Orlandu Broke Mah Game! Lets Play: Final Fantasy Tactics

[Terex4]

Having just re-re-re obtained a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics, I thought it would be fun to record and share my adventures in this old favorite.

For those not familiar with the game, its a Final Fantasy based strategy game that requires you to move your units around a map in order to position yourself for attacks rather than simply selecting attack/magic/item/etc. like a typical Final Fantasy.

There are many job classes available and the abilities of each can be mixed and matched together to create ridiculously silly and/or powerful characters.

With that out of the way I introduce the main character, Ramza, who in recent years has been slumming away in bars doing odd-jobs and perpetuating the rumor mill.

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/2844/ramzabar.th.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/688/ramzabar.png/)

I plan to do a balanced party of one male and female fighter and one male and female caster with Ramza probably being a melee type as well. I leave his name up to you guys and I'm willing to do an all fighter or all caster party if there's a demand for it.

[Bells]

Do you want to play it straight or do you want to break the game? I would strongly suggest keeping Ramza as a Squire/Monk. The perfect mix of Support role and Mid/Close damage class.

Also, just for fun, make your casters also learn status magic instead of the classic Black/White combo

And just putting a suggestion out there... you can play using the NPC's you'll get during the Story, and eventually they will naturally make 95% of your team the whole time.. or you can ditch them all and run a full custom party.

[Vauron]

Go with a full Oracle team

[Pip Boy]

Go with a full thief team

ftfy

[Specterbane]

Clearly what we need to see is the Amazing Jumping Dragoons!

Actually the answer is all of these suggestions.

[Terex4]

Do you want to play it straight or do you want to break the game? I would strongly suggest keeping Ramza as a Squire/Monk. The perfect mix of Support role and Mid/Close damage class.

Also, just for fun, make your casters also learn status magic instead of the classic Black/White combo

And just putting a suggestion out there... you can play using the NPC's you'll get during the Story, and eventually they will naturally make 95% of your team the whole time.. or you can ditch them all and run a full custom party.
I figured I'd leave that up to you guys.
Go with a full Oracle team
Go with a full thief team
Clearly what we need to see is the Amazing Jumping Dragoons!

Actually the answer is all of these suggestions.
So what we need is Oracles with steal (or vice versa) and ignore height.
Possibly two Oracles with steal and 3 with jump.

I actually do use status magic quite a bit so oracles sound like a lot of fun. I think I want to avoid using Orlandu though, but I'm not above stripping him naked and leaving him in Bethla Garrison.

[Pip Boy]

But full thief team is always the best way to go. The enemies can't attack you if they don't have weapons. Or spells. Or pants.

[Kerensky287]

Or pants.

Depends on the gender.

[Specterbane]

To be fair, a full Thief team means it makes sense when you strip random characters you get and leave them by the road to fend for themselves.

[Bells]

Well, if i may say so, the game should be fun for you to play. I would ditch every NPC (yes, even Mustadio and Orlandu) and have a Full Custom team, just for the hell of it.. i mean, there is still a ton of missions were you will have to use NPC characters anyways... but ditch them when you can.

As for your team, just for fun, make a Final Fantasy 1 Homage, make it a Full White Mage team (primary Job) and Secondary Job free.

[Terex4]

Thief is a class I tend to avoid so going that route might give me a new appreciation for them. I can give them a catchy bandit group name.

All white mages is actually really easy when you have chameleon robes and math skill. I am going to strip and ditch the npcs though.

We'll mix up the secondaries. I'm thinking yin yang/jump/item/guts/?

Edit: I went ahead and started up the game. I haven't earned many job levels yet so nothing is set in stone on the classes. Pictures will probably go up tomorrow (still contemplating resizing them or just swap tagging.)

[Magus]

Actually Ramza is good as a Squire/Monk early on but once you can learn Scream for him I suggest switching to Squire/Lancer (you can keep "Move HP Up" and stuff like that, that's up to you, but the Jump as his extra action) because once you master Jump and go into battle and use Scream like twice you can hit pretty much anybody on the map instantaneously for massive damage because it puts your speed up really high.

Really though he'll do well as Squire/Anything as long as you use Scream, Brave, etc.

EDIT: And Thief as a class is absolutely essential to a power game because that's how you 1. get awesome equipment and 2. make melee enemies useless for much more than punching you. Also any armor you steal will lower their HP and defense, as well.

ANOTHER EDIT: The only NPCs I bother to get rid of are Mulak and whats-her-name, they are quite useless. Even if you don't use them it's good to keep them around for secret missions and stuff...I think the only ones that are essential are Mustadio and Beowulf, though. I can't remember.

[Bells]

if you have second Job as Monk you can almost entirely ditch Item as a secondary skill.

Also, Geomancers can be fun, and i would cut out that class that can recruit enemies (forgot the name) just hire a bunch of Lvl 1 Guys early on and keep ditching people who want to join via story

[Magus]

Mediator has some nice non-action skills, though, might want to look into that (such as Equip Gun, I think they have the skill that lets you have Half MP as well, can't remember), but also some of the action skills can be useful, depending on what you're doing. It's not the greatest class, though.

Geomancers are not great, though, they seemed pretty worthless to me.

[Terex4]

I almost always do squire/monk for Ramza so I'm going to skip on that particular combo due to redundancy.

I'm most certainly going to have at least one fully trained thief. I typically just make my characters powerful enough to kill them outright or use the equipment breaks Meliadoul and Orlandu have.

Geomancers do sound fun. Maybe I'll run two thief/geos for shits and giggles.

Mediators are next to useless (the class that recruits monsters) but the idea of equipping a couple characters with guns sounds fun, especially if I'm stealing the elemental guns in Act 4.

