The Zen of Final Fantasy Tactics

It’s a story of love. It’s a story of betrayal. It’s a story of class warfare. It’s a classic story that has stood the test of time for thirty years. Final Fantasy Tactics stands as not just one of the best Final Fantasy games, but one of the best tactical RPGs ever produced.

Watching me play, though, you might think FFT is the story of a young knight, Ramza, who goes to a rocky field each day, fights what he finds there, then leaves just to come back the next day, again and again. Sometimes he’ll change clothes.

FFT for most people is a game where every fight is won or lost by the skin of their teeth. For me, it’s a game where I have overprepared so much that I cannot lose. I hate losing.

For the first several hours, I was leveling up Ramza’s Squire job, until he got almost every ability from it. He was in the company of four NPCs, who would also be learning to be squires or chemists, because there is a bonus to job experience if team members share a job. By the end, everyone had the squire support ability JP boost, giving everyone extra job points, and all the melees had Focus. Focus lets the unit charge up their physical attack power. More importantly, it gives them experience, so that if they have nothing else to do, they can focus so that every turn is an experience turn.

Kasul was shocked when I finally started working on the main story.

But! There was a reason, and that reason has a name, and that name is Agrias.

Agrias, along with Cid Orlandeau and Mustadio, is one of the few named characters that can permanently join your team. She is a powerful knight with some unique skills, and is worth recruiting early. I noticed I was grinding levels so fast that Agrias, when I did get her, would be seriously under leveled. I love the grind, but grinding would be better with Agrias there to help. Besides, if I remember right, there’s at least one battle where you have to field two separate teams, and I’m going to need her to head up Team #2.

But when traveling around the map, I can’t help but spend some time in every battlefield I pass. It’s the only time when I can chance going to Auto Battle and just watching the army relaxing with nothing to occupy them besides killing meanies, gaining job points, and looking forward to their next class.

In the screen above, Ramza and the female unit to the left are both monks. They share jobs to give each other that small JP boost. They will be headed for Geomancer once I get a few more Monk abilities unlocked. Ramza always heads for Ninja, and I imagine I’ll end up there again this playthrough.

The thief next to Ramza is probably destined to become a Mime, so he’s doing odd jobs until that happens for him. He has balanced Faith and Bravery, so he’ll still be useful once he swaps over to the magic tree.

The Orator has subclass White Mage, so she’s my healer and can occasionally convince opponents that they want to join my errand-running crew. The Time Mage has subclass Black Mage, and is my main debuffer / magical attacker. They’re both just working through the tree. The male mage will be heading back to BLM at some point, and the female mage will be heading back to CHM. I’m hoping they will have some Dancer and Arithmetician abilities when they do. They both have the Chemist reaction ability Auto Potion, so usually they can take a hit.

Anyway. Agrias is now a guest unit; just a little more plot until she joins permanently, and then back to the Zen. Find a nice place to play. Set them free. Like cattle grazing, that’s my FFT team.

Oh yeah. The voice acting is phenomenal. They kept the famous dialog bits. I now know how to pronounce “Ivalice”. Graphics are great. QOL changes are great. But in the end, all I really need are two cities with a battlefield between them I can grind in.