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LttP: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

Fou-Lu

Member
I bought this game when it first came out, and I rented the original several times on PSX when I was younger, yet I've never actually got past the first few battles. For some reason the job system really intimidates me, usually I love job systems, but it just seems like this game has way to much to think about for every single character.

However; since I have it on my Vita I think it's about time I actually play it, I love Tactics RPGs, (Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Vanguard Bandits, Disgaea, etc. are some of my favorite games) and I am a huge fan of FF job systems in traditional RPGs, so this game really should be for me.

Just started the game up and I'm already stuck on wondering if the choice of my own Zodiac sign actually matters. :p
 
Never could get into this like I could Advance and A2. Had an incredibly difficult time with early-game battles, even after tons of attempted grinding. Way too frustrating for me.

It's a shame, as I love everything about the game except the actual act of playing the game. >.>
 

Bladenic

Member
Never could get into this like I could Advance and A2. Had an incredibly difficult time with early-game battles, even after tons of attempted grinding. Way too frustrating for me.

It's a shame, as I love everything about the game except the actual act of playing the game. >.>

This, pretty sure I never got past chapter 2. SRPGs aren't my thing, though I loved A2 and played like close to 300 missions.
 
I bought this game when it first came out, and I rented the original several times on PSX when I was younger, yet I've never actually got past the first few battles. For some reason the job system really intimidates me, usually I love job systems, but it just seems like this game has way to much to think about for every single character.

However; since I have it on my Vita I think it's about time I actually play it, I love Tactics RPGs, (Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Vanguard Bandits, Disgaea, etc. are some of my favorite games) and I am a huge fan of FF job systems in traditional RPGs, so this game really should be for me.

Just started the game up and I'm already stuck on wondering if the choice of my own Zodiac sign actually matters. :p

Your choice of Zodiac has a very very small effect on the game, don't worry about it.
 
I never could get into FF Tactics for some reason, although I have tried many times. I was actually just playing it last night on Vita and was having fun though. So maybe it will click with me. Overall I just it frustrating for some reason.

Tactics Advance though, I played to death and loved it. Surprising because so many people say it's garbage. I just found it to be a lot more fun.
 

Croc

Banned
I've never played War of the Lions but I just started playing A2 on my 3DS just yesterday. I tried once before and just how you said with WotL, this was really intimidating to go into without previous knowledge.

I'm really loving it so far though and I will hopefully get around to playing most of it if not finishing it.
 
My favorite FF game.(dat Delita)

They need to make another game like Tactics Ogre/FF Tactics, didn't really care for FF Tactics' two sequels.
 

Skilletor

Member
FFT is awesome. One of the best games ever.

Didn't care for A1 at all, but A2 was great. Didn't care for for the characters/world/story as much as FFT, but I did appreciate the advancements in gameplay. FFT starts to feel long in the tooth if you've played recent SRPGS.
 

Fou-Lu

Member
Just remember to get the auto-potion skill from the chemist job for everyone you use. It's a game changer.

See, this kind of stuff, I have no idea what I should be making my characters learn! Oh well, I'll just jump in head first then.

Everyone mentioning Tactics Advance, I also played the hell out of that game!
 
See, this kind of stuff, I have no idea what I should be making my characters learn! Oh well, I'll just jump in head first then.

Everyone mentioning Tactics Advance, I also played the hell out of that game!

Starting out for Squires I have them learn the Extra JP skill and move +1.

Chemists, auto-potion is pretty good, but I rarely ever used it personally. There are better reaction abilities out there (although depending on how you level your main character, auto-potion could be a necessity for him).
 

Cyrano

Member
I bought this game when it first came out, and I rented the original several times on PSX when I was younger, yet I've never actually got past the first few battles. For some reason the job system really intimidates me, usually I love job systems, but it just seems like this game has way to much to think about for every single character.

However; since I have it on my Vita I think it's about time I actually play it, I love Tactics RPGs, (Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Vanguard Bandits, Disgaea, etc. are some of my favorite games) and I am a huge fan of FF job systems in traditional RPGs, so this game really should be for me.

Just started the game up and I'm already stuck on wondering if the choice of my own Zodiac sign actually matters. :p
Man, if you think FFTactics is complicated, you should try Ogre Battle (don't cheat and use a FAQ either).
 

Vamphuntr

Member
I replayed the original PSX version last week. I had fun but this game really aged.

I wouldn't worry too much about your zodiac sign. On the other hand, you should worry about bravery and faith as they affect the % rate of skill triggering and magic effects/damage.

Best skill to use early on for physical attacker is counter (monk) which you can upgrade to Hamedo (also monk) or the samurai skill that makes you evade physical attacks.

If you have issues beating human NPCs, have someone use the Golem Summon spell since it makes you immunes to 3-4 physical attacks. If you cast it with the same character each turn you are immune to everything except magic and monsters skills. Really good to use when there's a lot of archers since you are immune until your units with high movement can dispatch them.

