Er, well, yes...it's a "strategy" rpg. FE does have a bit more of a bully mechanic to enemy AI, but at the end of the day the bad guys are going to hit whomever they can reach that looks easy to drop- same as you, the player, would do. It is up to you to keep weaker units defended, healed, or flat-out out of range. Note that the first act is going to be...aggravating. Grind a bit, best advice I can give if you are unsure about tactics. Oh, and there's a certain early choice to save someone or focus on the enemy. Pick the latter, as it makes normal difference and Guest AI is suicidally stupid. Leveling is better, as it is abuseable. You can have weaker characters using buffs and other non-direct combat skills for XP and AP. Fire Emblem is just combat. This game has RPG-style party management.
Well, that wasn't my experience in Fire Emblem, really. You can put two units up front, and one can be a weak unit that the enemy could easily kill in a blow, and that you really can't afford to lose, and the other can be your powerful unit that it can hardly touch, and you can easily heal, but registers higher on its "threat" calculation, and it will 100% of the time attack the unit it can't really hurt, which you can then also arrange has a weak enough weapon that it doesn't accidentally kill them in retaliation, so you can carefully soak up its damage and attacks and then kill it with your weak unit you need to level up. It just has nothing much to do with an actual strategy to win an actual battle and everything to do with manipulating an extremely predictable AI to optimize who gets credit for which enemy kills. I just found it boring. I'd rather play a game where the goal is to win the battle and you don't have to artificially manipulate who delivers the killing blow.
3 is awesome! I finally delved into it recently and I am pretty impressed. The graphics are top notch, the learning curve is challenging, and the job system adds a lot of party customization. The story isn't insanely deep, but the cut scenes and dialoque help build the small world you're involved with. I'm also not a fan of Fire Emblem or Advance Wars, and can relate to where you are coming from. I wasn't drawn into how maps and battles were presented, whereas all of the Final Fantasy Tactics titles including the GBA versions and Tactics Ogre Advance I absolutely loved. I think the big difference for me is how the sprites and inventory/equipment/party UI are graphically in the Tactics series over Emblem. I think they are more pleasing to the eye, and draw me into caring more about who my party members are. Plus having little Moogles and Mages with straw hats wreck havoc with black magic and summoning spells equals awesome.
Assuming FFT comes out this next Wednesday/Thursday you may want to wait before buying FF2 or FF3 to see if either will go on sale as part of a promotion for FFT.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I was considering picking up FF3 within this past week but recalled the trend that Square-Enix always puts their other games on sale when they release a new one. I'd really hope this release won't be an exclusion. Or perhaps I should just start up FF6 on the emulator in my phone, hah (not a pirate).
Thanks for the write up! I guess I'll just have to give this one a try and see how things work out =p even though it does sound difficult i don't think i can resist playing lol Yeah that'd be a good idea. In my personal opinion FF3 on the ipod is one of the best games you can get. And it's not overly difficult at all. I haven't beaten it yet but it looks and plays well. Def one of the best RPGs in the entire marketplace. If it goes on sale you should buy it right away!
Oh, ok. I misread you. No, FF Tactics doesn't rely on that for leveling. If you're bringing up a weak unit, you'll find yourself doing the opposite- keeping a unit alive while the young guy spams abilities for experience.
Hrm, I've never played the original FFT nor the PSP original version of WotL, but I have played both FFTA and FFTA2. Other than the death counter, are there any other major differences between WotL and the advance games?
That was the best game for the PSP! hours of gameplay, nice units, hard battles, nice movies - great! - and I am really looking forward to the iphone-version!
Apple put games published by big developers like EA, Gameloft and etc to a Priority list that's why . They would give the game to a quick and efficient reviewer in the hope it can get published as quick as possible. Don't forget they get 10% Profit which is about $1.30 per each sale of FFT. So they would want it out fairly quickly too.
Errrr... not. You're confusing quite a few facts here. First: everyone is treated equally in the App Store. Dunno where you got that hint that they have something like a "VIP list". At the moment, the review time ranges from 7 - 10 days, so an appearance on August, 4th is far more likely. I expect it to be out in the second week of August (9th - 11th). Because they announce the release date after they got green light. Second: Apple is always taking a share of 30%, which would mean $3.90. Third: How fo you know the price even if Squenix hasn't announced it yet? I'd put the pricing in the more possible range of $16.99 - $19.99. Fourth: I think you just got overexcited by this announcement and therefore you jumping on conclusions like on a bongo stick.
My guess is that it would not be priced higher than the PSP version, which was recently released to PSN at $9.99. But that's just a guess. Oh, and I agree completely with you on the whole "Preferred" review myth.
In actuality, this update is bad news because it represents a further delay. The previous "date on a whiteboard" photo was clearly the date of submission, and we'll see the actual release in a couple of weeks time.
How does it represent a delay exactly (as in, how do you know the actual release is in a couple of weeks time)?
