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Multiplayer!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 01, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have noticed only a few reviews have touched upon the multiplayer aspect of this game, so I thought for those who are interested I may be able to shed some more light on this part of the game. If you are lucky enough to have a friend to play with, Rendezvous Mode (co-op) and Melee Mode (1v1) just make this amazing game that much better. To start a multiplayer game you and your friend have to be in the same tavern. From there just select what game mode you would like to host/join.

For Rendezvous Mode, you and another player can tackle up to 15 unique missions together as a team (Mission 15 is only unlocked after beating the single player game.) After completion of a mission you can pick a number of chests with items in them. The number of chests that you get to open depends on how well you completed mission. Examples of this are, deploying fewer characters, dont let any pty members be KO'ed, and KO'ing as many enemies as possible. 1 chest being the lowest number you can open, 5 being the highest. Both players get to open the same number of chests.

Melee mode is a 1v1 battle with you and your friend being able to deploy up to 5 characters each. You can pick any battle area that at least one of the 2 players has cleared in storymode. Melee modes battle system is also a little different than the normal games. Players characters may sometimes Lock weapons, making both players having to rapidly hit the X button to try and win the deadlock, resulting in a critical hit or cancelling the others attack. Regular physical attacks, pressing the X button, if timed right will result in critical strike. Trap tiles effects are also changed in melee mode. The winner of the battle receives 3 chests, the loser receives only 1. Draws result in both players getting 2 chests to open.

A few things to note about the multiplayer modes:
-You only gain JP while fighting no XP
-Any items used, stolen, broken (rend), thrown etc are returned to your inventory when the match ends. So you dont have to worry about losing anything in multiplayer mode.
-You can gain rare items only available in these multiplayer modes. I know some ppl are angry about this but I think its good that they made multiplyer have some unique rewards (makes ppl actually want to try and multi play). Besides the rare items you can get wont make or break your single player experience. They are by no means required to be able to beat the single player game or make it easier, but they are really cool =)

Fight through the pages of history...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 15, 2008
Author: Amazon User

In a strange way, one could say that the original Final Fantasy Tactics was sort of the middle child of the Playstation era, sandwiched between the massive Final Fantasy VII and its heavily-hyped Final Fantasy VIII. Many found the story intriguing but translation shoddy, gameplay addicting but frequently hard and the music was praised as well though done by someone other than Uematsu. As part of the "Ivalice Alliance" compilation, Square decided to revisit the original and do some touchups and upgrades. This isn't an entirely redone game but rather it's remastered shall we say and while it does have its occasional flaws, it was actually the reason why I bought a PSP in the first place.

Story: Not to get too story-heavy since it's engrossing but complicated to know where to start, the game centers on the world of Ivalice and the conflict as to what to do about the recently available throne. 2 warring factions sought after the title to be king until history records show a young man named Delita Heiral was the hero that stopped the conflict, though there was also a young man named Ramza Beoulve that also had a hand but why is his name not mentioned in the records and what came about that brought the war to an end?

Graphics: The in-game graphics during battle and cutscenes don't really look any different than before. There's a degree of sharpness that I can tell is changed but the sprites don't look like much has changed. Where the game excels is the animated cutscenes that remind me of a drawing being continously animated on the fly as colors will dance around and it's very distinctive and unique and also a pleasure to watch.

Sound/Music: Like Final Fantasy XII or Tactics Advance 1 and 2, composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, who also did Vagrant Story and Odin Sphere, takes over the reins from series mainstay Uematsu and while I always thought Sakimoto has a gift for arrangement/orchestrations but lacking in melodies, this soundtrack is some of his best work and it's easy to find yourself tracking down the soundtrack. The voice acting is also quite good and never gets into weird casting choices or stiled delivery.

