Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
In the literal sense, or from them fleeing in the face of oncoming danger?
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
You robbed us all of the chance to see Omi get punished for skipping most of the tedious tutorial by having the MVP he grinded up randomly run off to go find God.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm just imagining the in universe tactical implications. Have a powerful swordsman you can't beat? Send in a charismatic preacher to help him find God, THEN fireball him in the face.
edit: Have a nation that relies on mages for its army who you can't defeat? Send in Richard Dawkins to indoctrinate their youth, wait 20 years, and invade
edit: Have a nation that relies on mages for its army who you can't defeat? Send in Richard Dawkins to indoctrinate their youth, wait 20 years, and invade
Last edited:
- Location
- Place
I have to admit, I was looking forward to Omi looking at these values and musing on their mechanics, which is a rather huge appeal to blind let's plays, rather than immediately knowing what they're about, but I also understand that vibrating 'isn't-this-so-interesting' urge to brag about so-and-so kind of obscure fact about a game you love.
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
The tutorial that Omi decided to skip after the first lesson, so missed out on things, like, say, Unit Placement...
I'm pretty sure the following information is covered in the tutorial, but I'll be putting it in spoilers just in case you would rather discover it on your own. Suffice it to say that Brave / Faith are important, but just like with the zodiac you don't really need to fiddle with it unless you're interested in minmaxing.
There are other effects from Brave and Faith, but they're not covered by the in game tutorial.
Brave is used for three things: reaction abilities, damage calculations for Knight Swords, Katanas, and Fists, and Move/Find Item.
For reaction abilities, Brave is the percentage chance it activates. For example, a unit with 80 Brave and Counter will have Counter activate 80% of the time.
For the listed weapons, Brave acts as a multiplier on damage; specifically, the multiplier is (BR/100).
For Move/Find Item, Brave is the chance you will find the common item instead of the rare. This is the only time where low Brave is good; if you're hunting for a specific rare item it can be useful to hire a new unit and ruin their Brave to get the drop.
Faith is used for magic. The multiplier used is (CFA/100)*(TFA/100), where CFA is the caster's Faith and TFA is the target's faith. There are benefits of both high and low Faith, depending on the unit's role in battle, though it's not exactly a shocker that you want your magic users to have high Faith.
For reaction abilities, Brave is the percentage chance it activates. For example, a unit with 80 Brave and Counter will have Counter activate 80% of the time.
For the listed weapons, Brave acts as a multiplier on damage; specifically, the multiplier is (BR/100).
For Move/Find Item, Brave is the chance you will find the common item instead of the rare. This is the only time where low Brave is good; if you're hunting for a specific rare item it can be useful to hire a new unit and ruin their Brave to get the drop.
Faith is used for magic. The multiplier used is (CFA/100)*(TFA/100), where CFA is the caster's Faith and TFA is the target's faith. There are benefits of both high and low Faith, depending on the unit's role in battle, though it's not exactly a shocker that you want your magic users to have high Faith.
There are other effects from Brave and Faith, but they're not covered by the in game tutorial.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
I feel like we should hold off on mechanics discussions until Omi asks, or steps on another rake.
RogueIce
Noctis Æternæ
- Location
- New Lunar Republic, Equestria
Agreed. I know people are enthusiastic, and want to help, and mean well. But really people. We should let @Omicron have the true and proper experience of playing Final Fantasy Tactics blind while skipping the tutorial entirely:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WZLJpMOxS4
Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 2.A: Mandalia Plain, Siedge Weald, & Dorter Slums
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hear ye, hear ye. 'Tis the year of our lord 2024, and it has come to pass that Ramza of House Beoulve faced great defeat against that accursed opponent, the Bomb.
It all started so well.
As we depart the Magick City of Gariland, we cross over the Mandalia Plain, which triggers a flashback to the dying moments of Barbaneth Beoulve - Ramza's father. This is set in 'the waning days of the Fifty Years War,' so a few years ago. 'Knight Gallant' Barbaneth Beoulve enquires to his gathered sons of the state of the war, which -
Okay, right, we should talk about the Fifty Years War. And, uh, the 'additional information' in general before we proceed.
First, let's head to the Tavern.
The Tavern has three options - Rumors, Melee, Rendezvous. Melee and Rendezvous were online PvP and Co-Op options introduced for the PSP port, and as such are obsolete, so it's really only Rumors we care about. And these are less 'Rumors' than they are 'history lessons'. Check this out:
This is page one of the Fifty Years War, which is nine pages long and recounts the causes, developments, and conclusion of the Fifty Years War, down to the deaths of individual kings. To sum it up very bluntly, though: It's a slightly fantasy-fied version of the Hundred Years War. It emerged as a result of the death of the King of Ordallia (the France analogue) without a heir, prompting the King of Ivalice (England in this scenario) to claim the right to the throne of Ordallia, using the sympathetic Province of Zelmonia (our Aquitaine analogue) as a foothold. Ivalice's initially successful push through Ordallia came to a stop when the King died unexpectedly on the road, turning the conflict into a decades-long quagmire of constant back and forth that at one point pulled in a third country, Romanda. Ultimately, the war drained resources so thoroughly that Ivalice and Ordallia were forced to sign a peace and return to the status quo ante bellum, effectively a defeat for Ivalice, leaving the country wracked by poverty, crumbling under debt for loans it had to take to pay reparations, and with unpaid soldiers and discharged knights all over the country turning to banditry and leading to intense anti-monarchic sentiment.
The Tavernmaster also identifies two Ivalician military orders of interest: The Order of the Northern Sky, led by Barbaneth Beoulve himself (which means that Ramza is actually the son to the previous head of the order; in that context it's genuinely surprising that he started out as an ordinary cadet instead of getting the Nepotism Push) and the Order of the Southern Sky, led by one Cidolfus Orlandeau, also known as the Thunder God.
With a title like that there is no way he doesn't show up in the story as an extra-hard boss with his own custom job and abilities. Also, this is our Cid namecheck for this game.
The Corpse Brigade is what we've heard about - a group of former soldiers wreaking havoc across the country, pillaging travelers and ransoming nobles, which the Order of the Northern Sky has yet to be able to bring to heel.
The 'King Ondoria III' tab informs us that that the King's health is a subject of widespread concern; he collapsed during a birthday ceremony and remained unconscious for months. According to the Board of Chamberlains, the King regained consciousness recently, but it will be several weeks before he can recover enough to resume his duties. In the meantime, Queen Louveria and her retainers are in charge of the affairs of state.
Given that the PSX intro movie told us that the king died of a terminal illness, leading to a succession crisis and the War of the Lions, means we are currently in the ambiguous time period before the King dies (or is found to have been dead this whole time with the Board of Chamberlains and the Queen covering it up to stall the crisis?), which will likely happen during the game. I wonder if the absence of the intro movie was meant to make this into more of a twist happening during the course of the game?
Having absorbed all this information, we can now head into a special tab in the menu titled Chronicle, which contains even more information:
In the Chronicle Menu, Arazlam, the historian from the future, informs us about the events of the game and its backstory - it keeps an ongoing summary of the events of the plot in case we ever lose track, which is nice. The Personae tab, however, is where the real juice is, because it contains a ton of information on a ton of characters, most of whom we haven't even met yet. Here's its entry on Ramza, for instance:
Turns out, Ramza Beoulve is a bastard son of Barbaneth Beoulve.
He's Jon Snow. We're playing as Jon Fucking Snow. Goddammit. HE EVEN JOINED A SPECIAL MILITARY ORDER AFTER HIS FATHER DIED!
I'm not saying the game is actually ripping off A Song of Ice and Fire, obviously, given that it originally came out only a year after the first book and in Japan, it's just. An extremely funny coincidence.
Ramza's two trueborn brothers are Dycedarg and Zalbaag. Dycedarg, the eldest, is a tactictian and strategist in the employ of Duke Larg, his childhood friend, who ceded the position of head of the Order of the Northern Sky to his younger brother Zalbaag, who won 'countless victories' during the War and was once declared 'the savior of Ivalice.' It looks like Ramza has big shoes to fill.
We also learn that Delita is Ramza's childhood friend, and that he is actually common-born, a son of farmers, who was taken in by Barbaneth along with his sister Tetra after losing their parents to the Black Death which swept the kingdom towards the end of the Fifty Years War.
As for other characters, I'll point out relevant information as we encounter them; I think listing out everything about Messam Elmdore or whoever the hell before we even meet them is only likely to overload new readers with information that isn't useful yet.
Speaking of overloading information…
I did end up doing those Tutorials. They were a pain in the ass and took like half an hour to go through, but now I know the following: There is a Zodiac compatibility chart which affects the effectiveness of attacks and magic between characters. How it affects them, the game doesn't say, but they sure are affected somehow! This is also how I learn about Bravery and Faith: Bravery affects the effectiveness of barehanded attacks and Reactions like Counter, while Faith affects the effectiveness of all magic. So it looks like I want my characters with high Bravery to get into physical jobs and my characters with high Faith to go into magic jobs. Straightforward enough. They also explain a number of concepts like Charge Time, which I will explain as they become relevant, if I remember them.
