Lord_Jaroh
Ex-Soldier
Hey all.
I figured I'd start this thread to share my ideas and see what you all thought, as well as to hopefully get new ones. Mainly as this is one of the greatest games in existence and they haven't made a true sequel to it (which is a huge crime against humanity in my opinion,
), I figure it'd be fun to muse what a second Tactics would be like.
I guess since I posted the thread, I'll start.
Locale:
I would like the game to stay in Ivalice, but much broader. Granted, I haven't experienced FFXII yet, so I can't comment on what they did to the world and how it crosses over with FFT, but I would like to see an expanded Ivalice with maybe even more to explore (kind of like Final Fantasy IV did with an underground and the lunar surface).
I would also like to see a world map to actually travel on, abolishing the linear style map jumping from point to point, using hotspots on the map to determine where the battles were to take place. Having explorable cities, dungeons, forests, etc. would just make for a far larger game.
Story:
I would like to see the story centralized around a war of sorts. A serious topic makes for a far more excellent game, and war stories always seem well done. It could be done far past the time of Ramza, or even directly following. I won't get into too specific, as the game could be done very well with any sort of storyline as long as it follows the way the first was written. Keep it human (ie. identifiable to those who play it), keep it serious (I hate "stuck in" humour, which is done so often in Hollywood movies. It just seems far-fetched to have it in there.)
Humor with ironic situations and such is alright, just don't overdo it. An example would be Gimli in the Lord of the Rings. His butt of every joke position seemed wrong, designed to bring laughs and lighten the mood, but in effect detracting from the overall experience of the movie. The story should be adult, dark, deep, gritty and above all real. Epic would be a great way to design it. The game should be based on the story, with the characters reacting to it, rather than the story centralized on the characters and having implausible situations happen around them.
I would definately go with more sidequests and such so that the game isn't so linear, with maybe more options on possible endings, depending on who you finished the game with or what quests you did. You could even have different bosses depending on the story branch you took, so that there is a different way to play the game through on a repeat performance.
Characters:
No Steiner characters please! Keep the characters fitting to the story. That said, I want a large cast, much like the first, all with their own backstories. I would rather stay away from the crappy cute/funny/pointless characters (Mog, Amarant, Quinna, etc.) They are alright to have as story elements as long as they are not too prevalent or overdone, but they are not good characters to base a team around. Ultimately 25 to 30 characters would be ideal (including hidden characters), with a list of up to 50 for created ones.
I would like the main character to be a competant person rather than a pretty boy, metrosexual character like Vaan and not a whiney suck like Tidus. I'm thinking more like a Cyan character overall, or General Leo, or Cecil of old.
Hidden characters, I do not care for as much. Seeing Cloud in the first game was a little unsettling, but I can see it was more fanservice than anything, and at least the story didn't centralize on that, and as well you didn't have to get him. But I would rather have hidden characters that are within the game itself and unlockable say with a new game plus sort of idea. Think of playing through Final Fantasy VI and upon beating the game, you had a chance to get General Leo, Seigfried, Banon, Vicks and Wedge even based on certain actions, or possible dialogue options that opened up in new game plus.
I would like to actually take out the monster egg and gaining monsters for your team, unless it was only 1 and a story based event. Having monsters constantly lay eggs and taking up slots for other characters was very annoying rather than neat, and the monsters overall served no purpose because they couldn't gain anything really from leveling up other than a couple of skills, not like characters.
Party and Fighting Area:
I would like the fighting area to be broadened. Think Shining Force like, but not quite that big. As well, I would like more options for limited battles, where you only got a couple of characters to take with you or even larger battles where you could take a ton. I would like to see split style maps, where you had to split your party beforehand and you had to reach an objective with one (or two) parties before the last could progress. Even having a split style for a while like in Final Fantasy VI where you split up your available party members to go in different directions in the story on the map for a while.
Having more meaning to traps and such would be interesting too, to make them more deadly or even more interesting would be neat, and it would give a need for skills to learn to counteract that.
Disgaea had a neat system for party assists and such. I would take that and broaden it to being able to set your characters to be offensive, defensive or middle, so that you could choose to defend a character if you knew he was going to be ganged up on. I would leave out the pyramid system/throwing system as that seems a little too far fetched for the game though.
I would like the map to be fully rotatable and scalable however.
Style:
I could go one of two ways I think. Either keep the same sprite-based design in the first, or else go full bore with fully 3D and more realistic looking characters. I know I wouldn't want the 3D superdeformed ones though (Final Fantasy VII overworld or the upcoming Final Fantasy III). They seem to detract from the serious nature of the story overall.
Using the 3D aspect would enable you to have equipped armor actually have a visual representation on the characters which would be nice too.
