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Final Fantasy: Tactics Advance

Started by Bjorn, March 04, 2004, 12:29:14 AM

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Bjorn

Caveat:  I'm not finished the game.  At 18 hours and 50 missions in, probably not even close, in fact.  So this is a thoughts-so-far sort of review.

Caveat 2:  This review assumes that familiarity with the role-playing strategy genre, and Final Fantasy: Tactics in particular.  I feel free to do this because I'm not getting paid, and because hell, if you have questions, you can just ask 'em.

FFTA is a sequel to FFT, and as such, it's a great improvement in many regards.  The same general class and skill approach is used, but everything has a much better balance:  none of the skills are game-breakingly good (I'm looking at you, Blade Grasp), and none of the classes are painfully useless or crippled (that means both you and the Calculators, Archer).  Now, though, rather than earning points to buy skills from a job-specific list by successfully completing an action (though earning EXP still works this way), the system is the same as FF9 (and the relics of FF6): some equipment will let you use certain skills.  Each complete battle or mission earns you a number of AP; earn enough AP, and the skill becomes mastered, so you can use it even without the corresponding item being equipped.  At first, I found this to be a bit of a frustrating change, but after a while, it was actually kind of fun.  Besides the constant debate of "do I use the best equipment, or the equipment that'll let me learn this skill?", between this measured return of AP and the fact that much of the equipment isn't available until later in the game, powering-up becomes a whole-game affair.  I'll be working on developing my current party for quite some time to come, while in FFT, if you know what you're doing, it's possible to have five characters master five jobs apiece in a single battle.  (And that, in short, sums it up:  FFTA has done a good job of closing many of the worst legal-but-c'mon-really abuses of the FFT engine.)

The law system is also new, and mostly fun.  The idea of having certain actions (using one job's skillset, using items, using a particular type of magic or weapon, etc.) seems a bit arbitrary at first, but it's worked in well with the story.  It adds a few levels of strategy to the game.  If you know the sort of battle you have coming up, you can try to choose a day where the laws will cripple the enemy.  It also forces to you to keep from relying on a single playing style; while you might normally avoid using archers (not that you should -- this class has really come into their own in this game), when all bladed weapons are forbidden, they get a lot more appealing.

I have two particular complaints about the law system, though.  One is that it can be a tremendous pain in the ass to figure out exactly what is banned by a particular law.  At various times, there have been prohibitions against Broad Swords, Great Swords, and Knight Swords, and if anything tells you how to figure out which one a Hardedge is, it's been hiding from me out of spite, just like my keys.  The second complaint is that enemies will either never break the law, or are immune to the penalties for law-breaking.  That's understandable, and not that big a deal, but it would be nice, every once in a while, to have an enemy removed from the battle field, rather than just my guys.

Speaking of battles, there's no more random encounters.  There's a few wandering battles, but you can see them ahead of time on the world map.  Most of the conflict comes from missions that you have to sign up for.  For everyone who's screamed for having to fight ten random encounters on your way to buy a new gun, this is nothing short of heavenly redemption.

As a sequel to FFT, FFTA is pretty good.  But it's important to remember that in several critical respects, FFTA is not a sequel.  By this I mean: FFTA was made for a portable system, not a console.

This is reflected in some obvious respects -- the graphics and music, while good, are not up to the standards of FFT.   A save-in-battle option was added, and carefully designed to avoid abuses -- no save-stating to get through battles!  The only character you can name is the main character -- every other character, including the many generic characters that will fill your party has a fixed name. There are a few annoying things that arise in the menu system, mainly having to do with equipment, that are due to limited screen real estate.  The biggest difference, and a terminal kicker for some, is the story.

FFT's story, hideous localization job aside, was deep, intricate, and simultaneously cynical and stirring.  FFTA's story  (as far as I've seen, anyways) while well-designed and interesting, is best described as "simple."  From the perspective of being a Gameboy title, this is great.  If I have ten spare minutes, I can pick the game up and play, confident that even if I get into a plot-relevant mission, I'll be able to remember all the important history.   FFT's story was so complex that it had an immense menu option devoted to nothing but keeping you up to date with the story so far.  Great as far as it goes, but not conducive to pick-up-and-play.

The short summary, then:  FFTA is an engaging, thoughtfully crafted RPS.  While it's not the top of the genre, this title has been done very well for a portable system, trading off some complexity for the ability to play it short spurts.

Dracos

Good opening impression.  Not my taste of game really but good to see you are enjoying it ^_^.

Dracos
Well, Goodbye.