One of my favorite RPGs is Final Fantasy Tactics. I love this game, but there's a problem: I've already played it. What I would really like is a proper sequel to this game with the original gameplay, graphics, and tones left intact. What we got is a lazy, boring, dysfunctional POS for kids called Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. What a stupid title. It reeks.
The original Final Fantasy Tactics did some really good things for RPGs and videogames. It told a great story and provided a lot of fun and challenge. You play as a young noble, Ramza. He's a squire training to become a knight like his father so he can carry on the family legacy of leading the Hokuten, an army of knights, and uphold justice. Ramza never becomes a knight because he becomes disillusioned with society during some of his early experiences of the battlefield and leaves his life behind to become a mercenary. That's when he discovers the dark inner workings of leaders and authorities when he has to protect a princess from being assassinated by some of her enemies while protecting her from others who would exploit her rank and title. He also has to rescue his sister who is abducted by a warlord and expose the church and governments for the corrupt entities that they are. The overall war that takes place during the story is motivated by greed, and both sides are take advantage of the people while being manipulated by someone even higher up.
The game is rated T and it tells a serious story any adult can appreciate. This story has some dark themes to it. At some point, Ramza even becomes a Heretic. There's also a framing device where a narrator, a scholar named Arazlam, begins by telling you about a period in the history of Ivalice, called the Lion War. It's widely believed that a single hero rose from a commoner to a king and ended the war, but that's a lie. Arazlam discovered the real story which was suppressed by the church and shares it with the world to finally give due credit to those who have gone without proper recognition for hundreds of years and put an end to the churches lie.
To me, FFT is a realistic period piece with fantasy elements to it, rather than a fantasy story. It's as if Christopher Nolan directed it. The only complaints I have with this game are minor: Some localization issues and some characters whose roles in the story disappear as soon as they join your party.
The next tactics game we got from Square was bologna. Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced for the gameboy advanced (gba) is garbage. First let's address that it's a gba game and as such it is technically inferior to it's predecessor which was on the PS1. Also unlike it's predecessor, this game has an E rating. This leads us to the biggest problem - the story. FFT had a story worth your time, but FFTA has a story I would hesitate to call OK. There are almost no serious or significant themes. One of the main character's major conflict is her goddamn hair color. True to typical children stories, FFTA aims low. The art complements it's kid-friendly approach. The colors are bright and happy, the character designs are particularly cutesie, the music is light-hearted, and the sound effects almost have a silly or fun quality to them. Also, the fights in this game are presented more like a sport than actual combat.
The story is lame. The plot is our hero and his new friends from school read a final fantasy related book, which comes across as a crude break of the 4th wall. After reading it, one of them wishes the real world was like a final fantasy game and that night it comes true. The next moring, our main character Marche is confused when he wakes up in the middle of an unfamiliar street dressed like video game character, then he accidently calls someone a bad word and gets into a fight. After that, a Moogle (an iconic animal species of FF series) asks Marche to join his new team of adventurers called a "clan." Marche wants to learn more about how he got here and how to go home while occasionally meeting familiar faces.
The game's story is delivered in a strange way. Instead of a linear plot unraveling as you consistently progress, you visit Pubs and look at Job Postings and accept various Jobs for your clan that range from finding herbs to catching a thief and returning his overdue library books. You don't know which job postings will move the story forward and which ones will just give you busywork.
In case you don't care about the bad story, gameplay sucks too. The gameplay has been changed significantly so it hardly resembles the original. In FFT, you could unlock up to 21 classes. This was easy, fun, and rewarding. In FFTA, there are as many classes, but they're not as easily accessible, available, or interesting. For a Final Fantasy first, there are different races: Humans, Moogles, LizardMen(not the sexy kind), BunnyGirls(also not the sexy kind), and the Heffalumps from Winnie the Pooh, except they're dopey looking. Each race has access to certain classes, so if you want to have access to all the classes in the game, you need to have at least one character for every race. You need access to all the classes in order to meet certan requirements for certain job postings. Some classes are nothing special, just a slightly different versions of the same class that belongs to another race. At the end of the day, all this really amounts to a ton of busy work. Better get cracking, asshole!
The busywork in this game is overwhelming and distracts from the main plot so much so, that at the end of the day, the story feels like a poor excuse just to create a game about achieving random accomplishments and busywork. My fury is compounded by how slow paced the battles are in FFTA compared to FFT. The features of each class have also been changed, limited, or nerfed.
Another aspect of this gameplay I hate is the Laws and Judges. Laws are ridiculous rules about what you can and cannot do in a fight, such as "no hitting." There's really a law that says you can't use your attack command! Judges are assholes who enforce these stupid rules. This doesn't make the game any more interesting or challenging to me, it just makes it even more painful. At some point you meet some magical asshole who develops anti-laws and sells them for your left butt cheek. Get this, you use an anti-law to nullify a law you don't like. How the hell do I nullify a law? This is a vaguely defined, abstract idea. The anti-laws come in the form of playing cards. All you do is wave it and it disappears and changes the law. I can just see myself waving a Playing Card so I can shoplift at Wal-Mart. Even if you're brawling with a group of wild monsters, a judge magically appears to enforce the "no hitting" law. It's bullshit and I hate it.
Something else that bothers me about this Final Fantasy Failure is another failed attempt at character customization. In various FF games they attempt to build in a way for the player to customize their characters to build a dream party to suit their play style. Well it doesn't work because no matter how much emphasis you put on attack power or speed in this game, you won't notice it till late game and by the end, having a powerful fighter doesn't let you KO enemies in one hit and having a very fast character doesn't let you get in extra turns. What you end up with is typical strong yet slow character and a weak but fast character. If I had known that, I would have put more work into creating more well rounded characters so they wouldn't be crippled by having only one strength and many weaknesses.
I didn't finish the game because at some point it really sunk in how worthless this game is. By the middle of the game you discover the real enemy is one of your friends from school. He's the one who made the wish that started the whole mess. When his wish was granted, he became a prince, his father became king and head-judge, and his mom came back to life. The little asshole is so happy to be with his mom again that he's actually forgotten what life was like before he made the wish. Actually, I imagine there's some plot cliche about how he's actually a victim somehow, and the really real villain is manipulating him so he can feed off his joy or take over the world or some shit.
What I really want from Square for the Tactics spinoff franchise is for it to be taken seriously. I want a sequel that is true to the spirit of the original and I don't trust modern day Square Enix to have the ability. FFT falls under the genre StrategyRPG or TacticsRPG. There aren't very many TacticsRPGs out there. FFT wasn't the first TacticsRPG, but it was the best, and the only one I can actually play.
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