Compare and contrast...

[Wolf Kanno]

We now have three members of the FFT franchise and I was curious (blackmailed) into knowing what EoFF felt was good about each entry and what was bad. Please try to list something good and bad. Also refrain from the "thank god it was short" or "the best part was shutting it off" No one thinks you are cute... Just smelly, and do you really want to be the smelly kid in the forum you unwashed heathen?! :mad2:

I'll list mine in awhile, I still need to gather my thoughts.

[Skyblade]

Well, I'll start with one strength for each game, but if the thread is popular enough there is certainly more for me to bring up.

Final Fantasy Tactics: Plot. While it might seem odd coming from myself, I actually like a lot of the storyline of FFT. The War of the Lions is a truly epic confrontation, and your little band fights through an incredibly deep and moving story of betrayal, murder, and manipulation. It had some aspects that truly annoyed me, but overall, an incredibly good story, with quality, detail, and length that I would like to see in the next FFTactics game.

FFTA: Combat. Excluding the laws, FFTA's combat system was brilliant. It brought some much needed balance to the job system, and encouraged versatility and growth. Combat was swift, brutal, and fun, until you got to the heavy law sections, which were far too restrictive. FFTA's combat in general (minus laws) beats out TA2's, IMO, because TA2 unbalances the job system again by forcing magic users to start with zero MP, and workarounds for that were too restrictive.

FFTA2: The world. Being placed in the newly envisioned FFXII Ivalice gave this game some nice set up, and let the writers just have fun with the world. They took every opportunity to make the world as incredible as they could. From their villains, to their comic relief characters, to their bit-part players, ever NPC was written well and none of them seemed out of place. The game balanced light-hearted fun with dark emotional points, and generally did everything it could to make Ivalice a place that I just love to explore.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm going to do my best to keep this short and I'll expand on my statements if asked.

FFTactics
Pros: Great classes, battle system, story and well almost everything really. :p

Cons: Mages require three times as much effort to be good or just useful. Yes you can cheat and just level until you get Calculator/Mathematician and then use their abilites but I like being able to utilize classes without its aid cause I feel using said class shows the classes have an inherent flaw. You can make any of the classes great without the Cal/Math class but it takes a ton of work due to dealing with spell cast times and all the other factors that affect magic.

FFTAdvance
Pros: Surprisingly deep story, love the introduction of the races. The Law system was fun an interesting to use. Mages lost cast time and can fight on par with their melee brethren.

Cons: Streamlined and imbalanced job classes, I just didn't feel the system was as deep as its predecessor. Hate the ability learning system and the limited inventory for Quest items...

FFTA2
Pros: New races, some cool new classes that involve more strategy. Great world design and the side missions are generally better than the main plot. Improvements over FFTA across the board...

Cons: Except I feel TA2 only places a band aid over the problems from its predecessor. Job classes are still unbalanced, the 0mp rule cripples mages, and despite making it easier to get equipment and AP it still doesn't fix the fact that the system creates major problems for customization and progress through the job class system. I just feel the TA series needs to go back to Tactics and utilize the old job class system (where the player chooses his own abilites and has more control over progression) cause I feel the current system still has the same faults as TA. Also, the main plot is pretty disappointing...

[Skyblade]

FFT
Pros:
Stat Optimization: The appearance of level 1 recruits and the ability to lower character's levels to stat train differently meant you had far more character optimization abilities in FFT than you did in either of the other games.
Job System: The job system was well set up, and featured nice transitions from base jobs to more powerful ones. The unique jobs were plentiful and useful, and fitted well with their respective characters.

Cons:
Battle System: There was a fair amount of needless complication to the battle system, most notably the Zodiac system and the Faith/Brave system, and the Charge system really butchered the usefullness of a lot of jobs.
Ability System: Gaining abilities in FFT was one of the more annoying grinds I've done in a Final Fantasy game. While the job system itself was fairly well set up, the actual system for gaining JP was implemented poorly.


FFTA
Pros:
Balance: FFTA's job system was the most balanced of them all. Every job in the game was useful in some way, either for stat growth, ability set, or availible equipment. FFTA claims this over FFTA2's because of the change to the MP system.

