| Game Reviews From a Parental Perspective! | |
|
|
|
| Home | Forums | Review Archive | Columns | Feature Articles |
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
Strategy! Role-Playing! Stats! Menus! Hooray!If youﾒre a fan of turn-based strategy, you probably already own a Game Boy Advance because everyone and their brother told you to buy one to play Advance Wars. Now that youﾒve knocked out that game and Advance Wars 2, youﾒre probably looking for more to sink your teeth into. Run to the nearest purveyor of fine GBA games and buy yourself a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance because this one will keep you busy and fully entertained for a good long time.  Like its Playstation counterpart Final Fantasy Tactics, the portable game features role-playing trappings and story-telling surrounding tactical combat on 3D isometric battlefields. Youﾒll control everything from Soldiers to Ninjas and Mages to Illusionists in your quest to return the hero back to his world. The hero in question is sucked into this world of ﾓFinal Fantasyﾔ via a book that one of his friends discovers. Itﾒs not the most original plot, but itﾒs more than enough to keep you driving forward through over 300 battles. Battles are fought by up to six characters from your clan of which you can have 23 clan members total. These clan members have various jobs that theyﾒre specialized in and they gain abilities neatly through the weapons, armor and tools that they use in battle. As soon as a character masters one weaponﾒs ability, he can switch to another while retaining the ability learned from the last implement. This makes swapping equipment a mandatory task and itﾒs an enjoyable one as finding new abilities in new equipment always presents new opportunities during play. The equipment swapping for new abilities also highlights one of the games biggest deficiencies. Thereﾒs a heck of a lot of needless button pushing to navigate the menus and decide which weapons you want to use next. You also have to spend time squinting at an enormous table of jobs and races with those that are eligible to use a specific weapon highlighted. It seems like there were a lot of other possibilities that wouldﾒve made all these menus unnecessary, but thatﾒs what youﾒre stuck with. Fortunately, as cumbersome as it can be, itﾒs not nearly enough to keep you from learning how to deal with it best and forge ahead into combat. Combat is where the game sucks you in. The battlefields are nicely rendered with lots of different terrain and layouts. Each fight is governed by Laws that you cannot break without risk of imprisonment. These Laws can force you to use only special abilities, no swords, certain types of magic and much more. Theyﾒre a neat innovation that makes each battle an exercise in not only positioning and combat choices but often govern the types of characters you take into the fight. Thereﾒs plenty for the strategy fan to sink their teeth into and the only downside to all this is if youﾒve played a lot of strategy games, youﾒll probably find a lot of the battles rather easy. Somehow though, the battles often seem harder than they really are. Thatﾒs a good thing as it just increases confidence in your strategic ability and your ability to properly prepare between fights. The menus are a thorny issue here too with lots of button pushing to make things happen, but once again, itﾒs just so darn enjoyable to play out the combat. This is a great looking game that really makes the GBA sing both visually and aurally. The musical score is catchy and memorable. It sounds even better through the Game Boy Player where itﾒs clear Square-Enix took some extra time to make sure those using the TV-based system were getting something special. That carries over to the graphics which look beautiful whether youﾒre on the go or at home on the TV. The trademark Final Fantasy look is used throughout the game though itﾒs the more kid-friendly designs rather than the adult look used in Final Fantasy X. The artwork is fabulous making this one of the Game Boy Advanceﾒs finest looking and sounding games. Kid Factor:Your child must be able to read well to enjoy this game. There are countless items that they need to read about to understand all the abilities on offer. The descriptions are often very important to gameplay too. There really isnﾒt anything objectionable in the game unless you think fantasy games are the work of the Devil. If thatﾒs the case, you probably didnﾒt even click the link to this review or are already sending e-mail to let us know we shouldnﾒt review these Dragons and Dungeons games. These games always seem to provide kids that have rich imaginations with a lot of fodder for those flights of fancy and thatﾒs a good thing. The story here is simple but entertaining and will captivate the attention of any youngster and even us old folks too. This is high quality portable gaming, the likes of which Nintendo has been lucky to have a boatload of on the Game Boy for years now. Reviewer Recommended Ages: 8+ Genre: Strategy/RPG ESRB Rating: E-Everyone Publisher: Square-Enix Developer: Square-Enix 
Your child must be able to read well to enjoy this game. There are countless items that they need to read about to understand all the abilities on offer. The descriptions are often very important to gameplay too. There really isnﾒt anything objectionable in the game unless you think fantasy games are the work of the Devil. If thatﾒs the case, you probably didnﾒt even click the link to this review or are already sending e-mail to let us know we shouldnﾒt review these Dragons and Dungeons games. These games always seem to provide kids that have rich imaginations with a lot of fodder for those flights of fancy and thatﾒs a good thing. The story here is simple but entertaining and will captivate the attention of any youngster and even us old folks too. This is high quality portable gaming, the likes of which Nintendo has been lucky to have a boatload of on the Game Boy for years now.
Kid Factor by Dave Long
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance |
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
|
Please Note: GamerDad is not intended to be read by anyone under 18. We stay clean, but be warned! Content Management System developed by Redbird Solutions. |