Ninja are really strong since they give you the Equip two weapon ability you then can use on Knights and Samurais.
 
I love the story to this game, but don't like the gameplay at all. I've tried to play this game so many times and I feel like the more years it takes for me to even complete this game the more I dislike it. A real shame about the gameplay.
 
See, this kind of stuff, I have no idea what I should be making my characters learn! Oh well, I'll just jump in head first then.

Everyone mentioning Tactics Advance, I also played the hell out of that game!
When I originally played the game about a decade ago I ragequit out of it at around the start of the second chapter. Knowing what I know now if I had something to tell my past self, I would tell myself about auto-potions, and that character levels aren't super significant. Your gear and skills plays a higher role than the stats you gain from leveling. From there, you really can just feel the game out and experiment or play with a party composition that feels right. You eventually get plot characters in your party that make coasting through the story pretty easy, so it's not hard once you get some momentum going.
 
Fun fact: I wrote the first FFT FAQ ever released on GameFAQs (which might make it the first FFT FAQ ever), shortly after its Japanese release.
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/final_fantasy_tactics_a.txt
Had to slice it into several parts because the Japanese word processor I had access to couldn't handle files larger than a few Kb. This was fifteen years ago, after all.

Of course, it uses an ancient Japanese encoding that makes it doubly useless now. :D
 

ascii42

Member
I've had this for a couple years. Maybe one of these days I'll actually play more than the first couple battles.
 

kswiston

Member
I started WOTL for the first time a couple of weeks ago as well. However I have beaten the original version a bunch of times.

Never could get into this like I could Advance and A2. Had an incredibly difficult time with early-game battles, even after tons of attempted grinding. Way too frustrating for me.

It's a shame, as I love everything about the game except the actual act of playing the game. >.>

This, pretty sure I never got past chapter 2. SRPGs aren't my thing, though I loved A2 and played like close to 300 missions.

Final Fantasy Tactics is more difficult than either of the Advance versions, however it is far from possible. You do need to come up with more advanced strategies than, "charge all your high level characters into the middle of the battle" though.

Some newbie tips:

Every character should spend time as a Squire and a Chemist at the beginning of the game. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is changing your party members into knights, mages, etc too early.

Squires have some of the most useful abilities in the game:
- Your first priority should be learning Focus. EVERY CHARACTER should learn focus. It boosts your attack by 1, and allows your members to earn exp and JP on turns where they are unable to attack or cast spells. Sitting back and letting the enemy come to you while you cast focus a couple of times will make your team a lot stronger regardless of their level (note that this strategy doesn't apply to maps where black mages/summoners/or archers start close to your party). When I finally promote my units to more advanced classes, I often equip the squire skills as their secondary job skill type since focus is so useful.
- After Focus, your next priority should be learning JP boost. jp boost will give you something like 1.5x the JP from every action. At the highest levels, this results in over 40 JP per turn and is crucial to mastering the magic classes, which often require 6000-9000 JP to learn every skill. Every character you have should have JP boost equiped at all times. At least until the later portions of the game. The only exception to this is with Ninjas. I find that equip sword, and the attack boost it gives you (especially before ninja blades are available to buy) is worth earning less JP.
- Early in the game Move +1 and Counter Tackle (or whatever it is called) are useful skills, but they are superceded by Thief and Monk skills later on.

Chemists are the only class that can throw items without equiping a skill. They also have a very useful counter skill.
- All support and magic characters should have auto potion. Auto potion gives your character a chance to consume a potion every time they are attacked. In the original Final Fantasy Tactics, I think you need to learn how to use potions, hi-potions and x-potions before they were available as auto potions, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. You may want to choose counter attack over auto potion for your armored classes that can take a few hits, but auto-potion is a lifesaver for squishy units. One last thing. I believe that your units will use whatever is the lowest powered potion in your inventory when activating the auto potion skill, so sell off all of your regular potions when you can afford hi-potions (and those hi-potions when x-potions are available).

Don't restrict characters to a single class. It is better to learn the best skills from several classes, then spending the time mastering them all. You only need to level the secondary classes (White Mage, Black Mage, Knight, and Archer) to level 3-5 to unlock advance classes that use them as a pre-requisite (the exception being Dark Knights that require a masted Knight and Black Mage job, and are really an endgame goal). EDIT: I wanted to mention that it IS worth mastering black and white mages. Just not necessarily right off the bat.

Make Ramza a super hero. If you underlevel Ramza, you are going to have serious problems beating several maps. I typically make my Ramza a Ninja, with equip sword (knight skill that you should get in the process of unlocking monks), ignore height (dragoon skill), and auto potion. Ramza has additional Squire skills that unlock as the game progresses, so Squire abilities are a useful secondary skill set for him.
 