Gameplay: If you've ever played a strategy RPG before, it's pretty much the same thing. The characters move on a chessboard-esque battlefield and when turn is up, could move anywhere you want. Sword users have to be directly against the enemy while archers, spell casters or gun users have to be a relatively close space to attack. Spells can also targer a specific group of tiles, allowing it to actually hit more than one enemy if they're grouped together or a positive spell like Cure. What I sometimes didn't care for was you'd cast a spell in a spot only the character(s) that'll benefit can't really move and there was a few times where a character would start to cast, let's say Fire, and the enemy goes right up to you prompting the spell both him and you. But you gradually figure out the rules and it becomes easier to figure out what to do.

I usually never saw the appeal in the Job system, preferring the class-specific style of something like VI or IX but in this game it was weirdly beneficial, moreso I thought. Characters start out with a generally low assortment of jobs to choose from but the more they spend JP (job points) on abilities, the more they can access other and better ones. So you can have a Knight with Black Magic abilities or Thief who knows how to use Dragoon abilities. The customization possibilities are quite endless and should you know how to best present your party, you could be brutal in battle. But at the start, I was kind of sad to see the bow not being sold in stores which would've made getting an Archer early on very beneficial, not to mention JP-allotting can take quite awhile.

My one complaint (aside from the slowdown issues which are very noticeable though they were never intrusive to gameplay) was its difficulty. Basically, the game can be quite erratic in whether or not a story-centric battle will decimate your party or you'll handle a few battles with ease only to be hit by a whopper of a battle and indeed the initial couple battles were annoying because my party was just not strong enough. Since characters level by successful actions, attack or otherwise, rather than an end battle experience as seen in most RPG's, have your characters do as much stuff as possible. But be warned: there's times where it's a bit unfair and characters can die left and right.

While the difficulty could get to some and the slowdown's more annoying than anything, Tactics is a great way to spend some time with your PSP...a lot of time.

A great game with a few minor issues

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

As a huge fan of the first FFT, I must say I was pleased with the PSP retread. The new animation was beautiful (although there are a few of the cutscenes I kinda miss in their original form...but that's just me), the voices were acceptable, and the retranslation was infinately superior to the PS1 version (though still not perfect). They also took some of the censorship out (hooray for blood!). I wasn't overly impressed with the new classes (the dark knight was nice), but they made for interesting additions.

My only real issues with the game are slowdown and sound effects. The slowdown is self-evident...anytime you or an ememy uses anything other than the most basic attacks there is a disjoint between the animation and the sound (as the sound still plays when it should, while the animation grinds down to a turtle pace). And, for some reason, they altered or removed some other sound effects.

My last minor issue was the renaming of certain things, which really has no bearing on the game itself (changing Heavenly Knight to Knight Gallant, for example). These minor changes didn't effect the gameplay, but I felt distracted whenever I saw them.

Overall, I was highly impressed. This game was just as fun as the original (and much more portable), and certainly worth your money if you want to enjoy FFT at the drop of a hat.

Final addiction

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Absolutely addictive. Plot a bit too thick for my liking. But, still I would recommend it to anyone with too much time on their hands and alot of stand-by.

Fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've never played the ps1 version, but I play this game more than any of my other psp titles.

Final Fantasy Tactics Review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If you have played Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation 1 then you have pretty much played this game. The plot is basically the same but there are some nice new animated cut scenes which are a pleasure to watch. Overall a good game I would have liked a few more extras from the playstation version.

Nostalgic, But They Were Right

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is essentially the same game I remember from 1997, with cleaned-up dialogue -- something I'd always wished for -- and the addition of some very nice animated cut scenes, and of course, new secret characters, extra party slots, etc. The story is finally comprehensible and easy on the eyes. I strongly disagree with people who claim that the dialogue is "Shakespearean"; I assume they mean it's too formal and archaic to follow easily, but if they think that, I guarantee you they've neither read nor seen any Shakespeare.

Unfortunately, They were right. A port or re-make of a game should attempt to meet or exceed the quality of the original game in every area, but the graphical slowdowns and sound effect changes in The War of the Lions are very real and very noticeable, at least to a longtime fan of the game. They are a step backwards from the quality found in the original. In the very first battle, for example, when a certain Dark Knight uses one of his special abilities, you can see the game's speed go from smooth to stuttering, and the sound effect for the ability -- which used to be an intricate magical noise, followed by a SHINK! as the effect finished -- has been replaced by an odd blooping noise.

