The intelligent FFT vs. FFT:A poll

[awall]

The FFT vs. FFT:A Poll has been around in this forum ever since I've been here, but it was a long time before I got around to posting in it. The thing is, while I could discuss the merits of one over the other, it seemed to me that the majority of the people who voted in that thread gave a reason for their vote that I have a hard time respecting. I'll list a few below without giving any names:

Well, considering that I haven't played FFTA, (and neither has anybody else), I'm going to have to say FFT.

Out of the 2, i favor FFT:A.. pretty much because i havent layed a finger on FFT, therefore have no opinion about it.

Aww... not very many people like FFTA, kupo... I like it because it's the only Final Fantasy I've ever played.

I have to pick FFT, cuz it has more classes than on FFTA. I haven't played FFT b4 but I've seen it on video game magazines or online.

... and so forth and so on. Granted, at the very beginning it would seem that FFTA hadn't been released in the US yet, causing a lot of people to prematurely vote for FFT. But come on people - how can you rank something you've never played? Give both games a shot before you claim one is better than the other. I know somebody who swore left, right, up, and down that FFVII was the best FF is the series... and then I learned that the only other FF he'd played was FFVIII, and not even all the way through disc 2. Don't be that guy. Know your games before you rank them.

So, here's how I'd like to see this poll work:

If you've only played one of the two games, go ahead and vote for that game, but choose the option that says you haven't played the other game. In order to count as having played Tactics, you should be at least in chapter 2, preferably in chapter 3. In order to count as having played Tactics Advance, you should have beaten at least two, preferably three totema. Of course, if you really want to say you've played it, the best option is to go ahead and beat the game. In your post, explain what features of the game you've played that you most appreciated (if you didn't play the other game because it didn't have one of those features, go ahead and say so).

If you have played both games, then in your post please explain why you voted for what you did. You should pick a feature that is present in both games and compare the two games based on that feature (of course you may choose more than one, and if you may pick several then it's okay if the game you voted for doesn't win out in every category). The kind of responses I'd prefer not to see are:

tactics is way better

(Yes, that was the whole post.)

tactics is way better
no judge
and i no a glitch on tactics to unlock all the skills in summoner
hahaha i cheat for victory

(And here, we're comparing a feature from TA to something that's not in T.)

To clarify, please don't compare FFTA's judge to FFT's judge, because FFT doesn't have a judge. Instead, compare FFTA's battle system as a whole - including laws - to FFT's battle system as a whole.

So, now that I've gone on for a while about what I'd like to see, here's my response:

Battle System
FFT and FFTA had similar looking battle systems. However, FFT's was much more strategic in my opinion. There was much greater variety of abilities in FFT, allowing you to perform (and, in theory, forcing you to be prepared to deal with) a far wider range of actions. It was also much better balanced, in my opinion. Magic was far too overpowered in FFTA. Between the fact that FFTA's battle system didn't have slow actions (i.e. those with charge time) and FFTA gave all characters Auto-MP-Regen, mages were absolutely dominant. FFT's mages had arse-kickingly-powerful techniques, but had to pay for that by charging up their spells and being doubly vulnerable while doing so. Other techniques were more unbalanced in FFTA than in FFT; while FFT had issues with Movement abilities being completely unbalanced (Teleport > Fly > Ignore Height > Jump + 3 > Jump + 2 > Jump + 1 > completely useless stuff like Any Ground, Any Weather, or Move on Lava), the majority of Action, Reaction, and Support abilities in that game were more or less fair compared to all others. FFTA had stuff like Beso Toxico and Jump that were hands down better than basic attacks, R abilities like Strikeback that completely 0wn Reflex, and waaaaay too powerful stuff like Charmshot and Sheep Count.

Difficulty
Let's see... FFT pits you against huge groups of enemies that outlevel you by a fair amount. FFTA enemies typically have lower levels than you, and when they don't then you outnumber them 6-4 or something. Plus, the AI in TA is just garbage. They aren't cowardly like the enemies in FFT (who run and hide in a corner when their HP gets to critical) but they'll walk right into Strikeback, attack you with an element you absorb, or else sit there and MagicBreak you turn after turn even though they could have killed you by doing a normal attack and you keep regenerating the MP they take away.