I didn't do all the Tutorials, though. Because you see, on top of these video tutorials, there are text tutorials sorted under 'Miscellany."
43 of them. Fuck off!? I ain't reading all that.
Now let's head back to the present.
Knight Gallant Barbaneth Beoulve is on his deathbed. His military prowess was able to salvage what was going to be a humiliating defeat for Ivalice into an at least nominally equal peace, and he finds consolation in knowing that the war will end with him. His sons complain about Ramza not being at his father's side in his last moments, only for Ramza to barge into the room at the last minute. From his brothers' interactions with him, it looks like they don't care much for him, though Barbaneth enjoins them to take care of him as a brother after he's gone. Indeed, Barbaneth's last words of advice are for him:
Barbaneth: "Hear me, Ramza. For generations, we Beoulves have stood foremost of those who serve the Crown. Ours is the soul of the knight. Become a knight worthy of your name. Tolerate no injustice. Stray not from the true path. You will know the path you must walk. A Beoulve can… can walk no other…."
Ramza: "I will not fail you, father."
Barbaneth: "Your friend, Delita. He is a good boy. He is lowborn, but he can serve you well. I've made arrangements for him to enter the Akademy. *chuckle* You should have seen the look on the headmaster's face. In the years ahead you will need someone whom you can trust. You could do far worse than Delita."
Well, we know how that went. Thanks, dad.
I wonder to what extent the whole 'commonborn vs noble' angle will play into the game's plot; it seems to be deliberate set up for later narrative development or themes. With one last plea for Ramza to take care of his sister and show his brother what it means to be a knight, Barbaneth passes away; the game uses a neat visual metaphor where the sliver of light from the curtains represents Barbaneth's last hold on life, and as the sun passes and that light fades, so does Barbaneth.
The end of this flashback returns us to the map. We advance to the Mandalia Plain, where we are once again prompted to do battle.
Our lineup is comprised entirely of Squires, for JP Boost learning purposes. We lose flexibility by not having a Chemist but hopefully that won't last.
We run into a detachment of the Corpse Brigade, who appear to have just finished wiping out a group of knights. They're just about to execute the last survivor when we arrive, which, oddly enough, prompts a dialogue choice: Ramza can either chose "Our first duty is to defeat the Brigade." or "We must rescue their captive!" Doing so changes the battle objective, either to defeat all enemies or to protect the soldier, known as Argath. This doesn't seem like it changes much - we need to kill all enemies regardless, but we can add ourselves an extra objective if we want to. I go for it, of course, but it makes me wonder if dialogue options and varying battle objectives will play an extensive role in the game going forward. By the very nature of its narrative being told from the future, it seems unlikely that they will have a real impact on the plot.
We have a total of six units on our side - Ramza, three units of our choice, Delita, and Argath. Argath acts as a Guest Unit like Delita, which means we can't control him, and he starts behind enemy lines; this is nearly enough to get him killed before we get a single turn, but thankfully he has the Item Command on top of being a Squire, so he's able to heal himself and retreat to our lines, after which we push forward and take up the enemy's attention. Our opposition is made up of three Squires, one Thief (an advanced job we don't have access to yet), and their pet giant cat. The Cat is our first introduction to Monster units; according to the tutorial, it's possible to recruit monsters to our side, so that'll be interesting to see. The main threat paused by monsters is that they all have Counters, so when we attack them, they attack us in turn, which means the action economy can't save us, this has to be a pure damage race. A single cat is thankfully not much of a problem, though. Since everyone is using such basic jobs, there isn't much to write about the fight itself; we use basic positioning and attacks to grind down the enemy with our numerical advantage, starting with the Squires and ending with the Thief leader and the beast.
As you can see, though, our victory isn't unambiguous; we lost Female Squire #1 in the process (I swear, I will remember their names as soon as they start having their own classes; as it stands it's literally impossible to tell two Squires of the same gender apart if the screenshot doesn't include their name). Which introduces us to the very basics of unit KO management:
Our own units face the exact same threat as we saw in the first update. When they go down, a 3-count starts. If it reaches 0, the unit poofs and turns into a Treasure Box or a Crystal. This means permanent loss of the unit - they actually die for real. (Unless they're a Guest character like Delita, who is protected for plot reasons). This is very bad! Fortunately, as long as we can end the battle before the countdown ends, then they're right as rain in our party roster afterwards. Because KOs happen fairly easily, rushing the end of the battle to save our dying units is going to be a major concern in this update.
Here, we did manage to save Female Squire #1, so that's good. Of course, a Chemist would have made this easier by being able to raise her with a Phoenix Down, but I want that sweet sweet JP Boost.
Argath is a knight apprentice in the service of His Excellency, the Marquis Elmdore of Limberry. Elmdore, known as the Silver Prince for his bright armor and silver hair, is a hero of the latter days of the War, as well as a devour member of the Church of Glabados and an ordained inquisitor. Which… doesn't… sound… ideal? Our characters don't have the negative associations that we do with the term 'inquisitor,' though, so this probably doesn't bother them.
The Church of Glabados, the Chronicle will inform us later, traces its origins to Ajora Glabados, an eschatological preacher who announced the coming of Paradise, which led to his martyrdom at the hands of the Holy Ydoran Empire, who practiced the then-dominant Pharist religion. Shortly after, the central city of Pharism sank into the sea, and Ajora's disciples began to preach that he was divine in nature, teachings which eventually evolved into the Church of Glabados.
So yeah, it's literally Christianity with just a slight dash of Atlantis for spice. Pharist is even pretty damned close to Pharisee!
Argath was actually accompanying the Marquis while traveling, and the Corpse Brigade took the Marquis captive. What they want with him, we do not know, but he's likely still alive for now; Argath begs Ramza and Delita to help him obtain the Order's help in saving the Marquis, and thus, we take Argath with us to Eagrose, where Ramza's brothers await.
Gillian, that was her name!
With this battle, we have enough JP to unlock JP Boost for Ramza. We could stay in Squire until we've learned additional abilities like Stone, Counter Tackle, or Equip Axes, but Squire is stupendously boring and so I have Ramza immediately swapped into Knight, a class with stronger stats and an Ability set which… We'll get to it.
Dycedarg: "I hear you were decorated for your first victory, Ramza. They sing your praises from on high. You do honor to our name, my brother - and to me."
Ramza: "I am glad."
Dycedarg: "Oh? You would not seem it."
Ramza: "I am - forgive me. Your words do me far more honor than I have done you. No doubt word has already reached you, but the marquis de Limberry's carriage way waylaid, and the marquis taken. What have you a mind to do?"
Dycedarg: "I have already asked Zalbaag to dispatch a squad in pursuit. These brigands must eventually come forth to demand ransom - that is, assuming the marquis yet lives."
Argath: "I beg of you, Lord Beoulve! Lend me a hundred men that I might hunt the whoresons down!"
Dycedarg: "..."
Argath: "Please, my lord - grant me means to avenge my fallen friends!"
Dycedarg: "Mayhap your ears fail you. I said that a squad is to be dispatched. You are not a man of Gallione. Leave her affairs to those of us who are."
Argath: "B-but…. My lord!"
Dycedarg: "Do not assume to beg favors of me! Let me remind you, Argath, lest you forget your place. You are but another sword, not yet even knighted."
Argath: "..."
Dycedarg: "The two of you will remain here at Eagrose, and serve among the castle guard. You needn't worry. Danger is not like to visit these walls."
This is honestly a little harsh. Sure, Dycedarg has no reason to just hand over a hundred men to an unproven squire, but he's being pretty rude about it - for reasons we'll learn very quickly. It's interesting that Dycedarg immediate reaction upon Ramza coming home is to have him assigned to a guard duty where he faces minimal risk. He says he's proud of his brother's deeds, but I think he'd rather his 16-year old brother, bastard though he may be, go trapsing around the countryside in the middle of a social collapse to end up murdered by some Corpse Brigade rogue. Of course, that's not how Ramza feels about it.
We cut to the gardens of Eagrose, where Argath confesses to his familial shame: he's a scion of the once-respected House Thadalfus, which was brought to ruin during the Fifty Years War after his grandfather, captured by the enemy, turned traitor and was murdered. One of the men he sold out spread word of his actions, destroying his family's reputation. So Dycedarg sees him with contempt.
Then our heroes are interrupted by a few new arrivals:
Those are Alma, Tietra, and Zalbaag. Alma is Ramza's younger sister, from the same mother as him, which has me wondering about his actual family situation. Zalbaag and Dycedarg are referred to as the "trueborn" sons of Barbanath, which suggests Ramza and Alma are bastards, ie born out of wedlock, though legitimized by their father, but if they have the same mother, it's possible that they might just be the children of a second wife? Alternatively Barbanath just had a long term mistress, or a concubine. It's very unclear.
Tietra is Delita's sister, and just like Delita and Ramza are friends, she is Alma's friend. The Chronicle tells us she worries about her brother secretly.
