Square Enix has hit the Nintendo circuit again, and bringing quality RPG and strategy games to the Gameboy Advance. With Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced (FFTA From now on in), they have brought another top quality game of Speed based 3/4 overhead angle tactical gaming.

The main character is introduced in a schoolyard setting in Ivalice, in which the students are organizing a snowball fight. This is used as a tool to teach newcomers to the FFT style of combat system. You meet 2 characters here, who are quintessential to the storyline; Ritz and Mewt Randall. They talk with your hero, who is a new kid at school, and plan on meeting later that day at your hero's house to look at a new book Mewt picked up. As they flip through it at your house, there's a lot that can't be read, and you meet your brother, Doned, who's a cripple and confined to a wheelchair. After looking through the book, a discussion breaks out in which everyone there talks about what it would be like if they lived in an RPG, and which one would it be. Square does a shameless, yet amusing plug here where they mention that 'Final Fantasy is one of their favourites'. Overnight, something happens, and most everyone in Ivalice has been sent to a different Ivalice, where there are 5 races, multiple cities and more. You meet up with a moogle named Montblanc after you accidentally call a Bangaa a lizard, and have a quick engagement. Here begins your journey.

Amazing. Well done. Quick summon spells. Quick animations on almost everything, and they all look bloody impressive. My favourite is the lightning set of spells, as well as all of those within the Phantasm skill set.

Once again, amazing. Everything just lures you in, and when you hear a certain tune, you have a feeling of what's going on. The music is done in a Wagnerian style, which is as I said above, people have theme music, and when you hear it meshing with other music, you have an idea of what's going to happen.

Brilliant. This has to be the best revamp to their system after FFT. For those who played FFT, you know there were some problems, like Blade Grasp, 2 swords and Monk, etcetera. This was fixed up in a brilliant way. Lets start with the class system. There are 5 races, which have certain jobs available to each of them. The races being Human, Moogle, Bangaa, Viera, and Nu Mou. The humans have access to a fair bit of both fighting and magical classes, with some of the unique ones being ninja, paladin, and hunter. Classes are accessed by learning attack skills in other classes, ie Hunter is accessed by learning 2 Archer A - skills. A skills are attack skills. Moogles are completely unique, and have only 1 class similar to humans, being thief. They also have a wide assortment of classes, from Gadgeteer, to Juggler, to Gunner, to Mog Knight. Gadgeteers are a very unique class, as they have skills that basically flip a coin, and affect either the entire enemy, or your entire team. Next, Bangaa. These lizard-like creatures are like your brute force. *They /are/ your brute force*. They have a few interesting classes, such as Dragoon, Gladiator, Defender, Templar, and Monk. They have exorbitant hp gains, and as I said, are your tanks, however Templars have some nice spell like abilities, such as Haste, and Rasp. Viera are the only females in the game, and have a nice assortment of unique classes, while looking like rabbits with tiny point ears. They have Fencer, Elementalist, Assassin, Sniper and a few more. They have decent mp gains, but no access to black magic, only white and elemental magic, but with Sniper and Assassin, are quite good at quickly hiding, and sneaking up and killing enemies. Finally, the Nu Mou. These are large rabbit like creatures, yet have the large floppy ears. These are your spellcasters, who get mp up the wazoo. They have some of the greatest spellcasting classes, like Time Mage, Illusionist (my personal favourite), Sage, but also have the animal controlling clas s of Beasttamer, and the everpowerful Morpher. Now with the classes out of the way, we have the skill system. Skills throughout the game are learnt through weapons. You equip an item, and can give you access to a skill through a particular class. Then AP (Ability points) allow you to learn, and master skills, which means you can equip that skill/technique/nondescript group of skills as your secondary class skill and use them. There are Attack, Reaction, Support and Combo skills. As I stated, the class limitation by race was brilliant, as now you can't abuse stuff like two swords, and doublecast, as it's not available to all races. Next is the most brilliant, and annoying addition to this game. Laws. They have judges at almost every fight (other than the Jagds, where there is NO law), and from the beginning there's only 1 law, but as you venture farther into the game, there's more laws out there. Laws work as follows: There's something that's Restricted, and something that's Recommended. If you use a restricted thing (like using the fight command, casting colour magic, using elemental skills, or copying the person before you), you get a Yellow card if it didn't kill anyone. If you break the law a second time, the judge gives you another yellow card, and a red card, which means you're off to prison. The cards bring about a fine of sorts as long as the person has the card, such as magic def down 9, or give up current equipped weapon. These can be removed through 'jailtime' where they spend time in jail for a certain amount of fights. If you do a recommended thing, such as missle weapons, or bows, depending on what the law is, you get a Judge Point, or JP. These go from 0 - 10, and are required to use combos, and to use totema (Not saying what these are or where they come from, it's a spoiler). The laws may sound evil, but change every day, so if you want, you can move around until there's a decent law that works in your favour. And laws in the beginning are simple, such as banning missle weapons, or low level skills, like steal. Later on, they get evil, such as 'Dmg2:Animals' which means damage to animals is restricted. These however can be bypassed with law and antilaw cards, which are magically enchanted cards that can nullify laws, or add different laws to the current situation.

Play this game. Play it a few times through, you'll end up doing so at least twice, as there's so much to do (300 job propositions).

Spend the 30 or 40 bucks to get this game. It's beyond worth it. I played it for almost 50 hours, in like 3 weeks. Everyone on campus saw me playing it, between classes, and to meal hall. It's worth your time and effort, as it's an amazing story line, and very intriguing how things happen. Yours Truly,

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