As in, "third battle including the monastery", or "third battle once Chapter 1 starts"? Because if its the latter, completely understandable that map is a wild early game difficulty spike.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
- Pronouns
- Him/He
The aforementioned city is where 'single class challenges' officially start.
As in, if you're doing an all knight, or an all black mage challenge run, this is the fight where you have to have everyone in the class and start playing restricted.
No items unless you're doing chemist, no throw-rocks unless you decided you're ride-and-die on squires.
(for some classes the unlock requirements are such you're massively overleveled, and possibly fighting bare-handed because you can't buy the classes weapons yet. It's fun)
As in, if you're doing an all knight, or an all black mage challenge run, this is the fight where you have to have everyone in the class and start playing restricted.
No items unless you're doing chemist, no throw-rocks unless you decided you're ride-and-die on squires.
(for some classes the unlock requirements are such you're massively overleveled, and possibly fighting bare-handed because you can't buy the classes weapons yet. It's fun)
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
The point is that the Alchemist is an advanced Job whose focus isn't "also they use magic", it's the second/third-best caster that the caster-focused race has in both games; also they have Items as innate.
The Chemist is a basic Job that has innate Items and that's it. Where's casting? In the Jobs the Chemist unlocks.
Also the Nou Mu do have a non-magical Job: the Beastmaster. The Morpher is a weird job all around and I'll talk about it in the future.
I suppose that the Transumter in FFTA2 would count as Item-based Job, since it's all about mixing Items (like the Chemist in FFV), but sadly it got dummied out.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Worse, the battle on the way to that place.
But it's done now. I've managed it. I'm learning!
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
okay, so you're argument is the class that's unique thing is using items and is connected to magic in general is completely unrelated to the class who's unique thing is items and is a strong caster?
Like yes, it's a notable shift, but it's very much the obvious nearest equivalent. Like, your argument is that there is no equivalent to the Chemist, not that like, white mage or red mage or whatever is the true equivalent, but the Alchemist and the Chemist being 'one is the analogue to the other, just a radical shift in details' I would say is the easier to sustain position.
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Fuck bombs.
But monsters are deceptively hard early on because they all get counter-attacks when you don't have them, which makes trading melee attacks a net loss in DPS race.
Plus in this fight you don't control a third of your side. That's always a challenge since you can't just hold back, they'll run forward and you'll get defeated in detail.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Ah, so the Woods.
Was it a Bomb blowing up half your team or just a general, "damn, monsters got hands" thing?
- Pronouns
- Him/He
You know, I never considered how much of this lets play will be Omi stepping on rakes while the FFT players nod sagely and agree, that rake does hurt.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's just nice to know that the Final Fantasy series can take a funny gimmick like Self-Destruct from the main series and make it The Greatest Fear Of Your Life, The Nightmare That Scars You For Years.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
I have Thoughts on bombs that I'm itching to share, but I figure it'll be more fun to let you cook and figure out the proper procedure for handling them on your own.
OK, once Omi's done with FFT someone needs to do the Sideshow Bob rake meme and label the rakes with all the ones that Omi steps on.
Last edited:
- Location
- Malaysia
Staff Notice
FFT monster battles are sometimes fun and most of the time manageable until the RNG fucks you up and you
meet multiple Chocobos. Better yet, multiple colored Chocobos in highland terrains.
Fucking Chocobos man. I'd rather fight dragons.
Fucking Chocobos man. I'd rather fight dragons.
Last edited by a moderator:
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Let's not spoil any of the Fun encounters please.
After playing Hoshigami remix, the FFT rake is made of feathers. Talk about a game that took all the wrong lessons from the games it clones (except the mini game, that's cool). Omi if you ever want FFT, but easier, dont play that game. Instead play something like the PSP Jeanne D'Arc, which since you're french might give you a bit of fun at the suddenly demons are british (or is it the other way around?).
Last edited:
Good news: you don't need to understand this in order to do well at this game. It's mostly relevant in challenge runs where you really need to squeeze the game for every possible advantage.
That being said, if you're interested in getting into the weeds without looking at the atrocious tutorial pages, my summary is in the spoiler below:
So there are five kinds of zodiac compatibility, being Best, Good, Normal, Bad, and Worst. Going up or down the list increases or decreases most of the variables in the game by 25%, with 150% at Best and 50% at Worst. The reason the line in the image is labelled Best/Worst is because it depends on gender; if the units are the same gender they're Worst, if they're opposite genders they're Best. So for example, if a White Mage casts Cure on Ramza with Normal compatibility and heals 100HP, the same WM with Best would heal 150HP and Worst would heal 50HP. Given that the named characters all have set birthdays, challenges use this system to make tough bosses more manageable.
It's really not something you need to worry about though.
For the ps1, I believe it was part of some checklist Sony mandated to game studios. It's not just led\cathode burning in, it was also used to attract (it's literally called attract mode by the way) buyers for a game running on the menu in a store. Needless to say it was the rare pc game doing this without big brother hovering the studio and without any motivation since no supermarket would leave a PC running a game.