Zalbaag is very warm towards both Ramza and Delita, praising them for their deeds in battle against the brigands, and he tells Ramza that he's now truly earned the right to call himself a Beoulve, which is nice. We really do seem to be angling towards the ASoIaF dynamic where Jon Snow's position in his family is kind of awkward but his relationship with his siblings is still fundamentally a mutual affection and support. It's a fascinating case of convergent development if so. Everyone is glad to see one another, but Zalbaag cannot stay, for duty calls:
Zalbaag: "We received a ransom note from the Corpse Brigade."
Argath: "What!?"
Zalbaag: "Something about it sits unwell with me. They are anarchists to be sure, bent on bringing down the aristocracy. But they fancy themselves righteous, and prey only on the nobility and those in their employ. Would such as they truly kidnap the marquis for want of coin?"
Wait a minute, you're telling me the Corpse Brigade aren't motivated by money, they're actual anarchists who are specifically targeting the nobility and trying to end its rule?
…
Why am I fighting against them? I want to join up.
This is what you get for playing a game centering an aristocratic protagonist, you end up having to work for the true villains without even knowing it 😔
Zalbaag then mentions that a spy he embedded in the Corpse Brigade is missing, then laments that a single spy is not considered worth sending men after, and idly comments that 'Guarding a castle grows dreadfully dull… Wouldn't you agree?'
I like Zalbaag. He's like the Cool Older Brother to Dycedarg's Stern Older Brother, and his name is marginally less stupid.
Delita apologizes to his sister for leaving again so soon, they hug, and he promises to be back soon. As we depart, Alma holds Ramza back, and confides in him that Tietra is putting on a brave face for his brother, but the truth is that she's having a hard time at school, where she's being bullied by others for being lowborn. She then apologizes for burdening Ramza with further concerns when he already has his own, and they have a sweet exchange.
Alma: "Tietra will be all right. I'm here to look after her."
Ramza: "Then there is naught to worry about. But mind your own limits. You can't be responsible for everything."
Alma: "Says the brother who never fails to do any and all that is asked of him. Don't lose sight of yourself, Ramza. You needn't let your life be ruled by the fact that you were born a Beoulve."
Ramza: "Now you're starting to sound like Mother. Ha ha ha!"
Okay so they do have a mom, and she didn't die in childbirth or anything, they knew her long enough to know what her personality was like. Did she die more recently? Is she still around? She wasn't at Barbanath's death bed, and she's not at Eagrose now, so… Probably not? Maybe we'll find out.
And now it's time for Ramza, Delita and Argath's illicit expedition to the Merchant Town of Dorter, where Zalbaag's spy was last seen. We're sent back to the world map, and then quickly pulled into another cutscene.
We are currently in Gallione, a region of Ivalice. Because Dorter is said to be in Eastern Gallione, we can surmise that it comprises the region covered by that indecipherable word on the left of the map.
This cutscene is an introduction to the game's multiplayer system, and we can therefore completely ignore it. Once we're out, we pursue our way past Gariland, passing over a tile labeled 'The Siedge Weald.' That's a weird enough phrase that I had to look it up. 'Weald' is an Old English word meaning 'woodland,' and is the name of a region in South-East England; 'Siedge' is an archaic spelling for 'Siege,' and is also a family name. So the Siedge Weald could mean 'The Siege of the Forest,' or perhaps more likely 'the Siedge Forest'?
As soon as we set foot there, we are sent into battle again.
Argath: "Our luck is ill, that we should chance upon fiends such as these in the wood."
Delita: "Some of us prefer fiends in a wood to a dull watch in castle garrets, Argath."
Argath: "And some of us are not so quick to jape in danger's face."
Ramza: "Enough talk. They come!"
[Objective: Defeat All Enemies!]
If you're wondering why the camera angles keep shifting, it's because the game accommodates its isometric design by granting the player the ability to look at the map from one of four horizontal angles, two vertical tilts, and two distances. This is a far cry from true camera controls, but it's still a godsend; the game's emphasis on elevation means that it's extremely easy not just for characters to disappear behind obstacles, but also for perspectives to become hard to fully discern. Multiple times, I have fucked up a move because I incorrectly thought I would end on a tile next to an opponent but actually ended up a tile below and two tiles away due to perspective tricks. As rudimentary as the camera controls are, the game would be literally unplayable without them. Which I think is worth noting because Tactics Advance lacks any camera rotation, and likely as a result, it has to do with much simpler elevation mechanics, since the entire battlefield and every combattant must be visible from a single angle, like so:
So, our first monster encounter. Our opposition: One Red Panther (same model as the Corpse Brigade's pet), one Goblin, one Black Goblin (a mildly stronger variant), and two Bombs. This means that once again, we have numerical superiority; unfortunately 2 of our 6 party members, Delita and Argath, are controlled by the AI, limiting our ability to plan.
Here, you can see a Squire use Stone, the basic thrown attack ability, which a few of the Squires came packaged with and which allows me to attack at range for low damage rather than being stuck Waiting out turns when I don't reach an enemy. I initiate the fight with an aggressive push towards the Black Goblin, hoping to take it out quickly and start a snowball. This proves a mistake.
Like all monsters, the Black Goblin has Counter, meaning my characters who hit him get hurt in turn. In addition, he knows a move called Spin Punch, which allows him to hit all characters on adjacent ties. That means my characters are basically taking as much or more damage as they manage to deal to him. By the time I manage to bring him down, the monsters are flanking me on every side, and…
Ramza has fallen. He got in close, dealt heavy damage with his new Knight stats, but unfortunately that meant eating Counters, and the enemies immediately ganged up on him as the nearest unit, and he just doesn't have the HP to make it. I try to salvage things, but…
The Bomb is one of the staples of the franchise, and it's back and meaner than ever. In the context of a tactical RPG, its Self-Destruct ability is a very potent AoE threat. The game incentivizes you to group up in melee and hit an enemy from four directions at once; unfortunately that is exactly the scenario that maximizes the damage Self-Destruct can deal. With Delita and Male Squire #1 going down, the monsters now outnumber us. Then Argath decides to save his own skin and runs away to a corner of the map to use Potions on himself, the selfish bastards, so it's a 2v4 now. There's very little hope of salvaging things. Still, Male Squire #2 puts up a valiant effort, it's just…
Ramza is subject to the same death countdown as all non-Guest characters. And because the story can't continue without him, his timer running down means a Game Over.
The problem here isn't a lack of stats or effective jobs - though a Chemist would certainly make things easier - it's simple tactics. We can do this, we just have to try again.
"Omi," you ask, "why did you have four characters corner the Bomb after what you just said about Self-Destruct" Well you see, dear reader, my plan was that if I killed the Bomb fast enough it wouldn't have time to trigger its move, and in order to kill it as quickly as possible I needed to gang up on it, incidentally putting all my characters into kill range. It made sense, okay?
Anyway the result is this absolute massacre:
Shockingly enough, a win at this stage would still have been possible. The Bomb severely damaged some of the monsters, and Ramza was out of the blast radius; he, Delita and Argath are able to finish them off, turning the balance of battle, until…
It's Ramza and one lone Goblin. Argath and Delita are still alive, but they both took enough damage that the Cowardice AI took over and had them run off to the corners of the map and away from the fight. It would be possible for Ramza to kill that last Goblin, the problem is that this took so much time that the timer for all the party members who died to Self-Destruct has run down. I lose half of my party roster, and so I decide to just reload and try again.
IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.
This one is a pretty frustrating loss, honestly. We killed the first Bomb without triggering its Self-Destruct, and we almost took out the second, but ultimately I didn't pay attention to the turn order the way I should have been. This is one of the things the tutorial teaches you, by the way: You can use the Start button to tab between characters in order of their coming turn, which allows you to plan out your moves based on when the enemy will act.
I lose all my characters, but shockingly enough, Delita is almost able to pull off a win while AI controlled - without the Bombs, and with the Red Panther killed early, he does decently at moping up goblins. Unfortunately, Ramza was taken out earlier, and his timer ticks down before Delita can run away with the dark horse win.
It's clear we're not making progress, so let's try something else.
Cut for image count.
It all started so well.
As we depart the Magick City of Gariland, we cross over the Mandalia Plain, which triggers a flashback to the dying moments of Barbaneth Beoulve - Ramza's father. This is set in 'the waning days of the Fifty Years War,' so a few years ago. 'Knight Gallant' Barbaneth Beoulve enquires to his gathered sons of the state of the war, which -
Okay, right, we should talk about the Fifty Years War. And, uh, the 'additional information' in general before we proceed.
First, let's head to the Tavern.
