Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift Comments by Simon Parkin

frist!

I'll wait for Fire Emblem thanks.

This just makes me want UFO/Xcom on DS.

Seems about right from what I've played thusfar. Not a patch on the original, but entertaining enough for a portable title.

For "judge system bad" read "each battle requires a unique approach and innovative tactics."
For "sidequests make battles unimportant" read "you don't have to sit through five hours of cutscenes to get to the next piece of action."

Who is this "Simon Parkin" anyway? It's not as if he's the guy who does all the JRPG/TRPG on Eurogamer all the time or knows what he's talking about or anything, etc.

So they thought the game wasn't broken, 'ey? That the original story was "exciting" enough to REPEAT it? So it's "tactical" RPG Light all over again? Very disappointing.

This is, as with most SRPGs, a game for players who love to crunch the numbers, micromanaging team abilities and maximising profits.

It would have been so if it weren't for the fact that that type of player also really likes having an engaging story, not a kid's tale. This doesn't pull a tactical RPG player in to the slightest. As such, it is a tactical RPG without an audience. Still, I'll probably have a small go at it, only to find out whether or not you can max out the characters on the first true mission already. Chances are that it is so, considering they kept just about everything.

Meh, guess I will hang fire till Disgaea DS then

/me wants FFT2 (on PSP preferably)

Bitkari: Well, I would like to play Incubation on PSP :-) Tough luck.

The first one may have been story light but something compelled me to move on and on.

Unlike the original (PSOne) game where the story was heavy and the grinding was slow and repetitive (dont mind grinding if it's all fluid and quick).

I loved the original FFTA, so I'll definitely pick this up. Just not right now. Too many games out in such a short space of time.

Owned by PSP FFT

I thought the story in the first FFTA may have been sparse, but really interesting. The conflict of friends who have found a place in this dream land, the little boy who has to chose between reality and his mother, etc. It may have featured kids but it wasn't a "kid's" story.

@Bitkari
That would rock! - I've been playing with pickking up a GBA version of RebelStar for the GBA, but a full X-Com would be amazing!

Hmm yes I love terrible, overwrought faux middle-english dialogue in my JSRPGs too.

FFT is a great game but the merits of its narrative are sometimes overstated.

I loved FFT and FFTA, I played FFT to death on PSP, probably the better system for this kind of game, but I'm still going to cop this and I look forward to playing it. There's obviously nothing wrong with this, it just has a somewhat stripped down approach compared to FFT, nothing that's going to stop me from playing it and enjoying it.

Eh, I might buy it in a few months when it's cheap. Unlike War of the Lions, which is awesome, I wasn't crazy about FFTA.

VMerkan - I disagree. I love Fire Emblem but the story is always absolutely irrelevant bollocks IMO. And the 4X games I like for similarly number-crunchy reasons are generally story-free skirmish games.

What's wrong with snowball fights?

Do many SRPGs really have a good story? They generally start off well enough, but then degenerate into overly-convoluted nonsense that becomes just another screen to skip over between battles.

Oh, I really liked FFTA, but this sounds pretty disappointing :(

Meh.

FFTA is one of the most disappointing games I've ever played - being a massive Final Fantasy fan off the back of VII through to X in the main series, I found the almost complete lack of story quite shocking. The battling was slow and dull and I never felt any sense of affinity with the characters since only about three of them actually had any relevance to... well, anything.

I was really quite hoping this would move on, but it sounds as though it's much the same game re-hashed onto the DS.

I'm playing the GBA version of Final Fantasy VI at the moment (about 18 hours in) and it's utterly brilliant - great narrative, great characters, the traditional menu juggling and equipment shuffling is enjoyable, the ATB random battles are actually good fun to play so the randomness doesn't bother me - it's everything a Final Fantasy game should be.

Looks like I'll be waiting for FFIV DS for my next fix.

This is 99.9 % as dull as the first.

FFTA's story might have been balls, but it still hooked me enough to play for 140 hours. 140 HOURS. That's, like, a week. So it's not true to say it's a game without an audience - some of us SRPG dabblers love the art, love the setup, love the battling but fear the inch-thick rulebooks and heavy duty strategy. So, even if it is very slightly gay, I'll still be grabbing me a copy of this pronto.

@MisterFahrenheit
Indeed, I played FFTA for hours because it was the kind of game you could both pick up and play for a few minutes on the train, or get completely drawn into for hours at a time.

In fact, my opinion of SRPGs seems to be the complete reverse of Eurogamers (I much preferred Jeanne d'Arc to FFT)

I thought the story in the first FFTA may have been sparse, but really interesting. The conflict of friends who have found a place in this dream land, the little boy who has to chose between reality and his mother, etc. It may have featured kids but it wasn't a "kid's" story.


You're right, but don't bother arguing with people who are turned off from anything even superficially "cute" out of a gargantuan fear of not being 100% cool and manly and "mature" all the time. Which is, ironically, one of the most childish things there is.