Cons:
Item/Ability Acquisition: While I felt the method of gaining abilities was much improved from FFT, the fact that abilities were tied to items and items were acquired randomly meant that your clan could be crippled because of bad luck, or unable to find particular items for a very long time (I know that I didn't get Blizzaga until after I beat the game in my first playthrough).
Law System: While it was an interesting change to make to the battle system, the laws became far too restrictive, especially as you progressed to the game's end. Law Cards were hard to find, rarely matched up with the laws you faced, and too expensive to trade. That, combined with the severe penalties (in addition to losing units, you could lose items, exp, gil, stats...) for lawbreaking, made the law system too much of a hindrance to most gamers.


FFTA2:
Pros:
Law System: The law system was much more refined in FFTA2. The penalites for breaking it were much less severe than in FFTA, but the benefit to following them was still there. They would aid in combat while you followed them, but always in a small way, and the item rewards were small enough that players could ignore the law system without too much problem. They enhanced the combat system, they didn't dictate the way battles went (except in a few missions where you aren't allowed to break the law, but that was done on purpose).
Item/Ability Acquisition: I really feel that FFTA2 had the best ability system of any of the FFT games. The Bazaar system was much more thought out than FFXII's, and you could see exactly what you needed to unlock various items. Loot was easily availible (though never plentiful unless you used a lot of thieves), but not so abundantly so that you could unlock everything in a few missions. Rather than dumping all your loot on the first items you could unlocked, you were encouraged to look over what items you could get, and balance the need for those items over other items you could unlock. It gave incredible flexibility to the character customization system. When combined with the fixed rewards of the missions, it meant that finding particular items or abilities was far less of a hassle than it was in FFTA, and didn't need the long in-combat grind of FFT.

Cons:
Main Story: The main story builds slowly, introducing more elements, and providing an excellent learning curve for the game's systems. Then, around two thirds to three quarters of the way through, you get the feeling that the people writing it were told that they only had a few more missions left to finish the story. The climax builds extremely swiftly, and ends far too soon. There is a lot of plot info that I feel was left out, and a lot of potential for expansion of the main story that never occurs.

[Wolf Kanno]

I feel where I differ with you is that I actually enjoyed grinding and purchasing abilites in FFT, whereas I felt FFTA not only limited your ability to gain AP but also what skills you have access to. I prefer FFT for its ability to empower the player if they please as opposed to the FFTA and its sequel which hinder your choices and options. Even though TA2 did alot to make it less annoying I still found myself with great job classes with rare situational skills as opposed to what I needed. My completionist OCD doesn't help either... :(

[Darkswordofchaos]

I loved fft it had an engrossing story and good charachter development and depth one of the better ff storys imo.

FFA2 had fantastic game play and alaround good gaming

i didnt really care for ffta it wasent a bad game just not really for me

[Skyblade]

I disliked abilities in FFT because it was nothing but "grind". In FFTA2, you don't get access to everything at the beginning. In some ways, this is annoying, because the best jobs for stat training are locked until later in the game (stupid Parivirs). But in other ways, it is much more fun for me. Rather than spending three hours at the start of the game mindlessly performing the same actions over and over again (Chakra spam, anyone?) to gain JP, I get to fight the battles as battles, and I get AP afterward. You can't unlock all the abilities right away, so you get some customization to pick and choose where to focus your strengths. You get enough freedom that you can unlock whatever ability you choose, but you can't just unlock them all immediately. It allows greater customization, prevents super characters early on, and discourages mindless grinding.

I mean, as long as all the abilities are availible at the beginning, why didn't they just give us all the abilities and skip the mindless farm fest?

I'm not expressing myself very well on this point, unfortunately, and, even worse, I'm drifting away from focusing on the positive aspects and how the games would relate to the next in the series, so let's get back to the topic.


Secret Characters: This point applies to all of the games, so I'll go over them all. The special characters are great. Unique jobs, unique sprites, great personalities, and fun missions to unlock them. But they aren't perfect.

First, limited story after they join you. With these awesome characters, it's a shame that they never show up in any of the plot scenes after the join you. For some of them, they join so late that it doesn't matter, but I would like to see at least small appearances in the stories after they join up. Take Frimelda. When your clan is sitting around the cities after the missions, she should be there if you have her, and get a couple lines. Same thing with Ezel in FFTA (others aren't availible until after you beat the game in that one).

