Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift

"Since when did we become friends and how soon can we stop?"

The tactical role-playing game returns once more, as does Final Fantasy Tactics, in Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, which I had discovered is a sequel, but not to the Final Fantasy Tactics that I played for this 1001 list years ago.

There, it was a PlayStation title that I found interesting but problematic, though a PlayStation Portable remake did ease some woes. Here, it's a Nintendo DS title that doesn't have a stylus gimmick.

Really?

Frustrations

You don't need to know what happened in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to play Grimoire of the Rift, as it starts in some kind of modern day school where we aren't let out for our summer holidays until we help clean up the library? What are we, some kind of bad boy?

Distracted by a dusty old book, we notice that half of it is entirely blank, and beckons us to write in the name of its hero. Bad boy that we are, we write ourselves in, and a flash of light later, start to regret our decision.

We've been transprted to the world of Ivalice, into beak range of a rather large bird. Not ideal now, is it? Fortunately, a clan of monster hunters is on the scene, though rules and regulations dictate that they can only save us if we join up with them. A floating knightly judge turns us into a setting-appropriate warrior and we get stuck into what is about to become our summer holiday with no equal.

Hyah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cid. I know how this goes. Move units up to their movement range, attack units within their attack range, face the right direction at the end of your turn to try and minimise incoming damage from attacks to your back. I've got this.

The top screen displays the turn order and details anything of note regarding the status of the characters, while the bottom screen is where all the action takes place. You can use the stylus, but the D-pad works like any other tactical RPG, and you're going to be pressing the face buttons a lot, so why not just ignore the touching altogether?

When the bird decides there are better things to do than die, we get our first taste of all the goodies that we'll get out of combat. Rewards, clan points, ability points, talents, control over territory... blimey, there's a lot going on in Grimoire of the Rift, eh? We've been drip fed the combat side of things, so I'm sure it won't be long until we learn about all of that other stuff.

You'll note that all of this has so far come under the Frustration heading. I'm emulating this game, and it runs fine. There's no issue there. It's not mind-boggingly complicated to play, it doesn't look like complete garbage, the text boxes aren't split into showing five words at a time... Grimoire of the Rift is a fine game thus far.

But I'm so not interested in our main character - ourselves - and his summer holiday. Was it the fact that this game opened up in some kind of modern day that put me off? What other Final Fantasy title does that? It doesn't seem fitting for the series, even though there are a hundred different games taking place in all manner of settings.

The writing is alright, but alright doesn't inspire me. The artwork on these character portraits is detailed, but what on Earth are we wearing? We look like a fool. A fool who has been transported to another realm of existence that he'll need to fight his way out of, and is too stupid to have comprehended the seriousness of the situation yet.

That's being a bit too harsh, actually. Let's bring it back in. Let's see what Grimoire of the Rift plays like.

While the overall goal is to get back to the real world, our primary concern is to make ends meet, and that means hanging around in Pubs picking up quests. You can check out the listings and pick from any that are available. Some have time limits, some don't. Some might have requirements you haven't met yet, others will have nice rewards to help you out for the next set of quests. Pay the fee to the quests of your choice and get ready for battle.

That, of course, means micromanaging your units, equipping them with the latest, most suitable weapons and armour you can get your hands on, be it from the shops or from fallen foes. The shop here has a changing room to see what kind of change you'll get, including stat buffs and abilities.

I'm sure it makes sense for characters to have abilities, and even jobs, that contribute experience towards their battlefield role, but we've not yet been introduced to all of this either. Looks like a right pain in the arse to keep track of, though.

If you've played any tactical RPG, you'll know the gist of the way the battle will go. A level will have a clear goal, in this case, to defeat all foes, and you'll be able to decide where your units will start within a given starting zone to hopefully make it easier to beeline it towards their target.

Once you've done that, Grimoire of the Rift asks you what your clan privilege for this battle will be.

This global buff will apply to your party so long as the Judge's battle rules are followed, which is this case is to not use anything with a Fire effect. If you do, it's no big deal. You can still fight, you just won't have the bonus you chose, and any characters that were knocked out won't be able to be revived during the fight itself.