Gameplay:
I would definately keep the same style of gameplay. It wouldn't be Tactics without it. I would definately work on the "math" behind the game though. A lot of it was very "glitchy" as to what it displayed and what actually happened (like the percentages of attacking or being hit). I would like more to be done with the birthsigns/brave/faith though, to make them more important to the game somehow.
I would either get rid of the job ideas where you can go to a tavern to lose a character for a while to get something in return, or else I would make it far more in depth, where you can gain new abilities for that character to use (that wouldn't require a slot for example), or more hidden items/places/people and such to unlock through it. It was mostly pointless as it was in the first game, so it should go or either give it a reason to be there.
Classes and Skills:
This is where I would borrow an element from Disgaea and have upgradable classes. I would like more than just a palatte swap though, with having the upgradable classes be more unique from each other. It would also enable a way for you to have those classes that you saw in the game on other story characters but could never get yourself (like Holy Knight or Assassin or Dragon Knight, etc.).
I would like each individual class to have something about it that was more unique though, to give you a reason to play each class, beyond their inherent skillset. Plus you could give each class an ability that is unassignable to another class.
I would probably get rid of the certain sex only classes, just so that neither males nor females had some sort of inherent advantage over the other based on the classes they had access to. Or else I would make the sex only classes different in name only, but their abilities would remain identical.
I would like each created character to maybe get a special ability that is unique to them only as well, to make them feel truly unique (much like Ramza's Guts was different than every other squire's Guts). Make it random, and have a large set of these skills to draw from. Some could be inherent abilities that act passively (like an increase to attack or damage) or it could be a skill that you actively use (like a special attack that only he could do). Make each "list" of accessable skills separate for each class, so that only certain classes have access to certain skills.
You could have some classes and abilities only unlockable on new game plus as well, to give you more reason to play through it again.
Creatures:
I would like to have more variety in creatures definately, beyond just a palette swap. I would also like to see multiple tile sized enemies, so that they can be ganged up on, but it would also make things like Dragons/bosses seem more imposing and such.
New Game Plus:
This is definately something that is needed, but it needs to be expanded upon. You could have different stories show up to be followed, many new areas to explore, new items, new abilities, new classes etc, as well as unlockable characters to use that would give you more reason to play through the game.
Keeping your characters the same level would be nice, but if the cap is only 99, you would probably max out pretty quick, so maybe upping it every new game plus might be neat (although keeping the enemies challenging would be necessary too). Going Disgaea's route might be overkill, unless the enemies can get radically tougher.
Well, I think that's all I've got for now, so tell me what you think, or how you would do the game yourself.
I figured I'd start this thread to share my ideas and see what you all thought, as well as to hopefully get new ones. Mainly as this is one of the greatest games in existence and they haven't made a true sequel to it (which is a huge crime against humanity in my opinion,
), I figure it'd be fun to muse what a second Tactics would be like.I guess since I posted the thread, I'll start.
Locale:
I would like the game to stay in Ivalice, but much broader. Granted, I haven't experienced FFXII yet, so I can't comment on what they did to the world and how it crosses over with FFT, but I would like to see an expanded Ivalice with maybe even more to explore (kind of like Final Fantasy IV did with an underground and the lunar surface).
I would also like to see a world map to actually travel on, abolishing the linear style map jumping from point to point, using hotspots on the map to determine where the battles were to take place. Having explorable cities, dungeons, forests, etc. would just make for a far larger game.
Story:
I would like to see the story centralized around a war of sorts. A serious topic makes for a far more excellent game, and war stories always seem well done. It could be done far past the time of Ramza, or even directly following. I won't get into too specific, as the game could be done very well with any sort of storyline as long as it follows the way the first was written. Keep it human (ie. identifiable to those who play it), keep it serious (I hate "stuck in" humour, which is done so often in Hollywood movies. It just seems far-fetched to have it in there.)
Humor with ironic situations and such is alright, just don't overdo it. An example would be Gimli in the Lord of the Rings. His butt of every joke position seemed wrong, designed to bring laughs and lighten the mood, but in effect detracting from the overall experience of the movie. The story should be adult, dark, deep, gritty and above all real. Epic would be a great way to design it. The game should be based on the story, with the characters reacting to it, rather than the story centralized on the characters and having implausible situations happen around them.
I would definately go with more sidequests and such so that the game isn't so linear, with maybe more options on possible endings, depending on who you finished the game with or what quests you did. You could even have different bosses depending on the story branch you took, so that there is a different way to play the game through on a repeat performance.
Characters:
No Steiner characters please! Keep the characters fitting to the story. That said, I want a large cast, much like the first, all with their own backstories. I would rather stay away from the crappy cute/funny/pointless characters (Mog, Amarant, Quinna, etc.) They are alright to have as story elements as long as they are not too prevalent or overdone, but they are not good characters to base a team around. Ultimately 25 to 30 characters would be ideal (including hidden characters), with a list of up to 50 for created ones.
