After fourteen years of on-and-off play, I finally beat Final Fantasy Tactics last night

btw "that shit powered me to the end of the game in no time" means i logged 57 hours on this particular go round.
i would say, conservatively, that i've logged around a total of 180 hours on FFT

for people playing this game: ignore the archer class. totally useless.
never did figure out what the hell an onion knight was.

I'd congratulate you on achieving this epic milestone but I haven't yet forgiven you for mistaking me for LJ.

when did i do that? it woulda been in jest.

FFT is a top 3 game for me, though I haven't played it in years. You know you love a game when you genuinely enjoy the menu/map music

sad true story: i still have a save file where i used the level up/level down trick to create a 'perfect' character. that alone probably took me like 30 hours...

best class: one of the special knight classes or ninja
worst class: yeah probably archer although bard/dancer are p shitty
most underrated class in the game: oracle
favourite class: time mage. i like their hats

the music is all time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzFooLMKYn0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUSPiYngFWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f49JZ9v79iM

i'm pretty impressed that you made a "perfect" character; i tried several times and hit the leveling wall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ukp3fKEnc
lol nerds:
This moment of the game couldn't help but atleast crack you a bit. the music hits you showing that they are going through a traumatic time and they have no other feeling but sadness, anger, or regret. Malakk and rafa, Miluda and Weigraff. Those are just simply the types that you know have a relationship that shouldn't break so easily.
Polomance862 3 months ago

My heart burns and my eyes cry.I have no command over them when I listen to this music.Something mystical very sad is embedded in this music.
ne0eagle 4 months ago 2

Very True it is sad but their is so much beauty
Garnets42 5 months ago 2

How did they do it, capture such sadness into one song!? Genius, pure genius!
ReticentIndignation 5 months ago 2

Very True

worst class: yeah probably archer although bard/dancer are p shitty

'team of bards/dancers' can be a very fun way to power through random encounters

i wish this had a New Game+ so i could play it again without putting hundreds of hours into perfecting all my dudes again

back when there was a psn this was on it, right? assuming it comes back, will this stand up without the support of nostalgia? i have always been intrigued.

as a game it's unbelievably broken, but still somehow really fun - i dont know how it manages that. idk if the psn version retains the awful old localization, but it was pretty famous for being poorly translated back in the day (and again, somehow its still fascinating & awesome).

psp version is WONDERFULLY translated, brilliantly localized and actually makes the story sorta worth following!

quite frankly, you can get the psp for 120 and fftpsp for 15 bucks used; figure like three bucks an hour for what you put into it. totally worth it.

'team of bards/dancers' can be a very fun way to power through random encounters

i remember finding them ok @ controlling the flow of a battle (really one of the most impt things in fft) but tedious to use, mostly. why did you like using them?

rs - its a good game. i think part of what makes so many ppl love it is that i did come along when most na gamers were starved for sprgs so it seemed for unique/good than it actually was, but its still a really great game. its broken but also deep & it offers a variety of challenges for both an xp'd and a novice. also i do think it was one of the best rpg stories of any game of its era imo

playing it as a "walking around" game changes the grinding considerably btw.
when you turn off the psp, it's like you've paused the game. turning it back on resumes immediately right where you were, so there's no real issue with grabbing five minute play sessions. that innovation alone made this playthrough much more fun than some past grinds.

haha its p sad how happy i am to be talking abt fft!!! i have to exert real willpower to avoid a v long post abt how great the oracle classs is & what the best passive abilities are...

i ended up levelling everybody's chemist all the way early and then always making item the secondary skill so everybody can phoenix down or remedy or whatever
then lifefont for movement and instapotion and then got rid of all potions but xpotions so guys are basically healing full after every hit.
levelled everybody up all the way through black mage, geomancer, monk, most of them through geomancer

u r among like souls lamp, let it out........

please make the big oracle post lamp

also i do think it was one of the best rpg stories of any game of its era imo

― Lamp, Friday, May 13, 2011 1:01 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

story-wise i dont think any RPG has ever hit all the right notes for me like this one did

maybe Deus Ex or the first Fallout - certainly no other JRPG

i remember finding them ok @ controlling the flow of a battle (really one of the most impt things in fft) but tedious to use, mostly. why did you like using them?

i just found it funny that you could basically leave a battle on autopilot thanks to them - there were also a few funny times where i ended up barely scraping through a tough battle because i had a dancer tucked in a corner doing the HP damage dance or the random status dance

this shit right here is my jam forever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGdeHJKicmc

This song is just too beautiful. Makes me think of drizzle gently falling on green fields, while kid-looking humans and magical creatures fight for survival.
tribilyan 1 year ago 26
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Imagine living in the ff tactics world. I would be a no nonsense rogue knight who wants to beat the crap out of the royal families and nobles with badass music
WillC 5 months ago

this is my jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azKaZUfPOJ4

haha lol @ me. the thing about oracles is that they have the best melee stats of the mage classes (iirc?) & their status-altering abilities are probably the most useful @ controlling the flow of battle & at isloating and sidelining enemies so you can stat-boost/jp milk/steal items/learn spells w/e reason you might want to prolong & manipulate an encounter.

also the combo of praise/doubt faith always you to mitigate the low base success rate of your more powerful spells, minor spells like blind & sleep are both long-lasting & effective, most of your powerful equipment can be stolen/obtained from drops early & you have a v useful built-in MP recovery system in both the drain spells & move MP up.

obv a time mage w/ math skill secondary & good spell book can break the game so hard but taking the time to master calculator is boring. in the same way you can build ninja/monk characters that are basically unbeatable but they have a hard time controlling the battle if you want to do anything other than win. oracles are both easy to master & versatile to use making them the best support class & one of the most interesting & fun to use imo

mediator's better b/c the sleep spell is called "Mimic Daravon"

the most obscure of in-geek nerd jokes

never did figure out what the hell an onion knight was.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110109162822/finalfantasy/images/1/1a/FF3-NES-OnionKnight.PNG

thought for just a sec that surfing was LJ

― And thusly create the illusion of babby (forksclovetofu), Friday, 29 April 2011 13:00 (2 weeks ago)

ha!

did they rename mime onion knight in the psp port? or squire?

