Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced

I spent another 3 days in a hotel on a business trip. This time I left the laptop at home, and took my Gameboy Advanced SP with me for mobile gaming. I had over the last year bought a couple of games that I hadn't even tried yet. One of these was Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced (FFTA). That is not a role-playing game, like the other Final Fantasy titles, but a turn-based strategy game.

Just like the other Final Fantasy titles you first spend an hour or so of clicking through a loooooong introduction. Unfortunately that introduction tells you a lot about the background of the characters, but very little about how the game is played. The manual is likewise on the slim slide. The intro ends with a complete transformation of the world, where the school kid characters suddenly find themselves in a magical world, and the main character has to lead a squad as a soldier in turn-based battle missions. There is a complex system of skills, jobs, and abilities which you can switch around, but no tutorial for them. Your squad contains characters of different character classes, and you have no idea what exactly the difference between a soldier and a monk is. Finding out about jobs, skills, and so on involves fiddling through long series of menus you only half understand. A system of laws adds restrictions to your battles, but as the laws aren't automatically displayed and constantly change, you could easily break them accidentally. After another hour I still had the impression that I hadn't understood anything about the game and gave up.

I remember that several of the Final Fantasy RPGs had similar problems. Great games once you understood them, but bad tutorials, cryptic menus, and lots of dedication needed to get into the game. I was able to live with that on a console, but for a handheld I think FFTA is far too complex.

For turn-based strategy games on the GBA I would recommend either Advance Wars, if you don't mind fighting with modern units, or Fire Emblem, if you prefer fantasy combat. As RPG on the GBA I recommend Golden Sun (classic RPG style), or a Pokemon game. The Pokemon RPG are unusual, but actually quite good, and managing the abilities of your monsters is a lot of fun.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:07 AM Permanent Link