Second, let them join at low levels. You usually don't get these guys until late in the game, and picking them up at too high a level to stat train means that they tend to be weaker than the rest of your team.

[Wolf Kanno]

I disliked abilities in FFT because it was nothing but "grind". In FFTA2, you don't get access to everything at the beginning. In some ways, this is annoying, because the best jobs for stat training are locked until later in the game (stupid Parivirs). But in other ways, it is much more fun for me. Rather than spending three hours at the start of the game mindlessly performing the same actions over and over again (Chakra spam, anyone?) to gain JP, I get to fight the battles as battles, and I get AP afterward. You can't unlock all the abilities right away, so you get some customization to pick and choose where to focus your strengths. You get enough freedom that you can unlock whatever ability you choose, but you can't just unlock them all immediately. It allows greater customization, prevents super characters early on, and discourages mindless grinding.

I mean, as long as all the abilities are availible at the beginning, why didn't they just give us all the abilities and skip the mindless farm fest?

I'm not expressing myself very well on this point, unfortunately, and, even worse, I'm drifting away from focusing on the positive aspects and how the games would relate to the next in the series, so let's get back to the topic.

I feel the system is more to my liking cause I can go in grab what I want and leave the rest of the non-essential skills for when I need to do stat boosting. Thieves irritated me to no end in TA cause I stuck learning their useless skills when I would have preferred to get their steal equipment abilites (They are even more obnoxious in TA2). Paladin's are another class with a few decent starting abilites and some excellent abilites that the TA series won't let you touch until 30+ hours into the game or if I get extremely lucky...

Grinding also has its perks due to some stat manipulation from Faith and Brave but I also I found I can learn how to use a class better through it. I usually take out all enemies but one and then I have a character (usually Mustadio) incapacitate the last guy and then let my party go FFII on each other. It shortens grinding a bit and allows you to experiment with skills and really check the classes out. You can do this in the TA series as well but you lose the short term goals of gaining extra JP/EXP since TA feels those need to be ration out equally. I like straight up battles but I feel my grinding set up allowed me to learn the game better and I enjoy coming up with new methods of using classes and party setups by practicing on each other.

Beyond that, I just try not to go overboard. I usually wait until I notice my party has enough JP to purchase a skill and go on if even that. Its all about finding your own pace. ;)



Secret Characters: This point applies to all of the games, so I'll go over them all. The special characters are great. Unique jobs, unique sprites, great personalities, and fun missions to unlock them. But they aren't perfect.

First, limited story after they join you. With these awesome characters, it's a shame that they never show up in any of the plot scenes after the join you. For some of them, they join so late that it doesn't matter, but I would like to see at least small appearances in the stories after they join up. Take Frimelda. When your clan is sitting around the cities after the missions, she should be there if you have her, and get a couple lines. Same thing with Ezel in FFTA (others aren't availible until after you beat the game in that one).

Second, let them join at low levels. You usually don't get these guys until late in the game, and picking them up at too high a level to stat train means that they tend to be weaker than the rest of your team.


I agree that I wish they were part of the story more. TA probably did it the worst, especially since so,e of them lose their special classes or abilites if you change their job class.

As for low levels... it depends. Cloud is a pain in the ass in FFT since you get him incredibly late in the game and his level one doesn't allow him to be useful... You just about have to do my grind strategy just to get him up to par.

I do miss special class quirks, in that a few of them are strong based on different stats. Using Cloud again from FFT as an example... His Limit Break skills damage are all based on his MA stat rather than his Stength. Another great example is Vaan in FFTA2 in that a one of his skills is based on the number of successful steals (just like Zidane's Thievery ability) which makes speed a better stat to raise him in. I just love these quirks and would love to see more of them.

I also like how in FFT, some of the special character have inherent flaws and you needed to utilize the job class system to counter balance them. I just love this cause I felt it was for the veterans of the game who knew the systems well and loved to tinker with the characters.

