Game Boy NintendoSpin.com / Reviews / Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Posted on August 30th, 2004 - 4575 Reads

Rated Everyone Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Game Boy Review Silver Award

-- Written by Marc-André Sarrazin



 This was my first Game Boy Advance game as when I bought the system I didn't have a job and only had enough money for one game, so I thought this one would last me a long time and that it would be worth my hard earned money. Being as intelligent as I am (right!) I made an excellent choice. A few months later and nearly 40 hours into the game, I finally finished it. Square's grand return to the good side was definitely worth the wait! But even though it has the name Final Fantasy on the box doesn't mean that it's a traditionnal Final Fantasy game. Surprised?

In fact, Square's new game is some kind of "sequel" to the game Final Fantasy Tactics that was released a few years earlier on the Playstation. The game takes place in the same place, a world called Ivalice, but it is completely different, and so is the story and part of the gameplay. I had played a little bit of the original before playing this one, and since I am nearly 20 years old, I really appreciated the darker, more violent and more mature story of Final Fantasy Tactics as I thought it really made some sense with the medieval times and the killing between familly members and all that stuff to get to the throne. It was really well done, and you would continue playing just to know what was going to happen. This time though, they've made it a little more childish, which means the story is more suitable for younger people, while the gameplay can actually suit anyone as it is a strategy game, so teenagers and even adults will still have a hard time as this game definitely needs you to make some intelligent decisions at times, which means you'll probably want to take your time and really think about what you are doing as one wrong decision could result in you losing the battle!

But before we go into the more technical stuff, here's the story. You are Marche, and you and your familly live in a town called St-Ivalice. Your familly is having a hard time and all, and Marche, of course, goes to school as he is a young boy. He meets some poeple there and makes new friends. One day though, they find a magical book, and they get teleported into another world, the world of Final Fantasy. They are still in Ivalice, except it has completely been changed. Everything's been given a medieval look of some sort, kind of what you'd expect from other Final Fantasy games. There are differnet kinds of races: Humans, Vieras, Moogles, Nu Mous and Bangaas. In the world of Ivalice, people join forces and make clans, and those clans travel around Ivalice and make clan battles with others. The thing is that there are judges on this land, and there are certain rules that you have to respect or else you can go to prison. When the game starts, you can only go to a few places, but the more you progress, the more places you can add on your map (it's empty at first) and the farther you can go. By entering important battles, the story will develop. You get all of those missions at the pub, where you have to pay to get the information needed to complete them. Of course, when Marche gets into the new Ivalice, he meets new friends and he join forces. The first person to help Marche on his quest is Montblanc, a moogle. As they progress, they meet some of Marches old friends. Marche wants to go back to the old Ivalice, and he learns that he has to destroy several crystals in order to go back, but it seems his friends don't want to go back as they like being able to do whatever they want, not having their parents restricting them. Of course, as the story develops, there are plot twists and things don't happen the way you thought they would. And, for all of you hardcore Final Fantasy fans, there is indeed a Cid in this game!

So the most important aspect of this game are the battles, as they are what you'll be doing the most. It works kind of like a game of chess. You move your characters on the board which is divided into squares, and then when you are finished moving, you can decide what type of attack you want to do, and who you want to attack. Depending on where you are, you are attack might be less effective, or not touch the ennemy at all. You can perform different kinds of attacks, depending on what your characters have learned. Some of you might remember Final Fantasy 2, where you learned new abilities by levelig up, or Final Fantasy 3, where ou had to equip Espers and gain points in order to learn new spells. This game is similar as you'll learn new abilities by equiping your weapons and getting points. When you have enough points, you can use the ability as much as you want, without needing the weapon again. Of course, if all of your characters knew all of the spells, you'd be invincible, that's why they have added a job system.

The job system is the most important aspect of the game, as this is where all of the planning of the battles takes place. You have to decide what job each of your characters will use, like White Mage, Black Mage, Gladiator, Soldier, Elementalist, Archer, etc. Since you are also using different races, you will be limited since some races can only use certain jobs. Not only that, but certain races will be better at certain jobs, making you think even more about what each of your characters is gonna do. And, of course, you can't take all of the jobs at the beginning. Some jobs have pre-requisites, like sometimes ou will need a few abilities from some jobs in order to unlock a new one.

