By Christian Van Meurs on October 16th, 2003

Genre: RPG
Developer: Square-Enix
Publisher: Nintendo
# of Players: 1-2
Memory: n/a
ERSB: Everyone
Released On: September 8th, 2003
Supports: GBA Link Cable (co-op)
MSRP: $34.99
Also On: none
Website: http://www.square-enix-usa.com/games/FFT-A/

The Final Fantasy series is arguably the most popular video game franchise ever, though somehow in all of it’s iterations a truly worthy handheld version of the game has never seen the light of day – until now. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (FFTA) is the follow up to Squaresoft’s sleeper hit Final Fantasy Tactics first released on the Sony Playstation in 1997, a game that broke the series’ tradition of a typical turn-based RPG by introducing the strategical elements of being able to place your characters and move them around the battlefield (ala Shining Force, among others). And while it’s no sequel, FFTA definitely holds it’s own.

Presentation

In this game you are Marche, the new kid at school who befriends the unpopular kid (Mewt) and the girl that stands up to all of the bullies for him (Ritz). One day after school Marche invites his friends over to his house so Mewt can show Marche’s brother Doned the new magic book that he found at the library. Shortly after looking at it’s pages the characters are magically wisped away to Final Fantasy land (also knows as “Ivalice”). Your task is to not only find your lost comrades, but also to convince them that they really want to go home (because none of them do). FFTA’s storyline is really nothing short of a rip-off of The Wizard Of Oz, so for those of you expecting the same kind of epic Final Fantasy story we’ve all grown to know and love you will be a bit disappointed. That’s not to say that it isn’t interesting, but it’s certainly not the game’s strongest feature.

Starting out in FFTA you will encounter a friendly Moogle named Montblanc. He will introduce you to the “clan” aspect of the game. Think of clans as your party, or a gang. You will begin the game with a ramshackle clan made up of members from the game’s five races: Human, Viera, Moogle, Nu Mou and Bangaa. Each race will have specific “jobs” that they can be, and each job will have specific weapons and armor tailored towards that race and job, and through the use of those items you will gain new abilities. As you defeat your enemies you will gain “Ability Points” (AP) that will help you to learn the skills for any given item so that you may use them even when that item is no longer equipped. Eventually you will learn enough abilities for your given job to change jobs to something more powerful (and there are a lot of jobs to choose from).

Gameplay

The way in which you encounter enemies in this game is kinda weird. When you enter a town you will be given the option to look at the current “missions”, which are tasks for your clan to perform that people of the land have posted on the bulletin board at the local pub. Missions will vary from picking herbs to looking for a missing person to challenging another clan, and others called “dispatch” missions will have you choose a member of your clan to leave your party for a length of time to complete a task on their own. In battle each clan member will have the opportunity to do two tasks: move and perform an action (in any order). You will want to move carefully, as exposing your back to an enemy will give them a better chance at scoring a successful hit. Likewise you will want to try to get behind or to the side of your enemy as it will increase your odds of scoring an attack against them. The battles become an intricate chess game in this regard, and some of the tougher ones will have you scratching your heard trying to figure out the best plan of attack according to the terrain in front of you. And to spice things up a bit, each battle is overseen by a “Judge” that issues random laws for your engagement. Breaking a law will result in a law card penalty, and if you’re not careful you might end up in jail. However performing the opposite action of a forbidden ability will yield you “Judge Points” (JP) that can be used to unleash devastating attacks. When the missions are completed you will be awarded AP, Gil (Final Fantasy money), increased clan stats and items.

Because the game allows you to choose your own path and missions in any order you really never feel like you’re headed in any one direction, which is unlike most Final Fantasy games that make you feel you’re moving along a set path. Also, you will only encounter story events (dialogues between characters and such) once every 5-10 battles or so, and each battle can last well over ten minutes. In other words, what little story the game does give you is so sparse that you really don’t feel immersed in this game like you would want to.

Graphics and Sound

To say that this is the best looking and sounding FF game on the small screen would be quite an understatement. While it doesn’t exactly stack up to the Playstation original, FFTA is quite colorful and cheerful. The artistic style in the game is wonderful, and some of the spell effects look quite good. In fact if you hold the game away from your face a bit it looks just as good as any 16-bit RPG did back in the glory days of 2d gaming. The sound effects are very clear and varied, as is the music; there are some great tunes here. Lost in the translation is the ability to rotate the battles, but each stage has been designed with this in mind so there really aren’t too many objects blocking your view (maybe the occasional tree or block of terrain). Animation is also good.

Final Thoughts

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a dream come true for gamers that want a Square (now Square-Enix) RPG on the go. It’s a game that you can pick up and play at any time for any length of time, save anywhere (even in battles!) and never miss a beat. The story might not have lived up to my hopes but there is a lot of fun to be had here just leveling up and finding new items and abilities for your characters to master. It may not be the Tactics sequel that we’ve all been waiting for, but no fan should pass up the opportunity to check it out.