Final Fantasy Tactics | 10 Tips To Get Started

final fantasy tactics can be a difficult game to get into even for veterans of the series i personally have several friends who have given up on it multiple times and since we're going to be starting a long form podcast covering the game i thought i'd make a video to offer some help to beginners our podcast is formatted in a pseudo book club format so if you'd like to join us and follow along then hopefully this will help you find your feed if you'd like to skip around to the various topics i cover the timeline will be broken up into segments and the time codes are in the description tip number one build your party around proper zodiac compatibility this one is huge and based on my conversations with a lot of final fantasy tactics veterans many players don't even know this mechanic exists most people are vaguely familiar with the astrological zodiac signs but if you're like me back when i played this for the first time you might know your own sign and which month it roughly corresponds with on the gregorian calendar but you probably don't have all the other names and symbols memorized well it's time to learn because this can really make a difference basically each character is assigned a zodiac based on their date of birth and each sign has either good or bad compatibility with other signs this is true both of your allies and your enemies so it's something to keep an eye on both when setting up your party and when in battle the game does offer an explanation of how to figure out which signs are compatible and which aren't placing the signs in a circle and drawing imaginary squares and triangles through them but even this i think can be confusing for players so just pay attention to the more straightforward list it gives you if you want to use your own zodiac sign to make it even simpler just keep ramza as his default capricorn and know that taurus and virgo are the two compatible signs with him there's even more to this mechanic with special signs that have ultra good or ultra bad compatibility based on if a character of that sign is the same or opposite sex but my advice is to ignore this when choosing your party what i like to do is make ramza's birthday january 1st and recruit a male taurus and two female virgos that's really the simplest i can make it for those who don't want to get bogged down in the weeds on this if you recruit characters with bad compatibility you'll find yourself being less effective with curative spells missing with rays failing to land buffs and generally just seeing more failure with rng rid yourself of that headache beforehand and you'll be good tip number two don't bother recruiting more than three fighters you can have up to 16 characters in your roster in the ps1 version of the game with 24 slots available in the war of the lions version however due to how character progression works which i'll go over here in a minute i don't advise using a large number of characters in this game there are a few story battles that allow you to fill up to five slots but most battles lock you off at four so if you fill out the roster most of those characters will be sitting on the sidelines anyway and will lag behind on experience and job points as a beginner it's best to just run with a team of four including ramza just let those four be your workhorses you'll often be joined by guest characters who are controlled by the computer but you can also recruit special characters some of whom make cameos from other final fantasy games it's within your discretion of course to choose how you want to use those characters if you choose to catch them all so to speak but it really is easier and more efficient to just run with a small party in the long run tip number three recruit characters with high brave and faith stats this rounds up how to go about building a party after the first battle at orbon monastery and the second battle near the academy at garland you'll finally have the opportunity to make choices about your roster i would advise getting rid of any character the game gives you initially and replacing them with three characters that have good compatibility with ramza and have high brave and faith stats you do this by visiting the warriors guild or soldier's office in the ps1 version there you can hire new fighters who are generated with randomly assigned zodiac signs and brave and faith stats getting the characters you want then becomes an exercise of rolling the dice over and over again until the game decides to give you the characters you're looking for luckily after doing this three different times over the course of last week i can tell you it usually takes me between five and ten minutes to find three characters with good compatibility and brave and faith stats over 60. so what do brave and faith actually do in short bravery increases your attack power with certain weapons and increases the chances of your reaction abilities activating in battle basically abilities like counter and so forth faith increases a character's affinity with magic increasing damage with spells healing with curative abilities and the chances of buffs landing successfully high faith also makes a character more vulnerable to taking magic damage however so keep that in mind tip number four unlock the jp up ability for every character as soon as possible if you've played final fantasy v or even a bravely default game then you probably have a good idea how the job system works in this game every character defaults to the squire job class and for just 250 job points or 200 in the ps1 version you can unlock the jp up ability within the squire class do this and equip it immediately because it increases the number of job points you earn after every action on the battlefield this game scales the enemies with ramza's current level which means the more you level up the stronger the monsters become this doesn't apply to human characters in story battles but it does apply to monsters both in story battles and in random encounters therefore to help your party grow stronger at a faster rate you want to earn more jp than experience this ability jpup will help you do that get it first and keep it on for the whole game jp also helps you unlock new jobs so in order to get to the good jobs and unlock the best abilities as fast as possible while keeping your characters at a lower level make sure to equip jp up i can't stress this enough do not bother doing any jp grinding in this game unless you have the jp up ability set also don't do grinding of any kind until you have your full team set up and can level them up evenly remember ramza's level determines the level of the monsters in the world so if he levels up faster than your other characters you can really screw yourself over tip number five you level up with every action in this game not at the end of battles unlike other jrpgs you don't get awarded with experience and job points at the end of a battle rather you get a little jp and experience with every successful action you perform this means it's generally