The Tavern has three options - Rumors, Melee, Rendezvous. Melee and Rendezvous were online PvP and Co-Op options introduced for the PSP port, and as such are obsolete, so it's really only Rumors we care about. And these are less 'Rumors' than they are 'history lessons'. Check this out:
This is page one of the Fifty Years War, which is nine pages long and recounts the causes, developments, and conclusion of the Fifty Years War, down to the deaths of individual kings. To sum it up very bluntly, though: It's a slightly fantasy-fied version of the Hundred Years War. It emerged as a result of the death of the King of Ordallia (the France analogue) without a heir, prompting the King of Ivalice (England in this scenario) to claim the right to the throne of Ordallia, using the sympathetic Province of Zelmonia (our Aquitaine analogue) as a foothold. Ivalice's initially successful push through Ordallia came to a stop when the King died unexpectedly on the road, turning the conflict into a decades-long quagmire of constant back and forth that at one point pulled in a third country, Romanda. Ultimately, the war drained resources so thoroughly that Ivalice and Ordallia were forced to sign a peace and return to the status quo ante bellum, effectively a defeat for Ivalice, leaving the country wracked by poverty, crumbling under debt for loans it had to take to pay reparations, and with unpaid soldiers and discharged knights all over the country turning to banditry and leading to intense anti-monarchic sentiment.
The Tavernmaster also identifies two Ivalician military orders of interest: The Order of the Northern Sky, led by Barbaneth Beoulve himself (which means that Ramza is actually the son to the previous head of the order; in that context it's genuinely surprising that he started out as an ordinary cadet instead of getting the Nepotism Push) and the Order of the Southern Sky, led by one Cidolfus Orlandeau, also known as the Thunder God.
With a title like that there is no way he doesn't show up in the story as an extra-hard boss with his own custom job and abilities. Also, this is our Cid namecheck for this game.
The Corpse Brigade is what we've heard about - a group of former soldiers wreaking havoc across the country, pillaging travelers and ransoming nobles, which the Order of the Northern Sky has yet to be able to bring to heel.
The 'King Ondoria III' tab informs us that that the King's health is a subject of widespread concern; he collapsed during a birthday ceremony and remained unconscious for months. According to the Board of Chamberlains, the King regained consciousness recently, but it will be several weeks before he can recover enough to resume his duties. In the meantime, Queen Louveria and her retainers are in charge of the affairs of state.
Given that the PSX intro movie told us that the king died of a terminal illness, leading to a succession crisis and the War of the Lions, means we are currently in the ambiguous time period before the King dies (or is found to have been dead this whole time with the Board of Chamberlains and the Queen covering it up to stall the crisis?), which will likely happen during the game. I wonder if the absence of the intro movie was meant to make this into more of a twist happening during the course of the game?
Having absorbed all this information, we can now head into a special tab in the menu titled Chronicle, which contains even more information:
In the Chronicle Menu, Arazlam, the historian from the future, informs us about the events of the game and its backstory - it keeps an ongoing summary of the events of the plot in case we ever lose track, which is nice. The Personae tab, however, is where the real juice is, because it contains a ton of information on a ton of characters, most of whom we haven't even met yet. Here's its entry on Ramza, for instance:
Turns out, Ramza Beoulve is a bastard son of Barbaneth Beoulve.
He's Jon Snow. We're playing as Jon Fucking Snow. Goddammit. HE EVEN JOINED A SPECIAL MILITARY ORDER AFTER HIS FATHER DIED!
I'm not saying the game is actually ripping off A Song of Ice and Fire, obviously, given that it originally came out only a year after the first book and in Japan, it's just. An extremely funny coincidence.
Ramza's two trueborn brothers are Dycedarg and Zalbaag. Dycedarg, the eldest, is a tactictian and strategist in the employ of Duke Larg, his childhood friend, who ceded the position of head of the Order of the Northern Sky to his younger brother Zalbaag, who won 'countless victories' during the War and was once declared 'the savior of Ivalice.' It looks like Ramza has big shoes to fill.
We also learn that Delita is Ramza's childhood friend, and that he is actually common-born, a son of farmers, who was taken in by Barbaneth along with his sister Tetra after losing their parents to the Black Death which swept the kingdom towards the end of the Fifty Years War.
As for other characters, I'll point out relevant information as we encounter them; I think listing out everything about Messam Elmdore or whoever the hell before we even meet them is only likely to overload new readers with information that isn't useful yet.
Speaking of overloading information…
I did end up doing those Tutorials. They were a pain in the ass and took like half an hour to go through, but now I know the following: There is a Zodiac compatibility chart which affects the effectiveness of attacks and magic between characters. How it affects them, the game doesn't say, but they sure are affected somehow! This is also how I learn about Bravery and Faith: Bravery affects the effectiveness of barehanded attacks and Reactions like Counter, while Faith affects the effectiveness of all magic. So it looks like I want my characters with high Bravery to get into physical jobs and my characters with high Faith to go into magic jobs. Straightforward enough. They also explain a number of concepts like Charge Time, which I will explain as they become relevant, if I remember them.
I didn't do all the Tutorials, though. Because you see, on top of these video tutorials, there are text tutorials sorted under 'Miscellany."
43 of them. Fuck off!? I ain't reading all that.
Now let's head back to the present.
Knight Gallant Barbaneth Beoulve is on his deathbed. His military prowess was able to salvage what was going to be a humiliating defeat for Ivalice into an at least nominally equal peace, and he finds consolation in knowing that the war will end with him. His sons complain about Ramza not being at his father's side in his last moments, only for Ramza to barge into the room at the last minute. From his brothers' interactions with him, it looks like they don't care much for him, though Barbaneth enjoins them to take care of him as a brother after he's gone. Indeed, Barbaneth's last words of advice are for him:
Barbaneth: "Hear me, Ramza. For generations, we Beoulves have stood foremost of those who serve the Crown. Ours is the soul of the knight. Become a knight worthy of your name. Tolerate no injustice. Stray not from the true path. You will know the path you must walk. A Beoulve can… can walk no other…."
Ramza: "I will not fail you, father."
Barbaneth: "Your friend, Delita. He is a good boy. He is lowborn, but he can serve you well. I've made arrangements for him to enter the Akademy. *chuckle* You should have seen the look on the headmaster's face. In the years ahead you will need someone whom you can trust. You could do far worse than Delita."
Well, we know how that went. Thanks, dad.
I wonder to what extent the whole 'commonborn vs noble' angle will play into the game's plot; it seems to be deliberate set up for later narrative development or themes. With one last plea for Ramza to take care of his sister and show his brother what it means to be a knight, Barbaneth passes away; the game uses a neat visual metaphor where the sliver of light from the curtains represents Barbaneth's last hold on life, and as the sun passes and that light fades, so does Barbaneth.
The end of this flashback returns us to the map. We advance to the Mandalia Plain, where we are once again prompted to do battle.
Our lineup is comprised entirely of Squires, for JP Boost learning purposes. We lose flexibility by not having a Chemist but hopefully that won't last.
We run into a detachment of the Corpse Brigade, who appear to have just finished wiping out a group of knights. They're just about to execute the last survivor when we arrive, which, oddly enough, prompts a dialogue choice: Ramza can either chose "Our first duty is to defeat the Brigade." or "We must rescue their captive!" Doing so changes the battle objective, either to defeat all enemies or to protect the soldier, known as Argath. This doesn't seem like it changes much - we need to kill all enemies regardless, but we can add ourselves an extra objective if we want to. I go for it, of course, but it makes me wonder if dialogue options and varying battle objectives will play an extensive role in the game going forward. By the very nature of its narrative being told from the future, it seems unlikely that they will have a real impact on the plot.
We have a total of six units on our side - Ramza, three units of our choice, Delita, and Argath. Argath acts as a Guest Unit like Delita, which means we can't control him, and he starts behind enemy lines; this is nearly enough to get him killed before we get a single turn, but thankfully he has the Item Command on top of being a Squire, so he's able to heal himself and retreat to our lines, after which we push forward and take up the enemy's attention. Our opposition is made up of three Squires, one Thief (an advanced job we don't have access to yet), and their pet giant cat. The Cat is our first introduction to Monster units; according to the tutorial, it's possible to recruit monsters to our side, so that'll be interesting to see. The main threat paused by monsters is that they all have Counters, so when we attack them, they attack us in turn, which means the action economy can't save us, this has to be a pure damage race. A single cat is thankfully not much of a problem, though. Since everyone is using such basic jobs, there isn't much to write about the fight itself; we use basic positioning and attacks to grind down the enemy with our numerical advantage, starting with the Squires and ending with the Thief leader and the beast.
As you can see, though, our victory isn't unambiguous; we lost Female Squire #1 in the process (I swear, I will remember their names as soon as they start having their own classes; as it stands it's literally impossible to tell two Squires of the same gender apart if the screenshot doesn't include their name). Which introduces us to the very basics of unit KO management:
Our own units face the exact same threat as we saw in the first update. When they go down, a 3-count starts. If it reaches 0, the unit poofs and turns into a Treasure Box or a Crystal. This means permanent loss of the unit - they actually die for real. (Unless they're a Guest character like Delita, who is protected for plot reasons). This is very bad! Fortunately, as long as we can end the battle before the countdown ends, then they're right as rain in our party roster afterwards. Because KOs happen fairly easily, rushing the end of the battle to save our dying units is going to be a major concern in this update.
