I got Final Fantasy Tactics for mobile a week ago, and I've been playing it during my commutes. It's good. Real good. Have some scattered thoughts about general parts of the game.
Translation/General dialogue
I'm enjoying the localization a lot. A lot of people criticize the WoTL translation as being overwritten, using too much old-timey English. But it's appropriate for the tone and mood of the game, making you feel like you're in a seventeenth-century stage play. The dialogue is short, but very expressive and deliberate. It feels like there's never a sentence wasted. I think it's partly due to the fact that the game doesn't focus on minor characters very much: it's a story driven by important people and their political machinations.
Gameplay
Whereas games like (some) Fire Emblem feel like tightly-crafted experiences, Final Fantasy Tactics feels like it's a big playpen. And that's by no means a bad thing. FFT is all about experimentation, raising units to get new classes, trying different combinations out. There's grinding, but the level scaling never makes it feel like you can appreciably gain by grinding out experience: instead, it seems like skills and classes matter much more. It's a bit of a refreshing experience: I'm used to playing FE games efficiently, planning every move and keeping track on how many Warp uses I have left. In FFT I'm kind of just lazing around, raising the units I like and trying on new skills for fun.
(When I started playing, I thought there was going to be some kind of forced tutorial where I had to change clasees, so I didn't bother switching units off of Squire/Chemist. Then the Dorter Slums happened.)
There's definitely some issues I have with the UI and mobile interface, but I'm pretty pleasantly surprised. People had said that FFT is actually a pretty good mobile port, and I'm happy to say that they were right.
Story
The story has been fantastic so far. I'm in the middle of Act 2 right now, and I'm really enjoying how the game chooses to focus on both the grand political scene as well as the more personal story of Ramza and Delita.
At the beginning of the game, you're introduced to three important characters: Ramza, noble-born idealist; Delita, Ramza's commoner friend; Argath, noble-born jerk.
Ramza in particular is a great character. He's an idealist, wanting to help everyone and do good, but his circumstances don't allow him to do that. In Chapter 1, he nobly sets out against orders to save the Marquis and later Delita's sister Tietra, believing that as a Beoulve it is his duty to protect the weak and rescue those in need. His enemies are the Corpse Brigade, a loose collection of brigands purported to be terrorizing the local population. But when Ramza and company interrogate a Corpse Brigade member, it seems like there's a schism in their ranks: he claims that the marquis' kidnappers are led by Gustav, former lieutenant commander of the Corpse Brigade, while Wiegraf, the commander, is trying to stop him. The prisoner claims that the former fights for profit, while the latter, Wiegraf, fights for equality and justice, equal treatment of nobles and commoners.
Possibly my favorite lines of dialogue so far come from Milleuda, Wiegraf's younger sister. As a member of the Corpse Brigade, Milleuda hates nobles. During her final encounter with Ramza, this line of dialogue appears:
Ramza considers himself a "good" noble. He's never personally wronged anyone in his life. His best friend, Delita, is a commoner. He's nothing like Argath, who tortures prisoners, thinks nothing of commoner lives, and personally shoots and kills Tietra. So Ramza is confused when Milleuda hates him for seemingly no reason. He's part of the nobility, a luxury in life that he's always taken for granted. And he's helped perpetuate the nobility's oppression not only by killing Wiegraf's freedom fighters, but also though indulging in his privelege without speaking out against it.
It's already been established that Argath is a massive jerk who truly believes that commoners are inferior to nobles, so much that he thinks nothing of torturing them or taking their lives. And yet for the longest time Ramza not only tolerates his bigotry but invites him along on his campaign. During said campaign, Ramza starts feeling uneasy when he realizes what the Corpse Brigade is fighting for. But he fails to bring the topic up when he meets again with his brother, leader of the Beoulve House. In fact, he never brings up the subject up with anyone until it's far too late.
But he does change. It takes Tietra's death and Argath's gloating, but Ramza finally turns his blade against the corrupt institution he's been serving for his entire life. He staves off the Northern Sky troops and forces Argath to retreat. He casts off his blue noble's tunic, instead choosing to wear the simple garb of a mercenary. He throws away the Beoulve name, and adopts using his mother's maiden name. And he joins a band of mercenaries, hoping to fight against injustice and atone for his actions.
Ramza's character arc in FFT's first act is fantastic. It's short, but full of meaning. Ramza goes through more character development than most other JRPG protagonists do in entire games. I'm excited to see where the plot goes, and I'm hoping the game can finish as strong as it started.