[Skyblade]

FFTA
Pro: Job UI. I have no idea why the changed the job UI when going from FFTA to FFTA2. It was the same mistake I feel they made when going from FFVII to FFVIII. They go from a nice, easy to pick up, visually appealing system to a purely text based one (Materia to Junction systems for those games). The progress bar is ok, but I really liked the ring selection of the jobs and the stars indicating job mastery. A colorful interface is usually preferable to a bland text one.

FFTA2
Con: FFTA2 loses additional points on the UI for having a broken job mastery indicator. The job mastery progress bar only took into account A-Abilities, which means that you could "Master" a job without knowing any of that job's R-Abilities or S-Abilities, which was a big no-no. Without a strategy guide, it would be nearly impossible to tell whether or not you had every R or S-Ability a job had to offer until you had collected all of the gear in the game, which is a very daunting task.

Pro: This may apply to FFT as well, don't remember, but giving unique classes additional abilities to learn was great. It kept the unique jobs versatile and powerful enough to keep up with the rest of the jobs in the game, without overpowering the unique characters when you get them (as would happen if you had all those abilities in the beginning).

[Bolivar]

FFT: Everything. From the colors they chose on the characters, to the kinds of nouns they used in the translation of any sentence, I felt this game was perfect. I remember when the Playstation version became so rare to find, and I wanted it so badly, and the joy of them re-releasing it as a greatest hit. The first time I threw that disc in and played it, I swear, it was like getting high. Art, story, music, characters, graphics, i love everything about this game. The only thing that saddens me a bit is how at the end it becomes less about strategy and is more just trying to get my best characters to do their ridiculously overpowered moves on the biggest dudes first and then clean up whoever's left.

FFTA - It's an incredible handheld title that does everything it should be. Perhaps what I love most is this amazing world, a different side of Ivalice, with new races, its own jobs, the colorful setting, the joyful music, it's fantastic. But when we get into the specifics of the game, it all falls apart from me. I brought my DS with me on a trip and started playing Rune Factory, got bored, and realizing TA was in my GBA slot, got all excited and booted it up. After about a fight or two I got bored of that as well and almost wanted to throw my DS out the window. Basically I'm at the 3rd or 4th totema where a crystal/thread is, and it's impossible for my dudes to come out on top and I couldn't care less to grind them up and try it again. I just don't care. The fact that they made the menus so complicated to go through diminishes the joy of having my own custom characters I get to build however I want. I don't want to fight ants and lamias and goblins by a riverside anymore. The game just lost all fun for me and I simply can't take another step forward in it.

FFTA2 - which leads me to this game, which I do not own. Having DS anxiety I mentioned, I want to know, is this game good? Is the job system tighter than it was in TA, where you get bombarded with a million items with a million abilities, all of which I couldn't care less about? Is the main story supplemented by mandatory grinding sessions, composed of meaningless battles between monsters and clans, both of which I care so little about I want to throw my DS out of the train? I heard they made the menus more streamlined, and I like how they have the monsters who take up four spaces and such, it just would appear logical that after the first one they would be set to make things a lot better on many fronts, and even take things further with the FFT name. I think it would help a lot if it had more than 2 songs.


Rather than spending three hours at the start of the game mindlessly performing the same actions over and over again (Chakra spam, anyone?)

I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you guys ever used Charge to grind up. I just feel like everything else is too unpredictable, so I just used Charge as everyone's secondary ability as grinding, taking off counter and counter tackle of course for the final enemy trying to get in the way. It just made things go so quick, I would just get enough JP to master a job in one battle and then move on. Plus, since your characters share JP with those around them for a job, anyone who miraculously manages to escape getting enough archer JP for Charge +1 by default would get it just by standing next to the archer. Not only would I quickly build up enough JP for the job the character currently had, but those next to him/her would gain hundreds of JP for that class as well, allowing them to buy the highly sought after counter, support, and movement abilities that usually cost so much but are so utile. I'm sorry, I know all of us have had countless grind strategy discussions over the last few years, but this is the big one that saved me a lot of time on my last play through.

