Square Enix RPG Gets Free Release, 34 Years Later

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A classic Square Enix role-playing game from 1992 is now available to play for free! Before Square and Enix joined forces, this game was released for the SNES. Now, Xbox Game Pass subscribers – on Premium, Ultimate, and PC tiers (but not Essential) – can download and play it at no extra cost.

As a huge Xbox Game Pass fan, I’m so excited that Final Fantasy V is currently available to play for free! I’m not sure how long it’ll stay on the service, but right now, we can all jump in and play whenever we want. It’s not a super short game, usually taking around 30 to 50 hours to finish – maybe less if you just follow the main story, but longer if you’re a completionist like me and want to do everything. Most games stay on Game Pass for 12-24 months, which is good because this one deserves a good, long play!

An SNES Classic RPG

As you might expect, Final Fantasy V is the fifth core game in the Final Fantasy series, which first launched in 1987 and continues to be incredibly popular. When it was first released, it was only available on the SNES. Players in the West initially knew it as a PlayStation game, as the original SNES version was only released in Japan. This meant Western gamers didn’t get to play it until 1999, a full seven years later. While the game generally received good reviews, most fans don’t consider it one of the very best in the series – it’s solid, but not a standout title.

Okay, so the version of the game that just hit Xbox Game Pass isn’t the very first one – it’s the Pixel Remaster from 2021, which is a really nice upgrade. They completely redid all the pixel art, and the original artist, Kazuko Shibuya, oversaw it all! It also has new animations for battles, better looking environments, widescreen support, and it looks great at higher resolutions. Plus, they’ve added a bunch of quality-of-life improvements – you can even choose a rearranged soundtrack! There’s auto-battle, faster menus, quick save, diagonal movement, a sprint button, a modern UI, and a much better inventory system. They even added a minimap and tweaked some abilities and progression to make it less grindy. One thing to note though: it doesn’t include the extra stuff that was in the Game Boy Advance version.

Since Final Fantasy V is included with certain Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, players who subscribe avoid having to pay the usual $17.99 price – a game that isn’t often discounted.

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2026-05-07 13:40