I would like the main character to be a competant person rather than a pretty boy, metrosexual character like Vaan and not a whiney suck like Tidus. I'm thinking more like a Cyan character overall, or General Leo, or Cecil of old.
Hidden characters, I do not care for as much. Seeing Cloud in the first game was a little unsettling, but I can see it was more fanservice than anything, and at least the story didn't centralize on that, and as well you didn't have to get him. But I would rather have hidden characters that are within the game itself and unlockable say with a new game plus sort of idea. Think of playing through Final Fantasy VI and upon beating the game, you had a chance to get General Leo, Seigfried, Banon, Vicks and Wedge even based on certain actions, or possible dialogue options that opened up in new game plus.
I would like to actually take out the monster egg and gaining monsters for your team, unless it was only 1 and a story based event. Having monsters constantly lay eggs and taking up slots for other characters was very annoying rather than neat, and the monsters overall served no purpose because they couldn't gain anything really from leveling up other than a couple of skills, not like characters.
Party and Fighting Area:
I would like the fighting area to be broadened. Think Shining Force like, but not quite that big. As well, I would like more options for limited battles, where you only got a couple of characters to take with you or even larger battles where you could take a ton. I would like to see split style maps, where you had to split your party beforehand and you had to reach an objective with one (or two) parties before the last could progress. Even having a split style for a while like in Final Fantasy VI where you split up your available party members to go in different directions in the story on the map for a while.
Having more meaning to traps and such would be interesting too, to make them more deadly or even more interesting would be neat, and it would give a need for skills to learn to counteract that.
Disgaea had a neat system for party assists and such. I would take that and broaden it to being able to set your characters to be offensive, defensive or middle, so that you could choose to defend a character if you knew he was going to be ganged up on. I would leave out the pyramid system/throwing system as that seems a little too far fetched for the game though.
I would like the map to be fully rotatable and scalable however.
Style:
I could go one of two ways I think. Either keep the same sprite-based design in the first, or else go full bore with fully 3D and more realistic looking characters. I know I wouldn't want the 3D superdeformed ones though (Final Fantasy VII overworld or the upcoming Final Fantasy III). They seem to detract from the serious nature of the story overall.
Using the 3D aspect would enable you to have equipped armor actually have a visual representation on the characters which would be nice too.
Gameplay:
I would definately keep the same style of gameplay. It wouldn't be Tactics without it. I would definately work on the "math" behind the game though. A lot of it was very "glitchy" as to what it displayed and what actually happened (like the percentages of attacking or being hit). I would like more to be done with the birthsigns/brave/faith though, to make them more important to the game somehow.
I would either get rid of the job ideas where you can go to a tavern to lose a character for a while to get something in return, or else I would make it far more in depth, where you can gain new abilities for that character to use (that wouldn't require a slot for example), or more hidden items/places/people and such to unlock through it. It was mostly pointless as it was in the first game, so it should go or either give it a reason to be there.
Classes and Skills:
This is where I would borrow an element from Disgaea and have upgradable classes. I would like more than just a palatte swap though, with having the upgradable classes be more unique from each other. It would also enable a way for you to have those classes that you saw in the game on other story characters but could never get yourself (like Holy Knight or Assassin or Dragon Knight, etc.).
I would like each individual class to have something about it that was more unique though, to give you a reason to play each class, beyond their inherent skillset. Plus you could give each class an ability that is unassignable to another class.
I would probably get rid of the certain sex only classes, just so that neither males nor females had some sort of inherent advantage over the other based on the classes they had access to. Or else I would make the sex only classes different in name only, but their abilities would remain identical.
I would like each created character to maybe get a special ability that is unique to them only as well, to make them feel truly unique (much like Ramza's Guts was different than every other squire's Guts). Make it random, and have a large set of these skills to draw from. Some could be inherent abilities that act passively (like an increase to attack or damage) or it could be a skill that you actively use (like a special attack that only he could do). Make each "list" of accessable skills separate for each class, so that only certain classes have access to certain skills.
You could have some classes and abilities only unlockable on new game plus as well, to give you more reason to play through it again.
Creatures:
I would like to have more variety in creatures definately, beyond just a palette swap. I would also like to see multiple tile sized enemies, so that they can be ganged up on, but it would also make things like Dragons/bosses seem more imposing and such.
New Game Plus:
This is definately something that is needed, but it needs to be expanded upon. You could have different stories show up to be followed, many new areas to explore, new items, new abilities, new classes etc, as well as unlockable characters to use that would give you more reason to play through the game.
Keeping your characters the same level would be nice, but if the cap is only 99, you would probably max out pretty quick, so maybe upping it every new game plus might be neat (although keeping the enemies challenging would be necessary too). Going Disgaea's route might be overkill, unless the enemies can get radically tougher.
Well, I think that's all I've got for now, so tell me what you think, or how you would do the game yourself.
