Final Fantasy Thread

[MasterEn]

Same as you which is interesting because it seems like most are content with classic or pixel remaster. I know there are some differences, but gba version is convenient and I like the added features that are unique to them. I also have been playing the DQ games starting with the gba ver as well.

the gba and psp versions have the most content with all of the quality of life improvements and both are portable from the get go. not that means much nowadays.
you said that you were having some trouble with the mechanics of ff2. was there something that you were having problems with?

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

well Final Fantasy tactics is finished.

Here is a short review of what I think of this unique take on Final Fantasy:

Spoiler: Gameplay

starting off by gameplay its the biggest strength of this game the game is well a tactical turn based game I have played this kind before but for a very short time so Tactics is the first proper experience of this sort of game genre.

The gameplay loop goes like this:

Walk over to a destination , you get to plan your battle formation prior to the actual battle , short scene plays followed by game objective and there goes the battle begins its full of evasive maneuvers from flanking enemies to hitting their rear which should be impossible to evade , the game provides you with many jobs or "classes" to choose from each with its own unique set of attributes and skills , naturally some jobs are gonna benefit from other job skills like monks with geomancer attack boost or samurai with counter and archers from squire ability accumulate , changing job changes stats like speed or movement or damage monks for example are a glasscanon of sorts with high damage but low health this can be helped by "equip armor" from the knight skill set to boost a monk health as I said jobs can benefit other jobs in a variety of ways , you level up by Doing successful actions in battle whether its casting a support spell or attacking all give you XP this means in order to come out stronger from each battle you will need to ensure that every turn an action is taken to keep the XP coming to level up , most importantly to gain Job points and you can further boost the gain of JPs through abilities called "gain JP up" a very useful ability when changing jobs allowing the character to gain way more JP unlocking strong abilities much faster.

The game only allows 5 soldiers per battle on story missions the player character is always present and can't be removed while other random encounters you can place any soldier without being present in the battle yourself , you can hire more soldiers from soldiers offices the process however of making a level 1 squire to a useful part of the team takes quite an effort if only the game had newly hired soldiers scale up automatically depending on your level like FF7 where other characters gain levels even if not in your party currently.

You get better equipment as the game goes this equipment and who can equip it depends on job , some unique and rare items can be acquired throughout the game those aren't usually available at shops , most jobs can equip light armor while only very select few classes can equip heavy armor and shields these are of course what I call "heavy infantry" or "assault troops" like knights , lancers (dragoons) and samurai the latter can't equip shields but has an ability that makes him master at evading damage.

Story characters however are built different each with their own unique job and ability agrias has holy sword , mustadio has the most useful crowd control skills with leg shot and arm shot that disables enemies and takes them out of the game for a while by making them unable to act or move , disabling movement is more effective on melee enemies than casters or archers or any ranged enemy really.

In terms of usefulness mustadio is a must be in every battle after you get in the party , less impressive however are rafa and malak with a stupid area of effect special ability that is very random and only useful few times you can however regulate both for other purposes since malak brave is 69 and rafa faith is 69 , those 2 are just not of much use so I found it better to not use them that much.

Agrias and mustadio however are very capable with agrias ability to both tank and deal damage from afar and mustadio crowd control he can also work as a chemist to heal but better switch back to engineer when you are done with chemist for higher health and higher speed values.

I got mustadio to level 50 the highest leveled up character in my team , with emulator save you can arm shot everything that has a chance of hitting.

I would like to mention spears having extra reach which is a welcome addition I always found it weird how spear wielding units in age of empires games lacked the extra range the spear gives glad square acknowledged it.

In terms of difficulty the game is pretty challenging chapter 1 offers little money making knight play a bit hard , it eases up on money in act 2 with propositions , the game difficulty however goes out of the window once T.G cid joins up.

Up until that point fighting a lucavi was very hard , I killed marquis without much challenge or dycedarg even the final boss proved to be quite easy.

