What is with Final Fantasy Tactics?

[malestrithe]

Yea. I spent about 50 hours grinding out my core 6 characters to level 99 the first time I played it. It did not make the game super easy. It just made it easier to complete. No matter how much prep work there is, any group with 3 or more chocobos will kill your party, especially at level 99.

 

[KhaoticOne]

Until you get used to the game, you just gotta play a bit more passively especially in the first chapter. So peck enemies (throw stone) and let them come to you, then gang on them or be in a better positions than they are (they can only hit you from the front).

So you may want to use classes that are less dependent on gear (monks) since there will be no good ones for sale. Random Encounters Levels scaled on your average Party (everybody not just the 5-6 in battle) so account for that. While Story-Line battles have a fixed level and they will become easy if your over-leveled/OP jobs.

The game does play a bit differently from Fire Emblem and others but you will get the hang of it once you give it another shot. Likes other had said its rewarding and does require you to adjust (equip/abilities/etc) everything while controlling the battlefield.

 

[Elidibus]

I'm sorry, but I just have to pop in and say something. I hate to sound like a jerk, but it seems a lot of people think that FFT for the PSone was hard? Really? That game was a breeze once you got some skills. Blade grasp pwned everything save for black and red chocos. And of those, only the black ones did any damage. But their HP is so low, you can one shot them easily with short charged bolt 3 or something.

True, it did have it's moments. Velius made me start over the entire game. And The rooftop to Riovanes is just broken. I game overed before I even got a chance to move my units!

But really? FFT hard?

Now, if you want hard, google FFT 1.3. That patch is from hell. Literally. All the broken abilities are removed (Say good bye to gained JP up and blade grasp) and enemies are actually equipped with awesome stuff and have awesome skills. ATT up ninjas one shotting your army before you move? Check. Monsters that will give you a game over? Check. Bosses using sword skills with innate Att up Def up Concentrate and Maintenence? Check.

Seriously. That patch will kill you and enjoy doing it. Enemy chemists spam elixirs before the end of chapter one. New random battles have things like enemy dark knights, enemy engineers and enemy divine knights. All of them generic people.

And let's not mention the side quests. Colliery underground? Hell, I can't get past the first stage with 10 holy knights one shotting me with stasis sword.

And then there's Kanbabrif...The people who made this made sure you have a very small chance of meeting him each time you get a random fight. Pray that you don't. And save after EVERY fight. Don't finish a chapter like I did and fight this lone guy and think you stand a chance. You don't. He is the Juggernaut *****. He will smack you, Charles. He will smack you with Charles!

 

[TrevHead]

I emulated the PS1 version a while back, I didn't get that far into the game but I found it to be really easy.

Maybe the OP should try emulating Warsong and the Langrisser games. For the most part they are quite easy to beat Warsong and Der Langrisser, you just have to maximise your characters XP growth and don't lose any characters as once they are gone they are gone for good, the games have a single save state built into the game also. Also try the Shining Force series.

But saying that many TRPGs require the player to make sure all their characters gain enough XP so they don't get underpowered, especially as many have set stages so the player can't grind away slimes / rats like in a normal JRPG.

I havn't played the FFT WOTL (PSP?) but maybe the OP is falling down the easy TRPG pitfall of just using his strongest character to dispatch enemies and not milking XP and creating an ballanced army. Also reading something like a FAQ will help a great deal.

This is the most unwelcoming game I've ever seen; even IWBTG was friendlier in that it at least tells you first how badly it will murder you from the start. What exactly is the design philosophy here? I hear it gets better 10-20 hours in, but I don't see the point in torturing myself for 10-20 hours to be allowed to enjoy a game.

I tend to see this complaint quite often when ppl talk about difficulty usually when hating on oldschool games off as unfair. But the thing is, is that there are different types of difficulty especially when it comes to oldschool games. IIRC IWBTG is all about having good twitch skills and rote memorisation, much of the game is just about learing from your deaths until you get to the next closly spaced together checkpoint. Compared to your normal run of the mill modern platformer like Super Meatboy, IWBTG is extreame in what it does but it's still the same thing.