Vairety of Enemies
Here, FFTA wins. FFTA uses pretty much every class in the game (except maybe Morphers) against you at some point. FFT uses almost entirely Knights and Archers. There're two plot battles in the game that have Ninjas, two that have Priests, two that have Oracles, one that has Samurai, and none than have Dancers, Bards, Calculators, or Mimes. Meanwhile almost every battle in the game has at least one Knight and Archer. Boring.

Graphics and Music Style
FFT is a PS game. It's obviously going to have better graphics and music than a GBA game. But as far as the style goes, I'm gonna have to hand it to FFTA. I like them both, but FFTA is a bit more... fun. Different. But this isn't really a major consideration to me... I'm more of a gameplay whore.

Story and Characters
FFT wins. Sure, FFTA had an interesting premise for a story - you were actually trying to destroy the world rather than save it. But FFT's story was just much more mature, more well rounded... the characters seemed to be real characters, the places were real places. The war was a plausible sequence of events that your characters were trying to prevent and find out who was causing. FFTA characters were so one-dimensional. Marche: I want to go home. Ritz: I want red hair. Mewt: I want my mommy! Again, this isn't as important to me as gameplay, so I won't focus as much on it.

So all in all, I'm gonna give my vote to FFT. Go ahead and vote with your opinions, and don't worry if they're not as insanely long as mine - I was just being wordy because that's what I do, and also trying to set a good example as the first post in the thread. Have fun.

[T.G. Oskar]

Uh? An intelligent discussion upon which FFT is superior? I guess you skipped the choice of "I like both games". On my particular condition, I have played and finished both games. And I have gotten almost everything on both games. But, putting aside many aspects, and only focusing in two of them, I do prefer FFT to FFT:A.

I'm not so much into graphics, and neither into music. On difficulty, I consider FFT:A much difficult because of the Law factor and the Orlandu factor. And, if you placed the Law system and Orlandu in the same game, Orlandu outbeats the Law system (well, maye Target Area may make the battle a bit difficult, but he still has Night Sword). Both games had a similar battle system, and both games prized more mages than fighters (notice the effectiveness of FFT's mages in comparison to the fighters). FFT uncompensed by making all but two of the NPCs fighters, and giving them uber-powers, while making the mage NPCs difficult to use. FFT:A balanced more the Fighter<->Mage difference. But, then came the Tactics Ogre guys, with their MP regeneration, Anyways, even fighters have 5MP regeneration, and Doublecast and Turbo MP and Summons still ate MP like popcorn!!

Which leads to the aspects I care: storyline and the PC skills system. FFT, granted, has the best storyline. Even with the plagued translation, the story was rich. A battle for power that escalates in a war? Man, that must be like the most used, yet still favorite story. FFT:A went more on a kid's story, which, while having its liking, it still can't compare to FFT. And the job system on both games. Both were equally well done, but FFT:A slightly breaks the balance. Sure, Strikeback is real nasty, but only Humans and Bangaa can use it. A-skills follow the same suit. But, when you really go deeper and customize your team, you see FFT:A has more chances than FFT. Since, when you get all NPC, you only have team for 2 extra PCs and Ramza.

But, because of a bit of nostalgia, and the inmense storyline, I choose FFT. However...I can't play FFT while on a 2-hour trip, and well, not all cars have PS2s and TVs integrated. And FFT:A is just the game for it.

[LocoColt04]

Originally Posted by T.G. Oskar

Uh? An intelligent discussion upon which FFT is superior? I guess you skipped the choice of "I like both games".

Allow me to do something for you.

Now, this is a poll that asks which title you like MORE. Hence the "which is superior." Therefore, you really shouldn't have an option to choose both. I do, however, see two more options that can be placed on the poll, specifically for the people who like one over the other, despite having NOT played it. My point would be that quote where one person said he liked FFT more than FFT:A, despite having never played it.

So yeah, I won't add a choice for both games, as the whole purpose of the thread is to play favorites. Oh, and I'm going to close the old poll, because he's right -- it's outdated, and peoples' opinions may have changed since then anyway. (And I told him he could do this to begin with.) Afterthought -- I'm leaving the old poll open, but as you can see, I stuck this instead. It's like the various other spam-free threads stuck atop the forums. Hopefully, this will remain spam-free.



NOW, as for my personal taste, I prefer FFT to FFT:A. I have played and completed both on multiple occasions.

