HORRIBLE GAME

[BG-57]

I'm not a fan of this game either for the exact reason that a lot of you seem to like it.

So many character options! So many classes! Yeah, that would be a good thing if there were any room for them in your party. I hated that I spent so much time training up characters only to have to kick them out to make room for the latest "unique" character I picked up. I really got attached to some of those characters! If they'd let you have more people in your party I could have gotten into it, but as it is you can't even have every unique character without having to dismiss a few, I believe. I just hated getting rid of people I'd invested so much in and have such fond memories of how they saved me in battles.

Why it's true that the game forces certain characters into your party for story-advancing battles, you get complete freedom to pick and choose units for random battles. Personally I didn't find a five-party system restrictive. It's larger than many parties in the numbered FF's.

The unique characters are Ramza, Mustadio, Agrias, Rafa, Malak, Beowulf, Reis, Cloud, Worker 8, Orlandu, Meliadoul, and Byblos. That's 12, unless you count Boco the chocobo as unique (which I don't). Since there's 16 slots total it's actually possible to recruit every unique character in the game and still have space left over.

What does have to suffer if you want to keep all the unique characters is the generic human and monster units. You start out with four humans, and gain three more in chapter 2. And inviting monsters is even worse, since they breed. So my strategy is to breed and poach monsters and fufill propositions as early as possible and then ditch most of the generics once my roster fills up.

Also, I think Tactics Ogre outclasses FFT in every way. Same style of game, just executed way better.

Furthermore, the ending blew.

The game wasn't all bad, but really wasn't great.

You're certainly entitled to that opinion. But I disagree.

[conan]

Agreed, the ending in fft is bad, and the final boss is ridiculously easy, but other than that this game rocks. This game is awesome. I'm playing a file now using completely random characters that don't even have any abilities, and im still winning. This game is fun. Feion, havent heard from you about the calculators! Try them out already, you'll agree with the rest of us that a wizard with math skill could rock orlandu pretty hard.

[MogThief]

No way, this game is not horrible. Just give it more time and advance further in the story. You'll probably change your perspective on this game.

[Elemental Alchemist]

This game is one of the best rpgs ever. I can't understand how some people can't like it. It's got:

- Endless team customization options (if you don't want to let go of your old generic characters, just don't accept the nongeneric ones. No one's forcing you to take them in.)

- Great plot (if you don't get it the first time, look up the summary in the records, or see the scene again. The game's that awesome.)

- Many side quests and plots (again, if you don't like these, skip them.)

- 5 characters for battle? Plenty to win. And all the characters can change classes, so even if they are nongeneric, they can still be normally skilled.

- Enough classes to satisfy most (if not all) people. Everyone's got their special favorite class.

- Endless combinations of items and abilities!

- Different arenas for battle, each with their own terrain, enemies, and even climate.

I could go on and on, but this is basically it. And I know there's some people that say things like, "I didn't like the game to have so many class choices." (there are people like this.) Well, all you have to do is ignore all the choices. Don't change classes. Pick only fighters. Or mages. Or get all nongeneric characters and don't worry about same classes!

What I'm getting at is that if you don't like something in the game, there's probably a way for it not to cause you trouble. And you could keep playing the game.

[BustaMo]

I'm gonna give this game a go after I beat FFXII. I've heard from many FF fans that this is one of their favorite FF games of all-time, and it's not even a main part of the series.

It definitely looks unique and interesting, expecially the battle. It sort of reminds me of the Vagrant Story's battle system, but Tectics is more Puzzlish looking. I'm looking forward to playing it though.

[conan]

I'd just like to correct you BG, you start with 6 humans.

[BG-57]

Yeah, I should have said that I start with recruiting four of my own generics (I dismiss the original six). I then engage in enough random battles to completely outfit all of them before advancing the plot.

[eestlinc]

The first time I played Tactics I hated it and quit after an hour. It seemed like the worst game ever. I didn't touch it for months. Then one day I pulled it out again, the battle system and controls made a bit more sense on second visit, I was able to get into the story a bit, and I absolutely fell in love. The game is a masterpiece (albeit with a poor localization) and definitely worth a second chance.

