Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Lets just call this official)

[Kidnemo]

I can take a look when I get home, but I haven't done anything with the animal based classes.

[Andy]

I can take a look when I get home, but I haven't done anything with the animal based classes.

Thanks. And I'm glad I'm not the only one. Though I have a really nice white/black Nu Mou (or whatever the hell those things are) mage, and my Montblanc is quite efficient.

And I must say, this and Boktai make perfect companions.

[Kidnemo]

Yea, I really didn't get into the poaching/pelt trading thing in FFT either.

I'll probably play through FFTA again and try out the Blue Mage/Hunter/Animist/Morpher classes. Some of the monsters (dragons, tonberries) seem pretty tough, so I'm sure you could make a viable clan with them.

[Remy]

I'm going to have to jump in here to strongly disagree with Capt's Disgaea comparison.

(Background on where I'm coming from: These are my first SRPGs. I'm not done with either. Clocked 24 hours on Disgaea, and 14 on FFTA.)

As for classes - yeah, Disgaea has a lot of pallete swaps. That said, there's still 17 main human classes and 20 monsters classes. Almost all 37 classes have the 6 subclasses/pallete swaps. When you consider that you can transmute between any of them (so long as you don't cross the human/monster divide), AND keep your abilities if you transmute high enough, I think there's plenty of depth in the system. I'll agree that it's not integral to the game like it is in FFTA, though.

The law system...sweet god do I hate it. Not because it's overly challenging, but because I'll go to do a mission, I'll hit L to check the laws, and then I'll just burn days to wait until I get laws I won't be affected with. It doesn't feel like it adds anything positive to the game - save the second Totema battle where I waited until Charm was outlawed and I whooped up, having been attacked all of once.

And as an offshoot of the law system, the Judge is totally worthless. Maybe there's something that happens later in the game I'm missing, but right now he takes a turn and either moves corpses (Why aren't they removed, rather than moved 2 spaces?) or moves himself (Why? To get a better view?). It's just wasted time.

The experience thing - that's also one of the gripes I have about Disgaea, but that's why there's combo attacks, where everyone gets experience, and end-of-level experience bonuses, where everyone on the map gets it.

Past this, when I look at the two games side by side, it's all a landslide for Disgaea. The story/plot/humor in Disgaea just destroy the plot from FFTA. The interface on Disgaea has so many little subtleties that I miss when I play FFTA - not just the map rotation, but not having the move the cursor around when I just plain old Attack - Disgaea gives you a list of who you can hit. The shopping in FFTA is an enraging experience compared to the breeze in Disgaea. The combo system, the Geo panels, the Dark Assembly, Item World, the specialist system, the weapons mastery, the fact that I don't have to put all my guys on the map to start and can bring them out as slow or as fast as I want...

Don't get me wrong. I like FFTA, I really do. Like a friend of mine recently said - FFTA is a great GBA game. It's just loses a lot when you put it next to Disgaea.

Now that that is all out of my system...can someone tell me when the plot WILL pick up? I've got most of the lower half of the map filled with locations by now, and about 70 missions done.

[Kidnemo]

I don't understand why people have such a problem with the law system. I've never waited for a law to "rotate out" (by wandering around wasting days). I either use a card to get rid of the law I don't like, or I can swap around party members/change jobs to accomodate the laws.

Just another part of the system, which fits in perfectly with the rapid-job-changing pace of FFTA.

In FFT you never switched jobs as much as you do in FFTA. Due to the fact you need specific weapons (and not just JP ala FFT) to unlock new ablities. Many times you don't have any more items that will net you particular abilities in your current job, so it's just a quick change to a second job to keep learning abilities.

As it stands now, I probably have 8-11 clan members that I could use in any particular mission, and each character has good abilities in two jobs, if not three or four.

Woo...kinda rambled there.

[rezo]

Just another part of the system, which fits in perfectly with the rapid-job-changing pace of FFTA.

Really? Mine have been going really slowly. Since I can only add one ability at a time, and they all take multiple fights to master. =\ I've only recently switched half of my crew to a second class, and I'm about 15 hours into it.


Fun game. Has that FFT style "just throw everyone out there" tactical play going for it so far, but I don't mind that so much.

[Captain Vegetable]

cv, you neglected to mention that disgaea's story is 252448 times better than ffta's. the art direction/character design is better as well, but that's debatable.

And debate I will!!!

Eh . . . the story's better, as well as the humor, but I don't know about the art direction. Take a look at some of the concept sketches. I say that FFTA hands Disgaea it's own ass in the art department. The different races are far varried, and they're colorful to boot, and if anyone's been paying attention, they'd know I prefer colorful characters to just about anything else you can come up with. Dante's cool and all, but Sion Barzhad's design is 100,000,000,000x better. But that's just my preference.

Also, I'm not saying that Disgaea's design is bad in any capacity, it just can't hold a candle to FFTA.

i agree with you on the job and experience system, though.

As well you should, monkey-boy!

I'm going to have to . . . strongly disagree with Capt (Vegetable) . . .

Here's where you started to go wrong.

In all honesty, it looks like you simply reitterated everything I had to say, except for this bit here (edited to include only those items wherein I disagree):

Past this, when I look at the two games side by side, it's all a landslide for Disgaea. The interface on Disgaea has so many little subtleties that I miss when I play FFTA - not just the map rotation, but not having the move the cursor around when I just plain old Attack - Disgaea gives you a list of who you can hit.

Now you're just being picky for picky's sake.

The combo system, the Geo panels, the Dark Assembly, Item World, the specialist system, the weapons mastery, the fact that I don't have to put all my guys on the map to start and can bring them out as slow or as fast as I want...

Yes, this is all true, but they are pequlier to SRPGs in general, and unique to Disgaea. It's hardly a basis for any kind of comparison, unless we're talking about personal preference.

I think all of these things are wonderful as well, and I'd like to see more of this kind of thing in future SRPG ventures. Matter of fact, I'm on the verge of importing La Pucelle, and from what Ammadeau and RedCo. Kid tell me, it's a nice departure from the typical SRPG, not unlike Disgaea.

Also, I'm not saying that Disgaea is bad in any way, just that as an SRPG it gets clobbered by FFTA.

[burgundy]

One thing that's pissing me off is that I still don't have the Steal Weapon skill after 40+ hours of gameplay. I can't steal it, even if I find it, because I can't steal weapons, and even though I can steal abilities, the one Thief I found with Steal Weapon also had Maintenance.

[Captain Vegetable]

What does Maintenance do, anyway? And Steal: Access. I don't have a clue as to what I'm supossed to use them for.

[alan_fatima]

What does Maintenance do, anyway? And Steal: Access. I don't have a clue as to what I'm supossed to use them for.

The select button lets you view descriptions of items/abilities.

Maintenance protects your items for break/steal. Steal Accessory allows you to steal...accessories. Gloves, shoes, etc.