Hey, anyone play this game?

I'm on my first play through currently and it's going well. (technically, i've played it before, but never finished it) i don't play strategy RPG games very often. The last one i played was probably fire emblem for gba. I know theres a tonne of them. Well i've played final fantasy tactics, for the playstation. In general, i'm way more prone to traditional rpgs (where you have a party of characters) It's a good idea though. What i've liked about this game in my play throughs is the number of things you can do, and the time it takes (for example, you can do a fight quest in 15 minutes) however, there are some things I'm not happy with (maybe it's because im a green horn)

You can't do every class on one character. This is because when playing the traditional series, i found it wonderful to be able to exchange magic, weapons, items for getting better. this meant being able to explore new areas and choose which party members went and how to beat bosses and enemies. Strategy RPGs by nature have a team of characters that you chop and change, and each has strengths and weaknesses.

The micromanagement of parties is really bad sometimes. I recently finished the main quest where you fight tomatoes. They had silence, and blind. This literally crippled my whole party. I only had 3 members alive at the end of the battle, even though they were way lower level than me. ( to be fair, im trying to steal off everything, so only have maybe 2 units that actually do dmg in a given turn) Im still trying to get my head around proper micromanagement. In this particular scenario, my support was a green mage, and she was silenced. I dont have item command on anything, so she couldn't protect, sleep, or silence opponents. if i knew the fight i could have prepared for it.

Im not really connecting with the story as much as the previous one. I loved that you started with a snowfight in tactics advance. and how it was a world created by their imagination. I didn't connect with adelle the last time I played through, and just did a bunch of grinding because the story was just a shot at getting a new ability or something.

I'm concerned that they're departing from the way that they made the older games. What held the other ffs together were the storyline. Let me explain it in terms of gameplay. I don't think I can recall a time playing Final fantasies that I didn't want to grind like crazy. But you can't do that anymore. The reason that I connected with the other ffs was because I actually wanted to sit down and play it for hours. This game is too intense for me. I can't palate sitting down for 5 hours playing 100 quests and doing clan trials. Well not anymore anyway. The point is that even 7 was a game that I can recall being held together by the story that I was hearing (apart from the midgar scene in disc 2) and 9 to me is a fantastic example of gameplay which was strengthened by the story. At this stage in the game, there has been no event that I really connected with. It's fun that you're going around doing quests, and meeting people, but i can't play for more than a few hours usually.

Some of the good things. I have loved the job system that they're using on a lot of their games (including ffxiv) You know, even x-2 (which i have only played through once) The fact that you can customize your characters with jobs is wonderful. You get the choice to be able to go one way or another, and then unlock other jobs. My current decision is whether to make my bangaa go all out dragooon style, raining fire from the skies, or giving him a sword. The fact that they've split up the jobs into different races, that's fun. But i still prefer the job system of 3 or 5.

It has wonderful short quests. If you only want to play for 15 minutes you can.

So much to do. This goes both ways. the last time that I played it, i got swamped by the auction system. why give your characters the best weapons when you're only starting? or is that how short the game is? i had two nosadas, a madu, and zeus mace? (i think, whats the one with giga flare, and ultima blow?) It does mean that you want to go back to story.

Anyway, that's been on my mind the last few days. Looking forward to hear responses.

I haven�t played FFTA2, but I can speak to some of the more general themes of your post.

I, too, prefer traditional RPGs, though I�ve played several SRPGs. What drags me down about the Tactics games is, well, the amount of strategy involved, the cosmic spectrum of decisions you have to make, and the lack of guaranteed benefits from the time you invest. I�m currently playing Tactics Ogre, on which Final Fantasy Tactics was based, and the micromanagement, particularly in regards to leveling up new characters, is just something I have no patience for. A lot of what I enjoy about traditional RPGs is the idea that every moment you invest in the game, you�re getting better. There�s no time wasted because your abilities and resources are always increasing. With many strategy RPGs, though, it�s just like you�re saying where you went into a battle, were blinded, and had no counterattack available. There's always the possibility that something could wipe out your party and rob you of the last hour of your life. For me, that�s fundamentally more excusable in a platformer (you didn�t know there would be a pitfall there, you fell in, you died, you start over now knowing to avoid that pitfall) than in a strategy game (you didn�t know the enemy would have that spell, you invest hours and potentially days in leveling up your characters to have a counterattack, the computer levels up the enemies simultaneously, you enter the battle, and now there are a whole new set of challenges and variables in play).

You mentioned that, for you, the story has to be strong enough to overcome these built-in frustrations. For me, I think the music has to play that role. But it�s the same difference. The thing that we look to to enrich or dramatize or ennoble the experience has to be working extra hard in a game like this. Having short quests helps, too. That�s what I�m hoping Tactics Ogre offers more of, because I don�t have more than 30 minutes to give sometimes. It�s tough to sit down for an hour-long fight, lose, assess why you lost, then make a training plan to get your characters to where they need to be. That�s work.

Funnily enough, here's a quote from Hiroyuki Itou (the battle designer for Final Fantasy Tactics) saying some of the same things: "I actually have never liked strategy and simulation games. (laughs) I find all the work you have to do with units, equipping them, switching weapons, etc. to be so tedious and annoying that midway through, I always put the controller down and walk away. My goal for FFT was to make a game that I wouldn�t feel like walking away from. I also wanted a game where the strategy would feel exciting and urgent."
http://shmuplations.com/fft/

My favourite bone to pick with them is the amount of status effects each class has, even at the start of the game. Sure, you have them too, and i wouldn't be able to gainsay the benefit of them (e.g sleep on green mage) but it gets frustrating when their ones land (all the time, it seems) and yours dont even work when 90% success.

Technically, i'm talking about their status attacks compared to my normal hits. i recall the first tactics advance not having high accuracy either (70% for a normal hit) recently i did a mission where you had to fight and defeat malboros, all having counterparts who berserked, and poisoned your guys. The law was knockback (no critical hits, or abilities that move a enemy backward), if a berserked person attacks you can attack them back to give them clarity, and you can use abilities that do not knock back, but the luck was not with me last night. You have to move your units every time to get to the enemy. i don't have ranged attacks apart from magic (oh yeah, the little buggers had silence too) they had malboros, and needed four, but you had to defeat other mobs to get the malboros to appear, and more malboros appeared after you defeated a select few. meaning, your screen never finished having mobs on it. they could continue to immoblize, poison, blind, and silence, berserk your guys with no quarter. that was their normal attacks usually.

I'm only saying it because there's little you can do to change that in a certain match. All i can do is grit my teeth and hope i get out of there alive. How is this fun? I've found the rewards are greater, you get more abilities every time you unlock a weapon. this means finding a prized loot and being able to trade for superior abilities. i was able to get loot lv3 on my thief before getting loot lv2. (these are the steal abilities given in this game) i'll now be able to unlock ninja and its looking up.

This is why I enjoy playing traditional ones more, its because, like you said, the micromanagement can be insane. I can't recall a time in the traditional series that you had to work under such pressure. the bosses are difficult (i'm thinking of the fire dragon in 3) without so much as a chance to get out (limited mp pools? really?) that fight was fun actually, most fun i've had in a traditional rpg ever i think. I was like - he's almost one hitting my characters, intense!

tbf, i wouldn't be here if the music wasn't important. though im having to tune my ears to hear it as I concentrate haha. Syrcus tower from ffxiv has really memorable songs that set the mood for it. In fact, i was listening to them yesterday just so I could concentrate on my work better.That's not the main point of this thread though. anyway, that's my thoughts