Gaming Generations :: Final Fantasy Tactics A2

NeedsMoreZazz · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject:

Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Release Date: 6/24/2008
Genre: Tactical RPG
ESRB Rating: E 10+

Graphics
Graphics are simple, bright and clearly defined. Maps and characters are simple but detailed. The spells and particle effects are pretty good, better than many previous installments in the series. At times however some of the spell effects do lag a bit, the big fire spells in particular.

Plot
The main character Luso finds himself magically dropped into a book and winds up in Ivalice, right into the middle of a battle actually. He makes friends with his rescuers and sets out to discover what happened to him and how to get home. While doing so he uncovers more and more about current events and plots in Ivalice and the histories of his companions.

Setting
The game takes place in Ivalice again. A beautiful fantasy world with a variety of races predisposed towards different combat related jobs and a great deal of plotting and political maneuvering. It's also completely overrun with hostile monsters. Even garden vegetables are likely to slip a knife between your ribs when you aren't looking. Probably due to this there are a number of mercenary clans that work in each area doing jobs ranging from simple delivery missions to fighting off dragons and other powerful beasties.

Gameplay
Like all other tactical RPG's you are presented with a map and a number of units with their own special abilities and attacks. Each map has it's own win condition such as surviving a number of turns, collecting items, killing a boss, or defeating an entire enemy team. This game has an obscene number of job classes available, unfortunately many classes just aren't very good or are nearly identical to another class already present. Like Tactics Advance, there is a law system. Each day there are certain actions you cannot take. Unlike advance however, you are not heavily punished for breaking the law. Instead, you get to choose a special bonus your team gets for the duration of the battle, if you break the law, you lose this bonus. Also, characters cannot be resurrected once the law has been broken. (they are automatically revived at the end of the battle however).
Due to this, the game is considerably easier than previous games in the series. Abilities and skills are learned through equipping different items. The downside to this is that items are made through randomly generated loot, rather than bought. This means that you can potentially play through 3/4 of the game with several of your classes unavailable for use because you just cannot get the weapons you need. You are also no longer able to steal gear from enemies, removing another method of obtaining new and poweful items. Also added into the game is an auction system. Once a year, each area on the map goes up for auction, You compete with other clans trying to win the auction to gain control of an area. If you get control of the entire region, you can no longer have territory taken from you in that area, and in the following years they auction off rare items rather than land. Also, unlike many other tactical RPGs, there are no random battles. Almost all combat is done through the job system, and you'll oftentimes end up doing the same jobs over and over and over again to get money, items and experience. That said, there are many hundreds of different missions available.

Sound
Nothing to write home about, but the music is appropriate and nice. The sound effects are pretty good. The noise many blunt weapons make are quite satisfying.

Summary
All in all this is a great tactical RPG. The storyline is good, the characters are fun and the gameplay provides a plethora of options. The way they stagger the rate at which you get new races and classes ensures you never run out of things to do or abilities to work on. There are a ridiculous number of sidequests and a pretty good plot to the whole story once you get into it.
The game was dissapointing on a few notes. While the game does have the ridiculously high number of job classes as advertised, it's abused by the race system. Each race has their own set of classes and several of them are almost exactly the same as the class in another race, except with 1 or 2 abilities switched around and a different name. Also, some of the classes are just pathetically weak and several classes are dependant on a specific weapon, meaning you can't use them well as part of the dual class function. As stated earlier, the random loot generation to make your own items means that there are chances you can spend a good portion of the game unable to proceed to advanced jobs because you are stuck and its darn near impossible to master many of the classes. In particular people seem to have problems getting many of the thief items in order to get the ninja with the beloved dual wield ability. The new law system is nice without the horrific penalties of the past, however at the same time the benefits you get are so pathetically weak that most of the time you wont even care when you break the law. Lastly in my list of gripes. The game is almost pathetically easy. You no longer run the risk of losing any of your characters permenantly and the enemy's classes are just as watered down as your own. Likewise you can only lose the game on main story battles (which typically are about 1 out of every 15-20 fights or so) If you do all the sidequests before going on to the main story battle you'll find yourself laughing at your enemies furious attempts to harm you while you make jokes about their mothers and toy with them before ultimately swatting them like the flies they are. I don't mind easy games, but this game is also very long. Loooooong. I put in roughly 120 hours according to my game save and there are still things left I haven't done.

Graphics:8/10
Sound:9/10
Conrol:10/10
Gameplay:8/10
Replay Value:7/10
Overall: 8.5