Seriously, I had meant to review Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher today, but I've just spent the last day or so (basically, every moment since my last review) working through Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book: Fire (I'm on Sozin's Comet) so about two hours after this review goes up, I'll probably start work on it.
As such, tomorrow will get the Top Ten, and then Furies will either be released tomorrow evening, or Thursday morning, with the possible fillers being pushed back probably until I get to FFXII. However, enough with the update, and on to the review itself. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
So, as I believe I've mentioned before, I really like the Tactics games for one major reason, it was created by the same man who came up with the idea for Ogre Saga, a strategy RPG by Quest, a subsidiary of Square Enix, that has been long since their Squaresoft days. Outside of Zelda, Pokemon, and a little Gauntlet, it was the first RPG I ever really played, and as such, it has a special place in my heart.
The fact that there's an entire sub-franchise in the Final Fantasy series built from the ground up by the same guy and even has a main series release, well that gives Tactics Advanced a straight shot into greatness in my book. So, why isn't it higher on this list then?
Well, the answer is two fold. The first, is the story, while slightly intriguing, and all but saying that the world of the Ivalice Alliance was created by these four youngsters' combined wishes, specifically Mewt's, it leaves a lot of plot holes, which I'll get into more later.
The second has to do with the gameplay. It's excellent, there's probably nothing I'd do to change it, and yet, all the time, there's just something that's off about it. I can't really explain what it is, but it mars the game as a whole.
Backtracking to the story for a moment though, the story revolves around four children, Marche Radiuju, his friends, Ritz Malhuer and Mewt Randall, and his little brother, Doned. On a snowy day in St. Ivalice, they open the Gran Grimoire and read it aloud, each saying what they want in the world, even going so far as to break the fourth wall by referencing the Final Fantasy series in general.
Marche, the new kid in town, wishes for a place where he can be strong, where he's not just the new kid, but someone respected. He doesn't ask for much, and thus, is the only one who realizes that the world of Ivalice isn't right.
Mewt, the social pariah, found the book at a local shop, and thus the wishes they gave seem to be most aimed towards his benefit. He wishes to have his mother back, for his father (Cid, making this one of the four instances of Cid to be a father in the whole franchise) to be successful, and to be loved by everyone.
Ritz (What's with the MR/RM naming pattern of these kids? It's a little odd.) wishes to still be her bad ass, take no shit off nobody, "I can be a girl and still kick your ass" self. All she wants is the one thing that she gets teased about, having naturally white hair, to be permanently red. The fact that she's a Red Mage too, makes her someone you should expect to see in an upcoming top ten.
Doned is sickly in the real world. It's never explained what he has, but he's in and out of the hospital...a lot. He's also bound to his wheel chair constantly. In Ivalice though, he's a warrior, a clan leader, and he wants it to stay that way.
The Gran Grimoire changes the world that night into Ivalice, the world where Final Fantasy isn't a fantasy. Marche takes up arms with Clan Nutsy, a newly founded team under the head of Montblanc, a recurring character of the Ivalice Alliance (along with his siblings, Hurdy, Gurdy, Nono, Horne, and Sorbet) and leader of Clan Centurio. Whether or not Nutsy is Centurio's early days is still unclear, but discussion for another time.
As Clan Nutsy explores Ivalice, Marche runs across his friends, Judge Cid, Babus, a servant of Prince Mewt, his little brother, Ezel Berbier, the Anti-Law crafter (also a recurring character in the Tactics Advanced sub series), and the totemas, the game's summons.
The totemas are multiply important to the series. On the one hand, they're the strings that keep the spell of the Gran Grimoire in place. This means, as they're crystals are destroyed and their powers are claimed by Clan Nutsy, the spell's grasp on reality weakens. The Totemas are also the Espers of FFXII, dark minor deities who serve the major gods who have effect the rest of the Ivalice story throughout.
Now this games story, if the rest of the Ivalice Alliance didn't exist, would be perfect, however, as it does, this game adds so may plot holes that have yet to be fully hashed out. A2 might fix some of those, though I've only heard bad things about it. I hate it when a story leaves me with the "but I still have all these questions...aren't you going to answer them? No?...<the rest of this dialogue has been severely editted so as to not offend the more squeamish viewers in the audience>...and I damn you to hell with all the fires of angelic might and godly fury, do I damn thee, Lost Writers."
I think I got a little off track.
Moving right along...gameplay as I've said, is perfect, but something about it just feels off. The game plays like Final Fantasy, but on a strategy RPG's 2D grid. Each engagement sets a small squad (up to six playable characters) out against another squad (also up to six) to quickly duke it out. They last about five to ten minutes each, just enough time for a quick round of fun.
Leveling in this game is slow though, my suggestion is to grind often and early. The best way to do this is to get a squad of self healers (soldiers, archers, white mages with cure staffs) against a character who can't attack for some reason, either an archer against characters with Block Arrows, or something else, or controlled by a beast master. If you do this though, you must level the creature also by having it attack your characters.
However, leveling is only one part of character progression. You also have job ability experience points that are gained at the end of each engagement or dispatch quests (quests that, like the title suggests, has you sending a clan member off on their own). I don't like the dispatch quests, as success is defined by some unknown stats. I've grinded my troops to level 99's in the first mission before (Marche, Montblanc, the human, the nu mou, the bangaa, and the viera) just so that every recruit also had those stats, and still success was not always assured.
Clan Wars are fun, and if you can find a friend still playing the game, the multiplayer aspect is nice. Story quests are generally a joke if you've done any manner of grinding, as the enemy's don't level with you. Clan Wars do, but they're generally weaker than your clan overall.
I like the Job Class system mostly, though it is a little tedious. Different weapons and armors imbue different abilities to the character, and it's usually a pretty slow process...however, Air Render, First Aid, Mog Aid, Boost, and Black/White/Red magics are all you'll ever need to be truly sucessful.
Finally, the map system is defined by you. In doing so you can unlock treasure hunts which reward you with varying levels of goodies. You can look up a map of the best ways to do this, though I prefer doing it in order to get all of the ultimate weapons and armor.
If you've followed my work thus far, which I'm assuming you have...you know I like music...however, unlike with most other FF games, there's no real piece that just stands out. They're all really well made of course, and it has a superb scoring throughout, but there's not just one song that's truly good enough that I can point to and say, this, this is the song that's incredible. Kind of sad, and doesn't help the game's standing.
Graphically, it's a 2D strategy RPG built on a 3D plane. It's nice, but there's not much to be said for it it. The opening cinematic has a very storybook feel to it, and it's kind of nice, but I very much prefer the feel when it was done again in A2 and War of the Lions.
The game doesn't have much of a legacy, as everything it did, Tactics did first, in most cases with better results. However, it was the first game to feature Viera and Bangaa, and the Ivalice Alliance has prospered due to their inclusion, in my opinion. It also introduced the Moogle siblings, including Montblanc, and they've been important in the series since.
So, what do you think? Am I justified to have lost about, oh, almost 30 hours straight to this game? Did you like it? How does it compare to the other FF Tactics games? Let me know.
-Sara
p.s. The Ivalice Alliance will return...soon!
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