Post by Dan-RN on Mar 27, 2004 21:58:56 GMT -5
Teh Reviews 3: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
I base my review off 5 criteria followed by my closing statements.
1. Story
2. Graphics
3. Gameplay
4. Sound and Music
5. Presentation
6. Closing Comments
1. Story
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance starts out in the town of St. Ivalice. Marche is the new kid in town, and not quite socially accepted. The kids start throwing snowballs at school, and all the other boys target Mewt, on Marche's team. The teacher eventually calls it off when one of the snowballs has a rock in it. After class Marche, Mewt, and a girl, Ritz, walked home as they talked. Mewt decided to buy an old book he'd been wanting, so the three decided to meet up at Marche's house that night to look at the book. They go over and check it out, along with Marche's wheelchair-bound brother, Doned. Mewt and Ritz go home, and the town quiets as people go to sleep. That night, though, the world changes into the kingdom of Ivalice, straight out of a Final Fantasy game. Marche is confused at first, but finally realizes what happened and tries to find the others so they can go home. Well, if it were that easy there wouldn't be much of a game, now would there? Tons of typical RPG plot twists and such. An interesting plot, overall.
2. Graphics
The graphics look pretty good. Of course, it's GBA, so they aren't jaw-dropping or anything. The totema look cool, and some of the magic spells have cool animations. The characters are all sprites, and are pretty detailed, though unless a character is a main or major person in the game, the jobs (classes) all look the same. Grass and rock and water all look like you'd expect. The game won't bowl you over with its graphics, but they're nice and get the job done.
3. Gameplay
This is a unit-based RPG. Think along the lines of Tactics Ogre, Advance Wars, and Fire Emblem. You select units to go into battle, place them on the field, and then you control each unit when their turn rolls around. If Marche goes first, then a menu will pop up on the right with actions, and his stats show up on the left. You can pick to move, action, wait, or check the unit's full stats. Action is divided up into a regular attack, special techniques that are job-specific, items, and eventually the totema command. Move lets you character move spaces on the field according to his or her move and jump stats. Wait lets your unit stay on the same space and their turn will roll around quicker next round. One problem I had about halfway through the game was that the frame rate often dropped and the whole game slowed when an enemy unit would take its turn or all characters would slow when walking through a certain area. Outside of battle you move on a "grid" of sorts between towns, forests, etc. A trip from one icon to another takes one game day. While in towns, you can go to the pub to accept missions (which takes you to a battle, pretty much), and listen to rumors. The shop sells items and equipment, and I got really confused using the system for the first few hours of play. It would be nice if it showed you what specific units could equip an item, but instead it shows what jobs can equip items, and I didn't even know most of my clan's jobs at that point. Anyway, for the most part the system works well.
4. Sound and Music
The music in FFTA is basic RPG fare, and you'll find the same songs playing over and over and over until you want to pull your hair out. The worst is the overworld theme song. It plays every time you go to move on the world map, and gets old extremely quick. Since this is a 40+ hour game, you'd think they could mix up the music... The sound effects are really basic. You get the same attack sound with all bladed weapons and the same for all bows, etc. The sounds are good, but get repetitive. If I could describe the sound in one word it would be: repetitive.
5. Presentation
The game's missions keep you oriented on the story, but only a few of the game's 300 missions revolve around the story. Most of the time you're just running an errand and monsters happen to get in the way. The game has a few sub plots, and the main plotline is very intriguing, but I found that most of the time you've almost forgotten the minor details of the story because it's been three hours of game time since you've seen anything about it. I know that most of the time when I accepted a mission I forgot what I was supposed to do when I got to my destination. The game keeps you on track for the story, but doesn't give you many reminders, and when it does they are very blatant.
6. Closing Comments
I enjoyed this game, and it's fun to play through for the gameplay and the story, but I still found it to be a little lacking. Also, your units don't level up evenly. You often have to rely on your strong units to win battles, therefore they get stronger, but they still scratch the minimum to win missions, so your other units rarely get used. It could've used more balance, that's all. So, scores.