So nearly (all?) ps1 games do this. Not always with a video ofc.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
Wow, this game, as a game, does not look to be for me. I wasn't expecting it to particularly be, since this sort of tactical combat game isn't really my thing in general, but the gameplay system shown here as a whole, especially the lack of free movement and exploration, everything being cutscenes, menus, or combat? Nope!
Fortunately, thanks to Omicron (Thanks, Omicron!), this LP should be able to give me something like the experience of the reportedly good story without having to suffer through the gameplay. Hey, if Omicron ends up liking the gameplay, maybe I'll actually get some enjoyment of his enjoyment!
Actually, what about outside of combat? How does this impact inheritance? Family businesses where the children directly inherit their parents skills. Artistic lineages, or magical orders, where the knowledge and power of the old masters is contested among the apprentices. Noble families where the skills of the departed can be directly passed down -- what's it like when every nth generation member of a warrior aristocracy can have n-1 lifetimes of experience at war?
And all of this is one knife in the dark, one poisoned cup, at exactly the right or wrong time, away from being stolen, one accident away from being destroyed, or passed on to someone who happened to be nearby. And when Joe the Random Peasant Conscript suddenly finds himself in possession of the accumulated martial skill of fifteen generations of the House of Killsalot, what exactly does Joe do, especially since the House of Killsalot will probably try to get that back by any means necessary?
Just... there are so many possibilities there.
I'm also reminded of early in the FFVIII section and the discussion on how the early explanation of the human/GF relationship was translated in different languages. If the port drops or drastically changes this crystal system, then presumably either the port's world is actually drastically different or the original just... did not explore the implications of the soul crystal system.
...Or I'm missing something? I don't know. Still, I do wonder how things will go with this.
But, wow, yeah, speaking as someone who basically slogged through FF8 on an accidental hard mode and still got all the way to Ultimecia, to my gaming preferences this looks less fun than that already.
...Question, though: What are those Nh indicators(?) in the upper right corners?
Fortunately, thanks to Omicron (Thanks, Omicron!), this LP should be able to give me something like the experience of the reportedly good story without having to suffer through the gameplay. Hey, if Omicron ends up liking the gameplay, maybe I'll actually get some enjoyment of his enjoyment!
Also, though, if that's not gameplay fully segregated from the story, that has major worldbuilding implications. Those weren't some exceptional Lovecraftian mages whose mere corpses were powerful enough to grant knowledge to the worms gnawing them, and your party aren't themselves powerful necromancers using rare magics to bind the souls of the dead to their service; those were random bandits, and you're trainee warriors who bashed them with rocks and nonmagical weapons. Anyone can be harvested, it looks like, by anyone. HP, MP, and Abilities -- physical vitality, magical power, and knowledge. Any random bandit lord could use that to snowball, as long as they could keep their momentum -- and what of those who are powerful magic users developing more powerful ways to use it?Omicron said:
Actually, what about outside of combat? How does this impact inheritance? Family businesses where the children directly inherit their parents skills. Artistic lineages, or magical orders, where the knowledge and power of the old masters is contested among the apprentices. Noble families where the skills of the departed can be directly passed down -- what's it like when every nth generation member of a warrior aristocracy can have n-1 lifetimes of experience at war?
And all of this is one knife in the dark, one poisoned cup, at exactly the right or wrong time, away from being stolen, one accident away from being destroyed, or passed on to someone who happened to be nearby. And when Joe the Random Peasant Conscript suddenly finds himself in possession of the accumulated martial skill of fifteen generations of the House of Killsalot, what exactly does Joe do, especially since the House of Killsalot will probably try to get that back by any means necessary?
Just... there are so many possibilities there.
I'm also reminded of early in the FFVIII section and the discussion on how the early explanation of the human/GF relationship was translated in different languages. If the port drops or drastically changes this crystal system, then presumably either the port's world is actually drastically different or the original just... did not explore the implications of the soul crystal system.
...Or I'm missing something? I don't know. Still, I do wonder how things will go with this.
...To each their own, and I am indeed happy you're happy.
But, wow, yeah, speaking as someone who basically slogged through FF8 on an accidental hard mode and still got all the way to Ultimecia, to my gaming preferences this looks less fun than that already.
...Question, though: What are those Nh indicators(?) in the upper right corners?
- Pronouns
- She/They
Those are height indicators, whenever you hover over a tile it lists the elevation in the corner there. It has implications for things from movement to attack ranges to hit chances, and so is important enough to get that kind of screen real estate.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
A few essential things.
1) There's a maximum number of abilities you can know. So, if you've learned all of the Chemist abilities, no amounts of killing Chemists will teach you anything new. So you can't keep escalating forever.
