Summary: Some brief final thoughts on Tactics Advance.
Protagonists
Marche: A good kid with a cool growth arc, willing to fight for his friend. As some of y’all mentioned, his mistakes – how quickly he decided to destroy the crystal – can be excused by age. I still think it was the wrong choice at the start, and only defensible when we had learned new information about the world.
Ritz: THE BEST. I love how her arc wasn’t just separate from Marche’s but opposed to it.
I wish we saw more from her perspective. I’d love an FFTA remake with FFIX’s “Active Time Events” to show us Ritz’s side. Make her a co-protagonist where we manage her viera clan.
Ritz and Shara art by ploki.
I relate to Ritz so hard. She found a place where she could be herself and fought to stay there, uncertain if it’s real or an escape. She dreamed of acceptance. Her clan’s viera were her ideal selves. Proud, unconstrained, white-haired women.
Doned: Similarly to Ritz, this world offered him a life he didn’t see in St. Ivalice, and he fought to protect that. I liked seeing his arc with
Mewt: This poor kid. He went through so much shit. Not the strongest protag in FFTA, and I debated whether he even counted as a protag at all.
Mewt art by caterprism, posted by djinn87.
He functioned more like a reward than a protagonist, an object to be pursued and convinced and saved.
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Side Characters
Montblanc: A chipper, chirpy friend. It disappoints me that we learned so little about him outside that role.
Shara: I LOVE HER SO MUCH.
Strange. After all, like with Montblanc, we see none of her background. She has no personal arc.
I think it’s the way she supports to Ritz. She shows nuanced loyalty. She doesn’t question Ritz in front of others, goes out of her way to not undermine her… and then in private, expresses her true thoughts.
Not sure who made this Ritz and Shara art. Found it through Google image search but not sure of an artist credit: :S hara_e_Ritz_FFTA.jpg" target="_blank">http://nonciclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/File hara_e_...
Her final speech to Ritz is a thing of beauty.
Cid: A straight-forward dude with a sad backstory. The fact that Cid mostly lacked visceral memories of his St. Ivalice self blunted his impact for me.
Babus: I love djinn87’s headcanon of Babus as Mewt’s loyal dog in Ivalice. Started as an antagonist and spent enough time helping us to earn his way out of the doghouse. [Edit from two seconds later: no pun intended but no way in hell am I removing it.]
Babus and Ezel art by Inesanemona.
Ezel Berbier: A crafty anti-authority rogue as a goofy nu mou skin absolutely is. I wish he’d joined as a party member.
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Antagonist: Li-Grim
Li-grim is basically a genie. But what kind of genie? I’ll grade her on a scale from Robin Williams in “Aladdin” to the Djinn in “Wishmaster.”
Robin Williams was a friend. Social, understanding, empathetic. He tried to stop Aladdin from making wishes that were ultimately harmful.
The Djinn was a horror movie villain who sadistically twists wishes. For instance, the guy with a crappy job who wishes to “escape” gets stuck into one of those Houdini water boxes to drown. (It’s… not a good movie.) If someone makes three wishes, he gets to rule the world as his personal hell dimension.
Let’s see how Li-grim stacks up!
1. Helpfulness - She provides Mewt with a world where he has power, agency, and love. She fulfills his desires pretty directly. [ALADDIN]
2. Wisdom - She fulfilled that fantasy in what might be an unhealthily escapist way. It gave him escape without healing. What he wanted, but not what he needed. [Lean WISHMASTER]
3. Intent - There was no malicious intent here! She did her best. She reminds me of a benevolent alien who doesn’t quite understand the power she wields and her impact on others. [Later edit: see also “Worm,” by wildbow.]
For example, she spoiled Mewt by letting him change laws on a whim, but I thinks he legit wanted to help him. [Lean ALADDIN]
4. Interest - I don’t think she was self-interested. She fought us to protect Mewt. She empowered Llednar Twem to protect Mewt. She wasn’t trying to dominate the world. [ALADDIN]
5. Results - Her wish world was pleasant and positive. If worse came to worse and the kids couldn’t leave this world, they absolutely could have led happy, fulfilling lives. [ALADDIN]
Two points for a strong verdict and one point for a neutral/lean result, THE VERDICT: Aladdin – 6/10; Wishmaster: 1/10.
Li-Grim, by NanaleeSadira26.
She’s an antagonist, not a villain. I wish I knew more of her history or nature for a more complete picture.
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Story
I love the smaller scope of FFTA’s story. The fate of the world wasn’t at stake. (Probably.) It’s not “epic.” Nobody was threatening to unleash hordes of demons on the world, or attempting to obliterate rival nations.
It focused on four kids dealing with personal issues, grief and loss and loneliness and self-doubt.
Marche, Ritz, and Mewt art by danalynreyes, posted by djinn87.
Y’know what? I retract my couching. What could be more epic than that?
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Setting/Tone
This was a cool mix. So much of the game was sweet. The characters were good-natured, kind, caring for one another.
I tend to like brighter games. FFXII and FFT were both dark, serious versions of Ivalice. This was a lovely change. Everything was so orderly. Judges watched combat to make sure everyone stayed relatively safe. The clans were protective and supportive of each other. Even the monsters seem fairly tame.
Even with the darker elements to the game – Ritz’s self-hate, Mewt’s losses, Cid’s breakdown – this world was dedicated to providing a place to heal.