However oldschool / nintendohard games arn't usually quite as simple, many games require the player to do their homework instead of just relying on the tutorial section as there are usually other deeper mechanics at play which the player needs to understand so they can form strategies around them and abuse them to make the play easier.

IMO many morden indie gamers don't understand this when they play older games, which makes them seem unfair or broken, while the fact is there are nintendo hard games out there with badly ballanced difficulty that are overly cheap (especially US made games and localisations of Japanese arcade games (thats why its best to play the Japanese originals in MAME)), there are many great games that just require unique srategies to excel at them.

For example the arcade shmup Gradius looks retardedly unfair for anyone wanting to beat it in a single credit. However once the player understands how the game ticks and understands that they need to collect every power up early in the game plus always have a shield running with another always ready to replace. Knowing that allows the game to be beatable by mere mortals such as me.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

The first FF Tactics game that I played was A2 for the DS.

I'll agree that there are tutorial stages and the first fights might be difficult, but I soon realized that I had the difficulty set to Hard rather than Normal (which mattered because I was a beginner). It's not any easier, but at least the enemy units are not overly powerful that they can kill you in one hit.

I say that you should continue playing it until you get a hang of the mechanics of the genre.

 

[Ryotknife]

FFT is really hard the first time you play it, but pretty easy on the second try. It is the only RPG game where me and my friends had to start over halfway through the game because our party could never get past a boss.

Oh, piece of advice, get a fast hard hitting unit pronto. It will save you some grief. It is not unusual to get into a fight where you have to protect X person who dies before you get a single turn.

While ive only played the GBA fire emblem games, FFT is harder skill wise. Fire emblem depends on luck mostly rather than skill, and i have terrible luck.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

You think THAT's hard in FFT? Wait till you get to the bosses! I'm stuck at the second big boss, thanks to the game forcing me into that fight after coming out of a 1-on-1.

Ahhhh, Wiegraf. Yeah, he is a pain right in the keester - and arguably the most difficult fight in the game - until you get to a certain point where the fight, itself, becomes LOLsauce. During the 1v1 portion of the fight, spam Ramza's speed increasing move. Heal yourself when needed and generally keep away from Wiegraf until your ATs outpace his by at least a ratio of 2 to 1. Then, start increasing your attack stat (Remember that Ramza has to have his Squire abilities for this particular strategy to work) and keep away from him until you have the means to one shot him. I would suggest that Ramza be a Squire with the Two Swords ability from the Ninja Job Class so that he has the offensive potential to one shot Wiegraf in the 1v1, all the while having the Item secondary action set to heal himself.

The rest of the fight becomes gravy.

 

[galdon2004]

Somebody want to call the Whaaambulance?

You do not know what a difficulty curb is do you?

The whole tutorial nothing more than a giant book on game mechanics that you can't even access during battle when you might see something you have a question about. Expecting a player to memorize a book before even starting to play is ridiculous. Personally, I am more of a hands on learner. reading something in text is NOTHING like experiencing it first hand. That is why most games have a tutorial integrated into the gameplay.

Good game design is starting at an accessible difficulty and going upwards until you reach the difficulty you want the game to have. This gives the player time to learn the game so they can use what they learned to keep going. Starting off pretending the player should be an expert at the game just because they read a book about it is bad design.

At least the other people here are trying to be productive and helpful; after your opening statement I'm not inclined to listen to any advice you have.

 

[xplosive59]

I do not find FFT hard at all for the most part, there are some really really frustrating parts (fuck Wiegraf). Its very forgiving compared to the original Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together which is alot harder.

FFT is one of my all time favourite games though.

Oh, and when you get Orlandu (Cid) the game becomes piss easy.