[Wolf Kanno]

FFTA2 - which leads me to this game, which I do not own. Having DS anxiety I mentioned, I want to know, is this game good? Is the job system tighter than it was in TA, where you get bombarded with a million items with a million abilities, all of which I couldn't care less about? Is the main story supplemented by mandatory grinding sessions, composed of meaningless battles between monsters and clans, both of which I care so little about I want to throw my DS out of the train? I heard they made the menus more streamlined, and I like how they have the monsters who take up four spaces and such, it just would appear logical that after the first one they would be set to make things a lot better on many fronts, and even take things further with the FFT name. I think it would help a lot if it had more than 2 songs.

I have some gripes with TA2 but overall, I do feel its a much greater improvement over its predecessor. My main complaint has always been that the main story is short and pretty bland. Many of my main gripes about FFTA's gameplay that I disliked only got band-aids put on them instead of fixing them. Classes are still not balanced, and once again I feel the creators show an unhealthy level of favoritism to the Humes and Viera. The Nu Muo, who were already not one of the fave races from the last game really get nerfed thanks to the games new "No mp when the battle starts" nonsense.

With that said, the missions are much more diverse and fun, its not longer just mindless battles. You deliver items, protect characters, search for items, get into battles where laws actually change the rules of combat in a more fun way (like the Bonga Bugle mission where you can't have anything stolen from a character.) you do delivers and other interesting tasks. There is even a mission where all you are required to do is watch two high level characters have a duel on a volcano that's about to explode. Storylines are much stronger for the side missions and many interconnect to create tales that quickly outshine the main plot.

They also added in two things from XII. Mark hunts are now part of the quests and they brought back the bazaar and retooled it into a thing of beauty. The Bazaar system eases the problem of equipemtn. You still get screwed sometimes (my poor White Monks) but due to having more control over events, you can actually acquire equipment better. The Law system is also vastly changed. The Judge protects your party from dying and getting a game over, you also recive some good bonuses (mostly bazaar goods) for finishing missions with the law intact. You also get to choose a privilage to bring into battle like W-AP, Power +2, Power up Moogles, or the ability to see traps on the field. You get all these rewards as long as you keep the law. Breaking the law makes you lose many of these bonuses but thats it. You don't have to worry about losing battles because your main character uses a Flamesabre in a No-Fire rule battle just so he can get an instant red card and auto game over like in TA :roll2

There are more classes and several really try to bring new elements of gameplay into the battle. A lot of the new classes revolve around support or using status ailments, hence the game does better about keeping strategy at the forefront of gameplay.

There are also special tournaments you can enter to gain new Clan Privelages for battle and a new Territory auction house where you bid for control of territories. Getting said territories nets you bonuses in shops and some extra loot.

Its a vastly superiro game to TA, even the special characters get better unique classes like Penelo's Dancer, Hurdy's Bard, and Al-Cid's Agent class which gets stronger based on how many women you have in your battle party with him...

Its a very different beast of a game. Despite my whining, I still recommend it. Its not Tactics, but its such a vast improvement over TA that I feel you owe yourself to check it out. If you can rent it or get it cheap, do so.

[Bolivar]

Interesting, sounds like they do some really cool things with the battle system, I'll definitely have to do more research on it. I know how highly you though of TA so this must be pretty good for you to call it a vast improvement.

[Raistlin]

Is FFTA2 much better than FFTA? I played a bit of FFTA and while it was good, it just couldn't hold my interest sufficiently to go through it all. If FFTA didn't succeed, would it still be possible for me to really enjoy FFTA2 to make it worth getting?

[Elpizo]

Lessee... I've played all three of em...

Final Fantasy Tactics
Pros: Well, I can't deny a good story when there is one. FFT has an incredible plot, probably the deepest in the entire franchise when it comes to political-based stories. If only FF XII could have maintained this level... Also, the music in this game was excellent, especially during the final battle.

