FFTA2 First Impressions?

[qwertysaur]

They took shell and protect out of white magic. Now they are in green magic instead.

[Skyblade]

They took shell and protect out of white magic. Now they are in green magic instead.

And that is supposedly a good change?

[The Watcher]

It makes more sense, at the very least.
In making these games linked, (FFXII + Revenant wings, FFTA + FFTA2, and one other that i forget at the moment) I believe the developers wanted to have different aspects of the games merge into one another. Hence we have the FFTA races in FFXII, the bazaar system from FFXII into this game, and other things as well.

Back to my point, white magic as we all know is about restorative magic, be that healing or reviving. While protect and shell kinda fit in that category, they fit better in the green magic of buffing and protecting your guys while debuffing the enemy.

[Skyblade]

Yeah, but it leaves the White Magic class with fewer abilities and with quite a gap between their basic ability and any newer ones. I don't mind the restructuring, as long as things stay balanced. They are very unbalanced right now.

[qwertysaur]

I got a Gria to join my clan! To get more members you have to go to the right area during a specific time of the year.

I love that there are so many references to other Ivalice games, like the librarian in the beginning is named after Mewt. (There is even a bear on one of the desks) Also gabranth's helmet is in Leezaford's cottage.

[Roto13]

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?

Does it matter? You get whatever AP you get. You have a general idea of how much you need to finish learning an ability.

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.

I'm pretty sure the exact opposite of that is true.

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.

Nitpick much?

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.

It comes around the same time as the "Auction" system comes into play.

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!

It's too early for your to have second level black magic yet. You might as well complain that you don't have Ultima.

What the heck happened to Shell and Protect?!

Green Mages learn them. That's what Green Mages do. Status magic.

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.

Getting better loot from battle as you progress isn't that different from finding new items in the store as you progres. Except now you pick which types of equipment to add to the store.

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.

I'm fairly certain the laws are pre-set for each quest so they're always the same. At least, that's been my experience. And if a law is giving you trouble, don't follow it. The penalty isn't that bad. Just a few pieces of loot at the end of the fight and a few bonuses during the match.

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.

Yeah, you're definitely just nitpicking here. The one second at the beginning of the match isn't going to kill you. Especially since it's not pointless at all because it actually explains the law in greater detail. If you want to complain about time wasting, complain about the fact that it takes a lot longer for basic actions to take place.

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.

Everything is still more accurate from the sides and from behind. It's just that now the odds are good for attacks from the front, too. I haven't even noticed any change in status effect magic accuracy.

[The Watcher]

One thing to add to Roto's last comment.

One thing that i like about the game now is that you are no longer royally screwed if your blinded. Sure, your hit % goes down 2 dozen points or so, but its not nearly as unforgivable as the first.

[Roto13]

I'm 16 hours in and I've done 43 quests. There's something like 400 of them in the game, iirc, and most of them actually involve doing stuff. This may very well end up being the longest game I've ever played. xP

[Zeromus_X]

I just started it yesterday. I almost died on the first battle, didn't know the giant chicken would run away after you did enough damage to it. x_O; I'm glad I picked Normal mode.

I like the streamlined menus (although I guess two screens is somewhat to thank for this). Everything you'd want to know is at least one button away.

[Skyblade]

I know I was nitpicking much, but most of those things were problems that the original FFTA didn't have. They made changes for no reason at all. The problems may be small, but since the last game didn't have them, this game shouldn't either. If it's not broke, why fix it?

My comments on the MVP being given randomly were a result of two battles in which MVP was awarded to my Viera archer. Given that your Viera teammate has the base stats of a White Mage, my archer had very low attack for a physical attack class. She got in four turns, two times she used Focus, and two times she attacked. Her attacks did less damage than my Bangaa or Luso, even with Focus, and she didn't finish any enemies off. Yet she gets MVP, instead of either my mage, who did far more damage than anyone else on the team thanks to AoE, or Luso, who wound up finishing off the most enemies. I finally figured out how the experience system works, but the MVP system still seems a little random to me.

One other problem I've noticed since my last post: The character turn order is really screwy. It will frequently indicate a character is going to move twice in a row, once for their move, and once for their attack. It doesn't always do this, so you can't even count on it when planning ahead. At times when you're in a mission facing 3-4 of the same enemy, it makes trying to figure out the turn order impossible.

Still, it's a fun game, and I'm enjoying it.

[Roto13]

Yeah, the turn order isn't very accurate if you don't take a lot of actions with a character. That is kind of a pain. Saying facing several of the same enemy makes it impossible to figure out turn order is a pretty big exaggeration, though. You can cycle through them with L or R. It's still a big step up from the other Tactics games.

[Skyblade]

Oh, one other thing. What the heck did they do to Beastmasters? The control abilities now don't control an enemy. They allow you to use a single ability that the enemy has. You can't move them, and it doesn't prevent that enemy from attacking you for a turn the way it did in FFTA. Except for training Blue Mages, I am seeing no purpose for Beastmasters now.

[ljkkjlcm9]

the purpose of Beast Master is that you need to master one ability to unlock Sage... lol

honestly with the new way MP works, I find Nu Mou's in general to be a waste of space. Especially with two brand new races.

THE JACKEL

[Skyblade]

Yeah, starting with no MP is a pain, and I shudder to think what it will do to Last Breath, Rockseal, and the Ultimas. On the other hand, the regen rate of 10 per turn instead of FFTA's 5 per turn means that faster classes will regen more and might be more use in longer fights. I can keep my Assassins invisible and just have them wait to regen their MP until they are ready to strike.

[qwertysaur]

Nu Mou do have a really interesting new job. Scholar. They can give random buffs to a target, and they can also deal damage to everyone.

Red mages are great for casting buffs, with both shell and protect available to them.

The bard class is great for a supplamentery ability. Soul etude is like a free Cura and esuna at the same time. Shame it's exclusive to (SPOILER)Hurdy

The new MP system makes half MP a must for you mages.

Beastmaster is only good for getting blue magic.

Seeq have some interesting jobs. the berserker can raise their evasion and do massive damage. Rangers set traps around the battlefield, and if you stop on one instead of an action the trap harms you. You should have the libra clan privilage when fighting an enemy ranger, because the traps can kill you vrey quickly. vikings can steal stuff and use thunder magic.

Gria only come with the hunter job, but they can fly. I got mine outside of Floirgis, so look there to find one.

This is a great game.