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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]

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Guile said:
Seems to shave off a lot of the lows, but also some of the highs. I haven't gotten my hands on it though, so that's just my impression second-hand.
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War of The Lions mostly gets shit because it's retranslation moves it's localization much closer to the director's other Square works: Vagrant Story and FF12. Alexander O Smith's Ivalice translations all were inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire, and add a lot of "thous" and "thees" which certain people find annoying. It's just not something that Japanese does, which is why Matsuno kept hiring Alexander O Smith, because he felt it added depth to his prose.
 
I played the PSX FFT Recently and the translation is rough in a way i never had seen. It felt a lot less careful than SNES translations.
 
As somebody who has played Tactics to the end with both translations, the War of the Lions version is just as bad as the original one (which is no mean feat). Even setting aside the occasional archaic words which grow more numerous as the game progresses, and the renaming of all the characters, a lot of great lines get excised or converted into bland stuff, a lot of direct explanations are converted into implications in such a way that the dialogue becomes increasingly cryptic, some things that worked best as implications are clarified in a way that reduce quality, and some people's characterization is changed to such a degree that they might as well be different characters.

Don't get me wrong, the original PSX translation is terrible, I'm not arguing that it's not, but the War of the Lion version is just as bad, in entirely different ways. There is such a thing as "too obtuse", and that's what the new translation is.

Also, as I mentioned before, the PSX version has been modded to an extent that is genuinely impressive, and obviously, that includes a number of mods that replace the original translation with the War of the Lion translation - so if somebody wants to play the new translation on the PSX version of the game, that's possible too.

By the way, the reason I campaign so hard for playing a (modded) PSX version of Tactics is that the grinding in the War of the Lion version is insane. Here, I'll put under spoiler a comparison:

PSX FFT - vanilla: 96'830 JP across all generic classes
War of the Lion: 106'840 across base generic classes (this increases by 6900 more if counting Dark Knight, and ignores Onion mechanics)

PSX FFT - LFT mod: 74'650 JP across all generic classes (this should be further reduced to 50k due to innate "Gained JP Up")

Of course, this is just a rought totals comparisons; it ignores the fact that 9999 of the LFT mod's JP are all located into a single ability meant for post-game and bonus-boss challenges, which most people won't bother to learn during the game, substantially lowering the practical JP totalts (most people won't master most classes, after all). It also ignores that the original had the Bard and Dancer each having an exclusive ability, whereas in the LFT mod they have both - that's meaningful because the totals above are for a single unit grinding, so they use only the bard or only the dancer in the calculation, meaning the LFT mod is less grindy than the others despite offering more to a single unit. And there's other things as well that makes the comparison even worse in the non-modded direction.

But even leaving my passionate preference for using mods (which only the PSX version can truly do well) aside, the War of the Lion version has added over 10k JP to the total; that might seem low in the grand total of JP, just a 10% increase, but when you consider the way FFT works, where JP is gained by taking actions in battles, that can be the difference between needing two battles to grind out abilities, and needing three or four - it makes the game miserable. I'm not willing to cut the WOTL version any slack for this.
Even IF the War of the Lion's translation was superior (and it's not, it's just another flavor of bad), I wouldn't consider the tradeoff in grinding worth it.
 
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I'll admit, I like the grinding in War of the Lions (having not played anything else), since on my end the gameplay is just that fun in it's own right to do over and over, but I'm also an outlier who refuses to move onto the next segment of plot until I have 15 of each of the currently-best weapons in each of the areas adn perhaps should not be counted. The translation isn't bad, just highly stylized in the manner of a Shakespearean play. Each is a matter of how much is your cup of tea.

The game won't be an awful time if you go in blind not having played the original, is what I'm saying.
 
FallsSideways said:
The game won't be an awful time if you go in blind not having played the original, is what I'm saying.
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I feel like that's more of a praise of the overall quality of FFT itself as a game then an endorsment of the WOTL version.

And while I understand people who enjoy grinding, I've said before that being able to mix-and-match abilities is what makes Final Fantasy Tactics fun. Having to grind to get there while having access to no abilities with which to grind (as well as being constrained by devoting one ability slot to an ability that might as well have been labeled "grind a bit faster") means that the fun of the game is delayed for no good reason.

There's value to be had in some abilities being difficult to obtain and requiring large amounts of grinding to be gained, as it gives players something to strive for, but that should never come at the expense of making the game unfun for a long stretch of time, and since I know for a fact that striking a balance between the two is possible, the fact that the WOTL deliberately choose to instead extend the stretch of time when you have no abilities will always be a demerit in my eyes.
 