Thanks, kswiston that is really helpful, any tips on how to build Ramza?

Ramza's squire role is unique and you'll probably keep him in that for the majority of the game. You'll only need to get him a few abilities from other classes like dual wield from the ninja.
 

Nert

Member
Final Fantasy Tactics is easily my favorite Final Fantasy game. I loved the plot, the setting, the music, the art and the job system... oh man, that job system. If you play it enough, you'll probably end up breaking it and coasting through the endgame
Orlandu, Calculators
, but it does have a steep learning curve.

I've played the original game at least four times now, but I never picked up War of the Lions. Is the new content included there enough to make up for some of the glitches that I heard about (like slowdown during spell effects)?

Edit: Easy mode for Ramza: Have him spam his special Squire ability "Yell" (or Tailwind, I forget what it's called) repeatedly until he can take multiple turns in a row. There are a small number of fights in the game where Ramza has to go it alone, and if you can evade your opponent long enough to get a few yells in, you will win pretty easily. It's also the easiest way for him to build JP.

Ninja is also a good class for him to pursue. Yell + Dual Wield is insane.
 

kswiston

Member
Thanks, kswiston that is really helpful, any tips on how to build Ramza?

See my edit. Aim for making him a Ninja sooner rather than later. This usually happens in Chapter 2 without excessive grinding, but you could obviously do it before that depending on how many optional fights you get into.

Ramza's squire role is unique and you'll probably keep him in that for the majority of the game. You'll only need to get him a few abilities from other classes like dual wield from the ninja.

I like keeping him a ninja for the extra speed, but I could see preferring some more life instead. You either going to end up making him a ninja with sword and squire skills or a squire with double attack skill. I like that ninja have ranged attack as well via throw.
 
See my edit. Aim for making him a Ninja sooner rather than later. This usually happens in Chapter 2 without excessive grinding, but you could obviously do it before that depending on how many optional fights you get into.



I like keeping him a ninja for the extra speed, but I could see preferring some more life instead. You either going to end up making him a ninja with sword and squire skills or a squire with double attack skill. I like that ninja have ranged attack as well via throw.

I usually have one of my generics go Ninja so I like to have Ramza go for the bulkier squire
 

kswiston

Member
I usually have one of my generics go Ninja so I like to have Ramza go for the bulkier squire

Fair enough. By the end of the game I typically have 3 special units, Ramza, and an uber mage (black mage with arithmatic and most of the useful white/time/oracle/etc skills), so I don't have room for a separate ninja.
 
Fun fact: I wrote the first FFT FAQ ever released on GameFAQs (which might make it the first FFT FAQ ever), shortly after its Japanese release.
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/final_fantasy_tactics_a.txt
Had to slice it into several parts because the Japanese word processor I had access to couldn't handle files larger than a few Kb. This was fifteen years ago, after all.

Of course, it uses an ancient Japanese encoding that makes it doubly useless now. :D
Wow they're so old there is no date added for them on the FAQ page.

For anyone playing the game on a PSP or a Vita running 6.60 TN-A or TN-B, don't forget about this!

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=465744
I came to post that (its a slowdown removal patch for those of you not clicking). Theres been an update though.

But yeah might have been caused by the usual Tose quality coding at work. Apparently it was a two byte fix (making it seem intentional) but finding those bytes was a hell of a journey.
 

gate777

Member
Amazing game. I've played through it at least 6 times, both on PSX and the PSP remake. Excellent Job system, on par to the Materia system.

Never, ever attack enemies that have shields, high evade rate from the front. Always maneuver to the back if possible and the higher up you're attacking from, the better.

This game will kick your ass the first time through, but it's amazing. It's a shame a true sequel was never released.
 

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
Bought this when it came out for the PSP, slowdown was horrendous and I must have played it for 20 minutes before I stopped caring. I really wanted to get into it as I loved the Tactics Advance games, but it just wasn't a good enough gameplay experience for me.

It's on iOS right? Does that version have the same problems?
 
Bought this when it came out for the PSP, slowdown was horrendous and I must have played it for 20 minutes before I stopped caring. I really wanted to get into it as I loved the Tactics Advance games, but it just wasn't a good enough gameplay experience for me.

It's on iOS right? Does that version have the same problems?

The slowdown in the ipad version is minimal
 

Shahed

Member
Just impulse bought this recently I had like $12 in my US account and didn't know what to spend it on. I wanted to use it since I don't really need the account anymore and planned to effectively retire it

It seemed fitting I get this though since this is the only Final Fantasy I haven't really played.
 
I beat this as a kid many times somehow, and I have no idea how. I haven't beaten it since on the PSP version. It's so sad that I am stuck on Wiegraf, haha. Surprisingly, I still remember most of the story, but it's embarrassing that I can't beat it anymore.

I really should give it another chance one of these days.
 
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