Beaten FFTA; Starting FFT; Any tips? (ffta spoilers)

Hey,

As the topic says, I've played and beaten FFTA, and I just picked up FFT today. In FFTA, there are a lot of tricks for getting things, such as the "get-the-cinqueda-at-the-beginning-of-the-game" trick, which you follow up with getting the steal weapon ability, then stealing certain 1-of-a-kind items in storyline battles. There's also the region-create thing, which basically forces you to plan out the entire map before you start to get the items you want.

If I want to play through FFT without missing things, is there anything I need to know before I start, or can I just play and expect to pick up everything along the way? If I miss an item at some point in the game, is there any way to get it later? Is it even possible to miss items? I don't know how the game works at all. I'm just worried based on my FFTA experience.

Any tips for a first-timer would be appreciated. Please don't spoil too much of the game for me, though, if possible.

tip but no spoilers?

...

Hi! Avalon here. I've got a few tips for you on Final Fantasy Tactics, since I've played through it once and I'm playing it again. Hopefully I can help. Pay close attention to your units-protect not only the strongest but the weakest as well. Your best offense is the best defense, always. Don't just spend all of your attention on certain teammates, and make sure you don't accidentally kill anyone on your own team by miscalculating magic spells or other attacks. Pay attention to the Active Turn count-if you wish to restore the life of a friend that has fallen but is surrounded by more enemies, make sure that he can rise without being knocked right back down again, but try not to lose him either. Make the best use of your items and no pointless spending. Get rid of unneccesary monsters in your party.
--There! Hope I can help!;)

Go slowly through the game at first. Take on a bunch of chance-encounter battles to build up before going through more than 3 or 4 of the storyline battles. If you're planning to fill your item inventory with everything you can get, you might want to complete the thief's steal ability early on... and get the mediator class a.s.a.p.
Mediators can Invite enemies to join your ranks...or to at least donate all of their possessions to you before you kick them out of your party. It's muuuch faster than stealing...(note: Important-to-the-Story enemies can not be Invited! You'll have to steal.) The enemies you face in chance-encounter battles will raise in level as quickly as you; and, as a result, they'll also have more powerful weapons. Use this to your advantage and steal equipment that you can't buy in stores for a while yet.
Move-find-item (chemist skill) works best with a low brave score(15 or 20), which can be lowered quickly with Threaten (mediator skill) or even more quickly with Foxbird (oracle skill). Use Move- find-Item to locate 4 hidden objects on each battle board. The items you find aren't all that powerful at first, so you might want to wait a while...lowering your brave score does have it's drawbacks.;)

oh well...

Get a monk as soon as possible and have him learn chakra.

Don't think Stigma Magic is useless, it is a lifesaver in one of the battles.

The Squire's Accumulate (300 JP) and Gained JP Up (200 JP), and Ramza's Yell (200 JP) will be your best friends for training. Get five soldiers, give them Basic Skill as a secondary ability and Gained JP Up as a support ability, and get them into battle. Kill all but the last target, and then just have all your guys Accumulate and Ramza Yell to your hearts content. Each Accumulate will net you 10 Exp and over 20 JP, and the only limit to the number of times you can do this is your patience.

several tips:
firstly, don't over extend your fighters from your healers,

secondly, as soon as humanly possible, gain two swords ability from the Ninja job class, (see above for great Job Points and exp advice)

thirdly, never buy rotten watermelons on the second tuesday of any given week.

When i beat the game FFT i went purely magic, i didnt waste any time building up chemists and that really helps in the long run. Always having magic support and magic attackers wins the battles more easily.

So far, all the advice provided has been very good and accurate. I have some more to add mased on your concerns regarding rare and one-chance items.

