Better Late than Never...

[Wolf Kanno]

So I just finally finished FFTA2 last night and can only say that I'm a bit disappointed. I was halfway through the battle with Illua when it dawned on me that this might be the beginning of the final battle. Damn the story in this game is short... and all over the place.

On the gameplay side, I felt it was a vast improvement over TA but it still has the same damn problems. It takes forever to unlock good abilites for good classes and their is definetly some balancing issues (Why are Humes and Viera like the best races? Why does the game feel like it has to punish the Nu Muo? Will moogles ever be more than just spectacle race?).

It is at least not as bad as TA. I was able to actually master Black Mage within a reasonable amount of time instead of having to wait 40+ hours after the story had finished for the item to drop to teach me the -aga- spells. The law system is fun in a different way. Auction houses are fun and the Bazaar system really helped this game.

My main problem was its rather lack luster story. The first half is introducing all the elements of gameplay and when something finally interesting does happen, the game ends almost four story missions later. I was hoping to learn more about Khamja and the Rift but they felt more like a means to an end rather than actually important elements. Even Adelle's story doesn't really go anywhere. I had more fun playing through the optional missions than the actual story. Duelhorn, Frimelda, the Bonga Bugle were all great but the actual main plot was pretty boring and dull.

Of course, I feel this may stem from the same problem I had with TA, in that the game was designed solely to be a "pick up and go" game and thus it called for a very unfocused story and experience. What really bothers me is that I felt TA2 had a much better cast than TA yet TA has the better story.

I don't hate the game or dislike it cause overall, the side missions made it a truly wonderful experience but overall I was a bit dissapointed. My thoughts as the credits rolled at the end was simply "That's it?"

I now hope Revenant Wings won't be as bad...

So what are your thoughts on TA2?

[RedPouch]

I have to admit that I haven't even had the chance to play this game yet. Though it is sitting right here not too far from my right elbow, now that I look at the games on my desk.

[Yar]

I played probably two missions before ultimately giving it away to my younger brother.

I like to hear Tama2 being tortured by it though. :D

[Bolivar]

I still haven't gotten it, hell, I'm still playing Dragon Quest IV.

Sorry to hear the story is lackluster, but it's a portable game on the DS, what do you expect. It doesn't have to be too great to meet my expectations for that kind of game, despite what was done in TA.

I hope this game is $10 soon.

[Zeromus_X]

The story is kind of bad, especially compared to TA. I feel like some of the side missions would have made a better story than the main one. But it doesn't matter to me because this game is really fun. I still need to complete the rest of the missions sometime.

[Wolf Kanno]

The game is quite impressive for a handheld, in fact as Zeromus and my original post stated, side stories are far more rewarding and interesting than the main one. That is why its a bit baffling to me.

The gameplay is an improvement over TA but I still have issues cause I feel the game places a bandaid on the issues I disliked (Skill system, AP accumulation) and outright cripples other things (party starts battles with 0mp meaning all mages have to wait a few rounds to cast spells).

Its still lacks balance and caters too much to casual fans of the genre.

[NeoTifa]

Havent played and I'm not planning on it. TA1 was horrible.

[Skyblade]

There are a lot of improvements. AP accumulation, the law system, and a bunch of other gameplay features all get a much needed boost. There are some ..questionable... changes as well, such as the zero MP at battle's start, despite no overall boost to magical abilities to compensate for that. But there are Passive Abilities and Privileges to help with that, so it's not all bad.

The characters are fun and engaging, and the sidequests are brilliant. But the main story does feel criminally short. It didn't matter much on my initial playthrough, as I was playing through all the sidequests as I did the story, so it took me a while to get through it, and I didn't realize how short it was. Nor did I care because the sidequests are incredibly fun. This time however, I'm playing through the game faster (so I can get the bonus characters at a lower level and stat train them better, which is quite a challenge on Hard), and I'm struck by how criminally short the story is. It doesn't conclude anything. Luso's story ends abruptly and we get no closure on the major plot elements from Ivalice's side. I mean, Luso gets home and it's all fine and dandy, but we never learn what really behind the rift, the monster, or the grimoires (and I'm still wondering about all the minor changes made to Ivalice between the two games. Part of it makes it seem like it's been a long time, but Mewt is still around in the real world, and Ezel's still around in Ivalice, so it can't be too long, in which case, why did it change so much?).