I gaurentee that there are no memorable characters like Garfgarion in this series.

Damn him he was difficult.

Who? :P

Anyone who thinks major Final Fantasy games have genuinely great narratives needs to read more.

I really enjoyed everything about FFTA. The miscellaneous missions were more interesting for levelling up than random battles, and the Laws made you approach every battle differently. I liked having to get creative sometimes when it outlawed something essential, like the Fight command. I am working through FFT at the moment and enjoying the story and such, but I do find myself repeating the same random battles to level quite a bit. Playing this alongside FFT and Disgaea is going to destroy what little gaming time I have left these days.

I still have FFT on PSP to finish, and I reckon I should probably play FFTA on GBA before I get this. Still, looking forward to it so I am! :)

afray: I thought the story in the first FFTA may have been sparse, but really interesting. The conflict of friends who have found a place in this dream land, the little boy who has to chose between reality and his mother, etc. It may have featured kids but it wasn't a "kid's" story.

Yes, and Red Riding Hood's quite interesting, too, if you care to look for it. Also, I believe tomes have been filled about the deeper meaning of Superman, Mario and other assorted superheroes. That doesn't take away that these stories are mainly aimed to entertain the young at heart. Me, I'm looking for something with more substance. Mind you, I am aware that kid's stories are not bad or anything, they fulfill an important role in fact but not for me anymore. What disappoints me the most, is that Squenix is pulling a Neverending Story on us a second time - personally, it made suspension of disbelief very hard back then and now probably as well.

Still, I am going to give the game a shot (as stated above), because the story is not the main reason I play games :). If it is a similar romp compared to the previous game, playing it will be quite nice.

I'm playing this now and enjoying it. I liked FF tactics in the past. However, I would dearly like to have a fast combat option that doubles the animation speed. Simple battles take forever as each character leisurely walks to a spot, etc. Good game and gets a 9 if you like this type of turn-based game. A 7 for all others.

VMerken:Yes, and Red Riding Hood's quite interesting, too, if you care to look for it. Also, I believe tomes have been filled about the deeper meaning of Superman, Mario and other assorted superheroes. That doesn't take away that these stories are mainly aimed to entertain the young at heart.

You're straw-manning. Please explain how being fronted by children makes FFTA's multiple morale dilemas less engaging or meaningful, instead of listing other children's stories (Mario? wtf?).

afray:You're straw-manning. Please explain how being fronted by children makes FFTA's multiple morale dilemas less engaging or meaningful, instead of listing other children's stories (Mario? wtf?).

You should actually read my commentary before firing off a baseless accusation. Exactly where do I state that FFTA being fronted by children is to blame? I am listing children's stories because I'd like to make the point that just like FFTA, they contain "engaging moral dilemmas" as well. They are on the same level in that respect - search far enough and everything is deep and morally involving. Finally, the reason I'm bringing up Mario is that for a "superhero" like him, or Superman and other assorted stories, tome upon tome has been filled about their "deeper meaning", how "they are not just for kids" and what have you not.

And this is all fine and dandy, but not the kind of show I'm looking for anymore - as I said, I'd like some more substance and depth in there.

Red Riding Hood contains a few meaningful and effective metaphors, rather than multiple characters with their own well-defined personalities and conflicts. It's incomprehensible for you to compare the two.

That doesn't take away that these stories are mainly aimed to entertain the young at heart.

Please explain how the FFTA story qualifies for this statment. It is neither simple, short, or straightforward. It addresses how we choose to percieve our own reality - not just that the third porridge is always just right.

And please point me to the tome debating the morale dilemas within Mario.

Sorry but the story in this game is for kids, simplistic to a fault, and utterly forgettable. Monsters are "evil" and the few adults in the game are either one or the other extreme of good or evil. Good stories have some at least some aspect of gray to them because the real world is complicated and dangerous and there's absolutely none of that here. Some of the Pixar movies are a good example of stories that have some moral gray and complexity to them while still successfully appealing to 10 years olds.

Really looking forward to Disgaea now after reading that review! Its the only reason that I would be tempted to get the PS2 out (well that and High School Musical for the kids). FFT2 sounds like another disappointment.

Just what I was afraid of, and just what I expected.

Thanks for the review, sir. Though you'd think that it would be lower seeing as how everything but a sentence or two was negative.

if you like turn based strategy its a fun and long lasting game with some genuine strategy in the gameplay. The 'judges' arent a negative at all since this time around all you get are bonuses if you obey the law. You dont lose a map if you disobey a law. Its not at all a big deal. The story is crap but that's true of most of the games in this genre.

It's not a bad little game. The plot is frankly pump so far, but at least it's coherent and confined to short cutscenes. FFT's plot was deeply incomprehensible, took bloody ages and, depending on the version, was toe-curling faux-medieval or poorly translated english.

as for the mechanics of the game, I still prefer those of the original, but this is still a very enjoyable tactics-lite, and a decent improvement on FFTA. I'm about 5 hours in and really enjoying it.