My feature of comparison? Simply put, the story. I may post again later with other aspects of the games, but FFT completely obliterates FFT:A when it comes to a story. Advance's story was fun, but flaky. There wasn't nearly as much depth as there could have been, and it looked like child's play when compared to the depth of FFT. That's not to say it's a bad story, but it's just not in the same league.



I'll stick up for the little brother (because it's NOT a sequel) in the series and say that I did love the difficulty that the Law Cards brought to the game. It actually gave me a reason to play through, because while it may be an easy game, it's not so fun when your whole crew gets locked up. Try playing through without using a single anti-law card, and it gets a bit more interesting.

Of course, FFT wins simply because of its sheer awesomeness, as far as I'm concerned. It's got the best story out of the entire FF series (in my opinion, of course), and is one of the most clinching titles I've ever played. Story aside, the gameplay is amazingly smooth, even if the battles can take ages sometimes. There's just something about the game that puts it on a pedastal above everything else. It may not be my favorite FF title, and it's certainly not even in my top five favorite games, but it's a title worthy of being in anyone's possession.

I can't say the same for FFT:A. If you're really wanting a FFT-type game for the GBA, I'd suggest Tactics Ogre: the Knight of Lodis before I'd suggest FFT:A.

[T.G. Oskar]

Originally Posted by LocoColt04

I can't say the same for FFT:A. If you're really wanting a FFT-type game for the GBA, I'd suggest Tactics Ogre: the Knight of Lodis before I'd suggest FFT:A.

Seconded. I was really lucky to buy an used copy of TO:KOL before FFT:A was out. It was quite long for a GBA game, and also it has the option of changing the storyline all the way to a different ending. Plus, TO:KOL made justice with the mage-deficience in FFT. Notice almost all the NPCs given were magicians?

And while I do consider FFT superior, I like FFT:A. Granted, the story was not as good, but it allows for further customization of your PCs, since the AI of the game is berserk. Aggresive yet stupid. It is entertaining enough to play it when you don't have a console nearby. And since I already finished both, I feel more into customizing the party than actually finish it again. But surely enough, I will finish both games again.

Another thing: the use of the GB's legendary linking capabilities was not properly used in FFT:A. Tactics Ogre GBA did a better job, since it allowed you to fight the other guy's team instead of a measly coop/competition thing.

Well, I have to say that FFT is better , because I've never played FFTA in my life! Is it any different from FFT? Let me know!

[sephirothvsyuna]

I didn't like FFT... For some reason it just kicked my as*... I could relate better to FFT Advance. I liked the Different races.

[Maridia]

i'm a fan of fft, i enjoy the versatility of the game, i liked that you could make a knight with the sword ability, an could also summon, thats the key point at why this games so fun

i pick fft because i think the story is much better than ffta. The customization in fft is better. The main reason i did not like ffta is the law system. To me that was ridiculous. i mean come on a judge on a chocobo sitting there making sure you dont use certain abilities. It did no make the game fun it made it very annoying. so obviously i pick fft

i am one of the ones who have not played ffta, so i wont say that i like fft better but i will explain why i liked fft so much
the versatility was awsome. i loved all of the jobs you could preform and mix the skills of the jobs together
i love long games and fft is definitly a game that i can really let my ocd come out in. the second time i beat it i easily spent over 300 hours doing so. yes i am a bit obsessive but thats me.
and not to mention the story line was great.
there are times when i cant think of what game to play and as a default i will go to fft.
i love fft, but who knows i may like ffta even more once i play it

[Bunny]

Final Fantasy Tactics. By far.

I have played both games, on and off. I still own Final Fantasy Tactics but have since sold Final Fantasy Tactics: Advanced, it just didn't appeal to me.

The class system in Tactics is probably my favorite thing about the game, simply because it is awesome. No further explanation, really. There are a few things I do not like about it though, like the large number of totally useless skills, and some of the classes are stupid. The wait time for some of the useless skills were horrible as well. Even the wait time for some of the good spells was insane, but more understandably so. The magical classes were probably my least favorite, although I still walk around with a Time Mage/Black Mage, and he sorta kicks ass. I think my favorite combination is Squire/Ninja though, on Ramza.