Graphics 9.5/10
Controls: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Fun Factor: 9.6/10
Replay Value: 9.8/10
Overall Score: [Not an average] 9.1/10
I base my review off 5 criteria followed by my closing statements.
1. Story
2. Graphics
3. Gameplay
4. Sound and Music
5. Presentation
6. Closing Comments
1. Story
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance starts out in the town of St. Ivalice. Marche is the new kid in town, and not quite socially accepted. The kids start throwing snowballs at school, and all the other boys target Mewt, on Marche's team. The teacher eventually calls it off when one of the snowballs has a rock in it. After class Marche, Mewt, and a girl, Ritz, walked home as they talked. Mewt decided to buy an old book he'd been wanting, so the three decided to meet up at Marche's house that night to look at the book. They go over and check it out, along with Marche's wheelchair-bound brother, Doned. Mewt and Ritz go home, and the town quiets as people go to sleep. That night, though, the world changes into the kingdom of Ivalice, straight out of a Final Fantasy game. Marche is confused at first, but finally realizes what happened and tries to find the others so they can go home. Well, if it were that easy there wouldn't be much of a game, now would there? Tons of typical RPG plot twists and such. An interesting plot, overall.
2. Graphics
The graphics look pretty good. Of course, it's GBA, so they aren't jaw-dropping or anything. The totema look cool, and some of the magic spells have cool animations. The characters are all sprites, and are pretty detailed, though unless a character is a main or major person in the game, the jobs (classes) all look the same. Grass and rock and water all look like you'd expect. The game won't bowl you over with its graphics, but they're nice and get the job done.
3. Gameplay
This is a unit-based RPG. Think along the lines of Tactics Ogre, Advance Wars, and Fire Emblem. You select units to go into battle, place them on the field, and then you control each unit when their turn rolls around. If Marche goes first, then a menu will pop up on the right with actions, and his stats show up on the left. You can pick to move, action, wait, or check the unit's full stats. Action is divided up into a regular attack, special techniques that are job-specific, items, and eventually the totema command. Move lets you character move spaces on the field according to his or her move and jump stats. Wait lets your unit stay on the same space and their turn will roll around quicker next round. One problem I had about halfway through the game was that the frame rate often dropped and the whole game slowed when an enemy unit would take its turn or all characters would slow when walking through a certain area. Outside of battle you move on a "grid" of sorts between towns, forests, etc. A trip from one icon to another takes one game day. While in towns, you can go to the pub to accept missions (which takes you to a battle, pretty much), and listen to rumors. The shop sells items and equipment, and I got really confused using the system for the first few hours of play. It would be nice if it showed you what specific units could equip an item, but instead it shows what jobs can equip items, and I didn't even know most of my clan's jobs at that point. Anyway, for the most part the system works well.
4. Sound and Music
The music in FFTA is basic RPG fare, and you'll find the same songs playing over and over and over until you want to pull your hair out. The worst is the overworld theme song. It plays every time you go to move on the world map, and gets old extremely quick. Since this is a 40+ hour game, you'd think they could mix up the music... The sound effects are really basic. You get the same attack sound with all bladed weapons and the same for all bows, etc. The sounds are good, but get repetitive. If I could describe the sound in one word it would be: repetitive.
5. Presentation
The game's missions keep you oriented on the story, but only a few of the game's 300 missions revolve around the story. Most of the time you're just running an errand and monsters happen to get in the way. The game has a few sub plots, and the main plotline is very intriguing, but I found that most of the time you've almost forgotten the minor details of the story because it's been three hours of game time since you've seen anything about it. I know that most of the time when I accepted a mission I forgot what I was supposed to do when I got to my destination. The game keeps you on track for the story, but doesn't give you many reminders, and when it does they are very blatant.
6. Closing Comments
I enjoyed this game, and it's fun to play through for the gameplay and the story, but I still found it to be a little lacking. Also, your units don't level up evenly. You often have to rely on your strong units to win battles, therefore they get stronger, but they still scratch the minimum to win missions, so your other units rarely get used. It could've used more balance, that's all. So, scores.
Graphics 9.5/10
Controls: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Fun Factor: 9.6/10
Replay Value: 9.8/10
Overall Score: [Not an average] 9.1/10