Great game, with some welcome improvements on a lot of the gameplay. But there is definitely more to explore here, and I hope we will get a third that will expand the story and the world some (once I complete my new playthrough I'll be figuring out just how the two games connect and continue my old sequel from there).

As for Wolf's idea that the cast of A2 was better than the original... Not a chance! Sure, the new villain is an improvement, but we lose Ritz, Shara, Judgemaster Cid (vast improvement over the new Cid), and Babus! They were great characters. I like some of the new additions. Adelle and Hurdy were great, and Montblanc returns, but as long as they were bringing old characters back, I would like to see all of my former clanmates returning. Or at least let us know they're still out there.

[Wolf Kanno]

I agree we need a third entry cause FFTA2 is a fun game. My only gripes with the gameplay was the 0mp at the beginning of battle which outright cripple the Nu Muo and thanks to Blood Price, makes the Viera once again, the most practical mage class. I also felt the game suffers from the same imbalance from its predecessor with some of the job classes being incredibly overpowered from the start. Not to mention I feel the creators favor the Viera, Humes, and Bangaa. Though the new races were definetly fun I still wish the FFTA series had a more practical way of acquiring new units.

As for the cast, I just happen to like Luso and the gang more, they had a good chemistry and while I agree Cid was better in the previous game, I never cared for Shara and Babus nor did I ever like Doned. I think Ritz, Marche, and Cid were about the only characters I really liked and even then I have conflictions with them. Whereas, I like the whole cast of FFTA2, with the exception of Illud who is interesting but poorly developed.

[Skyblade]

Nu Mou are certainly not useless. Not with acces to the Arcanist job and its Level 3 Dark, which, since level 99 is the max character level means... Ta-da! Endless Lv? S-Flare has returned.

As for the zero MP thing, there is easy access to Half MP, and there are good clan privileges for MP with MP Efficiency and MP Channelling. I think the zero MP at the start of battle was meant to cripple the Ultima-spam-wins more than anything else, to be honest. By level 50, a clan in FFTA could win a battle in one round by just using Ultima. Now, most of the cheap spells are availible in one turn anyway, and several of the more expensive ones will get there with Half MP. And with the addition of things like Magic Frenzy Illusionists, MP does need some restrictions. I just think that Nu Mou should have access to a better MP regen or something similar to make up for the new magic restrictions.

The bazaar system may still make some items difficult to comeby, but it is far better than FFTA's system (and it is also far better than FFXII's bazaar).

[Jiro]

I had my eye on this game, but then life happened and I never even saw a copy. I plan on picking it up cheap at one point, because I was probably one of the few who really enjoyed TA. From reading this though, it seems some of the faults I picked with it were fixed up and it should prove to be enjoyable for me once again.

[Skyblade]

It fixed a ton of flaws with FFTA. The only thing it really failed on, in my opinion, was the main storyline. It's not a bad story, but it is exceptionally short (you'll be able to figure out within the first three missions that there are only 20 missions in it, by looking at your quest report and journal) and feels a little incomplete, in my opinion.

But the side-quests more than make up for it. This game is made for the side quests. There is a huge variety of subquests, a large number of incredible quest chains, and they all drag you in and just let you have fun. Instead of just dispatching or fighting, you get quests to deliver items, explore the world map, hunt up in-game lore, run a shop, and other incredibly fun objectives. There is, of course, still plenty of fighting, but even then, it never gets boring. You get to hunt the oversized marks (like the giant cockatrice [or crushatrice, as it is known in the game] that you remember from the trailers), take part in speed fights where you have to land the killing blow on an opponent before an allied clan does, protect allies and inanimate objects from your enemies, and retrieve items and treasures lost in the fields during the fight. And more. The quest objectives are many and varied, and they are all fun. The writing in them is excellent. You get funny and ridiculous moments, but also deeply moving ones. Even the minor characters are paid attention to enough to give them a personality, and it just engrosses you in the world.

Sorry for going on and on there, but I love this game's approach to sidequests. While it would be nice if the main story was longer, I wish more games would put the sheer number of detailed sidequests into them that we get in this one. It made the world come alive.

[Heath]

I finished the game about a fortnight ago and so I'll chip in with this thread rather than creating a new one.

