FFTA2 First Impressions?

[The Watcher]

with 12 hours in, i've been through quite a thrill.

I like the bazaar system quite nicely. "Looting" your way to better items, and at the same time, classes, makes killing everything and taking on numerous quests all more important.
Also, i believe that in the bazaar, if you have a yellow/orange dot next to the title, you have all the ingredients; if its a check, it means you made all the items you can with a level of ingredients?

While laws were annoying in the past game, at least they were avoidable by walking around for a few days. Here, it seems they have nixed it. While it can be awkward at times )no hitting from the back, for example) I like how it makes you see the situation in different perspective.

Also, exp at the end of the match i VERY much enjoy, because i like the idea of rewarding people to the effort of the cause, not giving them 1 1/10th boost to the next level, just because they cast cure to heal 2 hp.

The MVP "tower" also encourages me to really utilize everyone to thier maximum potential, as i have discovered you can have multiple people gain an MVP award in a battle, I believe you can see the "contribution" of the unit by the bar on the right side of thier info screen during battle.

Really like how they have the MVP relating to dispatch quests.

This time around, i actually feel like im doing something of more variety, no longer just killing enemies but defending, picking ingredients, deliveries...adds a whole new level of immersion.


Now, i might just play slow, and only did about 6-9 "main quests" but for others, have you picked up any of the new races? 12 hours I still have my starting 6 +1 story character.

Finally, I'm kinda neutral about having to "unlock" classes, such as beastmaster and dragoon. While it gives satisfaction that you have to work for it, with a little story in the background im still up in the air.

[Krelian]

Hm, the game sounds interesting. Maybe I'll give it a try after all.

[ljkkjlcm9]

I like the bazaar system quite nicely. "Looting" your way to better items, and at the same time, classes, makes killing everything and taking on numerous quests all more important.
Also, i believe that in the bazaar, if you have a yellow/orange dot next to the title, you have all the ingredients; if its a check, it means you made all the items you can with a level of ingredients?

The bazaar system is one of my more favored thing as well. I figure they won't make it so you can either get this item, or that item, so I make one of everything as soon as I have the ingredients for it. A circle means you have the ingredients for it, whether you've already gotten the item for that rank or not. AKA, if you've made it, and still have the mats for it, you'll still have a circle. It'll tell you what the item is before you finalize the trade in, so it's no worries about making an item more than once. The check means you've already made that item for that rank. I just wonder if there are multiple weapons of the same category for a given rank. I suppose when I get more materials, I shall find out!

Now to head to work

THE JACKEL

[Roto13]

I just wonder if there are multiple weapons of the same category for a given rank.

Yes. I made two different E-ranked Fire weapons. I made one and there was still a dot there instead of a check mark so I tried a different combination and got another one. Then it changed to a check mark.

I just realized that you don't actually have to dispatch your clan members for the dispatch missions this time. You can just do them yourself. This really adds a lot to the game. I didn't like the dispatch missions before.

[Yar]

I liked dispatch missions simply because it was a way to gain AP without really doing anything. Typically, dispatch missions could be solved by merely walking.

[Roto13]

That's not fun, though. :P

But if that's your preference, you can still do it that way. Though it does seem to be harder that way now. And you send out, like, six people for a mission a lot of the time. Which gets them all AP and EXP, so that's not so bad.

[ljkkjlcm9]

One really nice thing is people that don't fight still get AP. Therefore you can get AP and newer classes for people without leveling them, and level them in the classes you want them to be good in. Basically, my main character won't be one of my best characters, but still pretty good.

I don't ever dispatch, I'd rather do every mission, even those where you just show up and give them an item. I want more story!

THE JACKEL

[Dragonsoul]

I hope the team who ported Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions ports Vagrant Story. Oh and somebody should port Chrono Trigger(with Radical Dreamers as a bonus this time!) to DS.

[Roto13]

Hey, I found a complaint!

There aren't enough abilities early on. And I've been playing for like six hours and I only have one job that wasn't in TA. :P And no new recruits. I think that has something to do with your title from the Clan challenges or whatever they're called.

I'm still having a hell of a time with it, though.

[The Watcher]

I think that i adressed that in my earlier post.