I love that. I get that it’s not for everybody, and my love for it is largely a matter of taste. I gravitate towards the sweeter games that may be a bit more cartoony (e.g. FFIX). I want to hug this incarnation of Ivalice.
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Gameplay
There’s a lot of little things I want to touch on here.
Few “core” party members: I did not like this. Marche and Montblanc were “core.” The rest were generics. I was really hoping to get more named characters, maybe even with unique jobs. Something I much preferred in FFT, even though I didn’t take advantage of it then.
Laws: What a cool concept! In FFT, I found a solid party set-up and stuck with it. FFTA’s laws forced me to constantly explore new party set-ups, new jobs and ability combinations.
Judge art by spyders.
I don’t think I used a single anti-law. I hoarded in case I reached a roadblock. I don’t regret this. I didn’t know what was ahead of me! But if I played again, I’d use them more freely.
Simplified combat: I imagine many people dislike this in FFTA compared with FFT, but I liked it. There was plenty of tactical challenge with positioning. FFTA punishes you heavily for attacking from the front, but getting to someone’s side or back could expose you. Easy to learn, hard to master.
Job System: I love how job paths were race-locked. It contributed to racial flavor, emphasizing bangaa as the physical race, nu mou as the magical race, viera as the nimble race, and moogles as the… I dunno, impish/fuck-with-you race.
A downside is that some jobs had repetitive/similar kits. I’d prefer pared down abilities so that things like ninja and elementalist (and many others) didn’t feel so samey. It undercut the variety.
Totemas: The totemas contributed to the racial diversity, like how the nu mou totema destroyed MP. They also felt constantly useful. Lots of FF games failed at this – like, I hardly ever used the FFVI or FFIX special attacks.
Mateus art by quincunx7.
JP interacted smoothly with totemas. Their power incentivized me to pay close attention to the recommended laws, which incentivized me to push outside my comfort zone for jobs. Intricate, even elegant overlapping systems.
Abilities from Gear: YES!!! I loved it in FFIX, and I love it here. Each new piece of gear is super exciting to get for the new combos it might help me unlock.
Higher-Level Recruits: Yes. I cycled through my bench clan members to improve my dispatch mission chances. Kept clan composition feeling fresh without needing to waste time leveling up those members I strictly wanted for dispatch.
Side Missions: Some missions had great flavor or fun text, or even creepiness. The best were the ones where I went somewhere and fought or bargained.
It’s mostly the dispatch missions that often felt like filler. Not all! Some had good flavor, like the one where I sent a fencer clan member to a fencing tournament. But lots I could’ve done without.
Mission Items: I didn’t really know what was up with these. Maybe I was just supposed to use them for bonuses on random missions; I didn’t know what I might need down the line.
Speed: Combat felt slow at times. Thank goodness for the turbo button that let me make the game go like 10x faster when the enemy was going through a long-ass animation.
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Music
A delightful soundtrack! I don’t know that I’ll replay a ton of it, but these are some tracks that stuck with me:
“Snow Dancing in the Schoolyard”
“Painful Battle”
“Battle of Hope”
“Ritz”
“Vanishing World”
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Art/Visuals
A cartoony style that I dig hard. Bright and colorful portraits. Some of the exaggerated expressions tickle me.
When characters look skeptical or mischievous, they look REALLY skeptical or REALLY mischievous.
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Length
My final save was just over 56 hours. Felt like a reasonable length. My FFT play was almost double that, but I knew what I was doing with this genre (a little bit at least) coming into FFTA. Specifically, sticking with a core party.
Not a minimalist run where I just stick with the main missions, but not a completionist run either. I’m curious to see what a speed run in this game looks like. I’ll bet there’s some really wacky shit out there, like level 1 runs or solo white mage runs.
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Replayability
Very high.
Bonus missions. I beat 210 missions, and apparently missed about 90, some of which open up post-game. One of these days I’d love to go back through the FF series and play through all the bonus content I missed. Do an FFIII run where I beat the Iron Giant. An FFVII run where I get all the limit breaks and beat all the Weapons. Etc etc, now including an FFTA run where I clear the missions.
Realistically, it’s unlikely I’ll do this in any formal way. The gaming time I have I’d rather allot to new FF games instead of more completionist runs of past games. The only time I’m likely to play past games is when I’m away from home and the game is on mobile. For example, during one block of traveling, I revisited FFI using a guide and got pretty deep into bonus content.
Mewt’s family and protectors. I couldn’t find the art credit – Google image search traced back to http://www.nowcultured.com/fft-advance-fanart/
(It was fun. I didn’t complete it, as I hated some of the timed elements, but still mostly fun!)
New party building. I felt my way ham-fistedly through this run, and think it’d be fun to do a guided run where I use the super OP combos.
PvP/Coop? Apparently there’s a whole aspect of gameplay where you can hook your GBA up with someone else who plays FFTA. Not sure if that’s coop or pvp, but either sounds like it’d be cool.
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Final Thoughts
I didn’t have high expectations. FF sequels have not traditionally been stellar. Entries like FFIV: The After Years, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, and X-2 Last Mission.
This blew my fears away. I liked it more than FFT. Take that with a MILLION grains of salt though, since FFT was tainted by my total newness to the genre. FFTA didn’t have that disadvantage.
FFTA is one of my favorite entries in the FF series. Not at the tip-top tier with FFVI, FFIX, FFX, and FFV, but probably in the tier right below, alongside FFIV, FFVII, and FFVIII.
What a gem.
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Next time: next week, starting “Revenant Wings.”
