Gaming Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

[duelist22]

Yay, Tactics for GBA!. Discuss the game here.

[size=1][color=CC0000]Perhaps a little more info on why you feel so great about FFTA, mm? -[b]Break[/b][/size][/color]

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Um...why did you start a thread if [i]you[/i] didn't have anthing to discuss? Starting a thread just to say "Talk about this here," is kind of pointless. If someone else wants to talk about a game, they can make their own thread, where they actually have something to say about the game. Though I guess since this is here now, we might as well use it, since it'd be annoying to have to close this only to have another thread about FFTA start...

Anyway, I'm going to try and get this game some time. Not sure if I'm going to get this or Sword of Mana first, so it may be sooner or it may be later.

I've never played the original Tactics on the PSX, but I like the sound of Tactics Advance, from reading about it in Nintendo Power and EGM. I think it'll be fun to be able to control such a large group of characters all at once, with all sorts of different job classes for them. In some other RPGs I've played (Chrono Cross and FFVI to name a couple), you get lots of characters, but you can only use three or four at a time. And if you switch around too much, your party isn't strong enough since you've been spreading out the experience too much, or it's just a pain to switch out characters.

So I'm really looking forward to that aspect of the game, but the whole battle system also looks fun. It's not just the "stand in a line and trade hits" set-up like the other FF games. Looks like it'll add another level of complexity, being able to actually stand back and toss spells at a monster while out of its attack range instead of just being in the back row, while actually having to be up close for fighter-type characters to be able to attack.

The more I hear about this game, the more I want it, heh. Can't wait till I can get it.[/color]

[Guess?]

I can't wait for this game. I've played the original tactics and thought it was really fun how you could custimize characters by chosing jobs.

Desbreko have you played Vandal Hearts, Vandal Hearts 2 or Tactics Ogre, they are just like Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Nope, never played any of those. I've been thinking about playing Tactics Ogre, though. (Samgee has been bugging me enough about it; sheesh, lol).[/color]

[Semjaza]

Final Fantasy Tactics is basically the bastard child of Tactics Ogre. It exists because of that game. In fact, Square now owns Quest... the company responsible for those games. I imagine only good things can result. Tactics Ogre on GBA is flawed, but the PSX original is quite excellent if you can manage to find it. Won't be easy.

I'm looking forward to this game. I tend to spend a lot more time on portable RPGs than home ones lately, mostly because when you're on the train two hours a day... there isn't much else to do.

I am obviously looking forward to Sword of Mana FAR, FAR more than this... but what the hell, it's apparently nothing short of excellent. I can't see myself passing it up.

[Guess?]

Desbreko you should get it. I have it and have beaten it a couple times. I really like it.

[size=1][color=CC0000]A bit more structure in your posts would be greatly appreciated. Please do so next time you post... anywhere. -[b]Break[/b][/size][/color]

[Zidargh]

[size=1][color=darkblue] I heard the release date for it was sometime in October, not long now. However, it is due for delay. but I am going to the US in October and I may find a copy of whatever the US gets.

I am very excited about this title, just how the modern settings and mystical ages merge together, yet I wont talk too much about it.

The only aspect of it I am not looking forward to is the way old 'breeds' of creatures have been completely rejuvenated. For example, a moogle now reminds me of a goblin. There is an advantage to this as I do know, [spoiler]that your troops will compile of different races each with unique advantages and disadvantages. Such as Moogles excelling in White Magic.[/spoiler]

Also there is another new system which I shall add in a spoiler anyway, its not bad, just I dont want to ruin anything for anyone. [spoiler]The new system is the referee use in which if you trespass beyond rules in tournaments for example, the single troop of yours or an entire platoon can be thrown in jail in which you will have to bail them out if you care. Apparentley it works for enemies too but I've heard cases of nobody encountering this in the Japanese title.[/spoiler]

Only time can tell what we will have, I know I will be getting it though. I adored FFT.[/color][/size]

[Matto Tradagen]

[color=navy][i] I was never really into tactical RPG's, but FF Tactics changed that. That game was excellent.
After reading a couple of reviews/previews on this game, I actually am sure I am going to get it. Proabably with birthday money, seeing as my birthday is in October.
Also, I heard a good while ago that the creator of Final Fantasy said that there will be some connection between FFXII and FFTA, so one should play both to get the full story. This is kind of backed up, because [spoiler]In FFTA, there is a race of some type of lizardmen (I don't know the name), and in the early promo poster for FFXII, there is one of the same lizardmen standing in the corner. Seems like a connection, which in other FF's, there was none, save Moogles and Summon names.[/spoiler]
Again, this is really, really uncertain news, and may not be true at all, be we may see.
~Matto[/color][/i]

[Zidargh]

[size=1][color=darkblue]Oh it's very true alright. The Lizardmen race are said to excel in arts of fighting and hand to hand combat. Makes sense seeing as they look quite large in size.