It's a simple little mechanic that mixes up the way you play, forcing you to explore new avenues of attack, especially if you can't use ranged weapons, or your ice magick is off-limits or whatever.

If anything, this fight is a way to see what your party has to offer. You've an archer, a warrior, a healer, a magician and a thief who will try and increase your wealth, providing you keep telling him to use his special ability 'Steal Gil', rather than doing anything else during the battle.

Special abilites are no different from attacks or spells, really. Put yourself into position and press the A button. That's the gist of the game. Put yourself into position and press A.

Meet the objective and please the Judge and you'll be rewarded will items you'll forget you have and won't equip, and you're able to see the next little plot point that needs to come across - how else are we going to link these battles together?

We've got a magic journal, apparently. It records everything we do in Ivalice, which is split into regions on a tiny little map that you can explore at your leasiure, though it'll probably involve following the blue bubble for a while.

This one takes us back to the pub where we can hear some locals complaining about highwaymen blocking a main road into the village.

What do you know? A quest to get rid of some highwaymen. Time to equip our party.

Ugh, actually, do you know what? I'm just going to ignore this large chunk of the game for as long as possible, because I don't really get a whole load of joy out of this amount of stuff happening at once. It's spreadsheet management, and while in some games that's fine, and while I literally manage a spreadsheet to keep track of this 1001 list, I almost constantly find myself overwhelmed when it comes to RPGs.

It must all be in the presentation. Present it to me in the right way and I'm all aboard. Dump unexplained text in my way and I'm out in a flash. To my detriment, usually, but that's the way it is. If I can't grok it right away, you're in for quite the uphill battle.

Speaking of battles...

This is only our third fight, but we can already see how it will go. I'll move and hit, they'll move and hit, I'll move and hit. I can't even find a way to change the camera angle to keep me entertained.

With ten or eleven combatants, each having a move action and an action action and a facing decision to make, these little skirmishes can feel like they drag on a bit, especially when people start with upwards of 70 health, and attacks rarely seem to get into the 20s.

Out of nowhere, perhaps to spice things up, I had met the requirements for being given an opportunity, a mechanic that allows me to hopefully change the direction of the battle, and one that differs depending on who you are next to.

'Tough as nails!' and 'Battle shout!' aren't explained beforehand, but moved behind my wizard and gave out a battle shout to inspire the troops, I suppose, and I forget what exactly it did. I think the two of us got a small buff to our resilience. Not even sure what that stat deals with, but there we go.

Clearly inspired by my heroic cry, the team goes for the victory.

Look at that. The character who spent most of the battle giving himself first aid and using unnecessary potions got the MVP award. What a joke.

Highwaymen defeated and roads open, we're able to journey to Camoa, the next step on our investigation to find a way back home - an investigation the other characters seem to care about more than we do.

Travelling to other chunks of the map requires a days travel, so you better wrap up any time-sensitive quests you have before doing so. Luckily, I don't have any on account of not really caring to have any, so to Camoa we go!

And in Camoa we stay, because after an hour of Grimoire of the Rift I am done for the day, and very possibly done for a long while to come. Our summer holiday is on indefinite hold.

Final Word

I just wasn't grabbed by Grimoire of the Rift. I don't care for the characters, I don't like the plot, and I've not seen a whole lot of the setting, but then you don't really see a whole lot of any setting when it is reduced to grid-based arenas to battle in.

As far as tactical RPGs go, it does the job, I suppose. It's got an awful lot of mechanics under the hood that force you to maximise your parties strengths and minimise their weaknesses, and I understand that you'll have to do a bit of grinding to be able to even get through some of the key plot stuff later on. That doesn't sound especially good for me, but for a fan of tactical skirmishing, the more the merrier?

The art style is a little too much for me. Too colourful, too cartoony, but it's not what makes or breaks the game. At the end of the day, I think it'll be the story that decides it for you, and if it managed to decide it this early on for me, then you shouldn't have too much difficulty finding out for yourself either.

It's alright. It's just not all right for me.

Fun Facts

There are over 50 jobs that your characters can do to increase their abilities, introducing variety that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance just wasn't capable of.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, developed by Square Enix, first released in 2007.

Version played: Nintendo DS, 2008, via emulation.