Fighting red chocobos however and purple ones is pain same for mindflayers oh guess what? Remember those pisco demons from FF1 that could damage warriors ? Yeah they are here too with their annoying mindflayer brethren who were OP in FF1 here they are still annoying with mind blast causing a character to go berserk.

Overall gameplay is the strength of this game you can spend a good while changing abilities and optimizing your party to your heart desire.

Spoiler: Graphics

while square moved on from 2d format this game was something of their last projects in that field I guess it sports 2.5d graphics with good sprite work and a unique artstyle that doesn't have everyone looking like midgets which is a welcome addition the game also has an expressive amount of animation that make the game fee more lively and responsive I would rate it above FF4 and 5 in graphics but it can't surpass FF6 in artstyle

Spoiler: Story

well its square so a good story is expected and the game does a good job in terms of story from fleshing out the world through the catalogue of "brave story" from treasures and zones you find to small graphs about propositions that all help the game world feel alive , the characters are interesting from our friend delita to Prince larg and goltana the game goes from rescuing the princess to hunting after stones and going after vormav to rescue your kidnapped sister.

Chapter 1 main villain is the death corp which sports the theme of commoners vs nobles and aristocrats the higher ups vs the common man a theme continued throughout the game along with ton of betrayal and schemes , each character with their own goals wiegraf selling his own principles for power , delita using everyone and everything around him and gafgarion selling you out along with the cardinal and the church constantly covering up every mess up its not a very happy world to live in especially considering the backstory of rafa and malak.

Throughout the game we are constantly reminded of saint aijora who is clearly inspired by "Christian jesus" and the church inspired by the medieval shenanigans the church in Europe used to do.

The game in the end revealing that aijora himself or herself being the villain all along was a big "whaaaaat" moment when you read the scriptures about him and how he is seen as this hero for him to be the one behind all this is rather a plot twist.

Although I don't understand whether saint aijora is a guy or a girl well going by bloody angel I guess its a girl with a respectable booty uhm yeah , killing em in the end proved to be easy with my elite squad of cid , daughter of vormav and agrias , mustadio and finally ramza as ninja made short work of everything by being able to focus on a single character only I surrounded bloody angel and just killed her that not even losing 1 health in process I got lucky with mustadio shooting the altima leg or whatever final phase is called.

Well I thought we died in the end but it seems we live a life in the shadows in the end along with sister alma away from all turmoil like a legend.

One thing I don't understand is if delita died or not was ovelia stabbing him first or did he kill her? And also she dying in the end was like whaaa? We went through all that trouble to save her just to die like broooo.

Its story didn't get me as iinvested as other FF games but still a good story didn't evoke strong emotion or anything really but good one I guess.

Spoiler: Soundtrack

the weakest part of the game is the soundtrack nothing stands out save for the lucavi boss fights theme and the shop theme along with the world theme I will for the sake of it throw the battle prep theme too overall not as memorable as any other soundtrack.

Spoiler: Intro

yes I dedicated an entire section to the intro why? Cuz if an intro doesn't grab your attention then what good it is? The intro is short and has this pure music of sorts hehe I still don't understand who it refers to by the opening sentences is it ramza?st aijora? The 12 braves? I dunno it got a very cool title drop with the game name ignited by fire presenting you with the main menu and that epic music good one not great just good

Spoiler: Conclusion

overall tactics is a good entry its nothing groundbreaking or mind blowing but a nice entry of its own

Btw here are the 3 MVPs

They all survived in the end along with the companion of agrias

Was working to get her +2 move when I unintentionally beaten the game.

I also wanted to create my elite samurai vanguard here are the 2/4 members

I rate FF Tactics 7/10 , surpass FF1&2 but ranks below all other entries.

Note: the logo looks pretty different from usual FF logos which usually depicts a single or 2 things in Tactics case it depicts a bunch of soldiers of whom I could identify the white/black mage the knight and lancer.

 

[Patches]

the gba and psp versions have the most content with all of the quality of life improvements and both are portable from the get go. not that means much nowadays.
you said that you were having some trouble with the mechanics of ff2. was there something that you were having problems with?

