FFTA2: Preparing ourselves for disappointment

You'll find no truer supporters of the Final Fantasy Tactics franchise than the DS Fanboy staff. We've spent far too many hours with the PS1 and GBA titles to ever turn our backs to the series. Reading IGN's recent interview with Yuichi Murasawa, the director of Final Fantasy Tactics A2: The Sealed Grimoire, however, left us scratching our heads over Square Enix's handling of the upcoming SRPG. What was supposed to be a hype-building preview of the new FFTA game sounded more like a list of unimplemented features and expectations that the development team didn't meet.

FFTA's simplified, adolescent plot was one of the biggest complaints that FFT veterans had with the handheld sequel. The original game's story, in comparison, was rich with political intrigue and complex characters, enthralling players with its narrative. When asked about FFTA2's plot, Murasawa admitted that his team's goal was to once again "keep things light." Wonderful.

Though we've become accustomed to Square Enix's inadequate Nintendo WiFi support, what with Mario Hoops 3-on-3's promised-but-not-delivered online matches and Final Fantasy III's half-hearted MogNet, we were really hoping to see the FFT series' multiplayer mode expanded for internet play. According to the IGN interview, FFTA2 not only lacks online functionality, but waives the multiplayer system away altogether. Instead, we'll have a "feature that makes use of the local connection" to look forward to. Great.

The final insult lies in FFTA2's nonexistent touchscreen functionality. This feature seems perfect for the SRPG genre, enabling players to quickly maneuver units and navigate menus with a stylus, but Murasawa must not have found it to be essential. He offers this comfort towards the end of the interview, at least: "Of course, if there is ever an FTA3 [sic], we'll definitely think about it." Looking forward to it!

Reader Comments (20)

Just being the sequel to the original FFTA makes this automatically one of the best DS games yet, though!

I spent like 80 hours on that thing. Yikes.

I'm completely confused about the lack of touch-screen, though.

this must be a joke man!
well i never enjoyed the gba release, 'cause of the referee thing in battles...

Or, to put it another way, if it's just as good as FFTA I'll be happy. If it's any better, bonus!

Yo man those referees were shite and I really hated them compared to the game play style of FFT for PS1. I just wish they would release the Lion War they are putting on PSP for DS. Makes me so pissed that they would give us the shitty version, and what do they get? An update FFT with new jobs, new movies, new everything, and we get who the hell cares little kid edition. Just makes me ridiculously disappointed.

I love FFTA so I won't be disappointed if it's the same game with a different story, better graphics, and two screens -- those are three improvements right there.

But this news still stings, considering what it *could* have been.

Has anyone else started to wonder if developers are opting out of Nintendo WFC functionality for a reason? It could be that Nintendo has just made it really hard to implement properly. I really can't imagine that manufacturers are out there saying "Nah, no one wants wifi." Developers are nerds like the rest of us, if not more nerdy.

Anyway, FFTA2 will be good, I'm sure. The Judges we could do without, but the first was not a bad game by any means. Being able to play it 100% with the stylus would have been so handy, though.

"Has anyone else started to wonder if developers are opting out of Nintendo WFC functionality for a reason?"

Its probably not feasible to expect to maintain multiplayer online servers in perpetuity for all but a handful of development shops. Even if the DS goes away tomorrow, you will probably still be able to play Mario Kart 10 years from now, because Nintendo isn't going anywhere. Will square-enix still have an interest in the DS in 10 years? Who knows?

What kind of FFTA fan doesn't put in 260+ hours like me?

I can accept keeping the kiddy story. In all honesty, FFT's story, while entertaining, was convoluted and awkwardly worded. So, nothing amazing lost there. And I'm sure SquareEnix realizes the kiddy storyline sells to the precious tweeny demographic, even if they don't understand the gameplay.

I can accept the lack of WiFi. With the FFT games, everybody powerlevels and in the end, our parties are not that dissimilar from each other. So what's the point of battling? Maybe trading could work, but eh, not that much is added there.

