Douglas's game of the week: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

I did another review of this about a month or so ago giving it an unfair 9.85/10, because I had played a RoM of it. I decided to redo this one, giving it a more fair score.

When FFTA was first announced, I thought Square-Enix was going to remake FFT for the GBA. I was wondering how they could do that. Later, I found out it was going to be an original game. WEll, I was semi-disappointed, because I loved the first FFT and maybe they would fix some of the flaws, like translate the storyline better. This could have been the better option though.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance introduces some new elements to strategy games. The first thing would be the Races. You can correct me, but I don't think there's a strategy game where you can have the races change class (There's lizard men and Hawk-men in Tactics Ogre, but they can't change classes.). Also, you can choose to flee. This is something the original Final Fantasy Tactics could have used, because I had to fight through 6 locations to get to Igros castle in Chapter 4. To: KoL could have also used that too. It also introduces the Law system, which I'll dedicate a paragraph too later. It has a region create system, but it's not new here because it was introduced in Legend of Mana, which came first. (And be sure NOT to waste time on that crap-game. It makes Xenosaga look like Golden Sun. And considering Xenosaga sucks except for that evil genius...)

The law system is quite strange. The Judges are there so if a character is knocked out in battle, they come back. This decreases the difficulty greatly, because you can just have a character mindlessly rush into battle and then they get knocked out. Well, no biggie, unless you're in a Jagd, then they just come right back. The laws start out okay, but once there are 3 and almost all 3 forbid stuff your party does mainly, then you're screwed. The law cards help, but sometimes, they only make the already-easy-game easier. One other weird thing is that I used an Anti-fire law card in the battle with Adrammelch, he uses fire 3 times and he doesn't get one red card. I have Montblanc cast Fira ONCE (By accident) and he's sent right to jail without even a yellow card. Sometimes, I just wish I can kill the stupid judge.

The graphics of the game look like a kid cartoon. Well, that's not really a bad thing, but it makes Marche look like a girl-version of Ramza Beolve (He's even got that hair that sticks up and the ponytail in the back like Ramza does.) and makes Mewt look like he's 4 years old. The graphics are bright coloured, which is basically the opposite of some games like Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis and Castlevania, which use dark colours and are somewhat hard to see with regular gameboy advances.

The music is kind of like Elevator music. It repeats and some battle musics sometimes don't fit the scene. Sure, the Totema theme and the last battle (2nd and 3rd phases) musics are good, but some like the Final Battle 1st phase don't really fit the scene. However, the battle music when you're fighting with Ritz and Shara is pretty cool.

The storyline is at an all time low. It reminded me of the neverending story, and this is not a good thing (I'm 15.). Some kids my sister babysits love the storyline, but they're 7 and 9. This is probably one of the reasons people say "Nintendo is for kids man. Xbox all the way!", because this game was probably meant for a younger audience.

Characters learn abilities by equipping items, just like in Final FAntasy 9, and they must earn a specific amount of AP before they learn it. This is a good thing, but if you're trying to teach a character later in the game a kick-ass ability like Air Render, then they'll have to equip a somewhat weak weapon to learn it. Learning Ultima is annoying. It takes 999 AP and the weapons you equip to learn it are weaker than a piece of thread. And speaking of weak, some abilities are useless while others rip everything to shreds. This makes some characters like Fighters war-wagons and others weaker than a doll, and some abilities are way too cheap, like Stopshot.

The game is far too easy. You have your characters about a few levels above your opponenants and they knock them out in a few rounds. Your enemies are also stupid. When they're not being stupid, they're being cheap. The final boss is either dumb as a rock or cheaper than the Damn Dragon-Err Doom Dragon in Golden Sun 2.

Final Fantasy Tactics advance is probably the most addicting gameboy advance game there is out there. Not only will you find yourself still playing after that very-disappointing ending, but you still might be playing it years from now. It's more addicting than Fire Emblem. This game is Mind control. Square-Enix probably released this game so that we'll be under their control and they'll get loads of money off of Final Fantasy Slut-2 (Credit for the joke goes to Jay) and Final Fantasy 7 Advent children, which i know I'll dislike.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is probably one of the most overrated gameboy advance games too. Loads of people at Gamefaqs (Though alot of those people are stupid. Like taht stupid idiot who based Phantasy Star IV for half-ass reasons AND got review of the day for it) think this is the best game of 2003, but they've probably never even played Fire Emblem. It's not the best Final Fantasy, but it's worth a go. 7.54/10

Pros:
-about 300 missions
-Great Totema theme
-Great controls
-Most addicting game since Tetris and Chrono Trigger.

Cons:
-Somewhat Immature and uninspired storyline
-Ending is not nearly worth the time you'll probably take to beat the game
-Enemy AI is super-cheap or incredibly stupid
-Cheap abilities