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WOTL has issues, and I wouldn't call it the definite version by any stretch of the imagination, but at least the translation isn't so broken that it actively obscures the game's substance from you as the original did.
 
Amidatelion said:
at least the translation isn't so broken that it actively obscures the game's substance from you as the original did.
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Could we agree to disagree on that? I feel like a lot of passages in the new translation obscure things that were very clear in the original, and that, while they do shed some light on some aspects of the story the original was ambiguous on, that's as often for the worse as it is for the better.
 
Egleris said:
Could we agree to disagree on that? I feel like a lot of passages in the new translation obscure things that were very clear in the original, and that, while they do shed some light on some aspects of the story the original was ambiguous on, that's as often for the worse as it is for the better.
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That's fair - WOTL tends to be obtuse and overwrought. Still, in my opinion, it's a lot clearer in conveying game elements and mechanics, and it won't say outright blatant lies when it veers into nonfunctional territory.

Really, when it comes to FFT translations, it's really a "pick your poison" scenario.
 
Let's be honest, most FFTs fans either turned toward the modding scene, or are awaiting a "FInal Fantasy Tactics Reborn" like it's immediate predecessor got, which will inevitably change balance again.

WotL is grindier then the PSX original because it was released on the PSP, a system meant for short play sessions on the bus to work, with a lot of short term small advancements. The Same was true for Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Then time passed, and Tactics Ogre Reborn redid most of the systems to lessen (although not eliminate) grinding with the tradeoff of leaning the game far more into the Tactics portion.
 
I haven't played through either version of FFT, but I have played through Tactics Ogre Reborn. How does the grinding compare between them? I found myself grinding for cash a few times in Tactics Ogre but not for levels, and there were enough optional dungeons that I wasn't just doing the same things.
 
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SerGregness said:
I haven't played through either version of FFT, but I have played through Tactics Ogre Reborn. How does the grinding compare between them? I found myself grinding for cash a few times in Tactics Ogre but not for levels, and there were enough optional dungeons that I wasn't just doing the same things.
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Tactics Ogre PSP had levels attached to classes, rather than characters. So whenever you got access to a new class you had to grind it up from level 1 to whatever level you were at. It was a fresh idea, but it sucked balls.
 
Omicron said:
Safer Sephiroth - where 'Safer' refers to Sepher, the Hebrew word for 'Book,' apparently; Sephiroth has this whole kabbalistic angle, after all.
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It's not "Book", the Hebrew word is "Scroll" (Book is a modern take)

To quote Revelation 6:13-14
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
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This is also the Four Horsemen chapter (the preceding verses 1-8) and there is a solid argument that Sepher Sephiroth is the result of Shinra's four horsemen

Famine (as a result of greed): President Shinra
Plague: Hojo
War: Heidegger
Death: Scarlet
(There are a couple of different ways to pair this Famine:Mako Reactors, Plague:JENOVA, War:Shinra/SOLDIER, Death: the Weapons)
And "souls of them that were slain for the word of God" (thus the innocent) could be fulfilled be Aerith's murder.

So it's not Kabbalistic, it's proper Apocalyptic Literature.
 
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Sephiroth as a character has become fascinating. As noted, he was almost friendly with Cloud in ReMake and more like he was in Crisis Core (pre-Nibelheim). A shame the only to experience his younger days before even that is mobile game… then again, those cutscenes were from the far too quickly scrapped Battle Royale game "First Soldier" so not everyone was going to see them anyway.
 
Additional information, every time we see sephiroth pre nibelheim, in japanese, he refers to himself as "Ore." Every time we see him post nibelheim he uses "Watashi." Throughout remake sephiroth uses Watashi, except the friendly sephiroth we see at the end, he uses Ore.
 
MagicMan333 said:
I'm going to butt in here and *heavily suggest* that Omicron do the PSP version. The pretty big translation problems VII had? Picture those with a plot and mechanics about 100% more complex than VII had and you have an inkling of the nightmare that is the original Tactics translation. Like, the originals tutorials just straight up gave you wrong information at a *lot* of points.
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The Android port I suggested is the WotL version, with touch/mouse support and the multiplayer features of the PSP version removed. Also it has a quicksave feature and HD sprites.

ApocalypticFish said:
Isn't there also an intermittent lag issue in the PSP version that has to be fixed by a fan patch?
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Gone in the Android/iOs port.