 

[Tsaba]

you think it's hard now? just wait till you meet these guys, they can make or break you

 

[teknoarcanist]

Tactics is a game from another era. Namely, one in which making a really good game was paramount, with teaching people to play it a vague secondary objective. You wanted to make a great game that was going to garner word-of-mouth and, when some ten year old bought it as his only game for the next three months, would keep him sufficiently engaged.
Much like Dark Souls or Dwarf Fortress, I can forgive the obtuse difficulty and lack of proper conveyance because once you stick your head under the game's surface, you realize the water is seriously deep.

 

[unoleian]

Actually, I don't have a problem with bosses that can kick you butt. If a boss in a strategy game gave me a hell of a time, it makes sense logically because he is a tough important enemy that will take a lot of effort to defeat. What has me so frustrated is that even a piddly random encounter requires you to bring your A game and can take such a long time. an hour and a half is insane considering I can't even save the game and put it down a while if I have to go do something.


@Krazykidd: I don't mean that I step forward and am still out of range; I mean I step forward, to get in range and the hidden mechanic goes off that says that I can't throw the potion from the spot I landed on. Sometimes, there isn't even anything that I can see that would obstruct the potion from being thrown but I get 00% accuracy, and cannot move someplace else to try again til next turn.

The game starts with a hell of a learning curve, but it evens out a couple hours in. Encounters are tough early on when everyone is weak, but get a few exp levels under your main parties belt, and focus on JP-earning actions and build some skill sets, and things will even out rather quickly. Recommend taking an hour or so at the start before the Magic City Gariland fight to grind a handful of encounters, and your game will start to get a little easier after that point. You may have to back off from story progression and grind more at a few other points, but the game will at least introduce systems that makes grinding a rewarding practice for much more than just xp.

Play the tutorial, and you will understand why the 0% accuracy happens. Potions and guns operate in a straight line. If you draw a line to trace your throw, and there is any object in an adjacent square to your shot/throw, or terrain even .5 step high (IIRC) in front of your shot/throw (unless the target is higher), you cannot make the throw or shot, and you lose one unit of range for every unit of height you're trying to throw upward toward. Play enough, and you will get a feel for how all the mechanics inter-relate, and you will find yourself picking bad placements much, much less often.

Actually, as a good bit of advice, make those bad 0% accuracy throws, and you'll see whoever catches the potion before its intended target, or it'll disappear when it hits the environment. Throw away a potion now and again to get a feel for why your shot was blocked. It helps.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Whoever told you FFtactics was forgiving lied to you, it has some pretty brutal difficulty. My advice is learn to love levelling, because until you get Orlandu the game is pretty damn tough.

 

[WoW Killer]

Oh, and when you get Orlandu (Cid) the game becomes piss easy.

Haha, yeah, he was broken.

It's one of my favourite all time games too, but it does have major balance issues. The start was indeed quite difficult, and you could break a playthrough by over levelling. But then at the same time there were a good number of laughably overpowered strategies. It's not just Cid. Beowulf was broken. Reis was broken. Anybody with Excalibur was broken. Calculators were broken. Dancers with Vanish were broken. That Samurai counter skill was broken. Max bravery was broken. Zero faith was broken. And those Dark Knights they put in for the remake, they were broken as hell too.

 

[Reyold]

If you want something more forgiving, FFT Advance is out there, though the Law system in that cheeses me off to no end. At least FFTA2 leaves a reminder on the top screen of the DS.

While I'll be the first to admit it's the only entry I've played in the series, FFTA2 was, IMO, one of the best games I've played. Get it if you can.

I will say that, yeah, sometimes the Law system is a pain.

 

[Yosato]

Huh, I had the PSP remake and it was one of my favourite games on the system; I never even played the original. Yeah the inability to undo moves is annoying, but it's all about trial and error. By a certain point you'll have unconsciously remembered how far all of your best units can move/attack/jump/throw an item.

 

[scw55]

I have no time for a game where you spend effort training and gearing up a unit, to then have it killed for ever.