood are just out of this world. There is a possible future if I replay the FF games again that I will put 8 ahead of 7. I don’t know if it will go ahead of 5/9, never tactics, but yeah. The card game is 11/10 and breaking the game is a lot of fun. FF8 when it is good it’s the best FF game and when it sucks (the prison) it’s among the worst.
9 is what FF6 wanted to be, the big cast of characters all (other than Amarant) get a long explaination of their plot, and relevant plot and side quests and everything. When the stories branch and you have to play as different characters, it is done masterfully and I like the way you gain abilities and the story is great. Kuja is one of the best characters in any FF game and he is introduced at the right time, Vivi is cool, and while I don’t condone Zidane grabbing Garnetts but on the ladder, he is a really well made character. The only bad part about FF9 is when Zidane loses himself towards the end, it doesn’t fit his character and the “Friendship is magic” thing felt put together last minute as they didn’t know what they were doing, and I guess Garnett losing her voice being a gameplay mechanic sucks too. I think Necron makes sense as a final boss, he was either the eidelon that was protecting the world from destruction, the guardian of the crystal similar to MOG protecting Eiko, or “the devil”.
10, oh boy, uh, I played through it when I was in college and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. The characters are annoying, the battle system sucks, blitzball sucks, I don’t really like how it looks, voice overs are annoying… I’ve tried to replay FF10 multiple times and I couldn’t even make it past the first peer before i just nope out of it.
I did play 10-2 and I had ironic fun with it, thought it was a fun divergance from the normal FF experience, tied up some plot holes, but I wouldn’t count it as mainline similar to not counting dierge of cerberus of after years.
12 Oohhh man, I didn’t even recruit the first party member before I sold it to a used game store. Battle system is just an MMO, it looks overstated and it was just a bad time.
13 watched my friend paly through it, looks like a hallway simulator but it opens up towards the end and looked like a fun time.
The only playstation 2 RPG I enjoyed was Star Ocean 2 and kind of Kingdom Hearts, and I played a few of them. It was part of me being older but it’s also the fact that everything after 9/11 changed, and video games went from an art form to being a business, so they couldn’t go as far and deep with the stories and challenge authority the same way that they did, at least in this generation of video games, without being like GTA where it’s parody and not like real exploring.
Xenogears ruined RPGs for me though, that game is just so much better than anything else that has been released as far as characters and story it’s just completely unfair to compare anything to the depth and scope of that game, and it’s not even finished really. I think Tactics might be a better game because the gameplay is better and the way you develop characters outside of story is better. I think Chrono Trigger and Xenogears are the perfect pair because they are Yin and Yang from each other, Chrono Trigger faces similar issues and lets the player come to their own conclusion and Xenogears brute forces them and explains the characters beliefs about them and just like, sensory and brain overload. But I would say that you should play Tactics and Chrono Trigger and FF 5 and FF9 before you play Xenogears, then you can just not play anything else.
4. clymax
For clymax’s projects, click here. You can also follow him on YouTube or Twitter.
General thoughts from clymax:
My personal criteria for this ranking are as follows.
Explorability – yes to FFV Merged World post-Pyramid, yes to FFVI WoR, and yes to FFX post-airship
Non-linearity – i should be able to get destroyed by way higher leveled mobs if i want or just by complete accident. i should be able to do things in any order i want, to a certain extent
Character customizability – OK for characters to have different strengths and weaknesses, but i wanna be able to have anyone not just usable but viable as, say, a healer
Game speed – no, i don’t want to farm using Knights of the Round lmao (also check out RosoDude’s FFIX fix for this). !Fight in FFVII takes way longer than in FFVI, so thanks, realistic animations
Replayability – an entry scoring high in the previous four aspects should automatically also be relatively replayable
Story – intentionally not a factor in my ranking. i can appreciate a good story, but it’s not why i play a game or why i enjoy gaming in general (you should see the story/dialog i cut from my FF hacks, although out of mercy i added back a toggle for turning it back on lol)
finally, i recommend Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song if you like FFII
oh, and FFIX’s score got lowered cuz I can’t for the life of me find Curaga
So, what do you think? Comment below, or come check us out on Discord.
solidification is a prolific creator of fan-made achievements across different game genres and especially in the world of Final Fantasy mods. You can follow solidification’s set-making journey here.
This a randomizer for people who want to just play random challenge runs in Final Fantasy V:
without logging into Twitter (clip) or registering for a user account,
without waiting on a bot,
without trying to find some hidden, obscure link, and
without getting yelled at by some guy who’s more interested in whatever stupid book he’s trying to peddle because he definitely does not care about Final Fantasy V anymore and just coasts on being the “main man” for Four Job Fiesta.
Note that this web app may be a work in progress. Check back every now and then for potential new features.
For clymax’s projects, click here. You can also follow him on YouTube or Twitter.
1. FF5r (Remix) by ff5aki: “Autumn Challenge”
Recoined as FFV: Autumn Challenge via editorial discretion for purposes of the writer’s posts on this blog. Aki is taken to mean autumn in this context.
The game difficulty is significantly increased from vanilla.
Official name stays the same and will still be referenced.
For Serity’s fan translation of this mod on RHDN, see here.
2. FF5r-IC by waterga: “Heroine Trilogy”
IC has no particular meaning.
Recoined as FFV: Heroine Trilogy via editorial discretion for purposes of the writer’s posts on this blog.
As the name suggests, this mod features a heroine instead of Bartz, and the mod itself spans three roms.
Heroine Trilogy uses Autumn Challenge as a base. However, players need not concern themselves with this detail, especially with the advent of our web patcher.
The game difficulty for the most part is on par with vanilla.
Our translation team should ideally reach a unanimous decision before an official renaming can happen.
For now, the official name stays the same and will still be referenced.
For more info on our translation project, see here.
3. FFV Clean and FF5r Clean by xJacks: “Clean Edition” (TBC)
Exclusive font, script, and icon improvements along with a curated compilation of QoL and bugfixes.
The mod author is currently considering a rebranding.
My personal suggestion is to keep the current branding using the recoined names, i.e., FFV: Clean Edition and Autumn Challenge: Clean Edition.
The reasoning is that the same approach is taken in both versions in terms of what’s being changed.
To call them something different would seem to be more confusing. You may even find yourself explaining to someone, “Oh, ‘Sparkles’ is just ‘Clean’ but for Autumn Challenge” (made-up example).
This post will be updated when more details from the mod author become available.
This mod title is pretty self-explanatory, so it won’t need to be localized.
For Sky Render’s fan translation of this mod on RHDN, click here.
5. FFV: Nostalgia by Anonymous
The naming of this mod can be revisited if and when a fan translation of this mod becomes available.
6. FFV Patch Set (Bugfixes) and Various Patch Files (QoL) by Inu: “Boco’s FFV”
clymax’s upcoming compilation mod of Inu’s work will be dubbed Boco’s FFV. More details to be released in the near future.
Implementing the Changes
Romhack Plaza
Before
After
Special Thanks
Special thanks to team members of Final Fantasy IV – Ultima for raising and discussing the issue with our team members. You can check out their Discord here, or click the thumbnail to learn more about the mod.
So, what do you think? Comment below, or come check us out on Discord.
