#gio plays ffta | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

slightly-gay-pogohammer · 3 years

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i finished ffta again for the first time in more than 15 years and my final verdict is that if you hate marshe im going to steal your knees

i’m gonna try to be as spoiler-free as possible bc i really want people to play this game ok? ok

premise: this is the only final fantasy tactics i played. i KNOW the original fft is better and this one isn’t a flawless game, but you know what? it took my heart and smashed it with a hammer over and over and for that i am glad. when i decided to get back on it i was REALLY scared for the maincharacter, since the main plot is about a group of friends with various problems ending up in a fantasy world who fixes everything about them and the MC wants to get back to the real world, i was scared it was over nothingand i was WRONG!!!!!!!!! and so were many people who probably played this game as kids, didn’t understand the message it was trying to give and put it aside as “bad isekai game where the mc wants to ruin everyone’s life”

PLOT & CHARACTERS

this game talks about loss, physical illnesses, anxiety and neglect, and the recurring theme is coping. it’s a surprisingly mature theme and it’s hard to tackle, but it really pushes the idea that estranging yourself and ignoring your issues to live in your own perfect fantasy world is a very unhealthy coping mechanism, and i think it delivered it very well!

marshe himself, who seem to have no problems other than the fact that he can’t fit in at first, actually has WAY bigger issues than one could think at first, that come from a simple thing like “being the new kid in class” to a very difficult home situation.

the game itself has moments in which he openly admits he would love to keep on ignoring his problems rather than facing them heads on, more often than not he’s called selfish by people who don’t know about his life, and both he and many other characters explain the recurring motif, and yet he’s still considered a bad character and i think it’s unfair

he isn’t the most dynamic nor the most interesting main character in a final fantasy, but he’s a mature and conflicted young boy who deserves way more love than people give him - and i think it could be told about most of them none of them are particularly deep nor get too much screentime, in my opinion, but the little they showed really delivered - ritz and mewt in particular work as great co-protagonists AND antagonists, and while doned’s plotline was a little too rushed, in my opinion, its finale was really nice and i think helped both him and marsh to grow, since they finally could bring themselves to vent to one another.

for the ivalice characters, montblanc is. okay. he’s far from being annoying like i’ve seen people call him, but i wish he was a little more present after the first “arc” of the game... and him not being particularly strong in battle doesn’t really make him shine babus and ezel, on the other hand, are REALLY good characters. i was sold on babus’ arc, and ezel is just. such a fun npc to deal with. 10/10

i wish they had time to explain the final boss a little better (especially since,,, maybe it’s just me and my OP clan, but we were a few levels lower than her and defeated her in less than a turn fnsmdgn), but i think it was pretty good

GAMEPLAY

the worst and best part of the entire game, however, it’s how it works. i really like the clan ideas, the missions, the rules... everything is very fun, and i like how it forces you to use various classes for different missions and unlock other jobs! for example, you take hume archer and make him learn a few abilities to turn him into a hunter, with the hunter you can catch monsters, and with the monster you caught you can get the weapons to train your beastmaster!! and it’s very cool!!!! it’s really fun to experiment with the multiclassing! with the exception of some special npcs, every character can change class and add a second set of abilities, or mix up some support and reactionary ones to those that don’t have any! a good example is how i worked with marshe: he starts as a soldier, but i eventually changed his main class in paladin-fighter, but also gave him the dual wielding ability ninja have to make him always hit for 300+ damage for each melee turn!

not all the jobs are equally balanced, however. case in point, since i literally tried every single one of them heres the fun tier list

i think the big amount of missions are there mostly to grind and to make the game longer than it is, and kind of... put the actual plot on the back, unfortunately, but they’re very fun! i like taking wanted criminals, or stop the wyrms from attacking ivalice, or even just help some poor guy escaping from jail!

however... there are two big stinkers

first of all, well... i just finished the main quest now, i know i still have two extra sidemissions for two extra characters and around 100 missions more to do to unlock the secret boss - but to do these extra missions, you have to keep for yourself certain items, and the space for said items is limited. some missions can be done again as many time as you need, but what tells you that you used or threw away an item of a missions that doesn’t return after a certain point? your game file can be permanently softblocked in the post-game because you literally can’t have the items necessary to complete all the missions ever again, and it sucks

other than that... the goddamn saving missions.

every now and then, you might get some “save [location]” missions in your tavern. some are cool, all you need to do is send a member of your clan there and it’s saved - but from that moment onwards, every now and then, that area can be like

and you have a limited time of 30 in-game days (aka 30 movements around the world map) to reach the area and fight off the intruders on paper it’s fine, and it’s a very easy way to level up real quick (sidenote, you gain EXP for every action you make, so instead of skipping your turn, if you can, do literally anything to always use an action in your turn!! just sit there, use a random healing action and get yourself some fresh exp), and increase your clan’s level

however... it’s very repetitive. each area has its speficic set of intruders, and every single time it gets invaded it’s always going to be the same group of monsters or enemies with slightly higher level, and at some point i just. kind of ignore them ngl fnasdmg i’d rather let them be taken and send some secondary clan member on a transfert mission to let them get some free easy AP for their abilities

another thing that i don’t think works very well are the shops. they upgrated just twice in the entire game, and with the weapons and the armors you find in missions being WAY more powerful than the ones you can buy, or the fact that the items kind of become obsolete the second you start multiclassing (unless you want to train your monsters, which you can do pretty easily by stacking up remedies as soon as you unlock them in a shop, which end up being the Only Item you buy), or the fact that you’re going to end up with WAY more money than necessary, or that by now the special items/link feature is completely obsolete... they’re kind of worthless

RESULT

7.5/10, no i don’t take criticism might turn into a 8 if i actually manage to 100% the game fnsdmg

#ffta #final fantasy tactics advance #gio plays #gio plays ffta #ok i finished the game #gio talks

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