As a game, I found FFTA2 to be an enjoyable, pleasant game that was an overall improvement on the first. I liked the bazaar, the new jobs and the characters. The mix of music from FFTA and FFXII was also a nice touch, I thought. Might have been pieces from FFT in there too, but I've not played it and wouldn't know. The story wasn't fantastic though. I had the exact same experience of disappointing realisation as Wolf Kanno in the final battle. Some of the side missions were good and I really like the Frimelda missions, but I felt that the developers were planning something quite fun and interesting and then felt they had to end the story in about three missions. While there's certainly no shortage of things to do, I really did expect something a bit better from the story itself. I wasn't a huge fan of how they threw Vaan and Penelo in there either, I don't like the characters that much and I thought it would've been better if they'd brought in some new characters instead. Felt like they were included for the sake of including them.

[Wolf Kanno]

I actually liked Vaan and Penelo, ooh and Al-Cid too! I don't care much for the whole of the Ivalice ALLiance (well at least not Revenant Wings :roll2 ) but I did enjoy watching Vaan and Penelo grow up. Though it would have been amusing to see Balthier appear and show Vaan up in FFTA2. I just wish Basch got this much love. He's like one of the fan favorite characters in XII and has yet to make a cameo appearance outside of XII (Unless you want to count his lame role in RW :( )

[Heath]

Perhaps I wouldn't have minded so much had it been Fran and Balthier that had shown up instead and it's simply that I'm not a fan of Vaan and Penelo, though I think I still would've preferred some original characters instead.

[squigels69]

First off, I just want to say that I spent probably over 1000 hours playing FFTA and it was hands down the best RPG I have ever played (across any console).


Secondly, I want to agree about the story line missions. They are rather unfocused and dull, but at the same time, if you complete side missions as they come up, instead of just barreling through the story missions, you actually can complete a good portion of them before you reach the end of the game. I was at about 250 missions completed when I did the final story mission. It detracted from the main story a bit and actually made the story seem more complete.

It actually felt more like a game this time around, even though I love FFTA still.

Now, onto the things I am unhappy about.

- The MP is terrible. The one thing I truly hated about it was the fact that you never EVER get to a point where you can use your powerful magic abilities. Add to that the fact that No Mou are the slowest, and it makes it so you can't use stuff on demand. My starting No Mou ended up mastering both white and black magic, and I only ever use the black magic on easy fights. Otherwise I spend turn after turn healing and rezzing people.

- The laws are irrelevant. Almost every scenario where there is a law, you can easily avoid breaking it, and even if you do break it, there is no real consequence. Your characters can't die in this one, and that was a disappointment. Made no sense to follow laws unless they were part of completing the mission.

- On the brightmoon towers, the monsters are too powerful. They often get multiple turns each before your characters even get one. By the time you get to the 2nd tower, your characters aren't even close to lvl 99, and they are all just about dead before you even get a turn. Not to mention the monsters completely drain any MP you had saved from the previous rounds.

- Moogles are the worst race in the game. Between FFTA and FFTA2 I am at odds with what to use them for. I ultimately settle on going through time mage and black mage, but it just didn't feel right this time around, especially since they get no supporting abilities. I would rather have them improve moogles than added seeq and gria (which I didn't even bother with.)

- The bazaar system was somewhat of an improvement, but you should have been able to see what each one gives and what it costs before you plug in your loot. A lot of the good weapons and armor took a long time to get. On the plus side, it did make getting certain things way easier once you got to a certain point.

- The thief class was just destroyed this time around, same with the alchemist. The time mage abilities were nerfed considerably. Instead of having area buffs/debuffs, most of them were made single target only. I also miss my old dragoon/time mage combo of mirror mail and quicken.

- Debuff abilities were normalized so that no matter where you stand they have the same chance of hitting. I did not like this. I prefer having an increased chance of hitting from behind. Most of the debuff abilities have too low of a hit percentage.

- Defender class abilities didn't used to have a MP cost, now they do. This was a crappy change for those of us who used aura/meltdown on monsters. Especially since meltdown only has a 50% chance to hit now.


I better stop now, I could go on forever. For the most part, all these things were minor annoyances, and I hope they come out with another one.

This will keep me occupied until Golden Sun comes out for DS.