I like all the love I am seeing for Tactics. It surely is a must-play for an incredible story and fun and different battle system. Tactics Advance is a fairly different beast with a lot of gameplay changes, but I loved the first one and ehhh-liked the second. If you have a Gameboy Advance, TA is worth picking up. Again, a whole different take on how battles work in comparison to Tactics, but there is a lot of good experimentation happening.

Greatermaximus hits upon something of a problem in the original Tactics; you can spend a lot of time expanding a character's job abilities only to find that it can be a waste of time in comparison to other job routes. Getting all the abilities for a job sounds great, but you might find out how little you use most of them. The skills and equipment Greatermaximus mentions is his streamlining the squad into avatars of murder. You need not do that to enjoy the game, but it can be satisfying to end a battle in virtually no time and no wounds.