I've loved SRPGs for years now, but had never been able to get into FFT. I think I've tried it twice before--both times I recall being incredibly overwhelmed and confused during the tutorial and just struggling during the subsequent fight. This time was no different--but my SO, who absolutely loves this game, told me to just give it a bit more time and it'd click. I struggled through the subsequent fight, confused as to why I could only use Ramza and Delita, finally beating by the skin of my teeth after multiple tries, only for him to look over and say "hey, you know you can place other units right? Let me show you how."
Yes...over multiple attempts, I had never figured out how to place additional units, which explained why the game felt so brutal and confusing. He pointed out a few other things that I just had no idea about and sent me on my way--since then, I've been having an absolute blast.
I've always loved the FF job system, and tactics presents it in a way that's really fun--I've found myself spending downtime at work trying to map out what I'd like to do with various characters and trying to figure out the benefits of various subclasses. The crafting of characters is great, and I love that you gain some passive EXP and can steal job abilities as well. It's especially nice for Ramza, who I'm working on making a dark knight, because it means less grinding through classes I've largely just avoided. I will say my sole complaint is when new characters come in, they come in with like no JP...it's hard to justify swapping someone out of my small team who've I've been building since the beginning for a new story character.
There's a lot of interesting jobs as well! I will say I've sort of avoided the weirder magic classes--I tried out orator and arithmetician for a hot second, was like "lmao nope", and have not touched them since. But otherwise I like it--the melee classes in particular are fun, and I love the diversity in options.
Okay but here's the thing that's really blowing me away: the DIALOGUE. The story is fantastic and the art is super charming, but my god the dialogue is really well done and just...I really enjoy it. It does so much to feed into the setting and to elevate each scene--the localization is really just fantastic. I actually thought it was Alexander O. Smith who did it (as I loved his work on FF12 and it really reminds me of it) but according to wikipedia, apparently not? But whoever it is, I think they did a fantastic job adding a ton of character and nuance to the dialogue. I love the pseudo-shakespeare stuff when done well, and this is really done well.
I also think the game's difficulty is really to it's benefit--I can't really get through the more difficult maps just by dicking around and finding a solution, I have to actually think about what I'm doing, what sort of skills I have per map, etc. I end up having to restart a fair amount which usually might annoy me, but I feel like I learn something each reset and it ends up just being nice to feel myself get better each time.
One final thing--the reason I wanted to make the LTTP: I BEAT WIEGRAF LAST NIGHT AND I'M PROUD OF MYSELF. Oh my god I had to go grind and get a bunch of good skills (luckily my SO made clear I needed to have like 3-4 saves to rotate through or else I'd regret it because I got my ass kicked the first time), but being able to finally beat that fight was amazing. I used auto-potion and tailwind after bravery grinding Ramza up till like 91 brave...and even then it took me 3 times for me to get the correct set up where the rest of my party didn't die in the second part of the map. Here's a fun pic of the start of phase 2 that made me laugh to end it--thank you for listening to my big rant haha.
(oh also, I just started CH 4 so please no spoilers from anything in CH 4 !!)
Yes...over multiple attempts, I had never figured out how to place additional units, which explained why the game felt so brutal and confusing. He pointed out a few other things that I just had no idea about and sent me on my way--since then, I've been having an absolute blast.
I've always loved the FF job system, and tactics presents it in a way that's really fun--I've found myself spending downtime at work trying to map out what I'd like to do with various characters and trying to figure out the benefits of various subclasses. The crafting of characters is great, and I love that you gain some passive EXP and can steal job abilities as well. It's especially nice for Ramza, who I'm working on making a dark knight, because it means less grinding through classes I've largely just avoided. I will say my sole complaint is when new characters come in, they come in with like no JP...it's hard to justify swapping someone out of my small team who've I've been building since the beginning for a new story character.
There's a lot of interesting jobs as well! I will say I've sort of avoided the weirder magic classes--I tried out orator and arithmetician for a hot second, was like "lmao nope", and have not touched them since. But otherwise I like it--the melee classes in particular are fun, and I love the diversity in options.
Okay but here's the thing that's really blowing me away: the DIALOGUE. The story is fantastic and the art is super charming, but my god the dialogue is really well done and just...I really enjoy it. It does so much to feed into the setting and to elevate each scene--the localization is really just fantastic. I actually thought it was Alexander O. Smith who did it (as I loved his work on FF12 and it really reminds me of it) but according to wikipedia, apparently not? But whoever it is, I think they did a fantastic job adding a ton of character and nuance to the dialogue. I love the pseudo-shakespeare stuff when done well, and this is really done well.
I also think the game's difficulty is really to it's benefit--I can't really get through the more difficult maps just by dicking around and finding a solution, I have to actually think about what I'm doing, what sort of skills I have per map, etc. I end up having to restart a fair amount which usually might annoy me, but I feel like I learn something each reset and it ends up just being nice to feel myself get better each time.
One final thing--the reason I wanted to make the LTTP: I BEAT WIEGRAF LAST NIGHT AND I'M PROUD OF MYSELF. Oh my god I had to go grind and get a bunch of good skills (luckily my SO made clear I needed to have like 3-4 saves to rotate through or else I'd regret it because I got my ass kicked the first time), but being able to finally beat that fight was amazing. I used auto-potion and tailwind after bravery grinding Ramza up till like 91 brave...and even then it took me 3 times for me to get the correct set up where the rest of my party didn't die in the second part of the map. Here's a fun pic of the start of phase 2 that made me laugh to end it--thank you for listening to my big rant haha.
(oh also, I just started CH 4 so please no spoilers from anything in CH 4 !!)
