Okay, FF advance was one of my favorite games for the GBA, so naturally I looked forward to the "Sequal" but I refused to allow myself to be byas because of the first game during this review, so here we go...
Final Fantasy A2, grimore of the rift, is the latest in the long line of final fantasy tactics games, you find yourself playing as troublemaker and school layabout Luso Clemmens, one magic book later you find yourself in a magical world surrounded by things that want to kill you, so naturally Luso quickly joins a clan, a group of warriors that accept contracts and kill things of cash
The plot is nothing to write home about, so let's move on to the gameplay
If you've played a tactics game in the past, you can guess the general layout of A2, but if you have not, I'll describe it the best I can, the game works off of a grid system that allows for your little warriors to move across the field in little boxes, and attack your enemys that stand in boxes next to you and vice-versa, of cource things like bows and magic allow you to reach enemies that are a bit farther away,
now that that's out of the way let's get a bit more detailed
You start the game with only six people in your clan (Which you name yourself, immature people rejoice) but when you reach a certin point in the storyline people appear from time to time that want to join, this allows you to mass up an army of up ot 24 different red shirts to do your bidding, which is handy considering how complex the job system is
and on to the job system...
the game seperates your mage and your warrior using jobs, I assume that everybody reading this is either familiar with the jobs, or can at least hazard a guess, but there is a small annoiance in this system, and before I forget, there are a large number of races you can recruit (Humans, Viara, Moogles, Etc...) and whatever red shirt A's race is alters what jobs you can pick from
if you want the super badass summoner, or other such jobs, you first have to master a certin number of abbilities for other, lesser, jobs. and the only way to master abbilities is to equip your red shirt with certin equipment and fight with it, the more powerful the abbility, the longer it takes to master. my description is significantly watered down so I'll just give you an example
suppose you want a summoner, as most sane people do, because summoners rule
you first have to recruit a random red shirt Viara and make them a white mage (Which is a lie, becaues you start the game with a white mage) and make them master two white mage
abbilities, and then you make them an Elementalist and make them master two of their abbilities, that unlocks the Summoner class, but only for Red shirt Viara in question,
I know that does'nt sound all that bad but, you only get about 30 AP per battle, and to master an elementalist abbility it takes 200 AP, that adds up to about seven battles in order to master one abbility, but enough ragging about that, it's actually a small annoiance that took up about Three paragraphs, moving on now
Unfortunately, there is one big problem that A2 shares with it's predesessor, and that's the law system, but before I attack the laws, let me say that the penalties for breaking them has been downgraded big time, now on with the ragging
In each battle this armored dousche bag gives you a law, which is saying that the game banns you from using a certin abbility, such as casting fire, or attacking an enemy from behind.
these laws don't start out bad
"Oh, I can't use moogles this battle, I can totally work around that"
Or
"Oh, I can't use magic in this battle, that sucks, but I can work around that"
but around the half way point, the game starts getting rediculas with the laws
"What do you mean I'm not allowed to get robbed, the enemy is nothing but theves"
That actually happened, but by the time that the laws get rediculas, you team should be so insanly powerfull that you could just break the law in the first turn and still obliterate your unfortunate foes
but enough nitpicking, time to wrap this up:
All in all, Final Fantasy A2 is an extremely good game, it's addicting, well balanced, and fun. If you own a DS, you owe it to yourself to add this game to your collection, but go in prepared, because you and your DS' battery are about to become worst enemies
So buy it, and say good bye to your console, it'll be a while before you pick up a controller again.
PS: as the title says this is my first review, so please keep the feedback on a more constructive level, I plan on getting better with the more reviews I write
Final Fantasy A2, grimore of the rift, is the latest in the long line of final fantasy tactics games, you find yourself playing as troublemaker and school layabout Luso Clemmens, one magic book later you find yourself in a magical world surrounded by things that want to kill you, so naturally Luso quickly joins a clan, a group of warriors that accept contracts and kill things of cash
The plot is nothing to write home about, so let's move on to the gameplay
If you've played a tactics game in the past, you can guess the general layout of A2, but if you have not, I'll describe it the best I can, the game works off of a grid system that allows for your little warriors to move across the field in little boxes, and attack your enemys that stand in boxes next to you and vice-versa, of cource things like bows and magic allow you to reach enemies that are a bit farther away,
now that that's out of the way let's get a bit more detailed
You start the game with only six people in your clan (Which you name yourself, immature people rejoice) but when you reach a certin point in the storyline people appear from time to time that want to join, this allows you to mass up an army of up ot 24 different red shirts to do your bidding, which is handy considering how complex the job system is
and on to the job system...
the game seperates your mage and your warrior using jobs, I assume that everybody reading this is either familiar with the jobs, or can at least hazard a guess, but there is a small annoiance in this system, and before I forget, there are a large number of races you can recruit (Humans, Viara, Moogles, Etc...) and whatever red shirt A's race is alters what jobs you can pick from
if you want the super badass summoner, or other such jobs, you first have to master a certin number of abbilities for other, lesser, jobs. and the only way to master abbilities is to equip your red shirt with certin equipment and fight with it, the more powerful the abbility, the longer it takes to master. my description is significantly watered down so I'll just give you an example
suppose you want a summoner, as most sane people do, because summoners rule
you first have to recruit a random red shirt Viara and make them a white mage (Which is a lie, becaues you start the game with a white mage) and make them master two white mage
abbilities, and then you make them an Elementalist and make them master two of their abbilities, that unlocks the Summoner class, but only for Red shirt Viara in question,
I know that does'nt sound all that bad but, you only get about 30 AP per battle, and to master an elementalist abbility it takes 200 AP, that adds up to about seven battles in order to master one abbility, but enough ragging about that, it's actually a small annoiance that took up about Three paragraphs, moving on now
Unfortunately, there is one big problem that A2 shares with it's predesessor, and that's the law system, but before I attack the laws, let me say that the penalties for breaking them has been downgraded big time, now on with the ragging
In each battle this armored dousche bag gives you a law, which is saying that the game banns you from using a certin abbility, such as casting fire, or attacking an enemy from behind.
these laws don't start out bad
"Oh, I can't use moogles this battle, I can totally work around that"
Or
"Oh, I can't use magic in this battle, that sucks, but I can work around that"
but around the half way point, the game starts getting rediculas with the laws
"What do you mean I'm not allowed to get robbed, the enemy is nothing but theves"
That actually happened, but by the time that the laws get rediculas, you team should be so insanly powerfull that you could just break the law in the first turn and still obliterate your unfortunate foes
but enough nitpicking, time to wrap this up:
All in all, Final Fantasy A2 is an extremely good game, it's addicting, well balanced, and fun. If you own a DS, you owe it to yourself to add this game to your collection, but go in prepared, because you and your DS' battery are about to become worst enemies
So buy it, and say good bye to your console, it'll be a while before you pick up a controller again.
PS: as the title says this is my first review, so please keep the feedback on a more constructive level, I plan on getting better with the more reviews I write