Here, we did manage to save Female Squire #1, so that's good. Of course, a Chemist would have made this easier by being able to raise her with a Phoenix Down, but I want that sweet sweet JP Boost.
Argath is a knight apprentice in the service of His Excellency, the Marquis Elmdore of Limberry. Elmdore, known as the Silver Prince for his bright armor and silver hair, is a hero of the latter days of the War, as well as a devour member of the Church of Glabados and an ordained inquisitor. Which… doesn't… sound… ideal? Our characters don't have the negative associations that we do with the term 'inquisitor,' though, so this probably doesn't bother them.
The Church of Glabados, the Chronicle will inform us later, traces its origins to Ajora Glabados, an eschatological preacher who announced the coming of Paradise, which led to his martyrdom at the hands of the Holy Ydoran Empire, who practiced the then-dominant Pharist religion. Shortly after, the central city of Pharism sank into the sea, and Ajora's disciples began to preach that he was divine in nature, teachings which eventually evolved into the Church of Glabados.
So yeah, it's literally Christianity with just a slight dash of Atlantis for spice. Pharist is even pretty damned close to Pharisee!
Argath was actually accompanying the Marquis while traveling, and the Corpse Brigade took the Marquis captive. What they want with him, we do not know, but he's likely still alive for now; Argath begs Ramza and Delita to help him obtain the Order's help in saving the Marquis, and thus, we take Argath with us to Eagrose, where Ramza's brothers await.
Gillian, that was her name!
With this battle, we have enough JP to unlock JP Boost for Ramza. We could stay in Squire until we've learned additional abilities like Stone, Counter Tackle, or Equip Axes, but Squire is stupendously boring and so I have Ramza immediately swapped into Knight, a class with stronger stats and an Ability set which… We'll get to it.
Dycedarg: "I hear you were decorated for your first victory, Ramza. They sing your praises from on high. You do honor to our name, my brother - and to me."
Ramza: "I am glad."
Dycedarg: "Oh? You would not seem it."
Ramza: "I am - forgive me. Your words do me far more honor than I have done you. No doubt word has already reached you, but the marquis de Limberry's carriage way waylaid, and the marquis taken. What have you a mind to do?"
Dycedarg: "I have already asked Zalbaag to dispatch a squad in pursuit. These brigands must eventually come forth to demand ransom - that is, assuming the marquis yet lives."
Argath: "I beg of you, Lord Beoulve! Lend me a hundred men that I might hunt the whoresons down!"
Dycedarg: "..."
Argath: "Please, my lord - grant me means to avenge my fallen friends!"
Dycedarg: "Mayhap your ears fail you. I said that a squad is to be dispatched. You are not a man of Gallione. Leave her affairs to those of us who are."
Argath: "B-but…. My lord!"
Dycedarg: "Do not assume to beg favors of me! Let me remind you, Argath, lest you forget your place. You are but another sword, not yet even knighted."
Argath: "..."
Dycedarg: "The two of you will remain here at Eagrose, and serve among the castle guard. You needn't worry. Danger is not like to visit these walls."
This is honestly a little harsh. Sure, Dycedarg has no reason to just hand over a hundred men to an unproven squire, but he's being pretty rude about it - for reasons we'll learn very quickly. It's interesting that Dycedarg immediate reaction upon Ramza coming home is to have him assigned to a guard duty where he faces minimal risk. He says he's proud of his brother's deeds, but I think he'd rather his 16-year old brother, bastard though he may be, go trapsing around the countryside in the middle of a social collapse to end up murdered by some Corpse Brigade rogue. Of course, that's not how Ramza feels about it.
We cut to the gardens of Eagrose, where Argath confesses to his familial shame: he's a scion of the once-respected House Thadalfus, which was brought to ruin during the Fifty Years War after his grandfather, captured by the enemy, turned traitor and was murdered. One of the men he sold out spread word of his actions, destroying his family's reputation. So Dycedarg sees him with contempt.
Then our heroes are interrupted by a few new arrivals:
Those are Alma, Tietra, and Zalbaag. Alma is Ramza's younger sister, from the same mother as him, which has me wondering about his actual family situation. Zalbaag and Dycedarg are referred to as the "trueborn" sons of Barbanath, which suggests Ramza and Alma are bastards, ie born out of wedlock, though legitimized by their father, but if they have the same mother, it's possible that they might just be the children of a second wife? Alternatively Barbanath just had a long term mistress, or a concubine. It's very unclear.
Tietra is Delita's sister, and just like Delita and Ramza are friends, she is Alma's friend. The Chronicle tells us she worries about her brother secretly.
Zalbaag is very warm towards both Ramza and Delita, praising them for their deeds in battle against the brigands, and he tells Ramza that he's now truly earned the right to call himself a Beoulve, which is nice. We really do seem to be angling towards the ASoIaF dynamic where Jon Snow's position in his family is kind of awkward but his relationship with his siblings is still fundamentally a mutual affection and support. It's a fascinating case of convergent development if so. Everyone is glad to see one another, but Zalbaag cannot stay, for duty calls:
Zalbaag: "We received a ransom note from the Corpse Brigade."
Argath: "What!?"
Zalbaag: "Something about it sits unwell with me. They are anarchists to be sure, bent on bringing down the aristocracy. But they fancy themselves righteous, and prey only on the nobility and those in their employ. Would such as they truly kidnap the marquis for want of coin?"
Wait a minute, you're telling me the Corpse Brigade aren't motivated by money, they're actual anarchists who are specifically targeting the nobility and trying to end its rule?
…
Why am I fighting against them? I want to join up.
This is what you get for playing a game centering an aristocratic protagonist, you end up having to work for the true villains without even knowing it 😔
Zalbaag then mentions that a spy he embedded in the Corpse Brigade is missing, then laments that a single spy is not considered worth sending men after, and idly comments that 'Guarding a castle grows dreadfully dull… Wouldn't you agree?'
I like Zalbaag. He's like the Cool Older Brother to Dycedarg's Stern Older Brother, and his name is marginally less stupid.
Delita apologizes to his sister for leaving again so soon, they hug, and he promises to be back soon. As we depart, Alma holds Ramza back, and confides in him that Tietra is putting on a brave face for his brother, but the truth is that she's having a hard time at school, where she's being bullied by others for being lowborn. She then apologizes for burdening Ramza with further concerns when he already has his own, and they have a sweet exchange.
Alma: "Tietra will be all right. I'm here to look after her."
Ramza: "Then there is naught to worry about. But mind your own limits. You can't be responsible for everything."
Alma: "Says the brother who never fails to do any and all that is asked of him. Don't lose sight of yourself, Ramza. You needn't let your life be ruled by the fact that you were born a Beoulve."
Ramza: "Now you're starting to sound like Mother. Ha ha ha!"
Okay so they do have a mom, and she didn't die in childbirth or anything, they knew her long enough to know what her personality was like. Did she die more recently? Is she still around? She wasn't at Barbanath's death bed, and she's not at Eagrose now, so… Probably not? Maybe we'll find out.
And now it's time for Ramza, Delita and Argath's illicit expedition to the Merchant Town of Dorter, where Zalbaag's spy was last seen. We're sent back to the world map, and then quickly pulled into another cutscene.
We are currently in Gallione, a region of Ivalice. Because Dorter is said to be in Eastern Gallione, we can surmise that it comprises the region covered by that indecipherable word on the left of the map.
This cutscene is an introduction to the game's multiplayer system, and we can therefore completely ignore it. Once we're out, we pursue our way past Gariland, passing over a tile labeled 'The Siedge Weald.' That's a weird enough phrase that I had to look it up. 'Weald' is an Old English word meaning 'woodland,' and is the name of a region in South-East England; 'Siedge' is an archaic spelling for 'Siege,' and is also a family name. So the Siedge Weald could mean 'The Siege of the Forest,' or perhaps more likely 'the Siedge Forest'?
As soon as we set foot there, we are sent into battle again.
Argath: "Our luck is ill, that we should chance upon fiends such as these in the wood."
Delita: "Some of us prefer fiends in a wood to a dull watch in castle garrets, Argath."
Argath: "And some of us are not so quick to jape in danger's face."
Ramza: "Enough talk. They come!"
[Objective: Defeat All Enemies!]
If you're wondering why the camera angles keep shifting, it's because the game accommodates its isometric design by granting the player the ability to look at the map from one of four horizontal angles, two vertical tilts, and two distances. This is a far cry from true camera controls, but it's still a godsend; the game's emphasis on elevation means that it's extremely easy not just for characters to disappear behind obstacles, but also for perspectives to become hard to fully discern. Multiple times, I have fucked up a move because I incorrectly thought I would end on a tile next to an opponent but actually ended up a tile below and two tiles away due to perspective tricks. As rudimentary as the camera controls are, the game would be literally unplayable without them. Which I think is worth noting because Tactics Advance lacks any camera rotation, and likely as a result, it has to do with much simpler elevation mechanics, since the entire battlefield and every combattant must be visible from a single angle, like so:
So, our first monster encounter. Our opposition: One Red Panther (same model as the Corpse Brigade's pet), one Goblin, one Black Goblin (a mildly stronger variant), and two Bombs. This means that once again, we have numerical superiority; unfortunately 2 of our 6 party members, Delita and Argath, are controlled by the AI, limiting our ability to plan.
