Brimming with excitement, I flipped my DS open and eagerly smudged my thumb against the start button. The moment I had been waiting for finally arrived - my chance to play the much anticipated sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I went into playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift with such high expectations; At this point I’d be lying if I said the game met them. But at the same time, it hasn’t significantly disappointed me either.

The first thing I noticed was the recycling of the first game’s music. It wasn’t subtley introduced either. The very first music you hear at the title screen is the exact same title screen music from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It’s not necessarily bad music, but I was really expecting an upgrade to go with the game’s shiny new console upgrade. A title screen may not make or break a game, but it does have some effect on one’s first impressions. So it’s safe to say that Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and I didn’t get off on the right foot.

The game’s opening story…egh. It’s pretty much just another rehash of the original game’s story. The main character has a different attitude, for sure. They went from noble kid stereotype to rambunctious scamp with a heart of gold stereotype. Typical and shrugworthy, but if it works, it works.

In the first game the kids stumbled upon a mysterious book that sucked them into another world. Namely: Ivalice. Ivalice has become a centerpiece world for a lot of the latest Final Fantasy games. The main character of A2…well…stumbles upon a mysterious book and is sucked into Ivalice. I guess lightning really does strike twice. Though the plot does have some continuity as the characters from the previous games crop up in one way or another.

The music wasn’t the sole thing cursed with repetition. There are numerous things recycled from the first game. It might be easier and faster to point out the things that weren’t reused.

Plenty of new races and jobs have been added into the fray. New jobs can also be unlocked via quests in which you protect or defeat someone who teaches you about the finer intricacies of, say, holding a spear (for the dragoons).

There’s also a new bazaar system. Basically all the quest rewards gained from adventuring are used to make new weapons and armor. This is the only way to get new weapons and armor. As veteran players may know, the only way to gain new abilities for your characters is to equip them with different weapons and armor. It probably sounds just as tedious as it really is. Your characters may get an upgrade or a new spell within five or six quests. Not immediately a big deal, but once you start wanting to change your character’s jobs it becomes a huge hindrance. Most other jobs require two or more skills from one or two lower on the totem pole. Now you need to wait on learning the skills from different classes, and wait on maybe making a new weapon that has a skill you need.

I’m not a very big fan of this new system, as you can probably tell. You don’t even get to see what the new item is before you create it. You pick your three materials from a list and hope for the best. In some cases you may have only one of a material needed for two different items. You get to pick from a list of: ??? or ??? and hope for the best.

Most of the sprites and some of the scenery are recycled as well. The characters are also hilariously one dimensional. I can’t say I’m enamored to any of them. You have the adventurous young troublemaker who falls into a mysterious world and makes his first priority adventuring rather than actually going home. Then you have this strange looking man who happens upon a child randomly appearing in the middle of a battlefield. Naturally his first thought was: “I should invite this young boy to join my clan and fight this enormous monster!” And the female protagonist is just plain obnoxious, like so many others who have come before her.

There are, however, many positives to the game.

The combat system has not changed at all, which is a given. It’s still every bit as addicting as it was before. Turns will come and go, and so will the time. At some point the clock strikes 5:00AM. You won’t notice.

The horrible, terribly annoying law system makes its abysmal return. It’s even more intrusive and aggravating than ever. Where before you may have had some hope of avoiding breaking a law, the newer laws seem to have been concocted purely for the purpose of making you throw your DS across the room. I’m not exaggerating. I’m talking laws that are over things completely out of the player’s control. For example:

The law is no knock-backs. Sounds simple? Except any attack that scores a critical hit will knock the enemy back. So if you’re unlucky enough to get a critical hit, well, sucks to be you.

On the plus side, breaking laws doesn’t automatically force the violating character into jail. It simply removes the judge and all clan benefits from the battlefield. Oh, but one of those benefits is being able to resurrect your characters. So good luck with that.

The quests are a lot more dynamic. You’ll be bodyguarding, looking for herbs in tall grass, or trying to dismantle traps. While the quests are optional, they’re pretty much necessary due to the whole bazaar system. But at least there’s that false sense of freedom. Oh, and some of the quests make absolutely no sense. Yeah, let’s throw in a rank 44 quest at the beginning of the game to make the players go: “Huh?” Smart thinking, that.

What music isn’t recycled is actually composed very well. The quality of the newer music makes the poorer aspects of the reused music just that much more obvious, though.

The portrait graphics and new areas are also very well done. The portraits have their own unique style, and it gives even background characters a personality.

The one thing I feel required to commend is the amazing use of quest and flavor text in this game. It’s a step above a lot of the things in most games nowadays. You will want to read every notice, quest, or rumor thoroughly. The writing is superb and my hat is off to the people who did it. This game reads like a fantasy novel, which is something that I feel is lost in a lot of games, RPGs included, lately. Amazing. More games should do it. I would actually market this aspect over any other part of the game because it’s been done so well. It’s the first thing I point out when I recommend this game to people who ask. I’m not sure I can adequately sing the praises enough. It’s just…great!

Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is pretty much a rehash of the first game. This isn’t a bad thing at all, as the first game was incredibly enjoyable. It’s not for anyone looking for something new. It’s pretty much just for veterans who want another tactics game to pore over. It’s also a good spring-board for anyone who may want to get into the tactical game genre. The game is easy to learn, though a bit tougher to master.

I would readily recommend this game to anyone who may want to try it out. It has its flaws, but what game doesn’t? At least it works within its limitations. I’m certainly enjoying it.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Reviews, Nintendo DS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.