Second you can spend forever building someone up, only for them to die and you lose it all. It's just... ugh. Hugely overrated.

This is why you save after every battle (alternating slots and also keeping a few saves at important points in case you get totally screwed). If you lose a good character just replay the battle. But really, you should just do everything you can to revive your characters in time. I like the extra stakes that come with the possibility of permanently losing a character.It means keeping your characters alive and healthy is actually important, and an extra challenge in battle.

[feioncastor]

you can spend forever building someone up, only for them to die and you lose it all. It's just... ugh. Hugely overrated.

It's not that tought to avoid this. Honestly, I had one person crystalize, once, and that was it. Since then, I make sure to have a person who can revive, and a backup reviver. Monks are great for this, when you get their skill "Revive" and "Chakra". And I like Chemists way more than Priests for healing, too. The only problem with Chemists is that they can only heal 150 hp. But they do it instantly.

This game is so not hugely overrated. If anything, it's underrated. Honestly.

I've met many people who hate Final Fantasy games. They'll come up with a wealth of reasons as to why FF games aren't good. But almost all of them still like FFT, despite their distaste for FF in general. I've met people who had never had any desire to try a strategy game or an RPG and they love FFT.

I honestly think that if you're a video gamer, and you give this game a fair chance, you will like it. I don't think there's a gamer out there who would dislike this game if they actually played a bit of it. I'm not saying they'd all be crazy about it like I am, but they'd like it. Enough to play a bit more of it.

Another awesome thing about FFT is the replay value. Sure, the story never changes, but the strategies you use to fight can vary greatly. Your first time through, you may never use Oracles, Time Mages, Calculators, and other classes. Then, you'll play the game a second time and realize how great some of the other classes are. And then you discover skills you hadn't noticed before. You use different classes and combinations and make the game a different challenge than it was before. You no longer just go in and nuke/hack'n'slash the bad guys. Now you have to plan things out, strategize, and all that.

By the way, Oracles aren't good. I was just giving an example. Oracles are the most useless class in the game. Don't use oracles. Time Mages are cool, though.

[conan]

To counter Feion, I will now list ways oracles are actually good:

Zombie. Cast this on an enemy, and then have a chemist throw a phoenix down at them for instant kill.

Petrify. basically an instant kill.

MP Absorb, Move MP up, MP absorb - ensures this class doesnt run out of MP.

Life Drain - Self healing while attacking an enemy.

Silence Song - Great for disabling enemy mages. Also try using MP Absorb, or Berserk for the same purpose. Berserk not only makes the mage useless, but makes him deliver himself right to your army.

Paralyze - The all purpose defensive/offensive spell, good against any enemy temporarily. It even works on Wiegraf, havent really tried it on Zodiac monsters yet. Fast, low MP cost, and a good chance of working.

Pray Faith - Cast it on yourself, it will generally last about 3 turns, and then all of the oracle's low success rate spells will now have a very good chance of hitting.

Sticks - If your oracle has a decent magic attack, these guys can do almost as much damage as a Lancer with a spear.

Sleep - What's great about this spell is it not only affected the square you target, but the 4 squares surrounding it. (Effect: 2). This means with one spell you can put at most 5 enemies to sleep.

And now to be fair, the bad points:

Blind - This spell actually sucks, don't bother with it.

Foxbird - Don't bother with this one, you'd have to hit an enemy with it 2-3 times to actually turn them into a chicken. Mediator's threaten is a LOT better.

Dispel Magic - I don't think I've ever actually casted this spell.

Confusion - The only reason I don't like this is that it only hits one person, and it can be cured by throwing a stone at that person. The only time I'd use it is if I could cast it on a mage that was charging a spell on my army, or about to get an AT. Basically the same time you would use steal heart from a thief. Sleep works better than this spell, but I'm not sure, confusion might be faster.

What I've noticed are Oracles are mainly anti-magic. They are good for quickly disabling enemy spellcasters, but they also have a good physical attack to defend themselves with, as opposed to priests and time mages which use their weak staffs.

[feioncastor]

Okay, I guess that what I'm saying is that an oracle is the least likely class to actually KILL an enemy. All they can do well is just [img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img] with the bad guy. Sure, they can kill it, but not nearly as well as a monk or a Knight with Two Swords. I mean, while you're using Silence Song on one or two bad guys, I'm Earth Slashing 3 of them, for 999 damage a head.

