FFT is still my all time favorite tactics game. I find it amazing that the newer games still haven't topped it for me.
Anywho, this game is the first try for Final Fantasy to entire a tactics genere and it was a huge success. I'm surprized there aren't more reveiws on it simply because for a while it was THE game for the PS. In fact, they had to release it twice to fill the demand for it over time. It became a classic like almost every other Final Fantasy title Created. Go Square...er...SquareEnix...or....whatever.
Like all Final Fantasy games all the way until Final Fantasy X the story takes the cake as usual. Your character is Ramza, an young soldier who follows his scense of justice more than anything or anyone else. As in most stories being truly just in life usually ends up make one more alone than dreamed possible. Ramza goes through aligence through aligence only to uncover conspiracy after conspiracy only to discover a coveret search for the Zodiac Stones, items of terrible power that every seems intent on using for causes that will, hopefully benefit them a the cost of another. Eventually Ramza decides to go rouge and stop the manipulations and wars at their source, the Zodiac Stones. His former military unit, seeing the soul of pure intentions in their leader also go rouge and follow him.
Ramza must distroy the stones before anyone selfish obtains them for in their greed every power is neglecting the increasing possibility that collecting the stones will be the end of everything. It seems Ramza is in WAY over his head...
The gameplay here, is just right. You can recruit people and monsters at bars and on the feild. If you recruit a character on the feild they will be near your lvl and monsters are only aviliable on the feild. A newer character will start out as a squire job class and will have to be lvled up and eventually bounced around through job classes to unlock more jobclasses. A single character can be two job classes at once and finding the right combo is vital since you can only have five charcters at once. The possibilities seem endless, although my only gripe about this game is that the monsters you recruit are almost completely usless (the expetion being chocobos and some later more rare ones.) because they don't really grow or are nearly as diverse than the human characters. Other than that, I believe the system is perfect. There are side quests gallore in this game as well. Some side quests, if followed long enough after being discovered, will unlock special items or characters you can find nowhere else...one of the most interest of which involves getting a familiar blond warrior with a materia blade to join you after you mess around with a strange machine that pulls him from time without his memory....:)
This is one of those games that you pull out at least once a year to relive. A must buy for anyone...literally.