Final Fantasy Tactics
 

So, I'm curious: are there any Final Fantasy Tactics players on LQ? I happened to be packing up some old games the other day and found my copy of FFT - for the longest time my favorite video game. I hadn't played it in forever but I hooked up my old PlayStation and managed to do pretty good in thirty hours. (All the way to the last segment starting at Orbonne.) I had almost forgotten how much fun it was!

My attack team was pretty basic. I don't like playing the special characters, most especially Orlandu (because he just makes things too easy). So my party consists of the same people I recruit after the first fight. That way I can pick and choose their Brave & Faith, plus their names, and build up a lot of experience amongst the whole team over time.

By the time I last played, I had: Ramza as a Ninja with Monk skills. A male Monk with all the Geomancer skills. A female Lancer with Samurai draw-out techniques. A male Wizard with Summoner magics. And a female Time Mage with Priest skills. The Wizard and Time Mage were also working heavily on Oracle status-effects but the primary attack guys (the first three) are pretty much done.

Synergy and timing are the cornerstones of my strategy, so the Time Mage is important for getting everyone Haste straight off the bat. The Lancer / Samurai can use the draw-out skill that gives Shell & Protect, and the other two fighters can get straight to work. The Wizard can sit back and cast black magic (usually Flare) or summons (usually Ramuh or Cyclops), and the Time Mage / Priest can heal allies or hinder the enemy. Holy is awesome, and Meteor can win the battle almost by itself if you time it right.

So if there's any other players out there, I'm curious what kind of strategy did / do you employ in FFT?

Ah, yes! Final Fantasy Tactics was always one of my favorites. I've always been a Final Fantasy fan, but Tactics had that sort of addictive quality for me. I think it's the same quality that still has me playing the copy of Bandit Kings of Ancient China for DOS that I bought 15 years ago.

I revived my copy of FFT last year when I was playing around with the Linux version of the ePSXe PlayStation emulator. I had to play around with a couple of video plugins, but once I got it working, the emulation was quite good. And let's face it - state-saving always makes for a more pleasant gaming experience. I haven't had much time for it lately, though. Tactics is great fun, but it's hard to get into when you're in a hurry or low on time.

I never really had any kind of real planned strategy. The recurring theme, though, was probably mobility. I always liked my characters to have very high move scores, which allowed them to 1) run away effectively when they were in trouble and 2) get within striking distance of the enemy faster. I also tended to focus more on physical attacks than magic or special abilities. This is probably because I tend to bounce characters around jobs to collect certain skills, which makes it harder to save up experience for the good magic. I usually ended up with a Time Mage/Preist and a Summoner/Wizard as my magic support and a bunch of Knights, Lancers, Geomancers, and Ninjas to do the main fighting, as they can usually deliver a lot of damage with each hit.

I don't claim it's a great "strategy," but it works well enough for me. Except for those couple of times where Ramza was hopelessly unprepared for the duel with Wiegraf. Unfortunately, by that point you're trapped in the castle and out of luck.