Final Fantasy 5 Advance for GBA— Downloads

Download the Final Fantasy 5 GBA— Custom Classes mod

• Final Fantasy 5 GBA— Custom Classes mod, version 1.500, rev. 1 (18.0 KB) — Released January 10, 2012. Latest and greatest release.
• Final Fantasy 5 GBA— Custom Classes mod, version 1.000 (9.58 KB) — Released November 15th, 2011. Initial release of the mod.

Resources

• Final Fantasy 5 GBA— Custom Classes companion spreadsheet (90.6 KB) — This handy MS Excel spreadsheet has tons of useful information concerning the mod. The two best features are a Party Class randomizer, and a stat calculator. To use these features, you'll need to allow the macros to run (that's okay, I designed the macros myself).

Purposes and Aims

This mod aims to improve the customization options for your party in Final Fantasy 5 Advance. You are allowed the maximum leeway granted by the game's engine to assign commands and abilities that you have earned as you progress through the game. More care must be taken so that you don't employ unwinnable strategies (such as forgetting to set a "Fight" command to your characters...!) Spells and monsters have been modified slightly and hopefully are balanced with the customization options available to the player.

Version 1.5 improvements over Version 1.0

• The order that Jobs are opened during the game has been altered significantly. The final four Advance jobs are opened before you leave the first world, leaving only the Mime class to be learned later.
• Character stats are now calculated differently. Jobs are less important in the stat makeup of characters. Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, Faris, and Krile lend their personalities to the job they are in, so Faris might have more agility than magic power, even as a Black Mage!
• When characters set their abilities, they no longer establish a minimum for their dependent stats (for instance, White Lv. 1 ensured that the character would have at least 39 in Magic Power). Instead, they confer bonuses to their respective stats. Almost all abilities grant a bonus to stats (for instance, Item gives +5 Agility). See this handy list to see which abilities grant which bonuses.
• Each job now has the correct passive abilities automatically assigned.
• When a job which has automatic passive abilities is mastered, those passive abilites become permanent on the character, no matter which job they currently are studying. For instance, master the Ninja class and you will always be able to equip two one-handed weapons! The only exception to the automatic passive skill rule is Berserk— thankfully.
• Due to the early opening of the Necromancer job, the monsters that confer Dark Arts magic when killed have been realigned. You can learn a few of them before you fight Exdeath in the merged world!
• Due to the early opening of the Cannoneer job, some special shops have Shot type items in their inventory.
• Due to the early opening of the Time Mage and Summoner jobs, the Tule magic shop carries two Time Magic spells and one Summoning spell.
• Minor changes to starting equipment.
• Some jobs now require a bit more ABP to master, based on the relative ease of opening certain jobs, and their early game availability.
• A few of the early weapons shops carry a few extra weapons.
• The power of various weapons are modified. Knives tend to be less effective, axes tend to be more effective. The Power Staff now does damage, in addition to berserking targets.
• Silver Harps, Dream Harps, and Lamia Harps do much more damage than they used to. On average they do 4x more damage. Harps are a viable strategy to use now.
• Like in Final Fantasy 3j, the Freelancer can cast Lv. 1 White and Black magic, but without actually learning those skills. However, true to Custom Classes form, those abilities can be reassigned to whatever you want.

Version 1.0 Changelog

• All classes allow you to choose 3 commands, allowing maximum customization of your party.
• Most classes have a class specific ability in their first slot. For example: the Monk has Kick for 1st slot ability. Note: this means that unless the character is in a stock warrior-type class, the first ability does not default to "Fight", and no character has "Item" as their default fourth ability... so extra care will have to be taken as abilities are assigned.
• All characters have automatically "learned" the Fight and Item abilities, and as such can assign them as one of their three abilities.
• Certain classes have had their learned abilities tweaked slightly.
• The Red Wizard is much more powerful, with the ability to use up to and including Level 4 White/Black magic.
• Generally speaking, weapons and armor restrictions are a bit more lenient than stock FF5. For instance, thieves are capable of using shields, or bows.
• Slightly changed the powers of certain spells to balance out the skill sets.
  • Spells edited include: Aero, Aera, Aeroga, Cure, Cura, Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Fira, Blizzara, Thundara, Drain, Bio, Firaga, Blizzaga, Thundaga.
  • The Poison spell inflicts damage as well as inflicting "Poison" status... but only targets one enemy.
  • Holy and Flare can target one/all enemies.
  • Dark Arts abilities inflict damage based on their level (this wasn't well implemented in stock Final Fantasy 5 Advance.)
• All monsters give at least some experience and gil. This change is particularly significant concerning bosses.
• Monsters show more varied in HP and defense ratings.

Screenshots

Other things that still perturb me

Believe it or not, there are still a couple of other things that I'd like to fix in a subsequent release of the Custom Classes mod. These are not "bugs" per se, but I feel the need to list them anyways.

• Spellblade does not affect Katanas. This is due to the different damage algorithm that Katanas use (and no katana is elementally enchanted). I have attempted to make this work, frustratingly, to no avail. The status of this fix is unlikely to change. Mystic Knights still can use Katanas... but use them only if Spellblade isn't your thing.

Installation instructions

The following applies to all releases of the Custom Classes Mod.

• First of all, you will need to obtain a clean GBA ROM of Final Fantasy 5 Advance. You are on your own for this step, as it is illegal to provide ROMs of copyrighted material. There are sites that do provide this ROM though, and you should be able to obtain it.
• When you get it, make a backup of it if you would want to play the stock version, play another mod, or, in case I post an updated version of the mod here... I am not going to make version 1.0 to "version whatever" patches for my mods, for instance.
• Download Ludmeister's Custom Classes mod.
• You will find an .exe file in the .zip file. This is the patch for your Final Fantasy 5 Advance ROM. Apply it.
• Play and enjoy!

Credits and Appreciation

A major thank you is due to Benjamin Popp, author of the Final Fantasy 5 Advance Editor, and to Samurai Goroh, who wrote the Final Fantasy 5 Editor (which works on the SNES version of the game). Insight into the various data structures was gleaned from the use of these utilities.

Copyright notice

The content in this portion of the website pertains to "software" known as "Final Fantasy 5" and "Final Fantasy 5 Advance", which is the property of Square Enix. The mod is completely unofficial, and was an amateur fan-made undertaking. I respect the intellectual property of Square Enix, and under no circumstances will I distribute the ROMs for either the SNES or the GBA versions of Final Fantasy 5. The patch available for download is a derivative work and is completely my own. It is offered totally free of charge.