Not so much trouble its just more tedious and odd like hitting my own characters to grind lol.

 

[MasterEn]

Not so much trouble its just more tedious and odd like hitting my own characters to grind lol.

yeah, it is. about half the games in the series try to follow this system of customizing the characters to your liking. 5 and 10 do this the best.
since you're playing the gba version, the stat downgrades don't happen, so it could be worse.
do be careful of the ultima spell. you'll get this very late in the game, but because of how it works, it may never be useful to use.

Post automatically merged: Mar 2, 2025

i was looking for some official artwork for final fantasy tactics, and i found this website that got a whole bunch of art for the game. check it out:

Final Fantasy Tactics - Square's Art

 

[starseeker300]

Same as you which is interesting because it seems like most are content with classic or pixel remaster. I know there are some differences, but gba version is convenient and I like the added features that are unique to them. I also have been playing the DQ games starting with the gba ver as well.

if you are doing soul of rebirth make sure to load up ricard with all your best gear, he will need it

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

i was looking for some official artwork for final fantasy tactics, and i found this website that got a whole bunch of art for the game. check it out:
Final Fantasy Tactics - Square's Art

They got some pretty weird proportions

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

They got some pretty weird proportions

Small torsos and no noses.

That's the style of Akihiko Yoshida, who started with Matsuno at Quest. It goes all the way back to Ogre Battle on the SNES.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Small torsos and no noses.

Square either turn people into first graders or makes them into uncanny looking people in art no in between

 

[MasterEn]

They got some pretty weird proportions

Small torsos and no noses.

That's the style of Akihiko Yoshida, who started with Matsuno at Quest. It goes all the way back to Ogre Battle on the SNES.

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Square either turn people into first graders or makes them into uncanny looking people in art no in between

yeah, but weird proportions aren't very unusual. i got a copy of the comic that my favorite superhero appears in and her legs are way longer than they should be. i still have a hard time keeping things proportional when i'm drawing.

toriyama also draws characters without noses. it's very common for characters to look weird in concept art or comic books. the stuff that we interact with; games, movies, and cartoons, have a full staff of people to come along and work on individual parts to finetune and refine to make everything all sparkly and presentable. i remember watching flcl and then reading a chapter of the comic book. that was a shock to the system seeing the raw story in comparison to the show.

i do some similar stuff with my characters. females are either bursting to the seams or they are slender and petite. guys are either normal and look like pretty boys or they are buff enough to pass as a oc for fist of the north star or dragon ball.

but the artist did the most important part of design: making characters that catch the eyes and make an impact.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

yeah, but weird proportions aren't very unusual. i got a copy of the comic that my favorite superhero appears in and her legs are way longer than they should be. i still have a hard time keeping things proportional when i'm drawing

I guess its drawn by humans so there can be flaws looking at Final Fantasy art its less weird in terms of proportion than whatever that art of tactics is I mean delita head is too small

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

I guess its drawn by humans so there can be flaws looking at Final Fantasy art its less weird in terms of proportion than whatever that art of tactics is I mean delita head is too small

I don't think its flaws, my friend. It was purposely drawn with those proportions. If you look at it carefully all of the characters share the exaggerated anatomy. That's just drawing cartoons in general, you exaggerate some parts of the anatomy to draw the attention to them.

 

[MasterEn]

I guess its drawn by humans so there can be flaws looking at Final Fantasy art its less weird in terms of proportion than whatever that art of tactics is I mean delita head is too small

I don't think its flaws, my friend. It was purposely drawn with those proportions. If you look at it carefully all of the characters share the exaggerated anatomy. That's just drawing cartoons in general, you exaggerate some parts of the anatomy to draw the attention to them.

this was made in the tail end of the 90's, when people liked having crazy and weird designs for characters. one of the important parts was to be consistent. if one character has spaghetti arms, most of the others will too. as long as all of the characters fit together coherently, everything will work out much better.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Maybe you are right yes they all share weird proportions I don't think its a flaw , its designed like that but I still find it funny to look at people with massive bodies but tiny heads like square were really onto something when making those I still prefer the original artist work I don't think they are the same but I could be wrong all I know the one who did artwork for all early games was named akrio or something like that he is responsible for iconic masterpieces like warrior of the light (FF1 cover art) or really any of those games art.

