I just beat FFTA! Here is my review.

December 20, 2007, 2:07 AM

There were a few threads that were made recently beating a Final Fantasy game. I've created a thread where you can post about your review on the game.

If you have beaten Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the first time...Please post your Final Fantasy I reviews here.

If you beat Final Fantasy Tactics Advance already and still want to write a review, then go ahead.

February 7, 2008, 6:50 PM

I've just beaten FFTA and I have to say, the continuation of playing after the story ends is fun, though it can get boring. FFTA is probably one of the best games that I've played. ^^

February 8, 2008, 4:49 AM

I'll give a full review. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Storyline

The story in this game is absolutely horrid. Tactics Advanced received an E rating, but I've seen plenty of E games more mature than this thing. Your main characters are outcasts in school, and one day stumble upon a book which thrusts them into Ivalice. One of them figures out after a while that the world they're trapped in isn't real...so he proceeds to try to destroy it, despite the fact that in reality he and his friends are much worse off. Also, many of the missions you take have silly environmental themes...one is stop poachers from going after a certain beast, another mission involves saving trees.....no joke.

Characters

The characters are pretty lackluster in this game. Your main character is Marche, who seems fairly well-off in school. His friend Mewt is a bullied loner whose dad has financial problems. Ritz is your typical "IMMA GIRL IMMA KICK UR ASS" type, but she's picked on at school for having white hair. Doned is Marche's younger brother, and is confined to a wheelchair. That's about as much depth as you're going to have in any character, not much development goes on aside from "this world is so much cooler!"

Gameplay

This is where the game excels, and it's enough to save the game. There are five races in this game, Hume, Moogle, Bangaa, Viera, and Nu Mou. Some jobs are shared in common by a few races (such as white mage, or archer), but in total there are an astounding 34 jobs. There are plenty of abilities to be learned for each job, and you can customize your clan members to have jobs, reaction abilities and whatever you can think of from differing jobs. One of the deadliest combinations to learn is a double-wield with a counterattack reflex. Put the time and effort into learning many classes and you'll have an unstoppable force.

Unfortunately, this is where the game falters. The difficulty level in this game is pathetically easy, so once you beef up your characters you'll be pounding through bosses like they're nothing. Missions and random territory battles (when an opposing clan tries to lay claim to an area) will earn you ALOT of money and experience very quickly. It's actually very easy to become over-leveled and have so much money on your hands you can buy everything a shop has.

As I previously mentioned, you can fight clan battles to lay claim to areas. The way the game implements these areas is rather interesting. Rather than have everything in set locations, every time you unlock a place (be it a swamp, forest, volcano, desert, or even a town) you can place it in any of the slots on the world map. If you put the area on the right place, you'll receive loot from it. Quite nifty.

The most annoying thing about this game are the laws. During EVERY battle there will be a judge present, and you will need to go into a menu before you begin the battle and find out what the laws are for that battle (it can be anything from no curative items, to not using physical attacks with staffs, or no magics; it can get insane). Laws designated orange merely penalize you by taking away your spoils or EXP at the end of a battle, but the red ones will get the perpetrator sent to jail. If that happens, you can either walk around the world map till their time is up, or pay their bail. Early on in the game, thankfully, you are introduced to a character who makes anti-law cards, which will negate the laws. The selection is pretty meager at first, but by the end of the game you can negate practically anything thrown at you.

Music

Not much to say about this, really. The music isn't anything spectacular, but it's nice enough and it's nowhere near as dull as XII's soundtrack.

Rating

8/10. As I said, the gameplay is the saving grace. The rest of the game is pretty much a flop, but the system is so in-depth and the game is just a blast to play, even with those annoying laws. It's not the greatest strategy-RPG, but it's a good introduction to the genre for curious players, and it's a good way to spend time (you can easily hit 100+ hours on the game, it's so addictive). I'm sure it's awfully cheap by now too, so it shouldn't be passed up.

February 26, 2008, 5:22 AM

Strangely, I agree with pretty much everything he said. The story and character development was poor...even by some of Square-Enix's standards. It was clearly aimed at introducing people to the genre, unlike Final Fantasy Tactics, which has a slightly higher difficulty curve at times, but a much better story.

The gameplay really did save it. I'm normally the kind of guy who needs a decent story as well as a good system to the general game to keep me interested, and though the story wasn't really here, I did finish this game several times, though granted, I did start it once on an emulator and once on the actual game.

Maybe the rating was higher than I'd give it, considering its not that long, and it only keeps you going for 100+ hours if you like...perfect the game. Not that that's a bad thing, as there are additional characters to get once the game finishes. It just didn't hold that much appeal for me. I'd probably give it a 7/10, but only because I wanted a better story and greater character development.

I mean, going into a book world? Hasn't that been done somewhere before? *Points at the Neverending Story*