Cons: Gameplay. It's probably because I played this after I played FFTA, but FFT really didn't have any fun gameplay for me. It was hard, which I don't mind, but then they throw in Velius and the game because almost unfair. I won against Velius because I could silence him with Agrias. And then you get Cid and nothing is hard anymore. It's too unbalanced. I didn't like the job system here, either. Some classes had bad abilities, like Dragoon. And mages were useless thanks to the waiting time. I used a Chemist for healing duties throughout the whole game. I just didn't have any fun customizing my troops and I didn't like the way you gained abilities. It all just didn't feel refined enough for me. I won't replay this one, ever, since there's no fun in playing. I played it because people said it was so miles ahead of FFTA, but for me it really, really wasn't. Gameplay killed it.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Pros: Story. Gods, I can't stress this enough. This was my first Final Fantasy, one of my first RPGs (second only after the Golden Sun series) and the story struck a chord with me. I could identify myself with the characters and their problems were far more realistic than people give it credit for. While the plot is relatively simple, the story and its underlying messages have a very mature tone to it, that people don't credit enough. I could understand Marche, why he wanted to go home and how mature he was for realizing it was wrong, but I could understand Mewt too. Ritz was a mixed bag for me, as her hair seemed a pretty silly reason even to me, but I could beat her up later in the game and she redeemed herself for me with "Mortal Snow". It was also great that there was a second ending, it made finishing all the missions very rewarding, as the story it told was pretty neat. The Corrupt Judges was a great story arc.

I enjoyed the world here, too, and I liked the way you could set up your worldmap and that it would give you different results for treasure hunt (yay for Genji gear). The world felt very developed, too. You had different races that populated it, and they lived in a society of clans. You learned a lot about this world, I felt: the monarchy ruled it, the laws kept clans and monsters in check and the different clans 'warred' each other for turf. It was a good explanation for why these clans on the world map wanted to engage with me. I liked that the turf you gained gave you a discount and stuff.

Music was fantastic in this game. Most engagement had upbeat and lighthearted tunes, suiting the battle, but then there were some truly touching themes. Mewt's theme is the prime examle of this, but so is the Crystal's theme or "Incarnation", the final battle theme. A fantastic musical score that is very underrated.

And then there's the gameplay. I LOVED the laws. Yes, you read it. I may be the only person on this blue ball that had NO PROBLEM whatsoever with the laws. Not a single one. It was there and it was good. It made you realize how tight the monarchy's grip was on the land and its inhabitants. It made you feel part of the world: break the law and you'll pay for it. That's realistic. And they could be easily put to your advantage by simple doing one step more on the world map and change the day.

The jobsystem was great. This game, unlike FFT before it, truly allowed streamlined customization and every class could be of some use or had useful abilities. Some more than others, of course. And I admit, some classes were very broken. Assasin, I'm glaring at you. But just like Thunder God Cid, you couldn't use them if you wanted to. I love the way abilities were gained, too. Weapons teaching abilities? Sure, why not? It reminded me of Golden Sun a lot, where special weapons have these special abilities too (like the Sol Blade's Megido, anyone?). And, I'm a FF IX fan, which makes me like this system even more. Sure, it's hard to get some weapons, sometimes impossible even, but I'm not a perfectionist. Mastering jobs is not a must for me. Besides, once I got my Marche excalibur II with Sonic Boom, I didn't need any other abilities anymore. Pwnage right there.

A final thing I liked here were combos. Yup, I liked the fact that your clan could truly operate as a team by ganging up. FFTA2 should be ashamed of not doing this as well.

Cons: Oh, there are very little cons to FFTA. But if there had to be, it's that the main story is too short for my liking, twice as much missions really wouldn't have hurt. ALso, getting mithril weapons is not very easy, but once you figure out the trick, it becomes bearable (engaging clans in wastelands early on seems to give you mithril weapons much easier). In general, the hunt for equipment might be the most annoying thing about FFTA, but given how fantastic this game is, it's easily forgiven. A last thing I do not like is the secret characters. They should be more involved if you get them. I liked the scene between Shara, Marche and Ritz after you get those two girls in your clan. Why couldn't there be more like those?

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
Pros: Gameplay was rather enjoyable, though a big step back from FFTA. Practically all I liked about FFTA was taken away here. The music was still good, especially the rearangements from FF XII. The secret characters were rewarding enough to get, too. Also, clan ability was a good idea. I liked the world map as well, though I kind of missed FFTA's idea of the world map, and treasure hunt.

