Please sign in or sign up!
Login:
Pass:  
  • Forget your password?
  • Want to sign up?
  •       ...blogs for gamers

    Find a GameLog
    ... by game ... by platform
     
    advanced search  advanced search ]
    HOME GAMES LOGS MEMBERS     ABOUT HELP
     
    GameLog Entries

    lucem_ferre's Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)

    [January 13, 2008 11:31:02 PM]
    [Part 2 of 2.]

    It’s amazing how quickly you can get drawn into a game, so much so that seeing one of your characters get hit makes you reflexively cringe. On another note, I think a chocobo’s greatest weapon isn’t his beak, but the woeful doe-eyes he makes when you raise your hand for the killing stroke. I felt so terrible, but then he Cured both himself and another monster and that effectively slaughtered any mercy I had for him.

    The characters themselves haven’t gotten much more interesting. But having to consider where to attack from, deciding whether to heal yourself or slice an enemy with the one turn, which enemies you need to eliminate as quickly as possible (like those black mages), etc — you actually have to pay attention and plan ahead (and thanks to MarsDragon for the hint.) Being able to move around the battlefield rather than being stuck in place, as well as the wide variances within a single landscape, makes it more challenging but also more engaging. I admit I swore aloud a few times. However, at times I feel it’s too difficult, placing you against enemies too far above your own units’ levels; thus leading to lots of GAME OVER screens and frustrated tantrums. Whether this is a fault of the game or just me is debatable.

    (I was rather fascinated to find that when I paid for mercenary allies, I was much less likely to use Items on them in battle than on my original units. I’m not sure if this is a result of subtler game design or simply me playing favorites.)

    Haven’t yet gotten far enough to comment much on the storytelling or plot advancement itself. Overall, I’m loving the actual strategy necessary for battles, but not so thrilled about the odds I’m being tossed against without the gradual gain of EXP.

    I need to hug a chocobo, gosh darn it. (Although Cloud would do, in a pinch.)
    read comments (2) read comments - add a comment Add comment
    [January 11, 2008 09:37:48 PM]
    About the previous post for FFT: War/Lions -
    I'm sorry, I meant to say that playing this game doesn't require having played any of the previous related titles, such as the original Tactics or FFXII. It was supposed to have been made both for newbies and for old fans, which was something I appreciated about it. Sorry for being unclear and wording things rather strangely. :)
    add a comment Add comment
    [January 11, 2008 04:05:14 PM]
    [Part 1 of 2]

    Being a fangirl of the Final Fantasy titles, I started this game with a few assumptions in mind, some for the better, some for worse. It’s an RPG set during a particular time of the FFXII timeline called the “War of the Lions,” a battle for supremacy between two differing factions. Basically.

    Some cons:
    1. I’m sorry, but the dialogue is like a high school attempt at Shakespeare. It’s great that the writers were trying to match the language with the overall fantasy theme, but the result sounds incredibly stilted and made serious moments into hilarious ones.

    2. The characters are flat. Ramza (the main hero, thus far) is an earnest, brave knight-in-training…and that’s about all I know. But I’m not quite willing to pass judgment yet, since there’s still plenty of time to make him and his colleagues more interesting.

    3. Instead of having a free-moving camera during battle, it can only move certain ways, making it difficult to see that damn goblin behind the tall tree.

    4. What happened to the Random Battles ™? It used to take half an hour to get anywhere on the World Map, but at least it leveled you up quickly. Not so here; at least, not yet.

    Pros:
    1. The artwork of the cut-scenes is absolutely beautiful. I think I’ve watched the beginning six or seven times by now.

    2. You can assign different jobs to each character as you want. I can default and leave Ramza as a Squire, or I can turn him into a Mage, a Chemist, an Archer…and there’s a nice selection of choices (enough where I’m starting to panic and look for a cheat online.)

    3. The battles are turn-based rather than real-time, but is based on a point system rather than a predetermined turn pattern. So if your character can’t do anything productive on its turn, you can choose to [Wait], save that last 20/100 points, and then not have to sit around waiting for the battle to cycle through every other fighter/enemy. (I hope that makes sense. I don’t particularly pay attention to technical terms, so feel free to correct me on that.)

    4. It’s part of the FFXII universe. This game was designed for the people who have played the original PS2 game, but also those that haven’t. Since I haven’t gotten to FFXII yet, I appreciate that it has a rich back-story without leaving me lost in the dark.
    read comments (1) read comments - add a comment Add comment
     
    Status

    lucem_ferre's Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)

    Current Status: Playing

    GameLog started on: Thursday 10 January, 2008

    Opinion
    lucem_ferre's opinion and rating for this game

    No comment, yet.

    Rating (out of 5):starstarstarstarstar

    Related Links

    See lucem_ferre's page

    See info on Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

    More GameLogs
    other GameLogs for this Game

    This is the only GameLog for Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions.

     home

    games - logs - members - about - help - recent updates

    Copyright 2004-2014