Here, you can see a Squire use Stone, the basic thrown attack ability, which a few of the Squires came packaged with and which allows me to attack at range for low damage rather than being stuck Waiting out turns when I don't reach an enemy. I initiate the fight with an aggressive push towards the Black Goblin, hoping to take it out quickly and start a snowball. This proves a mistake.
Like all monsters, the Black Goblin has Counter, meaning my characters who hit him get hurt in turn. In addition, he knows a move called Spin Punch, which allows him to hit all characters on adjacent ties. That means my characters are basically taking as much or more damage as they manage to deal to him. By the time I manage to bring him down, the monsters are flanking me on every side, and…
Ramza has fallen. He got in close, dealt heavy damage with his new Knight stats, but unfortunately that meant eating Counters, and the enemies immediately ganged up on him as the nearest unit, and he just doesn't have the HP to make it. I try to salvage things, but…
The Bomb is one of the staples of the franchise, and it's back and meaner than ever. In the context of a tactical RPG, its Self-Destruct ability is a very potent AoE threat. The game incentivizes you to group up in melee and hit an enemy from four directions at once; unfortunately that is exactly the scenario that maximizes the damage Self-Destruct can deal. With Delita and Male Squire #1 going down, the monsters now outnumber us. Then Argath decides to save his own skin and runs away to a corner of the map to use Potions on himself, the selfish bastards, so it's a 2v4 now. There's very little hope of salvaging things. Still, Male Squire #2 puts up a valiant effort, it's just…
Ramza is subject to the same death countdown as all non-Guest characters. And because the story can't continue without him, his timer running down means a Game Over.
The problem here isn't a lack of stats or effective jobs - though a Chemist would certainly make things easier - it's simple tactics. We can do this, we just have to try again.
"Omi," you ask, "why did you have four characters corner the Bomb after what you just said about Self-Destruct" Well you see, dear reader, my plan was that if I killed the Bomb fast enough it wouldn't have time to trigger its move, and in order to kill it as quickly as possible I needed to gang up on it, incidentally putting all my characters into kill range. It made sense, okay?
Anyway the result is this absolute massacre:
Shockingly enough, a win at this stage would still have been possible. The Bomb severely damaged some of the monsters, and Ramza was out of the blast radius; he, Delita and Argath are able to finish them off, turning the balance of battle, until…
It's Ramza and one lone Goblin. Argath and Delita are still alive, but they both took enough damage that the Cowardice AI took over and had them run off to the corners of the map and away from the fight. It would be possible for Ramza to kill that last Goblin, the problem is that this took so much time that the timer for all the party members who died to Self-Destruct has run down. I lose half of my party roster, and so I decide to just reload and try again.
IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.
This one is a pretty frustrating loss, honestly. We killed the first Bomb without triggering its Self-Destruct, and we almost took out the second, but ultimately I didn't pay attention to the turn order the way I should have been. This is one of the things the tutorial teaches you, by the way: You can use the Start button to tab between characters in order of their coming turn, which allows you to plan out your moves based on when the enemy will act.
I lose all my characters, but shockingly enough, Delita is almost able to pull off a win while AI controlled - without the Bombs, and with the Red Panther killed early, he does decently at moping up goblins. Unfortunately, Ramza was taken out earlier, and his timer ticks down before Delita can run away with the dark horse win.
It's clear we're not making progress, so let's try something else.
Cut for image count.
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Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 2.B: Mandalia Plain, Siedge Weald, & Dorter Slums
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Namely, upgrading our equipment. All our Squires are able to equip Longswords, which deal increased damage compared to the standard Dagger or the Broadsword. Additionally, as a Knight, Ramza is able to equip heavy armor and helmets, instead of the Clothing and Leather Cap he came packaged with. Armor has an odd effect in this game; instead of increasing a defense rating that reduces damage taken, it directly increases HP count. The Leather Cap grants +8 HP and Clothing +5, whereas the Bronze Helm and Linen Cuirass each increase HP by +20, meaning our Ramza just got a whopping +27 HP.
Better equipment, along with the increased tactical awareness we gathered from doing this battle repeatedly, carry us to victory. We focus on taking out the Bombs first, and once they're out of the picture we mop up the rest of the enemy. We still suffer a few losses… But by a stroke of luck, it's Delita and Argath, and as guest character they can't permadie in this battle, so we don't suffer from any time pressure. Ramza and the three Squires are able to sweep the board afterwards.
Our reward for this is 1,800 Gil, and the ability to progress path the Siedge Weald and onto the city of Dorter. Additionally, Squire Hadrian has now unlocked enough JP to learn JP Boost, so we can free him from the Squire shackles to live free as a beautiful butterfly. I'm not sure what I want him to be, though, so for the time being he'll stick to Squire; I expect the next battle is going to kick my ass anyway so I might as well see what it's like before setting him on his new path.
Two men are caught in an argument, which swiftly turns violent. The Knight demands to know the location of 'Gustav,' then that of the Marquis; when the Swordsman claims he knows nothing of it, the Knight grabs him by the throat and hurls him to the ground, then threatens him with the point of his sword. Finally, the Swordsman admits that they are in the desert - in a place called the Sand Rat's Sietch, but then, our group enters the scene. The Knight turns around, complains that his luck has taken a turn for the worse, and leaves, leaving only the Swordsman behind.
Delita: "Have I not seen that man before?"
Ramza: "You know him, Delita?"
Delita: "I have seen his face, I'm sure of it. It was at Eagrose, just after the war's end…"
Ramza: "You'll pardon my misgivings, but this has not the look of any joyous reunion. To arms!"
Delita: "I've just remembered! That man - his name is Wiegraf! He commanded the Dead Men during the war - a company of volunteers assembled from the peasantry."
Argath: "What? But that would make him…"
Delita: "Aye. The commander of the Corpse Brigade."
Because it's not necessarily clear - they're referring to the man previously labeled as Knight, who just left the scene. Why would the commander of the Corpse Brigade be asking why the group he's supposed to be leading is hiding their hostage? That's a question we'll have to answer later. For now, the Swordsman appears to have recognized us as members of the Order, and it's on sight, several other soldiers coming out to face us.
As before, we control neither Argath nor Delita, limiting our playable roster to Ramza and three Squires. Delita and Argath immediately take up to the the wooden scaffolding to the left of the map:
Well…
Three Archers, two Black Mages, and a Knight.
We're still running a party of five Squires and one Knight, so we're pretty much fucked. Even if the job component weren't enough, though, look at the battlefield: The enemy starts with one archer at the peak of a small mountain of slum architecture, from which he can fire arrows freely down at us. The two Black Mages have the first effective ranged AoEs in the game - their spells hit in a cross pattern, either a unit and the units adjacent to it, or a tile and the tile adjacent to it. Two other Archers and a Black Mage also have the high ground, so they can't be approach from the front due to how high they are, but they absolutely can shoot at us. Meanwhile, the Knight, their only close combat unit, threatens the entire central area at the bottom of the map that we need to pass through to get to anyone else.
Look at this fucking range. That's the Archer at the top of the hill.
Delita and Argath actually succeed in their little expedition - they're able to corner the topside Archer and bring him down. This is very good, but then that leaves them several turns away from coming down to help us, and we are getting absolutely splattered in the meantime.
I won't drag this out. The bottom line is, we manage to bring down one of the Black Mages, but ultimately we take too much damage and the whole party sans Delita and Argath goes down, which leaves me to watch as the game's automatic resolution has them climb down the hill, bring down the Knight, but ultimately fail to end the fight before Ramza dies.
This is not ideal.
So, what are our options?
Well, one thing is, we could abandon acquiring JP Boost and instead spend what little JP we've acquired so far on Squire Abilities to try and eke out an advantage. We could slot everyone into classes for just this one fight.
There's another option, though.
The game has not, so far, brought up the concept of random encounters. So let's see what happens, by just randomly walking back and forth between the locations we've unlocked so far.
Bingo.
Every time we pass other either the Mandelia Plain or the Siedge Weald, we have a chance to trigger an encounter with a group of monsters. The exact makeup of our opposition varies each time, though it's always monsters rather than bandits. Here, for instance, we're dealing with Black Goblins and two new monster types: the Skeleton, an undead with a magic attack, and the Minotaur, a powerful physical attacker. Generally speaking, while monsters' Counter makes them a threat, in the absence of Bomb they're relatively easy to deal with because of their lack of ranged option, so we just need to take out the Skeleton first.
Here, you can see the kind of way battle tends to evolve chaotically - having one Squire attack two Black Goblins alone was kind of foolish, but I made a series of short-sighted decision based on 'well the gobbo is in range of his move but the Minotaur isn't so might as well hit the gobbo rather than 'waste' his turn', while most of my party is now ganging up on the minotaur alone which is a massive overkill. This results in the lone squire going down, plus another squire falling at the mino's hands before it can die. By the time the rest of the party catches up to the goblins and finish them off, they manage to take down a third Squire.
