Final Fantasy V/Battle system

The Basics
The are two major types of battles, random and set. Random battles take place when you move around a dungeon or the world map and, as the name implies, occur unpredictably. You can fight as many of these as you want just by wandering around the area in question. Set battles, in contrast, only occur once. Usually, but not always, they involve a boss monster.

When a battle starts there is a swirling effect on the screen, the music changes, and the scene changes from a map view to a ground level view of the combatants. You enter battle commands through a menu that appears when one of your characters is free to act.

A gauge on the lower right side of the screen shows when you will be able to make your move, when the gauge fills up a menu appears. At first the only options on the menu are Attack and Item. If you select Attack, you then select which monster to attack. After a bit of a delay, your attack will be executed. Item works pretty much the same way, you select which item you want to use, then which character you want to use it on if applicable. Each character in your party gets their own time gauge. Meanwhile the monsters have their own time gauges (not displayed) and will attack you while you're waiting for your turn. As your abilities grow, more options will be added to the menus and navigating them can get rather tricky.

There are some useful options that are not immediately obvious. First, press the left arrow key to cause a Row option to appear, this allows you to move weaker characters to the back where attacks on them are less powerful. Second, press the right arrow key to cause a Def. option to appear, use this when you want a character to skip a turn but it can also reduce enemy attacks. Third, press and hold down the L and R buttons (L1 and R1 for PS1) and after a several seconds your characters will escape the battle. The down side to this is that the monsters get free hits on you while you're making your escape. Escape is normally only possible in random battles.

There are three possible outcomes to a battle. If none of your characters survive then you get the message "Wiped out..." and you have to reload from your last saved game (another reminder why it's a good idea to save often). If you escape then you get to continue on with the game but otherwise there is no change in your status. if you defeat all the monsters then all sorts of nice things come to you. First, each monster is worth a certain number of experience points, after the battle the experience points are divided evenly among the surviving members of the party (any fractions are rounded down). Experience points allow your characters to gain levels which in turn makes them more powerful. Next, each monster is worth a certain number of gold pieces (GP) and these are put into the communal pot after the battle. Use GP to buy items at the stores in towns. In addition to GP, you may win treasure, known as a drop, just like opening a chest. Finally, each group of monsters is worth a certain amount of ability points, which helps you advance in the Jobs system. Ability points are only received for character with a job selected and this can only be done after a certain event occurs in the game.

The most important numbers to track are hit points. These measure the current health of a character and the basic function of an attack is to drain hit points from the character being attacked. Both your characters and monsters have hit points but only yours can be observed directly. The rule is simple, you can fight until your hit points reach 0 and then you're KO'd. If all your characters are KO'd then your party is wiped out. You can use certain items and spells to restore the hit points of your characters, or even revive KO'd characters. When an enemy's hit points reach 0 it is no longer able to fight and disappears from the screen. If this happens to all the monsters then you;ve won the battle and after a little celebration you continue with the game.

There are conditions besides being KO'd that can affect a character's ability to fight though, for example a character my be immobilized. Watch the appearance of your characters during battle, a change indicates a condition that you probably want to be aware of. For example a character will sit down when in danger of running out of hit points.

Front row and back row
In a battle, each of your characters is either in the front row or the back row. You can place your characters in the desired row either in the main menu screen when not in battle, or during battle using the Row menu option, though this uses up a turn. Each monster is also either in the front row or the back row. When a physical attack is made, if both the attacker and the attackee are in the front row then the resulting damage is roughly twice what it would be otherwise. The effect is that you can do more damage in the front row but on the other hand monsters do more damage to you. Using the Def. option in battle nullifies the monsters' front row advantage, in effect it puts the character in the back row until the next move. There is no front row advantage for magical attacks so it's a good idea to keep mages in the back row where monsters will do less damage to them. On the other hand fighters should normally be kept in the front row where their attacks will have more effect. They should also have the best armor equipped to counter the additional damage they take there. Note that when all the members of the enemy's front row are defeated, their back row is moved up in effect to become the front row, though this isn't visible on the screen.

First Strike and Back Attack
A certain percentage of random battles start with First Strike. This basically means that you've surprised the monsters. You start with all your time gauges at maximum so you can attack the monsters right away while they have to wait. Similarly, other random battles start with Back Attack which basically means that the monsters have surprised you. This time the monsters' gauges start at maximum so they get you attack you while you have to wait. In addition, the monsters attack from behind in a back attack. This means, as far as this battle is concerned, all your characters that were in the front row are now effectively in the back row and vice versa. You may notice that in Back Attack battles the monsters are on the right side of the screen rather than on the left as usual. Depending on how long a battle you expect, it may be a good idea to use the Row menu option to move your characters into a better position for a Back Attack battle.

Magical attacks
As mentioned above, for magic attack spells (fire, ice, bolt) there is no difference between front row and back row. The effect of magical attacks is reduced by Magic Defense rather than Defense, so only armor that has this attribute is effective against magic. If the monster is weak against the spell used, then the monster's Magic Defense value becomes 0 and the damage is doubled, so it's a good idea to learn which monsters are weak against which attacks.

Magical attacks can be directed at all enemies instead of just one. You hit all enemies but the attack strength is reduced by a factor of two. Taking Magic Defense into account the actual effect of the attack could be reduced significantly. If the monsters are weak enough that they can be wiped out by a one or two reduced attacks then it works to your advantage, but otherwise it's better to direct the attack at one monster at a time.