After a long absence from Nintendo, Square finally brings Final Fantasy back to Nintendo consoles. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance seems like a promising game, but for those who really enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics on the original Playstation, this is a completely different experience.

The game begins with a turtorial (actually a snowball fight) to help you get adjusted. You play as Marche, a young boy who has just moved to the town of St. Ivalice. He engages in a snowball fight at school where he becomes friends with Mewt and Ritz, two fellow classmates that are constantly picked on. After school, Mewt goes to the library and checks out a book with a title too hard to read but over time, the tome has been referred to as "Final Fantasy." Marche and his friends soon talk about how great it would be to be in a game. When the three go to sleep the world around them suddenly changes and they awaken in the Final Fantasy universe. Marche now decides he wants to go home but neither of his friends want to.

The story, for Final Fantasy, is weak. Compared to the series (and its big brother on Playstation) this story lacks creativity and insight. The story is too simple and predictable and there aren't really any breathtaking twist that the FF series is known for. In all essence, its childish.

The gameplay in FFTA isn't all that bad. The cutscenes before each engagement are a little long and can't be skipped (and if you lose the first battle you'll have to sit through the tutorial AND long intro all over again). But battling is simple and easy to get used to. Much like most tactical games you move a certain number of spaces and then act.

FFTA puts a twist on battling, and its not one to be too fond of. Each battle now has laws and a judge to moniter the battle. If a character breaks the law (friend or foe) they're issued a card. A yellow card is given for a minor offense and a red card for a major offense. At first this seems creative but as the game goes on you have to deal with more and more laws. Soon they get annoying. They change each time you go to a new location but soon the game incorporates three laws per battle. Laws that soon they enemy never seems to break. Some laws don't let you use items, some even restrict the fight command! Then there are some of the more stupid laws such as preventing you to heal your characters or even to do damage to a monster! Soon, the laws become downright annoying.

Along battling, there are lots of subquests that go along with the normal missions. There are 300 missions in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. That means you'll be able to fight lots of battles and raise your characters to the fullest right? Unfortunately, only 1/3 of these missions allow you to do any interaction. The other 200 are simply "dispatch" missions where you'll send a character out for a certain period of time (either after a certain number of days, certain number of battles or certain number of enemies killed) and they'll either return with a success or failure.

Then there are the abilities. In the original Final Fantasy Tactics after each attack you got Job Points and Experience points. You could spend your Job Points to learn more abilities. This would've been good to bring back but instead FFTA makes you learn abilities by what weapons you equip and earning AP. Most weapons require 200 or 300 AP. Every now and then you'll find one that needs more. From each encounter with either a wandering clan or after a mission you'll get anywhere from 40-80 AP. It won't take you much time to figure out that you'll learn abilities quite slowly. Especially since, once you get further into the game battles begin to pace even slower. ONLY characters who participate in the battle get AP and if you send on on a dispatch mission only the dispatch gains AP.

The visual look of FFTA is astonishing and it runs quite well. The graphics aren't 3D but 2D only isometric, so it looks 3D. This is nice but sometimes characters become to crowded amongst each other and the judge will also get in the way. Since its isometric, the camera is at a fixed angle so you can't move it around. The game is VERY vibrant and colorful and showers some nice eye-candy. A GBA game has never looked this good before.

I wish I could say the music is as good as the graphics. FFTA doesn't really have "Bad" tunes. Mostly the game suffers from not having enough tunes. The soundtrack doesn't have a variety. It doesn't sound as good as the original on PSX and even for GBA it sounds lackluster when compared to other games such as "Golden Sun" or "Castlevania: Circle of the Moon". The soundtrack is also very limited. So limited that I got very tired of hearing some tunes and turned the volume down ever once and a while. The sound effects are very nice though and when you KO a character they give a little scream that sounds very realistic.

The last problem with FFTA is how easy the game is. The original Final Fantasy Tactics... well... actually required you to use tactics. This one doesn't require nearly as much strategy. In fact, as long as you have a character who is equipped with a good weapon you'll be able to win everytime (you won't even have to worry about healing unless the laws are totally against you). There are more varieties of job classes in this one but you really won't find yourself switching to learn abilities all that much.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is by no means a bad game. Its a little too easy and too childish for the FFT veteran but it can be enjoyable if you make the most of it.

OVERALL:

On the positive side

+Beautiful Graphics!

+A few good tunes

+Good voices

+A variety of job classes

+Judge system makes the game unique but...

+Easy and simple to play

But of course with all the good stuff there are the bad things

-You can't rotate the camera in battle, when characters get bunched up its hard to place them when you can't see!

