Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Game Boy Advance

SquEnix (Square Enix) - 2003

Wow. Another reason I am in love, yes "Marry" in love with my Game Boy Advance. This game goes down in my book as the best game on that system, which includes by the way all the games for Advance down thru the first Game Boy system. Yes, of the thousands of games made over the course of 15 years, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance takes number one. Beating even Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, if only by a little. But why do I think this? Let's discuss the amazing game in more detail.

First off, think of Final Fantasy Tactics. If you have played it, you must remember that it had an amazingly in depth battle system, lots of character classes and things to learn, a crazy plot that no one ever followed, and a hard difficulty where enemies gained levels with you. Now, think this way: FFTA was made off the same engine as FFT. That means the battles run the same. There is a plus, there was nothing wrong with the battles. Second, character classes. This time through there are 5 different species, Human, Viera (Rabbit), Moogle (for those three people who don't know, smaller stuffed animal rabbits), Nu Mou (Think the Mystics From The Dark Crystal), and Bangaa (Lizards, but don't call them that). They all have multiple classes (think 8-15) and most are a species only class. So humans can not be Dragoons or White Monks. Bangaa are those jobs. But before you go and get an army of Bangaa, listen to this. The game is easier than before. Not much easier, especially if you don't level up, but still a little bit easier. Instead of random encounters, other "clans" walk around the map, and you have to chase them down, or dodge them, depending on if you want to fight or not. These clans gain levels with you, but always stay a bit behind you level wise, which makes it a bit easier.

Next section. Plot. FFT had the most convoluted plot ever. Period. I tried my hardest multiple times to understand it, but gave up crying each time. FFTA has an easy plot to understand. You are Marche, a kid in Junior High on Earth present day. Your friends find this book that transforms your town into a Final Fantasy game. You then join this clan because a moogle tells you to, and try to figure out how to fix the world to normal, or decide if you want to fix it. Your friends like the world the way it is, because they were picked on in school and now they are not. So they tend to stand against your actions. But I won't tell more than that.

Ok, Now for the classes. Instead of gaining job points to gain job levels and open up new jobs, this game takes the "equip-item, learn skill" from Final Fantasy 9. Which means you have to buy lots of items from the stores and equip them for a certain amount of battles to learn new skills. After learning a set number of skills for one class, you can change to new classes that weren't open before. Awesome. This allows for you to feel good more often, following the "when I learn something, even if it is something trivial, more often, I feel happier and want to continue playing the game." Final Fantasy 6 started this with the espers and learning spells along with gaining levels, thus allowing for the player to feel like they are accomplishing something quite often when after only a few battles their characters learn something. Then Final Fantasy 9 made that perfect when your characters can learn lots of stuff at once, and you had to go around collecting every item to learn new skills. FFTA does this quite well too.

To continue the plot in the game you have to visit the pub in towns, any town will do, and choose a mission. A la Arc the Lad 2 and 3, missions are jobs where you do a certain something, usually either fight a battle, or send a troop away for a certain length of time, and then gain some money and an item or two for it. Some progess the plot, but most don't. And you can only do certain missions during certain days of the year, which pass every time you walk somewhere. So with 300 missions, the game continues for a long time. And when you get tired of missions, you can hunt down other gangs that wander the map.

Lastly the other addition to the game. There are rules per battle, and these rules rotate. Each battle makes you not allowed to use a certain thing, whether it be fire magic, guns, poison, or blind, to even weapons in general. This causes you to plan ahead moves and make sure you don't have a team of all one category, and so you don't continue doing the same moves throughout the whole game (Can you say: Earth Slash?). I actually like this system, you can use what isn't allowed, but the judge (the person who watches the match) will throw you in jail and you will have to pay a lot to get your person out. So don't, basically.

What liked: The five species and lots of classes. Learning stuff very often. The game in general.

What disliked: The Menu system is a little tedious, but not too bad.

What to expect: Final Fantasy Tactics improved.

What not to expect: Final Fantasy other. Long, drawn out plots.

What's so different from this and other games of it's genre: Umm, the rules per battle? The different classes? Nothing much, it is just improved over every tactics game before it.

Ratings on:

Control: Fine, you have a bit of trouble because everything is on a diagonal, but not too much.

Graphics: 8 - Beautiful sprites. Wow.

Sound: 9 - I don't listen to it, but I heard one song and it was good....

Style: 10 - Wow.

1st hour: 10 - Wow.

5th hour: 10 - Ok, I am learning everything I can before moving on.

1st week: 10 - Still learning.

5th week: 10 - Still learning, still loving it.

#1 reason why I hate this game: Why are the Dragoons so bad? I cry now.

by Hawke