The story on Final Fantasy Tactics was far superior than that of Final Fantasy Tactics: Advanced. Granted, I did not bother getting that far into Tactics: Advanced, I still enjoy Tactics' story more. Delita is probably one of my favorite characters in an RPG game to date, simply because I do not understand him. Most other characters are predictable, but him, I just don't get. I haven't beat Tactics yet, so I don't completely understand where he is going, or where the story is going, but I hope to beat it soon.

I already mentioned the skills, but only partially. The skill system in Final Fantasy Tactics is good. I like it. I like the point system, and how you spend it and all that. In Final Fantasy Tactics: Advanced the skill system blew. I absolutely hated it. In fact, I sold it for that matter alone, it was enough. If they had kept the system in place, altering it only a little, I would have probably kept it. But who knows.

The gameplay was also good. I don't feel like typing anymore.

[Sir Kenneth]

I pick Final Fantasy Tactics and I have played both games.
FFTA more than lived up to my expectations though and I would not have liked it to be anything like FFT.

FFT:A had a more simple storyline, easier battles, etc. Basically there was less of pretty much everything, but that was in my opinion only good.
It was a game for Gameboy Advance, and hence not a game I would sit and play for hours at home. Instead I'd play it on the bus, when being bored when I was in town, etc. It simply wouldn't have worked if it had been as complex as FFT. It would have defeated the purpose of FFTA being a gameboy game.

Well, considering that I haven't played FFTA, (and neither has anybody else), I'm going to have to say FFT.

I've played FFTA so that means somebody has and i prefer FFTA prolly cuz i think the playstation sucks! on the playstation!

Peace!

I would have to say that FFT is much better than FFT:A because advance was so shallow in mechanics and gameplay compared to Tactics.

I have played both Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Even though I like them both I think Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is my favorite between the two. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a slight better story line and plot twists. They both have very good unlockables , but I would have to give that to Final Fantasy Tactics because you could have a dragon, a type of mech gaint( sorry, I forgot the names), and most of all cloud. But, most of all I found Final Fantasy Tactics Advance more entertaining because it was portable and easier to play with fun features.

[Rosc]

Ah yes, I remember hearing about FFTA for the first time. A Sequel, to FF Tactics? Joy!

And when that pseodosequal came, it was about as bitersweet as I could imagine. There were thigns I wanted, things I didn't want, and some things I liked but were taken away. and wit hevery thing I liked, there seemed to be something about it I didn't.

A ferw examples.
- The idea of different races. Made things more interesting, and added color to the world. But what I didn't like was the lack of effort put into it. Besides classes and appearences, there's no notable difference between the races. No deep cultures, or notable personalities.

- Blue mages as a class. This is one of hte one few things I had wished could be fixed about tactics before, and now it was here. And it even has a large lsit of abilities. But some of the old classes were taken out or neutered. Time mages could no logner do damage, same for white mages. Dancers/ bards, and other fun classes were taken out.

- The idea of using laws to alter battle. Banning hte use of Fire while in the Viera village, or not alowing Missiles in the BBaanga hometown (Baanga never use them anyways) seem alright. But banning random thigns based upon sdaily cycles? It seems tacked on for a cheep spike in difficulty.

I could go on and on, with more reasons, but it's late and I need sleep. Perhaps I'll bring up more later.

But in my eyes, it's FFT that set the standard, and FFTA that failed to meet it in many ways.

I feel very stupid posting because I am now going to say that I enjoyed FFT:A better. No one likes that one apparently.

Firstly this was the first Final Fantasy I played so obviously I would love this a lot. But by comparing FFT and FFT:A with the other FFs you would see that FFTA had more of the original FF roots.

Gameplay:

In FFT, one must charge the attack and all that. I find this very inconvenient because I like the statement "Mind over matter " and prefer mages or tactical warriors to brawny muscle headed warriors. My mages sucked badly in FFT because I'm there charging a good attack with an Archer (tactical warrior) to hit this guy and all of a sudden he moves. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens next. A wasted attack whereby in FFTA you attack as soon as the command is inputed. The charge thing really doesn't work for me. FFTA wins here.

