Difficult time breaking the ice...

[NINJA_Ryu]

I recently picked up tatics, and heard about how crazy good it is from at least some of my friends, so i went in with a "Ah sweet, its gonna be pretty awesome!"

But, 2 hours later, about 5 story missions in, it drops. Im not talking about quality, but its something else, something that is just difficult to go through, it might be a combination of gameplay, story, job system, or simply nothing.

So what do you guys think is the hardest thing about getting into Tatics where all the wonders are, for a first time player?

[Mirage]

I had the same experience as you with Tactics. I felt like I had to force myself through it just to get to juicy story bits later.

[LazarCotoron]

Tactics is a very deep, involved game. Chapter 1 merely sets the stage-for all intents and purposes, everything you do in Chapter 1 doesn't actually matter (except that you get some decent characters for when the battles get harder). Some of the events of Chapter 1 will come back to haunt you later on in the game, though.

Tactics is a tremendous story that looks back in on events that you caused/were there for and uses that rich stage as a backdrop for what happens next.

[NINJA_Ryu]

I expect it to have it get better the more i chip away at it, and im basically getting the message of "stick with it, it pays off" right?

[dodhungry]

My advice is play through it the first time to get the gist of the story. This game is very complicated when it comes to its story so odds are you may not get everything on your first run through. Thats why its so enjoyable the second time. Also Learn and perfect your battlefield stratigies. That way if/when you decide to do a second run through you can spend more time on story and less time hoping there is not a tough battle ahead.


Chapter 1 is one of the more boring chapters because of the fact there are not that many battlefields to level up on and not much choice for character customization just yet but....when you get to that final battle all the hard effort will be won over with the final swing of your sword :D

[Zeromus_X]

If you can somehow decipher the story your first time through, then you get a medal!

No, but the story is really elaborate, and is really quite nice underneath the ugly translation. The story does pick up later on, but I did feel like it was kind of slow.

[Wolf Kanno]

It's slow in the beginning, though it starts to pick up by the end of the first chapter. As has been stated above. The first chapter is completely about setup. Your actions in this chapter have dramatic affects in the future chapters, as well as introducing you to many major players you're going to learn to hate later...

Take this time to level up, really get into the job class system, and start building up a few soldiers for preparations for future battles (hint: Chemist are your friends...). Pay attention to the story scenes but never forget you can watch the scenes again (except for ones that take place within battles).

Good things come, to those who wait...

[BG-57]

If you take the time to recruit four Generics with a Faith and Brave of 70, (dismiss the other six the game gives you), and level up enough to buy them all the best armor and equipment, you will find going through the rest of Chapter 1 much easier.

It's always a bit of a slog in the first chapter, but things get better as you go along:

1) You'll be able to poach monsters for valuable items using Secret Hunt to fur shops.

2) Propositions galore! You can send Generics on mini-missions for Gil and treasure.

3) Recruit and use (and poach!) your own monsters, using Invite or Train. You can also breed them into even more powerful breeds.

4) Tons of Nongeneric recruits with amazing abilities. I won't spoil who you can recruit, but you get so many you inevitably get some that suit your style. You can even recruit a character from another FF.

5) A lot of fun and challenging and fun subquests to keep you busy. You may find yourself spending as much time in Chapter 4 as the other three chapters combined.

6) It's moderately difficult to win the game, but it's challenging to get every item and mission.

So hang in there. :)

[LazarCotoron]

As we say in the language used to talk about stories...

The build up is slow, but the climax is worth it and the payoff is huge.

[VeloZer0]

Personally I loved this game right from the moment I found you could actually add other characters to your party in the very first character selection screen.

However, although the story is as awesome as people say I wouldn't really waste your time playing if you aren't particularly enjoying the battle system. Battles play such an enormously central role in this game that I don't think they would be worth just slogging through to get to the good story. In reality if you want a story that bad just go read a book.

However, if you do find the battle system growing on you, just keep plugging away and you will be rewarded.