I don't know why Square decided not to fix the slowdown or why they replaced some of the excellent sound effects with lower-quality ones, but I feel it's a huge detriment to a game that otherwise would have been a perfect 10 in my book.

I docked two stars from my rating of this game for three reasons, because they hampered my enjoyment of it: The slowdowns (they had time to fix this during localization, but neglected to do so), the sound effects (same), and the fact that Square neglected to fix it before American release, didn't bother to inform anyone of the flaw, and apparently don't ever plan on fixing it.

I would have given it only 1 or 2 stars had the dialogue not been cleaned up and extra content added. Fun factor is still four, because it's still essentially the same Final Fantasy Tactics I love.

A good remake of a great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I played this through and it feels to me just like the original did on the playstation, only with some fixes to the dialogue and such. Basically to me, it just feels like they cleaned it up and re-released it for PSP. I'd have been thrilled to see this released with HD graphics for PS3.

Anyway, the game is a heck of a lot of fun, the graphics are good, etc. The only thing I don't like is it seems harder to adjust the angles to see where units are. It might be a software bug, or it might just be that my eyes are having trouble with the small screen size on the PSP.

Anyway, it's a great game, if you liked the original, you'll love this as well. Very very good game.

Classic Final Fantasy With a Strategic Twist

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Summary:If you've liked the GBA or DS Versions of Final Fantasy Tactics, you won't be disappointed by War of the Lions. It's an almost direct port from the PSX version, but it doesn't disappoint. It can be a bit slow paced at times, but a complex and deep storyline filled with beautiful hand drawn cutscenes makes this a pretty emotional game.

Gameplay- Five Stars
Confusing at first, after the first hour, things will quickly sort themselves out. Every time you successfully perform an action, your characters will get both EXP (experience) and JP (Job Points, not Judge Points). EXP is obviously used for leveling up, while JP are used for advancing classes. Classes are the set of abilities that a character can use, i.e. the "White Mage" class allows a character to use White Mage JP to access stronger and stronger White Mage spells, such as Curaja or Holy. You can change the camera angles to get a better look at the battlefield or to plan your next move. I'll admit, sometimes waiting for the CPU to move was a bit boring, but you have to pay attention or else you'll find yourself losing people left and right. Gameplay can be frustrating when you lose a character. When someone in your party loses all of their hit points, then a three turn timer is activated; when it reaches 0, your character is lost forever, and a jewel or chest takes its place.

Story- Five Stars
The story is rather complex. I won't reveal it, but it's a classic theme: save the world. Hand drawn cutscenes add to the story. It's a deeply emotional game, and there is no happy ending. You follow Ramza in dark times as he defeats revived legendary monsters, kept in stones known only as the Zodiac Stones.

Online Play - Two Stars
You can play with a buddy if they happen to own a copy of the game, and go on cooperative missions together, or battle each other. There is no infrastructure mode included, but there is a means of obtaining it is you really want to play other people. You don't honestly expect an infrastructure mode for a decade old game, do you?

Final Verdict- Five Stars
This game really is epic, and is a perfect port from the Playstation One. If I could only own five games for the PSP, this would be one of them. There is almost unlimited replay value.

A lot of disappointment with a little excitement

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'm going to make this short and sweet because the other low reviews pretty much cover everything. This was a weak remake of a great game. Now I know everyone who loves the original FFT wants to give this 5 stars, but this was [..].

Sounds and animations that separate, a rather over-complex dialogue (I liked the one in the original. Yes, I know it was rushed and came out bad, but that added some of the charm). Everything slows down for no reason, you would've thought they would have worked stuff like this out before releasing this game.

But wait, 2 NEW JOB CLASSES ZOMG! One is useless unless you master all the other classes (and find it's equipment in VS mode) and the other is really too difficult to worry about getting in the greater scheme of things.

Nice try, I hope they get it right the next time around.

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