What REALLY gets me is, while the developers are pushing the DS's graphical capabilities, manipulating the dual-screens, and making, what looks like, one of the most visually stunning games on the DS, they don't include Touch-Screen play? They don't include Touch-Screen play? How does that even make sense. It's just baffling. With Advance Wars DS, it made the game so much more fluid and enjoyable, so it's entirely possible. I knew Square-Enix had jumped the shark, but why do they have to take my precious FFT with it?

Now I never played the PSOne Final Fantasy Tactics (seeing as it WAS NEVER RELEASED in the UK), but I found Final Fantasy Tactics Advance a highly enjoyable game on it's own merits.

So there.

The biggest complaint wasn't the "adolescent plot", it was the dumbed down gameplay.

I didn't mind the simple plot because I was in love with the battles and while I personally didn't mind the referees, I did read in that same IGN article that they are rolling back the importance of referees in this version so that the cards only effect the villains instead of your party as well. So that should help for those of you that didn't like the rules.

I don't really care too much about the online play as I see FFTA as a really great single player experience.

For touchscreen experience, EBA DESTROYED the accuracy of my touch screen, even calibrating it doesn't do anything. It just changes where the point of inaccuracy is. I could care less about touch screen capabilities because the small diamond shaped tiles that FFTA's environments feature would make me go crazy trying to touch the correct tile.

I didn't really care too much of the storyline of FFTA, and I couldn't care less about the storyline of FFTA2. The job system in FFTA was, by far, the most amazing in FF games.

I have to agree with the people that disliked the Judgment system though. I saw it as a way to improve strategy in the game early on, but when the laws became intense, I just saw it as a limit to your party's full potential on the battlefield. It's like: No Attack, no white magic, no summon magic... GO! (Of course, it's never like that, but that's what it always felt like near the end.)

OK, sounds like I'm in the minority -- I really like the judges! I think the game would be too easy without them. They add another layer of strategy. I have a diverse clan so it isn't a big deal when I can't cast color magic or use swords. The anti-law cards also come in handy. And most of the time YOU control when you go into battle, so if you see that clan a few towns over is the all animal clan and the "damage to animals" law is in effect then you simply walk around a few extra days (a few spaces) until that law is rolled off. (The back left button is most helpful here.) THEN you engage the animal clan. No problem.

It's probably the non-integrated Online structure that impedes it, but Online on DS is no rarer than on PSP

you're not going to see a copy of LIVE style servers until the other companies actually start to implement one single network system...

I think the real question here is, does Natalie Dee know you used one of her images?!?!

I've never played the original FFT, and before FFTA, I would probably have never touched a Final Fantasy game. So far I've only played 1-3 and FFTA. Their strategy or, as you may call it, "dumbing down the gameplay" worked, at least for me, cause I thought FFTA was fantastic.

I played both the PS1 FFT and FFTA and I vastly preferred FFTA to FFT. I thought the story was *way* better in FFTA. BTW - What's with calling FFTA kiddy? Since when was a story about a boy escaping from his father's alcoholism kiddy?

Oh well.... I hated the judges, too. They just made the game cumbersome near the end.

I really liked FFT. FFTA was pretty good...

Now, FFTA just seems like they're not really addressing the wants of the consumer. We waited SO long for FFTA, and when we got it, we didn't mind its flaws so much because, well, it was a new Tactics game, and some FFT was better than no FFT.

I can't say the same this time, though. Judges, only for enemies? That sounds like the game's just going to get even easier than it was last time. No wi-fi? No stylus? I know both of these are possible because Luminous Arc has both of them included and the developer is much smaller than Square-Enix...

What's the deal here, Square? You're getting beaten at your own game.

I quite liked the judges - 90% of the time they would have an impact on maybe one of your characters (luckily you can pop in different ones!)...

Around the end of the game, I found ways to make them work FOR me with law and anti-law cards. You could dramatically change how a battle went with the right choices.

As for these FFTA2 announcements... Booo! No touch-screen?! wtf. No Wi-Fi? GRRR! The plot I'm not all that worried about, but the other two things... shit!

I guess the "A" in the title means more than "the graphics are GBA style" - sounds like a case of lazy development to me.

FFTA2: Preparing ourselves for disappointment

Reader Comments (20)

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