[Wild0ne]

FFT is one of those games that once you play and through and beat it, you will always be coming back to it. Other games dont compare to it, and you can do so much in the game. Its like playing like Superman of something, then going back to FFT to create a charater like superman!! Just make a knight with the flying ability and the monks martial arts skill and you will have your own superman with cape and everything!! Its not like I do this or anything ;)

[VengefulRonin]

FFT is one of those games that once you play and through and beat it, you will always be coming back to it. Other games dont compare to it, and you can do so much in the game. Its like playing like Superman of something, then going back to FFT to create a charater like superman!! Just make a knight with the flying ability and the monks martial arts skill and you will have your own superman with cape and everything!! Its not like I do this or anything ;)

HA! Wrong. I played it over a year ago, havent touched it since. I loved it...i just didnt wanna go through all that bloody work again, since you gotta be pretty dedicated to beat it. But now i wanna play it again since i've read this. xD If it werent for the storyline i probably would've hated this game for the difficulty level and insane amounts of leveling i had to do, but the story makes it all so worth it.

And i didnt know you could make a superman on Tactics, lol. You know i never bothered with monks...or chemists....or mages....i strictly used knights, samurais, dragoons, ninjas (their invisibility trick is indispensable), and then all those lovely uber strong special characters i could get later in the game. It was kinda disappointing at the end though, because after 45+ hours of insanely difficult battles, i'd gotten so beefed up the final boss was a wimp. Ah well *shrug*

[feioncastor]

And i didnt know you could make a superman on Tactics, lol. You know i never bothered with monks...or chemists....or mages....i strictly used knights, samurais, dragoons, ninjas (their invisibility trick is indispensable), and then all those lovely uber strong special characters i could get later in the game. It was kinda disappointing at the end though, because after 45+ hours of insanely difficult battles, i'd gotten so beefed up the final boss was a wimp. Ah well *shrug*

Monks do way more damage than Knights, Samurais, Dragoons or Ninjas when equipped properly. Make Ramza into a Monk and give him a Bracer and some kind of armor that adds to Physical Attack. Then have him enter battle and use a regular "Attack" on an enemy. Honestly, my Ramza as a Monk was able to drop just about ANY foe in one hit. Plus, Monks have Chakra, Revive, and Stigma Magic, making them rather effective healers since none of those moves require MP and are based off of the Monk's Physical Attack Power, rather than magical. And for attack moves, the Monk can use Earth Slash to hit multiple enemies in a line, or Wave Fist to hit an enemy from a little ways away. Plus the Monk job class contains "Counter" and "Hamedo". Counter is essential for anyone who is gonna be taking melee damage. And Hamedo isn't useful in many fights, but the ones where it is useful, it's SOOOOOOO useful.

And Chemists are great, too. I prefer a Chemist as a healer. I like them more than Priests. No MP, no charging, and no effect range. The Phoenix down only heals about 10 HP when you use it, but that's enough to guarantee a counter reset if you have a unit at 0. The Priest spell "Raise" isn't 100% and the Charge time on it can be too long. Or you can get killed while charging. Or you could get silenced while charging. With a Chemist, you just move in range of the guy you need to heal, and guaranteed %100 he'll recieve it.

I also have my Monk heal with Chakra or Revive. But because you have to be on the exact same height at the target, there are many situations where Chakra and Revive aren't going to work.

[Wolf Kanno]

Making Mustadio into a chemist is also cruel and indespinsable for me. He's like the greatest support character as a chemist with snipe abilities. Don't forget Move +3 and he's the ultimate relief character outside of a well programmed calculater.

[finaloblivion]

im plaing tactics right now for probably the sixth or seventh time, and ive never gotten to the fourth chapter unti now...after playing it that many times, and now finally going through all the cool story twists and leveling my characters differently, im so glad i own this game. sure, it's the worst translation pretty much ever in square game or any game in history, but the gameplay and story and characters are just fantastic. there's so many different ways to do things, it nuts. play it.