-The soundtrack isn't big enough, and the music isn't as good

-Abilities take too long to learn

-The Judge System is downright annoying

-The game is TOO easy
After a long absence from Nintendo, Square finally brings Final Fantasy back to Nintendo consoles. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance seems like a promising game, but for those who really enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics on the original Playstation, this is a completely different experience. The game begins with a turtorial (actually a snowball fight) to help you get adjusted. You play as Marche, a young boy who has just moved to the town of St. Ivalice. He engages in a snowball fight at school where he becomes friends with Mewt and Ritz, two fellow classmates that are constantly picked on. After school, Mewt goes to the library and checks out a book with a title too hard to read but over time, the tome has been referred to as "Final Fantasy. " Marche and his friends soon talk about how great it would be to be in a game. When the three go to sleep the world around them suddenly changes and they awaken in the Final Fantasy universe. Marche now decides he wants to go home but neither of his friends want to. The story, for Final Fantasy, is weak. Compared to the series (and its big brother on Playstation) this story lacks creativity and insight. The story is too simple and predictable and there aren't really any breathtaking twist that the FF series is known for. In all essence, its childish. The gameplay in FFTA isn't all that bad. The cutscenes before each engagement are a little long and can't be skipped (and if you lose the first battle you'll have to sit through the tutorial AND long intro all over again). But battling is simple and easy to get used to. Much like most tactical games you move a certain number of spaces and then act. FFTA puts a twist on battling, and its not one to be too fond of. Each battle now has laws and a judge to moniter the battle. If a character breaks the law (friend or foe) they're issued a card. A yellow card is given for a minor offense and a red card for a major offense. At first this seems creative but as the game goes on you have to deal with more and more laws. Soon they get annoying. They change each time you go to a new location but soon the game incorporates three laws per battle. Laws that soon they enemy never seems to break. Some laws don't let you use items, some even restrict the fight command! Then there are some of the more stupid laws such as preventing you to heal your characters or even to do damage to a monster! Soon, the laws become downright annoying. Along battling, there are lots of subquests that go along with the normal missions. There are 300 missions in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. That means you'll be able to fight lots of battles and raise your characters to the fullest right? Unfortunately, only 1/3 of these missions allow you to do any interaction. The other 200 are simply "dispatch" missions where you'll send a character out for a certain period of time (either after a certain number of days, certain number of battles or certain number of enemies killed) and they'll either return with a success or failure. Then there are the abilities. In the original Final Fantasy Tactics after each attack you got Job Points and Experience points. You could spend your Job Points to learn more abilities. This would've been good to bring back but instead FFTA makes you learn abilities by what weapons you equip and earning AP. Most weapons require 200 or 300 AP. Every now and then you'll find one that needs more. From each encounter with either a wandering clan or after a mission you'll get anywhere from 40-80 AP. It won't take you much time to figure out that you'll learn abilities quite slowly. Especially since, once you get further into the game battles begin to pace even slower. ONLY characters who participate in the battle get AP and if you send on on a dispatch mission only the dispatch gains AP. The visual look of FFTA is astonishing and it runs quite well. The graphics aren't 3D but 2D only isometric, so it looks 3D. This is nice but sometimes characters become to crowded amongst each other and the judge will also get in the way. Since its isometric, the camera is at a fixed angle so you can't move it around. The game is VERY vibrant and colorful and showers some nice eye-candy. A GBA game has never looked this good before. I wish I could say the music is as good as the graphics. FFTA doesn't really have "Bad" tunes. Mostly the game suffers from not having enough tunes. The soundtrack doesn't have a variety. It doesn't sound as good as the original on PSX and even for GBA it sounds lackluster when compared to other games such as "Golden Sun" or "Castlevania: Circle of the Moon". The soundtrack is also very limited. So limited that I got very tired of hearing some tunes and turned the volume down ever once and a while. The sound effects are very nice though and when you KO a character they give a little scream that sounds very realistic. The last problem with FFTA is how easy the game is. The original Final Fantasy Tactics... well... actually required you to use tactics. This one doesn't require nearly as much strategy. In fact, as long as you have a character who is equipped with a good weapon you'll be able to win everytime (you won't even have to worry about healing unless the laws are totally against you). There are more varieties of job classes in this one but you really won't find yourself switching to learn abilities all that much. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is by no means a bad game. Its a little too easy and too childish for the FFT veteran but it can be enjoyable if you make the most of it. OVERALL:

On the positive side

+Beautiful Graphics! +A few good tunes

+Good voices

+A variety of job classes

+Judge system makes the game unique but... +Easy and simple to play

But of course with all the good stuff there are the bad things

-You can't rotate the camera in battle, when characters get bunched up its hard to place them when you can't see! -The soundtrack isn't big enough, and the music isn't as good

-Abilities take too long to learn

-The Judge System is downright annoying

-The game is TOO easy