Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

I honestly still don't understand how Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Color and even DS games haven't just wiped out the mobile gaming market. It definitely might be that I'm over exaggerating the potential impact they cane have, but I honestly do feel they should be having a larger impact than they currently are.

Now, just to be helpful I want to inform you that in order to play such games you need to have an emulator on your phone that corresponds to the specific device, the one I have on my phone for example is an emulator for Gameboy Advance games. This is where we start tip toeing around the issue of legality. Now, I can tell you such emulators exist, I can even tell you that they only work on Android devices and finally I can even name them (the one I use is called Gameboid) but I can't actually link them to you, so happy searching, it should be right on the first page so it won't take that long.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was released exclusively on the Gameboy Advance back in 2003, which was 11 years ago, take a moment for that to sink in. The game was developed by a company called Square Co. that would eventually go on to merge with Enix and become the currently Japanese juggernaut called 'Square Enix' which still makes Final Fantasy games. Obviously due to the exclusivity of the games released it was only published by Nintendo.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a turn based combat, role playing game is every sense of the word. I don't feel comfortable calling the game retro, since retro for me means things like Pac Man, Pong, Dig Dug and so on. But the game most definitely uses a model that was crystallized in the late nineties when it comes to Japanese turn based role playing games and it uses it really well. That model being that each individual character has certain stats that determines its order in combat, a class that determines it moves and augments stats growth per level, and a race that determines it predispositions and also its stats growth as it levels.

The game has a total of five races (Human, Moogle, Bangaa, Viera,  Nu Mou), all of which are staples in the franchise, and a total of 35 unique classes which essentially means on a practical level that you have more options to take than you will have time to actually follow through with. This of course isn't even taking into account that you can mix classes within a single party member increase the potential of party composition exponentially. The sheer amount of depth and variety that is available in the game is just so immense that for someone not familiar with these types of games you won't really be able to comprehend them on a practical level until you actually start playing the game. I personally beat that game with entire classes left unexplored and dozens of combinations not even thought of. This to me is where the games value and its core offer to players is, because you can just run wild. You can make your party as varied as you can possibly do it or as uniform as you want it and there really wouldn't be a wrong way to actually do it. Its such a perfect system that doesn't punish a normal player but offers tons of depth and reward for anyone that really dives into the system.

All the other features of the game kind of fall by the side to be honest. The graphics and sound quality are as good as they can be expected from a Gameboy Advance game. The story is really ham fisted and a bit insulting to the player and their intelligence, but that is something I have seen fairly often in most Japanese role playing games, thankfully it isn't infuriating. I can safely say though that all these aspects are good enough not to detract from the actual gameplay and enjoyment of the player with the game and its mechanics. Hell, some people might even like them, I know I liked the graphics since it reminded me of part of my childhood.

Compared to modern games that you can play on your phone this one definitely requires a massive time commitment. But, it provides a game of such quality and depth that the time issues really isn't that big of a deal in my opinion. This also assume that you are playing those casual games for a short time, which we all know that you aren't, otherwise candy crush wouldn't be logging hundreds of hours for individual users. Anyway, just to get to the point, you need to get this game, it is just so much better than anything else you could be playing on your phone.