Duke Revier's Grand Game Emporium

  Act 3 opens with a somber discussion in Goltana's court - the war hasn't gone well. Both sides have suffered huge casualties, people everywhere are dying from a drought and a flood, and there are many destitute refugees flooding the capital itself in search of shelter. Orlandu, one of Goltana's nobles, and the only noble sympathizing with the populace's woes, pleads for him to end the war, but the latter is in no mood to listen. It would seem he's hell bent on seeing Dycedarg's faction defeated, even if it'd cost the fortunes of the kingdom. Revier himself sets out for the imperial capital, hoping to meet his brother Zalbag and get him to stop the war somehow. However, he runs into a haggle of brigands hassling a young man on the way! This leads to a really bizarre  fight, where the man, allegedly of the astrologer class, single handedly debilitates all the brigands into uselessness with a global aoe! Ummm....alright....Needless to say, the battle was a sw...

 Since I am halfway through Final Fantasy Tactics, I feel compelled to write about its class system, and compare it to how its predecessor, Tactics Ogre, handled the mechanic. Obviously, I should clarify that I've clearly not reached the "end" of the former's class tree, and my opinion could change in light of new revelations. But, having seen a fair share of this game's classes, and how they work in practice. I feel qualified enough to write this piece. Final Fantasy Tactics Classes, In A Nutshell The basic mechanics behind the class system are deeply layered, yet simultaneously oddly simple. Each character, barring certain special characters, starts out either in a basic fighter class (Squire) or a basic healer class (Chemist). Progression from these starting points is obtained in one of two ways: In the first, the player expends skillpoints to unlock skills from the class' skillset. Skills, broadly speaking, come in four types: a. Active skills, skills that...

  (Image of the demonic cardinal inflicting a death clock on everyone under his fixed AI in the PSP version) So I mentioned that I'd be playing the PSP port. Well, I ended up doing it alongside my current playthrough of the PS1 original. It's a pretty good experience, it's the base game but with some decent quality of life features, a brand new translation, some minor visual upgrades, animated and voiced cutscenes and of course, brand new content. What's immediately noticeable is how the AI is much more aggressive, being willing to hurt its own allies as long as it can do significant damage or kill an enemy or two. The new translation is enjoyable, and has some pretty good lines sprinkled throughout. I was dreading that it would be exceptionally stilted, having had poor experiences with the similar looking translation for Tactics Ogre's PSP remake, but thankfully that isn't the case, aside from a few lines that try too hard to be Shakespearean. ​ The three main ...

  Revier, the protagonist, had finally unlocked Chakra, which meant he was free to sample other jobs! Yay! Doing so however revealed a rather silly trait of the class system - many of the class unlocks made no damn sense! To demonstrate, here's what the paths for all the classes so far looked like. Squire →Knight→Monk→Geomancer (!) Squire→Archer→Thief→Lancer (??) Chemist→White Mage→Oracle (???) Chemist→Black Mage→Time Mage (?!?!) Yeah, uhhh...I can't make head or tail out of those progression paths at all! It seems like they tried to mesh the class system of Final Fantasy 5 with the linear class progression of Tactics Ogre, except Tactics Ogre had linear progression because the later classes were meant to be upgrades  (or, at the very least, considerable sidegrades)! That aside, I considered making Revier a lancer, but with no spears available, there wasn't much point to it. Instead, he'd just go back to donning a knight's garb, with Chakra keeping him topped off an...

My knight had finally acquired enough skill points to get the armor breaking move, so I purchased it and turned him into an archer. Let's see how well he fares! Ovelia has a brief, inconsequential moment where she regrets that people are fighting and dying for her, and that she's hunted for her status as royalty. She briefly mentions being friends with the protagonist's sister, and before they leave for Lionel the protagonist attempts to cheer her up a little by teaching her how to play the reed flute. Lol. Anyhow, the team continued journeying towards Lionel Castle, the church's capital in the region. They were again waylaid by the brigands pursuing the young archeologist, where they quickly learnt of a new, terrifying weapon in their employ. Summons. These were the second level magic spells made to cover a much larger area, and the classes summoning them were quite well protected, with a formidable and hefty force holding the hill overlooking them. I was stumped for a...

Ramza's team, or rather, Gafgarion and the holy knight Agrias' team decide to pursue the princess' kidnapper. On their way back however, they are ambushed by a large group of assassins hired by a shady man. These assassins prove to be quite tough, and indeed, the battle ends up being a bloodbath, thanks to the two enemy wizards getting extremely advantageous positions. Were it not for the presence of the dark knight and holy knight, Ramza would've been completely and utterly annihilated here. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest; just look at all those bodies on the ground! Sheesh! The next battle was a fairly uneventful one, only involving rescuing a chocobo from many a goblin. Goblins were weak and frail enemies, and as such the encounter was quite the step down. But then came the encounter after, where they finally caught up to Delita and the princess: It turns out they had been ambushed by the protagonist's brothers' forces themselves, who wanted to kil...