A great strategetic game that should be considered a classic in the final fantasy series altough it has its' flaws
+ Simple but involving story
+ Colourful sprites
+ Good fast paced stratergy
Negatives
- Inconsistent map quality
- The law system..
Welcome to my review for final fantasy tactics advance on the game boy advance.
Before we start there's also a PSP 'updated' version of the game named 'war of the lions' I don't reccomend it as much as I do this game though, here are my reasons.
Graphically final fantasy tactics is average, it's the sort of appearence you'd expect from the game boy style.
Sprites are well detailed and maps are colourful, you really shouldn't be put of by the graphics of the game though, gameplay elements make up for it.
Music isn't great either, battle music is very repetetive, just a few beats over and over again.
This is the same with all background music throghout the game, but again it shouldn't put you off, remember you can always mute it and listen to something else!
I think FF tactics advance makes a very portable game, you don't need the music for one, you can also just pick it up and go whenever you want.
Battles usually take from 5-20 minutes making it easy to say that FF tactics advance suits its position on the game boy advanced scene.
The story is simple, you start of in the town of Ivalice, it's snowy and you go to school and are taught how to fight when you have a snowball fight.
You realise not masny of the other kids are being nice to the new kid called Mewt, your freind Riza also realises this and you invite him back to your house.
Half way to your house he goes to the bookshop and tells you that'll see you tommorow, you then go to sleep and your transported into a weird new world where you meet a moogle called Montblanc who shows you the ropes.
Gameplay is fantastic, before I played this game I hated all sorts of real time stratergy games, I thought they were slow paced and boring.
But FF tactics advance spices it up a bit, you have 2 main characters, montblanc and you, all your other characters are recruited through progress and side quests, they will have no main role in the story.
So, you have your party members, they act as your 'guild' at every town there is a pub where your guild meet, here you can collect missions and quests,
You have a primary quest and hundreds of mini side missions, these offer rewards of gold and items.
You can customise your characters armour, weapons, accessories and proffessions
Proffessions are a good bit of the game, depeneding on the character in questions race you have different choices of proffessions.
For example, humans can become white mages, black mages, soldier or theif, after they master level 3 white mage and level 3 black mage they unlock the class red mage and so on..
But for a Viera, you have the fencer, archer or white mage, after you've mastered level 1 fencer and white mage you unlock the assassin proffession, and if you master level 2 archer you unlock the sniper proffession.
I hope you now have a good idea of proffessions, they also decide what weapons and armour you can or can't equip.
In every town there's also a shop where you can buy your equipment.
You may have seen in my negatives I put 'the law system' well in every great game there's a mistake..
Laws bassically effect everything you do, at one time there re 1-3 laws.
They may ban you from using swords or a certain type of magic, this is fustrating and spoils your stratergies most times.
You can also use these to your advantage but it feels like cheating to be honest.
For example, if I'm fighting some fire fiends I could wait until the laws don't allow fire spells or attacks and then go in for the kill.
Overall I reccomend FF tactics advanced to anyone who's looking for a quick pick up and go stratergy game or to anyone who is new to the stratergy genre like me and wants to get a taste.
Thanks for reading, hope this review helped you!
~Gormo