I doubt I'm alone in this, but it took me a while to get the hang of Final Fantasy Tactics. It's complicated! There are over a billionty jobs to do, and you accrue both XP (which is short for 'xplosions) and JP, which is a form of magical currency that only exists in Norway (magic Norway).

(Note: MASSIVE SPOILERS for, like, the first couple of missions of the game.)



For those used to having their hands held, their heads patted, and their milk microwaved, Tactics can be pretty intimidating. Instead of having characters handed to you on cookie sheets with nice labels like "THIS ONE'S A WHITE MAGE, IT CAN HEAL STUFF" the game actually expects you to make your own cookies. Which, in the end, is better, because you can put your own brand of cinnamon into your Ninja to make him/her taste yummy.



This game is about food.

Anyway, the game begins with Ramza and best buddy Delita are at videogame-hero school, when bad guys start doing something-something somewhere, and you go out and kill them. Your next little enemy-killing thing happens at the next place you go, where you encounter Professional Jerkface Argath facing off against a gajillion dragons, which you kill and save him.

This is where things get interesting, because Argath tells you that his son, Marquis Elmdore, was kidnapped by sex traffickers and you, Liam Neeson, have to torture your way to Elmdore's rescue. Typical RPG fare thus far, except that Ramza says no.

"WE WILL HAVE NO PART IN YOUR RESCUE MISSION," declares our stalwart hero. "GOOD DAY TO YOU, SIR."

And off you ride to the castle, where REAL MEN will do the job, which is how things would work in a real fantasy world populated by giant chickens.



A couple of missions later, Ramza, whose brother was all like "DUDE DON'T YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN A VIDEOGAME RESCUE THAT SHIT" is hot on the trail of someone-or-other when he and Delita comes across a guy demanding the location of Gustav from another guy. (Little did he know but I, Gustav, was far on the other side of the PSP screen, away from his grasp!) Delita says "Hey, I know that guy...but I can't remember who it is..." and Ramza says "Yes, I know, Delita, you have more friends than me."

Mysterious character whose identity is kept secret for hours and hours of game time so inquisitive players can be all like "hey, that was neat" when his identity is revealed? We know we're in a JRPG now!

Except, Delita remembers at the end of the battle.

"Oh, that was Dr. House, making an out-call," Delita rasped. "He is a good doctor," Ramza exuberantly agreed.

That's what makes Final Fantasy Tactics' story so fascinating. It throws up typical RPG shenanigans, mysterious people, sudden reasons for a band of intrepid kids to go gallivanting off to save the world, and then knocks them down. It doesn't lazily rely on normal story tropes.

And when the game sort of breezily informs you who's really behind the kidnapping (hint: it was Psycho Mantis!) instead of letting you spend hours and hours slowly piecing it together, and then several more hours before the idiot protagonists discover it, it's actually a bit disconcerting. I'm used to being strung along, to (FF7 SPOILERS!) waiting 20 goddamn hours to find out that Cloud's story was lying instead of having Tifa say "waitaminute that's not true." (NO MORE SPOILERS!)

The thing is, FFT is a story, not a mystery. You spend the game watching things unfold, instead of wondering what happened afterward. It's a dynamic story, constantly changing, and even when Ramza doesn't know what's going on, the game cavalierly informs the player of all the behind-the-scenes shit going on.

So that's one of the many things that makes FFT awesome. I'm currently playing it right now, so expect more posts on it in the future. Huzzah!