Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

I have played Final Fantasy Tactics both on the original Gameboy Advance and I have mixed feelings about this game, this is a game based in the Ivalice world much like Final Fantasy Tactics. You start off in the modern days just like in Secret of Evermore, you play as Marche who makes friends at school including Ritz and Mewt, they get into a snowball fight with the school bullies. They go home and Mewts dad gets in trouble with the authorities for drinking. Marche and his brother in a wheelchair, Ritz and Mewt read this magical book which turns their modern day world into a medieval setting like Final Fantasy Tactics. Marche wants to go home but his 2 friends likes the make believe world.

The gameplay experience

This is very much like Final Fantasy Tactics but with some of the changes made including toning down the T rated profanity in the original 1997 to using words like "Damned" on the level of E-10 rating. Also the violence and death has been toned way down where the players get knocked out rather than a permanent death. This game is also more lighthearted instead of dark in the original Final Fantasy Tactics game. I like the story in this game it's interesting.

The law system

Oh man where to begin, this law system can be very awful or being in your favor like restricting the status aliment spell charm can be very helpful, but I absoutly hate the no fight or item command allowed, what were Square Enix thinking when they created the law system. Also you may have to go to prison if your players broke the law. Anyways moving on to fixed encounter battles.

The level grinding torture

First of all you not only have to level grind for exp points, but you also have to grind for gil money and not only that you have to buy weapons, shields, armor and have them equipped on your player and grind for ability points just like Final Fantasy 9, not only that they're expensive to buy and pay for. Seriously what the heck where Square Enix people thinking? It makes getting job classes a pain in the butt to do. The original Final Fantasy Tactics was much simpler than this complex game.

Also you'll spend most of your time fighting fixed encounter battles, I don't like it that the battle is slow and sluggish, the attack rate is usually 50 to 75 percent meaning your often miss, come on, even Fire Emblem was quicker than this game is. Be prepared for boring battles that drag on. I highly recommend you get a time mage and cast Haste on everybody to speed this game up. Also get reaction abilities like block arrow, counter, MP damage, and reflex, it will help you out in the game early on. Also get the Maintenance support ability which will also help you out.

Also for your job class, have your moogle be a gunner, time mage, thief, have the human become thief, archers, hunters, ninjas, fighters, have the Viera become archers, snipers, red mages, summoners, have Nu mou become time mages, have the bangaa become white monks, Templar it will help you to have long range characters.

For the mission list, I highly recommend dispatching your units you want to level grind, you may have to walk for a number of days or enter a number of battles, luckily you can run away from boring tedious clan battles.

What I would fix to make this a better game is to first of all speed up the battle overall so both the players and enemies can fight at a faster frame rate, second, I would get rid of some of the stupid law features like Fight and Item which is so annoying. Finally I would multiply the exp points, ability points and gil by 4 times like Lufia II: Rise of the Sinstrals so the grinding doesn't have to be tedious. Then it would be a more fun game. Sadly I can't do that in this life, maybe in the next life or in the remaster release Square Enix will fix this game with those updated patches for this game to be more fun to play.

Overall I have very mixed feelings about this tedious level grinding game, you have to do at least 24 main story missions to get to the end credits. If you do decide to get this gameboy advance game or on the Wii U, be prepared for the sitting torture and eye strain torture you'll have to suffer through playing this slow boring tedious tactical RPG game. If you want a fun, fast, less tedious tactical RPG game, I recommend Fire Emblem or Advance War games, much faster than this slow clunker of a game.

My rating for this game would be rated E-10 for mild language, mild violence, level grinding, suggestive themes.