Though really, I'd take the loss of the original version spell chants and the different translation for the increased party slots of the PSP/Android version any day.
 
I'll politely throw my hat into the "should play Tactics at some point regardless of when exactly" camp. It's not just a great game story-wise, but it gives so much context to why FFXIV and FFXVI are Like That.
 
Cypocryphy said:
I'll politely throw my hat into the "should play Tactics at some point regardless of when exactly" camp. It's not just a great game story-wise, but it gives so much context to why FFXIV and FFXVI are Like That.
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I said earlier that the only thing I knew about Tactics was That One Line, but that's not actually true.

I have gone through the Stormblood Alliance Raids, which I am pretty sure are based to some degree on Final Fantasy Tactics, and I have retained almost no knowledge of their plot aside from the distinct impression that the game was trying to read me a Wikipedia summary of the complete plot of a different game that I was supposed to already be familiar with or excited about, except I had no idea what it was, and it was conveying that information in the form of hours of unvoiced text boxes in small font and large sentences recited by a racist twink. It's like my brain rebelled at the knowledge that was trying to enter it.
 
Much as I really like FFT as a game, I'll say that I don't think it would fit the purpose of this thread, which has been (this far) an exploration of the evolution of the Final Fantasy series across multiple titles. Unlike FFX-2 (which I think should be featured, specifically, as an indication of what direction the series could have gone, to contrast with FFXII establishing the direction it did go into instead), Final Fantasy Tactics is not really an evolution of the Final Fantasy series in that sense. It is, visibly so, a continuation of the Tactics Ogre series with a Final Fantasy V-based coat of paint applied to it.

Even the story and sensibilities are very different, enough so that Vagrant Story, a title completely different from Final Fantasy in almost any imaginable way (single player rather than team based, action-based rather than turn-based, featuring large amounts of platforming, specifically medieval aestethic with no sci-fi elements, a gothic-fantasy vibe instead of a kitchen-sink approach, exclusively populated by humans and without any sentient non-human races, no not-monstrous but unusual fauna like chocobo or moogles, no summoning, limited in setting to a single town instead of globe-throtting) is visibly much closer to Final Fantasy Tactics in style and approach than Final Fantasy Tactics is with any numbered Final Fantasy that isn't a MMORPG - and yes, that's including FFXII. Tactics is closer to Vagrant Story in style than it is to FFXII, and FFXII has more in common with the rest of its series (little as that might be) than it does with Final Fantasy Tactics.

Don't misunderstand me: I've read or watched every Final Fantasy Tactics let's play I ever managed to stumble upon, including of modded versions, and I'd be hugely enthusiastic of reading Omicron's take on it, whether he goes with a modded version and has a blast or goes with a non-modded ones and has to frontload a ton of complaint and then shake his head at the late-game absurd combos the game enables. And Final Fantasy Tactics itself as a game is 100% worth playing, more than once even. But it's not really a game that fits this thread's stated purpose.

Omicron said:
the game was trying to read me a Wikipedia summary of the complete plot of a different game that I was supposed to already be familiar with or excited about, except I had no idea what it was, and it was conveying that information in the form of hours of unvoiced text boxes in small font and large sentences recited by a racist twink.
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I think I commented once that Final Fantasy Tactics itself has its own in-game wikipedia that the plot assumes you've been reading along as it gets updated, didn't I? So, I found myself entirely unsurprised about this. If you do decide to go with Final Fantasy Tactics, you should expect more of that, even if probably to more tolerable amounts.
 
Omicron said:
I said earlier that the only thing I knew about Tactics was That One Line, but that's not actually true.

I have gone through the Stormblood Alliance Raids, which I am pretty sure are based to some degree on Final Fantasy Tactics, and I have retained almost no knowledge of their plot aside from the distinct impression that the game was trying to read me a Wikipedia summary of the complete plot of a different game that I was supposed to already be familiar with or excited about, except I had no idea what it was, and it was conveying that information in the form of hours of unvoiced text boxes in small font and large sentences recited by a racist twink. It's like my brain rebelled at the knowledge that was trying to enter it.
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On one hand, totally understandable, kind of hard to point and go "OH MY GOD I KNOW THAT THING" and get hype over it when it's a reference to something you know jack all about, particularly when said thing is as dense as FFT can get.

On the other hand, now I'm listening to Thunder God's Theme from said raids with voice lines included, and boy am I getting "OH MY GOD IT'S THAT CHARACTER I KNOW" while also getting massive Darkest Dungeon vibes, of all things.