Oracles aren't useless. They're just one class that specializes in messing with enemies, rather than just killing them, or enabling a party member to more quickly kill them.

[conan]

True....but try playing a game using only oracles! It's very tough, and fun.

[TurkSlayer]

I find this interesting, as I have never met anyone who truely disliked FFT, and now I'm discovering that a number of people are unfond of this game... This is a very new concept to me. I can't imagine not loving this game. I mean, honestly, I consider it easily one of the greatest games I've ever played, and all of these complaints are things that I really just overlooked.

If you ask me, it has the most interesting and well thought out storyline of any game I've ever played, which is ultimately an important factir in whether I really want to play or not. The plot was so intricate and often times subtle that you may have to play a number of times before you can get a true grasp of what takes place, and then you can't deny that the story was fantastically thought out. If there is a flaw in the story, it was that once a character joined your party, they were pretty much out of the storyline, which actually kind of made me dread getting certain characters.

As for five-man fights, I liked it that way. I didn't feel like I was overworked with having to plan out twenty characters moves (Though I've grown used to that since Fire Emblem) Besides, it made it easier to level up your fighters if you didn't have all of them competing for the next kill, basically.

As for your other complaints, they just aren't things that ever bothered me....

[Wolf Kanno]

FFT is a wonderful game and I have met a few people who hated it for the reasons posted here. Now usually I have a really nasty way of countering them but we're all being civilized here so I'll give it a go.

Five man parties not enough? Honestly, with the right combination you hardly even need five characters. Hell, Ramza, Mustadio, and Orlandu can easliy wipe the floor with everyone except for maybe that last battle with Balk or even the eight Samurai or monk random encounters. When you really start to see what the job classes have to offer you begin to understand how well you can really screw with people. (Like the calculators. Ever thought about equipping everyone with Excaliburs and having your calucalater cast holy on your own party...) Also, I found that when I play Disgaea (another wonderful SRPG that allows for ten characters on the map) I found myself only using about three to five characters. It was just easier to manage and I hated wasting a characters turn cause I don't really need them for the battle or I lost a character cause I forgot where they were when I made Laharl attack...

To truly understand a class, I recommend having a play thru where you get Ramza to master every class. As the most balanced character in the game he can really show you what classes are really capable of. I never thought much of Geomancers, Oracles, Bards, or even some of the mage classes until I had Ramza use them. It's a pretty eye opening experience.

The plot, though poorly localized, is incredibly deep and mature. Ramza is still my favorite male protagnist from a FF and guess what, he's not whiny and he isn't afraid to fight people he cares about if they go against what he truly believs in. He's not cold, he just believes strongly in a sense of justice that isn't clouded by naive principles that can be found in other main protagonist. (SPOILER)The plot basically revolves around Ramza fighting his elder brothers who start a war for their own personal gain, while he tries to make amends with a friend who has suffered greatly because of Ramza's family. Though this a generalization and there is far more to the story than this, but that happens later... Ramza is truly a complex character and yet there are no real moments in the game where there is real introspection about this. Whereas other games would have such scenes which scream out "Hey, this character is really deep and complex! You should be interested in him!" FFT does not. As the game goes along, the player witnesses the choices made and it is up to us to really decide why he did it.

As for character deaths... It's one of the greater challenges and as a game set in a war time scenario, the game designers to give the players the chance to taste a true strategists or generals position in these scenarios. It makes for a more rewarding experience. You might play differently if you know that their is a chance you're going to lose someone. It's always something that hangs in the back of your mind everytime you make a choice. It can be annoying but it only proves that your strategies are ineffective, you should use those times to review and understand what you did wrong and build a better strategy. It really gauges your weakness and you can't really say that about other games, not even other SRPGs.

My advice, give it another chance. Try to finish the game, and if you still don't like it, then I guess it just isn't your game but at least you tried and I can't ask anymore from you.

[Omni-Odin]

This game rocks. The story of Tactics is way more advanced than some of the actual numbered games in the series. Whoever doesn't like it, didn't play the game for more than an hour.