Fantastic game.

Sometimes, you just need to learn to accept yourself to let go of a fantasy.
The picture above this line is broken for me.

So some people will tell me the gameplay is simply a watered-down version of FFT, to which I have to call bulltrout. Yes, there are some simplifications regarding stats and how armor works, but I think it’s all for the better, as FFT did have some overly complex elements that bogged the game down. Now, FFTA implements races on top of classes, that not only serve to make the game world seem more diverse and, well, alive despite being fake in canon, but makes the characters more unique, even if you argue that classes being exclusive to specific races is limiting. I also find that the FFIX-esque ability learning system is a real plus, though I wish it was more obvious how to get specific weapons and skills.
It is watered down FFT, yes. But that is not a bad thing. I mean, if you have a concentrated caustic or bleach, it can be useless for pretty much anything. Yet, if you water it down, it suddenly becomes incredibly useful.

Most of FFT's mechanics were complicated for the sake of being complicated. Yes, there is a lot of depth that you can get out of them, but it took people a lot of time devoted specifically to min/maxing the systems to develop most of those techniques, and even then, it mostly boils down to "follow a walkthrough or recommendations exactly to get the most out of the system, otherwise ignore it". The complexity cost was way too high for the depth they gave.

FFTA cuts out the fluff, then adds a bunch of more accessible features (like races) that put similar (or more) depth in without being nearly as complex.


I'd also like to make a nod here to FFTA2. It improves on FFTA in a number of mechanical ways, most notably, having a much, much better system for getting specific new items than the original. Pity the plot had to be so butchered.