Thanks a lot Omi, now I'm gonna be listening to FFXIV remixes of other games in the series all day again.
 
Omicron said:
I said earlier that the only thing I knew about Tactics was That One Line, but that's not actually true.

I have gone through the Stormblood Alliance Raids, which I am pretty sure are based to some degree on Final Fantasy Tactics, and I have retained almost no knowledge of their plot aside from the distinct impression that the game was trying to read me a Wikipedia summary of the complete plot of a different game that I was supposed to already be familiar with or excited about, except I had no idea what it was, and it was conveying that information in the form of hours of unvoiced text boxes in small font and large sentences recited by a racist twink. It's like my brain rebelled at the knowledge that was trying to enter it.
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It'd be fascinating to see you revisit the Ivalice raids after you beat Tactics, like how you're going to revisit Advent Children again.
 
Egleris said:
Much as I really like FFT as a game, I'll say that I don't think it would fit the purpose of this thread, which has been (this far) an exploration of the evolution of the Final Fantasy series across multiple titles. Unlike FFX-2 (which I think should be featured, specifically, as an indication of what direction the series could have gone, to contrast with FFXII establishing the direction it did go into instead), Final Fantasy Tactics is not really an evolution of the Final Fantasy series in that sense. It is, visibly so, a continuation of the Tactics Ogre series with a Final Fantasy V-based coat of paint applied to it.

Even the story and sensibilities are very different, enough so that Vagrant Story, a title completely different from Final Fantasy in almost any imaginable way (single player rather than team based, action-based rather than turn-based, featuring large amounts of platforming, specifically medieval aestethic with no sci-fi elements, a gothic-fantasy vibe instead of a kitchen-sink approach, exclusively populated by humans and without any sentient non-human races, no not-monstrous but unusual fauna like chocobo or moogles, no summoning, limited in setting to a single town instead of globe-throtting) is visibly much closer to Final Fantasy Tactics in style and approach than Final Fantasy Tactics is with any numbered Final Fantasy that isn't a MMORPG - and yes, that's including FFXII. Tactics is closer to Vagrant Story in style than it is to FFXII, and FFXII has more in common with the rest of its series (little as that might be) than it does with Final Fantasy Tactics.

Don't misunderstand me: I've read or watched every Final Fantasy Tactics let's play I ever managed to stumble upon, including of modded versions, and I'd be hugely enthusiastic of reading Omicron's take on it, whether he goes with a modded version and has a blast or goes with a non-modded ones and has to frontload a ton of complaint and then shake his head at the late-game absurd combos the game enables. And Final Fantasy Tactics itself as a game is 100% worth playing, more than once even. But it's not really a game that fits this thread's stated purpose.


I think I commented once that Final Fantasy Tactics itself has its own in-game wikipedia that the plot assumes you've been reading along as it gets updated, didn't I? So, I found myself entirely unsurprised about this. If you do decide to go with Final Fantasy Tactics, you should expect more of that, even if probably to more tolerable amounts.
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I disagree. Final Fantasy Tactics is an immensely important building block to an entire wing of Final Fantasy's mainline series. It was put together by a handpicked team by Hironobu Sakaguchi, it acts as a mechanical continuation to the ideas from FF5, and it's influence would be felt through FF9, FF12, FF14, and FF16. The differences between FF7 and FFT are no bigger then the differences between FF7 and FF8.

It just so happens it is ALSO a mechanical (and secretly also story) continuation of the Ogre Battle franchise from Quest, with numerous plot points, races, and items from that franchise resurfacing in Tactics and the rest of the Ivalice Alliance franchise.
 
Omicron said:
I said earlier that the only thing I knew about Tactics was That One Line, but that's not actually true.

I have gone through the Stormblood Alliance Raids, which I am pretty sure are based to some degree on Final Fantasy Tactics...It's like my brain rebelled at the knowledge that was trying to enter it.
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The SB alliance raid plotline does a major disservice to FFT and the Ivalice setting as a whole, because it is exactly that, a bunch of great fights centered around an almost contextless speedreading of the original "text" and it's related games. It literally almost put me to sleep whenever I wasn't actually in the Raids.

BUT! That's not entirely what I mean. YoshiP and KojiFox are, respectively, the biggest Yasumi Matsuno and Alexander O. Smith fanboys ever. So when I say Like That, I mean it gives huge context on everything down to the very way XIV and XVI are written and translated, and the sort of stories and themes both titles are conciously trying to invoke for better and worse.
 
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