*crosses arms* the oracle's sleep spell has a better range & success rate

as a guy who relied heavily on crowd-control stuff like sleep i totally see where you're coming from lamp, but thats why i loved the dancer's random status dance - in one move you can have the whole board incapacitated

im trying to remember what other cheap-ass cc i would use, i think calculatin' was prob my main go-to for that

time mages can be really effective controllers too esp since haste/slow are almost always 80%+ manipulating RT is one of the easiest ways to slide through tough story battles since its so cheap

who are yalls favorite characters btw... im sure we all agree the shitty twins were the worst

also, what's your preferred chocobo:person ratio in a party

i always really liked ovelia but only because she had such a sweet class *whistles*

i never use monsters in battle (except v rarely for the fun of mounted combat) but a character + one chocobo party is p cool

i used NO chocobos at any point on this last playthru
orlando breaks the game basically but damn he is a badass

'bos make good ridin, which is why i generally liked to tuck one or two into my party for characters who i need to be extra mobile

iirc correctly there are a couple of maps where you need a chocobo to reach the buried item? or maybe a ninja w/ the +1 jump shoe could reach it? i always though it was shitty you couldnt ride the wolves, wouldve been p badass

thanks for the thoughts folks. reading this thread is sealing the deal for me i think.

kinda love this thread even though i've never played fft

also forx: did you beat deep dungeon? & how many of the secret characters did you get?

on this go round, i made a real decision not to character grind or hunt for secrets or anything so i don't think i did ANY of the hidden things. i really meant to beat it this time!

so no cloud.

on my final playthrough i finally tackled deep dungeon and got every hidden character + ultima. cloud sucked :/

none of the hidden characters except MUSTADIO are all that useful (oh wait is beowulf a 'hidden character'?) esp because by the time you get that far into chapter four you probably have your preferred attack team already levelled up

yeah mustadio owns

mustadiowns

i found myself perpetually torn between fielding a team of 'names' and my loyalty to the footsoldiers who i'd been developing at the beginning of the game

how much of a pain is it to run psx roms? really want 2 play this now but dont want to deal w/ digging out my playstation...

in fact you have to

picked up TO used from Gamestop. Complicated.

Has gotten me to play Jeanne D'Arc again, a game I got the day I bought this thing just b/c Level-5 worked on it.

fft coming out for iphone/ipod tooch

uhoh

WHY CANT WE JUST HAVE A NEW TRPG MASTERPIECE I MEAN THIS ONES GOOD BUT I HAVE PLAYED IT A BUNCH OF TIMES MAKE A GAME THATS BASICALLY THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT ENOUGH SO THAT ITS NOT LITERALLY THE SAME PLZ DR SQUARE

Sincerely,

Will M.

But I just got this emulated on my handheld

Will otm

What about Disgaea? That seemed to get a lotta hype

Ok, the iphone version's out. I've never played any version of this before. I should buy it, right? I mean, I keep going into the app store, and hovering over the buy button, but...£10.99 feels so steep for such an old game.

the reviews have not been kind; apparently it's a very sloppy port.

Huh. Ok, at the very least I'll wait for a sale then.

this is one of my favourite threads

is level 49 about right for your main character at the beginning of chapter three?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTbtl8_5agM

that's definitely a thing that someone did

4 more years

there are so many great little details about this game that dont ever end up mattering at all

anyway i am playing this game again and really enjoying it, theres just so much stuff and somehow most of the battles are genuinely interesting to fight despite my having put like thousands of hours of my life into playing this game and understanding how it works

shocked they haven't made an FFT2 yet.

favourite class: time mage. i like their hats

this comment traveled thru time from 3 years ago to be super OTM right now

i missed this thread :)

Haste and Slow opened my eyes to the idea of "power scaling" in gaming in general. As an 18- or 19-year old I expected each successive class unlock to present progressively bloodier and higher-damage skill and spell options. It felt like Time Mage took ages to unlock and was kind of pathetic,

it was only much later when I realized that there's a reason they don't give you Time Mage right away and make you work for it.

secret hunt is the most busted ability in the game?

shocked they haven't made an FFT2 yet.

they have! but they're for GBA/DS. i played the first one (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance) and it's fun but suffers in comparison to the original. they added a Judge system which is sometimes fun but mostly annoying. and the story (disclosure: i only played through about 12 hours or so) was pretty mediocre.

oh, duh, i'm sure you know about those. i guess you mean a sequel that takes place during the Lion War and isn't about daydreaming schoolchildren?

i liked the first ds fft but it doesnt have the same depth as the psx game

rn i am fighting the urge to manage my level advancement to maximize stat growth because i really dont want to fall down that rabbithole

i thought the setup of the gba one was really affecting

it sort of felt arbitrary and failed to compel once it got to landmarks on maps, though, a bit like legend of mana

yeah, i tried ffta and it's not really much of a game. but maybe i should go back to it?

1997 Developer Interview, originally featured in Famicon Tsuushin magazine, newly translated:

http://shmuplations.com/fft/

nice
i should play disgaea

disgaea is extremely anime voice but the way it encourages experimentation and exploits is sui generis and great. i haven't played since the PS2 but i've heard the recent PC port isn't great.

hmmmm
https://noisypixel.net/fae-tactics-switch-pc-spring-2020/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2OcmU-KV-I

also the tactics ost is on spotify now so i'm playing that