Final verdict: D-
Final playtime: 82 hours
Son of a cunt, I swear to Satan I was THIS close to just giving up on this game, it’s that fucking boring. It’s kind of an old game, I’ve had it lying around unopened for years and only now got around to playing it. The reason I got it is because even though it is Final Fantasy (a laughably bad series) and made by Square-Enix (one of the worst developers to ever grace the industry), I have good memories of Final Fantasy Tactics. I remember it being a good game. Of course this was 15 years ago so that may or may not be true. Either way that’s why I got this game but FUCK I regret it ‘cause this shit is bad.
As you should already know, it’s a turn-based strategy game. You put your group of (usually) 6 guys and move around on a grid-based map killing enemies. Nothing wrong there. I’ll get the few good things about this game out of the way first: The job system is good. There are over 50 jobs, such as Soldier, Black Mage, Dragoon, Time Mage, Summoner, etc, each one with their own unique abilities. You can use abilities (as long as you’re the correct job) by equipping weapons and armor that have that ability, and as you fight and gain job points you eventually learn that ability so that you can use it without having the weapon equipped. As you learn abilities more new jobs are opened to you. Also you can have a main job and a sub job so that you can use abilities from 2 jobs during battles. This is a good system, and it even could’ve been fun to be learning new abilities and developing your jobs if the rest of the game wasn’t so terrible.
First of all, this game is WAY too easy. This may sound like it’s not that important but it actually is. In fact it’s of monumental importance especially in this type of game that doesn’t have much else other than battles. Having a good level of difficulty is essential to keeping me interested in the game, otherwise it starts to feel like nothing you’re doing even matters, and then boredom and apathy kick in. That’s absolutely what happens with this game. I chose hard mode expecting a good level of difficulty and was met with a game for fucking children. I shudder to think what normal and easy must’ve been like.
After a while here’s how a typical battle in this game goes: just sit there and spam your spells that hit all enemies on the map regardless of how far away they are until everything dies. Yep. I don’t even have to MOVE. And this is in a game where the back of the box promises “Unparalleled strategic depth”. Fuck you. Nothing ever poses any sort of challenge in this game except maybe when you fight level 90 enemies when you’re level 30 but that’s more you doing stuff you’re not supposed to than the game actually being difficult, and surprisingly even THEN it’s not THAT hard.
This has a close relationship with the game’s next biggest problem: 95% of the fucking game is just random bullshit marks (those are dumb requests that get posted at the pub for your clan to do) like in FF12. Seriously, I played this game for a while but in reality it’s pretty damn short and 95% of it is just stupid god damn boring ass filler. And the worst part is that the game is so easy that there’s nothing even remotely interesting about this filler. No, it’s a fucking chore and it’s fucking ENDLESS. I almost died of boredom doing these fucking things. My life was in jeopardy here. Eventually the marks don’t even give you exp anymore which just takes it to a whole new level of boring because now you don’t even have that incentive anymore. Not that it would even MATTER if they still gave exp since that would just make everything even easier, if that’s somehow possible.
The AI is wonky as hell, I dunno who programmed it but he was probably a tard because you get instances of enemies who have an easy shot to hit you in the back for extra damage and instead they decide to move around you and hit you from the front for less damage. WHY? I sure as hell don’t understand. Then you have instances where you’re at critical HP and the enemy could kill you if they hit you, and instead they choose to blind you or do something equally worthless. Again, WHY? YOU COULD’VE KILLED ME, DUMBASS. If there’s something that pisses me off it’s this artificial leniency bullshit.
Then the game tries (and fails) to make up for this by being a cheating bitch with hit rates. I use a move with an 80% hit chance and miss three god damn times in a row, then enemy uses a move with 40% hit chance and of course it works. And this kind of thing happens all the time. Maybe I’m unlucky. Or maybe this game is bullshit. You decide.
Next, the story in this game is ASS. Hell, it’s not even ass. It’s just butt. Piece of uninspired generic faggoty ass boring shit. In fact this is basically the epitome of an excuse plot. The story is literally that you find a book that teleports you to Ivalice and then they tell you “If you want to go back, you need to fill the book by seeing the world and having adventures and completing quests”. If that’s not literally excuse plot then I dunno what is. YAWN. And then after running around doing absolutely nothing interesting for most of the game some random bitch with too much eyeliner and makeup wants to open a spooky rift for some reason so you have to kill everybody and save the world. Whatever, the end. Oh by the way, Ivalice is a shit world and whoever came up with it needs to get fired, but not as much as the guy who decided to keep using it in so many fucking games.
But hey, you might be saying. Even if a plot isn’t good, the characters could make it good. Yeah no. The characters in this game are even WORSE than the plot. God DAMN I hate all these characters. In first place is the main chick: a worthless insufferable cunt who keeps stealing your shit and running away and just in general being a dumb annoying bitch with an attitude. Plus it pisses me off that’s she’s all like “ohhhh WHY am I so GOOD at EVERYTHING I do? Ever since I was little I’ve been amazing at everything, running, reading, dancing. It’s such a CURSE to be so much better than everyone else, I just want to be normal! Didn’t you see my power? I can’t be with you, I’m not normal like you!” First of all your “power” barely scratched me and I beat your shit in 2 hits. Second of all fuck you and your pitiful attempts at stealth bragging. Third of all you ain’t SHIT. You steal my shit and run away and then get caught by the bad guy like a little BITCH. Fuck outta here.
But probably the one I hate even more is the pussywhipped faggot main character. Like I said, the bitch steals your clan’s shit several times and runs away. So obviously what you want to do in this situation is hunt her down, beat her face in and leave her for dead in the desert. But no. This faggot main character goes and saves her, takes her back, comforts her and even talks her into joining back with sad music and everything. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I don’t get it, am I supposed to feel sorry for the bitch? Let me kill her! What, was he horny and thought it’d score him some pussy later? Fuck him. Not only is it retarded but it’s not even believable based on the story and development so far. Just like how it’s not believable that later on she cries when she realizes the main character is leaving back to his own world. There was BARELY any fucking relationship between them, what the FUCK. Are YOU. DOING. You suck. It just ends up feeling forced and unnatural. Whoever wrote this story is so bad he wouldn’t even be capable of writing a fucking Mexican soap opera.
Whatever man. Fuck this shitass pet fucking game. Just beating it was a chore, I almost didn’t do it. It’s so boring I literally had to force myself to keep playing it even though every fiber of my being was against it. Do not buy this shitty game.
Final Verdict: D-
Final Playtime: 82 hours