Cons: Uh, oh, now this game's gonna get it. First of, the story sucks like there's no tomorrow. Matsuno was dearly missed here. No great political scheme like FFT, no mature story about growing up and escapism, just a thrown-together mess that made no sense. Things were never explained, or not enough. Who was Ilua? Why was I fighting her again? That Final Boss, what was it? More out-of-nowhere than Necron, for sure. By the time the credits rolled, I had no feeling of closure, nor any satisfaction that I had gotten to the end. Because it didn't feel like the end. That, and the characters were flat, especially when compared to FFTA. Luso was just that, Cid even more so. Adelle was decent, but they never really tapped into her potential. No, the story definately was a failure.

Then there's the gameplay. I felt it had gotten too much of FF XII and too little of FFTA. The interfaces were changed, especially the jobsystem, which I didn't like. As Skyblade said, mastery in FFTA2 was not complete. I liked the idea behind the Bazaar, and monster loot, but it really felt like something was missing. By the end of the game I had three Tournesols, go figure. Legendary weapons thus lost their legendaryness. I didn't like how KO'd units didn't stay on the field. Too cluttered? Yeah, right. It was kind of cool that you didn't have to get behind an oponent for a greater hit rate anymore, but that made the game lose some of FFTA's tactical aspects. I missed the combo's, too.
Also, the new races were poorly added. Seeq had not enough jobs, and Gria dropped out of nowhere into Ivalice. Couldn't they have added Aegyl from XII: Revenant Wings? It would have been so much cooler. Like Seeq, Gria lacked jobs.

And then there's my biggest gripe with FFTA2: the laws. WHERE WAS MY JUDGE?! Where were my red cards? My judge's whistle? The politics behind the laws like in FFTA? The inclusion of laws in the story? Damn it, SE, what did you do to the system I loved so much? These weren't laws anymore, merely bothers. The small bonus you got at the end made obeying the laws not worth it. At least in FFTA a law felt like a law, a true restriction at times. But FFTA2, oh, FFTA2... SE, when you make FFTA3, promise me you bring the laws back like in FFTA. It'll make the game so much better already.

And finally, where were my references to FFTA? They were far too sparse. Ezel had a cameo. And adult Mewt. Montblanc screams Marche when he gets KO'd. Ritz as a drawing in the beginning. THAT'S IT? What an utter disappointment. Why couldn't we get more extras and bonuses for having FFTA in our GBA slot instead of just a clan ability that you can get later anyway?

All in all, FFTA2 was a step back in every way when compared to FFTA. I was immensely dissapointed in this title, and if this is the future for Ivalice games, it looks grim indeed. If you want a TA game, fans, do yourself a favour and go for FFTA.

[Wolf Kanno]

Interesting, sounds like they do some really cool things with the battle system, I'll definitely have to do more research on it. I know how highly you though of TA so this must be pretty good for you to call it a vast improvement.

My heart and soul will always belong to FFTactics but I do like TA and I feel it gets push around for some silly reasons.

That being said, I do have my gripes with TA's system. The TA series has always been way too toned down and streamlined for my taste but I'm a crazy stat junkie and TA series just cannot hold up to my needs and wants. TA2 tries its best to make the pain a little less severe but I still find myself wishing there were faster ways to level jobs and gain abilities. As well as a better system to acquire good abilities. Even in TA2, I'm still trying to track down monsters, so I can get the proper loot, so I can actually get the equipment I need to complete certain job classes.

Its not as bad as the original TA (still waiting on those items to make the Alchemist not suck) but the problem is still there and its frustrating when your close to a hundred hours and you are still waiting for certain abilities and equipment to be unlocked (what does the Ivalice team have against White Monks? Its like an act of god to get all their equipment). I still get annoyed cause I find myself advancing on the games terms.

But the sheer variety of missions and the fact that many of them have a real story behind them instead of "Oh, noes! Must stop Goblins" makes the missions far more enjoyable. If you are like me, you may have 10 hours of game time put in between each story mission cause its just so easy to ignore the main plot and just explore Ivalice. The side stories is where everything really shines cause that's where all the drama and depth of the game really lies. Like XII, they went out of their way to make Ivalice feel like a an actual place and I have more fond memories of NPCs than I do of my own party members (except Frimelda). Its like TA in that you shouldn't go into it thinking its like past games in the Tactics series.


