Final Fantasy Tactics...I just can't get into it.

[Wiggum Esquilax]

What makes the PS1 version better?

Honestly, I first played FFT in 1998. Game of thrones came out years later, and the thing that made me instantly love the show/book series was how much it reminded me of FFT in terms of tone... to the point where the series could have been called "Final Fantasy Tactics the series" and i'd have believed it. so, if you're a fan of GoT, chances are you'll find something to love in tactics.

They share ancestry. Both FFT and GoT draw source material from the War Of The Roses, circa 1455 to 1487.

 

[Veylon]

I've always had problems singing praises for that game. Looking back, it comes down to so many pacing issues. The story is slow to start, and doesn't really have much of a high gear when it gets going. That isn't so bad, but then you add the random battles with scaling enemies that can add hours between story segments, and animations and systems that haven't yet been streamlined making the necessary leveling of classes and skills slow and tedious compared to more modern SRPGs.

While I enjoyed FFT greatly, it really feels like the precursor to an as-yet-unmade successor that fixes it's flaws while keeping what makes it shine. I love it's battle system and it feels like so much more could've been done with it. It's practically criminal that there's no two-player mode to pit party against party, for instance. It's a gem, but in the rough.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I've always had problems singing praises for that game. Looking back, it comes down to so many pacing issues. The story is slow to start, and doesn't really have much of a high gear when it gets going. That isn't so bad, but then you add the random battles with scaling enemies that can add hours between story segments, and animations and systems that haven't yet been streamlined making the necessary leveling of classes and skills slow and tedious compared to more modern SRPGs.

While I enjoyed FFT greatly, it really feels like the precursor to an as-yet-unmade successor that fixes it's flaws while keeping what makes it shine. I love it's battle system and it feels like so much more could've been done with it. It's practically criminal that there's no two-player mode to pit party against party, for instance. It's a gem, but in the rough.

I think there was a multiplayer FFT in Japan, but it was a mobile game, and flopped to extinction in under a year!

OT: I think the hardest thing about FFT is that the slow first part is not just that... it is also a really important time for planning ahead. The worst decision they made with it was to keep the unlockable jobs secret... because you really needed to plan what you wanted your characters to be later in the game really early on...

On top of that you also had to play through as far as you could at least once to actually understand what units you will need later. Without that some battles and bosses bacame pretty much impossible. You needed a good balance of characters, and a plethra of useful skills before you could tackle some of the mid-game beasties. The slow pacing though made it difficult sometimes to remember what you were planning on doing with characters (especially if you don't play it constantly) which could lead you down rabbit holes!

I liked the PSP War of the Lions version, but I think the one I played the most was FFT:A2 on the DS. (NEVER NEVER NEVER The GBA one though... The Judge system was horrifically brutal and an unnessecary addition) I liked the different races and job trees, and thought it gave more charm to the characters.

 

[Quellist]

Can someone tell me what i'm doing wrong with this game while we're at it? I'm no newbie to strategy games and i was hoping this was going to be like Tactics Ogre. I only get a few battles in and the enemies are higher level and hideously punishing already. I tried grinding but then the enemies were higher level and had more abilities so punished me more and i can't learn enough JP to put my abilities up without boosting my levels and thus boosting the enemies levels. What's the trick here?

 

[Vlado]

On the gameplay side, the character building and customization has some frustrating UI and doesn't explain itself at all. I know that there's a lot of depth and strategy to be found there, but I don't feel I should have to study a strategy guide on GameFAQs to do it.

Select button brings out help.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I spent probably 200 hours with it when it originally came out. I don't think I ever managed to learn Ultima or Serpentarious though I did get all the hidden characters.

I remember spending a lot of time having my troops scream and throw rocks at each other, because that is how you power level lol.

I did like the story quite a bit, even if most of my time was spent in non story battles. Calculators suck, but geomancers can be very fun and monks can wreck most anything.

I probably spent as much or more time with the sequels. The rule system made things interesting, and the different races were cool.

My Viera hit squad was pretty sweet.

 

[happyninja42]

I don't remember the specifics of the game, as I played the original version when it came out. But I remember enjoying it a lot. I don't recall having a problem with the plot taking forever to get started, as I spent so much time just doing random fights to level up my guys, the plot ended up being something I dipped into like once very 10 hours of play.

It was actually kind of funny, because the plot missions (at least in the original, I don't know about the psp version), didn't scale with you. So you would regularly go in and spank the badguys.

As to tips to make you like the game? *shrugs* Don't really know what to tell you. I mean, if you don't like it, you don't like it. I love the way FF 12's story is actually one I can follow and enjoy, and it makes the most sense of all the FF games I've played....but I still can't really enjoy the game, because the combat is dull.

I think my enjoyment mostly came from finding really enjoyable combinations of Jobs for my team, and watching them strategically shut down the opposition. But I only played the game once, and never again, so I can't really say it was one of those games that became dear to me heart.

 

[Wiggum Esquilax]

Can someone tell me what i'm doing wrong with this game while we're at it? I'm no newbie to strategy games and i was hoping this was going to be like Tactics Ogre. I only get a few battles in and the enemies are higher level and hideously punishing already. I tried grinding but then the enemies were higher level and had more abilities so punished me more and i can't learn enough JP to put my abilities up without boosting my levels and thus boosting the enemies levels. What's the trick here?