Oh and one thing I noticed is that FF tactics seem to have a russian team involved in making it seeing the credits names like igor or Ivan popped up interesting why would square contact those

 

[MasterEn]

Maybe you are right yes they all share weird proportions I don't think its a flaw , its designed like that but I still find it funny to look at people with massive bodies but tiny heads like square were really onto something when making those I still prefer the original artist work I don't think they are the same but I could be wrong all I know the one who did artwork for all early games was named akrio or something like that he is responsible for iconic masterpieces like warrior of the light (FF1 cover art) or really any of those games art.

Oh and one thing I noticed is that FF tactics seem to have a russian team involved in making it seeing the credits names like igor or Ivan popped up interesting why would square contact those

i found a wikipedia page with a brief overlook of the game.

Final Fantasy Tactics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

it's not unusual for various projects to have help from other countries, as weird as it might seem. the simpsons movie had some animation help from a company in north korea and some animation companies in japan get help from south korea. it might have been a russian company helping out with sound effects or play testing. i'll keep an eye out during the credits when i get to that part of the game.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

Oh and one thing I noticed is that FF tactics seem to have a russian team involved in making it seeing the credits names like igor or Ivan popped up interesting why would square contact those

A Russian team? Maybe they outsourced some of the CGI? From what I can gather on Wikipedia, the intro CG scene was outsourced to Animatek international. That company apparently doesn't exist anymore.

Edit: Solved it.

AnimaTek International, Inc.​

Moby ID: 195

• Overview​
• Games​
• Logos​
• History​
• Trivia​
• Contribute​

Overview edit · view history​

AnimaTek was a software development company founded in 1988 in Moscow, Russia, by the inventor of Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov, his partner, Vladimir Pokhilko and international entrepreneur, Henk Rogers. It had two development studios, one in Moscow, Russia and one in San Francisco, USA.
The company was known for its Caviar Technology, a surface pixel real-time rendering engine. AnimaTek disappeared near the end of the '90s, but most of the staff and the technology moved on to Digital Element, Inc., a company founded in 1999 by AnimaTek's former General Manager Don McClure.

Credited on 4 Games from 1993 to 1998​

Godzilla Online (1998 on Windows)

Final Fantasy Tactics (1997 on PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PS Vita...)

Ice & Fire (1995 on Windows, Windows 16-bit, Macintosh)

El-Fish (1993 on DOS, FM Towns)

 

[MasterEn]

this is the guy you were thinking of who did a lot of the early art work for final fantasy:

Yoshitaka Amano - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

the simpsons movie had some animation help from a company in north korea and some animation companies in japan get help from south korea. it might have been a russian company helping out with sound effects or play testing. i'll keep an eye out during the credits when i get to that part of the game.

Huh makes me wonder how they got in contact?

A Russian team? Maybe they outsourced some of the CGI? From what I can gather on Wikipedia, the intro CG scene was outsourced to Animatek international

Yes idk what they did exactly but I'm curious at how they contributed to tactics idk I thought FF was exclusively always made by Japanese so to see them outsourcing is pretty new to me.

Post automatically merged: Mar 2, 2025

this is the guy you were thinking of who did a lot of the early art work for final fantasy:

Yoshitaka Amano - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yeah amano thats him I can't memorize their names well but I know them when I see it who though its funny to make Japanese names this difficult...

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

Huh makes me wonder how they got in contact?



Yes idk what they did exactly but I'm curious at how they contributed to tactics idk I thought FF was exclusively always made by Japanese so to see them outsourcing is pretty new to me.

I solved it, look at my previous post. Animatek is a Russian company that made CG scenes for video games.