Early on especially, your limited by what you can make at the bazaar. Keep switchin around the classes when you lovely class runs out of abilities, since everyone has something useful (all humes and moogles should thieve in thier free time XP)

As far as party size, i have doubled mine in the past, 3-4 hours. It gets easier when you get to the Auctions in the story, depending on how quickly you play. It took me 11 hours to get there, but i do alot of frivolous things.

Also, there are missions that will add a clan mate whose race is determined on the month. Got a Bangaa and moogle from that quest alone. Its repeatable thank god ^^

[Roto13]

I don't want to switch my jobs unless it's between similar classes. If my soldier levels up as a thief, he gets nasty thief stat growth for that level instead of soldier stat growth. :P Speed instead of power and all that.

[qwertysaur]

I got my first new race unit! A random Seeq came up to me and joined my clan.

[The Watcher]

But Roto, thats only if you use him in battle XP

Im still trying to get used to the fact that everyone gets AP now, regardless of battle, kinda making it weird on me.

As far as stat growths and all, im not too worried about them the first time around, I'll still beat the game anyways.

To qwerty: Nice! Now if i could only find one >< I got alot of abilities for the new classes and races, but no takers :/

[Roto13]

I only have 7 characters so I use six of them in battle. :P

[Skyblade]

Truthfully, I'm a bit disappointed in the game so far. It has some good points, but it made a lot of unnecessary changes that didn't improve the game.

The removal of numerical AP. You can't easily track a character's AP gaining any more. Instead of listing how much AP you have towards an ability, you just get a bar showing how far along you are. Unless you want to keep track of how much AP you get for each mission on your own, you can't accurately track your AP gains. Why?

The new Exp system. I have no clue how the hell this thing works. The Exp seems to have little to no correlation to participation in battle, and the MVP system is so random it hurts. Most battles have no MVP at all, and those that do are often awarded to the less active characters in the battle.

The removal of location icons. The new area/location system is fine. I don't mind losing the Area Search feature. But why couldn't they give every area an icon? I find the world a lot less interesting when the entire thing is a bunch of identical blank circles.

The quest report. It looks like a total disorganized mess. The lines connecting quests seem to have little relation to the quests that they are connecting, with the exception of the primary quest chain (which seems to be very short, only 20 missions if it just goes from one corner to the other as it appears to be doing). It's nice that we can now track when a quest can be redone, but I'd really like to see some logic in the quest report screen. Hopefully it will clear up more as I go along.

The removal (or delay) of random battles. The second plot mission in FFTA unlocked the clan wars and the random wandering battles. I've done six missions so far, still no random combat (or new characters, besides Adelle) to be seen. Given that it seems that the area travel system was designed to let people bypass unwanted fights by going from area to area, instead of location to location, I'm curious as to why in the world there is no random combat to be seen as of yet.

The bazaar system. Actually, I really like the idea behind the bazaar system. Letting people see what they need to get the new items and letting those new items be unlocked for purchase instead of just getting one and then having to collect all the items again is great. But the system has become very, very unbalanced. I have several extra weapons that can't be used, and I have several classes that are still at their starter equipment. I have yet to find any way in this new system to get new abilities for my Black Mage, and my White Mage has only just acquired his second weapon, and it is Cura! What the heck happened to Shell and Protect?! FFTA may have had some problems with getting weapons, but at least the self-upgrading shops allowed you to give most of your classes some improvement on gear.

Then there's the laws. I think the new implementation of the law system really works. It's not without errors though. First, there is no difficulty curve on the laws, as there was in FFTA. Early on in the game, you can get hit with a ton of really painful ones that you have almost no way around. Then there's the law announcements. At the beginning of every fight, you get told what the law is. That would've been quite welcome in the original FFTA. But, in this game, the laws are constantly displayed on the top screen during the fight. So what's the point? You can check them any time you want, the display at the start of the fight is just pointless time wasting.

And finally, there's the new battle system. Instead of having accuracy based on which way the enemy is facing, that determines damage instead. I think this had a slight negative effect on basic combat, but more than that it really killed status effects. While the accuracy rate of basic attacks has skyrocketed, hitting enemies with status moves has become much, much harder, as you no longer get a boost when hitting from the side or from behind. Add to that a rumor I heard that Concentrate has been nerfed, and I am very worried that status effects will wind up nowhere near as useful as they were in the original.

All in all, it's a decent game, but not as good as it could have been.