Translation/General dialogue
I'm enjoying the localization a lot. A lot of people criticize the WoTL translation as being overwritten, using too much old-timey English. But it's appropriate for the tone and mood of the game, making you feel like you're in a seventeenth-century stage play. The dialogue is short, but very expressive and deliberate. It feels like there's never a sentence wasted. I think it's partly due to the fact that the game doesn't focus on minor characters very much: it's a story driven by important people and their political machinations.
Gameplay
Whereas games like (some) Fire Emblem feel like tightly-crafted experiences, Final Fantasy Tactics feels like it's a big playpen. And that's by no means a bad thing. FFT is all about experimentation, raising units to get new classes, trying different combinations out. There's grinding, but the level scaling never makes it feel like you can appreciably gain by grinding out experience: instead, it seems like skills and classes matter much more. It's a bit of a refreshing experience: I'm used to playing FE games efficiently, planning every move and keeping track on how many Warp uses I have left. In FFT I'm kind of just lazing around, raising the units I like and trying on new skills for fun.
(When I started playing, I thought there was going to be some kind of forced tutorial where I had to change clasees, so I didn't bother switching units off of Squire/Chemist. Then the Dorter Slums happened.)
There's definitely some issues I have with the UI and mobile interface, but I'm pretty pleasantly surprised. People had said that FFT is actually a pretty good mobile port, and I'm happy to say that they were right.
Story
The story has been fantastic so far. I'm in the middle of Act 2 right now, and I'm really enjoying how the game chooses to focus on both the grand political scene as well as the more personal story of Ramza and Delita.
At the beginning of the game, you're introduced to three important characters: Ramza, noble-born idealist; Delita, Ramza's commoner friend; Argath, noble-born jerk.
Ramza in particular is a great character. He's an idealist, wanting to help everyone and do good, but his circumstances don't allow him to do that. In Chapter 1, he nobly sets out against orders to save the Marquis and later Delita's sister Tietra, believing that as a Beoulve it is his duty to protect the weak and rescue those in need. His enemies are the Corpse Brigade, a loose collection of brigands purported to be terrorizing the local population. But when Ramza and company interrogate a Corpse Brigade member, it seems like there's a schism in their ranks: he claims that the marquis' kidnappers are led by Gustav, former lieutenant commander of the Corpse Brigade, while Wiegraf, the commander, is trying to stop him. The prisoner claims that the former fights for profit, while the latter, Wiegraf, fights for equality and justice, equal treatment of nobles and commoners.
Possibly my favorite lines of dialogue so far come from Milleuda, Wiegraf's younger sister. As a member of the Corpse Brigade, Milleuda hates nobles. During her final encounter with Ramza, this line of dialogue appears:
Ramza considers himself a "good" noble. He's never personally wronged anyone in his life. His best friend, Delita, is a commoner. He's nothing like Argath, who tortures prisoners, thinks nothing of commoner lives, and personally shoots and kills Tietra. So Ramza is confused when Milleuda hates him for seemingly no reason. He's part of the nobility, a luxury in life that he's always taken for granted. And he's helped perpetuate the nobility's oppression not only by killing Wiegraf's freedom fighters, but also though indulging in his privelege without speaking out against it.
It's already been established that Argath is a massive jerk who truly believes that commoners are inferior to nobles, so much that he thinks nothing of torturing them or taking their lives. And yet for the longest time Ramza not only tolerates his bigotry but invites him along on his campaign. During said campaign, Ramza starts feeling uneasy when he realizes what the Corpse Brigade is fighting for. But he fails to bring the topic up when he meets again with his brother, leader of the Beoulve House. In fact, he never brings up the subject up with anyone until it's far too late.
But he does change. It takes Tietra's death and Argath's gloating, but Ramza finally turns his blade against the corrupt institution he's been serving for his entire life. He staves off the Northern Sky troops and forces Argath to retreat. He casts off his blue noble's tunic, instead choosing to wear the simple garb of a mercenary. He throws away the Beoulve name, and adopts using his mother's maiden name. And he joins a band of mercenaries, hoping to fight against injustice and atone for his actions.
Ramza's character arc in FFT's first act is fantastic. It's short, but full of meaning. Ramza goes through more character development than most other JRPG protagonists do in entire games. I'm excited to see where the plot goes, and I'm hoping the game can finish as strong as it started.
