I do admit that the FFTA/FFTA2 progression system didn't feel as natural. It took a little while for it to click with me and for me to realize how it worked. But as soon as it did, I pretty much fell in love with it.

The massive item list never gave me a problem because the game accessed it intelligently (in this way I feel that FFTA did better than FFTA2, albeit only slightly). The game jumps to items you can equip, and greys out those you can't. So you only have a handful of equippable ones per job. As soon as you realize that equipment is broken into classes that match jobs, and how to check abilities, it becomes really simple.

It's better than FFIX because it opens up more equipment faster. You always have several new abilities to choose from in how to progress, while in FFIX you can max everything you have currently in a handful of battles, and each time you get a new piece of equipment, it takes a few more battles to master it, so they might as well just dole out abilities flat-out as you progress the game. Whereas FFTA gives you decisions. Stick to a new job, or switch to a new one. Since AP is awarded by battle/mission completion, you don't have to fight battles particular ways. Then too, random battles are fewer and far between, resulting in an increased incentive to level abilities through missions, rather than random battles. The progression flows more naturally, and "grinding" consists of accepting more of the sidequests, which become more plentiful earlier on.



I haven't played Tactics Ogre in a really, really long time, and I barely remember it. I haven't really felt the need to go back to it, and I have a huge backlog already, so...

I just feel that FFT's system, between the freedom to level absolutely everything from page one, and the slow rate of JP accumulation tied with JP being awarded based on how you fight, strips any sort of natural progression out of the game. Not being able to find a natural progression, and running into the problems I do with grinding (which I try to do immediately, because that's the kind of guy I am, so I start before I even get Mustadio) and getting killed, I wind up absolutely hating the system.

If it had either gated progression, or a more constant flow of JP (awarding it after every battle, for example), I think it would be a lot more balanced and tolerable. And both (as FFTA and FFTA2 did) is ideal. It doesn't prevent grinding or overlevelling, but it gives the game a natural progression and thus you know when you're grinding, what you're aiming for, and have a better idea of how to control the grind. I'm probably not phrasing this clearly, but, dangit, I know what I mean!