Random battle enemies are randomly generated, but use the highest level of any of your characters in the battle as their benchmark. To avoid facing overleveled enemies, you have to maintain battle party experience level consistency. This is a problem that will diminish as you level-up; there's a much bigger difference between levels 2 and 3 than levels 19 and 20.

Be mindful that just like in Tactics Ogre, different maps will produce monsters of differing base power levels. Goblins will always be less dangerous than Behemoths, but you gain identical xp/jp for striking them.

As for those hideously powerful enemies in scripted battles, I suspect you're talking about the notorious difficulty spike in Dorter Trade City. Leveling up will actually help you here, as scripted enemies have fixed xp levels.

The best early game way to earn JP is to learn the squire support ability which boosts it's gain, "Gained JP Up" or "JP Boost" depending on your game version.

If you're trying to grind, whittle the enemy party down to one character, then have your people throw rocks at each other. Be mindful that grinding by rock throwing isn't always a great idea, particularly in the early game; you'll level up without making money!

If you prefer to quit to title rather than accepting permadeath, it can make a lot of sense to dismiss two of the starting characters. You can only ever fit 5 people in your party, the only reason for any additional red shirts is if you want one of every class, and are willing to grind them all.

Stores will sometimes update their inventory during a chain of scripted battles, rather than at it's end. It can occasionally be worthwhile to go back to a town, instead of proceeding to the next fight. I recommend going back between scripted battles whenever possible, it'll give you best access to store inventory, and the random encounters during travel will organically spread the grinding out between story fights.

Be mindful that this game has gender differentiation. Females have significantly greater magic attack power, while males have physical attack power. The only reason to buck that trend is to produce Bards and Dancers, which require a male to have mage levels and a female to have warrior levels before unlocking.

Whew, wall of text. Your fault for asking!

 

[Quellist]

Can someone tell me what i'm doing wrong with this game while we're at it? I'm no newbie to strategy games and i was hoping this was going to be like Tactics Ogre. I only get a few battles in and the enemies are higher level and hideously punishing already. I tried grinding but then the enemies were higher level and had more abilities so punished me more and i can't learn enough JP to put my abilities up without boosting my levels and thus boosting the enemies levels. What's the trick here?

Random battle enemies are randomly generated, but use the highest level of any of your characters in the battle as their benchmark. To avoid facing overleveled enemies, you have to maintain battle party experience level consistency. This is a problem that will diminish as you level-up; there's a much bigger difference between levels 2 and 3 than levels 19 and 20.

Be mindful that just like in Tactics Ogre, different maps will produce monsters of differing base power levels. Goblins will always be less dangerous than Behemoths, but you gain identical xp/jp for striking them.

As for those hideously powerful enemies in scripted battles, I suspect you're talking about the notorious difficulty spike in Dorter Trade City. Leveling up will actually help you here, as scripted enemies have fixed xp levels.

The best early game way to earn JP is to learn the squire support ability which boosts it's gain, "Gained JP Up" or "JP Boost" depending on your game version.

If you're trying to grind, whittle the enemy party down to one character, then have your people throw rocks at each other. Be mindful that grinding by rock throwing isn't always a great idea, particularly in the early game; you'll level up without making money!

If you prefer to quit to title rather than accepting permadeath, it can make a lot of sense to dismiss two of the starting characters. You can only ever fit 5 people in your party, the only reason for any additional red shirts is if you want one of every class, and are willing to grind them all.

Stores will sometimes update their inventory during a chain of scripted battles, rather than at it's end. It can occasionally be worthwhile to go back to a town, instead of proceeding to the next fight. I recommend going back between scripted battles whenever possible, it'll give you best access to store inventory, and the random encounters during travel will organically spread the grinding out between story fights.

Be mindful that this game has gender differentiation. Females have significantly greater magic attack power, while males have physical attack power. The only reason to buck that trend is to produce Bards and Dancers, which require a male to have mage levels and a female to have warrior levels before unlocking.

Whew, wall of text. Your fault for asking!

Whoa, thanks man! I had no idea about how enemy levels worked, or the gender thing. Time to get the old PSP out and give it another crack

 

[Chaos Isaac]

I found advance tactics to be ultimately superior.

Sure, wasn't the greatest. But it opened up faster and kinda let you just wander around instead of boring plot railroad. And kinda build the world. (Actually, you do piece together the map)

I found the original tactics a hot mess, so that's kinda it. It was really good for a select few, but I don't think it was the most popular.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I played Tactics Advanced when I was younger and tried getting into Tactics proper a few months ago. I haven't gone back to it because of better games on my backlog but my issue with Tactics Advanced was that I didn't feel like I would be strong enough to get through various missions. In fact, I remember getting stuck on a couple of quests back then; ultimately I stopped playing when a boss character repeatedly killed me. What I don't like about Tactics RPGs comes from how difficult it is to find places to level-grind. I liked Awakening because you could use an item (can't remember what it was called) to call in enemies to fight for relatively easy XP, gold and, equipment. I don't remember that being a thing in Tactics or Advanced...I want to grind to Godhood in my RPGs dammit.