[spoiler]This is quite major so continue on your own risk. I hear that at the beginning, in order to recover St. Ivalice, you join up with one of the main Lizard Men and he leads you into tournaments apparentley. I know it runs alomng the same tracks of that but I summarised to avoid too much detail being said.[/spoiler][/color][/size]

[James]

[color=#707875]I can only say that I'm greatly looking forward to FFTA. I enjoyed FFT and having read a little of FFTA...I already know I'm going to buy it. ~_^

I'm trying not to read too much about it though, because I don't want to spoil it. But yeah, the whole concept of a FFT game on GBA is mouthwateringly good. And I love the visuals, too. I think I will have to get a GBA SP first though. V_V[/color]

[Shinmaru]

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is looking very good right now. Just one of many, many games I have my eye on that I want to get. It's almost too much lol.

I enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSX, but I never finished the game for some reason. I'm going to have to go back and finish it off someday. It'll give me something to do while saving up money to buy this game.

From what I've heard, this is turning out better than Final Fantasy Tactics. For one thing, the translation is much better, which is great to hear (the translation for FFT was horrible - it barely made any sense to me lol). Also, I've heard that it's a bit more friendly for people that are new to the realm of Strategy-RPGs, which is also good to hear.

[Semjaza]

From talking to people heavy into strategy RPGs, I've been told this game is rather mediocre... However, these people are like hardcore, so I can't say I'd pay attention to their opinions. It still sounds like a good game to me lol.

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Yeah, I've never actually played a strategy RPG type game before, so I really don't have anything else to base my opinion off of. I've decided I'm definitely getting this game when it comes out, after reading more about it in the latest issue of Nintendo Power, though. (I should have just enough money by the time it comes out). I skimmed their walkthrough article enough to get more info about the game in general, but not really enough to know what to do, where to go, and such. Looks like it's going to be a very cool and very long lasting game.[/color]

[Break]

[size=1][color=CC0000]I haven't read anything about it, I don't feel the need to. I'm pretty sure I'll get it, everyone is saying how great it's gonna be, and I have never played FFT, so FFTA will be very new (and hopefully very cool) to me. In fact, I have never played a strateg-- wait, I have. ^^;;

But I want to get a GBA SP first, before I get anymore games.[/size][/color]

[Jubei Yagyou]

Has anyone played this? I would have to say it is THE best FF game story line wise and fun wise. The plots and turns are amazing? If anyone is still trying to beat it?

[SephirothNIN]

Errr I assume you're just talking about the psx FFt? Pretty sure that it was just "Final Fantasy Tactics." Either way yeah I love that game, you could take a 6-month break and go back and pick up right where you left off because you could view all past cut scenes whenever you wanted. The help mode was also extremely useful, just hit select and wherever you are, BAM, instant explanation. I loved the twists and turns in the story, but one thing I didn't like was how in some stages it wouldn't let you go anywhere. Like that one...swamp with the big tree in the middle, even with teleport it just WON'T let you stand on it grrrrr. I wish they had made the next FFt on PS2 though, seeing as I don't have a GBA and my PC sucks too much to run any GBA emulators (hell I can't even run snes ones that are less than 1 year old). The summoning animations in FFt might not have been exactly breathtaking, but all of the sound effects were awesome. Like un/sheathing swords, or their death cries, mmm gonna have to play through this game again when I'm done w/ star ocean 2.

[CB Shin]

I love Final Fantasy Tactics. Not as much as Star Ocean 2 though... Anyway it was a really fun game though some stages near the end were too easy... the 2nd to last battle in chapter 3 took me a month to beat, but the entire fourth chapter only took me about 2 weeks(thanks to Orlandu and Beowulf). I beat it without any of the High classes like calculator and Samurai. Has anyone finished the Deep Dungeon Side Quest? Still working on that, theres a whole bunch of stuff down there you can't find anywhere else with Move-Find.

[SephirothNIN]

I've beaten Deep Dungeon, and even with lv99 people it's still hard. Mainly because you have to find the tile that leads to the next level. Beowulf is extremely useful though, since you have to keep one enemy alive while you search for the exit. If all the enemies die the battle's over =\. Yeah the treasures in there are awesome, but you have to reset a lot if you get a phoenix down instead of a chaos blade. Best to use rafa or someone else with really low brave since they have a better chance of getting the good items (instead of phoenix downs). The boss at the end of deep dungeon wasn't too hard, unless you want to learn Zodiac that is. Took me foreeeeeever to get him to use it, he kept using poison frog and other weak attacks because I had used a knight w/ 2 swords to bring his magic attack down to squat. When he finally did hit me with Zodiac it only did about 15 damage

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Ah, I just got this game a few days ago... And I've already played for about 30 hours, lol. FFTA is so dang addicting! I'll just sit down and play for hours and hours. (I've finally had to use the AC adapter to play and charge my GBASP at the same time because of it). I mean, I'll be playing, and I'll think "Hey, my play time is up another hour from when I started." One hour later, "Hey, another hour already?" Yet another hour later, "Dang, I've actually been playing for three hours! It seemed like one!" And then I remember watching my play time going up and up, and I realize those are actual hours that have been passing, not just a clock in the game... And then I go back to playing. Repeat. For 30 hours.

