Maegwyn
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A Review of Terran Recreation
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
By Genoclysm
Final Fantasy Tactics A2. It has been both dreaded and anticipated. Some remember its predecessor fondly; others felt it was a demonic torture device.* Either way, it is certain many potential players are being devoured by their curiosity. I know I was. Now that I've started up a file myself, I can describe some of it.
Starting up a new file is very annoying. There is a bunch of pointless dialogue and tutorial to wade through. The dialogue I could live with. The tutorial should be skippable, especially since it isn't particularly helpful. The first fight of the battle can also be tricky if Hard is chosen. It is best to target the boss with everything in the player's arsenal at that point to end the battle as quickly as possible. That particular enemy is quite vicious.
That does bring up the difficulty. One dilemma tactical RPGs tend to face is horrible difficulty. Well, this game offers two settings: Normal for novices, and Hard for veterans. So far, I have been extremely pleased with how much I have to struggle in Hard mode. More than a few fights have had me on the ropes. Beware of the stronger marks, however. I've faced two in particular that were absolutely unforgiving.**
The laws, the laws, the terrible laws! I'm sure many want to know about these the most. Well, players shouldn't fret; they seem to have been fixed. Now most missions have preset laws designed to make the mission more challenging, but not impossible. Except under very special circumstances, keeping the law is not even necessary at all. Instead of punishing players, the game rewards them for keeping the laws. Before each battle, players can choose a special clan ability that boosts stats in some way. Break the law, and that is disabled for the rest. Players can use it again for the next fight, no problem. The other two "penalties" are worse, in my opinion.
Firstly, when characters get knocked out, law breaking will have them put in jail for the rest of the battle so that they cannot be revived. This ups the difficulty of the battle a bit. The last effect is that the judge will not give the player items at the end of the battle if the player has broken the law. This is likely the most significant, as the way to gain items is to get them from judges, or to use items called Loot to get stores to stock more items on their shelves. Every judge award is helpful, so breaking the law is not favored.
There are a few other gameplay tweaks too. Territories this time around are gained through minigames called Auctions. So far, I'm not very good at them. I have a hunch, though, that areas are more easilly gotten if the player enters all the autions, only ever passes on the first two, then bids hard on the third when the others don't have enough tokens left. After that area is obtained, players can start bidding on the second, taking advantage of the bonus on the third auction to try and lighten the load in order to keep it. I'm not sure if it works, but I plan to give it a try. As before, owning territories gives a few benefits that are worth the trouble.
Of course, I need to explain Loot. Those familiar with Final Fantasy XII will recognise this as the enemy drops and steals that can be sold to the bazaar for profit and exotic goods. Those who never played Final Fantasy XII might recognize it as the Poaching from Final Fantasy Tactics, only much more expanded. Well, now it is used to enable all goods, so it is much more important. If that doesn't ring a bell, then I'm just not sure how to explain it. I guess it is like the player supplies the raw materials, then the shopkeepers use it to make the items to stock the shelves. Materials must be continually provided to keep making more items available.
The Totema have been replaced by the Scions. Instead of each race having their own Totema to summon, players can collect accessories that characters can equip to enable their summoning. They are supposed to be rather powerful, but I don't have one yet. The Smash Gauge is essentually the same thing as the Judge Points from the previous games when it comes to this purpose.
The combo attacks have been replaced, it seems, with Opportunity Commands. Opportunity Commands can cause combo attacks, but far more often, they randomly allow a character to use a buff for him/herself and his/her allies. They are neat ... but so far, I have not seen an instance in which the effect was significant enough to turn the tide or anything.
The last of these several "few" gameplay tweaks I'll go over is battle and quest awards other than Loot, namely exp, AP, and sometimes MVP. At the end of a battle, every character deployed in battle gets exp. At the end of a quest or battle, all units get AP. This makes it easier to keep characters from falling behind. The booklet explains MVP... but it is mentioned (by my count) only twice, and you have to dig for it to find it. Basically the "Most Valuable Player" wins an MVP award at the end of battle, and it fills up a trophy on their character screen. The more complete the trophy is, the better they do when sent off on their own.
Players should not try this game for the plot. The plot is very shallow. If the main plot has ANY depth to it, I have yet to find it. The guy who recruits the main character has a shady past that comes back to bite him in the butt, and the main character probably will have to eventually deal with it head on. That's about all the depth I can find. (Although some of the subplots are fantastic, as far as subplots go.)
* If I may be so bold as to borrow and adapt a phrase from Kalanyr and Rimblade, "The law thinks. The law feels. The law hates."
** Holy Cow Face, Batman! That energy blast melted your head! Batman...? Batman?!
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