 

[MasterEn]

A Russian team? Maybe they outsourced some of the CGI? From what I can gather on Wikipedia, the intro CG scene was outsourced to Animatek international. That company apparently doesn't exist anymore.

yep, you got it. it was a russian company that worked on computer graphics. they most likely worked on the cg cutscenes. there isn't much information available; not even a wikipedia page.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Detective skill too high

 

[MasterEn]

Huh makes me wonder how they got in contact?



Yes idk what they did exactly but I'm curious at how they contributed to tactics idk I thought FF was exclusively always made by Japanese so to see them outsourcing is pretty new to me.

Post automatically merged: Mar 2, 2025

Yeah amano thats him I can't memorize their names well but I know them when I see it who though its funny to make Japanese names this difficult...

i can't remember the name of the company but lots of studios contact them for help. i think it was about 80% of cartoons get some amount of help from those people in one way or another.
i'd say it was just working on the cgi opening and ending if it is also cgi. it is rather weird, considering that japan and russia are still at war with one another.
amano was popular enough at one point to actual get to make a movie using his art style.
it did not do very well, unfortunately.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Why some people who work on these beloved games seem to not value their work in it as much as their other lesser known work? Maybe they see it as another "job" but in a way their name and fame is forever itched on that game.

Anyway did you check my full final review for FF tactics? How you rate the game personally?

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

i'd say it was just working on the cgi opening and ending if it is also cgi. it is rather weird, considering that japan and russia are still at war with one another.

Russia was trying to westernize and become a part of the global economy during the late 90s. It is only recently that Russia has reverted to an autocratic regime.

Post automatically merged: Mar 3, 2025

Anyway did you check my full final review for FF tactics? How you rate the game personally?

Your review was solid. I agree overall, except I thought the story was one of the strongest in the series and I think many of the musical pieces in the game are incredible. I think the music captures the feel of the medieval religious era.

One thing to note about the localization is that it was done by someone in the Japanese team and it was botched with awkward sounding phrases. Like you mention, the text in the intro sounds like a bunch of gibberish and I don't think it was intentional. There are words like "wiznaibus" that clearly indicate that some amount of "japanglish" made it into the localization. The longtime English localizer, Ted Woosley, had quit Square and they didn't have a good localizer during that era.

 

[MasterEn]

Why some people who work on these beloved games seem to not value their work in it as much as their other lesser known work? Maybe they see it as another "job" but in a way their name and fame is forever itched on that game.

Anyway did you check my full final review for FF tactics? How you rate the game personally?

yeah, they do just usually see it as a job. the guy who played obi-wan kenobi in the original star wars movie met a fan of the movie, and he told the guy to "grow up, it's just a movie"

i read a bit of it. mostly everything expect the story part. i'm avoiding spoilers for the moment. which is a bit weird since i watched the 2 part video by rabtoons, but i don't remember any part of it. that was months ago. i already got spoiled on ramza and delita apparently getting new sets of armor. they look like they went from naked snake and revolver ocelot to venom snake and shalashaska. so i guess something intense happens later on.

so far, it is fantastic. i feel like i'm playing tactics advance 2 again for the first time. the first boss that i fought did kind of feel like bullshit. i'm twice her level and only one character could hurt her for more than 20 points of damage. i got some more jobs mastered. everyone has squire mastered and Lulu mastered chemist.

steadily working my way over to the other jobs. i do need to catch maria up, i'll switch her over to another job to level grind while i work on getting job levels for the others. i got time mage unlocked, so everyone will be unstoppable very soon.

Russia was trying to westernize and become a part of the global economy during the late 90s. It is only recently that Russia has reverted to an autocratic regime.

yeah, i remember hearing about that. but i was referring to the fact that japan and russia never signed any peace treaties between the two. so, it's a bit weird to do business deals with an enemy.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

yeah, i remember hearing about that. but i was referring to the fact that japan and russia never signed any peace treaties between the two. so, it's a bit weird to do business deals with an enemy.

Did they need to? Japan surrendered to the United States and was under the military protection of the US Armed Forces. If Russia had diplomatic relations with the US, by proxy it would also be peaceful with Japan.