The Temple of the Mighty Bague

And here’s birthday post part two. This has been out for aaaaaages but I’ve put it off and put it off, as I tend to do. Anyway, popped it in the drive and (as is usual for a squeenix title) my jaw dropped at the cinematics. Again, only an hour or so in, but loving it so far. It has a very different mechanic from the FF games I’m used to. It’s still effectively turn based (or, at least, active time based) but it all runs much more fluidly. Also, there are no random battles, but everything is visible on the world map - in fact all the action takes place on the world map. This is largely a positive thing - you can go hunting when you need to gain a few levels, and you can avoid enemies when you just want to get from A to B.

Downside - no fanfare at the end of combat. WRONGNESS.

Well, it’s a very Final Fantasy birthday, I have to say. My lovely lady wife presented me with a copy of Tactics A2 and FF12, so I’ve been in a JRPG/Tactics frenzy. First up - tactics.

It’s tactics - nothing else needs to be said, really, but I will anyway. It’s a lot prettier, naturally, being on the DS but there’ve been a lot of tweaks and fixes as well. For starters, shopping is a lot easier, with a very simple and coherent way of seeing what equipping certain items will do to your stats. Also, the judge system has been made a lot less cumbersome than it was in the GBA version. I’m only an hour in so far, but it looks like it’s going to be another 400 hours of glee.