Happy Halloween y'all. Finally, this one is finished, I spent a ton of time on FFTA to the point of never bothering with any other game otherwise despite all my work hours and all and I think in all honesty, despite the many moments of exhaustion, it paid off.
You remember when Wiegraf says stuff about a penalty for breaking the law is a fine, then it's for the working class? You can expect something like that here. Somewhat. But a little more than that. FFTA does do well with most of the mechanics of the Playstation game, but boldly goes in a direction that was sure to cause controversy, this law system. In my playthrough, I chose to go through it without ever getting a single lawbreaking card ever, and I managed to do it, but it was super tough of course. Maybe not in the beginning, most FF games walk you through things, but soon you have three laws and you need to shuffle your units with their classes and what they do and maybe have a few antilaw cards (thank god for these) in order to even damage enemies. Or just engage in the risky Jagds where no laws are not allowed. The laws do piss me off many times. How is anyone supposed to do anything if "Fight" is outlawed? Yeah, sure units have special abilities, but sometimes using Fight is a good way to go, especially if you got Double Sword for a unit. What about Dmg2 Animal, preventing any units from damaging monsters? You can see where this is going, and it means that I have to either have the right antilaw to get around it, or shuffle on the world map until the day no longer has the idiotic law.
Speaking of world map, the fact that this game breaks the fourth wall with how they talk about Final Fantasy the game series is funny, and then you can just place locations where you want after plot missions, which is an interesting way to put things. Everything is driven by missions, the dispatch ones being the most annoying due to so many factors. Does my dispatch have the right stats or job to proceed? How many days, fights, or enemies are required before they come back? What time frame do I need to figure out before the mission reappears? Does the mission reappear at all? And most importantly, why are so many mission-item-requiring missions become available WELL BEFORE the mission items themselves are available? You gotta chain these things sometimes, and it's ridiculous.
Thankfully, the game isn't trying to make me hate it that much. Waiting for something to happen isn't an excuse unless it's really egregious, and since you can accept multiple missions, that's always great. Meanwhile, the shops are nice, getting abilities was a prime thing for me to do at all times to make the best of my characters, and there's great synergy with all the races so that none really stand out above the rest. The story itself is, essentially speaking, resetting a warped story or rather a warped world, and most everything Marche does ends up getting him in trouble. Not as much as Ramza in the first game, but he has a lot of convincing to do. Do I enjoy this? I'm glad to have experienced it, and it has a ton of replay value due to its good customization and being a FF title. It will make you hate laws though.