I'm going to talk about poaching. This is a thief skill, and you want it. Bad. Choose somebody for whom you have intentions of building a fighter out of. That guy? Great, train him up a bit - Squire then Knight or Monk - then, when they can handle their trout, make them go Thief. It's a pain, I know. Thieves have crap weapons and weak-sauce armor. That's why you trained them up first. To make things a little more of a pain, "Poach" is fairly expensive. But keep earning those JP (you got "Gained JP UP" from the Squire, right? First on EVERY unit's to-do list) with the trick stated above and you should have enough for "Poach" (and the few other useful Thief abilities but if not, fret not). Once you have "Poach" turn them back into a fighter and don't forget to save some of the kills for your new poacher.

The reason you went to all this trouble is not for the piddly items you get from ordinary monsters, but from the really badass stuff you get from one-of-a-kind monsters. Poach 'em, take the pelts to a poaching shop and purchase sweet weapons and equipment for low, low prices. Holy Lance? Hell yeah. This is also virtually the ONLY way to accquire any firearm worth a damn, in case you rely on Chemists at all. Which I did rather heavily 'round the middle of the game. Both times.

Poaching tip: If you wanna poach something, but your poacher's on the other side of the field, and the monster's giving you lip (Marlboros or whatever can be pretty tough when you're trying not to kill them) go ahead and off the bugger. As long as it isn't the "Boss" and it isn't the last bastard on the screen, whack it and let your poacher come over at his leisure. Then just before the poacher's next turn, have someone Phoenix-Down the sucker and then whack it again with your poacher.

Another useful tip for character building - sparring. This is kinda like the Exp/JP trick above, only it works for units who aren't Squires anymore. Slay all but one. Preferably a weak one. Then have your Mediator threaten it down to a chicken (if any unit's - any at all - Brave falls below 10, they physically turn into a chicken). It will do nothing but run away recovering 1 Br. each turn (only until it reaches 10). The rest of your party can then "spar". Whacking away at each other with their various skills/spells and earning Exp/JP while not being bothered by the Funky Chicken off in the corner over there. Oops, it got its 10 Br. back, it's a Cuar again. "Threaten!". There it goes, back to training.

Also, since you're used to T-Advance, you might have some trouble adjusting to "Charge Time", which plays such a major role in the strategy in Tactics. When you want almost any character to do almost anything cool or useful at all, it's going to take a few turns to execute. In this time, you target unit can move away, messing up your plans. With archers and lancers this can be especially frustrating. So (this may seem like a lot of work, but it becomes 2nd nature once you get the pattern down), check the name of your target, then open up the CT menu, showing you the impending order of turns. Scroll down 'till you find your target, and then note the number. Now go into your active unit's action menu and select whatever technique it is you're intending to use. While you're still in the menu you can press -> on the D-pad to show where on the CT list that ability would fall on the currently highlighted power-level. Choose the power level that has the CT number equal to or less than the CT of your target (if it's equal, then double check that it won't happen just AFTER your target's turn by pressing -> on the D-pad like I said).

That all sounds way more complicated than it is, and it's really satisfying to have your guy charge for a bunch of turns and then whack the enemy just before his own turn. There's so much more, that's the fun of FFT. But the true joy of it is figuring out these strategies for yourself so I'm gonna make myself shut the hell up now.

Like I said, all the advice you've recieved so far is solid. Make sure to pay attention to all of it!
(Although, the thing about building up magic-wielding units isn't absolutely necessary, you can also beat the game with a very effective troop of units on the more physical side - it's up to you, I just didn't want you to think that magic was the ONLY way to go).

see, onna the beautiful things about this game is that it really doesn't force you into any one type of battle. the game can be beaten with steel, magic, combination of both, but it would be very difficult to beat with neither. because then you'd be relying on dragons and chocobos and that would just be strange. Algus must die though, that is a given. :D

Will there be FFT when there is no Algus? :)

Remember, Males got higher starting PA while females got higher starting MA but Ramza is good at both (something minor).

I think Ramza gets a high starting PA & MA because he's so androgynous. That must be it.

Hmm, dragons and chocobos...sounds like an interesting challenge...time to dust off my mediator....