Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

"Sorry, it's not just inferior to the original... it's horrible all on it's own."

Over the time Final Fantasy has evolved, as a whole, from box vs box battles all the way to diverse worlds, spanning generation through generation of epic quests with endless amounts of enemies, mysteries to solve and wonders to unveil. Year after year Square has been blessing us with what is renowned as the best RPGs(of course I disagree with that). Although somewhat hyped, I can't honestly say their games don't live up to it, as they've put much effort and love into the games they make, resulting in wonders.

One which was Final Fantasy Tactics... a break from the stereotypical turn-based RPG which they are known for. It had everything, war, love, tension, mystery, wonder, all with the beautifully orchastrated soundtrack. One of the few games I think doesn't fall far behind Persona 2 - EP(which, if you know, is the most deep game created and my favorite game of all times).

Content with FFT, I heard about Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, which had me gritting my teeth for what seemed like decades waiting for, to know Square was going to do it again, accompanied by the company who is known for the creation of Dragon Warrior, my absolute favorite RPG series.

~Oh my GOD you are boring... will you get on with the review?!?!?~
Man... I was liking the storytelling. anyway. Upon seeing the low score there is no doubt you're already screeching "BLAH! HE JUST DOESN'T LIKE IT BECAUSE IT'S NOT EXACTLY LIKE FFT, DUMB OLD-SCHOOLERS CAN'T ACCEPT CHANGE FER NUTHIN!!!". Which, I'm sorry to inform you... is wrong.

Yeah, you heard correct, FFTA isn't only bad in comparison to FFT... it's bad all on it's own, without FFT's help.

~Why, I'll kill you!~
Just a second now... like all things I say, the above statement doesn't go without reason. Don't get me wrong, I love that they strayed away from the original FFT style and tried something new instead of taking the easy path and giving us a carbon copy of it. It's just that it's poorly executed.

~::Sigh:: There you go again with that poorly executed mess, what's your reason this time?~
Well, first off, the judge system. I liked it, for a moment... it made me conform to another style of battling and trained my skills so that I could battle in any situation, no matter what was disabled. But then there's the law cards... that's where the whole boat of sailing logic crashed into the huge iceberg and sunk to the murky depths of the sea. The law cards not only allow you to completely manipulate the battles, but it gives you complete control over the challenge. With these cards you can, in theory, make it impossible for the enemy to lay a hand on you without them getting sent to jail. Meaning that if you want ANY challenge in this game, you'll have to create it yourself by disabling your own abilities instead of relying on the game to challenge you... correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't it be the other way around... y'know, I try using all my abilities to give myself a chance to claim victory instead of using my abilities to make the game even remotely challenging.

~Wow, I didn't think about it like that~
Of course you didn't, you were too busy going ga-ga because it had "Final Fantasy" on it. Now lets continue on the game progress. You beat a main quest or two, and unlock a new level where you can put wherever you want... you unlock all the levels and some special ones appear. The problem... none really, that is, putting aside a small reality issue with being able to set a icy valley directly near a volcano off the coast of a desert and defy all laws of geography... simply senseless and something you shouldn't have to do. But that's not the main issue here... you know that little spot in FFT where you could choose a little sidequest from the pub and do it for some little extras? Yeah... that is now the whole point of FFTA. Instead of traveling to a place in which you do a quest, move on to the next area and continue in your pattern you pick up practically your entire quest at a local bar.

~But it's Final Fantasy! How can it be bad?!~
Where to start... the new gain system! I admit, the part where you must gain a certain amount of abilities in order to go to another class was pretty cool... it gives a sense of reality there showing you must know a certain amount of basics before moving on to the next class. But how you get the abilities... that's just silly. I use my bamboo staff quite a bit in training, but never before have I gained any magical abilities from it. And the JP... no longer Job Points, now it's used to unleash combos! Now, in addition to the already challenge-lacking FFTA you can gather all your enemies around one and use a combo or totema to further destroy the point of bosses. Also the new accuracy system has arrived, now you have a hit/miss ratio of about 2/8. At far too many time in the game you will find yourself missing with an 87% chance to hit or more and watch the enemy attack your whole party, destroying them with less than 42%(can we get a new DM in here, these dice rolls are all wrong!!).

~How about Audios/Visuals?~
Crap... I thought I'd get through this review without mentioning those two. Oh well. Graphics... nothing spectacular at all... actually they look kinda dull at times. There's barely any monsters in the game, and the ones that exist look badly caricatured(that means the caricatures that are bad... not the good ones... okay?). There are few female characters, but you can get off pretending most of the males here are females because there's barely any visual difference here(look at the blue mage, you'll see). As for the Audio... sounds are good, but they just add no drama to it... as much as I hate to, I have to use the comparison from FFT here. In FFT, when you kill someone, you hear them fall a howling death as if they're really in pain... in FFTA, you just get a little grunt. Contrary to popular belief, the happy-go-lucky soundtrack isn't too bad(especially the 3 songs that don't sound like something you'd hear while Peter Pan is flying about)... one, which I think deserves mention is that of the Ogma dragon battle, which grabs my favor almost as much as Random Waltz from FFT.

~And of the storyline?~
Ahh yes... this is where every pillar holding up the foundation(worth) of this game collapses. Not so much disappointing that it follows a bright happy theme that the bright, happy theme was executed poorly.... okay, I'll start from the beginning. "Young Marche, stripped from his homeworld by magical forces is thrown into a completely different dimension where he resides in St. Ivalice, a region much similar to the city Ivalice of his own world. Accompanied by his best friends their actions dictate whether they stray away from the false world and return to reality, or live forever in this world of beauty and fantasy..

Sounds good, huh? Alas, that's only the outside... let's venture inside!(don't worry, I won't spoil it)

Now in St. Ivalice, you meet a few new friends and learn of some of their customs. To and fro you navigate the world trying to find some people who, too wish to leave so that you may go home. But the problem is, you don't spend very much time doing that at all... no... it's much better to sit around picking flowers and doing time consuming quests!(which would make one wonder how eager he really is to get back home) The story sequences are few, and very low in quality as they appear put through a random story sequence generator (you'll learn everything about that your first play through). Of course this being a strategy game, you don't need a coherent storyline or good execution, right?</sarcasm>

-------Overall-------
Graphics: 7.1/10
Sound: 6.4/10
Lasting appeal: 2.1/10
Gameplay: 5.2/10
Control: 9.5/10
Overall: 5

A good novelty act from Square, but it's just no good... Like I said before, it doesn't just fail to live up to the original, it fails all on it;s own... seriously.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/21/04