A messy win is still a win; everyone got some JP out of this, though not quite enough to level up. Our next battle occurs on the Mandelia Plain and is considerably easier, plus it has us see our first Chocobo!
We murder it.
No losses this time, the main noteworthy events are that we see our first poison attack from the Red Panther. Poison deals -10 HP per turn, which would be pretty nasty for our Squires but thankfully it's affecting Ramza, who has HP for days. This win is enough for Male Squire #1, Hadrian, Male Squire #2, Osric, and Female Squire #2, Gillian, to acquire JP Boost, so I can finally branch off into some advanced job.
Chemist, Archer, and Black Mage ensure I now have some ranged damage, some AoE, and some healing, massively expanding our tactical range.
Or at least it will after this next random battle.
Turns out Black Mage starts without any spells and we need to actively unlock them in the Abilities Menu first. Oops. Osric is reduced to simply throwing weak punches all battle, it's pretty pathetic. This battle is a nearly complete rout, at the end of which only Ramza is left standing. But hey, we won without any permadeaths, so I'll take the win. We teach Osric the basic Fire, Thunder and Blizzard spells, and with our fourth and final random encounter, Female Squire #2, Hester, also unlocks JP Boost, and we level her into Knight.
At last, our roster is complete. Now all we need is to pass through Eagrose and Gariland again to purchase enough gear to equip everyone, and we'll be off to the races.
Esther's equipment doesn't actually really matter, because we're only allowed 4 characters in the next battle so she'll be benched, but it's a matter of principle.
There are two types of equipment, armor and clothing. Ramza and Hester, being Knights, can equip armor and use longswords, leading to considerable HP and damage; everyone else instead uses Plumed Hats and Leather Armor and whichever weapon their Job allows. Notably, there's a split between shops; Eagrose sells only armor and physical weapons, whereas the Magick City of Gariland sells only clothes, basic weapons, and rods/staves for mages. Perhaps the most important piece of equipment we could acquire, however, are the Battle Boots: As an accessory, they grant everyone +1 Move distance. It doesn't seem like much, but given the diamond-pattern move ranges, one move in any direction considerably expands any given character's range!
So let's head back to Dorter.
As before, Delita and Argath head up the hill to take out the solo Archer. This is fine by me; down there I have five enemies to deal with using only four units.
Also I'm about to make a very mean discovery. Do you remember how the Archer on that hill had an insanely wide attack range firing down?
In this picture, you can see Osric, our Archer, attempt to shoot the enemy Knight while Ramza is on the tile in front of him.
The attack hits Ramza instead. Because arrows have trajectories and travel in straight lines so you will end up firing at your own allies if they're in the way.
That wasn't even on my radar as a possibility, what the hell. Whatever, it's fine. Chemist Gillian can salvage things by healing Ramza with a Potion while moving forward. The greatest threat to us right now are the Black Mages, who have the most damaging attacks on the enemy side and can hit several characters at once.
So let's talk about how Tactics handles spellcasting.
The basic shape of spellcasting is familiar: Black Mage selects Fire, casts Fire, deals fire damage. But it's significantly more complex now thanks to two factors: Targeting and Charge Time.
Charge Time is what makes it matter that much. Every spell has a Charge Time. When we enter our command, the Black Mage begins to charge up their spell. Then, a certain number of ticks afterwards, that spell is cast. If the next character down the list is lower in the list than the spell's speed, all is well; the Black Mage effectively casts the spell 'instantly.' However, complications arise as soon as another character is scheduled to act before the spell charges. In that case, a character can pre-empt the Black Mage's action.
Which leads us to Targeting: Spells have an AoE. Because of this, they can be cast either at a unit or at a tile. If you select a unit, say that Archer to the left of the screen, then when the Black Mage (Blage?) casts Fire, it will center on that archer and hit adjacent tiles, thus likely striking the Black Mage next to him too. However, if the Archer moves before the spell is cast, then the spell will move with him. That will likely take the enemy Black Mage out of targeting; more dangerously, if the Archer for whatever reason decides to come into melee with Ramza, then Ramza will get hit by the spell. There's no friendly fire settings! For this reason, it might be preferable to target a tile - if the enemy moves out of range, the spell might whiff, but at least you're not risking a danger close scenario. Alternatively, you might want to cast a tile because even though the tile is empty, there are enemies in adjacent positions to it; or because you anticipate an enemy moving there. It's complex!
Here, this charge time is going to be a really bad deal for our opponents. As soon as the enemy Blage started charging, Ramza moved behind him. Attacking a mage charging a spell deals +50% damage. This allows Ramza to take the Blage out instantly, completely negating the spell.
Meanwhile, we more smartly position our own Mage and Archer on elevated positions so we can fire down safely at the enemy, which proves…
Hm.
Okay so remember when I said arrows travel in a straight line?
Look at this range pattern for Archer Hadrian..
It has gaps.
IT CANNOT FIRE IN CLOSE RANGE BECAUSE HE'S TOO HIGH UP and can't see straight down.
This is. A little infuriating. It's not like the game gives me a forecast of what my range will end up being on the next tile I move to, and once you have confirmed a move, you can't go back, so I just have to guess.
Whatever. Up in the rafters, Delita and Argath take out the solo Archer, and down there, one of the enemy Black Mages seems to not have enough range to hit us with a spell and so makes the mistake of coming down into the 'street' below.
This puts him in melee range of Ramza, who stabs him in the gut before he can finish casting. That's two Black Mages down before they could cast; a great success. All that's left is moping up the Knight and the two remaining Archers. Ramza's taken a bit of damage from being on the front lines, but Gillian can chuck a potion at him while Osric casts spells from high up.
Unfortunately, the Knight survives that Fire and climbs up to Osric's hiding spot, and gives him the same treatment as we gave his own Mages. Fair's fair, I suppose. Unfortunately for him, that leaves him completely cornered for Ramza to pursue and finish off.
Then, just for the flex, Gillian uses a Phoenix Down and raises Osric. The last blow is dealt by Argath, angrily chasing after the last surviving Archer and ending the battle.
And that concludes the Battle of the Dorter Slums.
This was significantly more interesting than previous battles, now that we have a full roster of individual jobs that can support one another and each have a particular battle plan.
I probably could have won this battle just with my Squires and Chemists if I had invested in Squire Abilities (they can get Move +1, which should stack with Combat Boots, and Counter-Tackle to react to melee attacks, and Stone for ranged attacks), but also, eh? This was more fun. We finally have a party that resembles something. It's annoying that having both Delita and Argath as guests is restricting us to 4 party members - in the random encounter, we had neither of these, and our available roster was a full complement of 5. Having two extra characters certainly means more overall power, but like… I want to build my own custom blorbos that I control in battle. At this point I'm sort of hoping either Delita or Argath leaves soon.
A note on Ramza's Knight: He's racked up a pretty hefty amount of JP by now, but I, uh… Haven't spent any of it yet.
Here's the list of Knight's Command Abilities:
These are 'Arts of War,' and they're all in the form of 'Rend X.' Each one is a debuff that either destroys equipment or reduces an enemy resource: Break Helm, Armor, Shield or Weapon, Deplete MP, or directly reduce Speed, Power, or Magick.
I… don't know which ones of these are good? It's genuinely hard to tell without prior game experience. I imagine the Rend [Gear] options are useless against monsters, but are they especially useful against human targets? I imagine they're likely to have a variable success rate, and if this ends up like typical 'status effects vs bosses' FF fashion that doesn't seem worth it, but on the other hand maybe Rend Weapon actually allows us to trivialize enemy melee class? I'd welcome some advice there.
As for Reaction and Support Abilities, Knights can learn Parry, which grants a chance to block physical attacks with the weapon (separate from the already existing chance to block with a shield), that seems fairly decent. They can also learn to Equip Heavy Armor, Shields or Swords; these are all of course available to the Knight by default, the point is that by learning them permanently, we could then make Ramza into, say, a Black Mage wearing heavy armor.
So yeah, basically I have choice paralysis because there are so many options and a limited pool of JP to spend. I expect this'll be a regular occurrence. Still, even without these Arts of War, just being a Knight is a huge boost in power and survivability and Ramza has been doing pretty well for himself.
So let's see the outcome of this battle before we leave off for today.
I dig Delita's little 'cool guy looming casually in the background' pose.
Argath: "We know you're of the Brigade. There's no use hiding it. Out with it! What have you done with the Marquis? Where are you holding him? You were with your commander, Wiegraf, when we came upon you. Where has he gone?" [No answer.] "Mayhap a beating would loosen your tongue!"
[Argath kicks the bound Knight in the chest; the man slumps forward, and Argath grabs him by the hair, lifting his face up.]
Ramza: "Enough, Argath!"
Argath: "Hmph." [He lets go.] "Listen well. A great host, with the Order at its van, prepares a sweeping campaign that will bring to book your turncloak Brigade. You will die. You will be hunted down to the last and slaughtered like the swine you are, for such is brigandry's reward. But you, pig, are a lucky one. Tell us what we wish to know, and you may yet keep your bacon. So, where is Wiegraf?"