2) You can only learn abilities of a class that you, yourself, have unlocked. So, if you kill a knight, but you're still a Squire who hasn't unlocked the Knight Job, then you won't get any Knight abilities from that crystal; you might get Squire abilities, perhaps, if the Knight had any. Note that a number of characters have classes unique to them, which the game doesn't let you simply gain - so even if you were to kill, say, Agrias or Gafgarion, you might still be unable to obtain their precious swordskill.
3) The abilities you gain from a crystal aren't ALL the abilities that the enemy had; it's usually a smaller portion. How it works is that each ability has a random chance to be etched into the crystal to be inherited, so while in theory you could learn all of their abilities, you could also learn none, and generally it will be something in between.
4) There's versions of the game where you only learn ONE of the abilities in the list when you pick up the crystal; you choose it, learn only that one, and learn none of the rest in the randomly selected list. That greatly reduces the potential impact.
So, that's it for gameplay consideration; the game doesn't at any point indicates that this is something that actually happens outside of gameplay, and in fact several scenes include corpses long dead, which would suggest that outside of gameplay people don't turn to crystal, but I've read at least one fanfic where it was justified as "people decompose INTO the crystals, and you can speed up the process during battle by (technobabble)", so, if you want Final Fantasy Tactics to have that kind of implication, it's not impossible to run with it.
Last edited:
- Location
- Malaysia
The crystal is most likely just gameplay element, and not part of the world building.
I mean, Omicron is still very early in the game since he has yet to reach Dorter so I cannot say anything at all, but the game explicitly shown multiple times that people died normal-ish deaths there.
I say normal-ish, because this is a Final Fantasy game.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
If you die to a fireball vs a sword in the gut, you're dead either way. Unless a necromancer raises you, I suppose, or the attack damaged your soul or otherwise prevented passing to the local afterlife.
So since this is somewhat covered by the tutorial, but poorly explained in the 'help tooltips' in game, a brief dissertion on Bravery and Faith without other mechanical spoilers:
Both can range from 0-100. Bravery governs the chance of reaction abilities triggering as well as the damage of 'martial' weapons (i.e., knight swords and a few others). It has an inverse relationship to another ability that lets you find items; low Bravery characters are more likely to get the rare drops.
Characters with low Bravery can leave your party out of a battle, and in battle very low bravery turns them into a chicken.
Faith is the 'magic stat'. High-Faith characters do and receive more damage from magic attacks. Low-Faith, less. This also governs how much is healed, which can make magical healing somewhat of a problem to rely on.
Characters with an extreme high Faith will also leave your party after a battle, presumably to join a monastery or something. Abilities that alter Brave and Faith in battle retain about 1/4th of the effect on the permanent stat, so once you have the means to do so you can adjust these stats to your liking if you want to really grind. For the most part, leaving them in the middle is perfectly fine since it gives you flexibility.
Both can range from 0-100. Bravery governs the chance of reaction abilities triggering as well as the damage of 'martial' weapons (i.e., knight swords and a few others). It has an inverse relationship to another ability that lets you find items; low Bravery characters are more likely to get the rare drops.
Characters with low Bravery can leave your party out of a battle, and in battle very low bravery turns them into a chicken.
Faith is the 'magic stat'. High-Faith characters do and receive more damage from magic attacks. Low-Faith, less. This also governs how much is healed, which can make magical healing somewhat of a problem to rely on.
Characters with an extreme high Faith will also leave your party after a battle, presumably to join a monastery or something. Abilities that alter Brave and Faith in battle retain about 1/4th of the effect on the permanent stat, so once you have the means to do so you can adjust these stats to your liking if you want to really grind. For the most part, leaving them in the middle is perfectly fine since it gives you flexibility.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
@AliasiSudonomo : is there a particular reason you decided to spoil a large amount of gameplay mechanics out of nowhere, instead of letting them be discovered through the let's play?
Because it's not a spoiler? Because it's literally section 23 and 24 of the in-game tutorial, with the only difference being I summarized it? It's not gameplay, it's literally in the freakin' manual.
Like, no, seriously, this annoys me enough I'm gonna transcript it directly.
23. Faith
A unit's Faith indicates the level of his or her belief in the divine. The higher this value, the more profound the unit's belief and understanding of phenomena beyond the mundane.
Faith affects the following:
1. The potency of offensive magicks
2. The Potency of recovery magicks
3. The success rate of magicks that cause or remove status effects
4. Attack power for magick guns
5. Attack power for fell swords (lower Faith is Stronger)
If a Unit's Faith becomes too High, the unit will lose the will to fight and leave the party.
24. Bravery
Bravery represents a unit's valor in combat situations. It affectss the following:
1. The chance of reaction abilities being triggered.
2. Attack power for unarmed attacks, knight swords, and katana
If a unit's Bravery falls too low, the unit will leave the party.
Like, at the very most, I suppose if one wished to strain at gnats the information about low-bravery units turning into chickens is a 'spoiler', and notifying that something happens if the stats become too high or low does not, very strictly speaking, imply there are abilities that affect it but come the hell on