So far I've done...55 missions, I think, and [spoiler]destroyed two crystals[/spoiler]. Marche (the main character) is level 14, with Soldier, Fighter, White Mage, and is now working on Paladin abilities. I absolutely love the way they did the job system. You can have people learn pretty much anything you want, except that certain races can only have certain jobs. And also, you only get two slots to put action abilities in, and one is always taken up with the one that goes with the character's current job. So I can have Marche as a Fighter with White Mage abilities, but that takes up both action ability slots, so I can't have my Soldier or Paladin abilities at the same time. So there's tons of customization, but its use is limited so you can't have an all-powerful character that's a good fighter and can also use every spell in the game. That was one thing that annoyed me with magic systems like the Magicite and Materia systems in FFVI and FFVII, since it makes it way too easy.

I also love having such a large group of characters to work with all at once. (I think the max you can have in your clan is 24, but I'm not sure). I can have characters of every race and job, all learning different abilities, and then when they finish learning them, I can switch them around so that they're learning new things while still having their old abilities in the second slot. But again, it's limited, since you can only use, at max, six characters per fight. So you really have to balance the leveling out if you don't want to have a few high level characters and a bunch of near useless ones. It took some getting used to, but I'm starting to get quite the diversified group while keeping their levels relatively close.

The only fault I've found in FFTA is that the menus are a little clunky. Unless you really study the instruction booklet, it takes a while to find out how to do everything. (And I mean [i]really[/i] study it. I read the whole thing before turning the game on, something I rarely do but I thought I should anyway because I heard the menus were really complex, and I still had a hard time. I finally just found out today how to do the last thing I was trying to figure out). Once you do get used to the menus, though, it's not that bad--just be sure to set the cursor speed to fast for scrolling through long lists of items, lol. When I first started I had a hard time just figuring out how to check which abilities I was learning/had learned, but now it's second nature. So if you get this game and are utterly confused by the menus, just keep the instruction booklet handy and stick with it.

Other than that, however, I really haven't found anything I dislike about the game. The battle system is great. Battles can actually take a while, and involve a good amount of thought in order to win, not just "cast this ultra-power spell over and over while healing." Some battles have taken upwards of twenty minutes to beat. Though I guess if you like fast-paced battles you may not like that very much. The thing is, though, something is always happening, it just takes a while for a full round of attacks/movements to finish if there are two full parties of six characters/enemies on the field.

The battles are also a lot more complex than those in the main series of FF games. You not only have to think about what attacks to use and when, but you also have to think about where you and the enemies are, where they're going, your angle of attack (side and back attacks have a higher chance of hitting, which really makes a difference), the range of your attacks, the field effect of some spells... Sometimes you'll be trying to heal a fighter up next to the enemies, but since the cure spell effects five squares in a + cross pattern, you have to watch out to not heal the enemies too. Though of course, if you plan it right, you can use this to heal multiple characters at the same time, or hurt multiple enemies. I love it; you can put a ton of strategy into it, but at the same time it's easy to pick up and play without [i]having[/i] to use a ton of strategy.

Whew, I think that's enough commenting for now. I think you should be able to tell I absolutely love FFTA, heh. I think it's going to become my favorite FF game, even passing FFVI. (But can it beat Chrono Trigger as my favorite RPG? We'll have to see). No other RPG has been able to suck me in and keep me playing for so long at a time, not even Chrono Trigger. And that's one thing that I value very highly in pretty much in any type of game, since it usually also translates into a decent amount of replay value, too. But, uh...hmm...looks like this has turned into another good sized paragraph, when I meant it to only be one or two sentences. Oh well, heh.