Swordsman: "How the bloody hell should I know?"
[Argath hits him again, sending him sprawling to the ground.]
Argath: "I'll not bear your ribald tongue, rogue! Learn to guard it, if you'd not have it cut from your throat!"
Swordsman: [Still lying on the ground] "I am no… no rogue."
Argath: "Tell that to the men you've robbed!"
Swordsman: "You nobles are… all the same. You think every man… born outside a castle's walls… less than human. We fought for this kingdom at peril of our very lives. Yet the moment the war was ended… you turned us out into the streets. What do you think makes you so special? Birth? Blood? What difference does it make?"
Argath: "You kidnap men for ransom, then dare ask the difference between us?"
It's interesting that Argath takes objection to the ransoming of a marquis on principle. Ransom was, of course, widespread among chivalry in the Middle Ages and Early Modern era; but of course it could not be practiced by commoners - knights ransomed each other, not random footmen. Still, Argath would not realistically object to the idea of ransoming, merely that common bandits are taking nobles hostage. This is, amusingly, a case where for all the Swordsman's (extremely based and correct) points towards the nobility's arrogance and disregard of the common people's suffering, the game is actually underselling the class divide of the time period it's drawing inspiration from.
Swordsman: "No… The marquis' kidnapping was… no plan of Wiegraf's."
Argath: "...?"
Swordsman: "He would never… hold a man for ransom."
Ramza: "Then who? Someone kidnapped the marquis Elmdore de Limberry."
Swordsman: "..."
Argath: "Speak! If not you, then on whom would you pin the deed?"
Swordsman: "...It was Gustav."
Argath: "Who is Gustav?"
Delita: "Gustav Margriff - lieutenant commander of the Dead Men."
Argath: "So the Corpse Brigade *was* behind the kidnapping!"
Swordsman: [He finds in his sudden outrage the strength to rise to his feet.] "No! We're not like Gustav! We fight to end the aristocracy, not to become it! To be treated as equals - as the men of honor we are!"
Argath: [He kicks him prone again.] "What do maggots know of honor?"
Oh my god, our protagonists could not possibly be more villain-coded. This random enemy Knight is now officially my favorite character, I am fully Corpse-pilled, this is the one struggle now, no war but class war, commoners of Ivalice rise up, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS-
Ramza: "That's enough, Argath!"
Argath: "So where is this 'Gustav'?"
Swordsman: "In… in the Sand Rat's Sietch."
Argath: "Sand rat?"
Delita: "You are not of Gallionne - small wonder you've not heard of them. Sand rats are unique to the Zeklaus Desert, north of Dorter."
Argath: "...?"
Ramza: "Do any villages lie between here and the desert?"
Delita: "Villages? No. At least, not anymore. But the desertmen once had a settlement in the outskirts, and its ruins remain."
Ramza: "Then that's where we'll find Gustav and the marquis."
Delita: "Aye, like as not."
Argath: "How can you be so certain?"
Ramza: "A 'sietch' is a sand rat's burrow - its home."
Argath: "...?"
[End dialogue; we return to the world map, where a new node has appeared.]
Man, how fascinating.
It's really interesting to me how Ramza - our protagonist - is framed as slightly more noble than Argath in this interaction, but he only provides restrain, not an alternative. He lets Argath conduct the interrogation as he will, only stepping in to tell him to tone it down when he rises to a distasteful level of violence. Ramza doesn't ask his own questions of the Swordsman except once, he does not seek alternative ways of getting an answer like bribing him, promising him freedom, or threatening him with novel kinds of punishment, he's fine with everything Ramza is doing except specifically beating up a helpless prisoner.
He's noble, in that he has specific standards for appropriate behavior, but here he's not being heroic, in that he's fine merely being a controlling presence while letting Argath slip his leash a little.
And Argath - his attitude is understandable. He's angry, he's violent, but also he's a teenaged knight apprentice who recently saw all the men he was riding with murdered, the nobleman he was supposed to protect captured, and who sees his every hope for a future, for redeeming his family name, for earning respect again, hanging in the balance.
Argath is so violent because when he looks at this man, he sees something perilously close to himself. A destitute wretch, rejected by all, without honor, with only his skill at arms to keep him alive. The line that separate Argath from the nameless Swordsman is incredibly tenuous and rests on essentially one thing: He's still a noble, and this man isn't. He has to insult, demean, threaten, and beat this man, in order to assert that line, that fundamental, irreconcilable difference between the two of them, that even penniless, disgraced, and distrusted, Argath still has his nobility. That endangered nobility needs reaffirming, and can only be reaffirmed in the contrast between him and the pig, the maggot, the rogue.
(Delita, notably, neither counsels restraint as Ramza does, nor seeks to affirm himself by insulting and beating the man. Delita doesn't care. He is indifferent to a small bout of casual torture, and has no need to affirm his nobility by demeaning his captive, because he isn't a noble to begin with. That common swordsman and he are both lowborn, but Delita was lucky, and the Swordsman wasn't. Let him blame himself or God.)
It turns out the game everyone said had great writing did in fact have great writing. Absolute shocker, I know. But God it's nice to be reading a Final Fantasy script that actually dives into class divides and social ills and political nuance. It's not necessarily that the series was missing those things, it didn't particularly need them for the kind of story it liked to tell, it's just that I, personally, like those stories.
…
As a tangent, I said I'd come back to the 'Sand Rat's Sietch' earlier, and, okay, this is kind of funny. Last update I talked about the WotL script borrowing from Game of Thrones? This is unlikely to be news to anyone on the year of the release of Dune Part 2, but 'Sietch' is, specifically, a term made up by Frank Herbert for his Dune novels, describing the hidden and fortified cave warrens used by the Fremen people of the desert planet Harrakis. While it's derived from the Cossack sich, the spelling is, specifically, an invention of Herbert's. Its use here for the burrow/home of a desert rat, used as a metaphor for a dwelling of desert bandies, is a direct reference to Dune.
Alright. That's three main story battle, plus a little bit of grinding that should hopefully see us set for the story battles ahead. I think we can call this update here, with just one last thing:
The Chronicle has updated with profiles on Wiegraf and Gustav of the Corpse Brigade.
"Summarily discharged without compensation."
"The atrocities committed by the Order, such as the mass killing of enemy soldiers and the sacking of villages."
Hans, are we the baddies?
Oh, and also, Zamra can become a monk now. Not sure what I'll do with that yet.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: The Zeklaus Desert.
- Location
- Spain
Notably, this includes buffing and healing, so for optimal play you want to organize your army so that everybody has high compatibility with everybody else.
In other words, a polycule.
Agincourt rears its head! Your archer is using a Crossbow, that is why there is only a straight trajectory . You are fielding Genoese crossbowmen while you where hoping for longbow users! That is also why your archer can use a shield and still fire.
Muramasa
Best Girl
Omi just confirming. Are you aware that all of your units can equip a second skill set? Your squires can be set with the item command even if they aren't chemists. As long as they've learned how to use the correct item then it should be available for use with the command set. You just won't be able to throw items the chemist way.
edit: This includes the 'guest' characters as well. (Delita, Argath)
edit: This includes the 'guest' characters as well. (Delita, Argath)
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- Location
- Malaysia
While the gameplay mishaps are fun to read, I think I appreciate the language lessons even more. I have never read any of the mentioned books nor did I ever learn in-depth English Lit (my country's schools taught a piece of Shakespeare poem that's the closest to not-modern English), so I would not even know that some of these terms are created by fantasy/sci-fi authors.
The thing about the Jobs Knight and Archer is that the two jobs require a hell of a lot of commitment to them, simply because their skills require a lot of Job Points to learn.
So, if you are thinking of jumping jobs and trying stuff out for your units, I suggest that you grind for the non-combat skills first - those are more useful long term.
The thing about the Jobs Knight and Archer is that the two jobs require a hell of a lot of commitment to them, simply because their skills require a lot of Job Points to learn.
So, if you are thinking of jumping jobs and trying stuff out for your units, I suggest that you grind for the non-combat skills first - those are more useful long term.
- Pronouns
- Him/He
They all do what they seem to. Rend armor will destroy items (forever), which means it lowers the targets HP total off the top of you break HP equipment. So you do that before inflicting HP damage for best results. Shield and weapons make it so those items are gone and any bonuses they provide. The stat ones let you cripple enemies in various ways if you want them alive but toothless.
One feature of the 'rend' skills is that if you use them on an enemy without that item slot (so rend helm on a hatless enemy), you do 1.5X where X is your normal attack. It might be worth making sure your knights all learn at least one of the same rend skill, so they all can create/ exploit the same gap.
Also a freebie? Cross bows and longbows are two different weapon types with different, but similar, weapon mechanics. Long bows have arcs, crossbows don't.
also when you unlock a class you should have some starter JP, something between 50-200. For mage classes this is normally enough to get one or two spells.
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