Gaming Final Fantasy Tactics A2 Details

[Hadrian]

From IGN:
When Square Enix announced the Ivalice Alliance project late last year, Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings and the PSP port of the original Final Fantasy Tactics were joined by a more mysterious title, Final Fantasy Tactics A2. The true nature of this third game in the series has at last come to light via the latest issue of Jump Magazine.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is indeed a sequel to the Game Boy Advance Final Fantasy Tactics. Judging by the screenshots in Jump (no, we don't have any shots to share with you just yet), the game retains the 2D grid-based battles that have made the series famous. But alas, specifics on the new strategic gameplay systems Square Enix is cooking up for the title are nowhere to be found in the magazine.

Instead, the magazine shares first details on the two main characters, Adel and Luso. Adel is a young girl who lives her life as a hunter. She's known amongst fellow hunters as "Cat Adel." Luso is a school boy who happens to hate ghosts. He's the type of boy who always gets into trouble with the teacher.

These characters meet when they enter the strange world of Ivalice. Yes, like its predecessor, FFTA2 has its main characters travel from the real world into a fantasy world in order to experience their true adventure.

Will a snowball fight in the real world once again be used to explain the intricacies of the battle system this round? We'll find out soon enough, as FFTA2 is set for Japanese release later this year. We're hoping for a surprise appearance at the Square Enix Party in May.

 

[Ryoku]

God I loved FFTA. Can't wait for this one.

 

[archagon]

Which reminds me, I still gotta finish FFTA before I forget the story.
I hate it when that happens.

 

[ediblebird]

It looks awesome as well

Scan

just so long as they don't have judges ill be happy.

 

[Ryoku]

Adel and Luso, huh?

Not the best names. They're original enough LOL.

 

[snazzypants]

I don't know what it was about FFTA that I just couldn't get into. Loved Tactics on the PS1...hope this'll be more like that one.

 

[Taras]

A few powerfully sucktastic factors diminished my enjoyment of FFTA, namely:

1. Battle Rules - WTF? I can't use arrows in this battle at the risk of going to fairy jail? Who says? Is this a nod to blind obedience towards nanny government? Think about it.

2. I can place towns and locations? This is awkward, and I unlock secrets for doing it right, as opposed to what? Do I look like a civil planner to you? No I don't. Again, WTF?

3. The level up system. I rush into games without reading the instructions so I'm playing FFTA for hours, trying to figure out why my characters plateau and don't earn any more jobs. Because it's tied to weapons? WTF #3?

That's a series of dev meetings I would like to have attended.

If they make the overall system more like FFT for PS1, this would be daddy. Otherwise, I will be forced to say "Meh".

 

[Tenkaichi]

Boo to the Judges and the whole Laws system. Yes, limiting certain abilities can be seen as "just another challenge," but it really detracts from the gameplay, IMO. Going to jail? Hah... and the only jail in all of Ivalice.

I second the strangeness of placing the towns. That was... very unusual.

I don't like how FFTA relied so heavily on the jobs. I understand there was a storyline and all, but I feel that it was better in FFT where the jobs weren't necessarily a staple. Not to mention the storyline in FFT was phenominal by comparison.

In any case, I'll be waiting for this release.

I just wish I had a PSP for the re-release of FFT... I can't find my copy and I like portable games anyway...

 

[Opium]

Looks just like FFTA. I hope they don't pile it with boring missions, the original on GBA got rather long in the tooth after a few hours.

Tactics Ogre The Knight of Lodis remains king, if you haven't play it I suggest you do, it's amazing. The story alone is worth it

 

[fatfrank]

I gotta agree with most of you that FFT Original was a much better game then FFTA. The judges bothered me at first but i got used to it, and it forced some people to build more balanced teams instead of making 5 fucking monks. What really bothered me the most in the end about FFTA is the storyline and the world we're in... in FFT it was a beautiful and complexe war story, now we're playing the video game version of "The Neverending Story"... fuck that i say. About placing towns on the map, what can be ackward about it? Just drop the damn icon anywhere who gives a fuck?