Okay, [i]now[/i] that's enough commenting. So yeah, go buy this game. You won't regret it if you like nice, long RPGs that require actual thought in order to win the battles. For me, the story is actually secondary so far, though it's been getting more complex and interesting as I play. I'm getting the urge to play more as I type this. ^_^[/color]

[SephirothNIN]

I've played more FFt (PSX one) than FF7-X combined, I forget if I went through 5 or 6 times, but I loved the game. Now I only played the first hour or so of FFTA, but I was pretty disappointed - the whole thing had a kiddied down feel to it. Not like it's for 4 year olds, or even the snowball fight. Maybe it's just that FFt never put you through a practice battle. It made the first fight of the psx FFt harder, but still I found it much more fun than having to endure a snowball fight to teach me how to move and attack. Maybe there was an option to skip it I didn't notice. Perhaps it's explained later, but the whole "magic book" thing seemed weak too. Like a story out of a mario bros. game (not counting mario rpg...or mario is missing I guess), but rpg/strategy games should give you more to go on than that. I didn't like the way the moogles looked either, or the lizardman come to think of it. And I actually groaned outloud (luckily the teacher was way on the other side of class) when Marche referred to Final Fantasy, it just seemed so cheesey. One second he's utterly confused, the next he's all "oh yeah I know you from the Final Fantasy games." I'm not a super huge strategy fan except for FFt, Kartia, and Disgaea. I just got Disgaea and I don't feel sorry one bit that I don't have a GBA. Oddly enough if someone were to let me borrow their GBA and FFTA I'd play it all the way through (after Disgaea), heh I'm just not going to go out of my way.

[otakukev]

I got FFTA last Sunday, and I have done almost noyhing but play it since then. I never played the original FFT, but I have played Tactics Ogre, so I had an idea of what it would be like. but WOW. The gameplay is amazing. One of the greatest thing, in my opinion, is that there is so much you can do before you have to advance the storyline. I've found myself trying to do every single mission before the one that brings me closer. You can tell which ones go with the story; I just avoid the "no cancellation" ones as long as I can. lol.

Currrently, I have [spoiler]destroyed two crystals[/spoiler] and completed 65 missions, while playing about 20 hours.

One fault that I have that annoys me to no end is that I don't like to train anybody but the six I use most often. Because of that, I have a few powerful guys, but the rest are all on level 3 or 4. I hate myself sometimes :( Though my team of six is pretty good. I've got my main character (named Kevin) trained in soldier and paladin, Montblanc in black mage and time mage, a Human trained in soldier and fighter, a Bangaa trained in monk, warrior, and dragoon, a Nu Mou trained in white mage, black mage, and beast tamer, and a Viera trained in fencer, red mage, archer, and sniper. Okay, I guess.

In any case, I highly recommend this to anyone with a GBA or GBASP. I believe Nintendo Power said FFTA had 300+ hours of gameplay, if you do everything. Looks like I'm set for a while, then. Only 280 hours to go.

[Zidargh]

[size=1][color=darkblue] I didn't feel it was necessary to quote as these are pretty much generalised questions but I shall begin to whoever has experience with this game: -

1.) Is it possible for you to customise your 'platoon' by purchasing new 'squad mates' if you will, just like the original, Final Fantasy Tactics?

2.) Do you feel the screen affects the enjoyment on the game compared to the TV connection set - up with the Playstation?

3.) And last of all, do you feel the game is very easy to become engrossed into?

If any of you can answer these questions with detail, I'll be most appreciative.[/color][/size]

[Lord Rannos]

I felt that this game completely sucks you in.I would be doing that all the time if not for this.You find new people wanting to join your "clan" as you progress through missions.And the screen is just about as good as the playstation version.It's a really good game and is much easier to understand than FFT.The only problem is the laws, but you can alter those.Much better than the original.

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Well, I've played for almost 40 hours, now. Marche is up to level 18, almost to level 19, and I've done around 80-85 missions with [spoiler]three Crystals destroyed[/spoiler]. (I forget the exact number of missions completed). I've also got... *counts* ...19 or 20 characters that I use regularly, including Marche and Montblanc, I think. They're all in the level 13-16 range, except for one that I got just recently that's still level 12.

As for the questions, like Dondar said, you'll get different characters requesting to join your clan (which is just your group of characters). The characters' race, starting job, and name seems to be random. So you kind of just have to wait for the race you want, and you can change the job, though they'll usually be best at the job they start as.

About the screen, I think I'd actually like it less on a TV, though I have a GBASP. (Lighting is not an issue for me, heh. It's great playing at night in complete darkness when my parents think I've gone to bed. ^_^) The reason being, my eyes don't get bloodshot from staring at a GBA screen as much as they do from a TV screen. Same with headaches. Also, from the screenshots I've seen of the original FFT, FFTA looks just as good, graphics-wise. Sound probably took a hit, though.

As for the last one, I can't really say since I've never played the first one, but I've become pretty engrossed with FFTA. Like I said, I'm up to almost 40 hours of play time after having it for less than a week.[/color]

[Epitome]

I picked this game up yesterday, and immediatley was addicted to it. I have played the one for the PSX briefly but Im not sure if its the same story line because I was mainly watching my cousin and he was almost through the game. but I love the fighting style and how there are "missions." I have only played for about 2 hours and I already love it, and it seems to be heating up even more with the [spoiler]"[strike]Clane[/strike] Clan Wars"[/spoiler] coming.