Reader Reviews
First batch of 2004! Including C&C Generals: Zero Hour, Suikoden III, FFTA, Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna and plenty more.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (GBA)
by Lutz
I was really looking forward to this. Seriously. Golden Sun 2 had just been finished and I was revelling in a 16-bit era of RPG games, so to hear that a Final Fantasy game had been made in the Shining Force style had me all gooey and excited, as Shining Force is high on my "favourite games ever made" list. I needn't have bothered.
After finally getting the game I read the manual on the bus back home and was left totally bewildered. It reads like a Japanese VCR manual tome to be honest. Feeling a bit wary I gingerly put the game in. Pleasant graphics await me and it feels polished. Fears aside I get to the main menu and find a rather pointless few options of changing the colour from blue/green to green/blue. Skipping these I'm quickly on my way to what should have been a truly ground breaking title.
Couple of hours later I'm back to the Japanese manual again. Half the stats in the game are not at all obvious (TO for example) and I'm looking for any way to speed it up. The fighting, whilst simple enough, is beyond slow. It takes at least four, if not five commands to do a simple attack. That wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that each menu takes an age to pop up. The moving of the characters is slow, as is the battle animation. It all looks very pretty though. Oh, and it sounds nice as well. Swell. A pretty, nice sounding, yet very slow game. Yawn.
Click first menu. Switch on kettle. Click second menu. Put coffee in cup. Click third menu. Wait for kettle to boil. Click fourth menu. Pour water. Watch fight. Pour in milk and stir. Watch damage and experience details. Sip coffee. Rinse, wash, repeat. Admit self to hospital for caffeine overdose.
So, after this I thought a bit of a wander round town might be in order. Er... nope. There is no town to wander around, not as such. You select shop and you go straight to the shop and you're confronted with another menu. Menu menu menu. That's all this game is. One massive stream of inter-connected menus. Even the weapons are very stat-heavy, and I was so grateful that I'd played FFIX otherwise I'd never have figured out how to learn abilities from my manual. I'm still not much the wiser when it comes to the classes, all 36 or so of them. Imagine Championship Manager with swords, spells, monsters a plot and no nancy pancy footballers and you have the basic concept of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
This could have been a great game. This should have been a staggering game. A game to possibly hold that title of "Classic". But a massively overwhelming beginning and a badly made manual (With mistakes no less) does not a classic make. Graphically and sound wise it's up there with the best of them for the GBA. Playability is rank though I'm afraid, and as such this is now back in its box and up for sale. Poor effort there Squenix!