Classes/Jobs:

Look at the jobs in FFT are presented and how they are presented in FFTA. Yup, that's it. The races. Everything is human in FFT whereby there are tons of little combinations to be made. A Black Mage can be, a Moogle, a Nou Mou or a Human. That adds some variety.
Then there are the jobs themselves. Where are the Red Mages? I don't see any Blue Mages? The roots of FF jobs got replaced by.....a Calculator. What kind a fool will really go out on the battle field and use a damn calculator and there " Math Skills" to win? An oracle....pshh .What a mess.

Story:

Not much to say. I haven't played FFT to the bitter end but maybe the story would've been better. But I really am not understanding the story of FFT. I can say that if anyone plays FFT they would be confused with the story as they play and they would say, " What the heck, I'll just beat the crap out of anything in my way" but if the play FFTA they could easily see that Marche got thrust into a new world and is now beginning to find his way around and the conflict between his friends dreams and his will show up lateer on. But who knows? I think FFTA's story was good and maybe FFT 's was better.We'll just say FFT wins.

Overall I would say FFTA is better and is more fun for a traveller or anyone on the whole or anyone who enjoys FF more in its (near) original state.

[awall]

Originally Posted by Dragon KnightKJ

I feel very stupid posting because I am now going to say that I enjoyed FFT:A better. No one likes that one apparently.

Don't feel stupid. It's your opinion, and you're entitled to have any opinion you like. In fact, you brought up three completely valid arguments. FFT:A did have more traditional FF jobs than FFT, and in fact I'm fairly disappointed in the lack of Red Mage and Blue Mage (both of which, for the record, could have been added to the game without adding any additional functionality... just taking the system they had and inserting a bit more stuff into the game's memory). Furthermore, while I like the charge system, I completely understand your objections to them, and as most FF's don't make you charge up (well, they do actually, but it's not nearly as noticable in most games)... FFT really seems like a break from tradition.

Had to register here just for this thread. I'd been putting off my purchase of FFT:A in fear that I would be sorely disappointed, but I finally picked it up this weekend. I guess the best way to describe it is "underwhelming". I'm holding off the vote until I finish FFT:A, but I do have some strong initial impressions. Here are some of the areas I've noticed the biggest differences:

Battle System
I'm disappointed that FFT's corpse decay to crystal/chest is missing from FFT:A. Having friendly characters permanently die after a certain amount of time was what gave the original a feeling of urgency and importance. You couldn't be careless with ANY character unless you wanted to lose them for good. I also dislike the absence of charging time, which made turn order so important in the original. It almost seems like the turn order screen is superfluous in FFT:A; I see no reason to look at it. FFT:A's laws are intriguing (and the judges infinitely corny), but so far I've been able to circumvent them by waiting until a 'good' law rolls into effect before starting a battle. I will have to wait until I've played the game more to form a strong opinion on the laws and other aspects of the battle system.

Music
The battle theme "Trisection" from FFT is the best I have heard in any game, ever. In general the music in FFT is excellent; the ubiquitous strings and large dynamic range give the game an epic feel that is truly unique. In contrast, I haven't heard any songs in FFT:A that add to the experience. Granted, there are vast technical differences between the GBA and the PS1, but compare the music from FFT:A to that of FFIV: Advance. FFIV's tunes are still memorable as ever compared to the blandness of FFT:A.

Shopping
The shop interface in FFT:A is terrible. There's no way to compare what you're about to buy to what your characters already have equipped, a feature that has been in RPGs for 10 years. A more minor gripe is the fact that weapons aren't sorted into categories, creating an unwieldy, excessively long list for a small screen. Finally, there is no easy way to find out whether a character already knows the ability on the selected item, which leads us to:

Ability System
I haven't played FFT:A enough to really see how the ability system works out in the end game, but so far I'm not impressed. Linking abilities to items makes their stats pretty much irrelevant as you will always want to have equipped the item with a new ability. It's also annoying having to remember which characters need to have items switched when three or more abilities are learned after one battle. I believe FFT's job point system was much more intuitive, and actually would've translated better to the GBA's small screen than the convoluted ability/item system.

I'm holding out hope that I will start to like FFT:A more as I get farther into it. I don't think it will ever surpass FFT in my mind, but maybe I will be able to appreciate it more for what it is.

Thanks for reading.

I prefer final fantasy tactics on the playstation mainly because its the only one ive played only because I didnt bother buying FFTA because apparently gameplay wise its the same damn thing

[Dudeio]

i havent playde FFT but i have played and completet FTTA