 

[Hadrian]

Tactics Ogre was a lot better, I did prefer the GBA one better than Psx but would've liked it to end in some point.

 

[ZuluEdison]

im extremely excited about this,
ffta was the first one I played and unfortunately no one else i knew had it, or a gba, so I never got to play against people.

it's annoying to know that judges aren't a part of the series, and that I was just unlucky to play the one with them in it, it was pretty annoying at times.

i havn't played in awhile, mainly because it goes on forever, i'll play for a burst of a few days and then stop. I have never really figured out the whole job thing either, because by now i should have more and better jobs avaliable i guess.

either way, i am very excited about this.

 

[Protoavis]

3. The level up system. I rush into games without reading the instructions so I'm playing FFTA for hours, trying to figure out why my characters plateau and don't earn any more jobs. Because it's tied to weapons? WTF #3?

That's not that different to other FF games *points at FF9 for example*


Looking at that scan above I'm pretty disappointed, it looks just like FFTA, ok sure I can't see any judges in the screen shots and that's super but the class sprites look exactly the same, it'd be nice to have new ones, new classes, new skills, etc.

 

[Chiisuchianu]

what a fucking disappointment. i was hoping this game would be nothing like FFTAdvance but alas it will be garbage like Advance was. i long for the days when we will get a true Final Fantasy Tactics sequel. the original was amazing, my favorite game in fact. how can they keep trashing this series with these lame fantasy land giant chicken battles. the PSP got the better end of the deal here, a remake of the original is much better than an original piece of crap Advance sequel. i was so excited when i heard a sequel was coming... but this... this is such a huge disappointment for me that i think ill need to start taking prozac.

 

[Adventures_of_Lo]

I would choose the remake of PS1 tactics over this any day of the week. I loved the PS1 game and hated the GBA game. Many of the reasons are already covered in this thread. But a quick overview.

1: Laws & judges. No explanation nessecary. Sucks big time.

2: Mission based place your towns system kills away the rpg element that was present in the ps1 game. I like a game with a good story.

3: Feels too kiddy. This one can be forgiven though, if they get rid of the missions & judges & place your towns system

Edit: 4: Also way too easy. I admit I didn't play this to the end, but still the ps1 game would have killed me a bunch of times by the 20h mark. I'm surprised I played this game for that long. I just didn't want to admit how bad it was after the awesome ps1 game.

 

[deathfisaro]

Does anybody know what the sub-title says?
It looks like "Grimore of hole sealing", literally. (Huu ketsu no gurimoa)

Is the upper left cut Adel in Samurai job? She still has silver hair but she looks totally different from the drawing (And why is the hair in the drawing light purple? Wasn't it supposed to be silver?)

And I see a 3x3 size monster on the bottom right screenshot... Would final boss be that big so that you can surround it with 5 people and rape XD?

I hope it supports wireless co-op mode or similar.

 

[Hitto]

I don't get this irrational hate against FFTA. I enjoyed it for these reasons :

- Story : for the last twenty fucking years, every jRPG and 75% of western RPGs story is "save world, universe, kingdom and crap". FFT's story was fine, but maybe because I happen to have seen the neverending story on the big screen and I'm an old fuck, I found FFTA's story to be one of the best I've played.

- Laws system : Wasn't that painful. The game is fucking easy enough and nowhere as deep as FFT, so it added a little challenge to actually have to use one antilaw card sometimes, which you gained by the bucketload instead of fighting fucking BLACK chocobos.

- Creating your map : Indifferent. I figure someone on gamefaqs will have mapped the optimal bonuses you can get like only five years ago. So if you find placing your own towns inconvenient, eh. I found that it served the story, to each his own.

- Skills gained through weapons : That sucked because of the implementation. You got steal weapon insanely late in the game if you didn't know you could get the required weapon in some side mission early on. A lot of cool skills would be totally missed if you didn't exploit the game, same as in FF12, a masterpiece degraded by sadistic game mechanics.

Overall, I still like it a lot. (and am eager for FFTA2)

 

[Evilkoko]

Man that looks fun, I enjoyed FFTA but didn't have much time to play it. Hope this comes out in America before the endof the year