a bad idea to wait at the end of a turn without doing something even if you have to spam potions or buff a character over and over again or heal a character with nearly full hp just make sure you try to do something with every character on every turn whenever possible otherwise they won't gain as much jp or experience as other characters in the party tip number six for chapter one work on these classes and abilities in this video i'm really only looking to help people get through chapter one which can be really tough for first-time players but later in the game after you've unlocked all the jobs and obtained the best abilities it becomes much easier but the first chapter has some notoriously difficult fights based on where you're at in your character's progression so you'll want to get two of your characters working on the chemist class really quickly this is because once the chemist's job reaches level 2 it unlocks the priest and wizard jobs or the classic white and black mage make sure to learn the standard spells in those cure and core 2 raise and protect as well as level 1 and 2 elemental spells for the wizard also it's not a bad idea to grab the potion and phoenix down abilities for everybody those are in the chemist class by the way because it's nice to be able to heal or revive allies no matter the situation you find yourself in for your white mage also make progress on the oracle job it's called mystic in the war of the lions version in this class the paralyzed spell can be really useful for crowd control as can silence song against mages have your black mage make headway in the time mage job as well where you'll find haste and slow as for your third character i like to work primarily on the archer class but we'll also level up thief to unlock the monk class which is phenomenal in this game monk has so many insane abilities and is one of the strongest jobs in the whole game also with a longbow the archer's damage is calculated based partly on speed and if you've learned the yell ability with ramza which is called tailwind in the war of the lions version you can continually increase the archer's speed this is especially helpful on map screens with high verticality where archers can climb and increase their attack range sniping enemies down below from across the map okay so i can't give you every good tactic to help you get through chapter one that would ruin the fun anyway but hopefully i've divulged a few of the better ones that should give you some ideas tip number seven make a habit of checking the turn order unlike other tactical rpgs like fire emblem this game's battles don't proceed in phases where the player gets to move all of his or her units pass the turn over to the enemy who then gets to move all of its units instead each individual unit has its own speed stat that factors into the overall turn order there are additional things to consider here that affect turn order like whether you wait on a turn or choose not to move but i'll let you look into that further on your own additionally when you cast spells there's a charge time meaning it'll take a few turns before the mage is able to successfully get the spell off it can be very frustrating to think you're going to get a healing spell in before an enemy finishes off one of your units only to find out that the charge time puts your mage behind the enemy in the turn order and well you just completely waste your time each time you select a spell you can hit right or left on the d-pad to check where in the turn order the spell will actually go off and make your plans accordingly just make it a habit always check the turn order tip number eight get in the habit of attacking enemies from behind or on the sides this game doesn't have a defense stat like most other turn-based jrpgs instead armor just increases a character's hp however there are three different types of evasion c evasion based on your current job s evasion based on shields and a evasion based on equipped accessories basically the c evasion is based on your job and only factors in when attacked from the front shield evasion of course is based on whether a character has a shield equipped and factors in when attacked from the front or on the sides a evasion factors in whether from in front on the sides or the back basically the whole point of telling you all of this is that you generally will have a better chance of success when attacking from behind or on the sides based on the job and the equipment of the unit you're attacking of course so just try to approach from the back whenever possible or on the sides if you can't do that also you can choose how to face your characters at the end of a turn and you'll always want to make it so that their back is protected so that it's not exposed to being attacked from the back or from the rear by enemies tip number nine get familiar with the ui there's a lot of complexity here so make sure you're perusing the menus in the party roster to make sure you know where to access everything select a character press triangle to bring up the sub menu then from there you can change your jobs learn new abilities equip your characters and so forth don't forget to set your abilities after learning them they'll do you no good if you can't access them in the battle tip number 10 always make a back-up save i cannot stress this enough i don't want to spoil anything for later in the game but there are areas where you can get caught in a sequence of battles that do not allow you the ability to leave to go get new equipment or to change your jobs or your abilities or anything like that but it does allow you to save in the middle of that sequence which means that you can get into a battle that may statistically be impossible to win and you can't leave meaning you lock yourself into a battle you can't win and you have to start the game over again always always always always always always always always always always always keep a backup save in final fantasy tactics you will thank me later i promise as a final note don't be afraid to reference the tutorial either on the start screen menu there's a tutorial option so don't ignore that if you're feeling lost or frustrated with final fantasy tactics it does a good job of breaking down everything you need to know from managing your party roster to battle mechanics as well as zodiac compatibility along with other more obscure mechanics this video is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to every mechanic in the game if you're looking for that there's a great faq from qmarsh on gamefaqs that covers everything you could possibly want to know and the link to that is in the description if you're interested in any case i hope this gives you more confidence as a new player and hopefully you can follow along with us as we dissect this game on our podcast thanks for watching and we'll see you again real soon [Music] you

Channel: Resonant Arc

Views: 182,365

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Id: HEfHmnzVMKY

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 10 2022