Edit: Ninja'd on the equip gun. I believe its summoners that have the half mp support skill. Geomancers in numbers are actually rather potent because you get a 20% chance per casting of geomancy to inflict the negative status with no charge time. Oracle is a little nicer though because of the higher success rate and the choice of status to inflict.

[Bells]

Geomancers are only really good when you master them, it's a bit of a chore, really. But it's a fun class to play with

[Terex4]

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3239/32119188.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/508/32119188.png/)
And believe me, by the time we actually reach this point, it'll be warranted.

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/3598/49271700.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/695/49271700.png/)


http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/989/81315273.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/546/81315273.png/)


http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6390/28533041.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/199/28533041.png/)


http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9749/49643657.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/49643657.png/)

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8554/58018453.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/268/58018453.png/)


But who is Delita and why does he believe in abusing royalty? Next update: Chapter 1, Why Ramza is a merc, Delita is a Princess Puncher, and everyone hates Algus.

[Krylo]

You're all wrong. All you need is Samurai => Blade Grasp => Yell/Scream/Wtfever up your brave. Use mediator to fuck your faith into the ground. Win at everything ever.

Doesn't matter what else you do at that point. You are immune to damage.

[Magus]

I never bothered with Oracles for status stuff, I usually used Mustadio for Shoot Arm or Beowulf for all the other crap when I got him. I can see it being pretty useful, though.

I think I purposely avoided Blade Grasp because it made the game too easy, can't remember. Same reason I never used Orlandu after the first couple of times playing the game.

Did they "fix" Blade Grasp in the new remake because you could seriously avoid like, bullets with that if I remember correctly?

[Kerensky287]

Just a recommendation: either stop using swap tags, or put the picture in image tags rather than making them links. I'd like to be able to read the commentary after I've looked at the picture.

Also, did you really skip the entire opening battle already?

[Vauron]

Meh, its not that big a deal to skip the first fight. The only real lose is that there is dialogue that plays during it.

[Magus]

"HEY HE KIDNAPPED THE PRINCESS WE'RE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT!"

"BLAME YO'SELF OR GOD!"

"HEY I KNOW THAT DUDE HE'S MY BUD FROM TWO YEARS AGO!"

There I covered the entire opening scene for you.

(Not to give the impression I didn't like the opening scene, thought it was a pretty cool framing device...)

[Kerensky287]

" 'Tis your birth and faith that wrong you, not I!"

But my point was more that the opening's a great chance to shine the spotlight on basic game mechanics, introduce some of the characters, and bring out the start of the story. Y'know, like actually playing the game would do. Which is half the point of a Let's Play.

I mean that was something like 8 screenshots for what, 10-15 minutes of gameplay? Most of which was dialog and introduction?

[Terex4]

Truth be told, I've always felt the intro was rather weak. You control one character with next to no abilities and they don't really introduce any of the characters so yeah, I gave it a once over. The first chapter is a lot meatier in terms of story and game mechanics.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/6364/93099199.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/263/93099199.png/)

This is where we get our first actual glimpse at the story. We flashback to when Delita and Ramza were fresh recruits in the Gallione military.

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2152/39131472.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/191/39131472.png/)

Its a time of post war class trauma as the poor are left out on their collective asses while the nobility enjoys the spoils.

http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/5778/39538053.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/39538053.png/)

I don't think our hero quite realizes that robbery and murder are going to be his main activities for the next 4 chapters.

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5443/21432702.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/199/21432702.png/)

The game officially begins! Chapter 1 is where we actually learn a thing or two about the game and characters are given a proper introduction.

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/9536/54004682.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/54004682.png/)

We are given our first orders. A band of thieves has infiltrated the city and its our job to take them out.

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/626/97617301.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/192/97617301.png/)

What the game fails to tell you is that the other people standing around in the previous scene are with you. This is the formation screen where you place your units for the coming battle. This was my army the first couple times I ever played this game.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7935/96941009.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/8/96941009.png/)

This is much better. We got some decent choices for units (they are randomly generated) except for the guy up front, he kinda sucks.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8642/13803240.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/13803240.png/)

Here is the premise of the fight. We are the last roadblock to freedom for these poor soon-to-be corpses.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5249/92516946.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/92516946.png/)

This is a basic attack. We're all first level nobodies so nothing flashy yet.

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/8797/50357697.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/801/50357697.png/)

Often times there is dialogue in story battles. This is one of Ramza's more memorable quotes.

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/6512/55309126.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/55309126.png/)

When moving your units around the field, the areas your unit can reach are highlighted in blue.

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/3325/38350346.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/38350346.png/)

The oath to "do no harm" hasn't been invented yet, so don't be afraid to let your medics draw a little blood here and there.

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/8972/17561131.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/17561131.png/)

The best thing about Final Fantasy Tactics is your attacks are laid out for you. Here we've selected a normal attack, and the game tells us we have a 100% chance to strike with an expected 16 points of damage. The numbers over the dead guys are a countdown timer. When it expires, they turn into a crystal or treasure chest and its permanent game over for that unit. Don't let that happen to your guys!

http://img852.imageshack.us/img852/7871/39924836.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/852/39924836.png/)

Every time a unit completes a successful action, they gain experience and job points. This enemy would have a bright future as a knight or archer if I hadn't killed her the following round.

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/5954/60879133.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/200/60879133.png/)

My chemist took a few hits, time to drink up. And yes, his name was randomly generated as Ziggy.

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/8996/55977649.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/809/55977649.png/)

With the final blow dealt, the battle is complete.

http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/4479/47354940.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/860/47354940.png/)

Time to steal their stuff. To the victor goes the spoils!

I'll be more mindful of capturing dialogue from here on.

[TDK]

...Ziggy. XD