Of all the skills you will learn, one that can really be helpful is the combo. Each job has one, and you learn it the same way you learn other abilities. But to use them, you have to defeat ennemies or do some rewarding laws. There are forbidden laws, but there are also some good ones, and when you do good, you get judge points. You can have a maximum of 10, and you use them to do combos. As the name implies, combos are attacks performed by multiple characters, and the more judge points you have, the stronger your attacks will be. Another ability you can do with judge points are totemas which are abilities you get by getting stronger. It is some kind of summon magic that will hit every character on screen. They are very devastating attacks and should be used only at critical times.

You can also lure monsters to fight with you. They can learn abilities too, but they are usually less stong than normal characters. I actually didn't use any to play through the game as I didn't really like them, but apparently they can be put to good use. Some people like them, some don't, but they are in the game for some reason anyway!

There are different kinds of missions in this game, as some will stay permanently, while some will only be available for a few days. Some are also called "dispatch" missions. Like the name implies, you have to select one of your characters to dispatch him to do a mission which normally takes a few days. Depending on what level he is, he might succeed or not, so the stronger your character is, the more chances he'll have of coming back victorious.

Like I said earlier, in the world of Ivalice, there are judges. They are in each battle, except for those that are taking place in certain places where there are no laws. Laws are different in each battle. They are restrictions, restricting you from using certain weaponry or abilities. You might not have the right to use a lance in a battle, or use color magic like White, Red or Black magic. If you don't obey, then you will get penalties. First time you get a yellow card and normally lose some stats or have to pay a certain amount of money. You can always go to jail and be pardoned so that you get your stats back. When you get a red card though, you are put directly into jail, even if in the middle of a battle, but you can always pay to have you friends released. But like in the real world, people always try to find ways around this! One of the characters in the game creates Anti-Law cards which you can use to stop certain laws from working against you. Can't use color magic? No problem! Just use a card and you'll be able to use it as much as you want. But you have to remember that they also affect your ennemies, so if you can't use white magic to heal, neither can your ennemies. That means you should always think about it twice before using Anti-Law, especially since the good cards can be hard to come by.

There are 300 quests to complete in this game, but you don't have to do them all in order to finish the game. You can only do the ones that are important, those that will make the story advance. The others are only there to keep you busy longer, and also to help you level up. But when you walk around on the map, you'll see clans walking around too and if you meet them then you'll have to fight. So you could potentially just do the main quests and level up by fighting other clans, but at some point they become too easy to defeat and they don't give much experience point since you are too strong, so doing quests is the best thing to do. Some of them are also multiplayer quests so you'll have to be playing with a friend to do them.

Since the Game Boy Advance is no Playstation, you can't move the camera around like in the PS version of the game. Everything is done in 2D, but everything looks good. Character animation is well done, and the drawings are pretty good, especially the character arts. There aren't some huge effects used in this game that we haven't seen anywhere else, so there's not much to tell. It gets the job done, and it's standard Square stuff, which means that it looks very good for a 2D game. There are some occasional slowdowns, but they don't happen too often and they don't distract from the gameplay.

The music though is excellent. You know it has to be good when they release a cd soundtrack of a GBA game! If I remember correctly, the music in this game was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto and it sounds great! You know the music's gonna be good when that guy's in charge as he's done the soundtrack for the amazing FFT on the PS1. Some of the songs keep playing in my head all the time. Trust me, it really is amazing! It's not orchestrated due to the limitations of the GBA, and it might not be as good as some of the stuff we heard in Final Fantasy 3, or at least that's my opinion, but it's far better than the usual stuff you hear in most GBA games.

So if you are looking for a good RPG on your Game Boy Advance (even though there are already a lot), this is a good choice. It's a lengthy game and it is very well done so you should have a very good time. It has multiplayer support and if you decide to do all the quests, you'll easily be playing for over 100 hours, probably 140 hours. There's a lot to do, there's great challenge for everybody, the graphics are great, the music is incredible... there really isn't any reason not to get this game if you are an RPG/strategy fan. If you are only in for the main quest, it takes nearly 40 hours to complete, so whether you like completing everything or just doing the necessary stuff, it is still a lengthy game. My pick for best GBA RPG.

Recent Reviews

Page generated in 0.03979 seconds; 6 queries executed. Copyright © 1999 - 2007 Jesse MacVicar - All Rights Reserved.

Partners - Creative Uncut - Codename Revolution - Nintendo Wii News - PlayStation 3 - Nintendo Gamenet