Is FFTA2 much better than FFTA? I played a bit of FFTA and while it was good, it just couldn't hold my interest sufficiently to go through it all. If FFTA didn't succeed, would it still be possible for me to really enjoy FFTA2 to make it worth getting?

It really depends on what you disliked about TA. For me, I felt TA2 was very slow in the beginning. Some classes are unlocked through missions so you are more limited in the beginning than previous entries. It does take awhile and few story missions to open up everything and get the most out of the title. If you are here for plot, I might say you should give the game a pass. If you want portable FFT action and FFT:WotL is not an option then I say go for it. The game really tries to lower the repetitiveness of battling and gameplay. Its new races and classes are very fun to me and the new classes bring in a few new ideas and concepts lacking in TA.

[Raistlin]

I like stories for my RPGs, but for hand-held games I'm more looking for gameplay to keep me interested. I have more trouble staying focused for portable systems than consoles for some reason, so FFTA had trouble keeping me engaged. If FFTA2 was superior with regards to gameplay perhaps it is worth a try for me. I'll get on that as soon as I play Suikoden Tierkreis.

[Skyblade]

Gameplay-wise, FFTA2 improves a lot on its predecessor, but not in every way. The fact that mages start every fight with zero MP cripples the magic system. Sure, there are ways to plan around it, such as using Ether Cannon or Ethers to boost MP early on, and support abilities or Clan Privileges that boost MP regeneration or reduce MP consumption, but all of those either take extra turns or drastically reduce your versatility. I feel it hurts the magic system as much as the original FFT's Charge times did.

And the story has an even larger problem than the length, and that is that it feels incomplete. As you go, you get the feeling that the main plot is going to be much larger than it actually turns out to be, and there are plenty of elements that are introduced well, but wrapped up quickly and incompletely, leaving me with the impression that the writers had a much larger story planned and were told to cut it.

Examples include:
The Tramdine Fens treasure and the ghost who plagues Luso's dreams. The treasure is never heard from again after that quest, leaving the mission as a quick run into the ghost, which is poorly executed. The dreams are caused by the ghost, sure, but why? Why is the important vision of Jagd Zellea included amongst all the other visions, which are of Luso's past?

Baron Beltoray. He gets attacked by Khamja, and it looks like we might be heading for missions involving him and his connection to Khamja, but instead we get a three sentence statement from Cid saying "oh, hey, he must have been trying to stop Khamja from using the Rift". No evidence to support these claims, no more explanation, nothing. Just a quick wrap-up to what felt like it would be an important section.

The Whitesilver Magicite. It has a great deal of quest involvement, but, when it comes time to conclude its story, again, it is done unsatisfactorily. The game just gives it to us, with a quick message explaning what it was and why it was so important. Again, explanations, but no support, and no real connection to the player.

Oddly enough, both the Baron Beltoray and Whitesilver Magicite are explained in the same little scene with Lezaford, about 3 missions from the end, and that scene makes me really feel like the story was unfinished. It's a big rush of explanation, as opposed to the discovery and exploration we had for most of the earlier plot elements. It really felt like someone told them "hey, the game's ending in a couple missions, better wrap things up quick".

Those are the biggest, but the plot is full of things like that. It's really a shame, because there is a lot of potential in the story if it was just fully explored.


That said, even with those two flaws, the game is still great. The gameplay is fun, even with the change to the magic system, and the side-quests more than make up for the problems with the main story.

[Wolf Kanno]

I like stories for my RPGs, but for hand-held games I'm more looking for gameplay to keep me interested. I have more trouble staying focused for portable systems than consoles for some reason, so FFTA had trouble keeping me engaged. If FFTA2 was superior with regards to gameplay perhaps it is worth a try for me. I'll get on that as soon as I play Suikoden Tierkreis.

If you are here for gameplay, I'd say rent it just to make sure or buy a ridiculously cheap version somewhere. I have a difficult time recommending a sequel when I know the person didn't care for the original.

There is definetly more variety in what you do in missions and the introduction of true support units allows for more interesting set-ups (I adore my Green Mages) so I feel the repetitiveness is no where near as bad as TA or even FFT. I f you can get your hands on a copy to try it out, I say go for it, just make sure to actually put a bit of time cause as I said, it does take awhile for everything to get started in the game.